Cyber Witch

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Two cameras got his attention, their video feeds were set to pause, and it wasn’t by him. They automatically restarted a moment later, only for cameras in the next connecting area of the airport to pause. Once again, it wasn’t by Ray’s hand. Someone was deliberately pausing the recording like they were trying to hide the path of someone that shouldn’t be seen.

  Ray took control of the camera in the main security room. A uniformed airport security man lay motionless next to his station when the live feed displayed on his pad. Ahead of the lifeless man was a wall of monitors, displaying footage from the hundreds of surveillance cameras at the airport. He zoomed in. The motionless security guard’s chest wasn’t moving. Tilting the camera up, he saw the equipment pause and restart cameras throughout the airport, on its own.

  There were IWs in the airport. It had to be. Ray was the only hacker inside the network, he would have detected another if that were the case. IWs here would explain the strange idling of the passengers and security teams at the checkpoint. What it didn’t explain was how the IWs did it. They weren’t powerful enough for that level of control. The answers to Ray’s questions lay with the two groups of strange men. He found their location with the cameras. They were moving to a flight from the EU that just arrived.

  Ray grabbed his phone, frantically dialing Arianna’s number, hoping she’d pick up, but expecting the same voicemail sound. If she was still at the airport, she had to leave right away. Something bad was going down, and unregistered IWs were behind it. No way would registered ones have made it this far without their tracking devices sending out an alert.

  The ringback tone stopped. Arianna’s voicemail didn’t activate that time.

  He exhaled deeply. “Arianna, where are you?”

  “My flight just landed.”

  “Okay great, I’m coming to get you.”

  “What? No! Stay in the fucking hotel like I asked!”

  The tone of her voice was fierce, sharp, and direct. It wasn’t the calm hippy girl he fell in love with. It was like someone else was in control of her.

  “I’m already here,” he said, cradling the phone with his shoulder, it freed his hands to continue operating his pad.

  “Jesus fuck, why?!” Once again, it didn’t sound like the Arianna he knew. “You need to get out now!”

  “I’m not fucking leaving without you!” That and he just stumbled upon a major news scoop. The free people of the Alliance needed to know. “Listen, I have reason to believe there’s unregistered IWs moving to your location, and they aren’t here to kiss and greet someone.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Trust me on this.” He leaned his face closer to the hacked security feeds on the pad. “Take a left then move north. Don’t look behind.”

  He watched her move following his directions. She stepped out of view from one camera and into the next, while he shifted about looking at the cameras that continued to pause when a particular target entered its view. It was his guide, a heads up where the shady men where. It was his only means of guiding her away from them and into safety, and it wasn’t working. The shady men changed directions when Arianna did. They knew where she was at all times.

  They must be telepaths. Of course, they would. “Fuck. It looks like they’re on to you.”

  “I’m cutting this call. I’ll get back to you later, please stay safe!”

  “Arianna! No, wait—”

  She cut the call without saying goodbye. It didn’t seem like the Arianna he knew at all. Calling her again seemed like a waste of time. After making note of her location in the airport, he power-walked out from the washroom, turned a corner briskly, nearly knocking over an elderly man, and kept walking. There was no time to stop and say sorry. He had to get to Arianna before they did.

  He checked his pad two minutes into his walk through the busy and buzzing airport. Arianna was near. So were the two groups of shady men—

  Ray was flung through the air.

  He heard the rumble of a market kiosk blowing apart. Screaming, and panicking sounds filled the air. Three claps of a gun. Make that five, then seven. The world went black for a moment.

  By the time Ray came to, pushing his body up, he saw people running and shouting, from a warlock with jets of flames gushing from his red glowing hands. The warlock burned everything he pointed at, namely the airport security RWs. Three men hunkered behind a pillar, the pistols they fired curved around the corner, keeping three RWs pinned down. The three men were IWs.

  A swarm of nanites entered the air and caught one of the three men cowering behind the pillar, and his body burst into flames. His friends didn’t seem to care. Behind, Ray heard the thumping footsteps of men, shouting various military jargon into their headsets, back up for the RWs perhaps. He’d retreat behind them if Arianna wasn’t still within the messy RW and IW exchange.

  Ray leaped to his feet, moving closer to ground zero. He told himself over and over there wasn’t anything he could do for the people on the floor he had to step over. The floor rumbled, the aftermath of an explosive pyrokinetic ability. It shattered the windows peering out to the runway. It didn’t stop Ray from pushing forward, hoping Arianna wasn’t one of the several unmoving bodies on the ground.

  Keeping prone, he crawled forward and saw the first two shady men, the tall brown-haired man, and the brawny African. The brawny man stepped into the fray, cracked his fists, and then roared. Fangs had sprouted made visible from his majestically roaring open mouth. A soft, golden mane grew around his head, while a tail of similar color emerged behind him. His hands became claws and the appearance of fur covered his body. By the time he got on all fours, he had taken on the appearance of a lion. Biokinesis was at work, the man had altered his genes to a lion, making him a shifter, a werelion, an angry one that bolted in, leaping, and mauling someone, Ray couldn’t see who. Might have been one of the RWs, might have been someone else.

  The tall man went to assist his werelion partner. His body went flying out the now shattered window. A thump on the tarmac below followed. An Asian man with long black hair tied into a ponytail stood at the edge where the tall man fell. In the ponytailed man’s hand was a sword, like a Japanese katana shimmering with indigo color. He snapped his fingers, and his body vanished. The IWs before Ray weren’t your ordinary ones.

  There was an opening because of that. It gave him the chance to push deeper into the fray, searching the debris for Arianna, ducking his head from the bolts of electrokinetic shocks and pyrokinetic flame jets the IWs unleashed. He hoped the werelion didn’t smell his presence.

  Arianna wasn’t among the bodies he found. By the time he stood up, ready to give up, he laid eyes on her, golden curly hair blowing in the winds let in from the shattered windows. She ducked behind an information terminal, its screen flicked on and off as sparks sprayed from it. She saw him. He saw her. Ray went running for her, half expecting to eat a stray bullet or devastating IW ability.

  “Arianna!” His hand held onto her, she was warm and breathing. She also looked at him strangely, like she had never seen him with her hypnotic eyes.

  Ray tried to leave while holding her hand. Arianna remained still, forcing him to look back at her. Now he had a confused look.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The armed RW and security backup arrived behind the two. The battle he sought to run from only grew in intensity. Arianna embraced him, resting her forehead against his. He loved feeling her body close to his, and he’d love it even more if they got the fuck out, ideally alive.

  “Give me more time please,” she whispered.

  “We can have all of that and more once we get out of here—”

  “Another minute, please.”

  “Arianna?”

  Was she talking to him, or someone else? Ray couldn’t answer that question. Arianna’s embrace tightened, and Ray felt the temperature of his head, skull, and brain increase. A sharp pain stabbed his frontal lobes, and high-pitched ringing sounds muted the surrounding
chaos. He wanted to scream but forgot how.

  He was on his knees before Arianna, his hands holding his head in agony. When the ringing noises ended, he mustered the strength to look up at her. She ran her palms across the side of his head, gently, slowly. Arianna beamed.

  “Thank you,” she said. “The future is now in your hands Ray. Don’t fuck it up.”

  Her finger gliding across his head stopped near his ear. Ray’s vision turned to mathematical equations, long strings of scientific formulas, diagrams of molecules, atoms, and DNA strands. A facility in a tropical jungle erupted with flames, a woman wearing a guest badge butchering humans by the hundreds. The woman was a witch.

  The vision ended with a man putting a gun in his mouth and was asked to pull the trigger. When Ray looked at his palms, he saw the white glowing hands of a witch covered in blood.

  Ray wasn’t himself anymore.

  Seventeen

  Estrella

  Estrella couldn’t shake the suspicion. The suspicion that the world was about to enter a turning point it might not recover from. The police car Marcus drove swerved around dozens of cars, as its sirens and red, blue, flashing lights told the world to step back. The tall skyscrapers of various geometric shapes and lights from the city, moved past in rapid succession.

  A computer screen on his dashboard populated with updated data about the three separate IW attacks in the city, most of the first responders reporting heavy casualties, and at least two RWs killed. Marcus plowed into the wealthy suburban neighborhood of Beverly Hills. She and he were the first car at the scene, everyone else had been called to quell the two downtown IW calls.

  Estrella and Marcus stood side-by-side holding a pistol each after they exited the car, its blue and red lights still flashing. The Kounias residence looked silent upon first glance, no signs of violence, or raging IWs. They walked to the front gate with weapons ready for action.

  The gardening robots lay in pieces on the front lawn. Sprays of sparks flared up periodically. She felt the crunch of broken glass beneath her footsteps, shattered bedroom windows were the providers of that. Bullet holes ruined the front door which was left wide open. Marcus pushed in first, the flashlight mounted to the top of his weapon switched on automatically when they crossed into the darkened home. Estrella’s eyes switched to night vision mode, clearing the path before her.

  Holes in the walls punched in by bullets were commonplace. Computer screens flicked, furniture that wasn’t covered in bullet holes was flipped over, and flowerpots laid in a mess of ceramic fragments, mixed with the black soil and the remains of plants. Upon closer inspection, the shattered pots lay next to a wall, and above on the wall, were massive dents dusted with soil.

  Estrella lowered herself, rubbing her fingers across blackened burn marks on the floor. They smeared her fingertips with soot, just enough for her nanites to come up and take quick scans, relaying the data to Geoffrey when they returned inside her.

  These marks are consistent with IW attacks, Geoffrey said.

  She cringed looking at the shattered flowerpots. Someone threw the pots as a weapon and missed their target. That’s why the mess on the walls. An IW threw them with a psychokinetic push.

  Any idea of their rank? Estrella asked her AI.

  Rank A possibly, or rank S.

  “Fuck me sideways,” she said out loud and faced Marcus. “We got possible rank A or S IWs here.”

  He snorted. “Guess this would be a bad time to ask if you’ve graduated to rank B or not.”

  She stood, aiming her pistol forward, ready to keep investigating. “Yeah, not really.” Wait, Geoffrey, rank A or S you said?

  That is correct.

  What the fuck is a rank S?

  Any IWs ranked as an S are considered to be weaponized.

  She entered the living room with her optical scanner enhanced by night vision searching for anything of suspicion. She saw only bullet holes, burns marks on the ceiling, and shattered pictures. The thought of Rank S IWs had her worried.

  Weaponized … Isn’t that, like, the shit they used in world war three? I thought training up to that rank was banned?

  It is and is considered impossible. The facilities alone that could provide that level of training has long been demolished and its instructors have grown far too old to pass on their knowledge.

  “Might wanna wait for the cavalry for this one,” she snorted.

  “Huh? Why?”

  A figure on the couch stopped her from replying. They didn’t look hostile. Estrella ran to them. “Hold up, got someone here …”

  It was a woman, lying back first on the couch. She lowered herself to the woman and gave her wake-up shake. The woman didn’t wake up.

  Estrella …

  What?

  Look down …

  She did.

  “Fuck!” Estrella leaped back and away from the woman on the couch.

  The woman had a grisly bullet hole between her still wide-open eyes, and an expression of shock on her face and opened mouth. The woman didn’t know the attackers, nor was expecting them to charge in shooting.

  Marcus came in running behind her, the light from his pistol shined upon the woman’s face. “Shit.”

  Blood drenched the couch where the woman’s head had been resting. The single gunshot that ended her life went right through.

  Marcus groaned. “What a way to go. She must have been lying down watching TV when they came in shooting.”

  Estrella stood up, shaking off the memories of how her parents went out. Her hatred for the Bald Skulls grew. “They shot her in the head without thinking twice.”

  White light from Marcus’s flashlight shined upon the walls and the makeover the bullets gave it. “Then why the fuck did they go trigger happy here?”

  Marcus had a point. It made Estrella look longer at the bullet holes making her optical scanners work in overtime, its data outputted over her vision. The woman got one slug in the head, it’s all they needed, and she was wide open for the assault as it started. There was another target in the living room.

  “Someone else survived,” she said and moved out into the halls, following the path of round holes punched into the walls. It led them up to the staircase to the second floor.

  Marcus’ flashlight shined, brightening the walls, and identifying bullet holes in it on second floor. “Whoever they were shooting at, must have been really good dodging bullets.”

  Geoffrey, I forgot to run a facial scan. Does her face ring a bell?

  Processing, please standby. A three-second pause followed. Yes.

  An ID photo of the woman killed, and her profile appeared over Estrella’s vision.

  Name: Maria Kounias

  Age: 57

  Species: Human

  Occupation: Liquor warehouse manager

  Notes: Daughter is an employee of Yoshida

  The woman was Maria Kounias, a resident of this household and wife of Norris Kounias, whom she shared this house with.

  Anything that would suggest they might be unregistered IWs?

  Please standby. A ten-second pause. No, they are not and—

  “Rodriguez,” Marcus cut in. “You got all silent there.”

  She grinned, looking down at the holographic black cat following her while the two searched room after room in the upscale house turned into a warzone. “Just having a talk with my AI.” You were saying, Geoffrey? You got more, right?

  Yes, it is unlikely Norris and Maria are unregistered as they have a daughter named Arianna. She is an employee of Yoshida Corp and is the reason they were given this house to live in.

  I can’t see the daughter of unregistered IWs, working for the corporation that spends its money to keep IWs in their place.

  That is correct; furthermore, genetic screening is a requirement for seeking employment in Yoshida. Her IW nature would have been discovered long ago.

  They shot Maria dead at the start, Norris most likely saw it happen and ran, and somehow managed to dodge every si
ngle bullet shot at him by a user of IW abilities from the main level floor. The thoughts made Estrella grimace. She and Marcus kept searching the bedrooms of the house. She wasn’t sure if this was the work of the Bald Skulls, especially when factoring in weaponized IWs might have been present.

  Fascinating, Geoffrey’s voice echoed in her head. Their daughter Arianna is currently in a long-term relationship with this man.

  A photograph of Arianna and her boyfriend loaded, taken while the two were seated in the kitchen of the home they were searching. Their smiling faces were gushing with pure happiness.

  “What a cute couple—” Estrella zoomed in on the face of Arianna’s boyfriend in her vision. She recognized him. Ray Partington. “That’s the fucking journalist!”

  You are correct. Ray was also the last registered visitor to this residence prior to the break-in.

  “Hey, Marcus!” He stopped and turned to face her. “What are the chances you can get someone to search the address of Ray Partington?”

  His eyebrow rose. “There a reason for that?”

  She gave him her reason. Ray Partington was the journalist the two of them told to fuck off, after the apartment attack by the Bald Skulls. She had reason to believe he was the one that tipped Piper off and was the hacker known as DigiSamurai69. Ray was the last person to visit the house, into which the IWs stormed in an unknown time later.

  What was the connection? Ray. He must have been the target the IWs were hunting for, and when they couldn’t find him, they went searching for his last known locations, then killed the Kounias family as they were witnesses. If she was right, then Ray’s place should be getting ransacked.

  The only question that remained was who were the IWs? If it wasn’t the Bald Skulls, then who? The terrorist IWs from the EU? Or did the gang upgrade to terrorists?

  The two stood in front of a door to the last unsearched bedroom. Marcus pushed the door open and entered, Estrella followed behind.

  There was sunshine, bright enough to make her night vision go haywire. She had to switch it off as she shielded her eyes, processing how the hell the sunlight was so intense during the early evening. She looked to see Marcus’ reaction since he entered first yet remained silent at the surprise.