Cyber Witch

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Got no fucking choice, man!

  One nanite swarm was left to defend her body, the rest sprayed from her gauntlet into the air. She watched her HUD as her nanite count dropped to zero and hoped all three cars had no bullets. The three nanite swarms flew into the rear pursuing car via its opened windows, swarming the passenger, entering the orifices on his face. He flailed his arms in terror, making futile attempts at swatting them away is if they were hornets stinging them. The telepathic driver panicked. Even the most powerful adept telepath couldn’t psychokinetically push the nanites away. There were just too many and too small.

  The passenger’s eye sockets and mouth exploded into flames and erupted like a volcano. Black smoke filled up the interior of their car and floated from the windows. The remains of the nanite swarms spread to the driver. His flesh combusted and melted from the flames seconds after the nanites entered him. He lost control of the car, and it spun around and landed upside down. The truck behind them mashed its brakes. The upside-down burning car shifted forward once more from the impact.

  Return as many nanites as you can!

  Estrella kept her gauntleted hand out as the surviving nanite swarms returned. She faced the two cars, plus Piper’s ahead. No bullets had been fired recently, nor electrokinesis used. Her window of opportunity was about to shut. Geoffrey updated her status screens.

  Nanite swarm(s) remaining: 1.5

  I have a gift for you. Geoffrey snickered. An alert appeared as her synthetic arm opened, receiving said gifts, gray goo and lots of it from the returning nanites. I obtained raw materials from the car and one of their weapons stored in the backseat. I believe this weapon would be more effective than the rest.

  A new weapon pattern was acquired, an MX-57 sawed-off shotgun. Following Geoffrey’s recommendation, her NC gauntlet released a new swarm, deconstructing her pistol, and using the newfound gray goo, fusing the two together, and then returned it to her. Once completed, Estrella held the MX-57 shotgun in her hands. It was lightweight, quick to maneuver, and fully loaded. She lacked the materials to nano print extra shells to reload it. This was her last chance to end this.

  Estrella had the one and a half swarms reinforce Defense Matrix, bringing it to two and half swarms defending her, leaving Estrella with zero to use for other abilities. She saw a break in the traffic ahead, most likely people pulling off to the side having realized something was afoot. It was Estrella, Piper, and the two wingman’s cars. She pushed the bike to its maximum speed. No fear.

  Two SMGs discharged. She had to ignore the pain, hope the force didn’t throw her off the bike, while letting Geoffrey take control again. The two wingman’s cars sandwiched Estrella between each other, one car to the left, and the other to the right. Her single swarm of nanites powering Defense Matrix was losing strength with each hit. Hands glowing purple with electrokinesis flared, the cooldown was over. She took aim at the right car, and her enhanced zoom and optical scanner scanned the hands of the wheelman. Geoffrey predicted he would ram her based on his motions, and they were close enough to do that.

  She selected overdrive, after canceling the Defense Matrix, storing her last remaining nanite swarm for new use. Estrella’s world slowed down enough to see bullets leave the barrel of their weapons in slow motion. The head of the driver in the right-side car was perfectly lined up with her barrel. A single pull of the trigger turned it into a canoe shape. The blood, gore, and spread of the shotgun shell splashed slowly, smacking the passenger in the face. Both bodies, little-by-little tilted to the right side of their car.

  Of course, while that was happening, Estrella had cocked the barrel, lined up another shot against the car to her left, and the electrokinetic IW seconds away from blasting her with a thunder ball.

  She pulled the trigger. Her weapon boomed in slow motion. The shell ejected and went for the head. Four seconds later, from her point of view, it was gone. She cocked the barrel, zoomed into the driver before the veil of spattering gore plastering him. It wasn’t a headshot. It was a head-is-gone shot.

  Both cars were no longer a threat as they no longer had someone alive at the wheel. A loud screech, boom, and crash erupted behind Estrella. Her speeding bike was now directly behind Piper’s sports car. Her world returned to normal with the cancellation of overdrive.

  One swarm remaining, Estrella.

  Estrella grinned. She didn’t use overdrive long enough to eat through the single nanite swarm. Stand by. I wanna take out their back wheels when in range.

  Estrella selected Disable Vehicle from her menu and went to maneuver to the perfect spot to spray disassembling nanites at Piper’s rear tires. She had to rethink that when a van ahead made a sudden turn crossing Estrella’s intended path. Two other cars and a pickup truck did the same, and then another car. Ray was back to hacking, using the cars around as obstacles to slow Estrella. It wasn’t enough to stop her. Estrella remained in pursuit and eagerly watched as the distance between her and Piper’s sports car counted down. Her NC gauntlet charged, in preparation to release her last remaining swarm. She needed another five seconds to be in effective range.

  At three seconds, a truck further up jackknifed and flipped ahead of Piper. Ray must have made a mistake with that hack. Piper braked and skidded across the freeway’s surface, leaving black lines from its tires behind. Her sports car crashed into the trailer ahead. Smoke lifted away from both vehicles. Traffic crawled to a standstill after that. Too bad Estrella was still at maximum speed. She was poised to crash into the trailer as Piper did.

  She braked, but it wasn’t enough to stop her momentum. She turned the bike, forcing it to make a sharp and sudden ninety-degree spin. The freeway ahead, the crash of Piper’s car, and trailer came out of view, replaced with the left guardrail of the freeway while her back faced the right. Estrella’s bike continued to slide forward, she lowered her left foot and dragged against the pavement. She braced for impact. No such thing happened. A deep exhale was her response.

  Multiple cars were mashing their brakes and stopped before Estrella’s idle bike, Piper’s crashed car, and the jackknifed trailer holding up traffic. Nobody was going anywhere, not in a car at least. She double-checked her ammo count—six shots left. Good enough. Slowly, Estrella walked forward with her shotgun leading the way. Her optical scanner assessed the chaos ahead, relaying its data over her vision via a crawl of numbers and text. Her targeting reticle remained active, searching for any sudden movement.

  Sirens wailed in the distance, up in the sky to be exact. Medivac air ambulances were flying in, and probably the rest of the LAPD now the chase had come to a standstill.

  Piper’s car was a burning mess by the time Estrella neared it. The crash shattered every window, its front hood a mangled mess of twisted metal, sparks, fires, and smoke. Her scans detected the presence of the airbag, what remained of it thanks to the flames. Did they survive? She couldn’t tell, she needed a closer scan.

  Estrella peered into the passenger side window, but her scans found no signs of bodies amidst the smoke. It picked up something else. A small passage had been melted right down the middle of the forward end of the car. Nanites did it. Piper literally dissembled the wreckage of her car to create an escape route. Estrella’s eyes followed the path. It led into the trailer of the truck—

  Click. Someone loaded a gun, and it wasn’t Estrella. She had done that long ago.

  A turn to the left, and Estrella saw the buildup of traffic. A spin again put the pixie kiwi into her view. She went for the trigger. Piper’s white glowing hand flicked in response. Estrella felt her body lift off the ground and get flung through the air. A blur of stuff clouded Estrella’s vision, cars, flames, the sky, the road, all while Piper stood still, and shrank in size.

  Gravity took hold of Estrella’s body. It was pulling her down, way down off the overpass. Piper pushed Estrella off with a psychokinetic shove. She was falling to the lower freeway roads below which were full of speeding cars, oblivious to her plummeting body.


  Estrella was spiraling to her death.

  Thirty-Eight

  Ray

  Heart monitors beeped and beeped. An engine roared in the back, it sounded like an AC unit, but Ray could tell the difference. It was the engine that propelled and powered small aircraft. It hurt to open his eyes, so he kept them shut, and hoped that the countless hands touching and prodding his sore body were the medical professionals in a medivac air ambulance.

  Why the hell am I in an airborne ambulance? he thought.

  He didn’t remember much from the crash. One moment Piper was in a panic trying to escape from the cars pursuing her. Then Estrella, in a bizarre twist became the main threat. Ray hacked as many cars as he could, forcing them to move and block Estrella. Then came that truck, he wanted to hack it, but someone else had plans for it. It looked like it got picked up by an invisible giant and tossed at them. Everything was black after that. Then, he was here, wherever the fuck here was. His eyes were still too sore to open.

  It had him worried about the future. Piper’s powers, the IWs in the pursuing cars, and the one that most likely forced the truck to crash with their powers. How do you defeat S ranked IWs that could do that? Hell, how did humanity live through WWIII with IWs and the subsequent uprising? How do you stop a force that could snap an aircraft carrier in two by snapping their fingers? Not even RWs had that level of power, and they were supposed to be the counter to hostile IWs.

  There were more IWs in the world today than they were during the war. The only difference being they weren’t weaponized and lacked the skills and training. If someone changed that and provided the guidance and development necessary, and then IWs decided that humanity should be exterminated, they could do it, pretty easily.

  Is this what he stumbled upon he wondered? A secret plot to remove humans from Earth? Or was it a means for the Federation to continue the war, while the rest of the world kept their IW populations untrained, and on a leash as per international laws.

  Ray opened his eyes fifteen minutes later. The painkillers were working. He saw paramedics with deep blue gloves on, tending to his bruised and bashed body. No words were spoken, not even when one of them looked at him. Next to Ray, on a tray, were his phones and tablet pad. Their screens were cracked, but operational judging by the flashing light. He grimaced. Someone searched his body. How else would they have gotten his devices? He didn’t see the memory sphere anywhere. He didn’t feel it in his pockets either.

  “Excuse me,” Ray said. “Has … has anyone of you—” They ignored him and continued working. “Anyone? Hey, listen, there was a memory sphere on me. Did you see … it?”

  Nothing. He was almost invisible to them, odd. Paramedics should at least be willing to speak to and comfort their patients and maybe ask how they feel. The scanning equipment can only give them so much data on what’s going on with Ray.

  “There was a woman with me,” Ray continued. “Is she okay?” Nothing. His fists clenched. “Are any of you fuckers listening to me?!”

  Nothing.

  The medivac circled above downtown Los Angeles, as the city’s towers caused perpetual darkness from its shadows to dull the streets and smaller structures below. The medivac lowered and landed on top of a building. Which one Ray wasn’t sure, probably the hospital rooftop, though he could still see the sky. Last time he checked, no hospitals were tall enough to get a good view of the sky at this height. Worry stirred in his chest.

  The paramedics gave him an injection of some strange medication he couldn’t pronounce if his life depended on it, it was eighteen letters long. Whatever it was, it got him back on his feet and stopped his head from spinning like a top. He was escorted outside as the medivac’s doors lowered and turned into a loading ramp. The paramedics continued to ignore the many questions he had, pushing him out into the sunlight.

  They landed on a rooftop all right, and it wasn’t the hospital.

  Elevator doors swung open, and three men holding rifles with zero emotion in their faces stepped out, grabbing Ray by force, and dragging him into the elevator. The three men weren’t fond of answering Ray’s questions either. The elevator doors slid shut, casting out the sunshine. He felt it lower for a few minutes, then ding.

  The armed escort pushed Ray through a series of halls, with black pristine tiles, and flickering holograms of decorative flowers. Real flowers were too expensive to maintain. Sleek black chairs were lined up against the white walls, in between each batch of chairs, were a bunch of shut and locked doors, and above that were zigzagging light fixtures.

  The holographic logo of the Yoshida Corporation and its Japanese translation prominently floated above the set of doors he was guided through. He thought about asking what was up with that but had a feeling the reply would have been silence.

  Ray was offered a seat in a waiting room. It was a big comfortable couch placed next to the wall. The room too was decorated with green leafy plants, all fake holograms. The three armed men stood silently, shoulder to shoulder ahead of the glass door they entered.

  “You guys know this isn’t the hospital, right?” Ray got the expected response. “Right you don’t want to chat. How fucking silly of me for trying.”

  A door to the side opened. A man dressed in a dark gray business suit and tie entered through it. His head was cut and styled like a typical corporate yes man, with a clean-shaven face. His eyes were red but didn’t look synthetic like an RW. It was a haunting sight.

  The corporate man was joined by another, a woman, provocatively dressed in a black and red outfit, sporting cleavage that made Ray’s face turn red. Arianna would have slapped him had she saw his reaction. The woman had long white hair spread across her shoulders, the rest of it running down her back. Her red lipstick was almost as red as the man’s eyes. The duo faced the armed guards and gave a silent nod. Ray was left alone with the two newcomers. Correction: that was a haunting sight.

  “Mr. Partington,” the corporate man spoke, his voice sounded familiar. “Or do you prefer the name DigiSamurai69, your hacker codename?”

  Ray was taken from Piper, patched up and brought here, alive for a reason. Someone in Yoshida had a use for him. He gave the corporate man a second glare. It took Ray a few moments, but eventually, he recognized him.

  Ray sneered. “Victor Ashford, right? I remember you from the convention in New York, I didn’t recognize you without your shades. You here to offer me a job for my skills?”

  “Not looking for people with your skillset at the moment,” Ashford said, pulling up a chair ahead of Ray. The white-haired woman remained standing at his side, her eyes never moving away from Ray.

  “That’s a shame,” Ray said and pointed at his head. “I’ve learned a lot over the years with computers, all of that’s up here.”

  “You’re right about that,” Ashford replied. “You have something of benefit in there. Just, it has nothing to do with your skills.”

  “This is about New York isn’t it?”

  Ashford nodded while leaning back on the chair, steepling his fingers together. “You have something that’s of great value to my employers. Something Arianna gave you.”

  “She gave me a hug. And no, you can’t have it.”

  “She gave you more than that, and you know it, so does Piper and her associates. Look, let me ask you something. What happened earlier today on the freeway, and in New York. Do you want that to be a normal occurrence in your life, Mr. Partington?”

  “Not really.”

  “Good.” Ashford adjusted his tie. “So, I offer you this. Explain to me what Arianna gave you, everything you can. And we will make all the bad things go away.”

  “I want Arianna back in my life.”

  “I can’t give you that.”

  “Why the fuck not?” Ray leaned forward, upping the volume of his voice by three. “If you can make the bad things go away, you can give her back to me. Don’t give me this it’s out of your power bullshit.” Ashford laughed, so did the mysterious woman next to him.
“Seriously, what’s the big deal about Arianna?”

  “Arianna’s our valued employee,” Ashford said. “And if she was here with us, we wouldn’t be having this talk.”

  That confirms they brought me to Yoshida’s LA headquarters. Those men and paramedics were probably private contractors, on the company’s payroll.

  “So, I say again, Mr. Partington,” Ashford’s voice grew firm. “What, did, you, see?”

  “I don’t know man, just some trippy shit some telepath put in my brain.”

  “And you made sense of it?”

  Ray shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Your blog post says otherwise. You saw what was put in your head. There’s more to that data dump. Tell us about it.”

  “You mean my blog that got deleted without my consent?” Ray barked a laugh. “I get it now; you corporate fuckers used your influence, and had it removed.”

  “You’re about to start a war using intel you shouldn’t have in the first place.”

  The silent and mysterious white-haired woman touched Ashford’s shoulder. Her red fingernails brought Ray’s attention to the length of them. She could probably kill someone if she eye-gouged them. Ashford faced her, she faced him. He gave her a nod. She smiled and stepped to Ray. Her heels echoed in the silence that fell.

  Ashford reiterated his stance. “The data Arianna gave you, Mr. Partington. What is it?”

  “What data?” Ray lied, trying his best not to panic as the woman drew near. “She’s just a sales rep. I don’t know fuck all about Yoshida sales numbers if that’s what you’re asking for.”

  Ashford tapped his watch, summoning a small hologram. He pushed to float in between Ray and the mysterious woman. The hologram played recorded footage of Arianna assaulting men and women in a hotel in Munich. It switched to fuzzy surveillance footage of Arianna in a lab, along with a man dressed in a lab coat. She asked the man to put the gun, in his hands, into his mouth. He begged her not to do it. She asked him to pull the trigger, so he did. It reminded him of Piper’s actions hours ago. Arianna possessed mind control abilities.