Division Zero: Thrall (43 page)

Aside from mild graininess due to the nonstandard interface between Eze’s brain and the writer, the image surprised her with its clarity. She drew a box around the face of both men. The one holding Alaina’s right arm had his back to Brooke for most of the event; however, she managed to grab a profile image when he shifted to walk away.

She set the system going in search of a facial match and got to typing out the reports and incident forms for everything that had happened thus far. For quite a few minutes, she glanced at Eze with envious squints. When he was just an Agent, filling out reports took him only seconds. Fingers twirled hair behind her right ear as she considered the option of getting headware put in, but shivered.
No. No way. I’d rather type all day than have metal in my skull.

Two hours later, she left the search going and took a break to meet Evan in the dorm area for lunch. After a pleasant forty minutes, she returned to find a red square flashing on two separate display panels. On the left screen, a close-up of one man from the telepathic transfer was frozen at the precise instant he appeared to make eye contact with the viewer. The other pane contained a dozen possible matches.

It took only a minute of flicking through the short list for something to jump out at her. A coincidence too glaring to ignore―a man by the name of Randall Morris was a ninety percent match on the face and a security guard for EnMesh Corporation. Kirsten leaned back in her chair, flicking her eyes on the still-flashing images the system attempted to match to the other man.

“Think that’s the guy?”

She glanced up at Dorian, and back to the employee record for Mr. Morris. “Nothing in his file says anything about him having lost an arm or gotten a cybernetic prosthetic. Am I losing my mind or is the relationship to EnMesh strange to you?”

He glanced at the estimated progress bar on the other process. “We probably have enough time to pay this guy a visit and get back before we have anything else to go on. What about the other close matches?”

“Morris is the second most likely match at ninety percent. This guy,” she said, flipping two images to the left, “has been on Mars for the past six months working for a geological survey company.”

Dorian chuckled. “He doesn’t look like a scientist.”

“Private security force.” Kirsten locked her terminal and stood. “Most of the hits are either mercenaries, criminals, or military. Four of them have been in prison for more than a year.”

“Well, let’s go talk to Mr. Morris.”

She took a step for the door, but did a one-eighty toward the locker room. “Yeah. Be right out, gonna grab armor.”

hree minutes into the flight, the location of Randall Morris’s NetMini appeared on the navigation console. Kirsten pulled back on the stick, rising out of the traffic lane as she hit the bar lights. Blotches of abnormal color shimmered on nearby buildings, aftereffects of the windscreen filtering out glare. She let off the stick as the yellow triangle representing the car’s location and orientation lined up with the distant red dot.

Her course resulted in a slalom path between buildings as the hovercar cut diagonally across the city’s grid layout. A quarter mile later, a young man with light brown hair appeared as a holographic floating head in the middle of the console.

“Unit 1815-0I4, request verification for noncompliant traversal of Sector Grid. I’m not seeing any incident alarms active in accordance with your vector at this time.” He blinked at something to his left. “Uhh, 0I4… Division Zero?”

He looks seventeen.
“You look new, Lumford. Is this your first week?”

“Holy shit, you
are
psychic.”

Dorian and Kirsten spoke at the same time, though Junior Tech Lumford only heard her. “Your name is on your uniform.” She leaned into a left swerve around a black glass tower. “Not bad. You’re right about Zero. Do you know what the I stands for?”

“Uhh…” Lumford’s eyes darted around; he stared at something above his terminal. “Investigation, uhh investigative operations.”

“Ooh, you really are new. Still have the cheat sheet on your cube wall.” She smiled. “Yep. What else does that tell you?”

“You’re going to
retire
someone?” He turned pale.

Kirsten glared, making him jump back in his seat. The holographic head shrank. “No, Lumford. That’s Division Nine. Zero doesn’t assassinate anyone.”

“We’re here to usher in a new era of service.” Dorian spoke in the cadence of a used-hovercar salesman, fists on his hips and wearing a plastic smile.

“Ugh, I hated those commercials,” whispered Kirsten.

“Uhh, I-Ops…” He stared into space for several seconds before looking up. “You’re a detective, not enlisted―an officer.” Lumford remained pale, and fumbled with a salute.

She returned it. “I’m trying to intercept a potential suspect, Lumford. I’m not using the lights to race home for a mid-day fuck break. I’m not Div One.” The same hand she used to salute cut the comm.

“Bad mood?” Dorian raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe I’ll send him a text later and apologize for giving him a hard time. It just pisses me off that these jackasses from One skirt traffic protocol constantly, but when I do it for a real issue, I get the just-out-of-the-academy radio guy who wants to boss a couple of beat cops around.”

“So what’s got you in the bad mood?”

“I just have this feeling Morris isn’t going to get me anywhere.”

Both of Dorian’s eyebrows crept upward a tick. “Really? There’s nothing more than that?”

“I’m worried about Evan, alright? A demon got into my apartment last night and tried to kill us both. So yeah, maybe I’m a little on edge when I get shit for driving diagonally across the city.” she grumbled, twisting her hands around the control sticks. “It feels like whoever is doing this is two steps ahead of me every bit of the way and I feel…” Kirsten’s gaze fell to her lap.

“You’re not helpless, Kirsten. You never were.” He pointed. “Umm, building.”

The crash avoidance got off two warning beeps before she swerved, still faster than the automatic override. She rolled through the maneuver, pulling up past the hundredth-story mark and gliding in a graceful arc over the last two miles. Off to the left, the Y-shaped road bisecting this sector into three small districts gleamed in the waning midafternoon sun. On final approach to Morris’s apartment, she shut off the bar lights and circled.

“Wow, I thought I lived in a dive. The map must be wrong; this looks like a grey zone.”

“Nah, Sector 40 is just a bad part of town. There’s no disavowed areas anywhere near here.”

Landing on the roof proved easier than expected. While not designed for residents to own hovercars, the building had two landing pads for emergency vehicles. While jogging from the car to the door, Kirsten glanced at the slab of light bobbing over her left arm, and confirmed her target was still here―or at least his NetMini was―far below on the fifth floor.

She stared at the floor ticker in the elevator as it counted down.

“Something wrong with your arm?” asked Dorian.

“No.”

“You keep fidgeting with the arm guard.”

“Oh, just Konstantin’s bracelet.” She smiled at the sound of his name.

“You should have left it in your locker. It’s as thick as a finger. It could break your wrist if you get hit in the arm.”

“Someone might steal it.” She put the uncomfortable tightness under the rigid armor out of her mind. “Besides, it will bring me luck.”

“Are you feeling alright, K? I’m not used to seeing you go from anxious and moody to grinning so fast.”

“You grumble at me for being short with the radio guy, and now you’re grumbling at me for being too chipper?” She blinked. “What do you want me to do?”

“Now I know something’s wrong with you, K. You’re not this belligerent.”

She drew in a breath, finger up, but stopped when the doors opened. “Maybe I am just shitting bricks that I’m not gonna be able to save Vernon. Stupid council.”

Kirsten stomped past six apartment doors before hanging a right and passing three more. Turning on her heel, she raised her boot to smash the door in.
Wait.
Foot down, she slid gloved fingers under her visor to rub her face.
I don’t even know for sure this guy is involved yet. Slow down.

“I think you might need a vacation, K―after we figure this one out.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She pushed the door buzzer.

A blink of her eye aimed at just the right spot switched on tactical mode. Sensors in the armor rendered the apartment on the other side of the wall in a wireframe of glowing lines traced over the real world. Toward the back right corner, a hazy figure loped out of a hallway and leaned into the living room.

“Fuck off, I’m not buying shit.”

“Mr. Morris, I’m with the police. I have a few questions to ask you.”

The shimmering outline of a man shuddered and sprinted across the room to what appeared to be a closet door. When he leaned back, he fumbled with a large rifle.

“He’s going for a gun!” Kirsten backed away from the door.

“On it.” Dorian leapt through the wall.

“Console, command override.” Kirsten looked at the apartment door and blinked. A rectangle of yellow light flickered over it, as if the door itself reacted in the manner of a clicked-on desktop icon. “Shit, this is a lot faster than my armband.”

The door snapped open, allowing the sound of Randall Morris’s cursing into the hall. He rattled a power-drained rifle, smacking it with a metal right hand. Kirsten ducked in, E-90 aimed.

“On the floor, Morris.”

He hurled the firearm at her, making her flinch enough to foil her aim as he ducked around a wall and sprinted down a hallway leading into the back. Kirsten wobbled on a loose rug as she avoided the weapon, which stuck into the drywall, and ran after him. Rapid motion and numerous walls thwarted the HUD on her visor. She had no warning as she rounded the corner into the hallway and found a small, black canister bouncing toward her.

“Shi―”

She crossed her arms over her face as the deafening explosion of a stun grenade threw her to the ground and into a sliding skid. The visor blocked out most of the flash, though the concussion left her paralyzed and disoriented. When a large, meaty hand clamped around her neck and lifted her into the air, her brain snapped out of it, but her body did not. Kirsten moaned, trying to get her right arm to raise the E-90, but she felt less coordinated than Brooke hopped up on muscle relaxants.

Randall grinned at his helpless target, taking his time to flutter the fingers of his cybernetic left arm as he balled it into a fist. He twitched as Dorian attempted to grab him, glaring with confusion at the odd sensation.

With only her brain free of the effect of the blast and her vision spared by the visor, Kirsten focused on the presence of Randall’s mind. A rapid assault of psionic energy knocked him loopy. His hand opened and Kirsten fell straight down like a sack of meat packed in tactical armor.

A little cartoon face surrounded by animated sweat droplets appeared on the right side of her HUD. “Stim-suit not detected, automatic adrenaline cannot be deployed.”

“Fuck you, too.”

Randall staggered down to one knee, holding his head. “Ngh, what the hell?”