“I’m sorry, Brownie. I thought I could do it, but I can’t.”
Brownie tilted her head and displayed the sort of look that might melt butter - a gorgeous light-brown face, beautiful orange eyes, and a shiny coat to die for.
“I’m sorry, girl.”
She lifted her head up as the man stood to his knees. To the kitten, he seemed to grow a thousand feet tall in the space of three seconds.
“Miew,” Brownie squealed after him.
The man wouldn’t be returning, though. Instead, he walked down the road that snaked around to the cemetery, and out of view - forever.
Brownie pawed the box and kicked her little legs up the side, but it was no use - she was too small to get out.
The thunderous roar of speeding vehicles and gas fumes antagonized her to no end.
Her heart began to pump quicker than she’d ever experienced until now.
She felt her chest contract and squeeze her lungs and heart.
Brownie released her paws from the cardboard and hit the deck, ass-first. She nearly injured her tail in the process, but she possessed a strange kind of instinct that might protect her from danger.
As she righted herself back to her four paws, she caught sight of her siblings cowering in each of the far corners.
The youngest had a darker coat than Brownie, and sported a white stripe across her head.
The “middle” sibling was the same color as Brownie, only she had a pink nose.
The pair were frightened, and ever-so-slightly smaller than their big sister.
“Meow,” the brown-orange kitten squealed at them.
Proof that tone and delivery is everything, any human being watching the event unfold might have interpreted the kitten’s cries as ‘we gotta get out of here.’
Escape wasn’t preferable, but a necessity.
Brownie crept to the end of the box and focused her eyes on the vast section of cardboard between her two siblings.
“Miew,” she dug her hind paws into the soft, brown surface.
Her two front paws crept forward as she arched her back and wiggled her jet black nose, ready to launch.
“Miew,” she warned the others to let her through. She flapped her tail and felt her survival instinct fire up.
BOLT.
Brownie darted across the box and tucked her chin to her chest.
BWAAMM.
She flew into the side of the box head-first. Her shoulders crashed into the side soon after. The impact forced the opposite end to tilt up.
For the briefest of seconds, the edge she’d hit folded over enough for her to see where they were.
A dangerous playground full of death machines speeding in all directions.
Her two siblings slid up the side of the cardboard box, but weren’t strong - or able - enough to escape.
All three of them slid back to the floor as the cardboard box returned to its original position.
What the three kittens couldn’t have known was that the box had moved a few inches toward the road itself.
The only clue they had were of those darned horns and engines being louder.
Brownie snaked around the middle of the middle of the box in a bid to find another way out.
Then, she stopped and lifted her ears.
Something was about to happen. Brownie couldn’t quite put her paw on what it was, in both a literal and figurative sense, anyway.
Wharm-wharm-wharm.
A peculiar noise grew louder and louder.
Brownie sprang into action without hesitation. She raced toward her two, frightened siblings and held out her paws with the intention of covering their bodies.
But, before she reached them…
WHUDDA-WHUDDA-WHUDDA-SMASH.
The sky swung from above and disappeared under the box.
The gravity in the box slid up the wall, taking all three kitten with them, and then—
FLING.
The three of them flew out of the box completely.
A MagCycle whirred to a halt, hovering over the magnetic plate.
The driver flipped the hypervisor up her face and eyed the battered box, “My God. I hit something.”
She removed her white helmet, stepped away from her MagCycle, and saw a small shower of kittens - three of them - land paws-first on the road.
NEEAAAWW.
Several cars tore around the three kittens, blaring their horns.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” the woman ran up the length of the magnetic track and held her hands out at the approaching cars. None of them could care less if they hit any of the fluffy obstacles directly in front of them.
“No. Stop,” she screamed.
“Miew,” the youngest of the three kittens shrieked from the fast lane.
The woman ran to the edge of the three lanes. Crossing any of them was a very dangerous prospect, “Oh, God. No.”
NEEEAAAWWW.
Brownie hopped out of the fast lane and into the path of an oncoming car. It clipped the end of her tail, shaving a few strands of brown fur into the air.
“Miew,” she wailed and focused on the cyclist’s face.
“Don’t move,” the woman shouted over the speeding cars. “Stay where you are, I’ll rescue you.”
Brownie turned around to see her youngest sibling with the white stripe across her head frozen solid in the fast lane.
“Maaoooww,” she ordered and lifted her paw.
The tiny kitten couldn’t move.
WHOOSH-NEEAAAWWW.
Brownie closed her eyes and turned away. She didn’t want to witness the impact, and waited for what felt like an eternity for the soul-crushing sound.
Brownie opened her eyes to find her sister had avoided the impending crash.
No sign of any carnage - the white bundle of fluff had disappeared, presumably escaped a million miles away from the road.
“Miew,” Brownie called out for her, to no avail.
The cyclist kept an eye on a gap in the traffic, “Hey, kitten. Wait, wait.”
Brownie turned around and saw her middle sibling hit the central verge and nestle between the railings for safety.
“Okay, there’s a gap coming,” the cyclist yelled as the final car darted whooshed past her face.
“Okay, now. Run. Come to me.”
Brownie turned to the kitten with the pink nose safely between the railings in the central road reservation.
“Meow,” Brownie yelled at her to come out and run with her to safety.
Pink Nose still wouldn’t move.
“Grrr,” Brownie snarled.
Instead of running to the safety of the cyclist, she darted in the opposite direction and jumped against the central reservation railings.
Her claws slung over the top rail, forcing her to swing under the metal and land beside her sister.
Pink Nose patted Brownie’s face with her paw, “Meow.”
“Miew,” Brownie slapped her sister on the side of the face and pushed her onto her side.
Pink Nose growled and flipped to her feet, ready to smack ten bells of hell out of her sister.
Brownie lowered herself to her haunches and bushed her tail, ready to fight.
The woman yelled at the pair from the MagStrip. “What are you doing? Now’s not the time for fighting.”
Pink Nose trundled forward, never tearing her eyes away from Brownie’s.
“Miew.”
Pink Nose swiped at her older sister and missed. She bounced forward and under the railing by accident.
NEEEAAAWWWW.
“Meow,” Brownie grabbed Pink Nose’s behind and yanked her out of the path of a speeding car.
“My God. These kittens are insane,” the cyclist muttered as she spotted a large gap in cars coming their way, “Get over here, now.”
Brownie screeched in Pink Nose’s face, forcing her paws to quake with fear. She slid her head under the railing and kept an eye out for the woman’s instructions.
“Okay,” the cyclist said, try
ing to time the approaching gap.
ZOOM-SWISH-SWISH.
“Okay. In three, two, one—”
The last of the cars sped past Brownie’s nose as she dug her paws into the cement.
“Now.”
“Meow,” Brownie nudged Pink Nose’s behind.
Both of them tore across the freeway.
SWISH-ZIPP-NEEAAAWWW.
Brownie and Pink Nose ran apart, ducking and diving the last of the cars scorching across the three lanes.
“There’s a gap. Go, go, go,” the cyclist yelled and pointed at the MagStrip, “Here, now.”
Brownie bolted forwards and launched herself into the air.
A car appeared out of nowhere doing more than seventy miles-an-hour. It clipped Brownie’s haunches and tossed her around in the air.
SLAMMM.
Brownie landed on the magnetic cycle strip, paws first. Her maternal instinct kicked as she spun around and looked for her sister.
Pink Nose was stranded in the middle lane with cars zooming on either side.
“Miew.”
Brownie stepped forward and shrieked at Pink Nose to stay absolutely still.
“No, don’t go near the road,” the woman bent down and scooped Brownie into her left arm, “It’s dangerous. Don’t worry, she’ll make it.”
“Miew,” Brownie threw her paws in front of her face in a futile attempt to rescue her sister.
The siblings locked eyes for what would turn out to be the final time.
Pink Nose wailed as an oncoming car rocketed toward her.
“Mwaaaah,” Brownie tensed in the woman’s arms. The shuddering in her limbs and chest wouldn’t abate, “Miew-miew-miew.”
The cyclist shifted Brownie into her right arm. The woman’s Individimedia ink on her left forearm came into view.
“Hello? I need help, quick.”
NEEEAAAWWW-ZOOM-ZOOM-SWISH.
Brownie twisted around in the woman’s arms to see the cars whizz past her stranded sister.
“Miew.”
She dug her claws into the woman’s right arm and pushed her head forward. Her eyes widened as an oncoming Mack Truck blared its horn, about to take her sister out of the game forever.
It all happened so slowly.
Pink Nose was there one second, and gone the next.
Brownie’s tongue hung from her opened mouth in shock.
The traffic noises bleached out to nothingness and everything went quiet.
Brownie was alone, now, and she knew it. Her eyes followed the side of the Mack Truck as it shot off into the distance - with a tiny, pink-nosed kitten clinging to its back bumper.
“Maaaoooowww,” Brownie hollered after her sister, who clung to the back of the truck for dear life, and out of her life forever.
The cyclist screamed into her Individimedia, “Are you on your way?”
“Yes, we’re the white van on the road by Waddling Gate,” came a male voice through the pin pricks in the cyclist’s wrist, “Can you meet us there in thirty seconds?”
“Sure.”
The cyclist swallowed hard and consoled Brownie as best she could, “I’m sorry. There wasn’t anything we could do.”
“Miew.”
Brownie tucked her head into the crook of the woman’s elbow, trying to fight anything and everything she could find.
“Hey, hey,” the woman protested. “Be careful with my suit.”
“Miew,” Brownie sunk her teeth into it and tried to play with the woman.
“You’ve had a busy day. My God, you were so lucky to not get hit,” the cyclist said.
She stared at her MagCycle hovering over the magnetic lane.
SCREEEEECH.
A white van’s tires kicked up dust as they locked into the brake position.
The cyclist cradled Brownie and ran across the verge, headed for the van.
“Don’t worry. I’ve called for some help.”
Big, black lettering on the side of the white van read:
P.A.A.C.
People Against Animal Cruelty
A tall, good-looking man with blue hair jumped out of the passenger side and spotted the cyclist approaching the van.
“Hey, are you the girl who called?”
“Yes, I am.”
“My name is Handax Skill. What did you find?”
“The animal rescue team? Thank God,” she said, indicating a terrified Brownie in her arms. “I found this one, but the other two—”
“—How many altogether?” the man with the blue hair asked as he took Brownie from the woman, “Let me look at her.”
The woman sniffed and choked up, “There were three. But the other two didn’t make it.”
Handax expected the bad news. Instead of joining in the guilt, he focused his attention on Brownie’s face. In particular, her eyes.
“How you holding up, girl? Huh?”
He pressed his thumb against her forehead and looked into her eyes.
“Beautiful creature, aren’t you?” he whispered and looked up at the woman. “How did you find her?”
The woman pointed at the battered cardboard box and burst into tears.
“It w-wasn’t my f-fault. I hit it. Someone must have l-left it there deliberately.”
Handax’s face fell, “This is terriful.”
He turned to Brownie who, by now, had seemingly forgotten about the absence of her siblings and made herself comfortable in his arms.
“I’m sorry. Would you mind coming with me to the van so we can record what happened?”
“N-No,” the woman sniffed, “That’s fine.”
The pair walked across the verge and arrived at the back of the van. It had been parked next to the tiny conker tree hanging next to the entrance to the cemetery.
Brownie stared into Handax’s eyes as he opened the back of the van with his free hand.
Various tools of the trade lined the walls inside the van, partially covered in white sheets.
Cages.
Benches.
An assortment of utilities that, to the untrained eye, might have been weapons of some description.
The van driver, a black man, leaned over the seat and hollered at Handax through the back of the van.
“You rescued her?”
“Yeah,” Handax released Brownie into the back of the van and reached for an empty cage, “But the other two didn’t make it.”
“Where are they?” the man asked. “Should we go and get them?”
“No, Moses. Let’s get this one back to base and have her processed. Get her rehoused as quickly as possible.”
Brownie trundled around on the spot and finally looked up at Handax’s face.
He scrunched his face and stroked the top of her head, focusing his eyes on the tiny conker tree, “Who did this to you?”
“Miew.”
“Look at you, you beautiful little thing,” Handax smiled affectionately at Brownie, who ran the side of her face along the back of his hand.
“Don’t worry, sweetie. We’ll find you a nice person to look after you.”
Chapter 2
Chrome Valley
Presently…
A slender woman in her late twenties pointed through the black-tinted window from the back of the stationary van, “There he is.”
Her fingertip traced along the glass, following what looked like a young boy turning around the corner of the cemetery.
“There, just past that conker tree.”
The boy continued down the path. It was Jamie, carrying his backpack, and minding his own business. He brushed past the tree and paid no attention to the jet black van parked on the side of the road.
A stocky man sat opposite the woman, feeling his patience begin to dwindle.
“Sierra?”
She removed her finger from the window and stared at Jamie, “He looks so sad. So lonely.”
“Sierra?”
She turned back to the man, snapping out of her daydream, “Yeah?”
“I
s it him, or not?”
“How should I know, Noyin? I’d say the chances are good, but we need to be sure,” Sierra thumped the back of the driver’s seat, “Rana, start the engine.”
“Okay.”
The van’s engine fired to life as Jamie walked past it. He was on the verge of looking over when, out of the blue, a flurry of school children swarmed him from behind.
A chubby boy with a double chin cackled with his excited friends, “Ugh, there’s Lame-y Anderson. His cat lost the competition,” he yelled just loud enough for the occupants of the van to hear.
“Yeah,” an over-excited schoolgirl joined in the merriment, “A giant loser, just like her ugly owner.”
“Lame-y Anderson, Lame-y Anderson,” all the kids chanted in unison as they ran off around the corner.
Jamie muttered something in return, but the occupants of the van couldn’t hear it.
He turned into the same corner and made his way down the Waddling Gate Cemetery road.
The van rolled behind him.
Sierra gripped the back of the passenger seat and glanced at the driver, a young brown-skinned woman with long, black hair.
“Rana, keep the gas at a steady ten, okay?” Sierra said. “We don’t wanna spook him.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Rana clutched the steering wheel and spotted Jamie looking over his shoulder as he sped up along the sidewalk. He wasn’t spooked quite yet.
“There’s no way he’s gonna voluntarily get in the van.”
“You don’t say,” Sierra returned to the back seat and slipped her gun out from her belt.
Noyin looked up at her and chuckled, “Tough love?”
“It’s for his own good. Those vultures are about to descend on his family.”
Sierra clutched the door handle and prepared to open it, “Rana, roll up alongside him. Don’t use the horn. I’ll talk to him.”
Rana looked at Sierra in the rear view mirror, “We’re nearly there. But what if he runs off?”
Sierra flicked the safety catch down on the side of her gun.
“He won’t run off. Poor kid will be too scared,” she turned to her accomplice in the back seat, “Noyin, put your balaclava on.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He rolled the cloth down the front of his jet black face and took a deep breath, “If he runs, he’s mine.”
Star Cat The Complete Series Page 71