Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 39

I like this safe house. Could stay here a while.

We're camped out on the top floor of the Ragged School Museum, an old Victorian brick building by a canal in East London. We managed to rustle up a mish mash of old furniture, things that didn't get stolen in the waves of looting that happened when the museum closed down. We've built a little nest for ourselves up here.

Mel sits in the best chair, from the museum café. The rest of us sit on Victorian school benches. We're all doing finger work, earthing ourselves. Keeping busy while we wait for the Secret School to open. Mel has nearly finished a woollen hat!

I get up and look out at the canal through the twelve window panes, separated by peeling green woodwork. I imagine the ragged children who once trudged in here to learn their letters. Then a noise makes me go cold.

Five solid thuds echo out through the safe house from the direction of the door. Everyone freezes mid action, Mel is first to move, putting out the camping stove. She looks horrified. She never looks surprised by anything, but now this.

A knock at the door, still trying to process what that means.

There should never be a knock at the door.

"Get up and get out now. Forget about your stuff."

Five more thuds, and a voice.

"Delivery, is there anyone home?"

Another voice, a conversation between two men, can't hear it. And neither can Mel, something's wrong, Mel hears everything, sees everything, obsesses about potential attacks.

How can there be delivery guys at the door of the third floor of an old poor house school?

Yeah, sometimes there are waifs and strays seeking shelter on the lower floors, but there should be no way to get up here without alerting our Spider.

"Get out now, head for the panic room."

And we run, back across the top floor of the old school house towards a compartment built into a wall behind a fireplace. Just before I shut us into the panic room, I hesitate long enough to see Mel do the unthinkable, she opens the door, weapon in hand.

"Can you sign for this?"

She has him up against the wall. "Who sent you?"

And we can't quite bring ourselves to close the door, wanting to see how it plays out.

"Jesus' lady we don't know!"

Mel lets them run away. They've left a huge bag. She scans it with a pocket scanner, calls us back out.

"There are people inside this bag. Two people. Still alive."

"Open it up Mel."

And she pulls back the zip to reveal the Bishop sisters, wrapped together top to toe in reverse foetal position, dressed only in hospital gowns, black and blue from their ankles to their necks, heads shaved, fresh and raw sutures on all manner of surgical cuts. They're half awake, half dead. Shivering with pain.

"Oh my god." I hear myself say.

"This is a message." Says Mel

"Can you hear my voice?" Ty leans into the girls.

"Send for back up. We want an extraction team here with medics. We need to get out of here now." Mel is not talking to us. She's sending messages on the Weaver network.

Marketta sent us a message. We've been here two weeks, and she knew, knew exactly where we were.

The Bishop girls sit up, violently, as if forced.

And a message comes out of their mouths in unison. But it isn't their voice.

"This is your fault, Ursula; you did this to us. They took us to a clinic, they promised us the latest tech, cosmetic, cerebral, every mod and upgrade you can buy, they were going to turn us into cybers, make a career, get famous, whatever.

Then they took it all away, filled us up with malicious warez, they pinch and burn, fill us up with wasps, take control of our bodies, steal our voices, turned us into meat puppets, voodoo dolls, and we're trapped in here, inside the stolen territory, running scared. Please, please kill us."

And I'm glitching hard, comes on sudden, with the flood of horror and shame, Marketta watched us the whole time, must have waited for us to deliver the video to the reporter, watching the whole time. I can't breathe. My skin is writhing with the lights. I scream.

I feel a sharp pain in my neck. A needle. And a flood of calm washes through me. Ty is whispering calming things into my ear.

The voices are clamouring inside me, and they call out through the real world, and through the gap. And I can sense the deepest darkest shivers waking up, alerted by my desperate wailing. And they are looking for me, a gateway into the world.

And then the smell of damp musty red brick from hundred years ago and the memories of ragged children, learning whatever they needed to learn to survive.

Then the sounds of dogs. And Mel is carrying me over her shoulder. And we're running again.

And then the airBikes. We're being extracted. But here is something else, I can't stop thinking it over and over again, if she knows where we are, why doesn't she just come and arrest us, why doesn't she just take us in, why is she treating us differently to any other coven, what does she want from me?

And I think, as I force myself to regain control, that it's me, it's me who is the missing link in this chain. She spoke to me directly, she's the witch finder general, the most powerful fanatic in the show, why on earth would she take time to speak to me one to one? Why did I get the VIP treatment when so many others were processed by mooks?

And I think about what Mel said, about my implants, the Rhizome, the most powerful form that exists, the hyper Rhizome, the one that is more dangerous than all the others, and I think about my enemies, Alice Nutter, who says I am a risk to the whole school, because of my connection to Marketta.

And then I wake up and I see that we are changing vehicles again, and we go through the night like that, for hours. Mel uses everything she has, to try and convince us, convince herself that Marketta doesn't know where we are anymore.

###THIS NOVEL IS IN OPEN BETA###

Join the beta reader team at cyberwitchacademy.com

I'm here for your feedback. Thanks for reading!