Authors: Nick Kelly
The Angel grinned and tilted her head to the side, seeming less human than any other time he’d ever seen her. “How…interesting.”
As he staggered, she reached into the room closest to her, pulling forth three children. Through his haze, Cat saw two girls and a boy, probably a family. Cat regained strength, the blood flowing freely down his back under his uniform. “C’mon Angel, this is between you an’ me, not these bags a’ flesh.”
Her response was a grin and a slight bending of the light across her inhuman eyes. “If they are so inhuman, let’s see how you handle this.” Angelyka pressed two bandage-laden children in his direction, clear targets for her next attack.
Catwalk darted forward as she fired the line of blades. With a leap, he blocked several blades and let the others contact the mesh of his armor. Rolling to a knee, he assessed the additional damage he’d suffered. The two children behind him stood, wide-eyed and unhurt.
As the cleaner rose to one knee, merely five meters from his enemy, he saw the final attack he couldn’t stop. Angelyka drove the razor edge of her right wing deep into the chest of the third child. Her inhuman eyes stared directly into Catwalk’s as her blade drove through the dark-haired girl’s chest. Her insult to the cleaner was clear as she spoke. “You are fragile.”
Awash in hatred, Cat leapt in her direction. As he did so, she threw the dead girl at him, causing him to grab her and roll in response. He continued to roll past her as Angelyka moved to evade him. She re-grouped and prepared to attack his prone form.
Cat hugged the dead child against his chest, indignant and venomous. He reached backward, and felt the cold steel of the closed elevator doors. Instinctively, he reached up and slammed the closest button on the wall. Shifting his gaze, he saw Angelyka rise to her feet. She began to stride towards him with a self-indulgent smile.
As she neared, the doors opened behind him. Clutching the dead girl tightly, he darted into the open elevator. The angel sprinted forward to catch him. He made out every feature of her disgusting form, just before the doors closed.
The seconds of delay felt like eternity to the construct. She had the Cat at her mercy, and the pause in his assassination caused by an elevator button was inexcusable. Her hatred rose at having missed her chance to slaughter him. When the elevator opened, she grinned. He would no doubt be grieving the child he couldn’t save. His humanity made him weak. He was hers to destroy.
The elevator doors opened, revealing a solitary figure. The dead girl stained the floor of the elevator. The hitman was nowhere in sight. Angelyka listened, and when she heard the slightest sound, she reacted. With a shriek, she drove the razor blades of her wing time and time again through the roof of the elevator car. Sparks showered down on her as her metal wing pierced the elevator car. After several strikes, she paused, the holes in the roof offering no return in the form of blood or evidence of human reaction.
Angelyka sneered. She’d expected the Cat to perch above the car, ready for her willingness to bite on the bait of the slaughtered child. Perhaps he had fled her attack, betraying the children in an exercise of self-preservation. She grinned with an infusion to her self-esteem. She enjoyed the taste of his cowardice. Perhaps she’d kill the other children just to give him something to think about. With a smile, she raised her gaze skyward, seeking confirmation that the human had retreated from their encounter.
The elevator roof erupted inward. Angelyka turned her head away from the debris on instinct. Cat dropped from his grip on the cable, slamming his fist into the side of the angel’s skull. He landed in the elevator and kicked the back of her leg, forcing her to the floor. Seeking refuge from any other civilians, he slammed the button for the top floor. Angelyka attempted to stand, but Catwalk’s combination of kicks and strikes kept her pinned to the elevator floor as the doors shut.
The whining sound above indicated that the elevator was ascending. Reaching downward, he grabbed Angelyka by her neck, pulling her to face him. As they moved upward, he slammed her stunned form against every available wall, his eyes focused on the damage he could inflict on this harbinger of death.
Without any cognitive guidance, he simply swung his fists and steered her form from left to right, again and again finding the flesh-like weaknesses of her constructed body. His blows struck her jaw, the sides of her face, her eyes, over and again as the elevator car rose floor by floor. With every strike, he lost touch with any humanity that existed within him. All he wanted was vengeance on the Angel for the children she had just slain.
Her protests decreased in volume and frequency as he struck her again and again. Slowly, recognition of his physical state found him once again. The acute pain of his shoulders and arms crawled into his awareness. Blood soaked his armor and stole from his arms. His breathing was forced, and every ounce of his inner venom was taxed. He opened his eyes and caught himself by surprise.
Beneath his fists, the tear-filled eyes of Delambre’s daughter looked up at him.
“Please…Cat…Please…” she gurgled on her own blood.
Catwalk rose upward in surprise, creating a distance between them. Had he been hallucinating so badly that he’d assaulted Eva? What complications in his makeup could have forced him to such a resolution?
The eyes of the angel at his mercy shifted once again to those of an inhuman construct. The claws rose, narrowly missing his face. Falling backward, he landed flatly as Angelyka fired a series of blades into the ceiling above. As the light and cold of the night air found them, she raised her claws and tore aside a section of the ceiling. Casting one last glance at him, she pushed upward on her damaged wings and pressed into the night sky.
Cat caught her form moving away against the skyline. Extending his baton, he fired the tip in her direction. With a one-in-a-who-shockin-knows chance, the tracer landed squarely against her right wing. He’d be able to track her to her creator’s lair after all.
Exhausted, he collapsed to the floor of the elevator, wishing against all he’d known that he could simply replace one…just one…of his actions tonight. He rolled to his right. He brushed the dark hair from the face of the dead girl, his hand feeling infinitely warmer than her flesh. The words caught in his throat, far before they ever found their way to his lips.
“I’m…I’m so sorry.”
The pale form of the murdered child was unresponsive and unforgiving as he pulled her close to him, trying with every breath and every tear to reignite any spark of life within her. Unable to justify the death of innocence on any level, Catwalk collapsed on his side in the elevator, pulling the murdered girl’s form against his and rocked her in an effort to help her sleep fitfully in the afterlife she’d experienced far too soon.
The tears were unexpected and undeniable. Something inside of him was human after all. In this moment, that something was all that mattered.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
10 July 2029
The bizarre man dubbed Saint Taki laughs loudly, setting the tone for their first face-to-face meeting. A veteran of the East Coast scene who fled to Nitro City as the Corporate Militia began wiping out entire blocks in an effort to censor people, Taki established safety out west. He’s chosen a handle from those among the original graffiti artists and carries a reputation heavier than an armored hover car.
Tonight, Cat finds himself in Saint Taki’s chair, a virtual throne amongst the celebrities of Nitro City. The drugs are far above average, and the connections just happen to come through. Framed with unnaturally high cheekbones, Taki always seems to be laughing, mostly at his subjects, rather than with them. His blonde hair is spiked high, with glowing blue tips. He faces Catwalk, meeting the unaffected glowing yellow gaze of the hitman. As Cat removes his shirt, Taki’s response is instantaneous.
The tattoo artist of nearly two decades’ fame takes less than six seconds to draw his own verdict. “Chit, man, I can’t help you.”
Cat raises an eyebrow and challenges him. “Why’s that?”
“Man, you got more scars than skin…inkin’ you would be like paintin’ on top a’ someone else’s Mona Lisa.” Taki powers off his equipment, slapping Catwalk on his shoulder. “You better find a clean slate, man. Your chit is way shocked up.”
The glimmer of light and rough outlines appeared within his vision. Waves of time ebbed and flowed before he could register the shapes as human. It was a gunshot to his skull when his eyes began to process details to his brain. Cat nearly vomited at the sudden motion sickness. The dull pressure of a hand registered on his chest, and he dared to focus on the form.
At first, all he saw was the damaged Angel, staring down at him. He tried to rise, meeting the firm grip of restraints across his chest and legs. The pain of a hundred needles stabbed into his back, and he howled in pain. “Cat, please, calm down.”
The voice was unmistakably human, nothing like that of the vicious construct. He looked again, and Eva’s soft gaze met his. Her hair was slightly unkempt and lines of exhaustion framed her eyes. A weary sense of obligation emanated from her. As he slowed his breath, so did she.
“Eva.”
“You’ve gone through a lot of surgery, and several infusions, Catwalk. I need you to remain as still as possible. That’s why you’re restrained.”
“You don’t lie very well.”
She turned away. “I knew you’d react that way when you saw me. I wasn’t about to have fourteen hours of surgery undone by your gut reaction.”
Cat took in his environment. This was the warehouse, the base of operations Delambre had established. “Fourteen hours?”
Eva simply nodded, drawing a cup of steaming tea to her lips.
“How’d you get me out of the hospital?”
She looked out of the window, the orange sun reflecting in her brown eyes. Whether the sun was rising or setting, Cat had no idea. “We paid the doctor on call to pronounce you dead. The news feeds have a great number of pictures of your corpse.”
Cat laughed but arching even slightly reacquainted him with the pain in his back. “Did you have to replace anything?” He tried to check for new cybernetics without being able to look at his body. Nothing felt different, but anesthesia had a weird way of invoking that symptom.
Eva kept her focus on the streets outside. “There were a number of contusions, deep abrasions of the Latissimus Dorsi, Teres Major, Trapezius, and tears to the Thoracolumbar Fascia.”
“Naturally,” he replied sarcastically.
“I also had to re-align a number of your artificial vertebrae. That was an interesting lesson. It’s not like your cybernetic spine comes with an owner’s manual.”
His spine and legs were the result of his involuntary status as a guinea pig back in DC. “Hey, at least I can tell women I really am one of a kind.”
“I’m sure they’re relieved to hear that.”
Cat chuckled. She had her father’s gift for rebuttals. He closed his eyes, mentally replaying the events of the night. The memory hit him like a cold rush of sorrow and fear. He laid his head back against the operating table. “That kid…that girl…I got her killed.”
“You saved the others,” Eva said, returning her eyes to him.
“Call it what you want. They never woulda been in danger if I hadn’t wound up there. It’s my fault.”
“I don’t mean those few children in the ward.”
Cat looked up at her, questioning her statement. “What do you mean?”
Eva stepped across the open space while she explained, standing next to his bed. “When you encountered Angelyka, she had already drawn the media and local Corporate forces. She did so by going for high-profile targets. That malicious thing had caused the destruction of a shipment of organs to be donated. She, it, then burned a bus of kids heading for a Scientific Achiever’s Convention to receive a group award for their kinetic analysis.”
“Think it was coincidence?”
“No, Catwalk, I don’t. The stats that have amassed so far indicate that of the 47 casualties caused by the combined attacks on the highway and in the hospital, 27 were children.” Eva’s tone sharpened as she allowed emotion to enter, leaving the statistics behind. “That one isn’t like the others. She has a destructive nature at her core. If she had a soul, it would be black.”
Cat nodded in agreement. “Pisses you off, doesn’t it?”
Eva’s response was louder and more heated than he’d expected. “That thing wears my face, my face, Catwalk. Not some artistic mask of some religious rhetoric. You may be prepared to wear the face of a monster, but not me. “ She stepped back, shaking her head, “Not me.”
Cat shut his mouth instead of attempting to reach out to her. She was a scientist, a medical practitioner, an analyst of anatomy. He was a killer or protector depending on the paycheck. It was a coin toss some nights. He wanted a cigarette or a drink, anything other than to continue this conversation. He hurt enough already. Hurting her wasn’t helping.
She bit her lip and stared mutely at the floor while he reassessed his position. Finally, he decided on a different topic. “How much of the surgery did your father perform?”
Eva raised her gaze and something told Cat to look at her. Eva’s eyes were tearing up as the words reached her lips. “None. He was gone when I brought you back here.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“So, the scientist has him,” Cat exhaled sharply with the last word, his mental focus shifted to how soon he could fight again. If the scientist had been willing to send an assassin out after him, he was certainly willing to add kidnapping to his rap sheet.
“I don’t know.”
“You said he was gone, not he left. How did you know?”
Eva sipped on the hot tea again, staring at the cup when she withdrew it from her lips. “There were signs of struggle. Things were broken. The lab was damaged.”
“Blood?”
She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, the cup shaking in her hands. She nodded. Trying to actually answer him may have sent her over the edge.
Cat started taking stock of resources. He was already mad about letting innocents die in his battle with Angelyka. Turning his back on the geneticist who came to him for protection was an amateur move. “Get these things off a’ me.”