Lisa Smedman - The Lucifer desk

Pita looked around her, saw only a vortex of spinning fragments of light. They spread in an infinitely wide rainbow, shading from a deep violet that she felt more as a hum than a color, to an intense crimson that blazed with heat. Individual photons spun crazy spirals around her, cutting the air like brilliant dervishes. She was captivated by their beauty, swept up in their dance. The spirit seemed to be trying to tell her something, trying to communicate. Its words rushed past at a frantic pace that no mortal mind could comprehend. If only she could understand its message, Pita knew that she would be conveyed to the source of all light, the source of all…

Her brain sluggishly sent out a signal that-had nanoseconds not been crawling along like seconds-would have caused her to shake her head.

She struggled to form a word-thought. Not the convoluted command that the mages had instructed her to give, but a single message: Go .

The spirit paused for a nanosecond, then blazed brightly with anger. No. Stay. Play.

Pita felt a wash of horror as she realized what she’d done. When she’d controlled the spirit before, she’d been responding to the call of her totem. Like a cat playing with its prey, she’d directed the spirit to use its destructive energies against the cops. It had enjoyed the experience, and now wanted to repeat it. And it didn’t care who the target was. Pita had unleashed a monster-one that would strike out at the innocent, as well as the guilty.

She tried again. Leave.

The burn on her arm began to throb in time with the light that strobed overhead. The sensation drew Pita back toward her body, back toward herself. The spirit flared with laughter, tilted and spun…

The purring. Concentrate on the purring. Centering herself, wrapping her will around the calm place that Cat had created for her. Pita lashed out. She raked the spirit with claws, tore at it with her teeth. Her hair was on end, was on fire, but she didn’t care. She used the throbbing in her arm, blending anger with calm, blending hot fire with icy determination. Summoning every ounce of her will, she screamed at the thing one last time: GO HOME!

Something snapped.

Pita fell into her body from an impossible height. Down, down into darkness. When she opened her eyes, the laboratory was in utter darkness, except for a tiny red eye that stared at her. Then the portacam’s auto-light came on. washing Pita with a beam of light. She threw up her arm to shield her eyes-and saw that her skin was whole. Healed. The pale pink scar of the spirit’s burn had utterly vanished.

The room’s lights came on then, and everyone started talking at once. Dimly. Pita was aware of the three mages leaping to their feet, of executives rushing into the room and congratulating them with slaps on the back and hearty handshakes. Anwar was standing somewhere beside her, talking excitedly into his microphone and helping Pita to her feet.

“It’s too soon to tell yet, folks, if the spellcasting was successful,” he touched the audio pickup in his ear, listening to it. “The reports are only just starting to come in from the deckers who are monitoring the Matrix. But you saw what happened here today, live on Orks First ! trideo. The spirit is under control. And it took an ork to do it.”

Pita murmured something in response to Anwar’s questions, then staggered. She was bone weary; wrestling with the spirit had utterly drained her. When someone else reached out to steady her, she clasped the proffered arm. And looked up into the face of John Chang.

“Well?” he whispered, pulling her off to the side and out of camera range. “We saw you control the spirit. It responded beautifully. How did it react to the new commands?”

“I didn’t give it those commands,” Pita whispered back.

“What?’ Donald Acres had also crowded close, and now was sputtering with rage.

“What do you mean you didn’t-” He broke off as Anwar homed in, thrusting his microphone up to Pita’s mouth.

“I banished it,” Pita answered. “I sent the spirit home-wherever that might be. It’s never coming back.”

Chang’s face went pale. “But that was the only… We weren’t able to bind any of the other…” His hand clenched Pita’s shirt. “You were supposed to-”

“Yes?” Anwar asked, shifting the microphone. “Is there anything you’d like to add, Mr. Chang?”

The executive shook his head, hid his discomfort with a smooth smile, then abruptly turned away.

The pirate broadcaster wrapped a heavy arm around Pita’s shoulders and walked her toward the camera. Technicians scurried along after Pita, peeling off the sensors that had been attached to her skin.

“And now we’ll take you to the Street Savers shelter,” Anwar announced as he lifted the camera from its tripod and held it at arm’s length. “I’ll be broadcasting live all the way there as Patti tells us the story of how she came to learn the magical skills that enabled her to banish rogue spirits.” He turned. “Mr. Acres? Mr. Chang? This way please.”

He walked Pita toward the exit, Chang and Acres fumed as they followed the two orks out of the lab and into the Street, occasionally turning their grimaces into a smile for the camera that Anwar was carrying. Surrounded by bodyguards, they climbed into sleek corporate vehicles.

Anwar helped Pita into the taxi that was waiting outside the research lab’s door.

“Your friends have told me, Patti, that your talents are entirely self-taught. I understand that you’re a cat shaman?”

Pita nibbed her throbbing temples, then noticed the driver of the taxi. It was the ork woman who had chatted with her-when? only this morning?-about the Meta Madness concert. The woman turned around and gave Pita a toothy grin.

“Hoi kid,” she said. “I found your cat.”

A white bundle of fur launched itself over the seat and into Pita’s arms. Purring loudly, the cat nuzzled against Pita’s chin, then sniffed at the shirt pocket where the Chickstix had been. One yellow and one blue eye peered up at her as the cat let out a questioning mrrow?

Pita stroked the animal, dumbfounded by the turn of events. What a coincidence that the taxi that had come to take her to Street Savers just happened to be driven by the woman she had met this morning! But then she started to mull it through. Even if the cabbie had found Aziz’s cat, she wouldn't have driven around all day with the animal in her car. She’d have returned it to Masaki’s address, and he would have contacted Carla, who would have.

She smiled at Anwar, who confirmed her suspicions with a wink. The lens of the portacam whirred as he shifted the camera to take in both Pita and the cat. “So,” he said into the microphone. “Tell us about your cat. Do you use it to work your magic?”

Pita laughed. She was starting to understand how the news business worked.

Carla watched as Wayne put the finishing touches on the Lone Star story. Despite the fact that everyone she’d interviewed had been busy covering their own asses, the story drove one point home. Pita wasn’t just some street-trash ork kid any more-she was the brilliant young shaman who had single-handedly driven the spirit from the Matrix. It didn’t take a genius to realize that, had the cops gunned her down with the rest of her friends that night, the Crash of 2029 would have repeated itself, with devastating results to the world economy.

As a result of Pita’s fame, offers were pouring in from Seattle ork families who wanted to offer her a home. There was even a handful of telecom messages from handsome young orks who saw Pita as their means of escaping the Underground, either as her personal bodyguard-or as her spouse. For now, however, Pita was still living at Masaki’s. She said she liked it there-that she especially enjoyed talking with Blake, Masaki’s burly oak partner. Carla snorted. She wouldn’t be surprised if the two adopted Pita. It would do Masaki good-give him someone else to fuss and worry over.