Read Online Division Zero by Matthew S. Cox - Free Book Online Page B

first fatality? The love doll is missing from the report.” Kirsten tapped her fingers on the datapad. “So there’s no pattern? This all sounds very random.”
    “Well, all four dolls were manufactured by Intera. They were different models though, different ages. The sex doll, a Lily 2, was made more than ten years ago. The receptionist was two weeks old, Maya 6 I think, and the others were all within one to three years from the date of manufacture.” The tech looked through her notes. “They had different firmware revisions, different AI levels but only the receptionist was self-aware.”
    “Oof.” Dorian coughed. “Ten years in service, bet she had a lot of spunk.”
    Kirsten glared, unsure if her disgust arose from the implication or from the pun.
    Shaking her head, she looked back to Tech Xiao. “What happened to the receptionist?”
    “She’s still being held at the lab for observation.”
    Dorian glanced over. “Don’t you mean ‘it’?”
    Kirsten frowned. The law considered self-aware AI’s to have gender. “I’ll need to interview her.”
    “No problem, ma’am. I’ll set it up for you.” Li turned and spoke to thin air, making a vid call on an implanted comm unit.
    Kirsten shot the tech a jealous look. That woman could talk to herself and no one thought her nuts or on drugs. Then again, they stood in a room full of people used to cyberware, and she did not look at an empty seat on a bus while talking to it.
    A long trip around the hotel provided no new additional information. No other witnesses saw anything other than the doll going nuts. No living person could have seen what she suspected; she hoped some other ghost here had caught a glimpse. Alas, after an hour, this turned out to be the one hotel in the city with no resident haunts.
    A tentative male voice came from behind. “Pardon me, Agent?”
    Kirsten spun to find one of the Division 2 crime scene techs trying to act like she did not scare him pale. Her reaction to his trepidation served only to make him more fearful. Relaxing the glare, she looked off to the side.
    “What.”
    He could not make up his mind between a serious face or a disarming smile, and flashed a chimera of both. “There’s something you need to see.”



potbellied man in a cheap black suit stood by a dark synthetic mahogany desk trimmed with fake gold. Bald on top, with a horseshoe of white hair around his head, he pestered the technical crew to get out of his hotel. Threads of spit flew from his lower lip each time he shook his head to add emphasis to what he said. At Kirsten’s approach, his eyes shifted, though he continued his verbal assault on the technical team.
    The techs both glowered at the terminals as they tried to tune him out. Kirsten hopped up onto the counter and sat cross-legged like a teen hanging out at a friend’s house, leaning over the screens.
    “So… what have you got?”
    The agitated man turned on her. “Are you in charge of these people? Do you realize how long this is taking? I have a business to run here. Customers are coming in, seeing the place full of police, and walking right back out! Do you have any idea how bad this is for business? Can’t you people hurry this along?
Must
you sit on the counter? Please get down, you’ll scratch it.”
    Kirsten blinked at him. “This? This isn’t even real wood.” She knocked on it. “Synthetic polymer doesn’t scratch that easy.”
    “I don’t care, that’s not the point. Now take your perfect little ass off the counter.” A tiny globule of saliva took flight with ‘perfect’, landing on her nose.
    His voice had the cadence of an upset preteen and she half expected him to stomp his foot for emphasis. The techs’ annoyance changed to dread as they watched him antagonize someone from Division 0.
    After wiping her nose, she glared. “Look, the less you stand here and bitch at us the faster we’ll be out of your hair.”
Whoops. Bad choice of phrase.
    He gasped, covering his