Free Division Zero: Lex De Mortuis by Matthew S. Cox

detonation about seven months ago, four bodies recovered.”
    “I was talking to”―Kirsten sighed―“never mind. Shit, do you feel that?”
    “Feel what?” Nicole looked over.
    “Yeah.” Dorian edged into the shadows of the backseat. “Harbingers?”
    Kirsten looked ahead, then at the dashboard, then at her lap. “I… No, it doesn’t feel right.”
    Nicole peeled her eyes away from the terminal, leaning over the driver’s seat to peek into the building. “Just pull inside, the hole’s big enough.”
    “I’m not risking the floor collapsing.”
    Kirsten pulled the car into a vertical ascent and landed on the roof a few minutes later. The air held a faint trace of foul, somewhere between chemical and fecal. Stale industry picked at her throat as she crunched through trash and kicked synthbeer canisters out of her way. She stopped in front of the roof access, and frowned at the dark interface panel. The building had no power. Without it, her police override code would do no good. She banged on the door three times.
    “Anyone in there?”
    Waiting.
    “Hello?” Bang, bang, bang. “This is the police. I’m about to open this door with a laser. If there is anyone on the other side of it, yell now. You have ten seconds.”
    Dorian shook his head, walking past her through the door. In a moment, his head came back out. “It’s clear.”
    “Sorry.” She took the E-90 out of its holster. “I sometimes forget you’re a ghost.”
    “Ghost?” Nicole whirled about. “Where?”
    Kirsten bit her lip, raising the weapon. “It’s a long story.”
    She aimed at the door, thought better of it, and backed up ten feet before firing at the lock plate. The first shot melted a hole through cinderblocks.
    “Calm down,” whispered Dorian. “Your hand is shaking.”
    Her second try melted the knob into a spray of hot metal. The third did enough damage in the right place to let the door swing free. Nicole grunted, and the flap of metal flew open hard enough to slam a pound of dust off the wall.
    Kirsten’s expression twisted into one worthy of Nicole’s picture wall. “Fuck.”
    “Sorry, that was me.” Nicole offered a sheepish cringe, and stood up straight. “Hey, why are you so edgy?”
    Kirsten walked around Dorian rather than through him, making him chuckle. “The video I showed you on the ride over here. That, and something doesn’t feel right.”
    She crept past bare cinderblock walls rife with the dry scent of aerosolized dirt. A vertical shaft ran the length of the building, leading down into the dark. Sudden light caused Kirsten to whirl. Nicole caught her hand, keeping the E-90 aimed at the wall. Panic melted to accusation in Kirsten’s eyes as she glared at the strips of light on the sides of Nicole’s helmet.
    “Please warn me, light coming out of nowhere can mean so many things…”
    “Sorry,” whispered Nicole. “You really need to calm the hell down.”
    Kirsten sighed a wordless apology and put the gun back on her belt.
    “So…” Nicole peered over the railing from the seventy-fourth story roof. The lights made long streaks through air smoky with dust. “Thirteenth floor, huh? About that long of a story?”

    “Seriously?
That’s
why the car does that?” Nicole grinned. “Cool!” She paused, biting her knuckle. “I mean… It’s not cool he’s dead, but…”
    “Tell her not to worry about it, no offense taken.”
    “He says it’s okay.”
    “So you, like see him all the time? Does he like watch you in the shower?”
    “No.” Dorian and Kirsten answered simultaneously.
    “Is he the one you have a crush on?”
    Kirsten stumbled over the last step on the fifteenth floor landing. “No.”
    “Liar,” Nicole taunted through a smile.
    Dorian found the wall to be rather interesting all of a sudden.
    “It’s…” Kirsten sighed. “Maybe if he were alive, but… Even as a ghost, he’s my partner.”
    Nicole shook her head. “They say it’s a bad idea to get romantic