Piper’s face leaned closer to Estrella, her lips leading the charge. Piper shut her eyes. A sensual rush surged through Estrella. It reminded her of Yumi, and she couldn’t figure out why. She sensed the texture and heat of Piper’s lips on hers, Piper was trying to kiss her. And had Estrella remained still she would have experienced her first kiss. Instead, she jerked her body away.
The awkward stance flashed a connection loss error message when their holding hands parted.
A soft sigh left Piper’s lips, lips that touched Estrella’s for half a second. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
Shaking her head, Estrella said. “No, it’s uh.”
“I thought you, well, you know.”
“Eh?”
“Thought, you were lonely.” Piper looked away, her face drenched with moisture. “There was a vibrator on your nightstand.”
How the fuck did she know? Estrella thought though Geoffrey was silent in his explanation. She thought back briefly to the call she made to Piper. She had left the vibrator on the table in the background. Ah shit. “Ah,” Estrella said to Piper still facing away. “So, Robbie was right?”
“Well, it wasn’t my intention at first, but …” She sighed again. “Sorry.”
“It’s the drinks.”
“Yeah, that was some powerful shit.”
“Yep.”
Data analysis complete, Geoffrey revealed. She was happy to hear his words, having become worried that the sudden broken link might have corrupted the download. However, we have been scanned by a telepath—
What, where? Nothing. Geoffrey, talk to me.
New status screens opened. Geoffrey was taken offline, somehow. With Geoffrey offline Estrella lost control of all utility nanites. Even if Piper let her touch her again, she wouldn’t be able to conduct the scan. And if Estrella were to come under attack now, she wouldn’t be prepared to defend herself with her nanite’s sorcery. The feeling was foreboding.
The giggling and happiness Piper was projecting were gone. A cringing face replaced it as her eyes went searching for the exit. “I should go.”
She stood from her seat, leaving Estrella alone at the bar. Piper bolted to the exit in a hurry.
Estrella reached for her not that it did any good. “Piper!”
She got up immediately to follow Piper, perhaps too quickly. One second she saw the sight of the pixie kiwi making a move for the exit, and the next Estrella could only see the floor with her hands holding her up. She was too drunk to chase.
Robbie was at the bar again when Estrella pulled herself back up using the edge of the bar. “Oh, where did Piper go?”
Her tipsy body swayed from left to right as she eyed the exit. The kiwi pixie flew away from Estrella’s net. She’d ask for Geoffrey’s assistance, but her status screen still had him listed as offline.
“She split,” Estrella’s dejected voice revealed
“Didn’t seal the deal, huh?” Robbie snorted. “Tisk, tisk, you gotta be more confident than that if you want an older woman, girl!” Robbie joined Estrella, watching the exit as three witches entered showing more skin than Piper was. “I shouldn’t talk; I should have been keeping my eye on her too. Piper’s been known to split without paying her tab.”
Estrella reached for her purse. “I’ll handle it—”
“Oh, no, you keep that, honey,” Robbie snorted. “Piper’ll be back, she does this all the time when she realizes a cutie like you ain’t coming home with her for the night.”
The night went from something strange and magical to pure apprehension after Piper upped and left fast. Geoffrey’s last words said something about a telepath invading her mind. Her instincts compelled her to run facial scans, searching for an IW. Except this was an IW establishment, there had to have been dozens of people with telepathic abilities. And with Geoffrey offline, she lacked the ability to detect who exactly would be strong enough to enter her thoughts, and possibly Piper’s too. Why else would she have left in hurry?
Piper sensed danger and ran before it involved her. Estrella had a feeling she should do the same and called for a taxi.
Thirty-Two
Ray
Ray looked to the neon logo of Pause, Play, Rewind which was brightening his face. He then faced the streets behind him. Ray came alone as far as he could see with nothing but IW hookers offering their after-midnight special deals, and himself a wandering journalist though the holographic advertisement urban jungle.
He entered, keeping things low key. Only when he made it past the reception desk was when he lifted his gaze forward, searching for troublemakers. Ray saw none. He kept moving through the sparsely lit halls and found a long faux leather seat where Jax sat waiting.
He looked to the left, to the right, and behind. There was nothing else threatening, just IW telepaths escorting clients to the various private rooms for a psytrip. Though Ray striding into the establishment alive, when he should be dead, might change that soon. He had to be quick and get Jax to leave with him.
Jax remained sitting when Ray approached, his arms opened in greeting. “Ray, what’s up?”
“You tell me,” Ray said, gesturing to the exit. “Let’s go.”
“No, you tell me,” Jax spat, his ass remaining where he sat. “You asked me to come here to this fucking witch brothel.”
“I didn’t, but let’s talk about this outside.”
“You contacted me …” Jax pulled out his phone, shoving the screen to Ray’s face. “See?”
Ray leaned forward eying the communication log the two had. There was no mention of the message. “See what?”
Jax was now the one carefully viewing the phone’s screen. He made a face. It was a face Ray didn’t want to look at.
“What the fuck?” Jax roared and bashed the edge of the phone against his leg. Not that it would make it work better.
Kids these days.
“It was right there a second ago,” Jax panicked. “I fucking swear man. You sent me a text message today, asking to meet up here.”
“You got hacked.” Ray grabbed Jax’s sleeve, yanking him up.
Jax’s gaze remained on the phone’s screen. “No fucking way! I ain’t no lamer, and you know that.”
He was right. Jax was a hacker who broke into devices, not the other way around. Ray froze suddenly when it all came together. The men that attacked the airport and morgue were powerful IWs, and most likely lured Jax here. You don’t hack a hacker’s phone with fake messages, as they’d be able to figure out they were fake. Telepathic mental manipulation was a different story, until the fake veil wore off.
Jax saw the messages because a telepath wanted him to see something fake. Ray couldn’t maintain the phone connection with Jax because an IW with electrokinesis most likely disrupted Jax’s phone temporarily. IWs targeted Jax specifically, and the two stood in a building full of IWs behind the dozens of private rooms around them.
Ray looked at all the closed doors, wondering what was really going on behind them. They needed to leave—
“Yo, fuck this shit.” Jax got antsy, yanking his sleeve free from Ray’s grip. “I’m out!”
In a panic, Jax dropped his phone and raced for the exit. His loud voice drew the glares of those still in the hall as he pushed past.
“Jax,” Ray said to him, keeping cool and calm. “We’ll figure a way out of this, but you really got to stay with me right now and keep your voice down.”
A middle finger was the reply from Jax, and he went for the exit. Two doors one left and one right opened. A hole exploded through Jax’s head before he made it to the front reception desk. Ray heard the blood splatter on the floor as Jax’s body went limp and fell. He was sick of death and destruction following him everywhere he ran.
The IWs and their clients in the hall erupted with panic and flailing arms after watching Jax’s end. The warlock bouncers heard the gunshots and came running forward. The shooters that remained hidden in the two private rooms made their presence visible amidst the screams and fl
eeing footsteps. Three bullets that curved around corners and a splash of crimson brought the bouncers to the floor.
The sound of boots marching from the two opened doors came next. Ray didn’t stick around to count how many of them were holding rifles, or how many flaunted their pyrokinetic abilities when he heard fires take shape around him. Escaping through the front door was no longer an option. He’d have to get past the new choke point the ambushers set up.
Ray backtracked instead, rushing past the chair Jax had been sitting on, moving in the opposite direction of those fleeing in terror. His feet kicked something during his retreat, it was Jax’s phone. He grabbed it and kept running, hoping its contents might provide some answers to his questions.
“There!” A rugged voice yelled louder than the screams. “Don’t let him escape!”
Ray braced himself for his death. It didn’t come, only the chaotic stampede behind now comprising bouncing bare breasts and dangling erect penises as the back rooms started emptying out. The black-dressed IWs were selective with their targets. Those fleeing behind Ray inadvertently created a shield for his escape. These were the IWs from the airport and morgue. They were here to finish the job. Ray’s unexpected protection wasn’t going to last long.
The black-dressed IWs with pyrokinesis powers turned the floors and walls into raging fires near Ray. Psychokinetic IWs tossed tables, chairs, and those fleeing, through the air. Bullet curving rounds would be fired soon. Ray ran. He didn’t know where he was running to just that he needed to be far away from the exit.
Two turns in the halls later and he saw an open vent up on the walls. Its grille was inches below the ceiling. He stood on top of the chair and climbed into the air vent before the IWs turned the corner. He was grateful fear wasn’t working against him that time.
The vents were dark except for the orange glowing light seeping in from one grille. The flames from the IWs were spreading, as was the smell of smoke and flesh. He watched from the vents as the black-dressed IWs fanned out, red laser light from their weapons went searching for their mission objective, Ray. He had no plans to make their job easy and crawled deeper into the vent.
What the hell was the Federation doing that was so important that they had to send these men here to chase Arianna and Ray? Thoughts like that and more ran rampant in his head as he continued venturing through the vents, trying his best to not alert the black-dressed IWs searching for him below. It didn’t appear any of the IWs below heard him. Ray looked behind in the darkened spaces he crept through every two minutes just to make sure he was still alone.
The air vents overhanging in the main halls approached. He made the turns and slithered through them. Below was light shining up through the grille, and the exit should be further up. Footsteps echoed past the sounds of expanding fires. Ray chose to look before he leaped out of the vent. Peeking through the grille, he saw two black-dressed IWs brandishing heavy assault pistols. One of them looked up and took aim at the vent, making direct eye contact with Ray.
Telepathy alerted them to his presence, he figured. How else would he have known to glance up the second Ray put his face to the grille to peek? Ray pulled his face away from the grille as fast as he could. Two loud bangs and the appearance of bullet holes piercing through the vent’s grille came next. Ray made a hasty retreat, back into the dark maze of the vents, amidst the gunshots.
“Stop!” He heard one of the IWs yell. “You might shoot him in the head!”
The gunfire ceased. He heard his own deep breathing now. They wanted him alive he figured. Ray took another deep breath once he realized the bullets shot at him didn’t curve to hit him. That IW hit his cooldown phase, maybe the others too. Ray’s window to act had opened.
“He’s right, no headshots,” a second voice from below the vents said. “Shoot him anywhere but in the head. If you can’t guarantee that then don’t shoot.”
“What if we cut his head off?”
“That’s acceptable so long as there’s no trauma to his brain.”
Ray backed away slowly. He was wrong, so very wrong. They wanted him dead, just not headshot dead.
“He’s moving.”
“Smoke him out.”
There was a telepath below tracking his movements, telling the other IWs where in the vents Ray might be. He had to get ahead of them and break the link. That meant crawling faster regardless of the noises he’d make. Crackling noises of new flames breaking out echoed and the temperature within the vents increased, drenching his body in sweat right down to his boxers and socks.
“Come on out, Ray!” The telepath taunted and followed him from below. “I promise I won’t shoot you … in the head.”
Breathing became difficult. The flames laced every gasp of air with smoke and heat. It felt like his lungs were roasting. The number of paths within the vent crawl became limited. Some connecting vents seared the palms of his hands when he tried crawling through. Others forced him to turn away when he saw the bright glow of flames at the end.
“This her?”
That was a new voice to him.
Curiosity made him crawl to its source. Peeking out the vent grille, Ray saw the room he had his psytrip experience. Celia stood, looking frightened in the corner.
“Yes, she operated on him.”
He saw two black-dressed IWs corner Celia. Red laser sights on their weapons aimed at her chest. She was on the floor now, still wearing that skimpy outfit. It looked like she was begging them to spare her, tears streaming down her cheeks, her IW powers useless against them.
“Is this really necessary?” said one IW to the other.
Celia pleaded with her sobbing voice. “Let me go!”
Neither of the two listened to her and neither of them was aware Ray was above watching. It meant he escaped the mind of the telepath or forced them to enter their cooldown stage like the others. Ray was free to do something other than run. Jax was dead because he offered to help Ray. And if Ray continued to lie watching, Celia was going to join Jax. He had to do something. But what?
Ray went searching for his pockets. He needed to distract the IWs. The first item he found was Jax’s phone. It brought a smile to his face when he swiped the screen, gaining access to it, and the number of hacking apps, passwords, and botnets, Jax had. This was the advantage Ray was seeking.
“She knows who we are,” said the IW. “We can’t take the risk.”
He looked away from the phone’s screen briefly. The red laser light of the pistol moved between Celia’s eyes. She freaked out in a fit of psychokinetic panic. The bed hovered an inch off the floor and then got hurled into the IWs. A clock floated off the wall and went flying at the IWs like a Frisbee. They shook off Celia’s abilities as if nothing happened. She tried running for the door, but a bullet through her leg stopped her from going through it.
Celia was down on the ground, screaming. Ray looked away, accessing the botnet Jax’s phone gave him access to. Access to the city’s network grid was moments away, provided the botnet could brute force its way past the firewalls and passwords.
He glanced back at Celia, one of the IWs stood above her aiming his weapon at her. He didn’t pull the trigger. Ray needed him to keep that pose. He was eight seconds away from gaining access. The two IWs spoke again, he listened.
“She’s a telepath, we could use her.”
“She’s registered. The tracking device would compromise us.”
He heard a sigh when he broke through the first firewall, only two more to go. “Anyone else?”
“With her gone? No, it’s just Ray, find him or that psytrip memory sphere, ideally both.” Two firewalls down, and no gunshots. It was promising. “Finish her, we don’t have time left.”
“I don’t wanna waste good pussy, though.”
Third firewall down. A new screen appeared on the phone, a map of New York, its power grid to be exact with green and white lines crisscrossing at every intersection of the map. He zoomed in on their location and located the power d
istribution nodes providing power to the Pause, Play, Rewind.
The app displayed a window that required his attention.
Hack power disruption node.
This will disable or enable power for a city block of a targeted area.
Ray executed the program and sent the botnet to work. One whole city block went dark, including the lights in Celia’s pleasure room.
“What the fuck?”
He heard a struggle and then some gunshots and shouts. Red lights from the laser sights crossed about, as random muzzle flashes brightened the pitch-black room. Was Celia alive or dead? Ray couldn’t tell in the darkness.
“Don’t let her leave!”
“For fuck sakes! What the fuck happened to the power?”
Thumping footsteps sounded, and then there was silence with the exception of a commotion in the halls outside her room. He hoped she got out alive because as of that moment, he was left with no other choice but to continue crawling through more vents, lost and meandering through the maze of pitch-black metal, with only the glow on his phone to light the way.
People are dying because of me … he mused. Ray brought the memory sphere out from his pocket, giving it a hard look, pondering about the memories recorded on it that weren’t his. Arianna, what are you? What did you put in my head that’s worth the lives of so many?
His phone rang. His phone, and not Jax’s. He was in no position to silence it fast as he held the memory sphere in one hand, and Jax’s phone in the other. He moved quickly, trying to rectify the issue, reaching for his phone while putting everything else aside.
“You hear that?!” mumbled an IW.
“Fuck yeah, I do!” He heard running footsteps. They were getting closer to the vent Ray was in. “This way!”
Shaking hands held his ringing phone, giving his position away. He went to hit the ignore call option and then stopped when he noted the name and caller ID.
Piper Taylor.
How did she get this number?
Cyber Witch Page 25