by Nick Kelly
He stopped again to gather the faces of those who depended upon him. He inhaled, cursed under his breath and leapt forward, landing in the muck of the Cathedral’s sewers. He made a silent wish that nothing was alive in there. If it could survive in this buffet of defecation, he’d probably be defeated by the stench alone. Shifting the sensors of his cybernetic eyes, Cat again steeled his nerves and set forth into the bowels of the ancient church.
Any sign of light from outside disappeared a few steps into the drainpipe. The rain battered the weathered opening, echoing the metallic ringing until it was impossible to determine the source. The thought of a potential flash flood, natural or triggered, made Cat double-check his environment. A few more steps inside confirmed the feeling he was entering a tomb.
The scent of decay struck him full-force through his dampners and made him halt his progress. The air was heavy and wet, nearly thick enough to chew. It was Will’s morgue without the sterility and chemical compounds that burned his throat. This was pure decay and rot. Gripping the baton harder, Cat forced himself to step forward, one cybernetic boot at a time. Vermin and unidentified debris slithered past, occasionally wrapping around his feet and legs as the water deepened.
The faint glow of his eyes reflected off of items in the muck, a scrap of metal, broken glass, cracked spectacles, discarded syringes, and a dismembered cyber limb. Either a few too many homeless had lost their way and sought refuge here, or the nomads had wandered inside only to die. Nitro City had enough lost souls to populate its own off-world colony.
Other things floated by. Some were easily identified; others were the proverbial mystery meat. Cat leveled his gaze on a spot ahead, preferring not to know what it was he was wading through. Soon, with the flooding, water or something like it, began trickling down on him. Despite the armor and insulation, grime bored into his skin.
Something solid and heavy struck Cat’s legs. At first, it felt like wood, simple flotsam in the stomach-turning sewage. He turned his gaze downward, looking for a handhold to push the junk aside. It proved to be a mistake. Vacant holes returned his gaze from where the rats had devoured the dead man’s eyes. His skin was bloated and chewed, while most of his clothes had rotted into scraps. The dead man’s bearded and decaying mouth opened, and Cat heard him moan.
Cat kicked the putrid form aside. As he did, the arm snapped from the corpse’s torso, held near the form by the remains of its coat. With an audible grunt, Cat shoved the eroded body aside, backing against the wall of the drainpipe. The dead man’s head craned at an inhuman angle, his severed arm reaching back towards the hitman. The groan grew louder, a cry of desperation.
As it floated away, the vacant eyes seemed to plead to him. Even before the body disappeared, it began sinking into the muck of the sewers.
Seconds later, it was gone.
Cat pressed against the wall harder than he intended. His skin bristled in a cold sweat. His hands felt unnatural. He shook his head at the sensation and the hallucinations that circled inside his head. What was he doing here, chasing some madman and his constructs to the farthest reaches of the city? He was nearly up to his waist in rotting bodies and debris and who knew what else. This job didn’t even pay. He could walk away any time. He could leave the scientist to his heretic insanity. He wouldn’t lose anything.
Except Delambre.
And Eva.
Even if he didn’t truly care about Delambre and his daughter, there was more to it. Losing the two of them meant starting over. It was a chance he couldn’t afford to take. His cybernetics were wreaking so much havoc with his physiology that he might not have the ability to think his way through problems much longer. Losing them meant losing his best chance at survival.
It also meant losing Delilah.
The dead man’s groan still haunted him. He slammed the baton against the drainpipe, creating a loud metal-on-metal clang. Not enough. He lashed out again. Sparks showered down from the metal framework. Again. He bellowed something guttural, screaming upward. The ringing of the impact became a note, a chord, a chorus. He struck the pipe. Again. And again. And again. Until the endless ringing in his ears drowned out the wailing of the dead man. His ears began to ring, carrying pain into the sides of his skull. The pain allowed him to focus, to forget his fear. He stopped, shaking his head and clearing his mind. He lifted his head to strike again, and everything grew silent.
He turned his gaze once more back to the world he had known up until now. He could retreat and spend his days waiting for the next construct to come for him. He turned his back on that path, squaring up and looking ahead. The faintest glow of light graced his field of vision ahead. Something appeared far away. It was either the light at the end of the tunnel, or an oncoming train sent to crush him. Either way, it meant freedom from this horrid swamp.
Cat stepped back into the current of the sewage and walked, step by resistant step, steadily forward toward the faint beacon.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Cat stopped after an eternity in the sewage. The light wasn’t coming from in front of him. It was coming from above. He briefly made out the ring of light trickling down. Rusted rungs of a steel ladder beckoned him upward. With a wish for a hot shower and a warm body next to him, Cat reached up and grabbed the nearest rung. The steel held his weight. Thank the maker for small miracles. Cat started to reach upward with his left arm. Pain vetoed that idea. He gritted his teeth and formulated a new plan. Slowly, he balanced his boots on the rungs, and reached up once again with his right hand.
He found a stone hallway leading into darkness halfway up the climb. Using lowlight, his Cyberoptics showed him a room roughly ten meters away. He stepped off the ladder and headed down the hallway. The room he entered was almost perfectly round. The flickering light of torches provided the inconsistent illumination he had seen from the drainpipe.
Rising to his feet, Cat glanced around the room, recognizing it as a burial chamber. Arranged in a semi-circle, seven sarcophagi faced him, moss and algae finding their way atop a few of the carved faces. Behind him, the wall bore the tattered remains of a mosaic depicting some sort of family history. He shrugged it off. The cathedral couldn’t hold generations of history. It was hardly a decade old. It could only be more theatrics from the nut job scientist behind the MetaHuman Horsemen.
He focused on the scene before him. Each sarcophagus was precisely sculpted. Its concrete visage more human than the gyrating masses at Liquid Chrome or the Cell Block. As if beckoned, he stepped to the nearest concrete tomb, pulling the brush away. The dead eyes that reflected his gaze were those of the MH he’d battled in the convenience store.
“Pestylynce,” he whispered aloud.
The concrete figure seemed to move upon hearing its name. Cat fell back a few steps. The cold stone of the wall stopped his retreat. The odd pokes and prods of the carved mosaic pushed against his back. They each provided more comfort than another go-round with the inhuman he’d fought in the liquor store. He closed his eyes and steeled his will. When he opened them again, the sarcophagus provided no threat, only long shadows. He stared at the concrete face for several breaths.
“Rest in Peace, cop killer.”
Gripping the baton as an anchor, he neared the second tomb. Brushing aside the overgrowth revealed the face of Eva, of Angelyka. Wings crossed her form along with her arms, proving that this was the intended tomb of the construct, not the human. Cat drew in a breath. Fear didn’t enter him this time. Instead, anger found its place within his MetaHuman blood stream. Had the madmen assumed her defeat as well? Did he put that much stock in Catwalk or did he have another plan for his winged assassin? Angelyka was the most highly developed Metas he’d ever faced. Cat took offense that the madman behind it all would be willing to write off such an adversary.
He tore aside the brush covering the next concrete resting place. The cement reflection was similar to the original MH he’d seen. The face was nearly identical to the one who drew him to this case in Will’s Morgue, but
the features differed slightly. Wahrr.
Cat stepped back and shifted gears. If the madman had gone through all this trouble, he would have had adapted as time pressed on. Instead of continuing along the semi-circle, Cat leapt to the end. He brushed the muck off of the final cement form. Triangular eyes and elongated fangs defined the corpse’s features.
“Son of a bitch,” Cat laughed, staring at his own image.
He took a moment to stop and recount the sarcophagi. Seven. That made sense. Sevens were huge in Christianity, he remembered that. Sevens and threes. Four horsemen. The other three? He grumbled beneath his mask. The scientist undoubtedly had his own take on his trinity of enemies…the Father, the Child, and the Unholy Ghost. Delambre, Eva, and…
Cat felt his blood boiling before he even raised his arm. He struck without aim. His first strike cracked the face between its eyes. The second splintered the face into a dozen pieces. The third shattered the concrete and the wooden coffin it housed. Cat looked down. His forearm was embedded in the velvet interior of his intended final resting place.
Shockit, I ain’t dead. An’ if you got a reservation for me, madman, I’m about ta cancel it.
Cat reached the next sarcophagus, reacting with no surprise at its design. The permanent gaze of Delambre’s daughter stared up at him. No wings wrapped around her vulnerable human form. This was meant to be Eva’s crypt. On a whim, Cat ripped the cover aside, sending it clamoring against the crypt floor loudly. He tore open the lid of the coffin inside and found relief when he discovered it vacant.
His heart crawled into his throat. The thought of Eva in the tomb forced him to rediscover fear, for just a moment. He looked at his hands and saw them shaking. Had she suddenly become that important? “My father has never been your caretaker.” Those were her words. She was responsible for his survival, his humanity. Christ, keeping her safe was his anchor to staying human. He patted a glove against the velvet lining of her would-be grave. He exhaled hard and tried to get his hands to stop shaking.
He raised his glance to the next sarcophagus. The air seemed to leave the room. His cop skills should have kicked in. He wasn’t certain what to expect anymore. He should have stopped and revisited the analysis and investigation skills he’d learned in his years on the police force. For some reason, he couldn’t tap into that memory, not here, not in this awful place. He forced one cybernetic footstep, then another. He muttered the closest thing to a prayer he could remember.
Cat brushed the dust and grime aside, his heart heavy with expectation. His hands cleaned away the dirt. The face looking up at him was older. Lines set in the stone around its eyes. Cat touched the stone face of Delambre. A laugh choked to silence in his throat. Delambre had offered so many jests, so many threats, so many challenges. It had all been an act. Cat smirked. Maybe Eva was the one with all the knowledge. So what? Delambre was the one who reeled him in and earned his trust. Maybe they’d share a glass of Blevins blend down the road to celebrate that very transaction.
The hitman pulled the lid aside. It teetered for a moment before falling to the floor. When the dust cleared, Cat found himself staring at a simple, nondescript, black coffin. Anonymous. This was a simple, everyman’s final resting place. Cat stared at the glossy black paint, watching the faded reflection of his own yellow eyes. Maybe Delambre was the man he claimed to be. Maybe he was just an act. Cat prayed silently it would be vacant. His hand shook slightly as he unlocked the coffin lid. With a deep breath, he opened it.
His prayers went unanswered.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Delambre was paler and thinner than Cat remembered him. It was as if his eternal optimism and faith had deflated. With that gone, the geneticist’s body seemed to age by decades. His clothes showed no signs of blood. His bones appeared intact. He most likely faced his death with the dignity he carried in every action.
Cat caught himself smirking. Hell, Delambre had probably told the scientist, his old colleague-turned-lunatic, exactly how his death was planned out down to the finest detail. There was nothing the scientist could pretend to know that Delambre hadn’t already surmised. Still, here the clever old fox rested, reduced to a corpse in the underbelly of a hollowed-out cathedral, abandoned and alone.
Delambre, I failed you.
Cat absently straightened the collar and shirt of the dead man, the memories and thoughts hammering down on him. He recalled each of their interactions. He was surprised how much he respected Delambre’s sarcasm, sharp wit, and fearless protection of his daughter. Eva. Cat exhaled sharply, laying his gloved hand on the chest of his deceased partner. “I’ll keep her safe, Delambre. I promise.”
Cat stared at the geneticist’s face waiting for some snide but humorous response. The world was silent, distant, meaningless. He could almost see his breath in the stale air.
A slight sound of metal on metal alerted him from his trance like a cold shower. Instinctively, the hitman pushed off of Delambre’s chest. He leapt over the sarcophagus and rolled to his feet on the opposite side.
The baton snapped to full length in his right hand, Cat looked up to face his new assailant.
A bizarre creature, hardly more than a metallic skeleton, returned his gaze. From skull to toes, its body was covered in brushed chrome. Dreadlocked braids hung from the back of its head. Its eyes were vacant, skeletal holes, reminding Catwalk of the dead man in the sewer. Its teeth had been filed to point, providing the creation a feral grimace. Its cheekbones were raised, extending the jaw lower. The head hung at an awkward angle, nearly resting on its metallic shoulder. As it moved, the skull craned to the opposite side, as if the neck couldn’t support the weight of its head.
Its body bore hardly any mass. The tips of its shoulders, collarbones and ribcage were sharpened. Its razor claws gripped the side of the sarcophagus where Catwalk had just stood. It gazed at him. A guttural vibration escaped its fanged mouth. It stepped backward and pulled aside the fractured piece of the sarcophagus. The stone crumbled to ash in its hands.
“Famyne.”
The being raised the pace of its vibrations, sending out a chittering sound in acknowledgement. Catwalk leapt forward, swinging the baton in a backhand strike. The enemy’s skull merely bounced from one side to the other like a rag doll. It swung a claw in response, catching air as Catwalk rolled beneath the strike. He forced a sidekick into Famyne’s exposed ribs, above where a human’s kidneys would be. The creation bounded off of Delambre’s tomb and struck the floor. Cat paused a moment, the light glinting in his cybernetic eyes. Any human, normal or enhanced, should have collapsed at that strike.
It had no organs. This thing was a hardened, sharpened exoskeleton. Cat shook his head. Where was a good frag grenade when you needed one?
Cat targeted his enemy and changed his strategy. He grabbed a chunk of concrete from the shattered sarcophagus lid, throwing it hard at his enemy. With surprising speed, Famyne raised its arms in a protective X-block. The stone erupted into dust.
The dust hung in the stagnant air. Famyne leapt forward, attacking with its claws. Its guttural vibrations spiraled upward, something akin to a scream. Cat retreated, blocking the first strike with his baton.
The second strike glanced off of his armor. Sparks followed. Cat gritted his teeth, silently thanking Eva for her armor design. Famyne bore down on him with a series of strikes. Cat blocked everything he could. He slid or stepped backward under the tornado of metal blows.
His chest burned. His shoulders screamed at the impact of each blow. Famyne closed on him. Faster and faster, the skeletal machine cut at him. The baton flew from his grip, clamoring loudly against the stone floor. He lost count of how many strikes the MetaHuman landed on him. His fingers went numb. Then, his hands. He was running out of room.
Then, he saw it. Every blow was aimed at his head and chest. Fatal strikes. Cat dropped. The impact knocked the air from his lungs. He relied on the non-human part of his arsenal. His cybernetic legs slammed into the skeleton’s legs. Famyne fel
l hard. Cat launched upward and over it, landing several meters away. He’d lost his baton, but it had gained him distance. His arms were burning. His lungs were on fire.
The skeleton rose to its feet as Cat drew the shotgun from its place on his back.
“Enough cuddle time,” he scowled, “you gotta die.”
As he squeezed the trigger, Famyne threw the baton back at him. It forced his shotgun blast upward. Pieces of brick fell around and between the two combatants. Cat slipped in the debris and fell back against Delambre’s tomb.
Leaning on the old man for strength one more time.
Famyne rose to its feet before Cat could. Its head rolled across its shoulders. Its vibrating voice howled at him. It struck first with one claw. Cat managed to block most of the strike with his armored gloves. The second came down. Cat rolled to his left. Famyne’s claw buried into Delambre’s corpse.
Cat struggled to get his arms free. Famyne didn’t attack. It stopped moving. Cat pushed off of the sarcophagus and rolled to his feet. He watched in silence as tubes running along its exoskeleton illuminated in a deep crimson. Delambre’s form withered instantly, his skin peeled tightly to his skeleton and then tore apart. Famyne devoured the old man in seconds.
“Holy...shockin…hell,” Cat managed to breathe out.
Famyne swayed on its frame, the glow of its veins slowly descending to black. Cat stared mutely as it regained composure. Its skeletal gaze swung around to find him again. Cat’s gaze went from Delambre’s remains to the metallic assailant. His eyes flashed brightly sending an errie glow about the room. Rage replaced fear.
He heard the echo of a metallic scream, his scream, fill his head. He kicked a chunk of cement in its direction. Famyne brushed aside the attack. Cat dove to his right to create space and distance. He slid between two of the sarcophagi, hoping for time to reload the shotgun.