At the police station, she sat in on a meeting with Timothy Peters and a couple of other officers whose names she couldn’t be bothered to read with the facial scanning software’s windows that populated her vision. She gave everyone a quick recap of the previous night’s events and how she felt they were all connected to the mayhem that hit the city since her arrival.
It had Peters running his hands through his hair. He had to take a seat before the frustration got to him. “How the fuck did we miss that?”
“Piper’s an RW,” Estrella said. “Paperwork and all says she’s the property of Yoshida, like the rest of us RWs. But it’s probably faked, like her refugee status. My AI has confirmed none of her cyberware was developed by Yoshida.”
She gave Geoffrey the cue to show them what little data he could gain from Piper before the malware corrupted him. A holographic screen rotated in the office; it was an image of Piper’s internal cyber bones taken from the nanites Estrella’s ring injected into her. The tiny red and yellow flag of the People’s Federation of Pacific Nations was visible.
“Piper’s cyberware was manufactured in the Federation,” Estrella continued.
“The Federation must have been planning this for years,” Peters said. “All of it leading to the incidents in the EU, spilling into New York.”
“Ray was correct in his report,” Geoffrey’s hologram black cat spoke, his voice audible from small speakers Estrella had her network cable jacked into. “It would appear the Federation has been secretly weaponizing their IWs. There is a high chance Piper is affiliated with them, and quite possibly the IW telepath that scanned Estrella last night.”
“And Ray is connected to it all,” Peters said, his voice was heavy with worry. “He’s the hacker behind the now dysfunctional blog.”
“JFK’s surveillance systems were also hacked, shortly after Ray arrived,” Estrella said. “And a morgue holding the cadavers of the suspected Federation IWs was also hacked before they attacked it.”
“You think Ray was behind that as well?”
“It seems to be. Geoffrey picked this up from New York,” she said and had Geoffrey change the projection in the room. She pointed at it. “Ray met with this man prior to the hack.” Peters glared at the projection of the young man Ray met with, a hacker that went by the name ‘Jax’, its light illumining his face in the dark office. “Then after IWs attacked the morgue, Ray and that same man went to meet in a telepath memory club.” The projection switched to recent news reports from New York. A body found in Ray’s hotel, a Pause, Play, Rewind caught fire after a shootout, and a hacker that broke into its systems during the violence, knocking out power for the block it was in. “Now that place went up in smoke, with Ray seen fleeing from it. And hours ago, hotel staff found a bludgeoned to death body in the suite Ray was staying in. Seems everywhere Ray goes, people die, and stuff gets hacked.”
Peters grimaced, facing her. “Why?”
“He’s concerned for a woman named Arianna Kounias.”
“Right, the daughter of Norris and Maria Kounias,” he said. “She still missing I take it?”
“Yes, and I’m thinking Arianna going missing, and Nobuo coming after her family wasn’t random. Some kind of Federation black ops operation is being conducted on Alliance soil. Whose side Ray and Arianna are on isn’t quite clear—”
“Isn’t clear?” Peters injected, his voice raised. “He’s probably working with them as a hired hacker. His news reports are just there to make him look innocent.”
“Once we chat with Ray, we’ll know for sure,” Estrella said. “He’s in the air now. He got on the flight before the NYPD clued in on what he’d been up to. Thankfully, he’s got no place to run. Once he lands at LAX, we’ll grab him. We just need to do it before Piper gets to him.”
Voices in the meeting expressed worry if Ray was even on the plane. Given everything that happened with his name, they called into question how he could get a flight to start with. Estrella had wondered that, and then remembered Ray’s hacking abilities were far beyond your typical hacker. Knocking out a whole city block during the middle of a shootout in a burning building was no easy act. Buying plane tickets, then editing the details of them shouldn’t have been hard for someone with his skill and access to whatever the fuck it was hackers these days used.
“Grab Ray when he lands at LAX,” grunted a concerned officer. “That’s assuming LAX doesn’t end up like JFK.”
“Which brings us to the second part of this briefing,” Peters said and tapped a console on his desk. The hologram changed. “LAPD and the Alliance investigators will set up shop around the airport. Nobody gets in or out. Estrella, I want you in on this.”
The hologram was an attack plan.
A top-down view of LAX with various dots and lines represented the various teams, their patrol duties, checkpoints, enhanced security. The works. Estrella felt uneasy.
“Can’t we shut down the airport for the day?” she asked. “There’s gotta be like what? Fucking thousands of people moving to and from it? Not to mention the staff working there.”
“All the more reason we can’t shut it down,” Peters explained. “There are too many people that need to catch or leave on flights, and at least half of them work for the corporations. We shut LAX down, even for a few hours, and there’ll be at least six corporations with Yoshida being one of them, making sure none of us have a job by the end of the month.”
Estrella shook her head facing the hologram. “There’s gotta be another way to do this …”
“There is,” Peters said, standing from his desk, “It’s called you use that expensive corporate tech in you, so we don’t have a repeat of New York when Ray lands and brings his problems to us.”
“Fine,” Estrella said, crossing her arms. “Let me borrow two hundred bucks?”
Peters gave her a cockeyed stare. “What? Why?”
She smiled. “Trust me on this.”
He reached for his wallet.
Estrella pulled out her phone and began typing a text message to TT. The four fifty-dollar bills, Peters lent her was just enough for two small updates. After that, the meeting ended. Everyone received their orders, their weapons, armor, and game plan: capture or kill Ray and Piper. Estrella was to lead the charge.
She was the top RW in the LAPD’s pocket now.
Thirty-Four
Ray
The city of Los Angeles approached, made visible from the small window to Ray’s left side. It forced his anxiety to return. Soon, the flight would land at LAX, and Ray’s feet would be on the ground, vulnerable to the shadowy forces he hoped were left behind in New York. He failed eight times in a row to tell himself that was the case. Arianna’s parents were attacked, so were other locations simultaneously in Los Angeles. Whatever he ran from in New York, was waiting for him in Los Angeles, and had been before he bought the tickets and doctored them to fit his new fake ID.
He regretted not taking a flight somewhere else. Fear makes you do stupid things.
Ray spent the last hour of his flight copying the contents of Jax’s phone into his, including the trove of hacking apps Ray didn’t own. Jax’s botnets were now his, and the eye-raising code cracking power that came with it. He linked his phone, tablet, and glasses together. All three devices shared the same modified code and data. When Ray put his glasses on, superimposed lines of text, icons, and labels appeared over the lenses.
He looked at a passenger on the flight that had fallen asleep beside him and held the stare for two seconds. A small window displayed over his glasses’ lenses.
Name: Alan Nyn
Age: 32
Species: Human
Occupation: Software engineer
Notes: Married with one child
Ray now had access to RW facial scanning software. He smiled. A secondary window appeared below that, listing all electronic devices the man had, namely his phone, smartwatch, and the IP address for those devices. They were vulnerable to hacks.
He looked above and saw superimposed labels hovering ahead of the overhead storage compartments of the flight. The labels told him carryon bags were inside, and the IP addresses to their digital locks. If Ray wanted to, he could use the botnet to crack the passwords and open them. Passengers with phones in hand had their text chat screens hover above them when he looked at them with the glasses. Those on social media had what they were viewing or liking displayed on his lenses well.
Ray’s world changed. His glasses, linked with his phone and tablet showed him the technology buried everywhere, and personal data the corporate world harvested from consumers. He felt a bit safer leaving the plane once it landed.
With thirty minutes left before landing, Ray sat back and issued a command to his glasses, forcing the lenses to darken. They turned to a pair of shades instantly. No need for a curious person to look at his face and see the labels floating on them.
His flight made a smooth landing, taxied to the arrivals terminal of LAX, and began the usual procedure exiting a plane. The large crowd of passengers left the plane, and Ray made sure he was within the middle of the group, keeping his face low as he pushed deeper into the airport, hurrying.
There was no trek to the baggage claim area for him, not that he brought much to start with. The two phones, tablet, glasses, the ring for Arianna, and the memory sphere. He’d forgotten about the sphere. Ray placed his hands into his pocket, the memory sphere was still there, and within the sphere was a glance at the truth, something Arianna saw which got her in trouble, and now him.
That thought had him sweating as he looked about at the buzzing airport with people moving from their flights. The last time he saw Arianna, she was leaving a flight, after being chased out of the EU. Now he was in the same position as her, backing away from the flight, hoping the black ops IWs from a far-off nation weren’t in pursuit. And like Arianna, Ray boarded the trip under a false ID.
Every two minutes Ray touched the memory sphere in his pocket, ensuring it was still on him. He was more concerned about someone pickpocketing that than his wallet. You can’t start a war with the contents of Ray’s wallet. The other item next to it, you could.
Two men armed with assault rifles, combat armor, and helmets, stopped a traveling couple for questions. The journalist in Ray wanted to stay and watch why that was the case. The paranoid hacker in Ray told him to keep moving and not make eye contact. Assault rifles and combat gear was a little excessive for airport security.
Four minutes later, he spotted three men, armed like the last two. The three geared-up men huddled around each other, speaking like they were giving each other an update. One of them spoke into a headset communicator. Ray made sure to walk away from them. Two police officers left a coffee shop with their sidearm’s dangling at their sides. Both were wearing a vest as if they were expecting trouble. Ray made sure to walk away from them too.
Security was not this insane when he left for New York days ago. Was it in response to the New York attacks? Or were they looking for a person of interest? They did all seem to be extremely close to the general area his flight delivered its passengers.
They also made it impossible for Ray to make it to the exit. It didn’t matter how many turns he made, there were cops or heavily armed commandos at every corner. He caved in, and tried to mosey past, his arms dug into his pockets, and his eyes looking forward like the hundreds of other men, women, and children with their parents around him.
Two men with assault rifles over their shoulders held a hand out to Ray. They wanted to talk with him, demanding he stepped aside to the wall. Ray was caught. He slowly went searching in his pocket for his phone as his glasses darkened again. He hoped the two men had vulnerable and networked devices on them.
While he waited for the app to load, Ray shot the armed men a smile, and asked. “Uh, can I help you?”
One of the armed men handed Ray a phone. He raised an eyebrow to it and faced the two. They look dazed and confused upon a closer look. “Piper said to give this to you …”
Ray took the phone. “Thanks?”
“She said to move while the window is still open.”
The two armed men stood still like they were store mannequins. They didn’t object to Ray walking away from them, with the newly gifted phone in hand. A police officer had called out to Ray, demanding he stop. So, he did. Then the police officer froze still, no words left his face, just like the two armored men that gave him the phone. Something wasn’t right. It was as if they were mind-controlled by a telepath.
Facial scans turned up no signs of IWs in the area when his hacking app booted up. Everyone was a human as they came. Then again, they’d probably be using fake profiles, though he saw nothing that showed the usual signs of a doctored profile. Whoever the telepath was, they had range or got to those men with pre-programmed suggestions beforehand.
The phone they gave him vibrated. There was an incoming call.
He picked it up with nervous hands and winced. The phone he was offered was his Los Angeles one. A soothing kiwi accent greeted ray’s ears. “Ray.”
“Piper.”
“Listen, LAPD and federal agents are combing through the airport looking for you.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Follow my directions, and I’ll get you out of this.”
“Just like in New York?”
“You’re in this mess because you didn’t follow my instructions.” Her voice grew bitter. “If you keep running when you want to, you’ll end up dead. Run when I tell you to and you might get out of this alive.”
He saw four armored men with rifles, and none of them looked dazed and confused.
Deep breath buried the growing terror that wanted to take hold of his body. The appearance of multiple labels and icons, on his glasses, directed Ray to vulnerable objects in range. Ray’s confidence went up a notch.
“Okay,” he said, “what do I do, right now?’
“Look up.”
So, he did. A large black raven was perched on top of a souvenir kiosk, hidden behind the kiosk holographic sign. The raven’s eyes peered down at him. “Follow the raven.”
The raven took flight, its wings flapping as it flew down the halls. The raven was a hologram, an RW AI. He followed it and at one point had to run to keep up. The raven’s flight path led him through droves of people moving about in the busy airport terminal. Some were taking a break while they waited for delayed flights, and others were like Ray, looking for the exit to get outside. None of them were armed with weapons. This was the path through the airport he wanted to seek, one devoid of the increased security.
Daylight was in sight. Ray made it to the foyer, its glass walls and doors were a welcomed sight. An RW woman with long black hair standing with three armed police officers, however, wasn’t. His glasses relayed the facial scan results from the RW.
Name: Estrella Rodriguez
Age: 19
Species: Real witch/warlock
Occupation: RW unit on lease to the Los Angeles Police Department
Notes: Serial number 78392
Ray put the phone back to his head. “I see Rodriguez.”
“Stay away from her,” Piper’s voice spoke. “She’s spearheading this. You need to avoid her at all costs.”
He grimaced while walking away from Estrella. She was the one that pushed him into this mess, indirectly of course. Had she not been here, he wouldn’t have written that article, and then he wouldn’t have taken the assignment in New York. He wondered what would have happened to Arianna if he wasn’t in New York. She instructed him, originally, not to come to the airport. His presence probably triggered the attack.
“Noted,” he said, as his head returned to the present. Estrella is the bad RW, Piper is the good one. I hope.
The gap between Ray and Estrella widened. Nobody had seen Ray follow the holographic raven flying high above the heads of those seeking him out, and those looking to leave the airport. There was a sprawl of passengers with luggage in han
d ahead of Ray. He sought to blend in, use their bodies to block the line of sight of Estrella and her police partners.
The crowd parted aside, as if on cue, just for Ray. An eerie feeling swept through him as he walked further, the faces of those in the crowd all appeared to be in a daze. Nobody spoke, and nobody called into question why a large gathering of people had suddenly spread out when Ray approached, then closed back around him, blocking him from sight. He tilted his face up, the raven’s flight continued, and he continued to follow it.
When he cleared the crowd, their lips had sound once again. The crowd continued walking for the exit or standing around waiting for a ride away from the airport. Ahead of Ray stood an RW woman with a cute black pixie haircut, red highlights on her bangs. Her synthetic arm was extended, providing a spot for the hologram raven to land on.
In her other hand was a phone placed to her ear. She spoke into it. “That’s me. Move quickly.”
The raven was Piper’s AI. Ray and Piper both ended the call, no point speaking when they were two meters away from having a face-to-face conversation. He scurried to Piper, hoping to not draw attention from whatever threats were behind him and the crowd that had parted and closed around him for some spaced-out reason—
“Freeze!”
Ray heard two sets of heavy feet march toward him from behind. Piper standing ahead of him didn’t look happy. She stepped closer as the owners of heavy marching feet aggressively asked Ray to raise his hands and spin around. Whispers in the surrounding crowd followed. Two men had their assault rifles pointed at Ray when he turned, their faces hidden behind the blackened visor of their combat helmets.
His glasses projected three different vulnerable objects on the men, their weapons, headset, and phone. A warning on his glasses flashed and informed him the three vulnerable objects were encrypted and locked down with passwords. His botnet reported it would take ten seconds to hack and crack.
Cyber Witch Page 27