Division Zero: Thrall (34 page)

“Not my fault this time.” He held his hands up. “I’m over my 200 meter thing. Umm, yeah. Our guy must’ve been one piece of work; he only made it about a quarter mile before
they
got him. You didn’t call in artillery, did you?”

“Harbingers already? No, it wasn’t me. Shit the guy must’ve been on their radar already…” She shuddered. “Lucky thing we found the girl before he could…”

Dorian smirked. “I don’t think that’s what he wanted her for. He said he was going to make it painless, sounds like something an assassin would say. I think he was trying to get rid of a witness.”

“I guess an assassin would get their attention, but it still seems fast.”

He rubbed her shoulder, causing a shiver at the cold. “I hate to break your illusion, K. Harbingers don’t think crimes against children are any worse than crimes against any other innocent soul. I’m betting the guy had something to do with the abyssals we keep finding. That kind of thing is what really gets their knickers in a twist.”

Kirsten spun about, sighing. “I lost her.”

“Over there.” Dorian pointed. “Probably in that old car. I can feel someone alive in there.”

“Creepy.” Kirsten jogged over.

“All the things you’ve seen and me saying I can feel the presence of the living is creepy?” Dorian laughed.

“I guess that
is
a bit lame, huh?”

Kirsten peeked through the grime-encrusted window of a car that had not driven since many years before she was born. A small figure huddled in the back seat, curled into a ball with her feet crossed. Her head lifted. The whites of her eyes glowed lime green, like the back end of a firefly.

“Hey, sweetie.” Kirsten cooed through the cracked glass. “Easy, kiddo. I’m a friend.” She tugged at the handle.

Shivering, the child did not show any reaction to the door creaking open. She shook at a near convulsion, sweating as if it were a hundred and ten degrees out, despite it being the middle of September. Her surface thoughts came on in a disorienting blur. Reality liquefied. The skin of Kirsten’s face melted away in the girl’s thoughts, leaving the skull to chatter behind eyeballs swinging on nerve fibers.

“Holy shit.” Kirsten cut off mental contact. “This kid is fucked up.”

“Be careful. Judging by all that sweat, she’s in the midst of the comedown phase; but she’s still probably stronger than a grown man.” Dorian grumbled. “I’d love to find the son of a bitch that gave Lace to a juvenile.”

Kirsten glanced at him. “You don’t need another summary on your conscience.”

“It wouldn’t be on my conscience, K. Any Division One cop would end whatever waste of humanity was responsible for getting a kid hooked on that shit. It’s a damn death sentence. It’s so addictive, people have died from missing a re-dose by hours.”

“Hey, kiddo, come on. You need some food. Let me get you somewhere safe, alright?” Kirsten reached toward her.

The girl watched the hand get closer and closer to her leg. Just before contact, she lunged forward and stomp-kicked Kirsten in the face. The impact knocked her out of the car and onto her back, seeing stars.

“You okay?” asked Dorian.

“Yeah…” Kirsten blinked and spat. “She stepped in coffee.”

When the girl leapt out of the car, Kirsten rolled left and got an arm around the child’s legs, taking her down. She seized the skinny waif by an ankle and hauled her back far enough to get a hand on the shoulder before the fit of shrieking and thrashing went into full gear. An elbow to the gut lifted Kirsten off the ground and took all the wind from her sails. She fell, both arms wrapped around the girl’s shins to arrest her flight.

The kid rolled over, clawing at Kirsten’s face. She ducked, wrestling to get control of the urchin’s arms. She still had enough strength left to overpower Kirsten, reversing the hold and climbing on top of her. Her grip on the child’s wrists slid up grimy forearms as the girl forced her arms down and got her hands around Kirsten’s throat.

What the fuck! This kid is trying to kill me?
“Hey,” she croaked. “
Stop!”
Kirsten’s eyes glowed white for an instant.

This time, the suggestion stunned the girl into a series of facial tics. Kirsten took advantage of the mental shutdown to flip the child onto her chest and gather her arms behind her back.

“She’s too skinny for binders, use the riot ties,” said Dorian.

“I’m not restraining an eleven-year-old.” Kirsten thought back to how patient the Division 1 officers were when they hauled her off the street at that age.

“I know what you’re thinking, K.
You
weren’t on Lace. This kid can really hurt you. Do you want to let her force you into a situation where you have to shoot her? What if she tries to leap out of the car while we’re in the air?”

Kirsten sat back on her heels, pinning the girl down while she secured her hand and foot with plastic strips. “I…”

“It’s for her own safety.”

The girl wailed and thrashed. The plastic creaked.

“Might want to put on three pairs,” said Dorian.

Kirsten brushed hair off the girl’s face, caressing the side of her head and whispering in a soothing tone. “Easy. Calm down, I’m not here to hurt you. Everything’s going to be okay. You’re not in trouble.”

She gave up fighting, going limp on the alley. The whining came next, whimpered pleas for freedom. Kirsten reached for her uti knife to cut the girl loose.

“Don’t. She’s playing you.” Dorian put a hand on Kirsten’s before she could get the knife off her belt. “Don’t trust anything she does until after detox. All she wants to do is run off and find more Lace. Might look like she’s only a child, but she will kill anyone who gets between her and another dose.”

A pat down found no weapons, but Kirsten felt something in the girl’s right pants pocket.

“Careful, don’t just jam your hand in there,” said Dorian. “Could be a needle.”

With great care, Kirsten extracted a one-inch long clear plastic ampule about as big around as a large drinking straw. One end had a white cap and built-in needle; the other contained a drop or two of a luminous green liquid, the same color green that shone from the whites of the little girl’s eyes. Kirsten scowled at the injector, and frowned at the dark, V-shaped scars on the side of the thin, dirty neck.

The girl stared at the spent injector, as if the drop or two within it was the difference between life and death. She wriggled, eyes begging Kirsten to let her have the last bit.

Kirsten, now crying, looked up at Dorian as she struggled to hold the child down. “You’re right. I do wanna shoot the guy that gave it to her.” She sighed, poking at her armband to call the patrol craft to her location.

eal, as it turns out, can suck the life out of anything when overdone. Kirsten frowned at the walls, at the men jogging past her in the same color scrubs. Even the cushions of the bench she sat on were stuck somewhere in the no-man’s-land between green and blue. She glanced up from her meditative hatred of the hue as a commotion three doors to her right attracted two medtechs as well as a real doctor at a full run.

She leaned forward, elbows on her knees and fingers twined, staring at the floor between her boots. “I’m pretty sure it’s pointless, but I’m half tempted to try praying.”

Dorian, seated to her left, chuckled. “If it makes you feel better, it’s not pointless.”

“I dunno. Why do we keep searching for a parental figure when life gets out of control? The minute people find themselves in a situation beyond reason, they reach for the man in the sky.”

“People have been debating that question for centuries, K. Humans need to feel like they’re in control. When they lose that feeling, they have to explain it. Random circumstance is so cold and impersonal. The concept of a deity is the perfect scapegoat for bad luck or a valve to channel away guilt at good fortune. Something bad happens, and God must have wanted it to. Something good happens, and he must like you more than everyone else. It’s a way to disavow personal responsibility or just plain bad luck.”

Kirsten laughed. “I guess I have Judas in my family tree.”

Dorian became solid enough to give her a light shove. “The self-loathing thing does not work for you.”

She looked up from the floor to say something, but glanced to her right. The girl from the alley, now clean and wearing a form-fitting hospital smock, walked barefoot into the hallway past a group of staff. A series of plastic tubes hung loose, dangling from adhesive patches on her left arm all the way up to the sleeve, which ended an inch south of her armpit. Head down, she trudged as if being sent off to punishment.

Nearing, she glanced over at Kirsten and approached to within inches of the bench. The child’s eyes no longer radiated green light, though a dull pea soup color had stained the whites. Bony arm raised, near-skeletal fingers curled in a wave at Dorian.

“Hi.”

Kirsten, trembling, reached out and put her hand through the girl’s shoulder. Finding the child insubstantial, she broke down in sobs. Dorian patted her on the back.

The girl sat on her right, swishing her feet back and forth as she plucked at the smock where it stopped at mid-thigh.

“The seat is cold.”

Kirsten gathered her composure and forced her body solid to spirits. She grabbed the girl’s hand and squeezed. “What happened? Why are you out here?”

“They’re still working on me,” said the girl, in a tone close to bored. “I was watching them do stuff to me while I was on a table. I guess something went wrong ‘cause they got all freaked out and threw me in a fish tank. I don’t really want to see it. It’s slimy.”

Kirsten, still crying, giggled. “I hate those tanks.”

Dorian got up and jogged toward the commotion.

“I’m Kirsten.”

“Brooke. Sorry for kicking you in the face.”

“It’s okay. I know you weren’t in control. Father Villera called me to help you.”

Brooke glanced up at her. “He’s nice.”

“You should go back to your body before they try to wake you up.” Kirsten forced a nervous smile, hoping it was not too late.

“Why?” Brooke frowned. “I’m gonna die anyway. I got nowhere to go, better I just kick off now before I get raped.”

Kirsten pulled her into a spongy hug. “No, you’re too little. What are you, eleven? I was on the street too at your age. It’s not hopeless.”

Dorian jogged over, waving at Kirsten until she looked up. “Brooke crashed. From what they’re saying, it sounds like her heart gave out. Two doctors are trying to resuscitate her now. Don’t have a lot of time.”

“I wanna go away.” Brooke squirmed, trying to stand out of Kirsten’s grip. “My grandpa is calling me from that way.” She pointed down the hall.

“What about your parents?” Kirsten squeezed her.

“My parents are dead. They were fuckin’ gang trash anyway. Shot by cops, good for ‘em. They deserved every bullet.” Brooke stopped swinging her feet. “I don’t want to be in this world anymore.”

“No! Don’t say that. The system is good to kids, you’ll get placed with a new family.”

Brooke glared. “Yeah, I’ll sit in a damn government facility till I’m seventeen before they find someone willing to let a scrawny Lace-head in their house.”

“What about colony adoption?” asked Dorian. “There’s no waiting list there.”