Division Zero: Thrall (9 page)

offee, as divine as it was, did not hold the answers of the universe. It did not even hold the answers to the questions she had at that moment. An egg-on-a-roll sat unopened on the dash between the control sticks, clear plastic clamshell fogged white with steam. Outside to the right, a morning crowd shuffled along on their way to work or a PubTran station. Not even the fragrance of peppered eggs teased an appetite out of her gut.

“You okay?” The cool presence of Dorian’s hand settled on her right shoulder.

She looked at him, still red-eyed from a fitful sleep. “Thanks for staying with me last night.”

“Don’t let the bitch get to you. Besides, she’s got her own issues now.” Dorian chuckled.

Kirsten managed a weak smile and took a sip of her wake-up elixir. “Yeah, I’ve never seen a grown woman shit where she stood before.”

“Theodore certainly has a knack for the dramatic. I’ve never seen a crowd clear out of a restaurant so fast.”

“Guess she believes in ghosts now.” She reached for her breakfast. “Think I’ll get more than two bites before we get a radio call?”

Dorian made a fanciful series of arcane gestures and touched both index fingers to his temples. “I foresee you might be able to finish your food.”

“It wasn’t fun getting stuck there till eleven.” Chomp. “Do you think the brass will believe my report?”

“Well,” said Dorian, “if you had taken a swing at that woman, you’d have had a different sort of explaining to do. You did tell the truth. A spirit caused a disturbance, and you made sure he won’t do it again. Like you always say, what are you going to do, haul Theo to ghost-jail?”

“I wasn’t gonna beat her; just, you know… bzzz… silence.” Kirsten shivered. “I had to make it stop. I couldn’t listen to that again.”

“You hit a nerve. You made a valid point she had no rebuttal for, so she just tried to shout you down.”

“Yeah.”

The comm. lit up. “Agent Wren, copy?”

She stared at the box of crumbs. “Well, I
did
finish it,” she mumbled. “Wren here, go ahead.”

“Agent, there is a request from Division 1 for your expertise.” A NavMap pin popped up on her console. “A dead body was found approximately twenty-six minutes ago, and they would like you to have a look.”

“Any strange events reported?” Kirsten leaned to her left, peering upward before bringing the car airborne.

The holographic dispatcher shook his head. “Nothing they have included in comm. traffic at this time.”

“Alright, notify them I’m en route.” She glanced at the map. “ETA four point two minutes.”

Kirsten slipped through the usual array of Division 1 hovercars parked in such a manner as to create a blockade in front of an alley. The scene was quiet, even their emergency lights were off. A Div 2 van had landed just inside the barricade, and the area swarmed with forensic techs. Dorian walked through the open driver door, dispelled for an instant into a cloud of fog.

“At least we’re not in the arctic again,” he said.

“Yeah, I should thank this guy for having the courtesy to get murdered where it’s warm.” She walked up to a man in a long charcoal-grey coat who was observing the techs study a dead man. “You must be Detective Kiering. Agent Wren, Div Zero.”

He glanced at her; his features said Mexico but his skin tone said Sweden. “Morning, Agent. Thanks for coming. Look, this may be nothing, but the buzzards had some questions they couldn’t answer.”

“What can you tell me?”

“Well…” Detective Kiering swiped his hand over a datapad, backing up several pages. “Luckily for us, the deceased had an ImDent. His name was William Arris, former security guard. System shows a relatively clean record. No major crimes. A few applications for Division 1, but he got denied.”

Kirsten glanced about, finding no signs of a spirit. “Any idea why?”

“He had frequent association with individuals known to work for the Syndicate. Brass didn’t want to risk an infiltrator.”

“I guess that makes sense. Any chance it had something to do with his death?”

“It’s an angle I’m still looking into. I couldn’t find anything yet, but there’s some very odd things. Tech Hollings can fill you in.” He indicated a petite woman on one knee over the corpse.

Wide eyes like amber set in chocolate glanced up at the mention of her name.

Kirsten gave Kiering a nod and walked toward Hollings. After one more glance around failed to find a ghost other than Dorian nearby, she looked at him. “Mind wandering around a bit, see if he’s hiding somewhere?”

“Sure.” Dorian jogged off and ducked through a wall.

“Tech Hollings?” asked Kirsten, offering a hand.

The woman stood, clinging to a portable scanner as if it were a security blanket. She had a round, innocent face, tinged with fear. For once, Kirsten felt tall.

“Is something wrong?”
Please don’t be scared of me.

“Ma’am.” Tech First Class Hollings, being equivalent to a Corporal in rank, saluted her and stood rigid. “I just have a creepy feeling about this one, ma’am. I… You’re psionic, aren’t you?”

“That is one of the things they ask on the Division 0 job application, yes.” Kirsten hooked her thumbs through her belt, taking on a full-body sag of exasperation. “I’ll try to make this quick so you don’t have to be near me any longer than necessary.”

“Oh.” Tech Hollings looked down. “I… It’s not that. Sorry, I’m not one of those people who thinks psionics are bad. I’m freaked out by the scene, not you.”

Kirsten let her arms fall lax. “What’s wrong?”

“This body doesn’t
feel
right. You know, most times I check out a dead person I almost feel like they’re watching me. Like I’m not alone. I, you know, talk to them and tell them I’m gonna do all I can to figure out what happened to them so we can catch their killer and such.”

“Sometimes, their spirit might actually be there. That’s nice of you to reassure them.”

“This guy… I didn’t get that feeling.”

Kirsten squinted at her. The glimmer of luminosity in her eyes made Hollings gasp.

“Did you just do something?”

You’re psionic, aren’t you? Maybe you don’t even know it.

Hollings shivered. Her surface thoughts shifted to fear she might get in trouble for hiding from Division 0.

“Hey,” said Kirsten, soothing. A sisterly arm went around the shorter woman’s back. “It’s not illegal to stay under the radar. A lot of people do. That’s why you can feel them. I can’t get much of a sense of what your talents are; I bet you never tried to develop anything. You have the potential though. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You know where to find us if you ever want to talk about it.” Kirsten paced around the dead man. “So, what can you tell me about this guy? Did you call me in for something more than just not feeling watched?”

The woman relaxed, letting her diagnostic tool fall away from her shirt enough to see the screen. “I couldn’t find an obvious cause of death, not with this thing.” She patted the box. “However, there is some abrasion damage to the bones of his wrists and ankles, as if he had been wearing metal binders for an extended period of time. I also found fine particulates embedded in the skin of his back, buttocks, and legs. It comes up as crushed soy hull, and some of it was… kitty litter.”

“Crushed soy hull?” Kirsten pondered. “There’s tons of places that process soybeans. OmniSoy alone has a hundred facilities in West City, never mind East and off-world.”

“Certain micro particles on the soy shell fragments phenotyped to pollen from olive trees native to the region around Tel Aviv, which appear to be from around 1000 BCE.”

Kirsten blinked. “Where would he have come into contact with that?”

“According to his personal record, he was employed as a night guard at the West City Archives, specifically, the museum wing.”

“Oh.” Kirsten sighed. “Maybe he was getting busy at night and did the deed on top of some old thing. Is there any way to determine how long the, umm, pollen was on him?”

“Not exactly. Some of the soy shell bits got into his skin, causing mild inflammation. I’d say he was in prolonged contact with it for a few days maybe.”

“So, someone held this guy prisoner for a few days.” She squatted, peering under the sheet.

The nude man lay with his arms at his sides, as if on a morgue table. He seemed older in the face than he should be. His skin was too grey, wrinkled and dry, and his eyes had turned black.

Kirsten recoiled at the surprise of it.

“See what I mean? Tissue analysis of his eyes shows nothing to explain the pigmentation of the sclera or the collapse of the iris.”

“He smells like chemicals.”

“There is residue of a common non-abrasive cleaning solution on his chest. Someone gave him a rub down with a disposable wipe. Not very useful to trace, you can find them in just about every apartment in the city.”

“Can I touch him?”

Hollings cringed. “You shouldn’t, it could interfere with the lab work later. I can only do so much out here.” She looked around and lowered her voice. “If you think it’s the only way, I won’t say anything.”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t want to be responsible for contaminated evidence.” Kirsten squatted, holding her hands just over the body.

Something tugged at her mind: faint, almost beyond notice. She probed at the sensation, offering and withdrawing energy until she came to the determination the body possessed an absence of paranormal forces to a degree it reacted as a manner of sponge. Not powerful enough to do all that much, more like a chunk of inert metal left near a magnet too long that picked up its own feeble field.

“I couldn’t find anything,” said Dorian.

The sound of his voice opened her eyes.

Hollings glanced around and shivered. “Okay, now I get that feeling again.”

“My partner’s here.” Kirsten winked at her, and stood up with a hand on her forehead. “I’ve never seen this before. The body is so blank it’s trying to absorb psionic energy.”

Dorian gave the dead man a curious look. He stooped and put a hand on the corpse’s shoulder, and vanished. The body’s mouth filled with luminous fog, which drew itself down the throat a second later.

When the eyes shifted to look at Kirsten, Hollings all but fainted. Dark ichor cried forth, streaking ebon lines down the dead man’s cheeks.

The corpse looked left, then right, then back at Kirsten. The hand twitched. Hollings scooted behind her, clinging.

“What the fuck?”

“Calm down, it’s just Dorian being a dick.”

The body wheezed.

“Get out of there.” Kirsten folded her arms.

Dorian’s hand peeled out of the corpse’s arm, reaching up. Hollings had no reaction.

“Little help…” A breathy wheeze came from dead Mr. Arris.

Kirsten concentrated for a few seconds, rendering her body solid to spirits, and took Dorian’s hand. A hearty pull dragged him free, and the corpse once again became inert. The confusion on his face stalled Kirsten’s imminent grumbling about scaring the poor tech half to death.

“I didn’t intend to jump in,” said Dorian. “However, I think I learned something.”

“Hang on.” Kirsten patted Hollings on the arm. “I know this isn’t gonna help much, but try not to freak out. The dead don’t get back up. I have a ghost following me around and he jumped into that body. The next crime scene you go to, the body won’t move. Don’t dwell on it.”