Cyber Witch

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Time for first impressions.

  She marched forward, stepping under the police tape as if they invited her to the gathering of uniformed men and women. They shot her a look, the kind that said who the fuck are you. Those looks dissolved when she used her synthetic arm to flaunt her NC gauntlet.

  Estrella neared the group of cops looking at a mobile computer screen. “Someone call for RW support?”

  “We did,” one cop replied. It was Marcus, though he was sporting a thin beard. His profile picture needed an update. Marcus winced at Estrella after examining her frame, the bustier, shorts, and exposed midriff. “But … not you …”

  “Name’s Rodriguez,” she said, offering a silver gauntlet handshake. “Just transferred here from Buenos Aires.”

  They shook hands as she cringed internally at the usage of the word ‘transferred.’ She was punished and made to work here.

  “Ah, the new girl,” Marcus said. “Looking to get started already?”

  “Might as well.”

  Marcus pulled out his phone, fingering a number he had on speed dial. “Taylor,” he said as the person he called picked up.

  A woman’s voice replied; a soft and sweet New Zealand accent. “Yes?”

  “You’re on standby,” Marcus said to the woman, evidently named Taylor. “The new girl showed up. She wants to dive in.”

  “Understood,” Taylor replied.

  Marcus ended the call, putting his phone away and facing Estrella.

  “That’s assuming we really have an unregistered IW inside,” Marcus said. “Could just be a bunch of fucking gangbangers.”

  She looked up at the tall man with a wince. “And if it is?”

  “Then you could go home.”

  “Fuck that, you know all the trouble I went to get here?”

  “You’re not a cop, I am—”

  “Yeah, yeah I know the drill,” Estrella interjected, with an eye roll. “Cops catch the bad guys; RWs catch the witches and ‘locks because cops aren’t strong enough.”

  The two returned to the mobile computer screen that held the law enforcement personnel’s attention. It displayed shaky but reliable video feeds from one drone, and it looked like it entered the building undetected.

  Marcus whistled loudly. She thought it was at the video until she saw his eyes locked onto the silver glittering gauntlet on her hand. “That a mark two?” he asked pointing at it.

  “Mark three Nano Control gauntlet,” she corrected him, giving the gauntlet an up and down stare.

  Three point two to be exact.

  Thank you … Geoffrey.

  They continued watching the live drone feed like it was a thriller movie. The drone inched deeper through the halls of the apartment on the floor the call came from. It drifted past the door to the unit which had been unlocked and left ajar.

  Slowly, the drone flew in, scanning the area, snapping photos of overturned furniture and pictures off the wall lying on the floor with shattered shards of glass scattered about. Four trench-coated men moved about like they were searching for something. A fifth one stepped into view holding an automatic pistol.

  “Got five targets, all male,” said the drone operator. “All heavily armed.”

  Estrella moved closer. “I take it they don’t live there.”

  Marcus snorted. “Nope.”

  “Any hostages?”

  The drone operator fiddled with his controls, taking careful manual control of the drone. “Standby.”

  He moved the drone closer, its camera capturing and displaying the maneuver. With it flying high, close to the ceiling, Estrella caught a better glimpse of the men searching the unit. They were bald with the tattoo of a skull on the back of their head. The images were haunting to see. She had a flashback to a moment of her life she tried hard to forget. Her breathing didn’t feel right.

  Bald men with skull tattoos on their heads. Their hands delivering pain to her body, their hands forcing her young fragile form into doing things she didn’t want. Their hands tearing her clothes—

  “Fuck! They fucking shot it!”

  The sudden outburst grounded Estrella’s head in the present. She wasn’t in the past. She wasn’t suffering at the hands of the Bald Skulls gang, a gang she put in the hole when she was of age to trade her humanity for high tech witch powers. Yet, everything on the screen, before it turned to static, suggested they were alive and kicking.

  “How the fuck did they do that?” Marcus asked. “That was a recon drone; the fucking thing was the size of a fucking marble!”

  Estrella knew the answer. She stepped forward drawing all eyes on her. “Because those are the IWs.”

  The drone operator shook his head. “To be fair, I clipped the side of the wall. They might have heard it—”

  “No,” Estrella cut in, the fury in her voice made Marcus’ eyebrows rise. “He shot it because his electrokinesis would have sensed it.”

  “We don’t know for sure,” Marcus said.

  She waved him off and marched to the apartment's lobby. “I’m going in.”

  “Stand down RW, we need to be sure here,” Marcus roared at her. It didn’t stop her boots from moving. “If those are humans and we let your kind handle them—”

  “My kind?” That got Estrella to stop, as she spun on her heel facing Marcus with rage.

  “You’re a witch. Witches fighting humans regardless if they’re an RW or an IW is bad,” he said.

  “My AI prevents me from harming humans.” Estrella knew all about that.

  “Unless you’re threatened first, then your AI lets you loose. Let’s get confirmation on what we’re dealing with!”

  “Go get your fucking confirmation.” Estrella’s back was once again turned to Marcus and the flabbergasted cops. She ran into the lobby. “I’ll go get mine.”

  “Rodriguez, get back here!”

  His words couldn’t stop her. These men were supposed to be dead. How the fuck did the dead come back and follow her to Los Angeles? Marcus came into the lobby screaming for her to stop. She replied with a middle finger as the doors of the elevator she had entered slid shut.

  The elevator rose to the floor where the action was at. Estrella brought her synthetic arm to her face, sending a command to it. It split open like a storage cabinet. Inside were various items she kept on her, amidst the network of wires that traveled to and from her hands, up the length of her hollowed-out arm, and into her body.

  One of those items was a semi-automatic pistol folded up for easy storage. She pulled it out and watched as her arm returned to its previous state, fooling the masses from afar that it was flesh, blood, and bone. Three folds of the pistol returned it to its ready-to-kill mode. Its targeting screen flickered on, listing its current ammo count. Ten rounds and three clips were looking to kill.

  Perhaps you are being too rash? Geoffrey internally voiced.

  It’s the Bald Skulls gang, Geoffrey.

  I am unfamiliar with that group.

  Was a small gang of warlocks and telepaths out in Buenos Aires. I doubt your database would have anything on it. I killed them last year.

  If that is the case, then should we not share this intel with the local law enforcement?

  Do you seriously think they’ll follow the whim of the new RW that moved in without proof? The elevator came to a stop, and its door parted. Dank and rundown halls awaited her as she bolted out, searching for the room. Besides, they were taking too long, these guys don’t fuck around.

  Do you know how they operate then?

  I have firsthand knowledge.

  Were you a member?

  A sudden flashback before her eyes sent her back to the past once again. She was a little girl crying, pleading for the pain to stop, begging for the gang members to explain what she did wrong. Was it PTSD? Or lingering telepathic mind invasions? She didn’t know, just that both were just as deadly if they popped up in the middle of a gunfight. Both were also a good way to make her early impressions on the first day on the jo
b look bad, more so than she already had.

  Estrella brought her thoughts out of the horrific flashback. Jesus fuck Geoffrey you always this chatty?

  I am still building a personal and psychological profile of you. So, in essence, the more we talk, the better I will be able to help you.

  How about you assist me with some tactical data?

  As you wish.

  A blue wireframe digitized ahead of Estrella, forcing her to stop. She watched as the wireframe forged into the shape of what looked like a cat, and after three seconds, the wireframe model fully rendered into a black cat with haunting yellow eyes looking up at her.

  She grimaced at the holographic cat. That you Geoffrey?

  I have chosen this image for my exterior appearance. What do you think?

  Estrella shook her head, and pushed forward, keeping the semiauto in her hands pointed at the floor. You’re a fucking cat …

  And you’re a witch. I am not only your AI but your feline familiar as well.

  The silent conversation with her AI, now being projected as a cat that scouted ahead, made her snicker. Funny.

  I thought you’d find it so. Now, as for data? Arrows appeared in her vision, it was the route the holographic cat made, a pathway for her to follow in the halls. This is the optimal path to the apartment unit.

  Two minutes later Estrella found the opened door to the unit seen from the now fallen drone. She double-checked the readiness of her weapon, it was good, then double-checked the readiness of the single nanite swarm swimming within her body. An overlay screen revealed they were ready with her body at an 84 percent battery change. She leaned against the right side of the door frame as Geoffrey in his holographic cat form slithered into the unit undetected.

  Processing threat assessment, Geoffrey projected. Please standby.

  Worrying thoughts clouded her mind. A mini window showed what Geoffrey saw and scanned. She saw what he saw from the ground because of the cat form he took, and she could see the figures of the five gang members searching the living room, kicking in door after door within the unit. Geoffrey highlighted their appearances red, allowing her to see them through walls, or cover. Their weapons got scanned next, and overlays appeared informing Estrella of the gang members estimated ammo count—

  A firm hand clasped onto her slim shoulder. Sweat dampened her forehead, and fear made her breathing unstable. The hand yanked her back, away from the doorframe. She responded by jamming the barrel the semi-auto into the face of the hand’s owner.

  Then she lowered it with a loud grunt.

  “I’m on your fucking team, Rodriguez!” It was Marcus, stepping back with his hands raised, his eyes locked onto her weapon.

  She beamed. A cop raised their hands to Estrella without her having to say a word. She found it amusing. “How are you gonna come up to me like that and not say a thing?”

  His face contorted. “Because I don’t want to blow your cover?”

  “If you’re here to convince me—”

  “I’m here to make sure the new girl doesn’t get her brains blown out.”

  Threat assessment complete, five B ranked warlocks, Geoffrey’s voice in her head revealed. You were right in your assumption, these are unregistered IWs.

  Estrella nodded to the flickering holographic cat as he exited the suite. “All right, my AI just confirmed these are IWs, all ranked at B,” she said to him. “Satisfied now?”

  Marcus’ lips twisted. He reached for his sidearm. “What rank are you?”

  She made the same twisting of lips. “C.”

  “Then, no,” he said and took cover to the left side of the opened door. “I’m not—”

  “You hear something?”

  The voice came from inside the unit. One of the gang members was closer than she thought.

  Looking at the wall behind her, she saw two red, highlighted figures move from the living room with weapons forward. They were trudging to the front door she and Marcus were squawking at, evidently, squawking too loud.

  She placed her back to the wall again, inching her way left to the right side of the door. She lifted the semi-auto, and could see the shine of its barrel.

  “No turning back now,” she whispered to Marcus.

  One Bald Skull gang member approached the door, ready to search the halls, oblivious of the cop and synthetic witch with weapons drawn with their backs to the left and right walls next to the door.

  The first Bald Skull gang member exited the apartment, his gaze shifting to the right. His gun rose to greet the cop he was surprised to discover there. The Bald Skull gangster’s hands glowed purple and sparked, charging his body with electrokinetic energy.

  Estrella plugged two rounds through the tattooed skull into the back of his head. The holes were wide enough to show Marcus’s stunned face, and the chunks of brain matter and blood splattered across it.

  “Oh fuck!” Estrella heard another gang member shout from the unit.

  She faced the wall again. The four remaining members grabbed their weapons and stormed to the unit’s entrance. Two of them were near the front door, their heads bobbing up and down, communicating to each other.

  Warning, you have alerted them of your presence.

  Yeah, no shit!

  Six

  Ray

  Ray’s smile was as bright as the setting sun on the horizon. He entered his place of Zen, the outskirts of Beverly Hills, one of the few places in the region where one could get sunlight, and the few places in the nation where actual houses existed. Constructing anything that wasn’t a densely packed high-rise, on a planet packed with over ten billion souls was often frowned upon. You can shove more people into an apartment than you could with a one or two-story house. Tackling overpopulation starts with you, as the commercials would say.

  This was assuming you weren’t a celebrity or worked for the corporations that ran the world. If that was the case, you did whatever the fuck you wanted. Humans and IWs owed their continued existence to the one percent as far as they were concerned.

  He stood next to his car parked at the side of the road in a quiet residential neighborhood, indulging in the January air that blew through his chestnut hair, making it wave about. The palm trees around him rustled when the winds passed; he liked that sound. Looking east he saw the mammoth high buildings that blocked out sunlight elsewhere beyond the bubble of Beverly Hills.

  The house he approached had two stories, unlike its adjacent neighbors, which were expensive one-story dwellings. The garden he had to pass through to get to the front door was immaculate, perfectly trimmed bushes forming a wall separating the front lawn from the sidewalk. Trees that he didn’t know the names of lined the path leading to the entrance of the home. The vibrant green grass on the lawn and its height were consistent throughout. He imagined the same could be said for the grass in the backyard.

  A gardening robot greeted him by name. Ray was a common visitor to this household. It made him smile, the machine finally recognized him. It only took thirty visits to do that. The new software update must be working. He checked his phone as he neared the front door, his eyes searching for missed calls or text messages from Arianna. There were none. This wasn’t normal for her.

  The article he wrote on the terrorist attack in Munich had him worried. Turns out IW terrorists of a strange and unknown group targeted a hotel using their powers. The bodies of those killed were still being collected, what was left of them that was, and that was the scary part. The pictures his source shared with Ray depicted bodies with their limbs pulled off and thrown against walls. Other victims were reduced to piles of ash, and that was before one of the hotel rooms caught on fire. IW abilities were powerful, but not that powerful. This was a new weapon in use as far as Ray was concerned, and the people responsible were still at large. Arianna needed to come home now, especially if these terrorists were targeting EU hotels at random.

  She’s a busy woman and didn’t have time to call. Get a grip, man. She’ll be all right.


  Ray got a grip, shaking off the doom and gloom.

  He rang the doorbell, summoning a small drone out from a hidden hole in the wall. It was no bigger than a bird. The drone floated ahead of Ray and scanned him by running blue and white beams of light across his body, starting from his face down to his feet. Once the drone confirmed his identity, it activated its holographic recorder, projecting Ray’s likeness to whoever came to answer the door.

  Ray gave the tiny disk-shaped recorder a smile, then a wave. The door opened, and a man in his sixties with silver hair and aged, withering skin stood at the entrance, wiping his hands clean with a towel, Norris Kounias.

  “Ray,” Norris said to him with a half grin. “What brings you here?”

  “Was hoping to chat with you.”

  “Couldn’t you just send me a video call?”

  “Naw,” Ray said, with a swift shake of his head. “This was something I wanted to do in person.”

  Norris invited Ray in, shutting the front door behind them along with the light from the golden setting sun. The two men walked away from the foyer, and through the house built like a palace from the early 2030s. Ray spotted Norris’s wife, Maria, in the laundry room as they walked past. She was transferring soaking wet apparel from the machine into the dryer and gave Ray a wave with one free hand. He waved back.

  In the kitchen, Ray saw why Norris had been wiping his hands clean. A sink full of dirty dishes ready to be cleaned and rinsed was the object of his attention until Ray rang the bell. The LED screen on the dishwasher continued to flash an error message. It was the same one Ray saw during his last visit.

  “All right, hit me,” Norris said, taking a seat at the kitchen table. “What do you want to talk about that’s so important you had to drag your ass here?”