Cassidy St. Claire and The Fountain of Youth Parts I, II, & III

by A. H. Rousseau

  “You have got to be kidding me,” said Gideon. He thought on it for only a moment before dashing off back into the downtown area to save the dog.

  “Jackson!” the little girl screamed.

  “Bark!” the little dog barked.

  As Gideon ran, dust rising from his footsteps, he was thrown off balance slightly by the rumbling of the ground. He finally reached the dog, who at least had the good grace to be happy to see him, and he attempted to untie the leash. His few seconds of effort was futile. “God dammit,” Gideon said as he extended his revolver and fired a single round into the lamp post. The dog shot off toward his family. Gideon brought his arm in, clicking his gun back into place just as the ground shuddered and fell downward. Gideon fell to a slight crouch, his eyes wide. He turned to see a massive crack traveling up the wall of the brick building behind him. “Fuck me,” he said.

  “Run, Atwater!” bellowed Mister Nichols.

  Gideon bolted off toward the safety line as the building behind him started to fall into the ground. The entire world rumbled and shook as the city around him slowly descended into the ground. Bursts of gas and air erupted from the ground as Gideon ran.

  “Oh shit,” said Mister Nichols. “Nobody turned off the gas.”

  “Are we safe, here, sir?” asked a young, white agent with red hair.

  Mister Nichols didn't respond at first. “... Yes,” he finally said.

  A large burst of flame fired out at Gideon from a sidewalk as it was rended apart by the moving earth. He lurched to one side, nearly falling over. “Mother fucker!” Gideon yelled. As he ran, he caught up with the small dog, who was running for all he was worth, so Gideon picked him up and continued to run. He glanced behind him to see the ground crumbling just under his heels. He let out a series of terrified, panicked laughs as he ran harder.

  Mister Nichols looked around quickly, his eyes falling onto a pile of supplies, in which was a rope. He grabbed one end. “Now!” he yelled to his concerned young aide. “Tie this to that lamp post!” He then ran forward a short distance with the coiled rope in hand. “Atwater! Catch the rope! Catch the rope!” he yelled as he threw the rope out toward Gideon.

  “Catch the dog! Catch the dog!” Gideon replied, lobbing Jackson the dog as hard as he could just before the ground beneath him gave way and he fell into the hole. Jackson sailed through the air, his tongue dangling out behind him. Mister Nichols ran back, diving to the ground to catch the dog.

  “Jackson!” the little girl yelled as she ran over to the dog. Mister Nichols rose, patted the girl and dog and walked toward the pit, a thick fog of dust obscuring everything. A cool breeze cleared some of the air as the crowd converged on the devastation.

  “Atwater!” yelled Mister Nichols.

  “Atwater!” yelled other agents. There was no response. The young girl held the dog as she walked toward the edge of the hole with her parents, looking out for her savior.

  They all stood there silently as the realization of what had happened set in: Gideon had fallen.

  “Help!” they all suddenly heard floating through the air.

  “Atwater!” yelled Mister Nichols, looking around.

  “Help!” came again. Everyone ran around to an outcropping of ground that let them look down into the pit where they saw Gideon, clinging desperately to the rope, swinging lightly from side to side.

  “Atwater! Are you alright!?” yelled Mister Nichols.

  “Yes! Just... Help!” Gideon replied, who was having a hard time ejecting words while also gripping the rope. Everyone ran around to pull Gideon up from the pit as the air cleared, revealing the immense devastation of the pit, smoke, fire, and dust, over a thousand feet across and two-hundred feet deep, as water from the Buffalo River poured in like a waterfall, washing over earth and building. In the distance, the rumbles of explosions preceded new collapses, with water from the bayou rushing to fill the ever-lengthening river as clouds filled the darkening sky.

  ---

  “Shit!” yelled Joseph, looking ahead. “The switch yard has us going off to one of the store rooms! We won't go up and out!”

  “Can we throw the switch from here?!” asked Cassidy.

  “Not unless you have thousand foot arms!”

  “Can I shoot the switch?” she then asked.

  “I doubt a bullet has the energy,” Joseph replied.

  “You let me worry about that,” Cassidy replied. “Just tell me which one to hit,” she said as she pulled her gun and locked in an explosive round.

  Joseph pointed ahead. “See, that red one, on the right, directly facing us.”

  “Got it,” Cassidy said. She aimed, fired, and the round exploded behind the switch sign. “Shit,” she said quietly as she pulled a single shell from her jacket pocket and re-cocked the gun. “Last one,” she whispered.

  “What?” asked Jebediah, nervous.

  “Nothing,” Cassidy replied. She breathed in, held her arm out, straight and long, closed one eye, and exhaling, fired an explosive round that hit the switch dead center. The sign flew around and the rail switched to the steeply-graded track in the middle of the complex just before their car passed by, heading up and out of the cave system.

  “Here's hoping we maintain enough momentum,” said Joseph, holding on tight to the hand rail.

  “What?!” yelled Cassidy. “You didn't say anything about hope.” Joseph responded with a sheepish grin. Cassidy gripped the hand rail as well and looked ahead nervously. The car shuddered as it hit the ascending grade. Everyone jerked forward slightly as the car started to slow down. The ongoing explosions continued to follow them as rocks and dust rained down on the roof of the car. The car raced into the entry tunnel leading up, racing past windows and walkways, past abandoned crates and machines.

  “Here we go!” yelled Joseph, looking up toward the lines of light shining through the seams of the floor platforms in the above-ground warehouse.

  SMASH!

  The car erupted out of the ground, smashing through the floor panels like a breaching whale. It smashed through the main doors of the warehouse, turning onto its side and crashing down onto the ground just as the explosions caught up to them, engulfing the entire warehouse in a colossal fireball that sent flaming debris for hundreds of feet in all directions. It continued through the dirt for a few dozen feet before gradually, loudly, grinding to a halt next to the bulbous generator.

  ---

  Cassidy slowly opened her eyes. The bleary world flowed and flexed around her as the deep sound and bright lights of a nearby blaze filled her senses. She looked to her side to see Jebediah and Joseph, covered in dust and wreckage, both unconscious. She reached over to touch them, making sure they were alive. She turned her head toward the front of the car, the roof ripped off and trees visible outside. She tried to move and grimaced in pain, groaning. After a few efforts, she successfully got to her hands and knees and made her way out of the car. She unsteadily rose to her feet and looked at the warehouse, burning and slowly collapsing in on itself.

  As she stood there, slowly regaining her faculties, she looked to her left, into the clearing, where an airship was taking flight and two more airships were being loaded. Standing outside of the nearest airship, the eye pieces of his metal mask bright yellow circles as they reflected the flames, staring straight at Cassidy, was the Mechanical Man, Mister Falkenrath. Cassidy looked at him, surprised, as he turned and walked past the Shadowy Man, who was obscured by the shadow of the airship, his dark silhouette back-lit by the bright lights from another airship behind him. Cassidy drew her gun and pointed it at him and lurched forward, stumbling as she walked.

  “Don't move!” she yelled. “Move and I will shoot! I will fucking shoot!” The Shadowy Man did not move. He stood there, calmly, as Cassidy came closer. As she came within a stone's throw, she stopped, unsteady on her feet. “If you think that you are going anywhere, I have some bad fucking news!” she yelled. The Shadowy Man didn't respond. “Step out here! I want to see who I'm de
aling with!”

  “Cassidy St. Claire,” the Shadowy Man said. Cassidy froze. Her pupils dilated. “I cannot express how happy I am that you have survived. But of course you survived. A woman such as you, steeled in the fires of conflict. You would survive anything.” Cassidy said nothing. She barely breathed. She barely moved, as the man emerged from the shadows into the light of the inferno.

  Standing before Cassidy, as though he had walked right out of her memory, unchanged in nearly every way, was the person who had killed her parents those many years before. Standing calmly in front of her, his hands clasped behind his back, was the Mysterious Man.

  “I have followed you, Cassidy. I have followed you. I have read the articles about you. I have read the books about you. I know all about you. Your reputation... your legend,” he said with a smirk. “I have looked on with a sense of pride — pride that I helped to create such a creature. In many ways, I am your father. You were born that night, thirty years ago. I saw it. I saw you walk into the palace, in your pretty little dress, and I saw you there, on the floor, barely five years old, protecting your father. But he was not your father. I was your father. That palace was your mother. The person who walked into that exhibition was not the person who walked out. In blood and smoke, you were truly born. This story began thirty years ago. You began thirty years ago. And now you have come home.” As he spoke, the second airship took flight, kicking up dirt and dust as it flew overhead.

  Cassidy's mouth moved as she tried to form words, but nothing came out. Her aim never wavered as she stood there, her knees shaking.

  “Any world that you inhabit is a more perfect world. Know that.” He turned his head slightly at the sound of the final airship's engines spinning up. He then turned back to Cassidy. “Farewell, my dear Cassidy. God willing, we will meet again.”

  The Mysterious man bowed and turned, then walked up the ramp into the airship. “No... no,” Cassidy whispered. The rear door closed, the engines roared, and the ship lifted off from the ground. Its landing legs pulled up against the body of the ship, and with the thunder of its six engines at full bore, it lifted into the night sky and past the tree line. Cassidy kept her gun trained on the ship until she lost sight of it. She then dropped her gun and fell to her knees, staring into the sky, her silhouette against the burning warehouse. Tears streamed down her face. “I'm sorry,” she whispered as her entire body shook in a maelstrom of emotion.

  She screamed.

  She screamed into the sky a mournful wail that flowed from every part of her being. Thirty years of pain and sorrow belted into the unforgiving and uncaring world. She wrapped her arms around herself and curled forward, tears dropping like stones from her eyes into the dirt. She sat there, amid the fire and the night, sobbing. She sobbed as Jebediah, now conscious, ran up to her and spoke unheard words. She sobbed as Gideon and the other agents arrived on scene. She sobbed as it started to rain — rain upon the fire and the island, upon Houston and all the lands east and west, upon Jebediah and the men, and upon Cassidy and all her form.

  The storm had come, and rain it did.

  ---

  Anna sat in the airship, people all around her. The drone of the engines. Dim light from the interior illumination. Her head bobbed around slightly as the airship moved through turbulence. Across from her sat Hoffman, his stark, aged visage a frightening ghoul.

  “Where we we going?” asked Anna.

  “To the wellspring of our condition,” he replied, not opening his eyes.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You will see,” Hoffman replied.

  Anna stared back, her expression flat and unmoved.

  ---

  Cassidy, Gideon, and Jebediah all sat in the private car. It's interior was pure government, with simple, dark woods and black leather abound. Cassidy looked out the window, raindrops running down its length, her eyes bright and focused on the cloudy, evening outside.

  “How are you not tired?” asked Gideon, sitting in the chair across from her. She didn't respond.

  A young agent came in to the car. “We're ready to leave, sir,” he said.

  Jebediah nodded. “Good. Let's away,” he replied. The young man bowed and left. Jebediah then looked to Cassidy.

  “So what of me, now, sir?” asked Gideon to Jebediah.

  “You're with me for the foreseeable future,” he replied. “If that is acceptable.”

  Gideon's elation at this was visible only in the flicker of a smile on the edges of his lips. “Yes. Of course.”

  “Good... good. I'm happy. While we achieved little more than putting strain upon their operations, that is still an achievement, and more than we have hitherto managed. Once we get to St. Louis, Cassidy can go home, and you and I will return to Washington. We have a great deal of work to do. Until then, I've called in everyone that I can find. Houston will be repaired, and with the small loss of life, we will keep things as quiet as could be hoped.”

  “Quiet? Why is that important?” asked Gideon, curious.

  Jebediah paused. “Events such as this are always best kept quiet. It avoids panic. It avoids concern. If everyone was afraid of sink holes swallowing cities, lord knows what people might do.” Gideon nodded, accepting if not quite understanding this line of reasoning.

  “That's horseshit,” said Cassidy, her eyes still fixed on the landscape.

  “Pardon,” said Jebediah. Cassidy didn't respond at first, she just sighed through her nose. Jebediah continued to look at her, waiting for a response.

  “For quite some time, I haven't been able to get some questions out of my mind,” Cassidy said. “And since we have a good twenty hour train ride ahead of us, I think it's about time,” she turned to Jebediah. “That you told us who you really are.”

  ---

  The moon shone down on El Paso through the sparse, dark clouds. The city was still burned and desolate. The train engine remained on its side and the town was peppered with burnt black squares that were once buildings. The faint patter of stray rain drops from passing clouds hit the dirt. Marshal Stoudenmire stumbled out of the saloon, drunk, and meandered into the dark night. Martha was in the park, leaning on the badly damaged wall surrounding the alligators which were safely placed back where they belonged. The two mini-dinosaurs were both directly in front of her, waiting patiently as she threw pieces of chicken into their mouths. The rain fell lightly upon the remains of the trees. It fell lightly upon the dirt. It fell lightly upon the train house where men played a game of cards by lamp light. It fell lightly upon the large, burnt remains of the brothel by the park, drops of water creating circles of moisture on the fired wood. It fell lightly upon the ash and the metal. It fell lightly upon the broken glass. It fell lightly upon the flesh — the scorched, charred flesh — of Octavius Caesar, his, prone, blackened body facing the sky. It fell lightly upon his arms and legs, clothing burned away. It fell lightly upon his face and ran down his cracked, desiccated cheeks. It fell lightly upon his brow and his nose. It fell lightly all about, as his eyes opened, opened into stars.

  Thank you for reading my book!

  I hope that you enjoyed it, or at the very least I hope that you thought it bad enough to hate read it. In either case, I at least interested you.

  If you enjoyed it, keep an eye out for the continuation of Cassidy's adventures as she heads to Europe in search of her friends. While there, she will make a stunning discovery about how the world truly works. Read it all in Cassidy St. Claire and The Secret War. Coming early 2015, or maybe 2150. I can't tell; I'm dyslexic.

  Look for other works by A.H. Rousseau

  Cassidy St. Claire and The Secret War Part I (Coming soon)

  Grace (Coming Soon)

  The Desktop Wormhole

 

 

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