Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 9

I'm a friend of your mother. It echoes around my skull. And she comes back to me then, her voice, her face. Mom. And the feeling of being protected, by this intense creature, this archangel, my mom the genius - the woman who untangled chaos, who picked apart all my fears, and then the hope floods in - a mad hope, that I might see her again, that she would make us all safe again, take us all home to New York. And I want it so hard I feel like my veins will burst.

I spend an hour in the medical room pretending to read while a bored nurse forces me to drink a lot of water. My body feels like lead, like a huge surge of energy has passed through my wiring, left me shorted out, bricked like a dead phone.

I must look pretty rough because they're calling Grandma. She works, so it'll take a while. I'm trying so hard to look like I'm OK because I'm about to try and come up with some kind of reason to get to F15. Gotta speak to this woman who claims she knows mom, before Grandma arrives.

A knock at the door. The nurse is distracted talking to a whole bunch of kids milling around in the hall outside. A convergence of mewling hypochondriacs, each competing with the next to look the more stricken with illness.

I slip out and head toward the front desk. Suddenly the hunter appears, heading for the front doors escorted by the head, both making loud and genial small talk. I freeze, she looks right at me just at the last second, and smiles 'Feel better?'. I nod. Then she's gone.

I ask the receptionist for directions to F15.

"Oh, you'll be interested in Code Club then."

"Oh, um, yeah that's it."

No other reason to be heading up there at lunch break. Silently thinking goddammit - yeah I love code, look at me I'm a freaking codeWitch. That'll get round.

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I push open the double doors to F15. Of course, it's a computer lab. And she's moving around the room, tidying up the general crap left by the previous mob. Tutting as she finds a keycap missing from a keyboard.

There's not another soul in the room. She looks up and smiles. Awkwardly holding the vandalised peripheral. Hesitates for a second, then gestures with her eyes at all the empty chairs.

"Yeah, welcome to Code Club. It's going great this term. What's the point of learning to code miss, just ask an AI." She imitates the south London teenager very precisely.

I'm just staring at her, I realise. Too stressed out to smile.

"C'mon and sit down. I've got biscuits."

My heart is in my throat. I can't even phrase the question in a way that isn't screaming

WHERE IS MY MOM!?

When I sit, slowly, she leans in and switches to a stagey whisper.

"Listen, we don't have lot of time my lovely. I really, really wish we did. I wish we had a little time to get to know each other. Because we've got so much to talk about. But you're in danger Ursula. So, I've got to just talk at you and get this done now before anyone else comes in."

Talks a lot for someone in a hurry. Then she grabs a remote and fires up the projector. She turns up the volume on the classroom's speakers and runs some ancient coding tutorial, vintage Allison Parrish, it is loud enough to obscure her voice as she leans in a little too close to be comfortable and then she speaks so softly I have to strain to hear her words.

"Your mother was a hero to my generation. We don't know where they keep her. There's a rumour she's still in London, the hunters keep a prison ship moored up the Tower. Nobody knows who is there. It's totally blacked out - no tech at all, unhackable. That's how they operate - they use all this stuff from the Middle Ages, they... anyway there's no time for all this."

I want to run. I feel like I'm frozen.

"You don't sound like a teacher ma'am. I gotta be honest with you, I'm scared right now."

"I hate to say it, but stay scared. It'll help. I saw what happened in the hall. Most people don't know what that is, but the hunters do. They'll write that up, you can bet on it."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Grandma's voice in my head again. Stay incognito. Stay under the radar. Be the most boring new girl in the history of new girls.

The teacher, Ms. Gregorio, I notice her name badge as she looks out the windows of the classroom for a moment, then actually takes my hand and squeezes it. I'm shocked. I look down, a silvery trace of light blossoms under the skin in the back of her hand and just as rapidly fades away.

"Little sister, I'm augmented just like you."

"Like me!? What the hell are you?"

"When did you sign the book? Was it with your mother?"

"Get your hands off me or I'll scream!"

My voice is getting louder. Can't stop it.

"Oh my god."

I'm on my feet now, adrenaline making my right leg twitch and shudder, mind blanking. Fight, flight or freeze. Just my luck to roll freeze. Again. Play dead little rat. Ms. Gregorio pulls way back away from me, gesticulating to disown the moment, like she's trying to sweep away what she just said with her hands. When the words come out it's a different voice altogether.

"Look hey, this is just, look I just got a little cosmetic tech when I was at university, I just thought you might like to know you're not the only one."

She's doing the most painful impression of a casual laugh. I'm backing away, sharp pain in my thigh as I hit the nearest desk.

"You've got to see someone, get it removed, OK? School policy. I just wanted to let you know."

"I don't have any cyberTech. Jesus you think I wouldn't remember getting implants. I'm not like you. I'm not..."

"For the love of the three, don't say it out loud." She changes tack, hands out like she's begging for money.

"I made a mistake, I made a mistake, look please, I have children. I have two little boys. We're not what they say we are Ursula; we don't do those... things."

One word. Screaming in my skull. Over and over. She's a...

I turn and run. The doors slam behind me as I run along the upper mezzanine. Below me the soul space is swarming with uniformed bodies, the noise is incredible, filling me up, making me dizzy. I stop and peer over the edge. I notice it is high enough, if you dive head first, to snap your own neck.

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