Cyberwitch Academy: Learn or Burn

Chapter 77

I'm walking through the city of London, and by that, I mean specifically 'the City of London', which is the most biz corpo district of the whole city.

And part of me still doesn't really believe what I am doing because I'm heading straight for the offices of the private security force that is publicly known as The Witch Hunt.

And everybody, everybody I know, thinks that I am on my way to a secret meeting of the Cyber Witch leadership, but I'm not.

They think that we're all going to make a deviously clever plan to get Marketta to come to me so that I can unleash La Llorona on her. But I let them think that because I knew it would never work. And I made promises to the twins.

And when I realised, what I had to do, it seemed so obvious I don't know why I thought of it sooner. If I'm the dirtiest bomb in the history of illegal weaponry then I should deliver myself into the hands of the enemy and detonate myself.

I don't really think I'll survive, but I'm hoping it'll give the others a window of opportunity, to rescue my sisters from that boat and deliver them to my dad to take them back to New York.

All I have to do is get close enough to Marketta La Fey, close enough to persuade her to link with me, to join our rhizomes to make the same bridge that I made with Sadie, so that when she thinks she has me at my weakest, I'll unleash the power of the Dark Shiver La Llorona and fry her goddam brain.

This plan is bad, but it's not as bad as all the other plans. By a fraction.

And I'm trying not to think about what'll happen if I can't persuade her to make that link, when I press the buzzer on the intercom at the door to the Witch Hunters' Tower.

A well-spoken receptionist bot responds. "Good morning, how can I help?"

I see the blinking lights of the half a dozen scans, and don't see the other half a dozen hidden scans that are taking place. And I say to her in flat and level voice 'My name is Ursula Loveless and I am the most dangerous witch in London and I have come to turn myself in."

There is a long pause.

Well, if you can't be dramatic at a time like this when can you be?

A soft click and the door swings open.

There are two witch hunters on the other side, and they reach out to proffer the gift of plastic wrist restraints. I offer them my wrists and they bind them then they take my in each arm like gentlemen courtiers.

The mooks lead me unhurriedly through a foyer that looks very much like that of a media corp, big movie style framed photographs of stars of the movement. Dramatic scenes of witch trials. Everything is heavily branded. The Hunt it seems, is a subsidiary of a major media Corp, the branding gives it away.

And they take me to the receptionist, who actually prints me out an ID badge and a red lanyard. Red for prisoner I assume. Everyone else has greens, blues, whites. Must all mean something, I guess. Levels of clearance.

I'm trying to use the rhizome to calm the rising terror. I have invoked little AI demons to whisper sweet nothings in my ear, to give me the sensation of massage in my shoulders, to slow my breathing down, but my body revolts against this, and leaves me in a weirdly subdued but acute state of anxiety.

I'm talking like I have been telephoned by one of mom's very important colleagues, my best telephone voice. And I confirm certain personal details. And then I'm taken into an elevator. There are hunters everywhere and they stare as I pass. I must be on the slides in the morning meetings pretty much every day. I'm a little famous up in here.

And we go all the way up. People getting in and out like it's a normal day. Feels like hours to get to the top floor. And I'm taken out of the elevator and into a corridor where there are cells stripped of any electronic equipment at all, I know I'm in a containment space, designed to dampen and restrict the play of my implants, my capacity to ride WIFI with my brain, a zone that prevents anything from connecting to the radio waves that carry the wireless internet around the city, and its secret entrances to the Gap beneath.

I expected this. I have no desire to fight. Then the door to my holding cell opens, and my face is two inches away from his. The serenity is shocking. Face of an angel. Even as he murdered Sadie, no hint of rage disfigured it. The most beautiful misogynistic psychopath in all creation.

I can't control myself; I twist and kick and claw and jerk. Trying to run, trying to physically move away from him. I'm like a gazelle who's just seen a cheetah. Embarrassed at how animal I have become. But the two men at my sides control me with practised ease, my movements come to nothing. I force myself to stop this shameful panic. Focus on the rising white sun of rage illuminating my internal landscapes.

There is the slightest indication of surprise, the tiniest hesitation in his angelic visage. He did not expect to see me here today. But he adapts, and calmly walks away indicating to his men to strap me into the chair in the centre of the room. And then he makes the tiniest gesture for them to leave. And he crouches in front of me, places his right hand on top of my left, and gazes into my eyes. His breathing quickens. His pupils dilate just a fraction. And I notice the minute quiver in his hand.

If I die in here, it's all over. I failed.

And I can almost hear the internal struggle inside his head. He doesn't move for a long time.

He puts his hand up to his wrist and pulls from under the skin a long thin stiletto knife, ceramic and surgical. A simple implant. Assassination tech.

I can't control my pulse any longer. Heart is beating fit to burst out of my chest. Breathing rapid and shallow. My eyes open so wide they start streaming. He closes his eyes, breathes in deeply through his flared nostrils, lays the point of the knife at my throat, I can feel it pierce just the first few layers of skin.

La Llorona is calling to me now. I could reach out now, he's so close to me that I could try a hostile takeover, force the invisible tendrils of my rhizome to seek out his and connect by force. Burn out his perverted mind with the irresistible sorrow of La Llorona. The invocations come easily, she is caged inside my own psyche, demanding the right to murder him, she sees him as her conquistador lover, as if he left her yesterday.

But I don't.

I force myself to keep control.

Because I can see that he isn't going to finish the job.

And for the first time ever, I see an ugly twist of anger pass across his face. He slides the knife back into his wrist sheath. He stands and walks to a sink in the corner, splashes water on his face. Then he returns with a set of wireless hair clippers and draws them across my head, dropping my tresses of black hair onto the white ground.

It is the first of a series of procedures.

They shave my head. Strip me and hose me down with cold water. Dress me in a hospital gown. Inject me with drugs.

But worst of all, they put an implant in my skull that disrupts the operations of the rhizome.

La Llorona now lies at the bottom of an ocean, out of reach...