The Shadow Fixer Page 16

  She exhaled. “Right. So, they sent for me.”

  “How come?” asked Tech Kelly.

  “I’m an astral. Everything no one else can explain ends up on my desk.” Kirsten read over the Inquest file on her armband’s holo-panel. It had no record of any other Division 0 on site. Guess Tactical made a separate Inquest, or maybe the dispatcher screwed up and started a new one instead of tagging me in the existing one. Dammit! Her stomach sank at the thought Mr. Mendoza had been dead before she even heard about this incident. The 21-49 code kicked her straight in the adrenal glands, making her worry she had to haul serious ass to stop a pissed off spirit from killing someone.

  “What exactly happened here?” Kirsten looked around at everyone.

  “Sorry, lieutenant.” Tech Kelly pointed at her terminal. “The deceased was undergoing routine surgery to remove several tumors from his lower intestine. For reasons we haven’t been able to determine, the nanobots went crazy and ate millions of holes in him. Can’t see them without magnification, but he’s a sponge. All of his blood leaked out into the b-gel. Heart couldn’t pump anything because of the damage. Multiple organ failure. Nerve damage. Brain damage.”

  The female medtech approached, no trace of fear in her at all. A few strands of her blonde hair escaped the sanitary bonnet, proof it had been quite crazy in here. “I saw the ghost. So did Dr. Nash.”

  One of the women in white jumpsuits, the one with grey hair, nodded.

  Kirsten peered up at the medtech’s emerald green eyes. At five foot even, she’d long ago accepted going through life looking up at people, but women didn’t usually make her feel so tiny. This one even had an inch or so of height on Dorian. “Do you mind if I peek at your memory of it?”

  “Go right ahead.” The tech, Michaela Skye according to her badge, smiled. “I know the drill. The other guy already did it.”

  Dorian moved on from the tank, checking around the large electronics cabinets.

  Grr. Should be in the Inquest already. They didn’t even link it. Kirsten smiled, then established telepathic contact with Michaela.

  The woman’s memories showed her standing by a console, monitoring the performance of ‘nanobot squads’ attacking three tumors within Mr. Mendoza’s large intestine. The doctors manually controlled other nanobots removing more delicate fibrous extensions of the tumor tissue where it had migrated into the liver. Since she’d already uploaded the procedure to the system, Michaela mostly stood there watching in case something went wrong.

  A sudden sense of dread came out of nowhere, making Michaela feel as though she’d die if she didn’t run out of the room right away. She started to take a step but couldn’t bring herself to leave a patient. Despite shaking, she gripped the side of her terminal and held on, refusing to run. Jake, one of the other techs, screamed and fainted. Soon after, the overpowering fear abated, and she caught a flicker of light in the corner of her eye. Michaela glanced away from her large holo-panel toward the tank, at a fist-sized light orb hovering roughly where Dorian had touched earlier.

  What the heck is that? whispered Michaela’s voice in her mind.

  She worried a severe electrical problem in the machinery had released ball lightning. However, before Michaela could call attention to the orb, it flickered into the form of a transparent, somewhat muscular man. From behind, she couldn’t really guess his age, but the grungy dark yellow jacket and pants gave off a construction worker vibe.

  “Hey!” shouted Michaela. “Who are you?”

  The grey-haired woman—the only doctor in the room at the time—plus the other two medtechs all looked over, noticed the spirit, and jumped away in shock. Various alarms went off on the terminals, flooding the room in red light. Though the spirit hadn’t appeared to have done anything, the medical tank systems went haywire.

  Michaela looked back at her terminal, noting readouts showing the nanobots haphazardly perforating biomatter at random, drilling holes and destroying tissue without regard for where. The terminal disregarded her attempts to shut them down, throwing connection errors or ‘command not recognized’ errors for several seconds before simply dying to a black screen.

  The doctor shouted about the ‘red button’ not working.

  More alarms went off as Mr. Mendoza’s heart stopped.

  Michaela stared transfixed at the spirit. Another, much smaller light orb shot out of the tank, zooming into the wall. The ghost collapsed back into a glowing orb before zooming straight down into the floor.

  Kirsten released her telepathic link. “Wow. This one’s been around a while. Tech Kelly, please send me any video feeds of this room during the event.” She tapped at her armband terminal, entering notes on the Inquest file.

  The woman nodded. “Will do, lieutenant.”

  “What do you mean by ‘been around a while’?” asked Michaela.

  “You saw him appear in front of the tank as a transparent apparition. I’m not entirely sure why he bothered to manifest at all, but a spirit capable of being seen by normal people so clearly is fairly powerful.”

  Tech Kelly stood and walked up to her. “Lieutenant, I’ve run multiple diagnostic tests on the system. Overloaded capacitors, broken connections, and some dead sub-boards. None of the damage would have caused the nanobots to malfunction. It’s commensurate with a power surge. The logs are full of error messages indicating the nanobots failed to respond to control input, right up until the whole thing fried. At first, we thought it might have been the work of a hacker, but Ancora is surprisingly intelligent—all the tanks are on a closed system. None of these systems involved in nanosurgery have direct access to the GlobeNet.”

  “They did it to avoid lawsuits,” muttered Dorian. “There is ghost all over this machinery.”

  Kirsten glanced at him. “I’m assuming you mean metaphorically and a spirit didn’t explode.”

  “Yeah.” Dorian gestured at the big computers. “Feels like he blew them out intentionally. Pure damage. Not trying to use the computers to get to the nanobots.”

  “He wanted to stop the medical team from saving the guy.” Kirsten rubbed the bridge of her nose, angry at circumstance because she hadn’t gotten here in time to save him.

  “I know that face.” Dorian patted her shoulder, his touch manifesting as a chilly spot. “You’re wondering who tagged this as a 21-49.”

  “Yep.” She let her arm fall to her side and looked at the doctors. “Have you already given statements to the other Division 0 officers?”

  The grey-haired doctor, Vivian Nash according to her badge, nodded. “Yes. I spoke to them already. Don’t your people keep notes?”

  “Of course we do.” She forced a smile. “I’m on the investigation side, the tactical team has a separate report. Due to a minor miscommunication, they sent me in on an emergency call as if the spirit was still running around attacking people. Didn’t have time to read on the way here.”

  Dr. Nash’s expression softened. “I see. Do you need me to go over it all again?”

  “No, doctor. If the other team already interviewed you, it won’t be necessary.” She glanced at the other doctor.

  “Dr. Kumar wasn’t here during the event,” said Dr. Nash. “She’s been trying to convince me I hallucinated the spirit.”

  “I’m sure she thinks she saw something.” Dr. Kumar smiled. “Probably a trick of light created by the equipment shorting out or perhaps a psionic projecting an illusion into her mind.”

  “All right.” Kirsten glanced over at the medtechs. “I’m not here to change what anyone believes about supernatural phenomenon. The evidence here is enough for me to conclude a spiritual presence caused this malfunction and death.”

  “Hah.” Dr. Nash pointed at Dr. Kumar. “Told you.”

  Dorian walked in through the wall. “No signs of other tampering in the area, or the suspect ghost.”

  “Were the adjacent rooms in use at the time of the attack?” asked Kirsten.

  “One moment.” Dr. Nash took a NetMini from he
r pocket, tapped at the screen for a moment, then pointed at the wall. “Yes. To the right. They reported no issues.”

  Kirsten sighed hard, tapping her foot. “A spirit targets this patient specifically, kills him, and leaves right after.”

  “Sounds like revenge to me. Or an assassination.” Dorian gestured a thumb at the corpse. “I’d have asked the guy who’d want him dead, but he isn’t around.”

  Doesn’t feel like Harbingers showed up here. “Maybe he chased the killer, wandered off, or transcended right away.”

  “Pardon?” asked Dr. Nash.

  “Sorry. I was talking to my partner.” She smiled. “Would you mind sharing whatever information you have on the deceased?”

  “Your partner’s not with you?” Dr. Kumar tilted her head.

  Dorian turned partially transparent, indicating he’d manifested. “I’m right here, doctor.”

  Dr. Kumar’s face paled.

  Kirsten smirked at him. So much for being the smiling face of psionics. We’re not supposed to shatter people’s worldview. She caught herself about to chuckle at the doctor’s shocked expression and looked at the dead man to stop herself. “What is the official cause of death? Electrocution?”

  “No.” Dr. Nash poked a few buttons on her NetMini’s holo-panel, sending Mr. Mendoza’s PID over. “The electrical surges didn’t reach the breathable gel. Mr. Mendoza experienced multiple organ failure and severe, rapid blood loss due to millions of micro-perforations all throughout his body. His central nervous system suffered extensive physical damage from the nanobots as well.”

  The ghost made the nanobots tear him apart from the inside out. She squirmed at the thought. Poor guy. Hope he didn’t feel it. “Thank you, doctor.”

  Her armband beeped the alert tone.

  “Lieutenant Wren,” said the voice of a younger girl. “There’s a 21-49 in progress! One dead, at least two people in immediate danger, including a child.”

  Kirsten wanted to scream ‘are you sure it’s a 21-49 this time,’ but settled for simply yelling “Shit!”

  Everyone stared at her.

  “Gotta go.” She pointed at Tech Kelly. “Please gather the contact information for everyone in here at the time of the event and send it to me.”

  Before the tech could answer, Kirsten raced out of the room.

  13

  Code 21-49

  Kirsten screamed in her mind out of frustration—for not having the ability to teleport.

  It didn’t matter teleportation only existed in video games. Not being able to instantly arrive at the place where a ghost—theoretically—threatened lives, drove her to the edge. Somehow, despite the overwhelming urgency ruling her brain, she managed to remember the way back to the hospital entrance without making an error.

  She jumped into the patrol craft and executed an emergency liftoff procedure.

  The car shot straight up as if by rocket engines, people nearby stumbling toward it from the rapid updraft. Dorian phased through the door an instant before she accelerated as hard as possible. Her body squished into the seat. The patrol craft went from a hovering standstill to a hair under 600 MPH in seven seconds. Considering its size and the weight of its armor, capability to hit such speeds—much less accelerate so fast—often drew shocked gasps from civilians.

  Sport model hovercars could go supersonic, though doing so inside the city would usually cause someone to lose their license, have the car confiscated, and could include a minor prison sentence. It didn’t matter the police patrol craft couldn’t catch them; the city had enough transponders to identify the car and driver. The police merely found them after they landed.

  In the moment, however, Kirsten would have sacrificed the armor to push the speed up past Mach 1.

  “Dispatch,” yelled Kirsten. “Talk to me. What’s the situation?”

  The head of a maybe-thirteen-year-old girl in an Admin cadet uniform appeared in hologram over the middle of the console. “We received contact from a Suri linked to the NetMini registered to a woman named Johanna Beck. It said a ghost invaded their home, tried to kill the woman’s eleven-year-old daughter, and probably killed a repair technician. According to the Suri, electromagnetic fluctuations are still going on at the address.”

  “Dammit!” yelled Kirsten.

  The hologram girl shrank back.

  “Sorry. Not you. General frustration.” She flattened out of the climb at 1,800 feet, well above even the highest buildings in West City so she could fly in a straight line directly at the waypoint. “If you’ve got the Suri on the line still, what’s the current status?”

  “Standby.” The girl looked to the side. “Suri, what’s going on now? Are Mrs. Beck and her daughter okay?”

  Kirsten shifted her gaze down from the holographic teen to the Navcon. The waypoint led to Sector 2655, a ‘theme’ development of residential housing where single-family homes existed in a recreation of pre-Corporate-War suburbia. Unfortunately, a single family occupying the land footprint equal to a hundred vertically stacked apartments ended up making those houses prohibitively expensive in a city trying to cram as many people into as small an area as possible. People who could afford them didn’t want to live there because the homes were too ‘common.’ Though a handful of people at the upper end of middle class opted to live there, many of the houses sat empty, due to the financing companies taking so long to start lowering the prices for some reason. They’d become more affordable, but anyone living here would not be hurting for money.

  The thought of Henry Motte, the old ghost who lived in a similar neighborhood, brought a tear to her eye. The old guy had been nice. She felt horrible for having to send his son off with a Harbinger… but Albert killed people. At least he showed some remorse at the end and went willingly, unlike every other spirit she’d ever seen a Harbinger take.

  Wonder what happens to spirits like him?

  “Lieutenant?” asked the teen from Dispatch. “Suri says she has no idea about the daughter, Tamsen, since the child is upstairs. Mrs. Beck is unconscious on the floor next to the NetMini in the downstairs living room. Suri called us on her own. She also hears two men talking at the back end of the house.”

  “Understood. Let the Suri know I’ll be there in about three minutes.” Kirsten shifted her jaw side to side. Weird hearing a girl her age refer to ‘the child’ upstairs.

  “Copy, lieutenant. I’m monitoring your ID for this incident. Dedicated mode.”

  Wow. This kid’s on point. Better than the older boy. “Thanks, umm…”

  “Rosana Najafi, lieutenant.”

  Kirsten nodded once at the hologram. “Thanks, Rosana. Glad to have you over my shoulder.”

  The girl grinned, saluted, and vanished.

  “They get younger every call.” Dorian shook his head. “The mix up with the 21-49 at the Ancora facility is the exact reason they need to train dispatchers before they take calls. Not while they’re taking calls. And good grief, let them grow up first.”

  Kirsten exhaled. “For the most part, I agree. But Rosana’s like a prodigy or something.”

  “Until she sees something so horrible she ends up hiding under her bed for months.”

  “She’s not an astral.” Kirsten squeezed the control sticks so hard her hands hurt, trying to force the patrol craft to fly faster from sheer desire. “And psionic crimes tend not to be too disturbing visually.”

  “Pyrokinetics on a bender can get pretty messy.” Dorian glanced over, one eyebrow up.

  “Fair point.”

  * * *

  Two minutes and thirty-nine seconds later, the ‘suburban’ district came into view.

  A two-sector area, ten miles north-south, five miles wide, resembled a pit surrounded by hundred-story residence towers. From 1,800 feet in the air, it looked like a scale model a high school student might make for a history project on pre-war living. The sprawling development contained hundreds of freestanding houses, each with a backyard, attached garage, and front lawn.

 
As a child living in the Beneath, Kirsten saw lots of similar houses, only they’d been abandoned for centuries. Back then, she’d wondered what the world would’ve looked like before the metal plates covered everything. Flying to this place full of rare greenery amounted to walking into her daydreams.

  Alas, she couldn’t spare more than a few seconds of wandering thought.

  The waypoint led her to a beige house on a street lined with similar houses, each one slightly different in design but functionally identical. A white hover van sat in the driveway behind a Halcyon-Ormyr Puma, a small black hovercar in the ‘sporty luxury’ category.

  Disregarding anything but the need to get inside the house as fast as possible, Kirsten landed on the front lawn, throwing up a spray of grass, dirt, and shredded flowers. At the sight of the front door already open, Dorian blurred past her, racing into the house before she even shut the drive system down.

  Kirsten shoved the door out of her way, ran a few steps, then jumped the three porch stairs, summoning the lash on the way into the living room.

  A woman lay on the floor behind a large sectional couch, long light brown hair splayed on the rug. She bled from a cut above her left eye, but otherwise had no visible injuries.

  “Hello, lieutenant,” said Suri from the NetMini on the floor a short distance from the woman’s right hand. “Thank you for helping my family.”

  “Is the ghost still here?” Kirsten crouched, checking the woman’s vitals. The rudimentary medical scanner in her armguard didn’t sound any alarms, so she calmed, considering Johanna Beck unconscious but in no immediate danger.

  “I am still detecting electromagnetic disturbances,” said Suri.

  Straight ahead, an archway led from the living room to a dining room. Another doorway at the far side of the dining room opened to a darkened space with hints of furniture visible. Whispery voices grunted and shouted as though someone watched a martial arts holovid with the volume almost off.