Cyber Witch

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Geoffrey being back online, however, was a good thing. Her nanite swarm should be ready for battle. She faced the telepath again, extending her NC gauntlet hand to him, and requested her nanites spin every partial in his body until he ignited and incinerated. Geoffrey denied her request, multiple error windows flashing over her eyes.

  I have temporarily disabled your utility nanites. He may try to use mind control on you.

  Geoffrey, you’re not helping me.

  Believe me, I am doing my best. You will die if I cannot help you, and so, I will cease to function. I am programmed to prevent that from happening.

  The ponytailed telepath crouched, and his eyes met Estrella’s. “Where are the Bald Skulls?”

  She snorted. “Asking the wrong person.”

  “Really?” A light chuckle followed. “Last I checked, you were investing a lot of time tracking them today. So, I ask again, where are they? How many did you confirm are still alive? How many people have they taken? Answer these questions, and you’ll be free to go. You have my word.”

  The pain of the migraine was like having her brain placed in the jaws of a lion. “I … take it you’re not with the … gang.”

  “Does it look like it?” He tapped his armor, then his katana and pistol. “Does the damage down below look like the gang’s work? Come now, Estrella, you know this family has very little value to the gang. They weren’t here, though I wish they were.”

  The chaos she saw coming up to the second floor, the death of Maria, bullet holes in the walls, and the flowerpots. It was him. He attacked the Kounias family, not the gang. Whoever the fuck he was. Estrella was looking at a secondary threat, or the gang’s activities were a smokescreen.

  “Who are you?”

  “If I tell you, will you cooperate?”

  She snorted. “Maybe.”

  “Let’s go with the name Nobuo, for now.” Nobuo spoke again. “Answer me now—”

  Something changed, and she saw it on his face. Rising to his feet, Nobuo reached for his pistol and took aim out into the hallway. His pistol clapped three times, someone else clapped back.

  “Rodriguez!” It was Marcus’ voice. He just picked a fight with Nobuo a telepath, one that sensed him coming without having to look or hear.

  Marcus was a dead man unless she got to her feet.

  Estrella went rolling across the floor below the hail of bullets as the exchange continued. She nearly passed out from the pain in her aching head. She stood with her back against the surface of a desk. The computer screen above had turned into shards of plastic and flickering, sparking wires.

  I’m almost finished Estrella, please prepare yourself. And that she did, clenching her fists within the NC gauntlet.

  Marcus was hunkered outside the door when she peeked around her cover. It was the last time she saw him alive. Two bullets through his forehead put him down. Nobuo didn’t need to aim, he simply pointed his gun exactly where he predicted Marcus would peek out, then fired.

  “Don’t bother wasting nanites on him,” Nobuo said. “Don’t think they can repair his brains leaking out the back of his head.”

  Ten seconds, Estrella.

  Little fucking late for that!

  Nobuo stepped toward the desk she was behind. A katana now replaced the pistol he held.

  Five seconds.

  “Your partner’s actions, and your unwillingness to answer my questions carries a penalty.”

  Three seconds.

  He glanced at the sharpness of his blade. It lit up with indigo light, brightening his face in the darkness. It was a nanite infused katana. Estrella watched videos of those cut through reinforced steel doors with one swing.

  “Please come out and make this easier for us both.”

  Now.

  The excruciating pain of the migraine lifted. It made Nobuo’s footsteps come to a stop. He knew his mental powers were being resisted. Impressive, considering even the most adept IW telepaths weren’t able to sense that. She pushed those thoughts aside. Nobuo didn’t need his telepathic abilities to kill her.

  Geoffrey released the restriction of her utility nanites. With clenched fists, she stood up fast and confirmed the command she sent to the swarm.

  Disable firearm

  Nanites sabotage the interior of firearms, preventing their use in combat.

  Min. nanite swarm(s) required: 1

  Nanite swarm(s) remaining: 2

  The first swarm sprayed from her gauntlet and flew into the pistol Nobuo held. It took two seconds for all vital components that made a gun work to get taken apart at the subatomic level.

  Estrella didn’t bother to wait for the confirmation signals from the swarm. She was too busy reaching for a spare nanotube, pulled out from the inside of her synthetic arm. She plugged the syringe of the device into her leg, the pain was brief, and so was the feeling of a new swarm of nanites entering her body, syncing with her and Geoffrey.

  Her combat HUD flashed an update.

  Nanite swarm(s) remaining: 2

  Nobuo was running at her now, his nanite enhanced katana held steady to make a clean cut aimed at her neck. He must have known his pistol was useless, thanks to his powers. The desk she covered behind slid across the floor, crashing into the wall. He could still move objects with psychokinesis. Overdrive was her next trick of choice, and the world slowed down to bullet time, not that any of those were coming at her.

  Nanite swarm(s) remaining: 1

  Estrella sidestepped, watching the swing of his shimmering blade cut through the air. From her point of view, it took ten seconds for the blade to reach where she was once standing, Nobuo, moving in slow motion, was none the wiser about what was happening. His disabled pistol dangled slowly at his side during his attack. She reached for it while signaling the nanite swarm still within it and ordered them to repair the damage with what little battery power they had left. The pistol was now in her hands, and she took three steps back, aimed it at the back of his head, and went for the trigger.

  The nanites committed to powering her overdrive were losing power. She’d have to send another swarm to keep the ability active. Estrella opted to save the remaining nanite swarm and put an end to overdrive. When the overdrive effect wore off, her world and its speed returned to normal. Nobuo’s running left to right cleave that was meant to end her finished, cutting nothing but the air. He stood, looking shocked at an empty spot before him. Estrella’s trigger finger moved multiple times. She emptied what remained in the clip.

  Every bullet floated in the air. Nobuo’s black-gloved white glowing hands extended toward her and the floating bullets, his back still turned to her. The bullets clattered to the floor with a single snap of his fingers. Nobuo had precognition in combination with advanced psychokinesis, a combination of gifts that was impossible for IWs to use in this day and age.

  He spun, sizing her up with the katana. Estrella ordered the remaining nanites within her into firearm. A weapon selection screen appeared over her eyes, she browsed through a selection of melee weapons. The screen confirmed the pistol contained enough raw materials. The weapon she held liquefied, turning into gray goo. In three seconds, she nano printed a short sword using the metal from the pistol. The tip of its newly forged blade pointed at Nobuo. It was faster than reaching for a new nanotube, one his precognition might have predicted.

  He grinned at her then faced the door to the room which her back was turned to. Something caught his attention, something that made him wince, nod, and then slash empty air ahead of him. In the wake of his shimmering blade was a rift, a temporal doorway for his escape. He slipped through it. That too was impossible last time she checked. The rift vanished in a flash as she ran, charging him with the short sword in hand seeking his blood.

  Estrella spun and went for the door. Something there got Nobuo running from the fight. Was it Marcus? Did he survive the attack? Perhaps watching him get shot was part of the illusionary vision the telepath had conjured. She sure hoped so.

  She sa
w a pair of emerald synthetic eyes glowing in the darkness near the door. The owner of those eyes moved into the room. Out from the shadows of the hallway entered Piper, lowering her pistol. Neither of them looked away from each other.

  Estrella grimaced. “Piper?”

  Piper holstered her weapon to the leather skirt she wore. The holographic raven of her AI perched on her left shoulder. “You’re welcome.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Saving your ass?”

  The two stood above Marcus’ body. His chest wasn’t moving, and nearly all the blood in his head had seeped out into the floor, growing into a large puddle. Estrella stopped herself from driving her synthetic fist through the wall. Instead, she pointed a finger at Piper.

  “You got the worst fucking timing!” Estrella roared. “You and Geoffrey should make a club.”

  “Give me a fucking break! I just got here!”

  “You left before us, didn’t you?”

  Piper answered with a grimace, pushed past Estrella, and walked to the area of the bedroom Nobuo vanished from. It reminded her of his actions before running away. Nobuo looked at the door, he made eye contact with Piper, and she did the same with him. He knew Piper was standing and watching as Estrella’s back was turned.

  Piper didn’t just get there. She’d been there the whole time.

  Geoffrey, did you pick up Piper’s signal at all?

  I’m not receiving it now, or when we discovered she was here.

  Didn’t think so. Estrella’s lips twisted. She looked at the figure of the mysterious RW wrapped in the tight leather skirt, and lace robe rustling as she moved, searching the room with the optical scanners in her glowing emerald eyes.

  “Hey Piper, how come I can’t pick up your transponder?”

  “Get your AI looked at,” she said, her radiating eyes not looking into hers. “My systems are operating fine on my end.”

  Geoffrey?

  I did not receive any damage during the confrontation. I am operating at normal parameters.

  Three police cars and their wailing sirens echoed in the skies outside, nearing the Kounias residence. Estrella pondered how she would explain what happened and where Norris Kounias ended up. There’s no way an aged man like him escaped from the katana-wielding psychopath.

  Twenty

  Ray

  The cold air of winter hit Ray on his exit from the emergency room. He missed Los Angeles already and the normalcy of his life. He grimaced, looking back at the hospital that was vanishing in the distance behind. Arianna wasn’t with him and neither the AIT nor the police knew where she was.

  The only saving grace he had was that her body was not among the bodies getting dragged out from the airport, which were mostly the IWs, security, and RWs that went to fight them. That was also the reason he was discharged so quickly. Doctors determined Ray had blacked out, probably from a run-in with an unregistered IW with telepathic powers. No need to take up the limited hospital beds for the critically wounded that needed it.

  He was glad to see nobody accessed his phone or tablet pad, at least not from what he could gather. Even if they did, the illegal hacking apps he had on them were well hidden and required biometric access. That’s when he noticed the unmarked vehicle parked near to the hospital. The AIT was still there, probing for answers about the IW attack. Answers his devices had. His speed increased, and he was constantly glancing back, ensuring nobody was following him.

  Ray felt exactly like Arianna in the dream he had, leaving the hotel, always looking back, searching for men from the Federation. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the IWs involved in the attack came from the Federation. He physically felt like Arianna during the walk, as if someone swapped his male body out with a woman’s. Panic and confusion hit, and it caused him to stagger slightly in the snow below him.

  He reached for his phone, switching on its selfie camera. His face flashed back on the screen, and it was the man he knew he was. Nothing physically changed about him. Mentally, well, that was another story.

  Ray tapped through several windows on his phone, bringing up a taxi summoning app. The onscreen notification informed him one would be at his location in two minutes. He stood next to the road, and waited, watching cars, snow removal drones, and occupied yellow cabs zoom past in the busy New York streets. The falling snow took on the colors of the neon and holographic ad spectacle.

  Making calls to Arianna’s phone helped pass the time, though, he wondered why he even bothered. Even his phone flashed a prompt, informing him the recent calls he made to her number had gone unanswered such as the one he just made. It gave him a sick feeling. This was the day he was to propose to her. Now, Ray might be facing a dark moment in life where the woman he loved was taken before he could ask. And his last memories of her? Was a woman that didn’t act like the one he knew—

  New York’s busy, loud, and colorful streets were gone.

  Ray stood watching a computer screen and it wasn’t his eyes looking at it. It was Arianna’s; he was in her body again. Diagrams were on the screen, and they looked like blueprints. To what? He couldn’t make it out: a device, robotic parts, cyberware implants? Scientific equations upstaged everything he saw, numbers, letters, mathematical symbols, and none of it could he make any sense of.

  New York came back with the honk of a taxicab as it pulled up to him. His ride had arrived. Three onlookers from the sidewalk shot him odd glances as he moved across the snow into the cab. He was afraid to ask what he was doing when the vision hit.

  His body felt the soothing feeling of warmness once he sat inside the cab. So did his mind when he saw Arianna sitting in the cab with him.

  “Arianna!” he shouted gleefully.

  She didn’t reply, she was also dressed differently from when he looked at her at the airport. Arianna wore a lab coat with a guest visitor badge clipped to her top, listing a name that wasn’t her. She faded away when he reached to touch her. Upon a closer look, Arianna was never there to start with. It was another vision. Ray’s sense of reality and dreaming meshed. He shuddered at the thought of him driving in his current condition.

  His ride back to his hotel went on without incident, the images were lingering after-effects of that ponytailed telepath he figured. The access keycard in his hands unlocked his suite door, but he didn’t enter his hotel room. He entered a laboratory when he walked through the door. The visions returned, and backtracking into the hotel’s hallway wasn’t an option, as the door he stepped through was gone.

  Arianna walked away from him like she had been a ghostly figure inside. He followed her into the vision of the lab. Glass chambers holding naked test subjects in stasis pods lined the walls. At the end of the lab was a computer station, the same one from his last vision. Arianna led him right to it, and she ordered a man wearing a lab coat to give her access to it. The red and yellow flag of the People’s Federation of Pacific Nations hung on the wall above the station.

  The vision turned into more equations, numbers, diagrams, and blueprints. None of it made sense, and none of it would go away, not even when he shut his eyes, in fact, that made things worse. He felt himself thrown into a woman’s body again, breasts, long hair, his penis and balls vaporized and replaced with a vagina, the works. He was Arianna.

  And she was asking the man with a lab coat to put a gun in his mouth.

  The world of the normal returned. Ray was in his hotel suite. He placed his hands down his pants, searching for his junk, making sure they were there. They were. He was overjoyed to have them back and glad to be back in his original form. The experience had him checking his body every five minutes when he saw equations and numbers flash before his eyes.

  His tablet played the news as he sat at the edge of the bed, his head buried in his twin facepalming hands. There was very little mentioned about the airport attack, most journalists were only now getting the word about it. Violent IWs used their powers to bypass security and cause trouble, that’s all the world knew, and
had no idea how or why it happened. IWs weren’t strong enough for that level of power.

  He went to read news from Los Angeles, hoping to learn of something on the positive side since he’d been gone. There was a missing person report filed for a woman named Portia Blanchard. She was abducted by force from the IW district in Los Angeles, along with another young man earlier that same day. So much for the world being a positive place.

  The news went on, rambling about attacks happening in Los Angeles, right around the same time as the airport attack in New York. He lowered his hands from his face, leaning his head closer to his pad next to him on the bed when the mention of IWs in Beverly Hills was made, and the name of the two RWs that were called to the scene. Estrella Rodriguez, and Piper Taylor, while a cop named Marcus Desmond, assigned to work with Rodriguez was found dead with two of Estrella’s bullets in his brain. No addresses were given, or any other names dropped of the victims as the police were searching for the next of kin—

  His phone beeping took his attention away from the news.

  Ray went racing to grab the phone, his heart pounding rapidly, hoping it was Arianna reaching out to him. When he picked up the phone, looking down at the display, he cringed. It wasn’t Arianna shooting a text message. It was Steven, his editor, sending him an email.

  Steven asked why he couldn’t reach Ray via phone. He grinned. Ray left his Los Angeles only phone at home. Also in the email, Steven asked if Ray had any knowledge of the airport attack.

  He did. He was there, and he had the scoop no other journalist in the world had. Ray replied, explaining he left his Los Angeles phone and was using a secret New York one. Steven wanted to talk, rather than send messages back and forth. Ray called him, using the hotel room’s phone. He still wasn’t going to risk exposing his phone’s number to anyone, not even Steven.