Abigail moved near the center of the room, the orb casting awarm glow in an attempt to push away persistent shadows. The young witchrummaged through her backpack, handing Rena a small rectangular box.
“You have neural gel pads?” asked Rena.
“My foster dad works for the defense station.”
“Are you allowed to have these? Are we going to get in trouble?”
Abigail gave Rena a sideways glance. “We’re fine.”
Tabitha moved closer to the orb. Ghosts backed away from her,ensuring she didn’t touch them. A tall man reached up, trying to grasp the spotof brightness, curious about the spectacle. A small circle of ghosts hoveredabout the pair, a woman leaning over Rena, their bodies almost melded together.Concerned, Tabitha stepped near the girls, causing ghosts to withdraw.
Rena opened the box and freed a silver object. Rena stuck it toher temple without hesitating. When Abigail sat on the floor crossing her legs,the other followed suit.
Tabitha couldn’t figure out how the sticky metal pads playedinto the unfolding scene. Abigail powered up her laptop and pulled a cord fromthe side while exposing the underside of her forearm. Housed in her arm, threeinches above her wrist was a small ethernet port. As Abigail pressed the end ofthe cord into her forearm, Tabitha listened for the familiar click.
“Valerie, open neural network.” Tabitha’s own computer had beennamed Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. Every hacker had a story behind thename of their machine, she wondered what significance it held for thefledgling.
The screen on the laptop flashed to life. “The neural safetyfeatures are enabled. I can’t hear your thoughts. We’re not doing a simulationconstruct, so imagine you’re playing a game at home.”
“Sure, just like a game.” Rena rolled her eyes. “Remind me whyI’m here again.”
“Cause you’re the best girlfriend ever.”
“I’m starting to reconsider.”
Abigail folded the screen backward on the laptop until it was aflat pad and slid the device in between the two of them. Tabitha couldn’t figureout how the laptop played into this ritual. In cyberspace, hackers utilizedtheir gifts to parse code at an alarming rate. When a witch reached maturity,magic became nothing more than complex code to hack. However, it was rare forthe two worlds to interact like this.
“Valerie, execute Ouija script.” Rena gasped as the screenflared bright white.
“Your sight will take a second to sync with the program.”Abigail reassured Rena.
Abigail reached behind her ear. Tapping her skin three times,her eyes grew distant, as if she were caught in a memory. Tabitha touched thespot behind her ear, painfully aware of her missing microprocessor.
“Whoa, look at that.”
Rena leaned in, focusing on the projection from the pad. Tabithaforced her way past a gentleman crowding the device, sending him to the ground.A rectangle hung in the air, but unlike the Ouija board she played with as akid, this one remained blank. Tabitha realized the script running on thecomputer wasn’t a clever naming convention, but an actual Ouija board. Like theorb, the ghosts in the room noticed the board as well. Staring at the ghostkiller, they hovered, fearful to approach.
“I don’t know what to do,” Rena said.
“The computer is reading your thoughts so you can manipulate theprojection.”
“Why don’t you need the neural gel?”
“I have a hard line,” Abigail said pointing to the cord. “Neuralgel doesn’t transfer data fast enough for it to reach into the afterlife.”
Tabitha couldn’t tell if Rena’s worried expression was from thetechnology being explained to her, or because they were trying to talk toghosts. In all her years of practicing magic, she had never used a Ouija board,an item banned by her coven’s high priestess. Seeing ghosts in the middle ofthe night had been terrifying enough, talking to them would have been worse.Tabitha wondered if Abigail would be able to see the dead once the spell begun.
A woman with scorched patches of skin running along her arm,reached around Rena, grasping at the board. Another ghost snatched the woman,trying to get his hand to the board first. Ghosts grew agitated, emboldened asthey pushed past Tabitha, stretching and pushing, to get at the projection. Ifthe girls could see the mass of ghosts writhing as they attempted to best theirneighbor, they’d be terrified of the hoard.
A white triangle blinked into existence, resting in the centerof the board. Tabitha tried to keep the young witch in her line of sight, butas ghosts surged forward their fear of the ghost killer was replaced with need.They crawled over one another, desperate to reach the middle. Bodies twistedand contorted, falling around the teenagers like they were nothing more thandiscarded pieces of furniture.
“Ready?” asked Abigail as a child with a mangled face triedhopping over her.
“I am,” Rena replied.
“Sub specie aeternitatis.”
Words of power, Latin phrases used by witches to focus theirabilities. Unlike the dozen languages she mastered as a programmer, this onecarried with it an air of prestige. It took the elder witch a moment to translate.
Under the sight of eternity.
The young witch yelped. Standing and backing away until the cordpulled at her forearm, she frantically looked about the ground. Tabitharecognized the expression on Abigail’s face, a mixture of horror and intrigue.The girl saw the ghosts clawing at one another to maintain their place next tothe board.
“Are you okay?” asked Rena.
“Yeah, I’m fine, the spell worked.”
“How do you know?”
“I see them, all of them.”
“Why can’t I?”
“Magic,” Abigail replied as if that answered everything.
“Your mom?”
“Spirits we welcome you,” Abigail said in a squeaky whisper.“Can you hear us?”
“What are they saying?” asked Rena.
“Nothing, I mean, they’re too busy trying to get to the board.”
“Maybe they need it to speak with us?”
The undead attempting to claim the board reached nearly fourdozen, each more frantic than the last. Both girls extended their hands as ifthey were resting their finger tips on the pointer. As her fingers touched thedigital pointer, Rena’s eyes widened, a scream escaping her lips.
Abigail’s girlfriend found herself trapped on all sides by theghosts. Rena steadied
