by Nick Kelly
"Gods...I love it! More!" Her voice betrayed an excitement he hadn’t heard from her before. “The fools didn't want me to ride. They wanted the fun all to themselves!"
"Alright lady, hang on tight." The twist of the wrist was like a shot of Shine in his veins. He was feeding off of her responses, verbal and physical. He continued to accelerate, dodging traffic as if in slow motion. He saw every vehicle as a clunky, slow 3-D model, and evaded them with ease, just as when he spent hours on the motorcycle simulator back at St. Patrick’s.
"Go!"
By fifth gear, they were nearing 180 kmph, each set of taillights a blur as he erupted past them. This was an enviable goal for Cat. One he'd never attempted with a passenger, but something about her clutching to him drove him to new heights. All he wanted was more. He heard Delilah scream behind him in an unadulterated high. He grinned wider. She’d never been allowed to ride before. He treasured the excitement and focus of the ride. He loved the fact he was sharing it with the beautiful redhead.
Long before he'd wanted to, Cat saw the exit ramp approaching. He'd have to slow down, but there was still some room for fun. "You listenin', Delilah?"
"Yes," she sort of gurgled.
"Good. I'm about to give you a strange request. Don’t ask, just obey. I need to you to wrap your legs around me." The ramp was approaching too fast to give her time to understand.
She'd been stretching her neck to look around him and saw the ramp. Almost instantly, out of fear and a newfound trust in him, her long legs moved to curl around his hips. A squeal left her as she locked on to him. He was already gripping the clutch, but not slowing down enough when he felt her legs move. Grabbing the brake, he dove right, his armored knee scraping the pavement. His knee and the foot peg of the bike struck the pavement. A shower of sparks erupted behind them. If Delilah’s leg had been behind his instead of around his waist, she’d need a skin graft when they stopped.
The slide continued for almost ten seconds, the length of the spiraling ramp, before they were upright again, heading eastbound on the 101. Cat caught himself laughing before he could decide which boisterous statement to put forth.
She said something, but it wasn't audible.
He chuckled. "Tell me you just said, 'pull over'."
She rasped, "I wasn't that polite. But please do pull over." It was only after he'd come to a complete halt that he realized the trembling in her legs and arms wasn't from the vibration of the powerful engine.
The H-S cut off a random traveler, finding the dimly lit haven of a closed gas station. Sliding under the covered section of the pumps, Cat shut the engine down. Slowly, she detangled herself from him. "I...I need to..."
With his MetaHuman agility, Cat leapt from the bike, landing several feet away. "Take off your helmet." He said as he approached her.
Delilah’s shaking fingers undid the strap, and the helmet was off. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders. Her wide green eyes stared at him. "I didn't leave prints, did I?"
Cat could hardly feel a thing through the adrenaline, but he remembered every tint of her skin. His fingers reach for her as if in a dream. He grabbed her hair, pulling her to him. The highway disappeared. Traffic disappeared. Everything disappeared as their lips met.
CHAPTER THIRTY
16 August 2022
Leon’s hands are worn. His arms are burning. Not every portion of the orphanage is built for wheelchair access, and he’s managed to find some of the hardest areas to search today. An endless rain pelts the window. Trickling shadows form from the dim lights outside. The light falls intermittently on his face, mingling with the beads of sweat on his skin. He closes his eyes, relaxing for a moment, letting the downpour become his soundtrack.
A scream pierces the percussion of the rain, or rather, the reverberations of a scream from down the hall. The desperation lifts the voice into a betraying range reserved for fear. Sucking air in quickly, Leon drives himself forward, his hands on the wheelchair’s rims. He pushes forward again and again, each repeated motion bearing several feet of cracked and dim hallway.
The scream comes again, closer, just as high. Leon is sweating harder. His mouth is dry, but this is a sound he knows well. Panic and fear were part of life on the streets running drugs for a gang. He’s both invoked and uttered those sounds before. St. Patrick’s, however, is a place of peace. That sound…those emotions…don’t belong here.
Another determined push forward bears fruit. The wheelchair reaches a juncture, and he sees movement to his left. His dark eyes acknowledge three forms. Two have their back to him. Their movements are aggressive and focused. The third form strikes him with the brilliance of a sunfire. She is slight, skinny, but not muscular. Blonde hair frames her flushed face. Her makeup is smeared. Tears draw the blue eyeliner down her cheeks in black despair. She screams again. One of the boys has her wrists clasped hard together. She stares at him, pleading.
“Hey!” Leon shouts before he even realizes he’s done so. He’s always been a scrapper, a dirty fighter willing to do anything to win. He’s seen the blonde before. She is a friend of the Asian girl who has been reaching out and trying to mentor him. She’s proof alone that hope exists in these halls. Wheelchair or not, Leon isn’t willing to let two meatheads beat hope out of a friend.
No one beyond their small clique has even acknowledged him beyond sarcasm. The flame inside says he’s going to step in, even if he can’t physically step at all.
The two boys turn to face him, dropping the girl in a heap on the floor. The one who held her wrists is obviously in charge. He’s enraged. Blood fills his forearms, the veins in his neck, and other areas of his pubescent manhood. He has dark hair, self-cut into a makeshift mullet. His friend has a shaved head, his own work, with amateur tattoos and markings evident from his temples to the base of his skull. They’ve both invested the majority of their time into building their bodies, not their minds. That’s bad news for them in the long run, but for right now, it’s Leon’s problem.
“What’s wrong, too many days till the next issue of ‘Gay Teen Monthly’?” Leon chides the pair, his eyes shifting from side to side for a weapon, anything that will help him try to even out the odds. The whole time, he screams inside for the blonde girl to run, to get help, and to make his confrontation worth something. She remains a pile of nerves instead, sobbing against open palms.
“Boy,” the dark-haired assailant states, “you just sentenced yourself to a long period of pain.”
He strides towards Leon, his frustration determining his motions like an angry puppeteer. His shaven-haired counterpart approaches from Leon’s right, a flanking move. It’s more strategy than Leon would have given them credit for, and it cancels out a few other maneuvers he thinks of.
Leon yanks upward hard, pulling the pin from the brake of his right wheel. Forcing as much motion as he could muster, he backhands the pin to his right. As accurate as a sniper’s shot, the pin embeds itself into the neck of the bald attacker. His cries are hardly human at all as the boy drops to the ground, clutching his neck.
Leon turns his gaze back to the left just in time to see the fist of the dark-haired boy. The bigger boy’s strike sends him spinning. Leon seeks to pivot away, bringing his legs underneath his body to prepare for the counterstrike. Reality hits him as his head strikes the tile. His legs will not respond now, or ever again.
He feels the grip on his neck before his head stops spinning. The impact of knuckles against his jaw devastates him again, along with the feeling of the cold tile beneath him. The boy is punching him over and over again, but Leon is no longer able to focus enough on a single blow, merely the continuation of pain from the newly opened wounds. The iron taste of blood is no stranger. The pressure in his mouth and the closing of his nose make it harder to breathe as he feels the dull repetition of the boy’s blows.
Every color swarms about his brain as his head rocks from one side to another with the impact. As he thinks of the spectrum, each color becomes replaced with red,
the blood flowing freely from his nose and mouth. He accepts that soon enough, only blood red will remain.
Then, without notice, the blows stop.
Leon isn’t certain how many breaths he has forced in and out, only that the tile is cold against his battered form. With an effort, he makes himself open his eyes, and only the left eye responds. His right is already too swollen to pass that test. The blurry image bares promise. The dark-haired boy is kicking, trying to voice his retort, but his feet are far off the ground, his form lifted skyward by a Herculean enemy.
“…see you anywhere near Angie, or Leon, I’ll rip your teeth out one by one,” the savior says, Leon unable to hear the precursor to his message of enforcement. As clarity returns, Leon realizes it’s the blonde boy from one of his classes. Even with the blood loss, he remembers the boy’s name.
“Bobby.”
The boy’s form slams the would-be assailant against the wall a few more times before tossing him atop his bleeding friend. The two scramble to their feet, running to seek medical attention for their various injuries. Leon smiles briefly, slumping downward against his sore shoulders. Bobby goes to the attackers’ original target, helping her find her unsteady feet. “It’s okay, Angie, I promise. You’re safe now.”
Leon tries to grin. The effort brings pain, and he coughs blood. He puts a name to the blonde girl. Angie is in several of his classes. He struggles to remember the Asian girl’s name, but can only think of “rookie”, her nickname for him. Maybe hope is alive in the halls of the orphanage. Maybe he’s found friends here at St. Patrick’s. Then again, he’s certainly made new enemies.
Bobby and Angie approach him, with forced smiles and the nervous aftershocks that come from physical assault. Their statements are hardly audible, the walls and ceiling fading away around them. Soon, the image of the pair condenses, swirling away into an ever-decreasing point. Within seconds, the two orphans, the incident itself, and the orphanage that was once his home dissolve into a mere pinpoint.
“You seem far less tense than your last treatment,” Delambre remarked, offering an unsolicited opinion of Cat’s musculature. The hitman barely heard him, clinging to the memory of being attacked and how he came to meet his fellow orphans. Focusing on where he had been helped him every time he received treatment for his untested cybernetic enhancements. Cat simply stared at the black spot on the floor, the one, which had so recently encompassed the life-altering experience in his mind. Bobby and Angie became siblings his siblings. Together with Mi-Young, the four of them had voluntarily taken the surname ‘Caliber’. He was ashamed that he’d almost forgotten the altercation that set the stage for their alliance.
“Guess I just been lucky lately, Doc.” Cat offered, reluctantly relinquishing focus on the awakening of his memory. He wasn’t about to openly kiss and tell the events of last night’s ride. Something about Delilah was both enticing and calming at once. He was curiously drawn to her, and for all he knew of relationships, maybe it was something far beyond physical.
“Well,” Delambre replied, “with hardly an ounce of squirming and whining, our session here is done. I suggest you drink plenty of clean water, allow your system to purge its poisons, and focus on your next target.”
Cat rolled to his side, stretching his neck in circles. “You mean ‘our’ next target, right?” He stood up, shirtless, and grabbed the cigarettes from the tabletop that held his possessions.
Delambre’s voice grew in volume but not pitch. “I just told you to purge your system of poisons.”
“You told me a lotta things, Delambre. I’ll listen ta the ones I think will help me, but right now, after the ride I just took, I want a shockin’ smoke.”
Delambre’s silence was his only response for nearly a minute. “Very well, kill yourself, again. I’m only here to put you back together.” His tone betrayed an exhaustion Cat hadn’t detected before. “If you’ve got a target in mind, what do you believe it to be?”
“I was thinkin’ about that. If our rogue doc is all you claim him ta be, then I can’t help but think he’ll pit his Famine against me next.” Cat took a long draw, imagining what the doctor would come up with for that design.
Delambre nodded. “He’s already shown a lack of adherence to the Scripture. He was willing to betray the Bible for his own benefit. I’d consider that a clear sign that he’s more dangerous than any true religious fanatic.”
“Good point. His ego means he’s willing to scrap the by-the-good-book plan.”
“That may also surface in how he customizes the MetaHuman designs.”
“This head case has already blown it with his attempts at the Horsemen. I should only have Famine left ta deal with, and his version a’ yer kid.”
The older man’s gaze betrayed an inherent protection and an instant pain. He lowered his gaze and nodded.
“Sorry, doc, I didn’t mean it like that.”
Delambre strode toward Catwalk, his eyes locking on to those of the yellow-eyed hitman. They neared a foot apart when the geneticist reached for the hand of his counterpart. Without a word, he took the cigarette from Cat and raised it to his lips, drawing in a long and well-experienced taste.
“You’re going to kill her.”
Cat grinned. The geneticist’s sudden theft of his so-called poison made him laugh openly. “Doc, we’ll be doin’ body shots offa her corpse next time we see her.”
Delambre’s demeanor wasn’t nearly as cocky as it was concerned. He locked eyes with Catwalk for an extended period before bowing his head, nodding and taking another drag.
“For her sake, and ours, I pray you’re correct.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Catwalk crouched in the shadow of a blacked-out billboard, drinking in the view of Downtown Nitro City. The punctured and damaged sign had once flashed a neon invitation to join the Off-World movement. Rising ashes had since coated it in a dead gray pallor, somewhere between gunships and gravestones. The wind pulled it apart in places, causing a rhythmic slapping sound of wood against metal. The seemingly endless rain added its percussion to the creaking of the twisted sign. The invitation to paradise far away had devolved into the hollow wails of a revenant.
Cat took a mental inventory. The shotgun was holstered on his back, the familiar extendable baton and 11mm pistol flanking his hips on his belt. His breathing was steady, and even in the crouch for almost an hour now, his legs betrayed no pain or fatigue. He watched the polished limousine, parked outside of Hydrogen Alley, an up-and-coming establishment that combined custom drugs and even more customized massages.
It was a simple job, one that had come in through a former co-worker back in DC. The blood trail was pretty convoluted; someone’s wife’s twin sister’s husband was having an affair with his co-worker or some such nonsense. In the end, it didn’t matter. Cat was supposed to prove it, provide pictures, and give the offending party a scare to set him straight.
The job had been in his data banks for almost three months. He’d almost forgotten about it and would have if not for his recent meetings with Delilah. The first time he’d been hired to protect her, she was being transported in a Daimler-Toyota XL300. The same model limo reflected in the glow of his yellow eyes tonight. The suit who’d hired him for that escort job was just as empty as the one who feigned importance when he entered Hydrogen Alley 50 minutes ago. Cat made a note.
Empty suits made bad employers, but easy prey.
The setup was actually pretty clever. The suit’s female co-worker moonlighted at the club just to provide them with a place to get together. Undoubtedly, he paid in cash, she returned it, and there was no credit trail for the wife to snip out other than the expense of the limo, which was simply a show of self-importance. If Loverboy had been content to take a cab, there wouldn’t be a paper trail. Instead, this self-important lowlife allowed a seven-meter motorized model of compensation to lead to his discovery.
Cat had already snapped pictures of both the husband and his whore entering on several occa
sions. He had her shots in four different wigs and eleven different outfits. The latex nurse was the most frequent. Maybe the suit had something for getting his temperature taken.
They usually handled the affair with discretion. Cat had only managed to gather one set of pictures where the couple had left together. If they’d have bothered to close the moon roof, he wouldn’t have had the real damning evidence, but they’d been stoned and careless.
As it stood, the last thing he had to do was to put a little fear in the man. That was always the fun part, unless of course, he was on hand when the wife confronted her cheating man. No two betrayed women behaved alike, but they always shared the same, underlying objective. It was in the execution where they varied. He smirked beneath his masked helmet when the driver opened the door.
Right on time.
Say what he might about ol’ Loverboy, he was a 60-minute man, each and every time.
Catwalk leapt from his perch, soaring downward to the pavement. At the last moment, he folded, tucking his head to his chest and rolling forward. His legs and spine compensated for the impact, and he lifted his gaze to the limo. Rain swept down his helmet, dripped from the cat’s fangs, and joined the endless flood traversing the street. Cat had studied his subjects and their routine, and he knew every step the suit and his supporting cast would take.
The couple used the same driver every time. He was a svelte boy, a chrome bitch with an artificial tan and slick blue and black hair. He was better suited for fetish model ads than for combat, which is why he always carried the two 10mm H&K’s under his tuxedo coat. The door opened, and he crushed the cigarette beneath his patent leather shoe.
With a flick of the wrist, the baton extended to full-length, echoing in the air as Cat launched toward the driver. The young model turned, hands raised in the air instead of reaching for his pistols.