Division Zero: Thrall (44 page)

Dorian continued trying to apply a technically perfect police ass whipping, but the minimal solidity he generated did not have much effect on the titanic Morris. Kirsten dragged herself away, fear and anger conspiring to force her stunned muscles back into compliance. She pulled herself up with the help of a small table full of mock hand grenades from various eras, and whirled into a kick. Her boot caught Randall on the side of the head, knocking him flat. On top of the mind blast, the impact caused him to vomit.

She pounced on his back, gathering his still-human right arm in a chicken wing hold.

“He’s gonna snap the binders with that thing, you need a medusa.” Dorian scowled at his inability to do more than offer advice.

“Don’t have one.” She held the E-90 to the back of Randall’s head. “Don’t move shithead. Console, comms, operations. Request backup, my location. Suspect augmented.”

“Copy that, Agent.” A woman’s face shimmered in on the left side of the HUD long enough to speak three words.

She leaned forward, bracing her left arm across the back of his neck. Her weight balanced half on her knees and half where she sat on the small of his back. Morris grumbled and coughed up a bubble of puke. Kirsten grinned to herself.
Even if this idiot won’t talk, all I have to do is ask and he’ll think about it.

“Who are you working fo―”

Question became scream.

Kirsten gaped in shock at the seething hot vibro-blade embedded through the armor on her left thigh. The two-inch wide weapon had sprung to the rear from the elbow of the cyberlimb, and gone deep enough into her thigh to find bone. As if the pain of a stab wound was not bad enough, the hypersonic oscillations heated it beyond agony.

In one motion, Randall yanked the blade out, sending his left arm forward as he came around with a right elbow that knocked Kirsten into the wall. The scent of burned blood and cooked meat rose into the air. He continued the spin to face her and leapt, tackling her flat while covering her helmet with his metal left hand. Plastisteel fingers squeezed. Aiming with hope, she brought the E-90 around and fired. It missed, but it was close enough to cause him to let go of the helmet and grab the gun.

Able to see, she tilted the pistol toward his face and fired. He pulled down to save himself, causing the beam to drag across his left bicep―severing it. What few strands of flesh remained intact succumbed in seconds to the weight of a metal arm, which thudded to the ground between her boots.

Howling, his cauterized stump wagging, an enraged Randall Morris palmed the top of Kirsten’s helmet and rammed her head into his knee. Kirsten fell, dazed. Her armor absorbed most of the impact, but the hit left her staring at a spinning hallway.

Dorian shouted as he forced himself into the world of the living, a trace of glowing skull shimmered through his skin. “Get away from her!”

Seven-foot, 340-pound Randall Morris shrieked with the voice of a six-year-old girl. After soiling himself, he sprinted down the rest of the hallway and dove headfirst through the window. Several seconds later, the deep, echoing
whump
of a body striking a dumpster rang out. Kirsten tried to stand, but collapsed with both hands on her left thigh, screaming. Dorian dropped to one knee and grabbed her shoulders.

“Go, chase him. Find him. There’s no one else here.”

“I don’t want to―”

“I’m not helpless. Go. Don’t let the fucker get away.”

Dorian closed his eyes, shaking his head. He leapt to his feet and ran down through the floor. Kirsten dragged herself against the wall, unable to hold back wails of pain as her leg moved. Outside, sirens closed in on the area.

Captain Eze’s face appeared on the left side of her visor. “Wren, your armor’s transmitting crazy bio readings. What happened?”

“Got stabbed in the thigh. Bleeding a little.” Kirsten glanced at the scarily large stain on the rug under her. “Shit, I’m in trouble. Nicked the femoral. I shot a cyberarm off this bastard…” She slumped to the ground. “Make sure it gets to Div Two.”

Dorian’s face filled her visor. She looked up, unable to speak. He leaned closer, his hands settled on the sides of her head and slipped down to her shoulders. Lightheadedness came on worse. The last thing she remembered was a blanketing of cold all over and the sound of approaching boots.

Warm.

Weightless.

Goop.

Yay. Naked time.
Her hands confirmed it.
Well, at least I’m alive.

“Agent Wren, we’re about to drain the tank. You may experience some lingering discomfort in your thigh. The pain is only in your head; your leg is no longer injured.”

She reached up and gathered her hair tight to her neck, leaving her eyes closed as she let gravity take her down to a seated position at the base of the medical tank. Before the doctor said a word, she assumed the position: head down, ass in the air. Choking the breathable gel out of her lungs felt less like drowning and more like a bad flu this time. The clear glass barrier rotated and sank into the floor, letting cold air wash over her. She sat back on her heels and wiped her mouth off on the back of her arm. After a moment of savoring the breeze on her face, she opened her eyes.

The first thing she did was examine the pale strip in the middle of her left thigh, a scrap of brand new skin that did not match the older tissue around it. She held her arms away from her body, cringing at the sensation of the slippery gel all over her becoming sticky at exposure to air. Her attempt to be casual at the situation caused her to slip and fall as she tried to walk to the shower tube unassisted. A medtech and an actual doctor helped her up and wrapped her in a towel. The tech swabbed at her in an effort to remove as much of the substance as he could.

She coughed, spitting up more into a teal tray one of them handed her.

“You may be woozy for a few hours, Agent. You lost quite a bit of blood. In some ways, it was good he had a vibro blade. It partially cauterized the vessel and slowed the bleeding. Also, whatever psionic talent you used to cool your body off helped. I think it made the difference.”

“That would be a ghost saving my life.” She offered a weak smile, and walked with them to the autoshower.

The medical staff exchanged a glance as she let the towel fall.

“After you get cleaned up, you should go eat something.” The doctor looked at her stomach and hips. “Preferably something with protein.”

“Thanks.” Kirsten blinked as she reached out to activate the wash cycle, noticing the gold bracelet still on her wrist. Not even one carved scale was out of place. She glanced at the medical tank for a moment, then back at the jewelry.
Strange. I guess nanobots don’t have a taste for gold.

Kirsten looked up from the tray of food, a silly grin aimed at Evan.

He stared at her, still red-eyed. The smile he cracked was only for her benefit.

“Sorry I scared you.”

Evan pushed mashed potatoes around his tray.

“Hey, you helped. They know you’re clairvoyant, sweetie. When you got scared, they came looking for me.”

He pushed his tray across so it was next to hers and crawled under the table to her side. She squeezed his shoulder and ran her hand through his hair. He nibbled on a nugget of battered vat-grown chicken. Watching him tease his food around for another few minutes without eating was too much for her, and she broke into sobs and pulled him into a hug.

After a moment, he squirmed around and stared at her. His look of worry became one of calm, and he smiled. Kirsten gathered her emotions and let him cling, continuing to stroke his hair as he ate as though nothing was wrong. His sudden acceptance made her feel uneasy.
Well, I suppose it’s a good sign when a clairvoyant stops worrying about you getting hurt.
She smirked.
Guess that means I’ll live at least another few months.

irsten fell back in her chair with both hands over her face, a little after eight. The last of the reports done, she finally had a moment to breathe. At the sound of a chime from her terminal, she split her fingers apart to stare through them at the window that popped into prominence. Citycams came up blank for hits on the second face; however, a cross-division feeler got a hit from Nine.

The result was an eighty-two percent match on a man named Nafiz Ajouri, suspected of being involved with international smuggling. Kirsten poked the screen, scooting up to her desk as she read over various details: art objects, historic relics, corporate intelligence, even a handful of cases of reported human trafficking. Fortunately, he was listed as “low” for risk of violence.

She stared at the file image, trying to reconcile it against her memory of reading Brooke’s mind. It was just as likely to be him as not.
Profile searches suck. This is next to useless.
Kirsten tapped her fingers on the desk, frowned, and crosschecked Nafiz Ajouri against any ACC affiliation with Kukla or VSKK. Kirsten’s head went in a spiral as she followed the spinning ‘please wait’ icon. Somewhere, deep in cyberspace, hundreds of thousands of transactions collided in a spectacular storm of electrons. Vid calls, financial exchanges, medical records, all possible points where the entity of Nafiz Ajouri may have had contact with either company. Two hundred miles away, she imagined a CPU core somewhere got one degree warmer.