Specter Protocol

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Hawk cocked his finger at Ellsworth. “Come over here.”

  Ellsworth strolled to him without protest.

  It was an ambush. The skulls never left the club. They’d been waiting outside for the two mind-controlled dancers to deliver Ellsworth to them. That’s why they used stunners. And now, Ray stood there looking like a mindless idiot, having brought to the skulls what they came seeking. It was a smart tactic as the cameras in the club wouldn’t have seen the Bald Skulls in the act, capturing Ellsworth. Blame would be placed on the two dancers as they pleaded their innocence.

  Now the blame was set to shift to Ray, the wanted fugitive, just as soon as people clued in that he was there. He hoped his tinted glasses and baseball cap kept his identity a secret.

  Hawk spoke up, facing Ray as Ellsworth stood with them. “Bro, Yoshida’s been looking for you.” That answered that question, they knew who he was. Ray needed a better disguise. “You should come with, eh? Return what’s in your head back to them—”

  “Malakas!”

  Theo thundered in like a Greek god with fists radiating with purple bolts of electricity, the neon signs above exploded, raining white sparks behind. Hawk and his two partners reached for their pistols, aiming them at Theo. Bullets soared. Too bad Ray and Theo left their guns with the bouncers. Theo stood his ground, a barrier made of electric energy kept bullets from his flesh. He waited until their weapons went dry, and then thrust his purple charged hands forward. Zigzagging lines of lightning discharged, and it sent Hawk and one his partners running and dragging Ellsworth with them. The third Bald Skull gangster didn’t move fast enough. Theo’s lightning bolts stuck him in the chest, and his body convulsed, bursting into tiny flames. He hit the ground with black smoke rising from the coat he wore.

  Free will had returned to Ray. The mind control’s hold broke because Hawk and the remaining gangster ran out of range, a range that was much smaller than Nobuo or Piper. They weren’t S ranked IWs. It helped soothe Ray’s racing thoughts a bit, but only for a bit. He wasn’t safe yet and went running after the two fleeing gangsters. They still had Ellsworth with them. Theo joined up with Ray in the chase through the twists and turns of the dark alley, now a shade darker thanks to Theo’s electrokinesis powers.

  “Thanks,” Ray said as he leaped over garbage bags.

  “Just who the fuck is that guy?”

  Hawk, his partner, and mind-controlled Ellsworth turned the corner. Ray and Theo did too, slowed to pivot around a dumpster, then resumed running.

  “That’s Ellsworth. Obsidian told me to get him,” Ray said.

  “Yeah, and the Skulls want a piece of his ass,” Theo said.

  “Alive,” Ray added. “They want him alive.”

  Cursing in Spanish, they followed the voices. It led them to the Skulls where a fence halted their escape, and to the side of that stood a brick wall with a junction box ahead of it. Hawk and his partner pivoted around, facing their pursuers. Ray swallowed when he saw the white glow of Hawk’s hands, remembering the range of Hawk’s powers, and Ray and Theo just ran into it. He had to react.

  Checking his smart glasses, he searched for network vulnerabilities. Their weapons weren’t smart guns and therefore had no network capabilities. Ray was running out of options. Behind the two Skulls members, was the junction box. An option to set it to overload was available. Ray grabbed his phone and thumbed the app.

  The explosive blast sent the two Skull members flying away, their bodies tumbling to the ground glowing red from the fires erupting from the junction box. Disoriented, and in pain, the two Bald Skulls members pushed themselves up. They were still a threat. Now, Ray was out of options.

  Theo stepped forward, grinning, his fists now flaming red. He made a wave left, and the newly started fires expanded in size. The flames followed the movement of Theo’s fists and traveled across the dirty alley ground like it was following a line of spilled gasoline, a line leading right at Hawk. His body lit up in flames, bringing new light and heat to the alley, and the stench of cooked flesh and clothing.

  Hawk’s scorching body stopped trying to push himself up and went prone, ceasing all movement. His partner did the same afterward, though Theo’s flames never reached him. Ray lifted an eyebrow. Hawk’s partner was full of life seconds earlier.

  Panting, deep breathing, and the crackling of Hawk’s burning corpse filled the silence in the alley. It was over. Ray sighed, wiped the moisture build-up off his face and regrouped with Theo and Ellsworth. Theo pulled out a cigarette and held it above the flames on the ground. The tip glowed red. He put it to his lips, and took a victory puff, adding to the smoke.

  Ellsworth now free of his mind control backed away from Theo and Ray. The jingle of the metal fence behind stopped him. “Jesus fucking Christ, what’s going on?”

  “I dunno,” Ray said, looking back at the bodies, one burning, the other not. “Let’s ask ‘em.”

  Ray kicked over the Bald Skull member that collapsed after Hawk’s demise. He lowered himself to the body and checked his pulse. He felt thumps. The gangster’s eyes were open too. The blast from the junction box must have knocked him out for a second he figured.

  Ray waved away the smoke and smell of burning warlock flesh coming from Hawk. “All right, buddy, I don’t like you, and you don’t like me, I get it.” The fallen gangster remained silent. “So, I’ll cut you a deal. Tell us why you need Ellsworth, and I’ll promise not to tell Estrella you were here.”

  “Ha! Listen to you,” heckled Ellsworth.

  Ray shrugged. “Hey, I’m done getting pushed around. I can push back just as hard now.”

  “What are you guys?” Ellsworth said, pointing at Ray and Theo. “Some kind of street samurai gang?”

  “I’m just a fuckin’ warlock man,” Theo said and gestured to Ray, still waiting for a reply from the fallen gangster. “Him over there? He’s the samurai.”

  “Whatever,” Ray snorted.

  “DigiSamurai69, yo.”

  “No, no.” Ray stood and faced Theo. “We don’t do the 69 part anymore, I dropped it.”

  “Oh yes, you do.”

  “No, seriously, I changed it.”

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “It was a screen name from high school man. I gotta be mature now, you know?”

  “Sixty nining someone is something only a mature adult should be doing.”

  “It’s not DigiSamurai69 anymore! Just plain ol’ DigiSamurai.”

  “You wanna finish your interrogation?” Theo pointed at the fallen gangster.

  Ray grinned. “Oh right.”

  He lowered himself again and gave the gangster’s face a few slaps. “Hey buddy, wake up.”

  Nothing. The last remaining Bald Skull gangster was alive, his chest moving up and down with life, eyes open, pulse still thumping. But not doing much else.

  Theo stood above the body pulling his cigarette away from his lips. “Not talking?”

  Ray shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Let me try.” And Theo rose his foot then lowered and stomped against the face of the fallen Bald Skull gangster. The sound of Theo’s boot stomping echoed with each hit. The body didn’t react, flinch, not even when the nose bone cracked and smeared red across his face. Theo stopped after that, puffed his cigarette, and blew the smoke out. “That’s fucked.”

  Ray stood up. “It’s like he just shut down.”

  “Fuck it,” Theo held his smoke and faced Ellsworth. “Maybe you can tell us what’s up.”

  “I don’t know,” Ellsworth said, shaking his head. “He’s a fucking gang banger, probably wanted to mug me.”

  “The thing is,” Ray added. “These guys deal with kidnapping unregistered telepaths.”

  “I’m not a fucking IW,” Ellsworth said. “I would have used my powers to escape.”

  “He’s right,” Ray said to Theo. “He was just as vulnerable as me.”

  A new text message arrived. Ray wasn’t suspired to see it was from an unknown number. He
wondered how Obsidian knew to contact him, his glasses didn’t detect cameras in the alley they stood in, or spy drones in the sky.

  Unknown User: You have Ellsworth I presume.

  Ray thumbed his reply.

  Me: You must be physic.

  Unknown User: Take Ellsworth’s phone.

  Ray approached Ellsworth, watching his composure crumble, knowing he couldn’t run as he already backed himself into the alley’s fence. “Give me your phone,” Ray demanded of him.

  “What? Why?” Ellsworth asked him. “Don’t tell me you guys are the muggers now!”

  “Do it now or I’ll leave you to fight their back up.”

  Ellsworth’s shaking hands gave Ray his phone. He pocketed it then returned to his own phone, thumbing a reply.

  Me: I’m looking for what?

  The reply didn’t bounce, that meant Obsidian had more to say. He waited and ignored the frantic whimpers of Ellsworth, the smoke from Theo’s cigarette, and Hawk’s body.

  A reply came at last.

  Unknown User: Photos taken between last December and January.

  Ray swapped phones after hacking the password to Ellsworth’s. Once in, he browsed through the photos using the search perimeters given, photos taken between December 2081 and January 2082. Pictures of sleeping bodies in metal and glass pods graced his eyes facing the phone’s screen. There were lots of them.

  Unknown User: Send them to me when you get them.

  He copied the images to his phone and then sent them via text attachment to Obsidian.

  Two minutes later.

  Unknown User: Thanks. Keep him in your protection and edit his profile. He needs protection from the Skulls, his employer, and Yoshida as of now.

  Me: More so than me and the shit in my head?

  There was no reply. He turned to Theo. “Let’s get out of here before someone sees this fire.”

  Ellsworth was in the middle, Ray on one side, Theo on the other. The two escorted Ellsworth to safety, out of the dank alley and back to the streets on a course to the subway. Ray heard a sound from behind. It was the plop of a garbage bag toppling over.

  He turned his head and saw what looked like a wolf. The wolf had gold chains dangling around its neck and made eye contact with Ray. It turned and vanished into the alley’s darkness. Ray would say more until his phone beeped again with a new message.

  Obsidian hadn’t bailed on him yet. The text message had the answer to Ray’s last question.

  Unknown User: Yes.

  Twelve

  Estrella

  50 percent of Estrella’s pay was gone. She sent three thousand dollars to her aunt Anna, back home in Buenos Aires. It should help them with rent and the never-ending rising cost of living. She backed away from the ATM once it confirmed the wire transfer had been successful, logged out, and winced.

  Sending money electronically and the odd phone call was her only link to Buenos Aires, and a reminder she was still a slave to Yoshida. After a month of being in the city, she never got that ticket back home and her freedom from Los Angeles. A soft sigh left her lips. She missed the good times in Buenos Aires, Yumi, swinging by her aunt’s place to help with dinner, and the simple in and out merc jobs. Was this to be her future, she wondered? A corporate fixer running in an endless race to grab that carrot dangling on a stick held by Lady M.

  Estrella was on her bike now, riding thirty over the speed limit through the urban sprawl of the city, looking like fast-moving colors of red and black. Cars zoomed in and out of sight when she drove past, leaving them behind.

  She slowed and parked outside of TT’s shop. Its lights and open sign were still on. She remained sitting on her bike for a few, then yanked the helmet off, freeing her long black hair after giving her head a shake. In the background, high-rises dotted with lights and brightened with holographic billboards stood like giant walls obscuring the starless skies.

  Her helmet melted in her hands when the nanites deconstructed it, sending it flowing inside her arm, which was already full of items such as her foldable pistol, spare nanotubes, and batteries. Estrella was running out of storage space. She double-checked her account balance as she entered his shop via her phone, three thousand dollars, it was still enough to get the upgrades she had her eyes on.

  TT had his chrome skeletal hands and arms deep inside the hood of a vintage car he was working on. Estrella’s boot heels drew his attention toward her. He smiled while pulling his grease-covered chrome hands, clenching a wrench, out and away from the car.

  “Rodriguez, my favorite costumer.”

  Estrella smirked. “That because Piper doesn’t visit anymore?”

  “Kinda,” TT said and went to place the wrench on the workshop bench. He grabbed a towel and wiped his hands, removing the grease stains off them. “Fuck me, who would have thought she was a psycho from the Federation?”

  TT, like the rest of the world, wasn’t privy to the truth about Piper and Ray. And like those living outside the IW district, viewed Piper as a dangerous terrorist. It was Estrella’s job to keep that secret and that meant not letting TT in on the truth. It was for everyone’s safety.

  “Looking for upgrades and supplies?” he asked her.

  “You know it,” she said. “Got a good payout from Yoshida too, I think it’s time you showed me the good stuff I couldn’t afford.”

  “Big fucking spender.” TT waved for Estrella to follow him. She did. “Most people hit the bars on payday, but Estrella Rodriguez, she comes to me.”

  “Can’t drink if I’m dead.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  He stopped at a weapons rack on the wall, glancing up at it. “Big spender now, yeah?” She nodded. “Need some guns? I got some new stock in, good shit, but ain’t nobody buying it.”

  “Must not be very good then,” she snorted.

  “Oh, it is, just expensive and full of bells and whistles people don’t give a fuck about. Nowadays, people just want a gun to protect their home and their asses when walking to the bus stop at night. I thought with the recent IW attacks and threat of war with the Federation, people might you know, want the good shit. They don’t.”

  Estrella browsed through her HUD and selected the weapons menu. She glanced at the patterns she saved for the various weapons she copied. Shotguns and assault rifles had their uses but required a bunch of raw materials to nano print, and then there was nano printing ammo. Pistols on the other hand.

  “I could use a new handgun,” Estrella said. “Something that hits harder than the one I have and doesn’t need too many fucking materials to nano print.”

  “I think I got the thing for you.” TT reached for pistol off the rack. He handed it to her with his chrome hands.

  The pistol he gave her was small, lightweight, (not that weight was an issue for her enhanced cybernetic strength,) had several tactical screens, and used a type of ammo she’d never seen. She clenched the pistol’s grip and aimed it at the wall like it owed her money.

  “That little hand cannon there’s an Asagiri40,” TT explained. “It’s a gauss pistol. Fires rounds really fast that can penetrate through some walls, and low-quality armor.”

  “So, if someone’s in cover?”

  “Just shoot through it and you’ll get ‘em assuming it isn’t too thick. Downside is the velocity the rounds move at will take a hit. So, don’t expect the bullets that hit your target to do considerable damage, unless you’re rocking the rifle version of this bad boy.”

  “I’ll take it, how much?”

  “For you? One K.”

  She grabbed her phone with one hand and sent him the payment without hesitation. She liked the gun and made plans to perform Scan Copy on it when the chance arrived. Nano printing one of these during a bind might be handy.

  “Oh, and don’t forget ammo!”

  Right, the Asagiri40 uses armor-piercing tungsten rounds. She holstered it and turned, smiling at TT. “You’re a real hustler, man.”

  The box of tungsten ammo
clips came up to five hundred dollars. Estrella checked her balance, a grand and a half left to spend, and she hadn’t gotten to the upgrades. Her synthetic arm split open, she struggled the fit the ammo and Asagiri40 inside the already crammed storage space full of gray goo.

  “Fuck’s sake!”

  TT winced, looking down at her struggles. “Out of storage, eh?”

  “Which reminds me.” She gave it a whack, and the weapon and ammo box found some space to rest. Her arm returned to its previous shape. “Was gonna ask if you had a solution to that.”

  TT escorted her to his shop’s basement, he pointed to a synthetic leg resting against the wall, and above that, a shelf stuffed with other bits of cyberware both old and new. “I could modify one of your legs to work as storage, just like your arm.”

  “I kinda like my legs being made of flesh.”

  “Except for the cybernetic bones inside.”

  “They chopped off my arm to give me this.” Estrella looked down at her synthetic arm. “I don’t want to chop off my leg…”

  “That’s life as an RW,” TT said. “The more you hold on to what’s left of your humanity the weaker you are.” She grimaced. “Well, we could meet halfway. I could make half your leg synthetic. And honestly, I won’t be cutting it off, we still need to keep your cyberware bones, plus that shit’s damn hard to break, or cut. I’ll just be scooping out the muscle and meat.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “A few hours for the operation. Need a day or two to design something that will fit your body, though.”

  She paused, debating if it was worth it. And if she could afford it. Then again, TT said it’d take time. Estrella only needed to come back with the cash when he was ready to install it.

  “Do it,” she finally spoke.

  And he wasn’t cutting her leg off, making her feel better. TT handed her a tablet pad. “Now for the main course?”

  She grabbed its network cable and jacked herself into the pad. “Better believe it.”

  Her vision transformed, becoming the pad’s main menu, a list of pre-programmed nanite swarm programs available for purchase. Estrella came for the higher-priced programs and went searching for them on the pad. The more money she spent, the stronger the nanite upgrade.