Harbinger Read online

  Harbinger

  Division Zero Book 5

  Matthew S. Cox

  Division Zero: Harbinger

  Book 5 of the Division Zero series.

  © 2018 Matthew S. Cox All Rights Reserved

  The following is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real persons, places, or ghosts is purely coincidental. No portion of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the author.

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-949174-88-5

  ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-949174-89-2

  Contents

  1. Shared Experience

  2. Priority Ten

  3. Dark Spirit

  4. Squeezy

  5. Turf War

  6. The Legend

  7. More Demons

  8. The Opposite of Cool

  9. A Crazy Explanation

  10. Blood Pentagram

  11. Subject to Interpretation

  12. Spaceship Earth

  13. Witchcraft

  14. Near Death Experience

  15. Beneath and Beyond

  16. Grey Devils

  17. Warped in the Headware

  18. Victim Number Three

  19. The Gloomy Shadow

  20. Seriously Bad Vibes

  21. For the Taking

  22. Lost Puppy

  23. Weaponized

  24. An Awkward Position

  25. Middle Ground

  26. Bring the Fire

  27. Paradise

  28. Climbing Fish

  29. The Big Guns

  30. The Fundamental Fabric of the Universe

  31. Caring

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other books by Matthew S. Cox

  1

  Shared Experience

  Hopeful the day would remain quiet, Kirsten gazed up at the endless parade of ad-bots streaming along like blood in veins of plastisteel and glass. Small ones spiraled around the traffic lane, angling to thrust their holographic ads into positions of maximum visibility, while the big ones lumbered in straight lines like reimagined dirigibles, forcing all who came near to bask in the unabashed glow of commercialism.

  She spent a moment staring at a twenty-by-thirty foot image of a little girl hugging and talking to a synthetic puppy—one just like it could be hers for a mere Ͼ18,999… in twelve easy monthly payments. Her thoughts drifted aimlessly since she didn’t need to pay much attention to hovercar traffic flowing in multiple directions a hundred feet overhead. Her patrol craft hung on auto-stabilize at the fortieth story, rear-end tucked against a building. Its systems would warn her of anyone breaking traffic laws. Most people let the autodrive take over, which increased efficiency as well as safety.

  Mostly, she thought about Evan smiling, laughing, or cheering whenever they defeated a monster in the Monwyn game, but now and then, she tried to figure out how to feel about Samuel Chang. With the impossible at hand—a man who didn’t run screaming at the first mention of the word ‘psionic’—she had gone into unfamiliar territory. Though, after Konstantin, she didn’t want to rush anything despite having a fairly strong feeling Sam wouldn’t turn out to be a maleficar.

  I never want to encounter another abyssal in my life.

  Kirsten forced those thoughts away and smiled at the memory of Evan hugging her before racing off to school this morning. The huge screen trying to sell artificial puppies displayed a close up view of it peeing while scrolling text espoused the virtues of physical activity your kids will enjoy walking their new friend.

  “Does it shred the furniture, too?” asked Dorian.

  She chuckled.

  “No idea how Div 1 officers tolerate this.” He yawned. “I’m dead and I can’t recall ever being this bored before. Oh wait, I can… the last time I participated in this detail while alive.”

  She randomly swiped her finger over the console, brushing away dust. “I dunno. Better we’re bored than someone’s getting hurt somewhere.”

  He glanced over from the passenger seat, his eyebrows a flat line. “This is West City. There’s a shooting every 7.2 seconds, assault every 3.8 seconds… and so on.”

  “Those stats are for the entire city. We’re only responsible for an area up to a three-minute flight from our assigned point.” She half-grinned at the miles-long strand of aerodynamic blurs aglow in the red smear of taillights. “Sitting here on patrol isn’t exactly what I signed up for.”

  “You didn’t sign up for any of it, really.”

  Her whimsical mood dropped as dead as her partner. “Yeah… but it’s better than growing up as a wild thing under the city.” She stared into the distance. The enormous face of the little girl cringed away from the puppy’s licking tongue while giggling. Kirsten shifted her gaze away from the happy child she never was to another bot showing an enthusiastic man slurping up noodles.

  “It’s not quite as rough as the Badlands. Discarded aside, settlements exist down there full of fringers and off-gridders. They would have taken you in.”

  “Sure, if I hadn’t been terrified of adults. I expected they’d all be like Mother and beat the shit out of me as soon as they saw my eyes glow, or a ghost did some random thing trying to get my attention. And the only adult I wound up talking to down there…” She squirmed at the memory.

  The intangible presence of Dorian’s hand offering a reassuring grip chilled her arm. “I’m sorry for making you think of that. I… get why you avoided people.”

  “I guess that guy did me a favor in a way. If I hadn’t done something so stupid, I wouldn’t have been scared enough to risk going to the surface for food to avoid him finding me again.”

  “K,” said Dorian, his voice as serious as she’d ever heard it. “You did not ‘do something stupid.’ An adult took horrible advantage of you when you were a child. You were attacked. It might not have been violent, but it was without a doubt an attack. Nothing he did to you is your fault.”

  Kirsten faked a chuckle to avoid crying. “Now you sound like Dr. Loring.”

  “She’s only saying that because it’s true.”

  “I know… I know.” After a sigh, Kirsten wiped the corners of her eyes. “The bastard never even told me to keep quiet or threatened me, but I was still terrified of him.”

  “He had nothing to be afraid of. Police won’t go down there. He probably tracked you for a while and knew you didn’t have parents in some settlement who’d have killed him for it.”

  Flashing green and blue caught her eye as an ad-bot displaying a trailer for an upcoming new Monwyn movie went by overhead. “Can we talk about something less depressing please?”

  “217,000 some odd people were murdered in West City last year.”

  She blinked at him. “That’s less depressing?”

  “To me.” He patted her arm again. “Not as depressing as hearing about the worst moment in the life of a woman I’ve come to regard as my kid sister.”

  “Dorian…” She squirmed again and fidgeted with her hands. “What that man did to me is nowhere near as bad as murder on that scale.”

  “Tragedy is relative. A big number on a report doesn’t mean as much as one individual you care about. And… drop that nonsense about some people have it worse. It doesn’t make what happened to you any less significant.”

  She bowed her head. “Thanks. Maybe someday I’ll really believe it wasn’t my fault. I could’ve run away, could’ve said no…”

  “In the state you were in back then, if you had been able to run away from the promise of real food… you would have.”

  Kirsten sighed.

  “Anyway, you’d think they’d have sent something your way by now.” He poked at the console. “The entire point of this ‘shared experience’ training is for Division 0 officers to get some field experience
.”

  She patted the black PSI armor covering her thigh. “It’s not exactly fair. Div 1 can’t deal with our stuff, so they don’t have to run our cases.”

  “You’re not having Div 2 inquests dropped on your head. You’re playing beat cop for the day.”

  “I know. Watch commander’s probably giving me an easy ride. You saw the way he looked at me. Shortest one in the room. Probably thinks I’m a fifteen-year-old Admin cadet.”

  “With lieutenant bars?” He raised an eyebrow. “Besides, you’re the only astral on the West Coast. They know you.”

  “I hardly think I’m the only Astral Sensitive on the west coast. Others haven’t been located. Probably because they think they’re insane. There’s at least one in East City, that girl Hannah or something.”

  “The only one old enough anyway.” He grinned. “She’s thirteen.”

  Kirsten sighed.

  “As opposed to looking like thirteen.”

  She laughed.

  The holographic image of a twenty-something man with brown skin and black hair appeared in the middle of the console, shoulders of a plain blue jumpsuit framing the bottom of the portrait. “Unit 1815-0I4, please respond to active dispatch 0117. Additional units are being notified, but you are the closest. Patrol Officer Gage hit his panic button, and neither he nor his partner are responding to comms.”

  “Copy!” Kirsten flicked on the bar lights, flooding the area outside with rapid camera-flashes of blue, then accelerated into a climb up past the flow of traffic.

  Hovercars partially scattered out of the lane. About ten drivers probably experienced near heart attacks at the sight of a police vehicle coming out of nowhere behind them with its lights on. Once she shot past them and leveled off a hundred feet over the civilian lane, the traffic stream beneath her collected back into an orderly flow. A faint siren noise played from the console, indicating her emergency transponder broadcast a warning tone to any hovercar within a quarter mile. The siren’s volume varied to simulate distance and direction, even though the other cars’ audio systems created it.

  Two high-rises east from where she’d been lurking, she swung around a tower of glittering black glass, weaving up and down to dodge a veritable maze of walkways spanning the street between buildings.

  A blinking red pin on the Navcon indicated a point 1.83 miles from her current location, a trip that barely took twelve seconds. She dove toward the flashing lights of a Division 1 patrol craft on the ground, flying nearly straight down at the blue-and-white vehicle.

  “Wait!” shouted Dorian. “You don’t know what you’re running into.”

  Kirsten decided not to make a sarcastic remark to her ghostly partner about recklessly charging into a situation, something he’d done—once. She slowed the car and swiped at the windscreen, zooming in on the ground below.

  Two Division 1 officers stood on the street corner, their sidearms leveled off at each other’s helmets. A young boy around Evan’s age with short, black hair and the well-worn clothes of a street urchin stood a few paces away, staring at the cops. Alarmingly, he didn’t appear frightened.

  He looked angry.

  Kirsten blinked. “Okay, that’s weird. You wanna go turn those guns off?”

  Dorian nodded and glided down out of the patrol craft.

  “Dispatch, this is unit 1815-0I4. I’m onsite at event 0117.”

  “Copy, 1815,” said a voice from the console.

  She rotated the car level at ten stories off the street, continuing to descend. The whirr of the ground wheels extending vibrated the frame. A barely-noticeable light orb floated around the two patrol officers since the electronic windscreen didn’t do a good job of rendering ghosts.

  The instant the car’s weight settled onto its tires, Kirsten shoved the door open and stepped out, her view going from two cops and a glowing spot to two cops plus Dorian. Lights, and the ammo display, on the weapons had gone dark, giving her a tentative sense of security.

  “Trouble agreeing on where to go for lunch?” asked Kirsten.

  Both men twitched, their silver-visored helmets making it impossible to see facial expressions. They grunted and kept pointing their weapons at each other. She waited only a second before checking their surface thoughts—both men had succumbed to the effect of a psionic suggestion, compelling them to hold their weapons on each other and shoot if either tried to leave. Their most recent memory showed that boy ordering them to do it.

  Kirsten redirected her attention on the kid, but couldn’t bring herself to draw her E-90 on him. “Hi there. I need you to stop using your abilities on these officers.”

  “Okay,” said the boy. “As soon as you guys find who killed my brother, Juan Miguel. Point your gun at them.”

  The incoming mental command washed over Kirsten’s brain with a sensation similar to walking into raw egg in zero-gravity. She smirked, brushing it aside. “No. Get on the ground. And keep still.”

  He emitted a small grunt, his string bean body shaking from his effort to resist her, and collapsed to the sidewalk like a gradually malfunctioning doll. Frustrated, he went past angry to crying.

  Kirsten approached the officers, faint white light flashed in the eyes of her reflection on their mirrored visors. “Ignore the boy’s command.”

  Both men let their arms drop limp at their sides.

  “Son of a bitch,” muttered the taller one, Gage. “Damn kid’s lucky he’s so small.”

  Officer Kepler slouched. “That was some psionic shit, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” said Kirsten in a flat tone, bracing for derision. “I got him.” She poked a finger at the silver bud in her left ear. “Dispatch, this is Wren, 1815-OI4. Event neutralized.”

  “Copy that, 1815. Do you require additional resources on site?” asked a voice in her ear.

  “Negative, Dispatch. Suspect is one psionic juvenile. I’m assuming jurisdiction.”

  “Copy. Transferring from active dispatch event to Inquest and tagging you.”

  “Thanks,” she muttered.

  “Oh crap…” Kepler saluted her. “Sorry, lieutenant… didn’t notice the rank.”

  She returned the salute. “You don’t need to salute me in the middle of an active situation.”

  “No weapons on the kid.” Dorian stood up from a crouch beside the boy.

  “Let me go!” shouted the kid.

  “Not so fun, is it, brat?” Kepler started to point his weapon at the boy, but noticed the dark screen on the back end. He banged it on his armored leg a few times. “Crap. What the hell?”

  Kirsten stepped around them and headed over to where the child lay on the sidewalk. “You’re welcome.”

  “That’s my line.” Dorian smiled.

  “Damn psionic weirdness. Now you guys can turn guns off with your minds?” Kepler swapped magazines. His gun lit up with a chirp, and he holstered it.

  “A mag battery can be recharged. They can’t put your brains back in.” Kirsten pulled the psi inhibitor out of its belt case, flicked her wrist to make it snap open into a ring, and secured the thin metal headband in place on the boy.

  “Bet these two would love hearing about ghosts.” Dorian grinned.

  “Exactly why I’m not bothering,” whispered Kirsten.

  “Hey, look.” Kepler walked over. “I don’t hate you guys. Just creeps me out being defenseless against anything a psio might wanna do to me.”

  She smirked up at him. “Welcome to being a woman.”

  He stared at her in stunned silence, fists clenching.

  Kirsten raised an eyebrow. “Guess you’re not big on subtlety. I wasn’t calling you weak. We live with that feeling constantly. Starts right around the time we hit puberty and grown men start checking out our asses. If I wasn’t psionic, I’d be on edge being in arms’ reach of a guy your size I didn’t know no matter how nice he was.”

  Dorian clasped his hands behind his back and grinned. “She still kind of is.”

  Neither cop reacted.

&nbs
p; “Am not,” muttered Kirsten, trying not to smile. “Well, unless they’ve got vibro claws.”

  “Oh.” Kepler relaxed. “Right. Yeah. I get it. Sorry. Little fucked up from that kid making me hold my gun on Gage for the past twenty minutes.”

  “Damn!” Gage punched a vendomat on the corner next to a PubTran terminal.

  “Took your money and didn’t spit out the donut?” asked Dorian, not that either man noticed.

  Kirsten bit her lip to avoid snickering as she secured the boy’s hands behind him in plastic ties… his slender wrists would slip straight out of the metal binders. She lost a moment holding his hand, examining his grime-encrusted nails.

  Gage snarled and slugged the giant boxy machine again.

  “Feel better?” asked Kepler.

  She patted the boy down, finding nothing in his pockets but a candy bar, two small toy cars, and several empty wrappers. “That thing take his credits?”

  “Nah. Blowing off steam. Suspect is too damn small to tune up.” Gage finally swapped magazines, bringing his sidearm back to life, and paced around.

  Two more Division 1 cars swooped in to land.

  “Just shoot me,” muttered the boy.

  She froze, nearly choking on the sudden lump in her throat.

  Four additional officers rushed over, but upon seeing the situation diffused, put their weapons away and gathered in a cluster. When Kirsten hauled the kid up to his feet, the other patrol officers stared in shocked silence at the threat to two officers turning out to be a kid so small.