The Shadow Fixer Read online

  Dorian tapped a finger to his chin. “Well, usually, the people you’re investigating are already dead, so there’s less consequences if a kid messes up. I don’t think they mean it as a comment on you, personally. And that kid couldn’t have been older than eleven. I didn’t think they started them so young.”

  “Neither did I,” muttered Kirsten.

  “Had to be her first time in the chair.” Dorian smiled. “Adorable. She was so happy when you treated her seriously.”

  “Yeah, well… I know what it’s like to be the kid everyone patronizes.”

  Nine minutes after leaving the PAC, she reached the edge of a dense smog layer hanging approximately from 700 feet to 1,100 feet, obscuring the ground. Dark grey mist peeled into whorls in the patrol craft’s wake, a micro lightning storm of tiny blue sparks flickering within from the ionic discharge. A beep indicated her destination at ten miles out. She slowed down from 602 to 200 MPH.

  The sprawling octopusine silhouette of the Twenty-Nine Palms Mall slid into view at the top of the Navcon screen. Wireframe green lines on the windshield traced the outlines of larger buildings so she could see them past the fog. Flying at 1,200 feet allowed her to pass over most of the city’s structures, though a handful reached 130 stories.

  She dove into the grey, losing all visibility except for the wireframe indicators of solid objects. At 780 feet altitude, streaks of bright colors started whizzing by along with the outlines of orbs and boxes, bots desperately flinging themselves out of the way, likely delivery units going to high-rises around the mall or trying to sell stuff.

  The mall might have only been seven stories tall, but it took up nearly an entire five-square-mile sector. Dispatch provided her with a nav pin straight to the location of the 21-47 call. Since the place lacked roof parking for hovercars due to various ‘outdoor’ venues, she landed in the emergency zone by the entrance nearest the map marker.

  Hundreds of people ranging from older teens to late twenties milled around by the doors, most merely hanging out. Few paid much attention to her arrival, unsurprising considering this place’s reputation. The Twenty-Nine Palms mall, more so than most physical stores, attracted many of society’s lower echelon. Poor people, fringers, off-gridders, gangers, anarchists, and criminals came here as readily as what passed for middle class. Even a few celebrities sometimes shopped here to be ‘trendy’ or ‘cool’ considering the reputation of the place.

  Conditions—and safety—within the mall improved the higher up one went. The ground floor had all the super-cheap stores as well as frequent shootouts. Division 1 embedded a station in the mall due to the high volume of crime on floors one to three, but couldn’t be everywhere in an instant.

  The jaded reaction of the shoppers to her presence had the paradoxical effect of making Kirsten happy. Being ignored equaled normal. Much better than feeling like a freak everyone stared at or ran away from.

  She didn’t dwell on it for more than a second, rushing inside while holding her left arm up to have a waypoint to follow. The small holo-panel floating above her forearm guard displayed a mall map, scrolling with her as she ran like something straight out of the Monwyn games she played with Evan.

  This goblin’s going to be a bit more difficult to beat.

  Another, much smaller, crowd gathered near a food court on the second floor, blocking her off from the spot she needed to reach. Between the electronica music pumped in overhead, the sheer number of people, and the occasional scream, she didn’t even bother trying to yell ‘Police, stand aside,’ and proceeded to push her way forward.

  Predictably, the crowd moved her more than she moved anyone. In the tight confines, no one noticed her uniform. After the second creep grabbed her ass, she pulled out her stunrod, fending off a few more idiots by knocking them utterly senseless. A mere tap to the forehead put them down, blue light glowing from their eyes and mouth, for at least ten minutes. Dorian gave one guy a horrible case of brain freeze for attempting to grab the E-90 off her belt.

  When someone squeezed her breast from behind, Kirsten thrust the stunrod backward at crotch level. The guy collapsed in a heap, squealing.

  Behind him, a teen girl with pink hair gawked. “Oh, shit. Cop! Hey you assholes, move out of her way!”

  A small clearing formed around her, the crowd congealing away like a giant mass of gelatin. Most looked at her with ‘whoops, sorry’ expressions. A handful scowled. Six men and one woman lay unconscious in her wake. Kirsten disregarded them and dashed forward into the food court tables.

  Miraculously, not one person sat there eating. Dozens of trays lay abandoned with partially eaten meals still on them. At least half the chairs had been knocked over, some rather far away from tables. A surprising amount of food splattered the floor and columns, one French fry even ended up stuck in an old bullet hole, suggesting it had flown like a missile. Kirsten stood in the pose of an Old West gunslinger, eyeing the desolate, trashed seating area. Another crowd gathered at the far end of the food court, most holding their NetMinis out, recording video. Scanning the surface thoughts of random people told her many had witnessed trays, chairs, and even tables flying around. One guy had a coat torn off him and hurled at a young woman who’d only been wearing cat ears and a tail.

  This ghost has to be at least eighty if they’re trying to tell cat modders to cover up. Kirsten shivered. According to Dorian, ‘fashion’ had become so extreme the only way to push the envelope further involved not wearing clothing at all. Maybe fifty years ago, men and women with the cat (or other animal) mod fetish would draw shocked gasps. These days, people barely noticed them.

  She again decided against trying to yell over the music and opened her mind to astral energy.

  A sense of a spirit presence gathered near a column a little to the right, maybe forty feet away. Kirsten walked toward the spot, sidestepping to keep some distance between her and a potentially dangerous spirit.

  “Yo, this li’l girl’s got some nerve,” said a deep-voiced man somewhere behind her. “Ain’t ’nuff creds in this whole damn planet get me messin’ with no tray-throwin’ invisible shit.”

  Kirsten edged past the column—and locked stares with a little old woman pacing around a burgundy-and-wood antique wingback chair. A physical book with actual paper pages sat on the cushion. Though the woman appeared as ordinary to Kirsten as any living person, she definitely gave off the energy of a spirit. The chair, however, seemed a little too bright, resembling a high-quality hologram an inobservant person might mistake for a real object. She radiated a good deal of anger, but no malice.

  “Quiet down, missy!” yelled the old woman, right before swiping a tray from a nearby table and flinging it at her.

  Kirsten ducked a gloopy plate of chow mein. “I didn’t even say anything yet.”

  “What’s wrong with you people up here?” shouted the ghost. “I’m trying to read and there’s so much noise I can’t even think! It won’t stop.”

  “Ma’am…” Kirsten stepped closer, so she didn’t have to shout. “Is there something keeping you at 29P? There are plenty of less obnoxiously loud places you could go.”

  The woman hurled an unopened self-cooling soft drink can at her. “Bah.”

  Kirsten dove to the floor, avoiding the metal canister, which smashed through the window of a boutique clothing store. Wow. Either she’s trying to take my head off or doesn’t realize how strong she is. She pushed herself upright. “Ma’am, if you want quiet, you really shouldn’t stay here. If something is keeping you trapped in this place, I can help.”

  “Darn fool. I came here because it’s quieter than where I want to be.” The elder glowered at her. “And put on a damn skirt. Those leggings are too tight.”

  “This place is quieter? Where do you usually live?”

  “Why are you pestering me?” barked the old woman.

  Kirsten tried to radiate as much sweetness as she could. “Are you aware you died?”

  “Oh, sweetie, you really ought to stop aski
ng questions like that. You’re only making the stereotype worse about blondes. Of course I realize I’m dead! I’ve been dead since 2087!” She threw an empty tray, which Kirsten ducked. “It’s been a long damn time. Ain’t stupid. You don’t think I figured out by now? They built the damn cockamamie thing overhead, which is fine by me. Keeps the damn living people the hell away from my peace and quiet, but now there’s the damn racket all the time.”

  She raised her hands in a placating gesture. “If you tell me about it, I’ll do everything I can to make the racket stop. Where should you be?”

  “Barstow.” The woman folded her arms.

  Uhh. Where the heck is Barstow? Gotta be a pre-war name, before sectors. Probably in the Beneath. “All right. I’ll go there and stop the racket.”

  “Why would you bother? You’re too damn young to care about us old people.”

  Kirsten smiled. “I’m a police officer. We still take noise complaints seriously.”

  “Oh…” The woman’s entire attitude shifted from combative to grandmotherly. “Why, thank you, sweetie.”

  She—and her chair—vanished.

  Dorian made odd squeaking sounds, attempting to hold in laughter.

  “Other than an old woman being mad enough to throw things, what’s funny about this?” asked Kirsten.

  “She’s upset about her upstairs neighbors making too much noise.”

  Kirsten started to laugh—but cut it short at the shrill screaming of a terrified child. The crowd at the far end of the food court spun to look behind them. She sprinted past empty tables toward the commotion, reaching the second group of onlookers at the same moment a muscular man in a dark coat appeared on a balcony two stories above, holding a flailing child over his head in both hands. He threw the shrieking six- or seven-year-old girl over the side into a twenty-foot fall heading for plastisteel flooring.

  Despite still being almost a hundred meters away, Kirsten strained to run as if she had a chance to get close enough and catch the girl. A blur of neon green and black appeared from the left, intercepting the child before she smacked into the floor. Almost as though he’d teleported, the lanky figure of a seven-foot-tall cyberganger appeared at the end of the blurry trail. Both his legs below the thigh were dark blue metal, the feet presently expanded out to thin struts bearing multiple wheels—a Mishiro booster, essentially ion-thruster-powered roller blades.

  His baggy black pants had dozens of pockets, chains, and small skulls. Two steel spikes protruded from where his nipples had once been. A twelve-inch neon green spiky mohawk sprouted from his head with smaller half-inch steel spikes running across his eyebrows. He looked like the sort of freak who’d chase people into an alley and cut them open to see what made them work—only, he cradled the frightened girl after catching her, attempting to calm her down.

  Holy shit! What the hell’s a street thug doing with speedware? She shook her head, dismissing the question, and kept sprinting over to him.

  “Nice catch.”

  The ganger looked down at her. “Oi. Someone’s lookin’ for a royal beat down. ’Ere. Take ’er an’ make like ya don’t see what’s ’bout ta happen to that bloke.” He handed the girl over.

  Another scream came from overhead.

  Kirsten looked up the open shaft going from the second floor all the way to the roof, an atrium designed to allow shoppers to easily move between floors. Escalators and elevator tubes surrounded it. Clear barriers on each floor overlooking the wide-open area ought to be high enough for people not to accidentally fall, but a man on the fifth floor had tossed the girl straight over it.

  The same guy threw a boy about Evan’s age headfirst over the barrier. Kirsten glowered at him—and realized she locked eyes with a ghost.

  “Bloody hell.” The cyberganger zipped to his left and caught the boy with relative ease, not even straining to absorb the force of his drop.

  Dorian rushed up the escalator.

  “Hey,” yelled Kirsten. “Stay here and play goalie. It’s a spirit. You can’t kill him. He’s already dead.”

  “Say what, luv?” yelled the ganger. “You off your noggin’?”

  Kirsten summoned the lash. “Nope. But he’s about to be.”

  “Oy, brilliant…” He set the boy on his feet.

  The kid stared around, disoriented.

  Kirsten ran to the nearest tube elevator. The clear plastic pipes contained a constant stream of independent metal discs moving either up or down, essentially delivery bots carrying up to three people at a time. She headed for an upward tube and jumped on the next disc. A frightened man tried to barge in with her when she arrived on the fifth floor, forcing her to knee him in the groin to escape the tube before it whisked her up to the sixth floor.

  People screamed and ran in random directions, fleeing from a half-apparated spirit attacking a girl on the older side of teenaged. The muscular ghost had a hold of a short, slender young woman with cobalt blue hair, cat ears, tail—and metal claws sprouting from her fingertips. She shredded at the air so rapidly her arms became a pale haze of motion, though the constant stream of cursing coming out of her did more damage to him than the plastisteel blades. The confused nature of the swearing made it sound as if the girl couldn’t see the man grabbing her.

  Dorian attempted to wrestle the guy away from the woman—who had to be at least eighteen since she’d obtained cybernetic parts. His effort likely prevented the spirit from tossing her over the barrier into free fall already, though he couldn’t quite break her out of his grip. The struggle had already cost the woman her micro-jacket, which lay nearby. The ghost didn’t appear interested in damaging the rest of her clothes, a hot pink half shirt and black miniskirt, only throwing her to her death.

  At Kirsten’s approach, Dorian used a takedown maneuver, flinging both spirit and young woman to the floor. The instant he rolled away from the guy, Kirsten swung the lash. Few things a ghost could do would make her attack without even trying to talk first. Attempting to kill people, especially kids, ranked second on her list—the first being attempting to harm her kid.

  What the ghost had in strength, he lacked in speed, barely sitting up before the energy whip tore into his quasi-solid body. A visible pulse of energy burst away from him the instant the lash hit him. Kirsten dragged the glowing tendril through him, coiling it back into the air behind her.

  He emitted a loud wail of agony—and exploded into a scattering of loose energy blobs.

  A sense of a spiritual obliteration chilled her bones. At the same moment, the teen experienced a mild convulsive fit while glowing NanoLED tattoos on her cheek cycled among various cute cartoon characters. Kirsten froze, confused, staring at the dozens of little light flecks fading out one after the next.

  “Oookay…” she whispered. “That’s two.”

  “Looked like one to me… or if you’re talking about victims, we’re up to three,” said Dorian.

  The teen recovered from her fit, then whirled to face her, claws up. Her pink top had a cartoon of a cute, sedate white cat in the middle, seated in the pose of a meditating monk wearing big headphones. “What the hell was that flash? Is some psionic shithead trying to rip my clothes off? Why did my ’ware just freak the hell out?”

  Kirsten shifted her gaze from the dancing light blobs to the young woman. “Please take a few breaths and calm down. You were attacked by a spirit who tried to throw you off the balcony. The force pulling at you was the ghost attempting to pick you up.”

  “Umm.” She fidgeted. “Okay… it did kinda feel like someone grabbed me, but he was like invisible.”

  She released the lash, allowing it to dissipate. “When the spirit exploded, he caused an electromagnetic pulse strong enough for any electronic devices within about thirty feet to experience a momentary glitch, including your cybernetics.”

  “Whoa.” The girl retracted her claws back into her fingers, then rubbed her face. “I really need to lay off Flowerbasket.”

  “You didn’t hallucinate. Sorry. Can
you tell me what you remember?”

  “Umm. I was just walking, and it felt like some big dude grabbed me by my jacket and lifted me off my feet. I started trying to claw his face off, but, umm, no dude. Thought it might be one of those people who can move shit with their minds. I got nothin’ against psionics, just creeps.”

  “Sounds like you have personal experience.” Kirsten raised an eyebrow. “Is someone using telekinesis to assault you?”

  The girl sighed. “I think so, but I can’t prove it. This dude who shows up at my work can’t handle a Neko wearing clothes, so he keeps yanking my shit off. It only happens when he’s there, and he makes faces at me.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “I tend bar and wait tables at That Place With Cats by the Place.”

  Kirsten chuckled. “You work there and don’t remember the name?”

  The girl rolled her eyes. “No, it’s literally named ‘That Place With Cats by the Place.’ Jerry used to call it ‘That Shithole’ but people didn’t show up. Then he got the idea to hire a bunch of us with ears and tails, add an army of real cats, and go with a theme.”

  “There are an astounding number of cat-person themed places.” Dorian made an ‘I don’t understand it either’ face at Kirsten.

  “Right,” said the teen. “This dude Gamedi or something is the creep. Hang on, I took a few pictures to warn the others.” She fished a NetMini out of her jacket pocket, tapped the holo-screen, then made a flicking gesture at Kirsten.

  Her NetMini beeped with an incoming file.

  Kirsten redirected the message to her armband terminal. The image showed a pale black-haired guy wearing a maroon dress shirt and black pants lounging on a mini sofa. Behind him, the décor looked like any other bar-slash-restaurant young professionals might go to, only with a cat theme and numerous actual cats.

  “What days does this guy show up?” asked Kirsten. “I’m kinda overwhelmed at the moment with ghost stuff, but I can definitely have someone look into this. If he is using Telekinesis to assault you, it’s considered a criminal act.”