Free Division Zero by Matthew S. Cox Page A

face. “Well at least you recognize it as a delusion. That is the first step to recovery.”
    “Hah.” She paused at the side of the patrol craft to open the door.
    Kirsten settled into the padded grey seat, closing her eyes and enjoying a moment of comfort. The dull hum of the various systems in the car had a soporific effect, threatening to drag her away from consciousness. She spent a few minutes observing people entering and leaving the hotel until a simultaneous beep from her NetMini and the car’s communication terminal startled her.
    David sent over the enhanced image of the man’s face. Nice and clean, it made a good still to use with the recognition software. Now wide awake, she leaned forward and worked at the terminal. Her fingers flashed with blue every time they broke through the veil of light to ‘press’ a holographic button. After setting filters for male, age sixteen through thirty-five, Caucasian, and dark hair, she ran it. The system churned through dozens of faces and she took the opportunity to order a cup of coffee from the hotel.
    The car filled with the fragrance. Nursing the divine nectar sip by sip, she watched the faces cycle. Fifty or sixty per second for quite some time until a hit came up. Six weeks ago, a man by the name of Adrian Lewis obtained identity credentials and a NetMini account. The official head shot taken by the Identity Bureau made a perfect match. Another screen popped up, filling with text containing hundreds of tags from the city-cams. With enough time, one could track a person’s entire routine.
    “Kind of scary, isn’t it?” Dorian poked the screen.
    “What’s that?”
    He pointed at the red and green text drifting by from the surveillance log. “Every time one of the city-cams recognizes a face, it logs it. We can tell how he walks to work every day.”
    “I guess; it’s damn handy to catch criminals with though. As long as they keep it out of our homes, I don’t see the problem.”
    “Many would disagree, but there’s not much to do about it now. Before the war, nothing like this would have ever passed a vote.”
    “I hate politics. I just want to keep my head down, do my job, and try to do right by everyone… ghosts included.”
    Dorian chuckled. “You know the quote about all that’s necessary for evil to win?”
    She shot him a pained look. “It’s not like I’m sitting around doing nothing, but I’m flattered you think I’m good.”
    “One of the few that are left, I’m afraid. Hey, look at that.” He interrupted himself, pointing at another screen. “There’s an ICR on him.”
    The terrified face of a boy, no older than five, stared out from the screen; she knew the expression all too well―she wore a similar one every time her mother came for her. The Initial Contact Report identified Adrian Lewis as a psionic fifteen years ago. He had not been interviewed to catalogue his talents due to his disappearance soon after Division 0 found him.
    Kirsten fussed at her hair. “The name is a match. He’s so little I can’t tell if it’s the same person.”
    Dorian rubbed his chin. “The timing is about right; he looks like he’s maybe nineteen or twenty.”
    “Let’s go ask him.”
    A citycam trace required a lot of time and data sifting to perform pattern analysis. A NetMini track, however, could provide real time information about a person’s whereabouts. It took her less than a minute. A yellow dot appeared at his location, drifting along on a dark blue map of the city. Cyan lines traced the paths of the streets and hollow green hexagons appeared around points of interest, thin lines trailed off to details about the location.
    “Got him.” She pulled the patrol craft into the air and darted off in that direction.
    “I wonder what it was like.” Dorian reclined.
    She lifted an eyebrow at him. “What?”
    Lacing his fingers behind his head, he examined the inside of his eyelids. “When police actually had to work to find their