Division Zero (42 page)

“Okay, so that’s the whole story, then?” Kirsten looked up from her terminal. “You can’t think of any more details?”

Mrs. Talbot sat in a chair alongside the desk with her legs crossed, going over the same story several times, like an ordinary witness detailing her experience to an ordinary detective. She provided the address and the nickname of the man who shot her, told her where he tossed the gun, and the name of the man he was hired through. The story continued to lack any proof of her husband’s complicity, aside from Kirsten hearing the admission the other night. With Tanaka now dead, even that could not help.

“Okay, Mrs. Talbot. I have everything here. I’ll send it to my Captain and he’ll pass it along. A detective will be assigned to the case within a few hours. As for how long it will take or even if they can get anything proven, I can’t say. Your husband has a lot of power and money.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath.” Dorian chimed in. “He’s the kind of guy Division 9 deals with. You’re better off haunting him till he cracks and getting him committed.”

“Dorian.” Kirsten snapped, making the others in her squad jump and look. “That’s awful. Besides, the daughter could be grown up by the time he caves. This guy ordered his own wife killed. Do you really think he’s going to be afraid of some bumps in the night?”

Nicole levitated her foam stress skull, bonking everyone in the room on the head except Kirsten. “She’s an astral, guys. Hello? Ghosts? Stop looking at her like that.”

Thanks, Nikki.

Nicole winked back.

Mrs. Talbot looked between them. “Well, what can we do?”

Kirsten leaned on the desk. “Please, let’s just see what happens with the regular channels first. If that doesn’t pan out I’ll think of something.”

“Intera is one of the most powerful corporations in the entire United Coalition Front.” Dorian shook his head. “They have facilities on Mars, colony worlds, some of which they legally own. It’s unlikely Lucian Talbot will succumb to matters of legal maneuvering. Do you really want to subject your daughter to all of that?”

Talbot picked at one of the bullet holes in her chest. “You’re saying we just let him win? Let him kill me with no recourse and corrupt my daughter?”

Dorian rubbed his chin. “Well, you can do something. It may take you some time to learn, but you can try to communicate with Marisa.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” said Kirsten. “If the detectives can’t prove he was part of a conspiracy to have you killed, I’ll find some way to work it out. I promise.”

“Very well. I’ll be at the house.” Mrs. Talbot walked off through the wall.

Kirsten sighed. “Talk to the kid, really? Do you have any idea how long it took me to be able to sleep again after the first time I saw a ghost?”

“Yeah but you were what, five? Her daughter is eight or nine now.”

Kirsten rolled her eyes. “Oh, that’s
so
much better.”

he strip of suburbia seemed brighter than the last time she visited, but the place still offered a somber treatise on the death of a way of life. After landing in front of the old yellow house, Kirsten walked past the ‘For Sale’ flickering through windblown debris.

“Mr. Motte?” Kirsten walked in through the left-open door. “Are you still here?”

Henry glided into the living room through the kitchen wall, offering a worried smile at her, and a welcoming nod to Dorian. “It’s good to see you’re still alive. Have you found him?”

She gathered feathers into a pile. “No, not yet. I think I have a way to do just that, but I need to ask you for something you probably won’t like.”

“What,” he said more than asked.

Kirsten took a small metal cylinder on a cord out of her pocket, and held it up. “I need to borrow some of his ashes. I promise I will return them.”

He squinted. “Why do you need to disturb what’s left of him?”

“I can use the ashes to track him down before he stains his soul too much to save. There’s got to be some good left in him.”

Henry paced for a moment, then stared. She stood in silence, biting her lower lip and making a plaintive face.

“The more people he kills, the more
they
want him,” said Dorian.

Kirsten looked down. “I have to find him before he hurts someone else. What he’s been doing has not caused trouble for Intera yet.”

“Albert’s going to do something big and showy, so tragic the news plays it for weeks, maybe a neo-natal care doll.” Dorian shifted his weight.

Dread leaked out of her eyes at the thought. “I can’t let him do something like that.”

The elder Motte shuffled back and forth, jaw sliding side to side. “You’re not going to destroy him are you? I won’t be part of destroying him.”

“I will do everything I can to end this without anyone else getting hurt, including your son.”

Henry sighed hard before walking to a porcelain vessel covered with bas-relief cherubs. “Here.”

Kirsten took enough ashes to fill her thumb-sized flask. Sealing it, she draped it around her neck. The trail would not be visible during the day, so she killed time talking with Henry while waiting for nightfall. The old man did not at all mind the companionship, and delighted in a young woman taking time out of her life for him.

He told her Albert had never been much of a social sort. He had lost himself in schoolwork when he failed to make friends, and did not much care for pets either. The one attempt, a goldfish he named Quark, lived only a month. Kirsten felt sad for them both. Henry still thought of Albert as a bright young boy.

By the time she excused herself, she knew Albert’s favorite food, color, movie, and type of car. Familiarity shrouded her task with a modicum of guilt. The anger of a violent death had changed someone more than Kirsten thought possible. The wraith who tried to strangle her seemed far removed from the Albert Henry knew. Kirsten closed her eyes and wished fate would spare Henry Motte the sight of his son in his current state.

“Are you praying?” Dorian smiled.

She sneered. “Hardly.”

“Oh, just wishing on a penny well then?”

“What the hell is that?”

“Many years ago, humans would dig holes in the ground in search for water. Superstitious people got it in their head that spirits lived in these wells, and they would offer them tithes and gifts. As time went on, it developed into the belief that a person could make a wish and throw a penny into anything that held water.” Dorian winked at her. “Before you ask, a penny is an old coin, before credits.”

She scoffed. “Statistically, the odds of success in either scenario are about the same.”

“Then why do either?”

“I dunno…” She stared for a moment as she tangled in her own confused opinions. “I guess it makes me feel better.”

Dorian grinned. “At last she understands.”

irsten flicked her finger over the controls, bringing the car’s systems online one by one. A short flight later, she chased down a sushi barge and pulled up alongside it. At least she could amuse herself with Dorian’s repulsed faces as she ate and waited for sundown.

He stared out the window away from her. “You’re not at all worried about what that might have been swimming in?”

“Swimming?” She lifted an eyebrow. “This fish was never swimming. They grow giant slabs of it in vats.”

Dorian gurgled. “Oh, my.”

“Oh come on. It’s genetically identical, not to mention free of contamination. Besides, no innocent little fishies have to die.”

“Can you at least do something to get the smell out of the car?”

“Do you want me to talk to Nila?”

His head snapped around. “No, leave her alone, I’ve done enough damage.”

“Dorian, a split-second tactical error does not mean you meant it. I want to help you.”

“Stay alive, I don’t want to lose another partner.”

“You didn’t
lose
your last one. Don’t you want to transcend?”

Something lingered in his stare, something he could not yet say. “I’m not old enough to retire yet. Besides I don’t like what they’ve done with my pension plan.”

“Okay. You know―”

“All I have to do is ask.” His finger went from his forehead to pointing at the windscreen. “It’s dark now.”

“Yeah.”

She clutched the canister with both hands and centered her mind on it. A faint tug hinted at a connection, though many times weaker than the skull. With Ritchie, it felt like standing six inches away from a cinema holoscreen. With Albert’s ash, more like a NetMini at a hundred yards. Ritchie had lived in Seattle before the plates covered it, a fact that put him at four hundred years dead.