Division Zero (17 page)

The subtle trace of thin gold letters spelled out ‘Intera - Maya 6’ around her teal irises dispelling the perfect illusion. This latest generation of Intera self-aware dolls had been on the market only a few months and had to be worth a few million credits. Dorian seemed unimpressed. He did not regard things like this as anything more than machines. This being of plastisteel bones and Myofiber muscles had run out of tears, though the look on its face all but had Kirsten doing it for her.

“Hello Deirdre.” Kirsten swept her hand over the datapad, shoving her way through luminous green text. “I’m trying to figure out what happened.”

Deirdre looked down into her lap and her lip quivered. At this distance, she felt eerily real. Not like the one from the hotel, a rickety thing that whirred when it walked, Deirdre recognized her own existence. Jerky inhuman motion replaced with natural smooth glances, sniffles even, a face capable of exactly recreating human moods, and the capacity to learn.

“I read the scan report. Some of the things your body did are outside the parameters of your capabilities.”

“They don’t believe me.” The woman looked to the side, ashamed.

Dorian frowned. “She’s good, should get an Emmy.”

“What can you tell me about that day?” Kirsten calmed her with a glance.

“I don’t remember. One moment I was walking through the door with the reports, and then I was dancing naked on the table. I don’t know what’s more embarrassing.” She squirmed, staring at the restraints. “These are more embarrassing.”

“Oh that’s convenient.” Dorian shook his head. “It probably purged its memory banks once it got caught.”

“Look, Deirdre…” Kirsten looked back at the Division 5 guard. “Are those cuffs really necessary? She’s not a danger.”

“Protocol, Agent Wren. I don’t want to deal with the paperwork if she has another episode.”

“She won’t. If what I think is going on is true.”

“What do you mean?” Deirdre leaned forward, her voice desperate.

“Please just tell me as much as you remember.” Kirsten edged closer, offering a placid smile.

Both Cyborg Interdiction officers tensed up. “Be careful, Agent.”

Deirdre cringed when they yelled, and kept her eyes on the floor. “I was on my way into the boardroom with the operations reports for the second quarter financials. I remember seeing static… lines of color in the air.” She tried to make a hand gesture in front of her eyes but her wrist snapped to a halt two inches from her waist. “It looked like I walked past a large generator with an EM field.”

Kirsten nodded. “Then what?”

“It cleared up, but as soon as I pushed the door open it happened again. I went blind for a second, all black. The next thing I remember, I was standing on the conference table, my clothes were off and I was dancing. There was blood on my hand and people running around screaming. Michael, the CFO, had a light pen sticking out of his chest and he stared at me with the most awful look. Everyone ran. I hid under the table until the police came.”

Deirdre shuddered, making sounds like crying but no tears fell from her eyes.

Kirsten disregarded Dorian’s golf-clap as she slid to the section of the report with that video. The security holo played in a tiny window. “So you lost about fifteen minutes, then?”

“I suppose that’s right.”

Kirsten turned to the guard behind her. “This tech report says all of her onboard systems logged a power down state at the time, but there was no sysboot record when she came back online.”

“Sounds right.” He shrugged.

Kirsten gave him a pointed stare. “Does it sound normal?”

He shook his head. “Far from it, that’s why you’re here. It’s a bios-level process. The hardware cannot fail to record a sysboot if she powers off and on.”

Kirsten nodded, walking around behind to put her hands on Deirdre’s shoulders, and surveying the doll’s body. Her mind reached out like a hand fumbling along the wall of a dark room in search of a light switch. A thread brushed her thoughts, a gossamer tingle across the midline of her brain. Her power coiled about it like a finger caressing a dangling string. The residual trace held none of the anger she found at the tram, but it could be due to the amount of time elapsed since the event.

“This doll―” She corrected herself, glaring at Dorian. “Deirdre was attacked by a paranormal entity. Something took over her body for a few minutes, just like at the tram.”

“What does that mean?” Deirdre ventured a cautious peek.

Kirsten smiled. “It means humans are not the only things that can be possessed by ghosts. You will not be declared dangerous. I am going to recommend release. You can take these things off her, without the ghost in her she’s no stronger than a normal woman.”

The man in the doorway gasped. “You gotta be shittin’ me. We can’t call it safe till we know what happened. You serious?”

“Very.” Kirsten got up to leave. “A ghost possessed this doll. I’m still trying to work out the why of it; but who knows… it could just be pissed off at the world.”

He folded his arms and loomed. “Really, a ghost?”

Kirsten stood her ground. “Yes. A ghost. They are real, heck there could even be one within arm’s reach of you right now and you’d never even know it.”

“Wouldn’t that be funny,” quipped Dorian.

The Div 5 officer shifted and glanced around. “I’m not sure my sergeant is going to accept Casper as an excuse for what happened.”

“Has Deirdre been anything but complaint since you detained her?”

“No.”

“Have the techs found any mundane reason to explain what happened?”

He made a stymied face. “No.”

Dorian moved up to Kirsten’s side. “You know the Maya series dolls were named for the goddess of illusions, because they look and act so real? Are you sure it isn’t trying to trick you?”

Kirsten exhaled at him again, but kept her eyes on the guard. “Believe me or not, hackers and AI’s can’t fake a paranormal imprint. Deirdre is not to blame. If I have to, I’ll get Captain Eze on the vid right now. Please start the release process. Treat her like a victim of a hostage taker. If it helps you explain it to her employer, just tell them a hacker did it. The concept and result are the same, just the means are different.”

With a resigned sigh, the guard motioned for Deirdre to get up. She stood, wobbling, and shuffled with them into the holding area beyond.

“What is your problem with dolls?” Kirsten fixed Dorian with a stare once they got out of earshot of the room.

He smiled. “What is your problem with religious people?”

“You have no idea what it was like.” Kirsten tromped toward the Division 0 wing.

Dorian walked alongside. “Do you think it is right society creates these things that are so close to us the law considers them people?”

“What, like some kind of ‘God creates man, man creates dolls’ thing?” She kicked a piece of trash into the wall. “I dunno… They are machines, they don’t have souls. When they are destroyed, there’s no ghost.”

“Well, there you go, you just proved me right. They are designed to play on your emotions. Would you feel as bad replacing your reassembler if it made puppy eyes at you?”

She stopped, gesturing at him with both hands. “It’s not the same thing, the food ‘sem is not aware of its own existence. It just reacts to buttons I push, it can’t think. Deirdre knows what she is and can learn like anyone else. She can react to the world around her… she’s not just running program code like a sex toy or a burger-flipper.”

The walk to the elevator remained silent from then on. She liked working with the one person who had never tried to get into her pants after five minutes of being in the same room. Of course, she hated it when he pushed her buttons.

She sank into herself, looking away. “What does that have to do with the whole religion thing anyway? People wrap up their beliefs in a certain way, and anyone who doesn’t fit their little vision of how the world is supposed to be must be possessed by a dark power named Satan.”

Without thinking about it, she massaged the back of her right hand.

“We are fickle creatures, humans. For everything we can’t understand, we make up stories to explain. Besides, you have seen the silver light. It may be this ‘god’ is simply too vast to be comprehended by our minds and all we see of it is that light.”

“That’s the great arrogance of man.” She startled as the elevator door opened. “Assuming you
are
correct and the silver light
does
represent some kind of benevolent divinity… that would put it so far out of the realm of human explanation how
dare
anyone try to claim they know what it is or what it wants.” She trudged into the garage. “Personally, I don’t think it has a sentience unto itself. Goodness is no more a person with desires and opinions than the concept of cold or hot.”

“What of the Harbingers?” Dorian held up his hands. “Don’t they have to work for someone?”

“Do maggots that eat dead things have a boss?” Kirsten opened the car door, and talked over the roof. “It’s a self-sustaining system. As you so fondly pointed out before, we have souls. Those who taint it with evil are dragged to that side of the other place. Those who lead a pure life move on to something I can’t even begin to explain.” She pointed at him. “That’s where I differ from the religious wingnuts. I admit I have no damn idea what goes on. I don’t try to wrap it in the shape of an old man with a beard or claim to know what he wants or says…” Her voice dropped to an emotional whisper as she fell into the seat. “…and then beat it into people I supposedly love.”

“If there’s no intelligence involved, why even bother to separate the good from the bad?” Dorian flapped his arms. “What about an Indian woman with six arms or a fat Asian man?”

Kirsten closed the door and powered the car up. “Six of one…”

“Don’t you think you’re being condescending?” He glanced over from the passenger seat.

The car lurched forward, Kirsten heavy on the stick. “I dunno… maybe.”

“You blame all religious people for what your mother put you through. Maybe someday you’ll be able to accept she was just psychotic? For every fanatic that kills in the name of God, how many thousands don’t? For every Catholic that holds their daughter’s hand to a hot plate, how many thousands teach them how to make cookies?”

Kirsten drove harder. At times, she regretted confiding in him about her past. She did not remember making a decision to open her mouth; it had just come out of her without a thought. Not even her father had gotten the full detail―he did not know about the closet. Something about Dorian made her feel safe. All things considered, she felt better letting it out. She knew he would not spread her secrets.

“She couldn’t handle my gift. She thought it was the Devil’s magic and tried to ‘purify’ me. It got worse when the ghosts started coming around asking for help. I was terrified to speak to them… she’d beat the shit out of me for talking to the Devil.” A shiver rattled through her. “Then they got mad I ignored them and started doing stuff around the house.” She cradled her right hand to her chest. “That’s when the burning started.”

Dorian shook his head. “I wish I could have found you.”

“There are only so many times you can suffer like that at the hands of someone who was supposed to love and protect you before you hate it all. Hearing her scream about Jesus while she tortured me… She cared more about her precious invented god and her reputation among her church friends than she did her own child.”

“Look, forget I brought it up. Your home is here now; I just worry about you not having anyone close.”

Kirsten shrugged. The pattern of lights reflecting off the interior of the car shifted as she banked around a fifty story parking deck toward a corporate district. “I’ll find someone, someday.”
I hope.

The patrol craft slid around the edge of a corporate tower into the bright orange fire of the setting sun, reflected by the ocean of black glass and chrome spread out before her. They slid under a convoy of ad-bots past a thirty foot screen upon which a woman’s face hawked skin care products, and settled in for a landing the roof of Manticore Investments.

The wind tugged at her hair as she got out of the car. All around, the endless city glittered in the twilight of the fading sun. Too late in the day to speak to any of the witnesses, she came to do a cursory check of the area in search of residuals before they faded out.

No trace of anything paranormal remained inside, and she returned to the roof in an hour, in the midst of a discussion with Sheldon Marcus, head of security.

“So that’s it then, they’re just gonna release her?” He scratched at his coarse, greying hair.

“It’s complicated. An unknown entity ‘borrowed’ her body for a few minutes; it was not her in control.”

Sheldon shook his head. “Damn, that sounds like every lawyer on the Holo net; it wasn’t my fault.” He fell into a brief caricature of fictional lawyers.

“In this case it’s true. I think it was an angry ghost. Whoever it was had no particular hatred for this company or anyone in the room, there was no trace of significant emotion left behind.”

Sheldon did a slow turn, looking around. “Are there any ghosts here?”

“None pertinent to the event, but the way the city is there are plenty of them around. You’ll probably pass two dozen on your way home at night.”

“Shit, I’m glad I can’t see ‘em. Anyway, good night, miss. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.” Sheldon shook his head and walked back inside.

“So how do you deal with it?” Dorian leaned back in his seat and grinned.

“Deal with what?”

“Being able to see ghosts.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

“I’ve been too embarrassed to touch myself for six years.”

Dorian took a deep breath. “Right, I’m sorry I asked.”