Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 22

I feel like a cockroach under a shoe. My eyes peel open pointlessly. Still can't see. I try to sit up, but the whole left side of my body complains real loud. The fabric of my pants sticks to my left shin, hot and wet. My ankle throbs. My eyes dart up to a light directly above me.

A hissing sound. Someone is drawing an oval in the metal above me. It's kinda beautiful how precise it is. I'm just getting to thinking how this perfect oval of metal is about to drop on my head, when it lifts away and to the side, revealing the woman with the strange eyes, a scattering of stars behind her.

She looks for all the world like a spider reeling out silk, as she descends toward me. In the reflected light from the camp beyond the hole, I catch a brief glimpse of the microscopic filament attached to her invisible harness. She doesn't talk. But she checks me out real quick with her eyes and fingers. She puts a patch on my shoulder, and the pain fades away real fast. So I feel very little when she straps me to her back like a back pack.

At last she whispers to me.

"My name is Mel, I'm gonna get you out of here. But you can help. Your wetware is next level. Best in the world. Try to reach out and read the systems around you, like you did before. We have people on the Gap Side trying to help you. They'll send you programs that can help. If you're strong enough to try..."

"I'll try."

It's hard. The glitch is quiet. I'm in a full state of shock. I'm drugged up and numb. And it's so weird, so dreamlike.

Mel moves so fast, so quiet. She moves through the maze of shipping containers. I look back at the one I came out of, see it crushed a stack of others. Hope nobody was in them. It takes me a second to notice, from up on the stack we're on, that there are guards everywhere. But they too are moving fast and quiet. Gleaming chrome on them shows they're hired muscle, not official witch hunters.

Mel takes the strangest pathway through and around and over and under. She pauses for precise numbers of seconds, I can almost hear her counting in her head. And I get the feeling we're in the most precise game of chess.

We walk around a corner, two guards are waiting for us. They have dogBots. Jesus. I seen awful clips of them. Ty showed me the worst. They launch at us, sprinting. The dogs leap, and they all fall down, tangled in invisible wire. And I realise it was a deliberate move. Mel has rigged the game board with traps. Suckered them into it.

Finally the glitch comes half alive, and I begin to make out a data flow around us. The guards are receiving directions from a man in a tower. They have comms built into their helmets. He's desperate not to let us get away. He's terrified of what will happen to him if he does. I see a glimpse of Marketta haunting the system. Or maybe it's just me.

But something changes. Someone seems to be jamming Mel's connection, my connection to her system. A new level of intensity comes to the silent game. It's like the man in the tower has levelled up. AI assistance has beefed up his tactical game. Mel is struggling now.

I know she's struggling because we get jumped. And I actually gasp when I see her respond. She...it's like she always knows what is coming next...she anticipates. I barely slow her down, my whole weight on her back. When she strikes, they topple like they're made of toy bricks. But the dog is too fast. It leaps at her throat but gets her forearm instead. I hear her grunt in pain as something inside its mouth fires.

Mel staggers. I hear more footsteps.

Then the dog drops to the ground. I smell something awful, evil chemicals. We're running again, but it's slower now, and Mel keeps stumbling.

"We've taken a wrong turn."

It's the first time she has spoken. And I know somehow that all units are converging on our position.

We're at a 12 foot high chain link fence with a barbed wire spiral up top.

She brings out the burny thing and swivels to set to work on cutting us out, leaving me facing the enemy as they saunter around the corner, unhurriedly taking aim upon us with tasers and nightsticks. There are six dogBots inching towards us. There is no time.

Then the voice comes gushing out of me.

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I almost see a pack of six psychotic fairies dancing along invisible pathways through the air and into the control unit of the man in the tower. And they flood back from his tower along his wireless system while he desperately tries to shut it off, but too late.

The dogs swivel balletic, turning on a dime. And they leap, covering unbelievable distances, they leap and fall upon their masters, biting and firing off dozens of hidden weapons. The men scream and collapse.

Mel is moving again, stumbling forward through the fresh hole in the fence. I can tell the dog poisoned her, it's like she's suddenly drunk. But we make it to a white van and she dumps me in the passenger seat and even remembers to put my seat belt on, before she drags herself to the driver's seat, revs the engine and pulls out of the back alley at warp speed.

My skin is writhing with subcutaneous lights and my head is a scrambled mess of data and junk and broken bits of code. I can't even speak anymore. But we're free, I guess.

I made a choice.

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