Cyber Witch

by Eddie R. Hicks

  She needed Marcus for this and gave him the all-clear to run in. He took cover behind the bullet hole covered couch with her. During his charge to the couch, she injected herself with her last nanotube, and then waved her glowing gauntlet above the shotgun, spraying it with a fresh nanite swarm. The shotgun turned to gray goo as she selected an SMG from her weapons screen, a Stellaris 77.

  She asked Geoffrey for two of them.

  “This isn’t what I came in with,” Marcus said reaching for one of the two SMGs Estrella nano printed.

  She beamed, reaching for the remaining weapon. “Nope, I made it better—”

  Gunfire roared, cutting her off. The bullets weren’t curved and traveled in a straight line. The warlock’s gifts were in the cooldown phase.

  IW powers had a limited window. They could use their abilities so long as the glow in their hands remained. The moment it faded, and they entered a phase known as the cooldown, where a period of time passed before they gathered more strength to use their powers again. She always viewed it like drinking a glass of water. Once the glass was empty, you had nothing left to drink unless you refilled it. How long it’d take one to refill that glass of water depended on them. IW abilities were similar, they charged up, unleashed their fury, got drained, then had to gather more power to strike again. Bullets that didn’t bend and curve were a sign to watch out for. Estrella had a minute or two before the warlock was using its powers again.

  She and Marcus rose from their cover, SMGs in hand. A rapid-fire release of bullets punched holes in the walls and sent the last remaining warlock spinning in circles through the air in a bloody mess. There was still nothing on her combat tracker, despite having visual confirmation the final hostile was downed. She didn’t like that feeling at all.

  The two cautiously moved from the living room deeper into the unit with their drawn SMGs leading the charge. The last warlock lay in a pool of blood. Marcus went to search the body. Estrella slowly backed away from the blood soaking the floor. Her footsteps weren’t splashing through it, neither was Marcus.

  She winced and backpedaled onto the floor free of bloodstains. She left no red boot prints. “Fuck!”

  Marcus faced her. “What’s wrong?”

  Shit, how did I miss that? “Back up!” She roared, her weapon rising, while moving to look for the threat that still loomed. “That was a doppelganger!”

  Marcus joined her in the search with weapons. The body on the floor was an illusion, mental manipulation. It was a trick to bait them right where the trickster wanted them to be, and that was out in the open of the unit, out of cover.

  He’s a fucking telepath, Geoffrey, she internally spat. You said these were ‘locks?

  It would appear he was deceiving my scans.

  And why he vanished from the combat tracker—

  A bald figure wearing a trench coat appeared from one bedroom, shooting. It was the last hostile target. The telepath whom she thought was a warlock. It’d explain the lack of bullet bending as his magical focus was spent telepathically tricking the minds of the two. He wasn’t on cooldown at all.

  Marcus’ gun clapped first, tagging the last target. It turned into a puff of blue vapor. He grimaced. “What the fuck is going on?”

  Estrella saw the target reappear. She took aim and put two bullets through its head. It turned into a puff of blue vapor too. “He’s fucking with our head!”

  Get back into cover and reassess the situation. That’s all they could do.

  Geoffrey?

  Attempting to match his brainwave patterns.

  Telepaths were dangerous only because they could get in your head and make you see what they want you to see, that was until an AI like Geoffrey could block it. A scanning progress bar moved from left to right across her vision, Geoffrey was building an algorithm that’d block telepathic thoughts from the target in question. Marcus, being human would still be a victim of course. He’d have to follow Estrella once the block was in place as the fake illusions would be visible to him.

  At least, that was the plan which had to be altered when two bullets ripped through Estrella’s torso, and one through her left shoulder. The pain mixed in with the force of three back-to-back trucks pushed her to the floor. She tried to ignore the pain and tried to tell herself that the warm fluid trickling across her skin from the source of the pain wasn’t blood gushing out. She struggled to tell herself that the next sounds of guns fired and screams of pain weren’t Marcus getting shot when he tried and failed to help her.

  She wasn’t fooling herself, the critical warning screens flashing over her vision made sure of that. But on a good note, Geoffrey had successfully learned of the telepath’s brainwave frequency and blocked him fucking with her mind.

  Track him, she asked of her AI.

  The telepath’s figure was highlighted red once again as he walked with confidence toward a downed Marcus. Despite lying on the floor, looking up at the ceiling, spilling Gods knows how many liters of blood; Estrella could see the head of the telepath looking at Marcus via a secondary screen. She saw the telepath step above him grinning and aim his pistol down at his face. She discreetly reached for her fallen SMG, taking aim with it, while keeping her face to the ceiling. The secondary window was a godsend.

  A single bullet to the neck ended the threat. The telepath didn’t see it coming, visually or mentally. He went down with his hand trying to hold in the red that wanted to come out. It did by the time he crashed to the floor. The telepath’s life faded as three long red squirts shot out from the gunshot hole through his neck.

  Estrella sighed in relief and went searching for the strength needed to stand up and ignore the pain. She couldn’t find it. Geoffrey opted to remind her why. You have approximately three minutes to live. Nanite first aid is recommended.

  She selected it from her menu.

  First Aid

  Nanites administer first aid treatment. Extent and speed of healing varies on the number of nanite swarms used.

  Min. nanite swarm(s) required: 0.5

  Nanite swarm(s) remaining: 0.5

  Get those nanites working!

  I am however there is not enough. Due to the extent of your injuries, I require two nanite swarms. There is only half a swarm within you.

  Estrella was bleeding out. She reached for her storage compartment when her synthetic arm split open. There were no spare nanotubes left. She was delaying her death with the half swarm mending her gunshot wounds.

  When Estrella’s wounds began to partially seal, and reduce the pain, she crawled across the floor, leaving behind a smear of red in her wake. She found the burning body of the warlock she incinerated earlier. Her optical scans showed the nanite swarm that ended him was still functional.

  She kneeled next to the smoldering body and held her breath from the smoke and the scent of cooked warlock flesh. Her NC gauntleted hand hovered above the corpse and issued recall commands to the nanite swarm inside the body. They rose away from the smoking body, flying into her gauntlet, it looked like a spray can working in reverse, her gauntlet being the can.

  Nanite swarm(s) remaining: 2

  The two salvaged nanite swarms worked rapidly to mend her body. They were given permission to burn out what little battery power they had left to finish the job as quickly as possible. The swarm stopped her bleeding and repaired damaged organs and flesh. Blood that made a mess of her skin and black outfit moved in reverse, trickling back inside her. She’d order the blood she spilt on the floor to do the same, but that’d require a third nanite swarm, she didn’t have that.

  She was down to a swarm and a half when the process was halfway finished. She found Marcus’ body on the floor, unmoving, and slowly bleeding out. Her synthetic eyes looked up and down his body, taking in his condition.

  He will not survive, Geoffrey revealed. I’m sorry.

  Let me heal him.

  Unable to comply, insufficient nanite swarms.

  Give him one full swarm of mine.

  Tha
t would greatly reduce your healing. The nanites have not finished repairing your body.

  I’m stable enough to live now, he’s not. We’re healing his ass.

  Understood, canceling current healing on your body.

  Estrella’s NC gauntlet lit up with light as it gathered one full swarm from her body. She held her hand covered in the gauntlet above the red gushing wounds on Marcus’ body, spraying it with nanites with orders to stabilize him.

  Nanite swarm(s) remaining: 0.5

  Will he live, Geoffrey?

  Yes, this should stop the bleeding and repair damaged organs.

  Marcus would live to be the cop half the city hated to see, and others have loved when they made that emergency 911 call. He still lay motionless on the floor, likely passed out from the pain. Estrella was the only one standing in the unit, and the only one available to search for clues as to what the Bald Skulls gang was doing.

  The gang was searching for something, or someone. Estrella went searching for it, limping her way to one bedroom none of the gang members had the chance to kick in. She pushed the door open and frowned. Three people were inside, one man and one woman, both of them holding onto the shoulders of a frightened child, likely their child.

  This was their home until the gang kicked in the door looking for them. She saw a bit of herself in the child’s eyes, she was the same age as the kid when the gang kicked in the exit to her family’s place and gave her a gift she didn’t ask for; a ruined life and shattered childhood.

  The three looked at Estrella, but none of them seemed glad she was there. It might have to do with the fact that she still held the SMG in her hands. She slowly lowered it, but not fast enough for their kid. In a panic, he picked up and threw the clock on the wall at her … just by waving his hands that glowed white. He didn’t touch it physically; he touched it with his gifts.

  Estrella’s eyes narrowed, running facial recognition scans of the kid and his parents. Their names and ID appeared, it listed them as humans.

  That child is an IW, Geoffrey commented. It is likely his parents are as well. IWs with human IDs meant one thing. They were unregistered. We must detain and report them to the police department at once.

  She did something else, placing the SMG on top of a dresser. “Easy guys, I’m not here to hurt you.”

  The frightened father stepped back as Estrella stepped forward, dragging his wife and son with him. “Who … who are you?”

  “I’m an RW working with the LAPD,” Estrella said to him. “We heard there was trouble here. Any idea why these IWs came after you?”

  “No idea, we’re just humans trying to make a living.”

  Meaning they were unregistered IWs living in secret. She caught the kid using powers, and their names didn’t show up in the registered IW database when she logged in and accessed it. She double-checked to make sure their IDs pulled from the facial scans listed them as human. It was the job of an RW to kill or capture all unregistered IWs, gangbangers or not, and that included this family.

  But why would an IW gang attack them? It made little sense to her. IWs always looked out for their kind, especially the unregistered ones.

  Perhaps it was mistaken identity.

  That telepath should have sensed they were IWs. No, they attacked this family for a reason, and they didn’t care that they were fellow IWs.

  I presume this behavior of this particular gang is not typical then.

  They hated humans and made sure all their victims were them. This goes against their code … fuck, them being alive still goes against how I thought life and death worked.

  She heard Marcus groan from the halls, so he was coming to. The sound of his slow limps grew louder with each second. Estrella had a choice to make, hand over the family to Marcus to arrest them or do something that went against her obligation as an RW.

  Her eyes scanned the walls ahead, confirmation messages revealed a neighboring unit laid behind the wall. Her NC gauntlet hand came to rest on the surface of the wall, and a command sent the remaining nanites within her into the wall. Standing back, she watched and waited as the wall turned into gray goo, and dripped down to the floor, creating a circular hole in the wall. The hole was a passageway into the vacant neighboring unit.

  “Go,” Estrella said to the family of three, pointing at the new hole in the wall. “Stay low until the police are finished investigating.”

  The family moved through the hole in the wall. Once clear, Estrella’s gauntleted hand extended, communing with the half swarm of nanites, ordering them to take the gray goo at her feet, and reconstruct the wall it dissembled atom by atom. By the time it was done, the hole was gone like it was never there to start with. The half swarm returned to her gauntlet, the pinpricks within it stabbed her hands and arm, injecting them back inside her.

  She turned away from it, her mind quickly going over what to say to Marcus when he entered. She aided in the escape and concealment of an unregistered family of IWs. That could land you twenty-five to life in prison if you were human. If you were an RW, that was a defective product label stamped on your forehead and a one-way trip back to the factory that augmented your body.

  She was fucked if somebody found it.

  Eight

  Ray

  Ray missed it. The blood, death, and destruction, an epic battle waged with a newbie RW and a cop. He missed it all because of the fucking traffic.

  By the time Ray arrived at the apartment Piper had tipped him off about, EMTs had carried out five body bags from its lobby. He pulled his smart glasses out from his pocket, placing them on. Holographic overlays confirmed they were recording everything he saw, as he tapped the left control pad of the glasses, ordering them to analyze objects he stared at for periods longer than five seconds.

  The cops were silent, especially when Ray approached and asked if they cared to comment on what happened. They didn’t, but that didn't stop him from snooping around. Something major went down, and the city of LA had to know.

  He spotted a woman leave the lobby, she had long black hair, black makeup, bustier top, and shorts. Had to have been a witch, they always loved to dress like that. The NC gauntlet on her arm suggested she was an RW. This must have been the new girl Piper spoke of. Rodriguez was it? He double-checked his tablet pad, searching for the quick notes he made. Estrella Rodriguez, that had to have been her.

  Ray glared at her, holding the stare for five seconds, the holo screens of his smart glasses did the rest, accessing the local public Wi-Fi, pulling up everything it could on an RW named Estrella Rodriguez. A news report from Buenos Aires appeared on the lenses talking about Estrella, but it was written in Spanish. He didn’t understand a word of it. What he did know was that Estrella came here to LA from Buenos Aires recently. She had to have been forced into that, no RW requests a change like that. Everyone knew the RWs Yoshida provided the LAPD had a short life expectancy—

  His glasses flashed with a critical discovery. Zoomed in images of her NC gauntlet enlarged showing the red stains on it. Five body bags and an RW with her hands covered in blood meant either a violent battle with IWs, or an RW was forced to kill humans. Either way, this was breaking news. RWs were forbidden from engaging human targets unless they had no other choice. RWs were supposed to prevent human life from being taken from IWs, not contribute to that number, it’d be bad press for their corporate creators.

  Ray watched as Estrella and another limping cop sat at the foot of an opened ambulance. The cop’s vest and uniform were stained with blood. Paramedics swarmed the duo, tending to their injuries, before moving onto other matters, like the five body bags.

  This was his chance. Ray marched to Estrella and the cop she sat with. The truth wouldn’t be blocked from him, and these two, who obviously were at ground zero, were going to give it to him. He was sure of it.

  “Excuse me,” Ray said to the two, offering his hand in a shake. “My name is Ray Partington, from the Alliance Star.”

  The cop with Estrella grimac
ed. “How the fuck did you get here?”

  Ray continued to stare at him for the five-second delay he set his glasses. The name of the cop appeared, Marcus Desmond, part of the IW crimes unit of the LAPD. He gave Marcus a smile, despite the fuck off glare he got from the injured cop.

  Ray needed something, anything from the two. If he couldn’t report anything useful from them then he planned to use them to point him toward a new source.

  But first, they had to talk, and Marcus continuing to hold onto his scowl suggested he wasn’t in the mood. Ray faced Estrella, the new girl, and kept his face on her emerald glowing synthetic eyes. Arianna would have slapped Ray if she saw him look down at the faux leather bustier Estrella wore.

  “I’ve noticed you’re an RW,” Ray said to her. “Would you care to comment on what happened moments ago?”

  Estrella commented. “Fuck off.”

  She got up and left, muttering a curse word in Spanish at Ray. Marcus remained, and Ray returned his focus to him. “Are you able to give us any words on what you saw, sir?”

  “I’ll give you two words. Fuck, and You.” Marcus got up, leaving Ray alone. “Someone get this asshole out of my sight!”

  Ray left as well, only because he didn’t want to get dragged away from the crime scene. The truth was calling to him, pleading for him to discover it and tell the world with his writing. There was an RW that wasn’t supposed to be at the scene, and a cop went through hell and back, in an act that saw the need for five body bags, and they were keeping it a secret from him.

  Estrella must have botched the job he figured. Was she a faulty unit sent from Buenos Aires because they didn’t want her? That could be bad for the city, Yoshida needed to be providing the LAPD with its top of the line RW units, not defective ones. A sense of excitement tickled his thoughts. Ray might have been onto something, something that might cost the lives of innocents unless he blew the whistle. But first, he needed to prove it was the truth. He’d play no role in writing fake news.