Cyber Witch

Chapter 3.1 - Trust Issues

[Zach]

I relished the sweet victory — finally capturing Avia after so long in pursuit. Resourceful, disciplined, and smart, she was no easy target. If freedom was not at stake, mine versus hers, it would have become a game between us. Now, once I logged her arrest into the database, I will have paid my debt to society and be free of the Hunter program. At last!

While Avia snoozed under the sedative's influence, I unwrapped the capture net that bound her and pressed a portable scanner against her forehead for a conformational DNA sample. No makeup marked her gentle oval face, no elaborate style shaped her thick hair, and no fashionable clothes cloaked her willowy body. It was simply Avia. She had an appealing natural kind of beauty, not pretentious glamour — I've had enough of that — but the genuine type that shines from within.

Except for small angled scars behind each ear, you might never had known her head contained one of the most sophisticated computers ever developed, or that she was a wanted fugitive. Sure, many Aberrants went bad, but not her. Avia was in no way deserving of her fate.

But good God, was she infuriating.

Never passing up an opportunity, Avia taunted me mercilessly. And the pranks she pulled — stealing money from my operating account; getting me arrested under false charges; the humiliating fake social posts; and the awkward public gift deliveries — although the birthday flowers were a nice touch. Whatever hindered, embarrassed, or irked me, she did it. Except for my grumpy supervisor, my friends and colleagues took particular delight in my abasement.

Yet underneath it all, Avia had a good heart, and there were limits to her mischief. More than once she could have killed me, but instead only left me stranded. And most of the money she stole went to worthy causes.

I almost felt guilty for hunting her down. Almost.

But this won't go like she believed.

After closing the cell mesh door, I strolled down the hallway, passing through an open metal-bar gate. "She's all yours, Mac," I said to the uniformed gray-haired man leaning back in a wheeled chair behind the long counter. A row of view-screens displayed live feeds of the jail area, including Avia's sleeping form. "A Fed transport should be here in a few hours to take her away. She should sleep right through it all, but if not, just give her another dose." I laid the pneumatic syringe on the counter.

Mac grinned. "Quite a score for you, catching an Aberrant."

"Yeah. Not many left in the wild." I leaned against the counter and raised an eyebrow. "Mind if I stick around a while to fill out all the Fed forms? There's like a hundred of them. I'll buy coffee."

That perked his interest. Coffee was a rare treat at the remote Hephaestus Station. "Sure," he replied, straightening up and pointing at a desk chair to his left. "Use this seat."

After purchasing two cups of coffee at a nearby kiosk — damn, was it expensive — I returned and handed one to the grateful guard, then sighed as I sat down with my tablet viewer. When I said there were a hundred forms, I wasn't exaggerating much. Like, why did they need to know the local weather on a space station?

It took a mind-numbingly tedious hour to complete the forms, even though I left many inputs blank. By that time, Mac's head bobbed periodically and his eyes glazed as the drug I slipped into his coffee took effect.

"You all right, Mac?" I asked.

"Long shift," he replied, rubbing his face.

"Take a rest," I said, tilting my head to the small office behind us. "I'll keep watch."

"Thanks."

He never made it to the office under his own power, instead collapsing back into his chair and snoring from an upturned open mouth. Wheeling him into the office, I propped his head against the back wall, and then closed the door behind me. It will appear he fell asleep on the job.