Specter Protocol

by Eddie R. Hicks

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Estrella whispered to her.

  She whispered back. “Trust me.”

  Piper slinked closer, and her soft nose touched Estrella’s. She was hiding her from Hawk or trying to steal a kiss because her lips got close next. She could feel the warmth of her breath on hers. It was tantalizing. Piper swayed her body erotically as her hands lowered to Estrella’s skirt. She pulled it down just a notch, like she was working on slipping it off. It’s like the last time they were dancing only ten times more sexual.

  Droplets of red dripped from Piper’s nostrils, staining her upper lip. Estrella tried to back off; Piper holding her ass prevented it. She cocked her head to the side looking at Piper as the nosebleed upped in intensity. Too much coke? No, Piper’s nanites should have prevented that unless she was low on power. Or something else was going on. Estrella’s surge of arousal and interest for Piper went away instantly. Now she was on edge, and unable to keep the provocative dance act up.

  Hawk’s head started moving, up and down. She thought it was him keeping up with the position of their bodies until they stopped moving. Piper’s eyes narrowed as she looked at him. She cracked a Mona Lisa smile. Estrella saw why.

  Hawk’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, his body shook, and he crashed to his hands and knees. His mouth opened and out gushed vomit mixed with blood. She wasn’t sure if the blood in his vomit came from his stomach, or the red raining out from his nose and dripping into it. Hawk was laid out on the floor, arms and legs spread, and face swimming in vomit with red swirling through it. He didn’t move much after that.

  Piper staggered, rebalanced herself, wiping her nose clean with the sleeve of her long black glove. It looked like she wanted to say more but ended up wobbling to the chair that Hawk had been sat on. She fell into it and giggled like a pixie kiwi. Malcolm growled. His wolf eyes fixated on Hawk’s limp body on the floor. Estrella grabbed the chain leashing him, snapping off the collar.

  The wolf was unleashed now, and she moved to check up on Piper who was still laughing for no reason.

  “That was unexpected,” Estrella said, giving Piper a push.

  “That wasn’t just a line of coke,” Piper giggled, her voice was all giddy. “I had Akane put some… extra stuff in it.” Piper looked at the blood soaking the sleeve of her glove. She cackled. “Well! Thought my nanites would keep me good…. Guess I shouldn’t complain, at least I’m still… standing. Unlike him!”

  Piper decided to stand, but she staggered and nearly collapsed to the floor when Estrella held her waist and kept her steady.

  “I’ll be good,” Piper said. “Just give ‘em. Uh—”

  Piper pointed forward, her index finger wavering. Estrella’s eyes followed the direction she struggled to point in. Malcolm the wolf was no more. He’d returned to his humanoid form, a young and strong Jamaican warlock, standing naked with his penis swaying as he ran and kicked Hawk in the face. He kicked again. And again. Hawk’s body shifted each time. Malcolm was full of rage.

  “You fuckin’!” Malcolm yelled and kicked and stomped Hawk’s head. Each blow sprayed up a splash of red. By the twentieth stomp no one could make out that there was a skull tattoo at the back of his head. Malcolm’s bare foot had caved it in. “Bumbaclaat!” Malcolm didn’t stop. Estrella figured the squashing noise was Hawk’s brains now exposed from his cracked open skull. “The fuck outta here with da leash!”

  Estrella enjoyed the show. Piper was busy watching her fingers, her eyes were wide like she’d never seen them move before. Malcolm’s blood-soaked foot gave Hawk a final kick. The body went one way, and the gore and remains of his head remained in the vomit.

  Malcolm moved to kick again. Estrella held him back. “I think he’s dead, hombre.”

  “You!” Malcolm pointed at the two. “Who da fuck you be?”

  “Your father sent us to find you, and the others,” Estrella said.

  “Papa…” Malcolm muttered to himself. “Knew he didn’t abandon me!”

  Malcolm stripped Hawk naked and slipped into his clothes. They were a size too big for the young warlock. He didn’t seem to care and went to the blanket curtains, pulling them to the side, and peeked out to the club.

  “Where are the others?” she asked while walking to join him.

  “Others?”

  “The telepaths the Skulls been kidnapping.”

  Still peeking. “Gone.”

  She winced. “What do you mean gone?”

  “Dey does take ‘em away to men in suits,” Malcolm said. “Dem corporations tell some big, big lies abou’ wha’ dey do.”

  “Corporate men… Yoshida?”

  “Me ain’t know.” He turned aside from the blanket curtains, facing her. “All I see was dem skulls handing telepaths off to suits in the backroom. After dat, dey neva seen again.” He pointed to Hawk missing half the back of his head. “Dat bumbaclaat there, he kept me as a pet. Promised not to send me away as long as I remained a beast.”

  “Can you get us to that room?”

  “What? Me wanna go back home!”

  “Take us there,” Estrella pleaded. “Then you can slip out the backdoor or something.”

  “Fine.” Malcolm gestured to the exit. “Follow.”

  He slipped out and vanished behind the curtain, disappearing into the dancing crowd and music. Estrella went to follow, then stopped. Piper wasn’t at her side. Looking back, she saw the tipsy pixie kiwi fell, back first, onto the chair, legs spread apart, her arms smothering the chair’s arms, endless giggling leaving her lips. She was still feeling the effects of the laced coke, and her life support nanites were too overwhelmed to counter the negative effects.

  “Piper!” Estrella called out, but she remained giggly. “What the fuck did you put in that shit?”

  “Umm, fentanyl. Lots and lots of fentanyl.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Okay, just stay put, and don’t anything stupid.”

  “Like?”

  She looked down at Hawk’s dead body, naked after Malcolm raided his clothes, his bare ass up in the air. “Well, don’t try to fuck him.”

  “I don’t fuck guys.”

  “Good.”

  “Ohhh. You sounded happy to hear that!”

  Estrella waved her off, slipped beyond the veil of the curtain, and started dancing as if she had been standing there doing it the whole time. Malcolm did a similar thing as the two made it across the dance floor, him taking the lead, grooving his way to a steel door opposite of the building.

  “There!” He had to shout over the music, gesturing his head to the door.

  Estrella danced, keeping her eyes on the door, her vision of it magnified. It took up 90 percent of her point of view. She located two Bald Skull members standing guard beside the door, one on each side, assault rifles in hand. Her vision returned to normal, and she reached for her handbag, dug through its contents, and felt the cold chrome of her NC gauntlet.

  “Might have to go loud, Piper,” she said over the communication channel. Piper didn’t reply, she wasn’t sure if it was because of the music, or her current condition. Estrella tried again. “Piper? Hey! Stay with me.”

  “Oh fuck, that was a bad choice…” Piper’s voice transmitted.

  “It got us this far.”

  “I am so fucking stoned right now…”

  “Rassclaat,” Malcolm grunted and faced the main exit. “You got your door. Me gonna leave now, okay?”

  Someone kicked in the steel door, sending the two guards ahead flying.

  Out from the dark halls stormed a pissed off Bald Skull member, pistol in one hand, and the other pointing fingers at the two rifle members coming to their feet. Estrella zoomed in again, her face froze with shock.

  It was Hawk. He was back from the dead again, and quick. His head showed no signs Malcolm’s foot had caved it in. Piper, stoned or not, would have mentioned something about him magically coming back to life as she remained in the room with his body. She didn’t. Beyond that
door was the reason the Skulls kept resurrecting. Estrella spun around, running for Malcolm, grabbing his shoulder, bringing him to face her.

  “Wait!”

  He tried to shove her off. Her cyborg strength denied him. “What now?”

  Malcolm got his answer via the popping sounds of gunfire. The club went silent, even the DJ had to shut off the music, and duck with the panicking crowd. Hawk climbed up to the stage, flung the DJ back twenty feet with a massive psychokinetic blast. A woman screamed when he thudded on the floor. Worrying murmurs in the crowd grew. Hawk grabbed the microphone and pulled it to his mouth.

  “Somebody fucking killed my clone!” His irate voice blasted from the speakers. “Who did it?” Murmurs continued. He shot the ceiling twice, the crowd leaped in fear. “If you didn’t do it, then clear the fuck out now! The party dun!”

  The mic dropped. Hawk put the music back on. And then the guns came out.

  Forty-Two

  Ray

  Ray opened his eyes, and it wasn’t because it was time to get moving. It wasn’t because he realized the blast had thrown him out of the doomed train, or because he lay knocked out in a bed composed of snow, or the pain in his body, though, that did suck a lot. It was because of the noise his phone made, three beeps he never heard it make before, and they didn’t sound like very good ones.

  He checked its screen. It was black, and that was about it. The hacker’s malware must have spread when he was out and bricked his phone. Ray was powerless now.

  Gently, he pushed himself up, heaps of snow falling from his back, neck, and head. He noticed the surrounding snow glimmered with orange light, and the gagging scent of burning metal, wires, and other stuff he couldn’t identify in the air. He turned sluggishly while another figure arose from the deep snow in the same manner as him, pushing up from the white fluffiness glowing orange. It was Bashiir, his face bloodied and bruised. Ray wondered if his face suffered the same wounds? If it did, he couldn’t feel it. The cold probably had something do with that.

  Behind was the derailed train they boarded when they failed to stop the Specters. The cars were twisted and flung about, the ones that were still intact at least. Ray turned to his left and saw nobody, and to his right was Bashiir. It was just the two of them, nothing else. Theo, who had been hanging on to the side of the train after getting pushed out the window, was nowhere.

  “Where’s Theo?” Ray asked Bashiir.

  Bashiir glanced at their surroundings. Only snow, trees, the mountains, and flames from the train wreckage could be seen. “I do not see him anywhere.”

  Ray couldn’t see any footprints in the snow around. Theo wasn’t flung from the explosive blasts with them. Ray and Bashiir limped through the snow, walking closer to the train crash.

  “Train met its end there,” Ray said, pointing to the remains of the raised maglev track. He looked back at the trail of footprints the two made. “We came from there.” He pointed. “So, Theo couldn’t have landed beyond this point.”

  Bashiir winced and moved forward, turning his head about, hoping to find his missing warlock team member. “Come with me, he could not have fallen far.”

  They searched through the derailment. It wasn’t a pretty sight. It made Ray take his glasses off, staring at the chaos in shock with his own eyes. The missiles that struck it, and the raised maglev tracks it was gliding across, had blown half the train apart. Surrounding the disaster were separate circular flames, and Ray made out what used to be wings and landing gear for fighter ships within those. That hacker turned the fighters on the train, and then on each other. That hacker killed a lot of people without having to fire a gun and was just as powerful as an S ranked IW, provided networked technology was near. The underground hacking community would frown upon that news.

  Survivors from the attack huddled together to keep warm. Ray noticed a few bodies in the snow, unmoving. None of them looked like Theo. Every survivor, however, was getting a decent look at his face. Ray holding his glasses, rather than letting their shaded lenses help mask his appearance, wasn’t helping. There’d be a good chance he’d get blamed for this, Ray being the wanted cyber terrorist supporting the Federation the fake news media claimed him to be. The situation left him conflicted. Flee? Or stay and support the survivors? Both choices carried negative consequences that would keep him awake with anxiety for months.

  Ray made his choice. He moved to the survivors. “Let’s give these folks a hand,” he said.

  Bashiir grabbed his arm. “No,” Bashiir said, and then pointed to the gray skies dumping snow. “Another wave of ships is moving in.”

  Ray followed his finger-pointing. He saw nothing, not even when he put his smart glasses on. He heard nothing too. “I don’t see ‘em.”

  “I can hear them,” Bashiir said, his grip still on Ray’s arm. “We must flee before they discover us. There is nothing more we can do for these people.”

  Bashiir was right, as much as it pained Ray to admit it. He wasn’t a doctor, and neither were Bashiir and they lacked nanites that could give First Aid. Only Piper or Estrella could provide that, and they were both in Los Angeles. The search and rescue teams had to do their job, and Ray and Bashiir had to not be there when they arrived. Theo too, wherever the hell in the mountains he fell.

  If Theo was alive, he would have found us by now… A thought Ray had avoided clouding his thoughts, until now.

  Ray and Bashiir went into the woods, moving in a direction that made the orange glow less apparent. Thirty-four minutes into their trek and several rescue ships landed as Bashiir’s lion-like senses predicted, and two minutes after were hovering VLOT fighters. Two dropships joined them.

  Dozens of boots were on the ground now, racing away from where the dropships landed. Military jargon echoed in the air, and smart rifles powered on, their scopes looking for persons of interest, Ray, Bashiir, and Theo, if he was alive.

  The two remained prone in the deep snow until the men and women marched past. The full zoom feature of Ray’s glasses gave him a better glance at the uniforms the commandos wore. It had the logo and Japanese words of the Yoshida Corporation written across its top. Yoshida’s personal army was persistent tonight.

  “PMCs…” Ray whispered to Bashiir. “Yoshida wants answers.”

  “Agreed, they know we’re here.”

  Voices came from the dropship’s landing site. It didn’t sound like the military jargon heard from the searching troops, it sounded like chatter, a mission report perhaps. Ray and Bashiir crawled toward it, still prone in the snow. In a clearing in the woods, they found the idle dropship with Yoshida’s logo on its side. A woman wearing a fur coat left the dropship, a real fur coat according to the scan of Ray’s glasses. The ban on real fur coats didn’t apply to the corporate elite.

  Despite her standing with her hands in pockets, and the hood covering her head full of long white hair, Ray recognized the face of the woman who stood speaking to two armored commandos.

  “Avatar 33,” Ray whispered. “AKA, Portia Blanchard. She’s a telepath. Let’s keep our distance.”

  And they did, keeping as far back in the woods as possible. Ray’s glasses zoomed in and provided the visual intel.

  One of two PMC commandos spoke. Ray and Bashiir listened in, the best they could. “There’s no sign of the Federation IWs or Partington.”

  “Keep searching,” Portia said. “Check out the survivors of the crash too, they might try to blend in with them.”

  “Assuming Partington’s here—”

  “He is here,” she cut in. “It was only a matter of time before he found what we’re doing. And the AI in our RW patrols at the base shows signs a hacker comprised them. Then there’s our aircraft that crashed for no reason. Partington is here.”

  “What should we do if we find him?”

  “I want him dead,” Portia’s firm voice spat. “Preserve his head if possible, but don’t let that hold you back from a headshot. That memory sphere provided us with more intel than we origin
ally thought. We don’t need Ray’s head per se, as we’re months away from figuring out the missing parts to his knowledge.”

  “I’ll forward that to my team.”

  “Again, if you can take him alive, or his head, do it. His knowledge will speed things up tremendously, especially if we can’t recover the prototype.”

  “Understood.” The commando spun, nodding to the others standing nearby. “All right, you heard the avatar, let’s move! Remember, none of us gets paid if the mission fails, so don’t fuck this up!”

  Portia had one more thing to add. “The person who brings Partington back to me alive, will receive a fifty percent bonus on their next pay!”

  And the PMCs left Portia alone at the dropship as she directed other teams via radio and listened to their reports. Each team reported the same thing, no sign of Partington, and no sign of the IWs. The Specters and Yoshida were not on the same team, just like the incident last month with Nobuo and his black ops IWs from the Federation.

  “This is our ticket out of here,” Ray whispered. “If they focus on the wreck, we might be able to sneak past and down the hills.”

  Bashiir nodded. “Agreed.”

  The two were backtracking now when Portia returned to the warmth of the dropship, and Ray wasn’t in the mood to push his luck, sneaking aboard, or hacking it. Not that he could. Looking at his phone’s screen revealed it still hadn’t recovered from the malware. Besides, Avatars were telepathic IWs not to be fucked with. The visions of Arianna terrorizing the Zhang faculty flashed in Ray’s head now and then. Then there was Portia’s show of power at Lady M’s place.

  If they put as much distance as they could between the train wreck and the PMCs, eventually they’d conclude Ray wasn’t there and expand their search.

  The woods and mountains were behind, and ahead was a silent two-lane highway, snowfall slowly accumulating a fluffy white layer on its surface. Only one vehicle sped past since the precipitation began and it was something that operated on four axles, a truck. And it was driving erratically judging by the mess of tire prints.