Division Zero (11 page)

She found her inner cop. “The guy who attacked me, have you ever seen him before?”

“Nope. Didn’t find him on any of the bounty boards. Got a feeling he’s new in town, maybe East City or a Discarded come up from The Beneath chasing the light. He didn’t look like he knew where he was going when he ran off.”

“Thanks for finding me.” She wanted to say more but could not draw the words.

He moved out onto the sidewalk. “Like I said, any time. Always happy to help law enforcement. You okay from here?”

Kirsten offered a weak smile. This guy was not freaked out by her Division 0 badge; he either had no idea or did not care. For now, she would cling to the latter.

“Yeah. Uhm, I may need to talk to you about this case.”

Bullshit
.

“Yeah, sure, always glad to help.” He transmitted his PID to her mini.

A snide voice came from the sidewalk. “Bogus, man. Why’d ya cock block us? Bitch was gift-wrapped. We wouldn’t ‘a hurt her.”

She spun at the sound of a dull thud. Temple squeezed a startled ganger against the wall with one hand around his throat.

She grinned at him. “You okay from here?”

“Yep.”

On the way back to the patrol craft, she let her gaze linger on the man that swooped in to save her as long as she could. Dorian fell in step alongside her.

“I ran after him but I lost him in the crowd.”

“Let me guess, about two hundred meters away?”

He fidgeted, and then smiled. “Looks like Temple had it handled. You could have given him your number.”

She blushed hard. “He just did a good deed.”

Dorian gave her a knowing grin. “Really? I saw how you were looking at him. You can’t tell me the fact he didn’t look at you like you were a fr―”

“Stop.” She held up her hand. “I’ll daydream about him later. I have an electrokinetic to go tune up.”

“My my… Mother Theresa is finally mad enough to hit someone.”

“Mother who?”

Dorian rolled his eyes. “Never mind, I forgot you slept through history.”

“Did you at least follow him?”

He offered an apologetic shrug. “As far as I could, but I lost him in the crowd.”

Once in the patrol craft, she accessed the system at Reinventions. A search soon turned up Adrian’s name, and the transaction associated with it. He had put three hundred thousand credits down on some manner of procedure. Details within the medical file remained confidential, even to her police access, but she could get the credstick serial number. Division 9 could walk right into the whole system; if she got stuck maybe she would pay them a visit and beg.

irsten squinted at the console, rubbing the last traces of bruise out of the side of her head as she watched a trail of dots appear on the map wherever Adrian had used the credstick. Once satisfied the stimpak mended her face, she flipped the mirror up and drove to the first dot.

Trash skittered past the front of the Delirium bar, a seedy dive nestled into the lower corner of an almost abandoned slum apartment. The dark interior glowed with muted reds and oranges from animated signs that paid homage to various brands of booze. Toward the rear, the walls reflected the persistent blue of a holographic dancer gyrating to tinny music from a single battered speaker on its platform. The shapely virtual nude held the attention of half the bar, even though it looped through the same series of moves every thirty seconds. Kirsten shook her head at the glazed looks on the patrons―wondering what else lurked in the beer.

A man at a table appeared confounded, mystified at how he could not get a grip on a metal canister of cheap synthetic beer with plastisteel fingertip claws. The scraping raised the hair on the back of her neck.

Two others sat at the base of the illusory dancer’s pedestal. A wire came from behind the ear of the one on the left, connecting him to the stage; he dry humped the air, lost in VR. The other had no wire but took matters into his own hands. Kirsten looked away, mortified, and went to the bar.

Before she could say a word to the bartender, fingers landed on her ass and squeezed.

Oh, shit. I’m the only woman in here.

“That a uniform or is that fine ass painted black?” Alcoholic fumes washed over her cheek from behind.

She shoved forward on the handle of the stunrod on her belt, flicking the switch at the same time the business end pivoted back into the crotch threatening to brush up against her. Blue-white light popped where it touched, and sparks danced across the man’s teeth and eyes. A primal gurgle escaped his mouth as he collapsed in a twitching heap that could neither move nor scream.

Everyone except for Claws and the guy getting amorous with thin air turned and gawked. Kirsten glared around the room with a hand on her sidearm daring anyone to try anything. None looked ready to start with a cop, and they went back to what they had been doing one by one; except the man with his hand down his pants whose arm moved faster as he stared at her.

Kirsten shuddered and looked away.

The bartender nodded at the smoking body. “Who’s gonna clean that up?”

“He’ll slither out of here soon enough, he’s just paralyzed.” A hologram of Adrian appeared over her NetMini. “Have you seen this man?”

“Naah.” He did not even look at it.

I can do it the hard way if you prefer.
She forced her thoughts into his mind.

The color ran from his face, the glass slipped through his fingers, bouncing on the floor. “Alright, alright…just don’t freakin’ melt my brain or nothin’.”

“Calm down, I’m just looking for this man.”

“He comes in now and then with a buddy of his. Guy looks like he’s ex-mil or somethin’. Quiet dude. Neither one of ‘em makes trouble. Most of the regulars like him, he’s the one what got the holo-whore workin’ again. Damn thing was just like my wife… lazy sow hasn’t worked in years, always has an excuse.”

“Do you know where he lives, where that friend of his stays, or when he might be back here?”

“No… I don’t, honest. This ain’t the kind of place where people spill their guts to the bartender. They just wanna get blotto, fast and cheap as possible.”

She sniffed an empty glass. “Flowerwater? You know this crap is technically illegal.”

“Yeah, so? It’s just Flowerbasket and Synvod. Cops don’t give a rat’s ass if some fringers wanna fly to another planet on a liquid shuttle.”

“I’m sure you’ll call us if he shows up here again.”

“Oh, definitely.” He nodded with exaggerated sincerity.

Dorian smirked. “I’m not holding my breath.”

She laughed, heading for the exit. “When do you?”

Kirsten made a slight course correction, ignoring the red blinking light at the corner of the NavMap screen. Her current position edged within warning range, close to a swath of black at the upper edge of the display. She was within fifteen miles of a part of the city so dangerous even the police avoided it. Fortunately, Adrian had not gone into the black zone, or even the less-deadly area of nascent blight around it. A few blocks away from the grey zone, she stared through a mild drizzle at the dim windows of a Nippy-Nom, a corner convenience store that specialized in instant meals. Security mesh covered the windows and signs bragged about the clerk’s guns. As infrequently as the police showed up around here, it made sense.

“Be careful out here.” Dorian got closer. “Backup can take too long.”

She bit her lower lip, staring at him. “Okay.”

The door chimed an electronic melody as she walked in. A slender man in a lavender turban stood behind the counter, offering her a pleasant nod. Since a convenience store might as well be convenient, she went into the back to hunt for something she felt like risking for dinner. Even if the clerk knew nothing about Adrian, the stop would not be useless.

The freezer case held a number of instant self-warming meals: pizza bits, macaroni, something truly frightening attempting to pass itself off as fried fish, as well as freeze-dried sushi and a host of other reassembled crap. Settling on a chicken burrito, she snagged a bottle of water on her way to the counter.

The clerk looked up from the screen. “Eight credits, please.”

His voice had such a neutral inflection she figured he had an English language skill chip running. The small line behind his right ear confirmed her suspicion. She waved her NetMini over the reader and it took the fee from her account. The door chimed again, shifting her glance to two young men. The one on the left looked about fourteen and white; the other kid a little older with dark skin and short black hair. Both wore baggy clothing, which could easily conceal weapons. Something about their affect made her nervous. She peered into their surface thoughts, felt the weight of a pistol stashed in a jacket, sensed greed and adrenaline. Kirsten whirled on them with her E90.

“Not tonight boys, keep your hands where I can see ‘em.”

They nearly fainted. Dorian circled around with a hand on his gun.

The white boy flailed his arm. “Whoa bitch, we ain’t do nothin’.”

“Not yet you didn’t, Charles. Get on the ground now. If I see your hand anywhere near the PSP 12 in your pocket no lawyer in this world will be able to help you.”

Please, just get down. Please don’t make me shoot kids.