“Arianna, as you can see,” Ashford said as the hologram replayed. “Is more than a sales rep for our company.”
Now Ray was the one giving the silent treatment, though his reason was the visual reminder that Arianna lived a double life, one that caught up with her upon her arrival in New York, and then made Ray a part of it before she vanished.
“Avatar 33,” he called out to the mysterious woman. “Scan Mr. Partington.”
She nodded. “Understood, sir.”
The mysterious woman invaded his personal space. Two things happened because of that. He got a better glance at her face and he recognized her. She was in the news, a kidnapped woman snatched from a bar in the IW district of Los Angeles by some gang. It happened hours before the New York attack. Portia Blanchard was her name. He wanted to ponder more about the connection, but then the second thing happened. Ray lost his mind.
A buzzing noise rang in his ears first. It was so loud Ray couldn’t hear his own words or Ashford’s. His head exploded with pain. Images flashed. Arianna. The EU. A Federation lab in the middle of an Indonesian jungle. Blueprints. A weapon. Arianna again. Arianna with blood on her hands. Arianna with glowing hands. Arianna spreading fires onto people with psychokinesis winds, their charred bodies curled in a fetal position.
He saw the mysterious woman’s face when the pain and images faded. Her eyes fixed into his eyes and their foreheads were nearly touching. Avatar 33 was what Ashford called her, but this was the missing girl Portia, there was no doubt about it.
She shook her head disappointingly. “It’s too far in his head. Someone buried it deep in. A deep scan can do it, but it that’ll take hours and will kill him.”
Ashford winced, his fingers still steepled together. “Do it.”
She sighed, facing away from Ray, back at Ashford. The scent of her perfume tickled Ray’s nostrils. “I’m—”
“You’re what?” Ashford cut in.
Her white glowing fists clenched slowly, she brought them to her face. “Not strong enough. This body doesn’t have the mental discipline to do it. Most telepaths aren’t.”
“Try away.”
So, she did, turning back to face Ray. The pain and ringing in his ears returned. New images flashed. Pause, Play, Rewired, the one in New York. Guns busting, IWs everywhere. Celia was smiling, tempting Ray with sex. Celia got into his head, pulling out what Arianna left in it, then gift wrapped part of it in the memory sphere.
“Hold on,” Portia said having broken the telepathic scan with Ray. “He had a psytrip session in New York. Some telepathic whore made partial sense of it and then suppressed the memories. That’s why I can’t get it.”
Ashford was intrigued. “Find them.”
She continued. “He had a memory sphere of the experience. He brought it with him to LA.”
Her words brought a new revelation into the mess. The telepathic IW ahead of him wasn’t affiliated with the ones that attacked New York. That group and Yoshida weren’t on the same side. There were two factions in play. Ray wasn’t sure to be happy or upset.
“I take it …” Ray drawled, then considered his next choice of words. “I take it, you aren’t on the same team as the IWs that hit New York and LA recently, and chased me here.”
Portia faced Ashford. His composure had shattered. “Sir?”
“The Federation …” he grimaced, unveiling his white teeth. “Fuck!”
She moved back to him, heels clicking. “The freeway then?”
An angry corporate nod. “That must have been them, they know he has it.” He faced Ray as she stepped aside with arms on her waist. “Well, Mr. Partington looks like you stepped into trouble that extends beyond the LAPD and the Alliance investigators looking for you. If you can’t tell me what you saw, at least give us the memory sphere. It’s better in our hands than the Federation and their weaponized IWs … or the Alliance.”
“I don’t know what happened to it,” Ray said. “It was on me before the crash. That’s the last time I looked at it.”
“Idiots!” Ashford faced up at her. “Did they not search the crash?”
“I guess not. Remember, the real paramedics and LAPD were on their way. We had to extract him quickly.”
“Get that memory sphere!”
She nodded obediently and gestured to Ray. “And for him?”
Ashford’s composure returned. So did calm in his tone of voice. “Find me a telepath that can deep scan him. If Arianna wants him to live, then she’d better show herself and tell us what she gave him. If we can’t discover that memory sphere, then a deep scan of Mr. Partington’s head will be necessary.” Ashford paused for a dramatic effect. “And it will kill him after three or four hours of scanning.”
Ray thought back to the text he intercepted from Ashford. He was starting to understand why his interview with Lady M was cut short. Yoshida knew Arianna was arriving with something they wanted and needed to be free to receive it.
Thirty-Nine
Estrella
Estrella’s reboot screen appeared as a line of computer jargon and a flashing cursor. When she opened her eyes, after minimizing the notification stating Geoffrey was offline, she was treated to the view of a van’s ceiling. Slowly, she got up, shifting her head about, noting the lack of windows in the van, other than the ones up front.
Thirty seconds later, her internal GPS activated. A mini-map appeared in the top right of her eyesight, a top-down map of the Los Angeles freeway with its twists and turns. Someone recovered Estrella after Piper knocked her off the top overpass.
Kneeling beside Estrella, with a Mona Lisa smile, was Piper. The pixie kiwi was spraying nanites over Estrella’s body. A new notification informed Estrella about the state of her body. Two nanite swarms from Piper were working to repair her cyberware and heal her flesh. The two spoke no words, just an endless peer into each other’s emerald synthetic eyes, and the twisting of Piper’s lips. It made Estrella’s face turn red.
Upfront, in the driver and passenger seats, sat two men. She couldn’t get a facial scan of them, as she only saw the backs of their heads. Their faces in the windshield’s reflection, however … that was different. She zoomed in on that and saw their reflections. The man driving had pale skin, short brown hair and a five o’clock shadow. The other had dark skin and thinly cut black hair, most likely of African descent.
Their facial scans turned up error messages across all lines. They weren’t human. They were IWs, unregistered at that. Her first thought was to get up and take them out, Piper too. It was her job and duty as an RW to do so. She chose not to. There was something bigger going on. That, and she was really getting sick of being told what to do, how to act, and getting punished when she didn’t fall in line. They were also driving the van. Attacking them would cause them to crash and kill them all, and with no nanites left, Estrella would not last long. The nanites repairing her came from Piper and obeyed commands Piper’s AI sent them.
“Welcome back,” Piper said, her kiwi accent snapping Estrella’s face back to her. “Sorry about the fall, love. Didn’t mean to hit you that hard.”
Estrella brought up Geoffrey’s status. Error messages blotted the view of Piper. She minimized those from her view.
“Your AI took some damage,” Piper added. “Don’t worry; I got nanites making repairs to it. But he will be offline for an hour or so.”
Estrella grimaced. “How did you know?”
Piper showed her why. She pointed at a network cable. One end was jacked into Estrella’s head, the other into Piper’s. “Sorry for the intrusion. Had to make sure you were still salvageable.”
“I don’t get you, Piper.” Estrella faced away from her.
Piper sat beside her. The slack of the cable connecting the two lowered to the floor. “I’m not that complex.”
“You tried to kiss me. Then you tried to kill me. Now you brought me back.”
“You sound like my ex-wife.” Piper laughed, her face tilted upward.
�
��Why the cloak and dagger shit? First you want me dead because I figured out your secret and clued in you were spying on me. And now you want me alive, what gives?”
“We can’t trust everyone,” Piper said. “After that stunt you pulled, getting into my system, and hiding Ray’s phone from me, I placed you on that no trust list. I know you’ve been trying to figure me out. But I’ll tell you this, everything you thought you knew about me, and what’s going on, is wrong. Just place those theories in the garbage. Except the spying part, you were kinda right about.”
“Really?”
“I’ll be honest with you, I bugged your place when I was there. Your arrival in the city, and the connections to the Bald Skulls had me wondering.”
She thought back to Piper’s dramatic near-death cries when her battery ran low. It was a trick to bring Piper inside her place and bug it. She made plans to search the corner Piper collapsed to, assuming she’d live long enough to go back to her apartment.
Estrella snorted. “You trust me now, though. What changed?”
“You killed the men who were trying to get to me and Ray. That makes you an ally. And now that he’s gone, with all my options, I’m going to need every advantage I can get my hands on.” Piper licked her grinning lips. “And you’re too cute to hate forever—”
“Hold up.” One man upfront cut in, the one driving judging by where his voice came from. “Did I hear that right earlier? You tried to get it on with her, Piper?”
Piper’s laughing stopped, and the smile turned to a frown, a nasty one. Piper aimed that frown at the pale driver. “Fuck off, Theo.”
The second man up front spoke. “It would explain why she insisted we bring her with us.” He spoke with a deep African accent.
“Yeah, she’s just a fucking RW,” Theo said. “I would have left that malaka back there and be done with it. Ya feel?”
Piper moved closer. Estrella did as well, not that she had a choice. The cable was still jacked into their heads. It became a leash. “We need her,” Piper replied.
“We need Ray, who I might remind you, is gone, again,” Theo said and faced forward, keeping his attention on driving.
“If you guys hadn’t fucking lost him in New York,” Piper said.
“He fucking ran like a little malaka when I told him to stay still.” With one hand on the wheel, Theo patted his pockets. “Fuck, I’m outta smokes. Piper can I bum one off you?”
Piper sighed and reached for her synthetic arm that split open. She pulled one cigarette stored inside it and handed it to Theo. “That’s my last one.”
Theo lit the cigarette with spark of electrokinesis aimed at its tip. He took a puff, blew the white smoke out from his lips, and drove with one hand on the wheel. “Thanks, boss lady, I owe you.”
Estrella joined Piper, and the two stood behind the two seats upfront. She had a critical question to ask. “Who the fuck are you guys?”
“Go on tell her,” Theo said. “If she’s a smart as you say she is, she’ll figure it out one day, anyway. Might as well be today.”
Piper winced, looking uneasy as she faced Estrella. “All right, well, Estrella—”
“You’re all from the Federation,” Estrella interjected. “Weaponized IWs the world doesn’t know about yet. S ranked.”
Piper half nodded. “We are weaponized, yes. But not from the Federation.”
“You are, Piper. Fuck, you’re more than an RW too.”
“I’m not loyal to the Federation,” Piper said. “Neither is Theo or Bashiir. But, you’re right about that second bit. I’m more than what I appear to be. I’m a fusion of an IW and RW. My cyberware is state-of-the art, giving me not only the powers of an RW but enhanced IW abilities. What I am is just a taste of what’s coming.”
Estrella’s arms crossed. “And what’s that?”
“And that is, whatever’s in the data that was stolen from a Federation facility and made its way to the Alliance.”
“The jungle fires in Indonesia,” Estrella said as her head put things together. “So, there was something out there. That was really an assault on that facility wasn’t it?”
Piper nodded yes. “It’s going to affect the way the world sees all IWs.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“We don’t know exactly,” Piper said. “My cyberware was tested and developed in that facility. After it was approved for use, Zhang Industries, the owners of the facility, went to develop a new project based on it.”
“Yoshida sent Ray’s girlfriend Arianna to get that information, and sabotage the facility,” Bashiir said from the passenger seat. “The Federation sent its secret weaponized IWs after her when they tracked her to Munich. They failed. So, they tried again when they learned she was about to arrive in New York with the stolen data.”
“We went to intervene,” Theo added. “But we underestimated their numbers, and that some were like Piper, IWs with cyberware.”
“That was you two then,” Estrella said facing the two men up front. “You were the IWs at JFK?”
“We weren’t there to kill people,” Bashiir said. “We were trying to stop the Federation and prevent Arianna from delivering the data to Yoshida. Things got complicated, and in a panic, Arianna transferred what she learned into Ray’s head, and vanished.”
“Well, so we think,” Piper said. “The blog post he made suggested she transferred it. After that, the Federation IWs went through a lot of trouble to track Ray when they couldn’t find her and erase all evidence they’re in the Alliance.”
“Let me get this straight,” Estrella said. “Whoever can send a telepath into Ray or Arianna’s head will learn of the Federation’s super-secret weapon?”
“Or get their hands on a memory sphere Ray had,” Piper said. “Sadly, Ray had it on him when I lost contact with him.”
The Federation was in the Alliance for one reason. They wanted what Arianna stole and committed to memory, then transferred into Ray’s head when she was compromised. Estrella’s worries grew. There was indeed a war brewing, a war to control top-secret research regarding IWs, and Piper’s fusion of IW and RW powers was only a small sample of that research.
“I knew Arianna was more than what she was,” Piper continued.
“That’s why you befriended her boyfriend,” Estrella said. “I saw the messages you sent Ray, buttering him up with news tips.”
Piper had a Mona Lisa smile aimed at Estrella. “Arianna’s father was one of many unregistered IWs we set up in the city.”
She grimaced. Norris Kounias, an IW? The more she thought about it, the more she believed it. “Arianna’s father’s an IW …” Estrella said. “That makes—”
“Arianna a half-witch.” Piper finished for her. “Her mother was human.”
And Nobuo knew that. Estrella understood why Arianna’s mother got a bullet to the head, and her father didn’t. There was ample evidence that suggested he was a hard target for Nobuo when he attacked the Kounias’ residence.
“If Arianna’s half-witch half-human, how was she able to infiltrate a top-secret corporate facility deep in the Federation? Her powers shouldn’t be strong enough, even with training.”
“That’s why I did what I could to get close to her, by getting close to Ray,” Piper said. “Yoshida’s policy is to not hire IWs, yet Arianna worked for them as an operative. And she, as we now figured out, is an S ranked telepath, even though she’s half-human.”
“I guess Yoshida is planning something similar,” Estrella said. “Illegal research into not only the development of S ranked IWs, but augmenting them with some high-end cyberware—”
A force threw Estrella forward. Piper too. Their bodies crashed against the back of the driver and passenger seats. The sound of tires screeching echoed outside the van.
Estrella got back to her feet, just in time to hear Theo yell. “Holy fuck!”
Piper got up. “What is it?”
Theo pulled the van over, rolling his window down. He peeked out, his hands coveri
ng his face from the rare trickle of sunlight. Piper and Estrella were outside after sprinting from the back door of the van. The two leaned against the guardrail of the freeway, the whooshing sounds of cars and trucks speeding past were endless.
Estrella saw what grabbed Theo’s attention. She had to use the full zoom of her optical scanner to confirm it. It was the triple towers of Yoshida, dominating the downtown Los Angeles skyline. Estrella’s zoomed view of one tower caught a glimpse of glass falling from one of its central floors. Tilting her head up, she saw the glow of flames erupting from the building, slowly dissipating. It was the aftermath of an explosion, one of many.
Piper broke the silence. “They’re attacking Yoshida.”
Estrella faced her, noting that Piper’s synthetic eyes were also conducting scans. “The Federation IWs?”
“Has to be,” Piper said. “I doubt you killed all the ones chasing us on the freeway. The rest must have regrouped after the paramedics took Ray.”
Estrella looked toward the approximate location of the nearest hospital from the viewing on the freeway. She zoomed in onto that too, and it looked fine. And that was a problem.
“If the Federation wants Ray, then why aren’t they attacking the hospital?”
She and Piper watched the triple Yoshida towers, then the hospital. Then the towers. “That’s because Ray probably isn’t there,” Piper concluded.
“The medivac ship didn’t make it to the hospital,” Estrella drily said.
Piper stormed back to the van. “They must have been paid off by Yoshida to grab him before the real ones showed.”
Estrella followed behind, leaped in with Piper, and then shut the barn-like doors. The interior of the van returned to its darkened state. Piper was standing behind the two chairs. Her synthetic hand was resting at the back one, her NC gauntlet hand on the other.
Cyber Witch Page 31
