Cyber Witch

by Eddie R. Hicks

  The LAPD didn’t send her, today was Estrella’s day off. But, commendations to Yoshida would get her back in Buenos Aires in no time. Working on your day off was a good way to earn those commendations. She smiled and followed the bronze warlock into his bar, a place where a neon sign flashed the words ‘The Witches Brew’ above its entrance.

  A kidnapping by a bald man …

  The attack on the family of three was no doubt a botched attempt by the Bald Skulls. The young man, at the bus stop, and now someone from the bar, wasn’t. The Bald Skulls were stepping up their game, and fast. Not bad for a group of dead IWs.

  Thumping luststep music came blasting at Estrella as she entered the bar, full of life, following behind the bronze warlock. It was hard to tell what the natural color of the walls, ceiling, and tables were, as the flashing lights made everything, and everyone, look purple and pink. Two IWs flashed her an expression of hate. Estrella’s kind was not welcomed. The bronze warlock leading her in didn’t seem to care.

  “So …”

  “The name’s Robbie,” he said.

  She nodded. “What happened exactly?”

  He guided her to a circular table with two women sitting around it. Their faces looked depressed. One of them wiped tears away with the back of their wrist. Robbie gestured to them.

  “Those girls will know,” he said. “All I know was, I was at the bar, serving some drinks to a couple of hot guys, then that baldy had to come in and start a commotion. He left holding one lady these two girls came with.”

  “Shit.”

  “He also didn’t tip! I expect that from humans, but not fellow IWs. Ya feel?”

  At the table, Estrella stood looking at the two women. They looked up at her. It was the first time she saw IWs happy to see her presence. That was the funny thing about being an RW. Everyone hated her until an IW started trouble, and then they came begging the RW to make the bad IW go away. Then promptly went back to hating her.

  “I’ll fetch the surveillance footage for you too,” Robbie said while taking his leave.

  She nodded then ran facial scans of the two women, and analyzed the results, starting with the one on the left.

  Name: Helen Pillar

  Age: 19

  Species: Imaginary witch/warlock

  Occupation: Dancer

  Notes: Rank D Telepath

  Next up was the one on the right.

  Name: Vina Blanchard

  Age: 20

  Species: Human

  Occupation: Dancer

  Notes: Error, please try again later

  Estrella twisted her lips. Vina didn’t strike her as a human, not by the black lace she wore, pentagram necklace, and eye shadow darker than Estrella’s. Then there was that familiar error message. It was time to ask questions before the real cop and RW that was called to the scene showed up.

  “Word has it you ladies had an interesting day,” Estrella asked.

  A loud sigh from Vina followed as she looked at her friend Helen. “Does that thing need to be here?”

  “Yes, it’s protocol.” Estrella cut in, not knowing if it really was LAPD protocol. But it got them listening to her. “Don’t worry ladies, I don’t bite. So, what happened?”

  “Well.” Vina hesitated. “Helen, and my sister, Portia, and I came here thinking there was a gig waiting for us.”

  Estrella crossed her arms, looking at their makeup, hair, and clothing barely covering their curves and girly bits. She factored in a Bald Skulls gang member was targeting women dressed like that, with the promise of a gig. Estrella knew what was up.

  “Was that a psytrip gig?” she asked them.

  The two women shared a grimace, still hesitant to talk about the matter. “Eh? What?”

  “You heard me, was it a psytrip gig?” No answer. “Okay so, there were three of you originally, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “The third being Vina’s sister, Portia, right?”

  She nodded. “Yes … he, he grabbed her and ran out the door.”

  “White glowing hands then a quick stun?”

  “I think. It happened so fast.” Vina looked to the table, her eyes filling with tears again. “I thought stun takes at least five seconds to use?”

  Estrella’s shoulders came up shrugging. “Thought so too …” She studied their appearances again. “Was Portia dressed like the two of you?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “You three were dancers looking to make the switch to psytrip adult actresses?” No answer, just hesitating faces. “Look, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me everything.”

  Helen broke her silence. “Yes …” She looked up at Estrella with her dark shadowed eyes. “He told us he was an agent and had some work for us. Dancing isn’t consistent money, you know? He showed up using a fake telepathic projection.”

  “Being a telepath, you must have seen through his mental manipulation.”

  Helen eventually and hesitantly nodded. Estrella knew why. Helen was a rank D telepath, there’s no way she’d be strong enough to tell the difference. Someone else of the three did. Thing was, Vina’s profile listed her as human therefore her sister, Portia, should be as well. Estrella had doubts Vina was a registered IW, her sister too. And it’d fit the puzzle, the Bald Skulls were targeting IWs since their return, not humans.

  “He was pushy before I, uh, called him out,” Helen lied, but Estrella knew the truth. “He wanted us to come with him and get started right away. We told him the deal was off, and things got fucking stupid from there.”

  “We tried to get away,” Vina said. “But Portia, she wasn’t fast enough, and then got hit with his stun.”

  “You girls did the best you could,” Estrella said. “I was one of their victims.” Vina broke down with somber weeping. “Trust me, I’ll find your sister.” And that kid from the bus stop … she finished internally. Geoffrey, did you get anything on that kid?

  I narrowed it down to six different males.

  Six ID profiles obscured Estrella’s view of Helen and Vina. She briefly skimmed them and grimaced. The fuck? They’re all human.

  That is correct. Perhaps the gang isn’t targeting IWs as you suspected—

  No, they are. Look at the addresses to these names? It’s all here in the district, didn’t Piper say the most of the humans living here packed up and left?

  Correct, that is why rent prices in the IW district are low.

  Then there’s a good chance anyone living here, especially with kids, isn’t human. That kid was a fucking warlock.

  Yes, the probability of a human family living in the IW district is extremely low. And it is unlikely a minor like the one kidnapped lived alone.

  That family of three all had their profiles listing them as human. But you and I know the truth, they were unregistered IWs. Vina and her sister, those two had to have been telepaths, and it’s pretty fucking obvious they were looking to get their adult psytrip careers started. You need to be a telepath for that. So, what does that tell you, Geoffrey?

  The Bald Skulls gang is targeting unregistered IWs, telepathic ones to be precise if your hypothesis is correct.

  And if you’re going to kidnap any IW, you’d go for the unregistered ones. They don’t have tracking devices and live in secret—

  Alert Estrella.

  She grimaced and bid farewell to the two women. Looking ahead to the entrance stood Marcus and Piper, the cop and RW that was originally called to the scene. The situation was about to get awkward. Estrella kept her face to the floor and moved to the bar, vanishing beyond the sea of drunken IWs as Marcus and Piper entered, and spoke with Robbie.

  Robbie’s gasp made her chuckle softly to herself. Probably confused why Marcus and Piper were responding to the call, when Estrella had shown up, posing as the responder. Estrella took a seat at the bar, keeping her back to them, trying to blend in. She waited for Marcus and Piper to pass by, and speak to the soon to be confused duo sitting at the round table—

  “You!
”

  It was Robbie. He was standing behind the bar now, facing down Estrella at her stool, his hands clasping his hips.

  “Hey, listen, Robbie—”

  “You’ve been a bit of naughty girl.”

  “So, they went and told you, huh?”

  “I figured it out.”

  “I’m assigned to the LAPD, so it’s not like I lied or anything.”

  “But you weren’t on duty.”

  “My duty to them right now is patrols. But I need to be investigating this. I know who this gang is.”

  “The guy that took the girl is a gangbanger?”

  “Supposed to be dead, I killed them all when I was in Buenos Aires. Now they’re here in LA, every single one of them, alive and kidnapping …” She stopped herself from saying unregistered IWs, best to wait and see how things play out before revealing those details.

  “So why not ask your LAPD masters to help with the case?”

  “’cause I’m on probation.”

  Robbie smiled. “Oh? Please, do tell, honey.”

  “Assaulted one of Yoshida’s clients back in Buenos Aires.”

  “Thought you RWs couldn’t hurt humans?”

  “I hacked my old AI and turned off the safety.” He laughed. She laughed. They both laughed some more. “It got sent me here as punishment, and then I immediately disobeyed orders when I found out the gang was attacking a family of three.”

  “You’re Estrella Rodriguez, aren’t you?”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Girl, your face has been on the news, everywhere! The RW that might be defective, and the LAPD doesn’t care.”

  “I’m not a fuck-up, just made a few bad choices that landed me here, stuck to patrol work. They don’t want me helping with the investigation, because they don’t trust me to handle it right.”

  “So, behind their backs, you’re working on it anyway.”

  “I need to know what the fuck is going on, and I don’t trust the LAPD to do it right. I can’t and won’t able to sleep at night knowing the men that killed my parents, did sick shit to me, and others, are alive and free after I sold my fucking soul to Yoshida, so I could get the powers needed to fucking kill them. All that work, just for someone to hit the undo button.”

  “Your secret’s safe with me, girl, don’t you worry.”

  “Thanks—”

  “Well, well, well.” A firm and familiar human hand patted her shoulder. “Why am I not surprised to see you?”

  Turning in her barstool, she saw Marcus and Piper behind. Neither looked thrilled to look at her. “Just slipped in for a drink.”

  Marcus crossed his arms across his police uniform. “Sure you did, Rodriguez.”

  “It’s true,” Robbie interjected in her defense. “She, uh, heard about my new happy hour prices on drinks. That other RW I mentioned? She’s long gone! This is totally not her.”

  Marcus and Piper weren’t buying.

  Piper beamed. “Strange, since those two girls claimed an RW that looked like you Rodriguez spoke with them before we arrived.”

  Robbie shot Estrella a wink, then stepped away, taking orders from a fresh arrival of pentagram tattooed warlocks. She appreciated Robbie trying to cover for her regardless. Marcus was going to say more, adding to the grilling of Estrella when his radio interrupted.

  “All units, we got a twenty-fifty, in progress.”

  Marcus’ lips twisted. “Twenty-fifty, shit.” He reached for his radio, stepping back and away from Estrella and Piper. “Hold on, let me take this.”

  Estrella watched as Marcus backed away, locating a quiet spot to speak into the communication device. She looked up at Piper; she too held the same concerned look Marcus had. “What’s a twenty-fifty?” Estrella asked her.

  “Violent IWs committing a crime,” Piper said. “I hope you’re packing heat, new girl, because that usually means all RWs get your ass in gear.”

  Piper’s synthetic eyes, glowing with an emerald hue, shut like she was trying to focus. A silent conversation with the holographic raven sitting on her shoulder, Estrella figured.

  Marcus came back fast. Piper backed away, giving him space to approach Estrella. “We got to go now,” he said. “IWs are ripping up shit up downtown, and in Beverly Hills.”

  “Looks like you were right, Piper,” Estrella said and waited for Piper’s snarky response. There wasn’t one. Both Marcus and Estrella looked to where Piper was last standing. It was just an empty spot. “Where did she go?”

  A quick three-minute search for Piper turned up no results, and neither did calling her number. She was gone, left to get a head start on the call, they concluded. Something they needed to do.

  Marcus and Estrella leaped into his police car, parked outside the bar, with haste. Its computer screen turned on, as he powered the vehicle. The screen had comprehensive details listed of the twenty-fifty call, and its critical nature.

  There were three red-shaded areas on the map of the city highlighted, indicating the location of the violent IW crime in progress. Two were downtown and one was in Beverly Hills. Estrella glanced closer at the screen, noting the red highlight in Beverly Hills was a residential home.

  It belonged to the Kounias family.

  Sixteen

  Ray

  Another call to Arianna. Another voicemail reply.

  Ray stood near the arrivals atrium at New York City’s JFK airport. He lowered his phone into his pocket after getting the voicemail sound for the third time. Cold sweat dampened his body, heavy breathing made his chest move rapidly, and trembles in his arms made his fingers twitch.

  Flight information screens showed no delays for all incoming flights to New York, especially those coming from across the Atlantic. The flight arriving from London, which Arianna was supposed to be on, was a minute out. The flight he traced her phone signal from should have landed already, and that flight came from Munich.

  There were no panicking faces, or explosions, so that ruled out that terrorist IWs were aboard her flight. It helped slow the twitching in his hands, clearing his thoughts enough to possibly accept that fact that maybe, just maybe, he was just being extremely paranoid brought on by the desire to propose to her.

  Arianna not answering her phone however was odd, especially when he tried calling her after the attacks in the EU. Gone were the days where you couldn’t use phones mid-flight. There was no reason for her to cut the call earlier, and no reason for her not to reply to his last message.

  Two men dressed in black hooked his attention. One man was tall with pale skin, and short brown hair, his hands stuck in his pockets all times. The other was a large African male, a bodybuilder by the looks, with muscles on his arms, legs, and a chest that wanted to burst out from his black attire. Both men wore dark shades and kept to themselves. Ray did the same and hung behind the crowds leaving the airport, his eyes remained fixed on the two strange men.

  Another group of men entered the airport, dressed in plain clothing. Was it five men? Or Seven? Ray couldn’t tell, they were walking so close to each other. He thought nothing at first, until he noticed they all wore shades. It was a little late in the day to be wearing those, especially indoors.

  The arrival of the group of men in shades had the two shady men trailing behind them, like stalkers. Something told Ray he should do the same. Something else told him he should have listened to Arianna and avoided the airport. But he was already in deep now, and his journalistic mind wanted the truth. Who were these men? It didn’t look like they were there to pick up someone.

  Ray made it as far as the check-in area, having followed the two men to the departures terminal. Looking ahead, he saw the large group of men walk past security robots, personnel, and scanners. No questions were asked, not even by the massive line up of passengers, who should have protested that the men jumped the line.

  He made another call to Arianna, and his sweaty palms left their mark on his phone. She didn’t reply. The suspicious men were out of sight when Ra
y drew his eyes away his phone. He stood still to collect his thoughts from his panicking mind. It wouldn’t stop flashing images of Arianna dead or kidnapped as she got off her flight. The flight she wasn’t supposed to be on.

  Passengers and security personnel stood idle at the security check-in area. He thought there was a hold-up at the end of the line. He looked to the front, examining the teams of security staff manning the body scanners they required everyone to enter. The passengers and security remained still, like idle mannequins in a store. The feeling was eerie.

  Ray tried asking what was wrong, but nobody replied. He cut in line, and nobody objected. The security personnel didn’t mind that Ray walked away from the body scanner, then ignored the genetic screening robot, whose job was to confirm that all people passing through the checkpoint was human. IWs were banned from flights in the Alliance, they were considered to be weapons.

  He walked backward, leaving the security checkpoint, crossing the point of no return. Ray kept an eye on the security checkpoint and the lineup of passengers that remained suspended in time during his backward walk. Two minutes later, life returned to it. The security teams resumed their jobs, the passengers waiting in line continued to complain about the wait. Nobody realized they were frozen for five minutes, or that Ray slipped in without getting cleared by security, or the two groups of shaded men.

  Crowds of passengers scurrying to or from their flights with carry-on luggage in hand moved ahead or around Ray. They knew where they needed to be, and he didn’t. Ray felt lost. He reached for his tablet pad and located the men’s washroom. Once inside, he locked himself in a toilet stall for privacy. He brought up his hacking apps, searching for the opened data ports the airport used for its security personnel. Lines of computer code slithered across his pad’s screen. He typed away on the virtual keyboard, hopping from node to node, bypassing several firewalls and security encryptions.

  The surveillance cameras of the airport belonged to him now, their contents visible from his pad’s screen. Ray had hundreds of cameras to check, and only one of them would have footage of the two groups of strange men, or Arianna.