Page 8 of Amethyst Flame
“I got us VIP tickets,” Jacob said, flashing a funny-looking QR code on the face of his phone.
VIP, eh? Alrighty then.
We headed to the elevator where the code was scanned by a blooping ray gun. Our hands were stamped with invisible ink…right over the pale X of a scar on my left hand. The people waiting on the escalators looked down on us with what had to be envy, and I loved it. This was shaping up to be the best. Weekend. Ever.
The elevator doors slid open, and we stepped inside.
As the sudden grip of gravity signaled our rise, Jacob said, “Wait until I say when, okay?”
He knew some ofwhatI could do, and I appreciated that he wasn’t going to micromanage me on the specifics. “Yep.”
The doors opened to the rhythmic squeal and whine of electronic music and a voice screaming in time, “Get your hands up! Get your fuckin’ hands up!” before dropping a fast beat that I felt in the floor and in my sternum, and that buzzed the light fixture in the elevator.
All that energy, and I couldn’t help the smile that spread on my face. I glanced at Jacob to find him deep in his scowls. Well, I’d be flipping his frown upside down tonight.
We stepped out onto the second tier of a massive club-like venue. The main floor was a sea of humanity, arms stretched and bouncing. Electric blue and hot pink laser lights beamed through the air. Up on the stage, huge screens rippled with squiggly thin lines of icy color that peaked with the beat, as if the music were alive. A live PA artist on the stage twiddled a melody over electronic percussion.
And this was just the pre-show.
The VIP tier seethed in time to the beat too, but the crush wasn’t nearly as intense as below.
There was a bar at the back—I could get used to VIP status—and I leaned into Jacob to shout in his ear, “Drink!”
He shook his head at me and shouted back, “Job first. Play later.”
I may have pouted, but he was right.
He led me to an open space along the balcony, and with a quick flattening of my right hand, I gave my moths the command for [map]. My moths dispersed and, after a few moments, in my mind’s eye, a blueprint of the venue slowly formed, including dots for each of the attendees. The moths also reported a strange object that resembled a beehive waiting just off stage, and according to my intel, it was swarming with bugs. My kind of bugs.
I leaned over to Jacob. “Found ‘em!”
His scowl got deeper.
The pre-show guy ended his set to wild screams, and then the venue went almost absolutely dark…or so I guessed. I could see everything just fine with my moth-amped purple vision. The volume dropped precipitously, too.
Jacob took the opportunity to whisper in my ear. “When he first deploys them, just mess with them a bit so he thinks the malfunction is on him.”
“Yeah. ‘Kay.”
“And then when I give you the signal, go ahead and take them over completely.”
“But then he’ll know that someone else has the same tech and is here tonight.”
“Iwanthim to know it’s me.” Jacob turned to the black bubble of a security camera and gave it his middle finger.
“But then he’s going to see me, too.” I’d be exposed.
“No. He’s only going to see that I brought my girlfriend. There’s no way in hell he could possibly conclude that you and this new tech are working synergistically. He’ll just think he missed a backdoor in my code…that he stole.”
“Not your code,” I said, on reflex, because I was stuck on the wordgirlfriend. I would need to consult with Swann at length about that slip.
Jacob’s reasoning seemed sound, cuz, yeah, whywouldanyone think that I was an EldWitch in real life?
“And then,” he went on, “go ahead and crash the show entirely.”
The buzz of reverb started to shake the floor.
A murmur of anticipation rippled through the crowd.
