Catwalk: Messiah

by Nick Kelly

  By the time he realized he was holding his breath, Cat had slowed from his pace of 180 kmph to under 80. After another few rings, and a number of profanities, Cat answered the comm.

  “Catwalk.”

  “We have a situation.” Delambre’s voice was curt.

  “You’re late for your cycle?”

  The geneticist brushed aside Cat’s sarcasm with practiced efficiency. “There is a MetaHuman on the loose, melting tourists and local security forces from the inside out.”

  “Where?” He asked.

  “Slightly south of San Fernando. I shall forward coordinates.”

  The news was a curse, save for the location. San Fernando was north of Downtown, between Cat and the congestion of the city. He might even beat the media to the scene. “How long till CS is engaged?”

  “Not long. I’m guessing with their collective hard-on following the last incident, you’ve got under ten minutes.”

  The sparks erupted once again as Cat slammed the H-S into a power slide, changing direction. He opened the throttle, pressed his chest against the tank and exhaled. When he found a familiar stretch of straightaway, he switched on the Nitrous to increase his pace. Every second meant the possibility of being the first on the scene. That meant exposure to the media, and more importantly, answers. If this incident was related at all to the oversized Meta he’d seen on the slab at Will’s morgue, he needed every millisecond of advantage.

  Catwalk raced to the heart of danger, shrugging off his own safety in the name of fortune and closure.

  “I trust that brief static was an indication you’re on your way, then?”

  “Don’t get yer hopes up, D, I didn’t scrape my entire leg off changin’ directions.”

  “From what I’ve seen from the pirated feeds, I’d worry more about the human portions of your anatomy than the technological additions.”

  “You holdin’ out, Delambre?”

  “I told you what I know, Catwalk. From the feeds, and they’re not the best I’ve seen, this MH appears to be fond of barbecuing civilians while they’re still alive. It’s rather reminiscent of tossing a live lobster into a pot of boiling water.”

  “Whoa, you’ve seen lobsters? You are old.”

  “With age comes wisdom. Try to learn enough to keep your heart from erupting out of your chest. My expertise is in cybernetic organ adaptation, not organic organ replacement.”

  Cat couldn’t help but grin under his helmet. “Alright, so how many pieces can I be in for you to slap me back together?”

  “Keep your vital organs intact, and I should be able to handle the rest.” Delambre paused a moment then added smugly, “though, if this particular Meta has a setting for neutering sociopath hit men with overactive sex drives, I may switch affiliations.”

  Cat laughed loudly at the older man’s tongue-in-cheek warning regarding his daughter. “Really, D, I’m shocked. I’m not a sociopath. I’ve got people skills.”

  “Stay alive long enough to pay me, Catwalk. I’m certain I’ll see your efforts on the news soon enough.”

  “Yeah, ‘don’t touch that dial’.”

  The comm went silent. Cat was tightrope walking between a scientific genius and a protective father. When he got back, he’d have to talk to Delambre about giving his daughter a professional moniker. Using her real name was a grave mistake, the kind that usually resulted in an actual grave.

  Cat slid the Honda-Suzuki around other vehicles, drifting by some, drafting by others. He counted the exits and the km markers, while savoring the adrenaline of the ride. The comm rang, and he debated answering it. Figuring Delambre had an update, he tapped the communication channel to life. “What’s the latest on our bad guy, doc?”

  “Uh…I..I…is this Catwalk?”

  The voice on the other end was less technical and far less masculine than his business partner. Cat tried to reposition himself in the conversation without changing his position on the bike. “Yeah, yeah, this is me. Catwalk. Who’s this?”

  “It’s…It’s Delilah. Is this a bad time?”

  “No, no,” Cat replied before he considered the correct response, “We’re good. I mean, I’m good. I didn’t expect you to call.”

  “You told me to call.”

  “Yeah, right, yes, I did. How can I assist you?” Cat voice hitched with an unexpected key change as he forced the bike between two delivery trucks.

  “Are you sure this is a good time?” She asked.

  “Hell, yeah. Never better.”

  Delilah paused for a few seconds. Cat wondered if he hadn’t convinced her through his banter that he was getting a lap dance, tied up in an S&M club, or torturing some innocent soul in a crawl space. “I’d like to see you, Mr. Catwalk, about, well, about a few things. Can I ask you to meet with me tomorrow night?”

  Cat considered pinching himself, but doing so would result in wrecking his trusted, expensive motorcycle. “You can ask, an’ I’ll be there. Shoot me the time an’ place, an’ I’ll be there ta answer anything you wanna ask.”

  “Anything?”

  “Anything,” Cat replied, feeling a grin cross the comm.

  “Hmm, how intriguing. I look forward to our next meeting. Au revoir, Catwalk.”

  Cat never returned the farewell wishes. He darted to the emergency lane and back instead, narrowly missing an oversized family van and a construction barrel. He centered once he found the fast lane and engaged the Nitrous again. Delilah had called him, while he’d been fidgeting with pimps, gangers and MetaHuman threats. At least now he had a real focus on surviving the fight with the mysterious enemy Delambre had described. Cat tried to force logic into his encounters and eventually shrugged it off. First things first.

  The cleaner concentrated on his next threat. Hell, heaven, and even the arms of a beautiful redhead had to wait. This headline stealing thing had to be returned to its maker before he would gain a shot at rest, and maybe a payday.

  He caught a glimpse of the scene mere moments after he’d split the route between San Fernando and Mission Hills. After the first visual, he needed no further clarification. Smoke obscured the stars, moon and neon of the night sky. When the acrid smell of burning flesh reached his filters, it was more than he needed to verify the situation. Delambre was right, as usual. Someone, human or otherwise, was burning people alive.

  There was notoriety and, more importantly, information at stake if Cat could bring in the perpetrator before some Corporate Security force did the same, backed by a staff of professional public relations. In the grand scheme, he was a one-man show trying to outpace a well-organized and overly paid task force of goons intent on the same goal.

  San Fernando hadn’t embraced architectural development with the hunger of Nitro City. Instead, the citizens unleashed a huge backlash at the thought of destroying historical buildings to advance industry and high tech. The city, which was home to the original San Fernando Mission, as well as Los Encinos Rancho, the Andre Picos Adobe and Bolton Hall, had far more indispensable history to defend than its celebrity-obsessed sister city.

  Cat ripped the bike sideways in a skid, viewing the scene up close for the first time. An armored shell, which had so recently included a living human being struck the asphalt before him, broiling from the inside even before contact. The dead man bounced once before finding his final resting place. The corpse’s head dropped to the side, and Cat stole a glimpse at its face. The skin was bubbling, melting into a puddle of pavement, revealing the bones and teeth. The eyes had sunken inward, or exploded, leaving only vacant gaps. What had once been the man’s face was now flowing from his skeleton on to the dirty asphalt. Cat exhaled through his teeth. Corporate Security had beaten him to the scene, a fact verified by the growing body count on the street.

  As the second uniformed security agent dropped at his feet, Cat poured over Delambre’s warning in his head one more time. It was time to take advantage of any and all means, which would keep him at a distance, while hoping to get close enough to uncov
er the missing key that would unlock the next stage of the investigation. From where he stood, the chaos of smoke, shrapnel and fast-moving security forces obscured his view. Safety be damned, he was going to have to get closer.

  Cat cursed under his breath. The last thing he wanted to do was get near the MH that was cooking its enemies from the inside out. The first insult he directed mentally was towards Delambre and his mysterious daughter. They would certainly play a part in this entire endeavor until its resolution. The second insult was directed inward for not chasing down Delilah for some sweat and excitement. If he was lucky, he’d have the chance to follow up on that missed opportunity. The third, and most violent, was at whoever had designed the MetaHumans, the original behemoth whose corpse he’d touched in the morgue, the winged Angel of Death, and the one he was about to face.

  Cat had little reason to estimate the three Metas had come from multiple sources. Delambre’s scotch-soaked confession tied it all together. There was one mind driving this entire end-of-the-world strategy. When the time came, he’d have to serve as the roadblock between that self-serving lunatic and success. Given that most would classify him as a madman, what chance of success did he really have?

  Catwalk ditched the high-powered motorcycle, snapping his Stinger baton to its full extension. The time had come for face-to-face confrontation. A growl rose inside even before his form left the comfort of the motorcycle.

  It was time for combat. With a lick of his lips, Cat focused his attention on the MetaHuman in his sights. Time to prove his value.

  Time to Play.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Cat tossed a cylinder from his bandolier and watched it rattle on the cracked pavement near the strange Meta. Within seconds, a pulsating flash ripped skyward all around the combat scene. The electro-magnetic pulse released an energy pattern designed to cripple cyberware and render artificial organs useless. If it had any effect on the MetaHuman, it went completely unnoticed. As the targeted MH cast aside the remains of a recently murdered soldier, Cat got a clear view of it. The image sent warning flares burning brightly in his mind.

  The MetaHuman, if it was human at all, bore a slight and acrobatic frame, just under two meters tall. It moved with an inhuman agility suggesting that its core muscles were more fluid than structural. Cat watched in fascination as its knees bent forward or backward, allowing it to counterbalance and fend off assaults from multiple directions. Security forces advanced and it swiveled and turned, fending off hand-to-hand and close-range attacks.

  Combat MetaHumans generally fell into two classes. Cat’s cybernetics put him in the boss killer class – plenty of skills, designed for concentration on a single target. Boss killers ranged from physically invulnerable to untouchable. One on one, they were nearly unstoppable. Against a swarm, they displayed design flaws and eventually met defeat.

  That led to the design of the second class – crowd control. That class was built to level armies. The military had toyed with the idea first. MetaHuman teams were often dropped into hostile zones to suppress uprisings, enemy governments, protests that had gotten out of hand. They could be tanks, destructors, or…or whatever the hell this MetaHuman was.

  Cat tried to figure it all out, but adrenaline surged up his spine, crept over his shoulders and ignited his extremities. This thing escaped normal programming. Humans regularly turned to chips for quick learning. That was fine when the combat was against another human. This insectoid MetaHuman did anything but what was expected. The chip-driven actions of security personnel were useless. It read the actions of its attackers as pre-determined conclusions. The MetaHuman waited with killing strikes before the security forces ever began their assaults.

  Cat studied the MetaHuman, uploading his feed to the bank of computers in the loft. It wore a humanoid exoskeleton. The being’s arms were abnormally long and had it been standing upright, they may have reached below its knees. Both hands sported elongated claws instead of fingers, long needles as sharp as a fencer’s foil.

  The MH’s entire frame was covered in a grey reminiscent of storybook battleships or the smog-covered sky. When Cat caught a full view of its face, he dropped out of its sight. Its eyes were round like that of a fly, maximizing its ability to see attackers before they could strike. It had only a single line to represent its mouth. That line curved downward where its lips would have been, giving it a permanent grimace.

  Whoever built this thing did so to portray a being enveloped in, or evolved from, pure hatred. Cat shook his head, snapping a shot through his cyber-optics. “There’s yer sociopath, Delambre.”

  A would-be CS vanguard landed to the right of the MetaHuman, taking slightly more than a second to gain his equilibrium and raise his automatic rifle. The MH needed just under a second to adjust to its new attacker. Its weight shifted unnaturally on its legs, rotating the knees on ball joints. As it reached forward, it reversed the barrel of the rifle 180 degrees. Before the soldier realized what had happened, he pulled the trigger, turning his own skull into a violent spray of blood and grey matter.

  Cat watched and took note of variables he hadn’t factored in. For instance, how would you ‘kneecap’ a being whose knees rotated 360 degrees, or how would you blind someone whose eyes seemed hard-coded into their skull? A well-armed group of soldiers failed to overtake the single, sentient, inhuman being. EMP had proven ineffective. Dismemberment and blinding would be useless. The cleaner took a deep breath, and engaged the one plan, which had never failed him.

  Let it ride and go on instinct.

  Catwalk leapt skyward as he exhaled, mentally considering himself a dead man before his feet kissed the pavement. Just as he made contact, he swung the Stinger in an arc behind him, rising to the balls of his feet. The reinforced baton made contact but not with his target. Instead, the Meta raised the most recent corpse of the overachieving Corporate Security guard as a means of defense.

  Cat expected as much. He launched into a back flip prescribed by his own logic rather than reaction. His theory had proven correct as the MH swung an overgrown arm, filling the space he had just occupied. Cat landed in a crouch. He squeezed the trigger, firing round after round at the MH from close range.

  Nothing seemed to affect its exoskeleton as it evaded by cowering into its own shell. It crossed its arms over its face and collapsed. The posture allowed its armor to cover any exposed areas. Cat retreated slightly as the rounds he emptied at the Meta ricocheted around him. He stopped firing, finding sanctuary behind an overturned car. A new harmony of screams and cries confirmed that his bullets had found alternate targets.

  The acrobatic form returned to its feet just as Cat landed on his. Their gazes met, barely-human eye to inhuman eye, the intent of mutual hatred coloring their brief interaction. Cat was accustomed to fighting the cybernetic-enhanced population after four years with DC’s MetaHuman Engagement Force. This thing was far less human and far more demonic than anything he’d encountered during that career.

  A normal MH would react to EMP. Cat had already tested that idea with less than stellar results. He opted instead for a more direct approach. He flipped a grenade into the air. The MH tilted its head, following the grenade as a potential threat. Cat batted it with his baton, something he’d learned from his childhood years playing stickball. The grenade erupted in smoke just as it reached the MetaHuman’s face.

  Bullets had drawn no reaction. EMP attacks had provided even less. Every logic in the world stated that a direct confrontation would mean instant suicide. So, Cat leapt forward, dove to a shoulder and rolled to his feet to engage the MH toe-to-toe. It was a suicidal move.

  It felt right to Cat, so it was the path he chose. If the old geneticist was right, their enemy was a scientist, slave to the numbers of scientific method, theories and proofs. What better method then to go with gut instinct and shatter every analysis in the system. He pictured Delambre and Angela screaming protests. He tuned them out the same way he tuned out every other ambient sound other than his own breathin
g.

  Inhale. He batted aside the claws of the lithe and lethal MetaHuman. Sparks flew in every direction, flashing in the corners of his optic filters.

  Exhale. He struck the skull of the MH. His attack was minimized by its inhuman ability to shift its center of balance and defensive posture.

  Inhale. He created distance through acrobatics while the enemy struck at his last location.

  Exhale. Catwalk drove his cybernetic limbs with force as a countermeasure to the MH attack.

  Inhale. The MH remained functional despite the damage to its exoskeleton. The damage it received was not entered in any controls. The programming had not accounted for this level of resistance. The MetaHuman calculated the most reasonable response. In accordance with its programming, it doubled its efforts, specifically targeting the heart of its attacker.

  Exhale. Cat countered the leverage of the Meta overextending to create a newfound vulnerability. While airborne, the hitman changed his angle, driving the baton point-first into the MH’s back. With its claws outstretched to catch him cowering, Cat instead had flipped above the MetaHuman. The elongated form revealed ports just below each of its lowest ribs.

  An opening.

  Catwalk saw exactly what he needed to switch his strategy. He leapt backwards, swinging on the extended pole of a streetlight and landing on an abandoned car. The insectoid eyes of the MH tracked him the entire way. He had almost no time at all when he felt the shift in wind behind him.

  Without a thought, Cat dropped flat against the roof of the car as the heavy armored vehicle flew in low and tight above him. Corporate Security had called in massive reinforcements, nearly beheading him in the process. Explosions and shells erupted around his target, which swiftly evaded and moved to a covered position.