Division Zero (27 page)

Mitsu waited for Kirsten to board the elevator before beginning her spiel. “The northwest tower is where we have our visitor’s facility, cafeteria, gym, library, shuttle pad, and other amenities.”

Kirsten jumped as solid wall behind her gave way to windows. She had not even noticed the room begin to move. She forced a smile at Mitsu. “Thanks, but I’m not here for a tour.”

“The dedicated members of our Human Resources department are located in the central building of the complex. Intera Corporation has over four hundred thousand employees in total. We maintain facilities in the West City and East City, as well as the moon, Mars, and even distant colony worlds.”

Dorian smiled at Kirsten. “You’re wasting your breath, just let it finish.”

The elevator stopped sinking, and slid sideways.

“The central tower of the Intera Corporation’s West City complex houses our executive offices, board rooms, and the office space for our scientists, programmers, and other personnel of high importance. We are now traversing one of the lateral connections that effectively combine the five Intera buildings into one magnificent structure.” Her pitch went up at the end, as if proud of something she had made herself.

Kirsten tuned her out, gazing through the clear bubble at the surreal world. She felt lost in the middle of some version of Dante’s
Inferno
, watching green-tinged fog and orange smoke roll past the tube. Distant hulking shadows in the vaporous muck hinted at the forms of the other towers, flecked by the occasional lit window. Unseen flying droids created gliding patches of light, massive fireflies darting about in a tainted mist. Abnormally thick fog roiled below, obscuring the city and making her feel like she was no longer on Earth.

The pod came to a halt, waiting as unseen doors whirred open before it slid into the building and continued its descent. Mitsu droned on, speaking as if she gave a tour to grade school children. Kirsten found it amusing to watch Dorian get angrier. She never did understand why he disliked dolls so much. Kirsten’s opinion of organized religion had been forged in the fire of her mother’s stove, curling iron, cigarettes, cruel tongue, and of course - closet. Perhaps a doll had hurt him as a boy?

Doubtful,
he’s just condescending to them, he doesn’t
hate
them.

She jumped at the sharp hiss of the door, gazing into an impressive passageway of amber carpeting, pale grey walls, and decorative silver light fixtures leading deeper into the facility.

Everyone here seemed to wear more money in one outfit than she made in a month. She could smell real coffee in the air as well as some kind of pastry. Clouds of different fragrances hung here and there, and someone’s lunch drifted by in a collage of unfamiliar smells; spicy yet sweet.

“It’s Indian,” said Dorian.

She inhaled. “I never had it. Smells good, though.”

“Here we are, miss.” Mitsu beamed at her as she stopped. The doll turned on her heel and flung her left arm out to indicate the door, her smile so cheerful that she could sell a bullet-riddled car to a dead man.

Kirsten thanked her and walked through a green-tinted glass door into a large office. She did not expect the chaos inside. A significant amount of pandemonium had taken over the room. Voices yelled in from distant hallways about how they had been set up. From the sounds of it, pornographic holo vids had been found on numerous employees’ terminals. The shrieking of a distant woman insisting she had no urge to look at nude females ended just before an Indian woman in her mid-thirties stormed by. Spotting Kirsten, she changed course and walked right up to her.

“You… you’re with the police, aren’t you?” The woman’s shimmering, violet skirt-suit approached blinding.

“Yes.” Kirsten nodded. “But I’m―”

“Good. I would like to report a crime.” The woman pointed at the ceiling. “Someone put files on my terminal with the express intent to damage my career.”

Kirsten held up a hand. “I’m not that kind of police officer, ma’am.”

She blinked. “What do you mean; since no one died, you don’t care?”

“No. This is not the type of crime my squad works on. Look, I can take a statement and send it to the appropriate team.”

Kirsten listened, struggling to keep up taking notes as the woman described a holographic female shape invading her terminal and rubbing her nasty bits along the edge of one of the display boxes, and that was only the start―and the least of what it did. As the employee explained everything in gratuitous detail, she increased in volume. Soon, the entire HR area listened in rapt silence.

Kirsten had not been so embarrassed in public in a long time. She held it in, offering mute nods because she could not speak without sounding uncomfortable. Before she had to say anything, a man came out of a hallway and approached them.

“Rina, I had the
exact
same thing on my terminal.” He turned to the HR person who followed him out of an interrupted interview. “She had the same animation on her terminal. What are the odds of that? We’ve been hacked.”

Kirsten looked at the HR man. “It does seem strange. How many reports have you had of employees having inappropriate things on their terminal today? Were they all the same?”

The man turned and slapped his hand twice on the reception desk. “Please get someone from Network up here.”

The receptionist glared at him and flipped him off as soon as he turned his back.

Kirsten guided Rina to a chair. “Miss, please calm down and have a seat. This is the work of a hacker, your career is safe.”

After calming the woman down, she approached the reception desk and got the attention of the frazzled blur of a girl behind it.

“Good afternoon.” She held up her badge. “I need to speak to someone about a former employee in regards to an ongoing investigation.”

The flustered woman looked about ready to walk off the job. Trying with no success to reach someone in the network group, she just pointed at the guy who had banged on her desk.

“Roy will help you.” She shot him a retributory glare and went back to pounding on the intercom.

He raised his hands, trying to brush it off on someone else. “I’m still in the middle of a termination interview, Edie!”

The employee whirled on Roy with a reddening face. “Termination? Are you fu―”

Kirsten interrupted him with a hand on the shoulder. “Before you finish your sentence, think. A hacker did this; you’re not going to be fired. If you finish saying what I think you’re going to, you might.”

The man’s anger simmered down to a hard scowl. “It’s bogus. It’s totally damn bogus. That file is
not
mine.” He pointed at Roy. “You can tell McKinley I’ll have him wrapped up in litigation for two years if I lose my job over a hack. I’m going back to my desk. As it is, I’m going to be here till midnight just to make up for lost time from this circus. If anyone should get fired today, it’s you jackasses for not recognizing what’s going on here.”

Kirsten exhaled as he stormed out.

“You are such an angel.” Dorian chuckled. “I was curious what he would say.”

She smiled at him and approached Roy. “Hi, I won’t take up too much of your time.” She put an arm around his shoulder and ‘encouraged’ him to walk with her to his office.

“Look, miss―”

“Agent Wren.”

“Look, Agent Wren, there’s a lot going on right now and I really don’t have time for this.” He proceeded to ignore her, working on his terminal.

Dorian leaned on it and it promptly went dark.

“God dammit.” He slapped it a few times, standing up. “Now what?”

“Just give me what I need without making excuses and I’ll be out of here in five minutes. A former employee may be connected to a crime and I need as much information about him as you have.”

“Terminal is de―”

It came back on as Dorian let go of it.

He flopped into his seat with a heavy sigh, and tucked up to his desk. “What’s the name?”

“Albert Motte.”

He looked up. “Mott?”

“Motte with an E. I think it’s German.”

“One second.” He plugged an interface cord behind his left ear.

As soon as the wire clicked in, his terminal raced through various images. Before long, the face she had come to know stared at them.

“Here he is. It looks like he was a low-level systems tech working on testing limb actuators in the doll group. He evaluated batches before installation to ensure bad parts did not slip through from the manufactory on Mars.”

Kirsten peeked over his shoulder. The report read like a greatest hits of boredom. Nothing stood out.

“That doesn’t jibe with what his father told the detective,” said Dorian.

Kirsten rubbed her chin. “What was the reason for his separation from Intera?”

“The official termination occurred after his fourth no-call no-show. Mr. Motte just stopped coming to work.”

She grumbled. “That kind of happens when you’re dead.”

“Dead?” Roy appeared surprised by the news.

“Shot.”

Roy gasped. “How awful. Well, I suppose the least I can do is edit the file so his employment history doesn’t end on a negative tone.”

Dorian made a sarcastic smile. “I’m sure Albert will appreciate the gesture.”

She held out a datapad. “Can I get a copy of the file?”

Roy duplicated the record. She thanked him for his time and made her way back out through the turmoil. No sooner had she returned to the hallway outside than all of the lights in the complex strobed. The clamor became silence as every device capable of flashing joined in one by one. Soon the kind of music often used as a background track for adult holovids blared in from all over. Every terminal and public display panel in the place flashed graphic pornography as loud moans filled the air. A digitized voice sang the phrase “This is me on yo’ network,” in an endless loop.

Kirsten looked around. “Guess Joey was pissed.”

Dorian laughed. “Indeed.”

quidistant from the coast in the west and the wall in the east, the part of the city where Albert Motte’s apartment was had the highest population density anywhere in West City. Tucked away within an ordinary residential area, it looked every bit as unassuming as Kirsten imagined its owner would have been in life. For many blocks in all directions, a repeating pattern of identical structures crammed the sky, as if some great unseen hand had copy-and-pasted reality over and over to fill the world.

How the hell does anyone remember where they live here? Even the fake trees are the same.

She circled once to evaluate the situation on the ground, worrying about the sheer number of people at risk if something went terribly awry. It seemed as though the tech crew had already arrived. Like her apartment, this one provided no roof landing pads for hovercars, so she set down behind a large Division 2 troop carrier with half its tires on the sidewalk. The drab, blue monster dwarfed the patrol car; its six armored wheels were taller than Kirsten.

“Since they called for you, they probably haven’t found anything.” Dorian’s voice came through the cloud of vapor surrounding the patrol craft before he walked into view.

“Either that or they want to show me what they found.”