Free Division Zero by Matthew S. Cox Page B

suspects.”
    Kirsten blinked. “How did they ever find anyone without all this?”
    “Pounding ground.”
    “That would take forever. Don’t you think it’s better we have this? We can stop people before they kill again, not follow a trail of bodies.”
    “I suppose you could look at it that way.” His head swiveled toward her. “But it only works if the people pushing the buttons are worthy of trust. It can be abused so easily.”
    “I would never…”
    “I know
you
wouldn’t. That’s not the point. Div 9 can’t control every cop with ulterior motives. Despite what you think, not everyone behind a badge is a saint.” Dorian heaved a sigh. “I suppose it’s about sixty years too late to worry about it. The senate made their decision.”
    “What are you worried about? The government protects us from the ACC.”
    “Convenient isn’t it? The Allied Corporate Council presenting this great ever-present threat.”
    Kirsten scowled. “In case you haven’t noticed, there is a shooting war going on up on Mars. I’ve talked to some of the soldiers that died up there. If you remember, the people who stayed here in the UCF chose loyalty to their government over wage slavery.”
    “Sheep that put on their own collars.” He laughed. “The corporations still do whatever they want, just not in the open.”
    She stared. Now he was baiting her. She wondered if he really believed the conspiratorial stuff he spewed half the time or if he just dangled the lure until she nibbled. This had to be his way of paying her back for constant grousing about metaphysical things. Giving up, she turned her attention to the map and the dots.
    As the two points converged, Kirsten slowed and brought the vehicle to street level. Debris scattered out of the way as the craft settled onto its ground wheels. The hover engines surged as they compensated for the deceleration of landing, sending an army of sparks creeping over the plastisteel surface. She nudged the car forward at a walking pace, rolling through a cloud of mist that flickered azure from the discharge. Their target had to be among the endless stream of people flowing along the sidewalk. Kirsten scanned the crowd, distracted first by a tall spiked pink mohawk and then by a woman with a luminous neon green dress.
    Dorian pointed. “There.”
    Adrian Lewis emerged from an alley, unassuming in a shiny, white, shin-length coat. He wore no shirt under it and loose grey pants obscured the contour of his legs. Black hair circled his face and hung down to the center of his back, he had violet eye shadow and false lashes on. His head bobbed to unheard music as he walked up to a street side trashcan and looked around as if about to do something he wanted no one to witness.
    Kirsten trained the car’s sensors on him, bringing up a magnified view. Adrian fished through the can before holding a credstick up to look at while brushing some unidentifiable yellow goop from it. About the width of a pen, a display at the thickest showed six glowing zeroes.
    “What could he want with an empty credstick?” Dorian lifted an eyebrow.
    Kirsten did not take her eyes off Adrian as she answered. “I dunno, maybe some of those payroll places buy back the empties?”
    Satisfied he escaped observation; Adrian held the three-inch metal rod with both hands near his forehead. A faint tug in her mind told her he used psionic ability, but not the exact nature of what.
    The readout flashed, showing all eights for a moment before the numbers cycled like a slot machine. When it stopped randomizing, the display read 362,144.
    “Well, that’s a neat trick.” Dorian chuckled. “Free money.”
    Kirsten reached for the door after saving the video feed to permanent memory. “Well, now we have enough to bring him in. What he did is no less illegal then if a hacker were to tamper with one.”
    “Yeah but you can’t hack those things, they self-destruct.”
    She did not feel like belaboring the point about what