Division Zero: Thrall (38 page)

“VT activate,” said Kirsten.

A holographic terminal appeared next to her in midair, accompanied by a tiny glowing speck in the ceiling from the projector. She poked at virtual keys, navigating through the archives to the records for this body.

“Carlos Rosa, former Deputy Director of Security for the West City Municipal Complex.” Kirsten pulled the sheet away, exposing the body.

He had turned greyish-white and his chest was spattered with blue stains. Faint markings appeared in the skin, no doubt revealed by whatever substance they sprayed on him. She jogged over to Hassan’s work cart and helped herself to a pair of surgical gloves. He gave her a suspicious squint. Kirsten peeked at his surface thoughts, but they were in Arabic. A distinct sense of distrust came through on an emotional level.

She gave him a semi-hostile glare and walked back to Mr. Rosa. “Keep an eye on him,” she muttered. “I got a bad vibe.”

“You haven’t done enough Flowerbasket to ‘get vibes’ off people,” said Dorian.

After snapping on the gloves, she stood up on tiptoe and poked at the chest. “These look like the same markings I found in the circle. Konstantin called it Sumerian.” She dropped back to her heels and flipped through the medical report.

“ They found the fatal wound―looks like a stab through the heart.” She traced her finger over the holographic text while reading. “The medical examiner determined that someone regenerated tissue in the wound, likely with specialized nanobots, to disguise the cause of death. It seems like they only noticed it due to a small error in the boundary layers between tissues. The graft failed to adhere over a six nanometer span on ‘Victim Two’, and a recheck found the same ‘tissue plug’ in all four bodies.”

Later portions of the file contained medical scan data showing mild damage to the bones of the wrist and ankle, consistent with physical restraint over an extended period. Kirsten thought back to Brooke’s memory. That victim, undoubtedly Alaina Munoz, had metal binders on.

“Whoever is doing this holds the victims for some time prior to killing them,” she muttered, half to Dorian, half to herself.

She tapped a button at the end of the tray, which slid Carlos back into the cooler. The next bay held the remains of Uma Donn, a design engineer from EnMesh. Her injuries were consistent with Carlos’s, down to the presence of ancient pictograms present on the skin of the chest. Unlike Carlos, she had turned red and purple around that spot. Kirsten dug through her M.E. report, finding a note indicating a suspected allergic reaction to the chemical agent used to remove the markings.

No trace of the ink remained for identification. However, the ink had lessened the exposure of certain skin cells to the cleaning solution, allowing the medical examiner to reveal the writing with a different chemical that reacted to it. The cells with lower exposure remained paler, while the rest stained blue―more Sumerian writing.

“I’m hardly an expert here, but the pictographs look to be mostly the same with only a few different symbols.”

Dorian rubbed his chin.

Alaina Munoz was in the third tray, not as decomposed as the others except for the unnatural withering of the face and upper chest. Kirsten drew a sharp breath and looked away, unprepared for the spike of emotion from seeing the body of someone she watched die. The same writing existed on her. She had suffered more bone damage.

“Looks like she died fighting. She almost broke both wrists trying to get away.” Kirsten swallowed her sadness, looking away from Dorian to the dead woman. “Whoever did this to you is going to pay for it.”

“Alaina Munoz worked for RedEx. Why would they go after her? They don’t make any political decisions; they just transport parcels to Mars and back.”

“Maybe we’re looking at this wrong.” Kirsten almost tapped her finger to her lips, but hesitated with a dubious glance at a finger that had touched a corpse. “Maybe it isn’t government at all. Maybe it’s just organized crime looking to set up some kind of smuggling operation?”

“ Fourth victim…” Dorian squinted at the virtual terminal and it flipped a few pages over. “William Arris, a security guard for the West City Archives. What the hell does he have to do with smuggling or government?”

Kirsten glowered, thinking. “There’s lots of old stuff there. Maybe whoever is doing this needed to steal something from the archives? What if he needed to find this writing on a scroll or something?”

Dorian laughed. “You’ve been watching Monwyn too much. There’s no such thing as magic scrolls.”

“Fine, an old book then.” Kirsten glanced sideways at Hassan, who huddled away from her over a NetMini.

Dorian’s laughing eyes hardened. “He’s telling someone you know too much.”

“You speak Arabic?” Kirsten whispered.

“My family is originally from Egypt, K. Couple generations ago, but I figured I should keep up tradition.”

She pulled the stunrod off her belt and stalked toward Hassan. When she walked away from the body of William Arris, the tray chirped and retracted itself. The noise made Hassan turn, face twisting into a grimace of murderous panic.

Dorian ran past her at Hassan. “Whoever he’s on the line with just said ‘kill her.’”

“Okay, shithead. Put the scalpel down.” She traded the stunrod to her left hand as she put the other on the handle of the E-90 on her hip.

Hassan muttered at her in Arabic, as if he knew no English, while attempting to smile.

“What’s he saying?”

Dorian cringed. “Quite a few unpleasant things about women; you really don’t want me to translate. He’s just babbling random insults.”

“You at least have to have an English chip to get this job, Hassan. Don’t give me that shit. Who did you call to warn I know too much? Who are you working for?”

He turned as if to run, but whirled back and threw the contents of a flask at her. Kirsten dove away from the dark liquid, her hand left the E-90 in the holster as her arm moved to shield her eyes. Hassan hurled the empty plastic container at her before he ran for the door. Dorian blurred past him, grabbing the edge of a body cooler door and swinging it open as hard as he could fling it. Eyes over his shoulder on Kirsten, Hassan ran full speed into the swinging three-foot square slab of plastisteel with a dull, meaty
clank
.

He landed flat on his back, moaning.

Kirsten rolled onto all fours as Hassan staggered to his feet. Dorian tried to tackle him, but succeeded only in leaving a layer of cold slime on his chest. Hassan stood, swiping his hand through the residue with a wild, panicked look. He shot a stare at Kirsten and sprinted for the door, leaving his lab coat in her grasp as he rolled out of it and ducked through the door. She chased him to the left, past a rather startled Oliver, and to the right where he dove through faux-wood door and slammed it a half second before she crashed into it.

“Hassan, where do you think you’re running? You’re in the middle of a god damned police facility!” Kirsten screamed and kicked the door.

She wobbled back, rubbing her leg. “Damn, tough doors.” Out came the E-90. “You have two seconds to open this door or I’m opening it for you.”

One laser blast melted the retaining bar and flooded the air with the glue-plastic stink of molten Epoxil. The door swayed ajar. Kirsten raised her boot to kick it, but dove sideways at the sound of a gunshot. A bulge in the door showed where the dense material trapped the slug. Rolling onto her back, she aimed through her knees. Another shot―no bulge.

Silence.

Dorian leaned through the wall. “Clear. He shot himself.”

Oliver leaned around the corner at the end of the hallway. “What the fuck?”

“I wish I knew,” she snapped. “Call for a forensics team down here.”

Hassan’s brain dripped from the ceiling of the formerly nice office of Ellen Gomez, Chief Medical Examiner of West City. Shattered fragments of NetMini were everywhere; he had evidently put the device between the gun and his chin before firing. Kirsten leaned on the doorjamb, seething.

“No sign of a ghost,” said Dorian. “I don’t feel harbingers either. Either he was a shell, or I missed him.”

“I don’t know why he shot the ‘mini. The call traces are in the network.”

Dorian nodded. “True, but with the ‘mini destroyed, it’ll take them a few hours to figure out what IPv12 to trace.”

“Why do I feel like I’m digging myself deeper into a hole?” She glanced to the left as a handful of Division 1 officers and a crime scene crew rounded the corner. “I just can’t catch a break, can I?”

“Maybe you should have a little faith.”

She blinked. “Great idea.”

wo hours later, Kirsten landed the patrol craft in front of the Five Hundredth Street Sanctuary. At a little past one in the afternoon, the sun illuminated the sides of buildings adjacent to the parking lot, orange fire shimmering over silver towers. It failed to pierce the smog right overhead. The effect created a halo of otherworldly light at the edges of a darkened space where a significant number of people waited in line for food. She found the presence of a line reassuring; it made the place seem far more welcoming than it had been the other night, though the quality of the light kept her on edge.

“This is creepy,” she said as she stood. “It looks like it’s going to rain just on this parking lot.”

Dorian walked through the car to join her. “That’s just the smog layer, not much wind today.”

A handful of advert bots prowled the line of unfortunates waiting for a free lunch. Kirsten drew a breath, about to mock them for attempting to sell things to people with no money, until she realized they were recruitment ads seeking laborers and crew for colony work.

She ducked through them, finding Father Villera behind the long table where he doled out meals. He nodded at her, handing off his duties to a volunteer who appeared to be a university student. The girl waved at Kirsten and took Villera’s spot at the table.

“I got your message, come on. We can talk in the back.” He ambled around a table full of people eating and headed for the back hallway.

Kirsten followed him, edging to the side as he eased a plain door closed behind her. The room was quite sparse in decoration. Aside from cheap false-wood paneled walls, a steel desk, and several bookshelves, a plain cross hung on the wall opposite the door. Something about the pale beige-orange walls made her feel a little nauseous. The four-inch Jesus stared at her; she looked away. Even twelve years after running away from home, she couldn’t bear the gaze of a little carved man.

“Have you any news? What of that poor girl?”

“She’s fine. It was scary for a little while, but she’s in the hospital recovering from the drugs. She told me an interesting story about what she saw.” Kirsten described the ritual killing.

Villera paled as he limped around and sat at the desk. After blessing himself, he looked up. “I am concerned. It sounds to me like there is more to this than a simple serial killer.”

“I never did find out who was responsible for bringing Charazu into the world. They’re still out there. There’s no connection between the victims. One was pretty high up, but one was just a minimum wage museum guard. One was an engineer, and another worked in advertising. It doesn’t make any sense.”