Reality Hack Read online

  ‘So… the text I read is a bit vague. What can you do?’

  Norbery twitched his head at Kellog. ‘Get him to check you out a couple of textbooks, in English, not Latin. Something on wizardry, witchcraft, maybe alchemy. Your paradigm relies as much on what you can imagine doing as what you know and the broader your understanding, the better. Besides, you should know what you’re up against if you face a caster. Am I right, Field Agent?’

  Kellog nodded. ‘Yes… Yes it’s a good point. Bugs and Glitches aren’t the only things you’ll find doing things we have to stop.’

  ‘Great,’ Nisa muttered.

  ‘I understand you’ve inherited a cat,’ Norbery said, apparently going for a brighter subject.

  ‘Uh-huh. Well, someone has to and she seems to like me, and Mrs Carew isn’t going to be looking after her.’

  Norbery nodded. ‘A female then?’

  ‘Faline,’ Nisa replied, nodding.

  ‘Good. The males can be troublesome.’

  Nisa grinned. ‘That works for humans too.’

  Tower Hamlets.

  Faline watched Nisa struggling through the door with a pile of books tied together with string and refrained from winding herself around her new owner’s legs until the load had been relieved.

  ‘Thank you for waiting,’ Nisa said, picking the cat up. ‘I’m happy to see you too.’ That got her cheek butted by a furry head and a burst of purr which dispelled the ache in Nisa’s muscles long enough for her to put food out for the cat and settle down on the sofa to read.

  Kellog had decided she might as well have some basic texts at her fingertips, so long as she remembered to keep them out of sight if she had visitors. Nisa had assured him that she rarely had visitors, and when she did they were mostly interested in her naked body, not her library. Kellog had given her a look.

  All the books were modern, rather stiffly written, textbooks, no more than twenty years old. Even the one on Druids was based on modern practice, though it stressed that those practices had been handed down since the Dark Ages. Somehow Nisa suspected the author was protesting too much. There was one on wizardry, another on alchemy, and a study of voodoo, but the witchcraft one seemed the most modern and the most accessible. She decided to start with that.

  Faline returned from the kitchen, licking her lips, and apparently decided that she needed more attention. On the other hand, she seemed happy enough sitting in Nisa’s lap as long as she could read the book along with her owner. Nisa tried scratching her between her ears, but the purring made it hard to concentrate so after a few seconds of that they just settled for reading in silence.

  Witches, it seemed, were into the kind of thing that you would expect witches to be into. There was a big section on herbs and their uses. The magic they used had a sort of elemental focus, but there were parts of the book dedicated to dealing with departed spirits and the ‘walking dead.’ There was a lot of stuff about how using your powers to cause harm tended to backfire. The universe frowned upon those who wrought ill. Nisa got the distinct impression that the author knew nothing about The System and considered what they did to be actual magic rather than bending the rules of a simulation.

  That begged the question of whether this whole ‘System’ thing was real, or just a theory. Maybe the world was real, and The System was just another paradigm. Or a working theory to explain something which could not be explained. Were those who believed in it just trying to rationalise a universe which did not work the way they wanted?

  Faline’s paw stretched out and landed on the page Nisa was reading. Well, there was a picture of a cat on it.

  ‘On finding a familiar,’ Nisa read. ‘So you think I need a familiar then?’ Meow. ‘I’m not actually a witch, you know?’ Meow. The paw drew back and Nisa turned the page, scanning over the text. ‘Says here that the skilled witch can communicate with their familiar through magic of the spirit.’ Prrt! ‘Oh, so you want to be able to demand Sheba directly then.’ Reproachful meow. ‘Well… it’s something to practise that doesn’t involve summoning lights. We’ll try it later.’ Prrt!

  ~~~

  There had been some more practical advice in the book along with a lot of theoretical stuff. Gathering power from the ambient energy of the universe, it said, tended to reduce the Probrum the caster ended up accumulating, and that seemed like a valid sort of thing to practise too.

  Faline sat in front of Nisa, who sat cross-legged on the floor in the bedroom. The bedroom, she had decided, was where she was most comfortable doing magic, so that was where she did it.

  ‘Okay, so I need to channel the energy around me…’ Nisa mused. She lifted her arms and spread her fingers, and tried to imagine that energy was drawing in from around her. It felt less like drawing and more like dragging. ‘And I need to focus on your mind…’ How the Hell did you focus on a mind? Think catty thoughts? No, that was going to make her mean or something. She was pretty sure she had to be precise about it. The text on Reality Hacking had said that you needed to set your mind to a thought of exactly what you wanted to happen. ‘So it’s like a Vulcan mind meld, right? No, too deep. I want to be able to hear what you’re thinking. That should be enough…’

  It kept slipping through her fingers, but she remembered the same sort of thing happening when she had been learning to summon the light. At least she was not having to learn to set her mind the right way now.

  It took her nearly two minutes before she managed to hold on to the energy and get the phrasing of the spell right and suddenly…

  Faline gave a meow and Nisa heard ‘That’s much better’ in her mind.

  ‘Holy fuck, I did it!’

  ‘I don’t believe profanity is appropriate,’ Faline commented.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Nisa said, frowning. ‘Stop me if I’m wrong, but cats should not know what “profanity” means.’

  ‘Why not? We hear enough of it. The man next door constantly referred to me as “that fucking cat.”’

  ‘Yes, but… Forgive the statement, but you don’t have the brains to be talking like this. Is this some artefact of the spell?’

  ‘I,’ Faline said, licking her paw in a distinctly proud manner, ‘am a most superior cat.’

  ‘Yeah… obviously.’

  ‘Jennifer was a witch. I am a Witch Cat. Much better than a typical domestic breed.’

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ Nisa said, frowning. ‘Mrs Carew was actually a witch and you were, what? Her familiar?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’

  ‘So when she died, you went looking for a new… uh… I don’t want to say “owner.”’

  The cat gave a cough. ‘I prefer “companion.” There was nothing I could do to help her so, yes, I went looking for a new companion. And I found one. You’re young, and untrained, and your magic is strange, but I’m most happy to have found you. I was worried I would have to go into the city and find some smelly wizard.’

  ‘I know a wizard and he doesn’t smell.’

  ‘Probably doesn’t do alchemy then, or not much. When you have a cat’s nose, wizards smell.’

  Nisa shook her head. ‘I never thought I’d be having a conversation like this with a cat.’

  ‘I’m quite sure there are many things you will do in the future which you never thought would happen, Nisa,’ Faline said. ‘I know something of these people you have become involved with and what they do. It can be very dangerous. You need to study, hard.’

  ‘You know,’ Nisa said warily, ‘I can’t help but think that an intelligent cat sounds like a Bug, and I’m supposed to hunt those.’

  ‘Witch Cats fall into a grey area as far as your masters are concerned. I’m sure your tutor is painting things as very much black and white, but he will eventually have to admit that not everything considered unnatural is bad. If it were, he would have to eliminate you, and himself.’ There was a little pause and then she said, ‘What happened to you that makes you wake up screaming, Nisa?’

  ‘Part of the pr
oblem is that I don’t remember. I know, but… I’d been practising the light spell, a lot. I attracted an incubus. His mind control made me forget what he did, but I know what they do…’

  Faline got to her feet and padded over, rubbing herself against Nisa’s leg. Nisa picked her up and a furry head rubbed against her cheek.

  ‘I am sorry that your first successful spell brought you such harm,’ Faline said. ‘I will help where I can.’ She began to purr and the pain in Nisa’s chest, which she had barely noticed, was soothed away.

  ‘You’ve already helped a lot,’ Nisa whispered.

  Westminster, July 1st.

  The paper target twenty or so yards down the small firing range vanished in a blaze of flame and Kellog turned to look at Nisa who was watching with a bright, wide-eyed grin on her face.

  ‘Basic fireball spell,’ he said.

  ‘Awesome!’ she replied.

  Kellog gave a grunt. ‘Do you think you could do something like that?’ He turned again, pressing a button which pulled the target holder back along a rail so that he could fix a new one in place.

  ‘Uh, I guess. It’s summon the energy, shape it, and then throw it, right?’

  ‘Precisely.’ He clipped the target in place and cycled it back toward a rather closer mark than he had used himself. ‘When you’re ready,’ he added, stepping back.

  Just as she had done when trying to talk to Faline, Nisa formed the image of energy flowing in toward her in her mind. It felt like it kept slipping and, over a minute later, she was feeling rather embarrassed even though Kellog was watching her with his usual stoic expression. Sure she had enough juice, she curled her hands around empty space in front of her and watched as a glowing, blue-white ball of light appeared between her hands. She actually giggled and then threw it toward the target, which vaporised very nicely. Sparks danced along the metal holder strip and up the cables.

  ‘What,’ Kellog said, ‘was that?’

  ‘Uh… I think I over-cooked it. Plasma bolt?’ She was feeling dizzy and when she reached out to steady herself against the wall, sparks jumped and she yelped.

  ‘Indeed. Perhaps something… less cooked. You’ve got some backlash effects as well. The energy felt slippery? You kept trying because you weren’t sure you had enough?’ Nisa nodded weakly. ‘Your control needs improving, but that will come with time. No one learns magic in a few weeks. In the meantime, might I suggest you keep away from anything electronic until the static stops?’

  ‘Right… Does this kind of thing happen a lot?’

  ‘Essentially, magic is unnatural. Doing it badly creates minor Glitches. I’ve lost my eyebrows more than once. I spent several hours hiding in my room one day because I’d turned scarlet. Minor electrical effects, tiredness, small burns, those are quite common.’

  ‘And people keep doing it?’

  ‘Of course. The rewards outweigh the disadvantages. Mostly.’

  ‘Encouraging, Kellog,’ Nisa told him. ‘That’s really encouraging. I think I need to sit down for a few minutes. Damn.’ Then the door gave her a shock when she tried to leave.

  Tower Hamlets, July 3rd.

  ‘Hey, Faline?’ Nisa called out. The cat was munching biscuits in the kitchen, but that was not very far away, and the spell worked over several yards.

  ‘Yes, Nisa,’ the voice came back.

  ‘Do you know a cat called Sparkles?’

  There was silence, and Nisa wondered whether she might have messed up the duration when she bumped up the range. Then Faline padded into the room and bounced onto the arm of the sofa to peer at Nisa.

  ‘He prefers not to be called that,’ the cat said.

  ‘What does he prefer?’

  ‘I believe “Yes, you can have me any way you like” would be his preferred form of address. Toms have only one thing on their mind.’

  ‘Humans are the same, believe me.’

  ‘They are not, believe me. Why do you ask about him?’

  ‘He’s missing. So is a white cat named Duchess.’

  ‘She does like her name, and she acts like it too. Are you thinking of looking for them?’

  ‘Well, I thought maybe you might know the local kitty hangouts, places they might be hiding? Unless they have eloped to a garret in Paris.’

  ‘Paris?’

  ‘Uh… never mind. Do you know where they might be?’

  Faline ducked her head away. It looked a little odd from a cat. ‘I… might, but I don’t want to take you there.’

  ‘What? It’s breaking the cat code of confidentiality or something?’

  ‘No. Cats are generally very gossipy. I’m not sure they’re there and I think… If they are there, all we’ll find is corpses.’

  ‘We’ll find?’

  The cat gave a sound which sounded a bit like a sigh. ‘You’re determined to find them, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be honing my investigative skills.’

  ‘Then I’m not going to let you go there alone,’ Faline said.

  ~~~

  At the far end of Hawgood Street, Gale Street swung back up toward Devons Road. They were busy putting in new builds, flats mostly, but they had not got to the corner quite yet.

  There were signs up outside what looked like an old industrial building indicating that it was dangerous, unstable, and due for demolition. Normally that would not have stopped the local kids from prising open some of the boards on the windows and sneaking inside to smoke or fuck, or something less healthy. Nisa could see no evidence that they had done so with this building. There were gaps big enough for animals to crawl in, but nothing large enough for a human.

  Faline, riding on Nisa’s shoulder, was getting more nervous the closer they got. She hopped down as they arrived and sniffed around the windows. Looking back, she gave a meow, but no words came through.

  ‘Great time for the spell to wear off,’ Nisa muttered and followed the cat over to the window. She grimaced. Even for a human nose, there was a disgusting scent of decay coming through the broken glass and wooden boards. ‘God, what is that?’ All she got was a meow in reply.

  Trying a couple of the boards, she found a loose one which left just enough of a gap for her to squeeze through. Faline gave a very worried-sounding meow and then jumped after her, and Nisa picked her up before moving any further into the building.

  It looked like it had been an office for some sort of industrial site. Nisa knew that there was scrub ground behind it, awaiting redevelopment, and this had been where the admin was done, she guessed. The room they had entered was an old office. There was no furniture, but there were bits of paper with some sort of company letterhead on it scattered around on the dusty, concrete floor. Everything useful in the place had probably been torn out already. Even the office door had been torn off and the hinges removed.

  The smell, and it had to be bad to be detectable just outside the window, was coming from deeper inside. Outside it was still daylight; there was maybe another hour until the sun fell below the horizon, an hour after that until full dark. Light fell in through the opened board, but beyond the doorway it fell into deep shadows and patches of light that were managing to creep in through smaller gaps.

  ‘You know,’ Nisa whispered, ‘this is the bit in the horror movie where I’m screaming, “Don’t go in there, you stupid fuck!” and they go in and get eaten by zombies.’

  Faline gave a soft whine which sounded like a suggestion that it was good advice, but Nisa edged closer to the door. The smell was stronger there; decay and rot mingled together with something else to form something you could taste as much as smell. Nisa swallowed hard and tried to breathe through her mouth.

  There was not enough light. The office had led out onto the reception area. The windows here were more intact, and the double doors at the front were still there. A few shafts of light made it through, but they served more to make the shadows deeper than to illuminate anything. There seemed to be shapes in the gloom near a flight of stairs which led up from th
e back of the room. Shapes, but nothing more distinct.

  Focussing her will and concentrating on the form she wanted, Nisa did not waste her time drawing the energy from around her. She reached out her hand, fingers slightly cupped, and willed the light to appear. It took a few seconds to get it right, but suddenly it was there, illuminating the area around Nisa. She swallowed. The floor had red stains on it.

  The shapes looked more like animals now, but none of them were moving. She pushed the light away from her, throwing it out toward the staircase because the last thing she wanted to do right now was go any further into this building. Her fists clenched and she bit back on the urge to scream. Lying beside the staircase were the bodies of several animals, cats and dogs from the sizes and shapes. Every single one of them had been skinned.

  ‘Oh shit,’ Nisa breathed. Somewhere above her, floorboards creaked, and Faline hissed, her eyes on the stairs. ‘Right,’ Nisa said to her, keeping her voice to a whisper. ‘That was probably just the building settling, but…’ She backed to the window, pushing her cat through ahead of her and then, reluctantly, turning her back on the interior to squeeze through.

  By the time she was outside, Faline was watching from the other side of the street, and Nisa joined her, pulling her phone out of her pocket as she went. She had no idea how she was going to explain how her cat had led her to this place, but skinned animals suggested one of two things: either there was a serial killer in the making or there was a Skinwalker in Tower Hamlets.

  July 4th.

  Kellog had taken Faline’s part in the discovery with his usual stoicism. He had chewed Nisa out for going in alone, but he had to admit she had no way of knowing what was in there until she looked.

  He had not allowed her to go in with him to check the building out, but he had not gone in alone. She had had to wait while he went in with an Armed Response Team who seemed to know more about what they might be facing than Nisa would have expected. Then again, Exceptional Circumstances had been set up by the Home Office, so clearly more people knew about the whole supernatural thing than just a few individuals. Some of Spike’s conspiracy theories appeared to have more validity than Wallace gave them credit for.