Free Division Zero by Matthew S. Cox

mouth with shock. “You have got to be the rudest person I have ever had the misfortune to―”
    “Oh,
shut up
.” A faint glow danced through her eyes, emphasis on the command.
    His voice stopped dead in its tracks as her psionic suggestion took hold. He gazed dumbfounded, unable to speak. A tendril of drool slid out of the corner of his mouth, snapped off, and landed on his lapel.
    “It’s just an expression, you sanctimonious prick. Now go over there, sit down, and stay out of our way or I’ll have them haul you in for impeding an investigation.”
    “Wow, I wish I could do that.” The tech laughed, then paled, and then saluted. “Tech First Class David Edwards, ma’am.”
    She slumped. “I shouldn’t have, but he was getting in our way. So what do you have?”
    TFC Edwards swiveled a holographic display pane toward her bearing a recording of the lobby, paused on an image full of people.
    “Obviously, it’s surveillance video of the incident. We didn’t notice much at first but caught something the third time through. Pay attention to over here.”
    David pointed at a spot and resumed playback. People streamed in and out of frame going about their usual routine. The murderous doll entered from a service door and jittered into the center of the lobby where it froze. The soon-to-be-dead housekeeper walked into view pushing a cart. After noticing the android just standing there, she went over to check on it.
    Right at that instant, near David’s finger, a thin man in his early twenties poked out from behind one of the marble columns. Staring right at the doll, he made a series of strange expressions. A sweep of long dark hair obscured his face, but she could make out the straining.
    David’s coworker laughed. “I thought he was just shitting in the fern at first.”
    The female tech behind them scolded him in whispers about being professional around an officer.
    Kirsten ignored the exchange and studied the man, noting how the doll’s erratic marionette performance started in time with the strange faces. The sight of it punching through the housekeeper’s chest made Kirsten avert her eyes. From there it wobbled into a crowd of fleeing people and thrashed around, knocking them down like bowling pins. Soon no one remained in arm’s reach of it, and it slumped forward and appeared to power off. Less than a minute later, it resumed its routine as if nothing strange had happened, and got to work cleaning up the bloody mess it had made. The strange man fled with the rest of the panicking crowd. The doll continued mopping until Division 5 showed up and shot it.
    That was thoroughly needless, why did they have to destroy it?
    “Don’t s’pose you got this on thermal?” Kirsten rubbed the bridge of her nose, wondering why Div 5 always made a mess of things.
    David made a helpless face. “At a hotel? What do you think this is, the Diplomatic Towers?”
    Dorian’s voice came from her left. He had one arm folded over his chest and held his chin between the thumb and forefinger of his other hand. “Curious. The doll rampaged almost at the exact instant he began staring at it.”
    Kirsten replayed the recording and studied the man’s face. “It’s almost impossible to tell if he’s doing anything or just having a seizure. Though it is a little curious how well timed it is.”
    David leaned back, nodding. “That’s what we thought.”
    After planting her hands on the counter, she vaulted onto her feet. “Can you get a decent face shot?”
    “Only if he pays for it,” quipped his supposed friend.
    This triggered another wave of whispered yells from their female coworker.
    David smirked and shook his head. “Yeah, I’ll send it to you in a few minutes.”
    “Thank you.” Kirsten headed for the exit.
    “Perhaps a better choice of words there?” Dorian fell into step at her side.
    “You know sometimes I operate under the delusion that I’m working with professionals.”
    A big grin stole across his