Authors: Nick Kelly
He knew its design, thanks to Will. The crazy ME had nailed it. Much of Wahrr’s design was the same as the prototype. The beast’s auto-guns were chain-fed, yet at no point in time were those ammunition lines visible that meant they were under the armor, riding the biological lines of Wahrr’s physique. He targeted the pressure points. If the beast was an extension of human design, Cat knew where to strike.
He drove his foot upward, into the unprotected right armpit of the enormous MetaHuman. The giant howled an electronic protest. Smoke poured outward. Hydraulic pressure released, along with control. Cat landed awkwardly on his side, but Wahrr echoed his clumsiness. Its right arm became a lifeless anchor. It listed to one side then overcompensated. The giant metal best collapsed on its side.
Catwalk grimaced hard as breath returned, and with it, sheer pain. His right shoulder burned from the impact. Oxygen flooded into his body. He craved more with every breath. He scarcely believed his chest was moving until he looked down. At first, his reaction was relief. He saw his chest rising and falling. Christ, he might make it out of this alive after all.
Then, he caught the meaning of the glowing red triangle moving over his frame.
Catwalk launched himself backward. The fangs of a dozen snakes bit into his arm as he moved. The percussion of bullets ricocheted along the stone beneath him. Even with a damaged arm and useless leg, Wahrr had still beaten him to the punch.
Cat crept along the length of an overturned worship bench, analyzing. If he hadn’t moved, he’d be chum. He had evaded the first two waves of Wahrr’s assault. He gritted his teeth. A third strike would kill him.
They’d done a good job of trading blows. Cat fought to keep his eyes from rolling back in his head. If Wahrr lost, Messiah would simply make a 3.0 version. If he lost…No. He’d always known he’d die alone. This wasn’t about him. He slapped a glove against the side of his helmet. “Kill this thing. She’s depending on you.”
Wahrr was designed as the hammer of the Holy One, able to exact Justice upon the masses without defense. It was a design of intimidation. It was purely offensive, and its defenses were limited as a result. There was the flaw Delambre had hinted at. All its vulnerabilities were internal, hidden from the exoskeleton, which made it so incredibly inhuman. Cat had found the first vulnerability. It was time to exploit another.
He scanned the diagnostics of the prototype. If the armor feeds were internal, then the answer was easy. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Two separate glowing areas in the blueprint called to him.
The shotgun was lost, along with the collapsible baton. Waves of gray and then black closed in on the corners of Cat’s field of vision like curtains on a cinema screen. Blood loss and multiple injuries were taking their toll.
Focus, you shockin’ fool…for yourself, for Delilah, for Eva.
He shook his head swiftly and bit his tongue to redirect his nerves. Eyes ablaze, Catwalk somersaulted backwards, shifting suddenly to launch a direct assault on the hulking Minotaur.
It raised its responsive left arm and opened fire. Cat couldn’t help but recall the memories of the prototype’s first attacks he’d seen on the news screen. The screams delivered the sickest harmonies, each and every voice reaching Catwalk’s sensors. He heard each desperate cry. He remembered them all.
The elderly landlord died from a shot to the throat. The noisy neighbors, having recently promised to give it “another shot” quickly died in one another’s arms. A single mother of two had no time to scream before her chest shattered under the spray of bullets. The media reporter lost his life on-screen before instantly being replaced by another camera.
Wahrr paused for the briefest of interludes. Cat struck. His gloved fist cracked the lower jaw of the Horseman. The MetaHuman raised its metallic hand to its face, and Cat grabbed its uplifted arm. He planted his feet firmly against the armored chest of the giant. Reaching underneath its left arm, Cat grabbed the hydraulic hose. Screaming at the tension in his tired arms, he pulled upward, tearing the hose from its anchor point. The auto-cannon on Wahrr’s left forearm fired a stream of bullets, full-auto, squarely leveled at its own face.
Liquid death erupted in a thousand doses. Before the over-sized beast could even process what it was doing, its head was a haze of shrapnel.
Victim of his own efforts and acrobatics, Catwalk crashed hard to the ground, landing squarely on his left side. He was swearing without sound, praying for the return of control and the ability to focus. The white light of pain overwhelmed every thought. The iron taste of blood and bile invaded the back of his throat. Consciousness and breath required concentration. Just when he thought he’d attained a degree of focus, he turned his gaze upward.
The headless, lifeless body of the Horseman crashed down on him.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Ash and smoke joined the fluttering hymnal pages in the air, drifting and covering the rubble of the sanctuary. Long shadows peppered the walls, created by the dancing debris and the flickering worship candles. The ringing in his ears subsided, but the sounds of battle still echoed deep into the wings of the cathedral.
The taste of blood was as familiar to Cat as oxygen, sunlight or starting the Honda-Suzuki. He pushed open the hinged shield of his helmet in time to cough and spit. He should have felt desperate. He wasn’t sure he could feel anything.
He was trapped beneath the Herculean form of the dead MetaHuman called Wahrr. Without the ability to move his most recent assailant, he would lose consciousness and die due to loss of blood. He was alone in a dark and desolate forgotten cathedral. Who could he contact, and how? Maybe this was best. Maybe his time had come.
“
Time to die alone, just as promised.”
Cat closed his eyes for a moment. He saw the smiling faces of Angie, Bobby, and Mi-Yung. He feels Mother’s grip on his shoulder. It will be good to see his family again.
“’But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.’”
A chill crept along his spine. He shifted his weight from side to side, praying for the slightest hint of leverage under the dead weight of the metallic beast. He tried to raise his left leg, then his right. Neither answered his request. He repeated the desperate call to his arms. His left arm was pinned and motionless. His right arm had limited motion and every effort hurt worse.
The flickering candlelight provided a twisted insanity to Messiah’s face as he emerged a few paces away. He was exactly as Cat had pictured. His hair had grown to shoulder-length, unkempt and graying, recessing from his skull. His skin was awful, including several wine-stain splotches along his head. His eyes were framed with countless lines and supported by thick, dark bags. In contrast, the lights created long shadows behind him, making the statue of Jesus on the altar seem twenty meters tall.
Even in the dim candlelight, the glow within Messiah’s eyes was undeniable. The same glow flickered over the knife in his hand.
“What is there to do with such a subject? Leon ‘Catwalk’ Caliber…liar, whoremonger, thief, unbeliever, abominable,” his eyes trailed to the spot where Wahrr had last stood upright, “…murderer.”
“Not a lot a’ room ta talk, Doc. I can think of a whole shockin’ list a’ good people dead as a result a’ yer machines.”
Messiah grinned, “Nowhere near enough. You set me back months, years! Your ignorant trespassing has cost me so much.” He moved his head to an odd angle, cracking his neck. “I had so much within my grasp. There was promise to this place, a new beginning. So much promise…”
Cat mutely watched as the scientist lost himself in his vision. “I created each of them for a purpose, a procedural execution so finely tuned that the creator himself would beg for my knowledge. They were my instruments of destruction...the tools I would use to cleanse this horrific city.”
“First, the Horsemen would rain down the hell and horror fitting their names. They would unleash the wave of chaos unseen on earth since the fall of Sodom. Riots, mass murder, sheer chaos so contagious that the vermin of the city would digest one another, leaving only the righteous to remain.”
“Then, they would crawl forth from their hiding places, seeking direction, seeking a lord to guide them. ‘The meek shall inherit the earth.’ These loyal subjects would bow before me, become my followers. A new race would be born unto this defiant nation, this continent, this world of unbelieving souls. The Horsemen would lead this army forward to rid mankind of its infection, its mutations…its hatred. I would lead the cleansing of this entire race.”
Messiah leveled his gaze to the trapped hitman. “And then you came and ruined everything!”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Messiah stalked forward, step after vindictive step. The shadow of Christ’s statue hovered behind him with giant, outstretched arms. Cat pushed again, desperately. His legs were dead weight. His arms were useless. He was bleeding to death. From the looks of it, Messiah was about to accelerate that process.
“This was meant to be the new home of creation, of Genesis. Nitro City, under my guidance, was to become New Eden.” Messiah babbled on, each step another descent into madness, another shovel full of dirt on Cat’s grave.
“Shockit, I heard you were outta yer mind, but I never woulda guessed you were this far gone. Delambre was right. You think that storybook chit is right an’ you put yerself dead center in the heart of it all.” Even if he couldn’t move, Cat was hoping he’d make the scientist erratic enough to do something stupid.
“I am the heart of it all, cleaner. I am the soul of all mankind. I am He who shall walk the path of righteousness. I am Messiah.”
Cat’s laughter cut through the scientist’s speech like a blade.
Venom coated his teeth, the scientist’s eyes grew wild, and his chest heaved. “You dare mock me? You, you’re no more than another victim at my disposal.”
The hitman’s yellow eyes leveled at Messiah. “So shut up an’ kill me already, you worthless ball a’ skin.”
Messiah rose up, baring his gritted teeth. His lips were covered in spit, foaming over from adrenaline or drugs. His eyes were unnaturally wide, unblinking. His mouth was a manic smile as he raised his right hand.
He took hardly a step forward when the church resounded with the shot of a gun.
Messiah looked over his own form, taking inventory. There were no wounds. There was no blood, no injuries. Puzzled, he looked at Catwalk for an answer.
Cat stole a glance in every direction he could. He hadn’t been attacked. Messiah remained unharmed. The ceiling was an indeterminate cloud of darkness. The last pages of the hymnals still scattered in the air. It was all a mystery until he craned his head backward toward the entrance.
A wisp of smoke broke the blanket of darkness by the doors. He saw sleight movement, either a silhouette or his hopeful imagination. He returned his gaze to the scientist. With the tiniest hint of recognition, Leon “Catwalk” Caliber began to laugh.
Messiah stopped cold, observing his victim. Laughter hadn’t been expected but given his subject, he was willing to accept any reaction. Catwalk’s inappropriate elation caused him to laugh as well. He didn’t know why, only that something had made his victim laugh in the face of death. He stopped suddenly, feeling something foreboding trigger his heart more than instinct or revenge.
As Messiah turned around, the statue of Jesus Christ came crashing down on his vulnerable form. He never even raised his arms in protection before the solid stone icon crushed his skull. The sound of Messiah’s bones as they compressed beneath the weight of the statue was a symphony of relief to Catwalk.
Cat heard every sound. The pages came to rest on the stone floor. Blood seeped into the stones. His breathing was slower and less rhythmic than he wanted. In the darkness, he heard one slow clicking sound, then another. With concerted effort, he turned his gaze toward the door. He realized the sound was step after slow step in the cavernous church. As her figure reached the threshold of candlelight, Cat gazed into the green eyes of Delilah Dupree.
Her voice was thick with fear and shock as she spoke. “I guess I should have aimed low?”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
“The scene continues to unfold here, with one gruesome discovery after another revealed. The death toll rises every few minutes, and with it, we begin to understand the exact scope of this historic event. As the numbers reach us, it is obvious to this reporter we are witnessing one of the most diabolical black market corpse rings in the history of the city.”
Scoop McEwan was in perfect form tonight, channeling every fiber of energy and charismatic delivery of investigative journalism he could gather. His makeup was a little off, but it usually was. What really mattered was the gravity he applied to each word.
“Here, in the shadow of what once represented salvation to many Nitro City residents, investigators continue to uncover the remains of a still unknown number of victims. Families of these victims can finally gain closure, thanks to the tip from a city mortician, which provided the location to this gruesome killing field. The bodies of several MetaHumans, and parts of nearly four dozen others, have been discovered, and the excavation is hardly two hours old.”
Cat laughed openly as the camera panned to Will, who was shoving microphones away from his face with a practiced effort. Their deal had been simple. Cat, Delilah, and any remains of Delambre were evacuated without notice, and Will got to call in the tip. As a result, Will and his crew got to keep the majority of the seven-digit reward.
“Ow! Hey, c’mon, Doc, you could go a little lighter with that thing,” Cat growled from the metal table.
Eva’s sigh was growing more familiar. “I’m draining the tissue around your elbow, bone-head. I’ve treated a laundry list of injuries already, Sternum, Ribs, Clavicle, Humerus, Trochlea, Capitulum, Costal Cartilage, Capsular Ligaments, Medial Epicondyle, and this is what you choose to bitch about?”