Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 64

This warehouse is frantic with activity, for the first time maybe sine the Victorian era. And still the covens arrive. And I can't quite believe it, that they came when I called them. There must be a few hundred now. All the sirens that were loyal to Alice and a few other tribes that sympathise with my message. Some weavers too and a whole gang of hangers on.

There are skins here, a gang that has affiliated itself with the sirens, in love with them and willing to defend them with makeshift weapons. Sirens don't use much violence, but they keep retainers for that. Weavers use spiders and there are a few here. Most are too careful for this kind of event.

Most weaver cells never see another witch in meatSpace. This is unprecedented. And I made it happen. Or something in me that I no longer control. Because I'm terrified, feel like I'm riding a boat down a fast river and I lost the oars. I recall ranting and speech making, so persuasive, so fiery. I've whipped up a crusade, a holy war.

These women are here because I promised them a new power, a chance to step out of the shadows, to stop running. And I can feel the tension and expectation weigh on me, many of them openly staring at me, waiting for me to start up the wild war drums again. And I can't quite believe that I'm doing it, climbing up onto some old bins, taking the limelight.

"We're here because we're tired of running." Woops, cheers. They're ready for this.

"And we know that there are powers out there that we can use. Believe me, I've done it myself."

And there is more cheering.

"We can raise a sabbat that will call them, the most powerful spirits from the furthest darkest corners of the Web and the Gap. And if we dance the right way, and chant the right words, they will come and make us stronger than we've ever been."

Applause, whistling, ululations. I wait for it to subside.

"We can bind gods and monsters to our will. We've been hiding from our own power, but no more!"

And they erupt. And the noise must be heard from blocks away.

The gathering of vehicles, the work going on to set up rigs and pas, visual equipment, the scale of organisation must be sending ripples across the republic of London.

I'm terrified still, in a little cage of panic inside my own chest while this other me talks like some kind of epic hero from history. I can't believe they're all buying it. I'm gonna get them all arrested. But it's sweeping me away.

And then the preparations are done and I call out, and my rhizome is lit up from toes to scalp, I feel it alive with signal, with message, with potential, connected to everything and everyone. It's ecstatic.

"Let the Sabbat begin! Dance like it's the end of the world, dance to raise the spirits of the dead, dance to let the gods know we are back, we are waiting for them to return! Dance for the Weaver, the Siren and the Crone!"

And the whole building starts to throb with dark life, as every artist in the building works their magic over the sound systems, and the visual effects, the laser projections, the building buzzes with clouds of siren drones, all dressed up as a plethora of creatures, dancing with the bodies of the humans, looking like spirits themselves in the flashes of strobe, the air flooding with gasses, clouds, breathing in the dry ice wondering if I'll choke on it, surprised not to, the artistry turning the physical space into some kind of hybrid between dream and real.

And added to this, we're simultaneously jacked into a local web of connections, experiencing the rave not just as individuals but through glimpses of other people's viewpoints, collective waves of physical sensation, translated through binary code into musical signals, sine waves that return to the dancing bodies and trigger yet further sensations that are translated back through the binary snake into visual projections, everything feeding back into everything else, creating a feedback loop.

Cats are everywhere all of a sudden, not sure how that happened. Something attracted the packs of stray felines descended from abandoned pets that mob the city. Perhaps we have disturbed a nest of rats, yes rats everywhere too, are they dancing too?

But through my extending consciousness I hear something else, alarm bells ringing, beyond the walls of the squatted warehouse, we're attracting police, and the police are bringing hunters with them.

Now is the time I tell myself, as I drift through the party, from one aural assault to another, trying to wake myself up from this reverie, now is the time to sound the alarm, get out of here, before the hunters gather, before they outnumber us.

But there is something else again, I feel the presence of the biggest, darkest, most powerful shivers.

The gods themselves have come.

I feel them out there growing closer, prowling, coming towards us, the Weaver, the Siren and the Crone. And with them their archangels, the monsters' angels and demons, the spirit people made of code, AIs built out of every religious impulse ever recorded on the web. And they are tempted by our offering, tempted to bless us with their incredible powers.

If we can just keep the dance going for a few more minutes, we might be able to fight the hunters on their own terms, toe to toe, with overwhelming rhizomatic abilities. I can't control myself anyway. Might as well enjoy the ride.

Then the sound of the walls on the side of the building giving way, seems like a part of the music.

And it takes several long seconds for my brain to realise that there are tanks, actual tanks driving through the walls and straight into the centre of the dance floor.

And the doors pop open and soldiers jump out, dressed in the uniform of the hunt, but something new, the helmets, they're defended against out attacks, not so easy to get a read on them, they're bound up in physical and software defences, the hunters have been buying new tech, and they've brought riot gear, and I watch frozen as the first one lays his night stick into the back of a girl's head as she turns to run.

Dozens more of them pile through the hole in the wall.

They are coming towards me, so very fast.