Division Zero (31 page)

“Cremated.” Kirsten pondered. “Well, ashes still have meaning. Remember the guy in LaPorte last June?”

Laughter crippled Dorian for the better part of the next several minutes. “I bet the poor, strung out bastard will never snort any unknown grey powder again.”

Kirsten giggled. She could laugh only because the idiot had survived possession by an angry ghost. “Well, let’s see what happened to his ashes. Maybe I can at least get a read from them.”

At a sudden inspiration borne of her navigation map, Kirsten guided the patrol craft down to the street level and landed at a sidewalk café where the words ‘Kajuraho Indian Cuisine’ hung in wispy holographic letters above the door, tinting the cryonic fog of her landing green. She had wanted to try this stuff since smelling it at Intera; opportunity knocked.

A number of tables huddled against the wall of the place, an attempt to cram as much as possible under two skimpy awnings offering feeble shelter from the rain. While eating, she one-handed her datapad through the police network, searching through the evidence chain and case notes. His father, Henry Motte, had claimed the ashes.

As she read, she lost track of the pace with which she munched on the vindaloo. By the time she realized its level of spice, her face had become bright red. The chicken may have been grown in a tank, but it tasted worlds better than reassembled OmniSoy―even if it hurt. Two glasses of water later, she could breathe again.

“I hope he kept the urn.”

“Very possible.” Dorian smiled. “If he didn’t have any special place to go scatter them.”

“Dorian, if you want me to talk to your parents or brother, maybe give them your effects…”

He held a hand up. “No, I just… don’t.”

She followed him back to the car.

“I don’t want them to think about it again, Adam has just gotten married and…” Dorian punched the door.

“They’ll find Rene.” She rubbed his back. “You’re not angry anymore… you had a few rough years, but you can stop hurting.”

A wounded look came over his face. “You’re not trying to get rid of me, are you?”

“No, I just want you to be happy.”

“You have a ghost to stop.” He dissipated into a cloud of mist, moving through the door before coalescing in the passenger seat.

She fell into the car, staring at him for a moment before feeding the address to the nav. It pointed far off to the south and west, close to the coast. Suburbia, or what remained of it, dominated the area. The ride passed in silence. The patrol craft slipped through the last of the century towers bordering the sector, flying out over a few blocks worth of prewar houses set out like pieces on a massive board game. Each had its own lawn, back yard, and pool. With tall buildings on all sides, it looked like a lush green valley in the endless steel cityscape. She landed on a street devoid of any signs of life.

Kirsten hopped out of the car in front of a modest yellow home. A ‘For Sale’ sign flickered in the wind, surrounded by ancient, broken toys in the process of being devoured by the unkempt grass. A small metal droid resembling a tiny helicopter hovered about, spraying the lawn with nutrient liquid here and there. Despite the presence of houses in all directions, desolation pervaded everything here. She found it eerie; the way the early evening sun seemed to shine brighter in this place, creating an island of light surrounded by the gloam of the city. Flame-orange smog framed the impassive black century towers in the west, making her squint as sun sank amid the rectangular teeth of urbanity.

Looking back and forth among the houses and manicured lawns, she imagined the laughter of children around the abandoned toys and untended gardens. Pervasive melancholy dwelled here, accented by the occasional buzzing of holographic ‘For Sale’ signs on many of the lawns.

The expense of living here created a ghost town.

enry Motte had no alternate address listed. Despite the abandoned appearance of the house, Kirsten hoped he remained here waiting for it to sell so he could afford to move. The thin gate blocking the walkway to the porch opened with a faint squeak of protest. She glanced back at Dorian, who leaned against the car with his arms folded. He thought this visit a waste of time. Nonetheless, she rang the bell. For a moment, nothing happened, and then an old man’s voice creaked through the silence, bidding her to come in.

The lock clicked.

Kirsten startled, seeing no one behind the door as she pushed it open. An elderly man sat in a chair on the far side of the front room with a blanket over his lap. He looked to be a frail seventy or thereabout. Wispy grey hair surrounded his face, and a thin moustache drifted with the passage of his words. Crease marks ran down the sleeves of his powder blue shirt from where it had been folded.

“Hello, young lady.” His eyes glimmered. “It’s nice to have visitors at my age, but no one ever visits an old man like me unless they want something. What is it then, dear? Is your company offering a free trip to Mars or are you looking for converts to join your flock? Perhaps you’re selling cookies?” He chuckled. “No, you seem a little old for cookies.”

Against the backdrop of the oppressive silence, his dry voice felt much louder than it should. Kirsten looked at him and offered a sad expression of consolation. He returned the glance with a nod, and a wistful smile.

“No one lives forever, child.”

“Please, call me Kirsten. I’m here about your son.” She eased herself onto the couch. “I’m trying to figure out what happened to him.”

“I thought that detective had given up on poor Albert.” Leaning his head deeper into the pillow, he turned toward the front window. “He had great ambition, you know, he was very talented.”

Kirsten looked at the decor. “I found some of his files, but I can’t even begin to understand what it means. I believe he was killed by his employer to keep him from taking a job with a different company.”

Henry scowled. “Greedy sons of bitches,” he spat. “They don’t respect their people. They wouldn’t be as big as they are if it wasn’t for men like Albert.” Rage came over him in a rickety sort of way that made her fear more what would happen to him rather than what he would do.

“You’re right, but I am worried about Albert.”

He squinted. “What
more
could they do to him?”

She winced, trying to choose her words with care. “It’s not Intera, it’s what Albert is doing to himself.”

“Oh, come off it, kiddo.” He waved. “If he’s causing trouble for those…” He paused, swallowing an obscenity. “
People
, he has every right to.”

Kirsten let her head sag into her hands, staring at the floor. “I’m concerned about what he may do to his own soul. He’s killed innocent people who had nothing at all to do with Intera. I am afraid he might pay the price.”

“How is that even remotely fair?” Henry thumped his fist into the arm of the recliner. “After what Intera did to him you say Albert is the one they want?”

A massive boom rocked the house, shattering the front window and filling the living room with shards of flying glass. Kirsten dove to the floor as the pillow behind the old man’s head exploded into a cloud of feathers. Another shot holed the wall and splintered the floorboards inches shy of her leg.

She scrambled on all fours into the kitchen and scurried behind the counter. With her back pressed against the cabinet, she pulled her E90 and tried to stall the tremble in her hands. As soon as her finger touched the trigger, it chirped to life. Another distant peal of thunder sent a rain of flatware fragments raining down on her and holed the far wall. Kirsten peered through the three-inch hole at the outside; whatever rifle he had sounded huge. Henry Motte came through the wall and looked down, shaking his head. Feathers hovered around him, snowing down to the floor.

“Seems they’re a might bit ticked off at you too, kiddo.”

She looked up. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, I don’t mind. Once Albert died, the grief took its toll.”

She chuckled. “I mean about the window… they’re after me. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

Hands grabbed her arm as she went through the back door, hauling her around and slamming her face first into the wall. She bounced away, staggering backwards and trying to aim her weapon at the indistinct shape of a man looming over her.

He grabbed for her gun, but she jumped away. Distracted by the attempt to disarm her, she did not see his right fist. Knuckles scraped across her cheek, knocking her through the railing of the deck and sending her to the ground in a cloud of splintering wood.

“Shameful.” Henry Motte ambled out onto the porch. “Who hits a young woman like that?”

Kirsten hit her panic button as she slid backwards on the ground through mulch and raked leaves, keeping her E90 aimed at the deck steps. Her assailant leapt over the railing instead, forcing her to roll to avoid a kick that thudded into the ground.

At least this one doesn’t have claws.

Her cheek throbbed from the punch and splinters of pain riddled her legs and back. The man kicked her gun hand away before she could take a shot and lunged for her head. The rudimentary combat training she got as an I-Ops agent escaped her in the panic of the moment.

She reacted too much like a civilian for her own pride, shrieking and rolling into a frenetic crawl back to her feet. She ducked another kick, firing an ill-aimed blast that left a smoldering line of leaf embers in the ground near his boot. He lunged before she could take a second shot. A series of inhumanly fast punches forced her back against a wrought iron fence at the rear of the yard.

The touch of cold iron through her uniform shocked her back to her senses. Her indignation rose at such a brazen attack on a police officer. A block down the street, a scream that started as fright became terror; she caught a glint in the sky as a man with a sniper rifle hurtled earthward from the twentieth floor.

She grinned.
Dorian got the bastard…

Her attacker’s bicep swelled as he cocked his arm back. She fell into a squat, ducking a punch that drove his fist into the fence with enough force to bend the bar and break his hand.

Crap, combat muscle graft.

She took advantage of his sudden pain, but he deflected three of her five kicks. His defense looked clumsy, as if he overcompensated, expecting her to be much faster. The two hits she scored damaged his mood more than his body. He caught her foot on the last and held it. Time crept to a halt as their glares clashed. He tensed to twist her ankle. She moved first, snarling as she threw her weight into the air, wrenching her foot in his broken hand. He lost his grip, screaming and cursing as she aimed up at him from the ground.

“Game over,” she said, finger tightening on the trigger.

He blurred into a smear of black, neuralware pushing his limbs too fast for her to perceive. Blue laser passed through empty air. The silver pistol sailed from Kirsten’s hand, engulfed by a pile of auburn leaves, launched by a kick that stunned her whole arm numb. He leapt forward, seizing her with two fistfuls of hair, unconcerned with what her hands might do to his undefended chest. The hair clip went flying, blinding her with a curtain of blonde.

She flailed as he wedged her head between bars in the fence; two kicks to the gut knocked the wind out of her and left her slumped in a heap. He pulled her head back by the hair to expose her neck, grinning as she spat blood from a cut lip. Dorian’s hands came through his chest, struggling to get a hold of him, but his touch caused only a shiver.