Cyber Witch

Chapter 9.3 - Keyword

[Avia]

Zach grimaced as a white-uniformed man roughly twisted Zach's arms behind his back and applied handcuffs. Then pushed down, he joined Spade, also cuffed, kneeling side-by-side on the floor.

"You can't do this!" Spade shouted, baring teeth. "We have rights--" A hard backhand strike to his face ended the protest.

Gideon pressed a weapon to Spade's head. "We have the guns, so we can do this. If you were smart, you would shut up."

Spade glared at Gideon, lips tight, but said no more.

"Avia, I know you are watching," Gideon said in an even voice, facing the camera. "Surrender to me, and Zachery lives. If not, he dies." To make his point, Gideon pressed a gun barrel against Zach's head. "Well?"

Zach firmed his lips and shook his head.

"No," I muttered to myself as I slid down the wall. "Please, no."

Drawing knees to my chest, tears traced my cheeks. A big part of me wanted to run to Zach, to save him from a threat that was all my fault. But based on memories of Gideon while serving in the Cyber Assault Force, I knew brutal deception was his way, and he could not be trusted. Surrendering myself now would surely doom us both.

So, I didn't reply to his challenge, hoping the uncertainty of silence would buy me some time. My gut knotted as tense moments dragged on.

"Do you think I wouldn't kill him, Avia?"

Still, I did not reply, defying every fiber of my being.

"Consider this, then," Gideon said.

Swinging his gun around, he pulled the trigger, and a sharp airy report reverberated within the studio. Sucking in a final breath, Spade's eyes blurred. Then he folded to the floor, face down within a widening pool of crimson.

"You bastard!" Zach snarled, jumping up to his feet.

But one of Gideon's goons, a tall burly man with a snake tattoo around his neck, punched Zach hard in the gut, once and again. Zach cried out, slumping down again to his knees, and bending over, wheezed and gagged.

"I'm sorry, Zach," I whispered, hugging myself as tears became rivers. "I'm so sorry..."

"You have one hour, Avia!" Gideon shouted. "Then he dies." He raised his gun toward the camera and pulled the trigger. Then the video feed went blank.

'Anger, properly focused, was a powerful force,' my old mentor Flint once advised. Zach told me to flee, but I'll be damned if I leave him behind. Flinging water from my face, I allowed hot anger to surge through me, tightening both sinew and resolve.

I had one hour.

Running through the crowds, and not caring who I jostled, I made my way to Alpha Port, where I determined Gideon docked his ship. He anticipated I might try to flee in Zach's ship, so docking clamps had already been applied to the Freebird at Gamma Port, and two white-uniformed men guarded it, and I hoped he would not expect me to go near his ship.

Ducking within a worker's locker room off the port, fortunately devoid of other people, I scanned the locker placards for a female name. I hacked the biometric lock to open the door, then grabbed the work clothes inside — a bit over-sized for my body, but they would do. Once changed into grimy blue overalls and stuffing my dark hair under a hard hat, I threw three Goober Gummies candies into my mouth, not noticing the mish-mash of flavors. For the serious coding I planned on short notice, I would need the sugar to power my cybernetics.

Gideon's starship, the Vega Venture, was a sleek corporate shuttle with artistic rounded lines sometimes used by Omni-Corp, but without the logo. The docking scheduler showed it arrived two Earth-days before Zach and I did. Somehow, Gideon knew we would come here.