Authors: Nick Kelly
“You gotta be shockin’ kiddin’ me,” he mumbled, the tires burning as he ripped into gear and after the limo.
Hitch had his victim and a head start. If Cat didn’t act fast, it would be the wrong inhabitant of the limo who’d be without a pulse by dawn. The four-banger limo was no match for the Honda-Suzuki in acceleration or handling, but Cat wasn’t certain how far Hitch would go down the highway before committing his murder and dumping the body. He didn’t fear for the young man, but he didn’t need the death toll piling up due to his lack of insight. Pissed at missing a clue, he pushed the throttle harder.
Cat’s motorcycle roared through traffic, avoiding the armored taxis and limos. Armored escorts cost a little more, but as dangers like the Titan became more common in Downtown Nitro City, these vehicles began to take over. Riding in something that couldn’t buy you a few extra seconds to scatter was becoming a death-defying risk. The roar of the motorcycle’s engine frightened off the few courageous pedestrians trying to cross against the street signals. Cat raced through more than one light as it blinked red, but none of the NCPD showed up to pursue him. Either he was lucky to avoid them, or they bet against catching up.
After a few minutes, the signature taillights of the limo appeared, growing larger against the increasing heat of the asphalt. Cat was closing the gap, laying out multiple courses of action as he did so. Offing Hitch meant one paycheck, but did it take away from the odds and ends he’d picked up as peripheral business from tailing Midas and his crew?
It didn’t necessarily make the best financial sense to eliminate Hitch. The most intelligent business decision would be to scare him into inactivity for a few months, collect on the bounty as if Hitch was dead, and then let him resurface, only to start collecting on his accomplices.
When he first arrived in Nitro City, Cat would have done exactly that; let the smart business decision override all other options. After months here, he was willing to listen to the other, more human parts of his psyche. Letting Hitch live meant letting others die. The image of the innocent eight-year old girl from the video ripped through his skull with the vacant cries of a poltergeist. Cat gritted his teeth; a bead of sweat slipped down the side of his face. Given the predatory nature of the crippled miscreant’s crimes, Cat was willing to forfeit a few creds to see Hitch ushered into the Church of the No-Longer Living.
With a twist of his wrist, he accelerated, intent on fulfilling that goal.
Hitch caressed the back of the young man’s neck with a meaty paw. At first, his new prey had seemed distant, even frightened. Every advance pushed the boy away. Hitch sighed in response. He didn’t enjoy his prey’s fear or lack of intimacy. He wanted acceptance and hoped for desire. If neither could be received, then a motionless, still-warm body was preferable to one who would resist him. Hitch had met with rejection throughout his entire life. He wanted more.
“What’s your name, pet?” he asked. His hand brushed the pale skin of the slender young man.
Bright eyes heavily framed in black eyeliner met his. “Jesse, sir.”
Hitch smiled, showing his discolored teeth. “Don’t call me sir, Jesse. We’re here to be friends, after all.”
His hand trailed over the young man’s collarbone and pushed his thin shirt open. His fingers caressed Jesse’s chest. The dark, sparse hair on Jesse’s upper lip and the trail down his stomach that disappeared into his jeans told Hitch that Jesse was probably of age, even though the softness of his slender arms and legs and chest made a drag queen look butch. His skin was the signature pallor of those unfortunate Downtown dwellers that had never seen the sun. He represented little challenge, and that alone was an aphrodisiac to Hitch. The other women in the area were older, calloused, more experienced and more likely to point out his shortcomings. He would have none of that.
Jesse was silent, evidently intimidated by the man who gave off an air of wealth, despite his physical atrocities.
Hitch continued. “You have beautiful eyes, Jesse.”
“Th-thank you, sir.”
“Tsk tsk.”
“Thank you.”
Hitch grinned. “Your heritage is something foreign. Something exotic. You are from Turkey perhaps, maybe Syria?”
A wordless nod was his only reply. Hitch grinned wider. He offered a brief phrase in Hebrew, roughly translated to mean, “Every hole is black in the night.” At the end of his statement, Jesse raised his frightened eyes to meet his gaze. He addressed the man who paid more than his normal price. “How can I serve you, sir…uh, not sir?”
It was more temptation than Hitch could stand. He raised his hand to the boy’s throat, gripping it with a frenzy driven from the heat of his loins. The sooner he murdered Jesse, the sooner he could claim dominance over the bright-eyed youngster.
The sound of thunder near his head made Hitch jump back against the seat.
The limo driver’s brains splattered against the Plexiglas screen that separated him from the passengers. Hitch boggled at the sudden shift in direction, forcing him to release Jesse and grab the sides of the maneuvering vehicle to steady himself. The sunroof shattered inward and he raised his arms upward to cover his face from the rain of glass. He heard a scream and turned to look at his would-be victim. Jesse’s eyes met his. The youngster was screaming in sheer horror. A moment later, the scream was gone. Jesse’s shocked form disappeared upward through the broken frame of the sunroof.
Hitch heard a muffled voice, and suddenly the here-and-now drew him to a reality his brain had covered with dementia. His prey was gone. His escort was gone. He turned his gaze upward and met face-to-face with a pair of glowing inhuman yellow eyes.
“I told you that you’d burn, chitbag.”
The thing with the yellow eyes grabbed Hitch before he could scream and ripped him from the limo. The shattered sunroof tore through his clothes and cut into his flesh as the creature dragged him onto the roof. The limo careened out of control; the dead driver’s foot still pressed against the accelerator.
A second later, all the cobwebs and shadows hiding his psyche dissipated, leaving him vulnerable to the cold recollection of every one of his crimes. Without the comfort of the shadows, his eyes opened wide. Clarity of thought tore into his mind like a scalpel, and he prayed that the vision before him would disappear into a nightmare. Centimeters from his face, yellow eyes stared back at him. The recognition petrified him. It was the Cat, the one who’d sent him the vow of revenge following his last conquest. The threat had seemed so innocuous at first, until the would-be avenger had spelled out detail after detail. Now, it was evident. His throat constricted. He couldn’t swallow or cough or beg for his life. Stars and spirals invaded the edges of his vision.
The Cat gripped him hard. Its claws ripped through his cheap suit and into his skin. He felt his flesh tear as he struggled to avoid its grasp. It stared into him…through him…like some inhuman avenger. It wasn’t human; couldn’t be human. He moaned in agony. Its claws made him remember the sting of his father’s belt – submission through pain. But this thing wasn’t his father. It wasn’t even human.
Hitch felt a greater threat, even as his mind splintered. Tearing his focus from his assailant, he looked beyond the Cat and saw the outline of something large...an ominous, formless shadow somewhere behind them. In the dark, he couldn’t decipher what it was or how long they had before impact. A desperate voice tore at his temples, scratching like rats on a sinking ship looking for a way out. He even thought for a second to warn his captor.
Words from the yellow-eyed assassin brought him back to consciousness. “This is for Amber.”
The avenger placed a piece of fabric into Hitch’s hand. Suddenly, he was gone from sight and touch. Hitch looked down, through the blood trickling from the cuts in his arm, long enough to read the name tag attached to a blood-soaked piece of a school girl’s uniform.
When he looked up, it was too late. The giant shadow began to reveal details, bricks, windows, markings. He recognized hoses, then a swarm of small, glowing lights. In an instant he understood.
Fuel pumps.
Hitch’s reality erupted into flame and cinder. His screams were never heard above the explosion.
Cat launched on cybernetic legs as the limo exploded behind him. He felt the heat of the flames all around him. Felt the air blowing all around him. It singed his hair and lapped at the few parts of flesh his armor revealed. He flipped and spun in the air. He landed hard; the impact of his armored boots cracking the asphalt. He shifted his gaze side to side to ensure no uninvited guests were filming the event.
Cat watched the limo burn for nearly five minutes. Hitch’s wail made him chuckle. He pictured Amber’s face on the recording one final time, and nodded in satisfaction. The distant sound of sirens registered in his ears. Hitch’s cries had long been replaced by the crackling of flames. He gauged how soon the emergency crews would arrive, and then gazed once more at the burning husk of the limo. At first he questioned his own sanity for sticking around. Then he shrugged it off, considering the emotion justified given how many innocents the disfigured pederast had claimed in his time. He shouldered the shotgun he had drawn. He knew he wouldn’t need it, but a small part of him hoped the necrophiliac would somehow scramble out of the wreckage.
Cat considered it all as he carefully made his way back to the Honda-Suzuki. There was more to be done. There were defenses to prepare. If Midas had hired him to off his disfigured henchman, it was part of a larger plan. If someone else had paid for Hitch’s long-overdue date with the reaper, there would be a price to pay. Cat smiled. As powerful as Midas was, he welcomed the challenge. It was a risk he’d calculated when he chose to take the hit on Hitch. Either way, he had just put out the welcome mat for a new enemy, right in the middle of investigating the Titan that killed Emory, and hiring his new partner. Cat scoffed. The dancing flames reflected in his yellow eyes and he felt that fate be damned, it was all worth it.
He heard the sound of his laughter before he realized he was laughing. “Damn, Leon,” he said aloud, “since when do you give a chit about kids?”
With a twist of the wrist, Cat turned back east toward Nitro City, and the unavoidable wrath of the Fixer known as Midas.
CHAPTER FIVE
9 August 2033
Cat knew better than anyone that he needed the right resources to survive, let alone turn a profit as an odd-jobs man. The same technology that made him powerful threatened his very humanity. Every ounce of machinery he accepted came with a sacrifice. If the scales tipped too far, the human he once was would be deleted and overwritten by a sub-routine. The man who was once Leon Caliber would be extinct. Only the machine would remain.
To prevent that, Cat had hired several cybertechnology specialists as business partners. In his line of work, they tended to have very short careers. He’d been both fortunate and ignorant in his past choices of technology consultants. With Midas likely on his path, and the curious case of the raging MH looming, he needed someone he could trust if the chips came down and his system flat out rejected his cybernetics. The last thing he wanted was to follow in the giant MetaHuman’s footsteps, down the road to madness.
Cat had conducted the interview process twice since arriving in Nitro City. His first partner, Renaldi, tried to go rogue and turn him in to the Seven Sisters coalition for assassinating their Vice President of Murders and Acquisitions. Cat rewarded Renaldi’s efforts with an 11mm bit of gratitude, then sold his parts to a shady transplant service that paid cash up front. No questions were asked, and Cat was convinced that organs from the whistle blower had saved the lives of transplant candidates across the state. The details weren’t important.
The second specialist, Fiona, was more technical then medical, and had nearly killed the hitman out of ignorance by overdosing him with anesthetic. She became apologetic and overly courageous, attempting to shadow Cat downtown during a sabotage job. The cyber-enhanced guard dogs were still fighting over Fiona’s limbs when her screaming subsided.
Cat exhaled. Tonight’s work was stressful. He should be meditating and preparing escape plans and assessing just how big an army Midas was going to throw at him. He stared at the glass in his hand and smirked. He deserved a drink for putting Hitch in the dirt, or at least into a fiery ball of four-cylinder destruction. His victims would have wanted the necrophiliac cremated after all, wouldn’t they?
Catwalk raised a silent toast to the memory of his first two prospective partners. He wasn’t proud of their departures from the realm of the living, but he knew better than to keep barking up a tree that had only brought him trouble. He put the call out for a partner through the usual channels, and this time, the response was different. The unidentified resource reached out to him, claiming to have researched his past work and holding a very deep interest in a potential partnership.
Cat swished the liquor around in his mouth. He had met the other resources in isolated, silent surroundings. Tonight had to be different. Anyone who had the time and tools to dig into his background deserved careful consideration. If this new candidate was worth his time, he would prove so, and he would do so in a crowded club, complete with dancing patrons and deafening music. This time, Cat lounged in one of the private alcoves of the crowded club known as Liquid Chrome.
The mix of synthetic instruments and human vocals pitched in together, creating a maelstrom of sound that rolled forth from the stage with velvet intoxication. Pulsating lights flashed over the bodies on the dance floor. The patrons below boasted every color and material on the popular market, and a few available only through the technology underground. Kevlar, neon, leather, and metal writhed together as the performers drove the debauchery to new heights.
The vodka filling Cat’s glass was every bit as unnatural as his armor-plated legs. He’d had the real stuff on rare occasions, and not since he left DC, but at least the synthetic version was tolerable. He wouldn’t let some of the other artificial liquors near his lips after tasting the original, but vodka could pass. Bourbon or sake, no chance. A taste of the authentic was an eye-opening experience, entrance into a world that couldn’t be wished away or forgotten.