The Hipster Who Leapt Through Time (The Hipster Trilogy Book 2) (11 page)

The human and Moomamu now sidestepped around each other, circling, waiting for the right time to strike.
 

“I don’t want to fight,” Moomamu said.
 

The human didn’t listen. He didn’t even take the words in. For all Moomamu knew he didn’t speak English. The fabric tied around the human’s head had loosened and a length of it dragged behind, floating in the wind like a flag, flitting with every gust.
 

Moomamu could hear the individual audience members now. No longer a mass of sound. He heard one of them meowing with delight at the violence, another talking about a previous fight, and even a kitten crying about it being too much.
 

“Kill him then, you soft nob,” shouted one of them.

“Menkti menkti!” another one yelled

As if commanded, the human leapt forward and lifted the curved blade into the air. A trail of dirt fell from his feet. The sun was burning Moomamu’s eyes as he looked up to the human’s silhouette. The crowd were alive with hate and as the human fell to Moomamu, he saw his deep, dark brown eyes. They weren’t eyes of anger, but of necessity. It was the same look a butcher gave his meat. One of routine. A means to an end.
 

Moomamu saw his eyes and then he didn’t.
 

He was in black again. Swimming. Weightless. And then he was back in the sand. Just like that. A click of the fingers.

The crowd had quietened. Sunlight. Confusion. Breathing. Heavy. Panting.
 

Moomamu looked down at his body. He was all there. He smiled at the realisation that he was still alive. He was still holding the stick. The panting was close by. He turned to see the human, standing behind him, facing the other way, stood still.
 

Moomamu let go of the stick and it stayed in the air. It floated where his hands held it a second ago. He followed the stick along and saw it reach through the upper right part of the human’s shoulder. There were no signs of damage as the stick went in. The skin around it was sealed tight. Not a single drop of blood fell from where it entered. In fact, the metal point was on the other side altogether.

Moomamu cautiously stepped around the human. His dark eyes were shaking in their sockets. His body was sweating and pulsing. The other end of the stick came out of the human’s chest as cleanly as it had entered. The human didn’t scream or cry, but the pain and confusion were evident in the way his eyes shook and the saliva ran from his mouth and down to the sand.
 

The curved blade fell to the floor and, like the string holding him up had snapped, he fell to his knees and then onto his side. Still breathing, still shaking, but in no shape to fight. Moomamu had won.
 

The idea of being alive for a little longer was bittersweet. He jumped in the air and swung his hands back and forth.

“I won,” he shouted. “I bloody well won!”
 

The hissing began. Quiet at first but then it built on top of itself and would’ve continued to do so if it hadn’t been for the shouting cat upon the balcony. He waved his paws and the crowd silenced.
 

“You, human, tell us. You disappeared for a second. And then reappeared. Is that … is that normal?” The cat was genuinely curious.
 

“I told you. I’m not a human. I’m a Thinker. And … I dunno. It just kind of happens sometimes.”
 

“And … what do you call it? That thing you did, Thinker?” The cat spoke as if he wasn’t bellowing in front of a thousand cats. He spoke as if he were with Moomamu in a tiny room. Talking over cappuccino.

“I think it’s called teleporting. Normally it takes me to other places. But this time … it … well … it didn’t,” he shouted.

The silence in the stadium became awkward. Nobody knew what to do. Had Moomamu cheated? He’d merely fought in the only way he knew how. And he didn’t even do it on purpose. How could he be held accountable for cheating?

Moomamu looked down at the human. He was still moving. Crawling away towards safety. Wherever that was. The movement had opened the skin and he was now leaking blood. A dried, red sandy trail led from Moomamu’s feet to the human and the crowd began to hiss again.
 

Moomamu didn’t know what to do. So he stood and waited. He’d won the fight. Freedom would be his reward.

“He cheated,” a lone voice from the crowd shouted.
 

“Kill ‘em both,” another said.
 

Moomamu looked up to the shouting cat. The prince had stood up from his blanket and wandered over to the shouting cat, who kneeled and put his ear to the prince’s mouth. He then rose and silenced the crowd again with a wave of his paws.

“Okay,” the shouting cat began. “It was the prince’s promise that the winner of the fight would be granted his freedom.”

Moomamu felt excited. First step, freedom. Second step, get back home.
 

“But,” the cat continued. “You have not yet won. Not by a cat’s standards anyway. Your opponent is crawling away. If you kill him, you will have your freedom.”
 

The words from the cell came to Moomamu’s mind. The whispering voice of the invisible man. He must take a life. He must kill.

Moomamu didn’t know much of life. He’d not been alive, technically, for that long, but he did know one thing. When he’d seen Marta’s dead body, it had struck him like a lightning bolt to the groin. It awoke an anger in him. To see a miracle of cells and electricity and matter be made useless. To be rendered empty. It was something that hurt Moomamu more than any physical pain could. Perhaps being alone in the universe, in the stars for so long, made him appreciate life all the more. And now, he’d been asked to take it away.
 

He bent down and picked up the curved blade. The metal was discoloured with the dried blood of its victims. The body parts and remains of the other cats littered the Scrapping Grounds. The blade was heavy. The handle wrapped in weathered skin. It was a small blade, about the length of a cat’s tail, but it was sharp. Moomamu could see that. He turned and walked towards the man who’d now slowed in his escape, the stick reaching upwards to the sky from the wound in his shoulder.

Moomamu walked in front of the human and stopped. The human looked up at Moomamu. A fine line of blood marking the ends of his mouth and making its way down his chin. His eyes were bloodshot. The fabric around his head had fallen back, revealing a forest of thick black hair dusted with sand.

You must kill.
 

The words rang in Moomamu’s mind.
 

You must kill.

He lifted the blade towards the sky and the crowd erupted with cheers, pleased with the results of the day. As Moomamu readied himself to bring the blade down into the human’s skull he heard the word, “Please.”

He stopped, looked down. The human was looking at him. His eyes screamed mercy.
 

“Please,” he said, coughing up a mouthful of blood. “I just want to go home.”

The blade felt heavier with every passing second.
 

All he needed to do was let the blade fall. The weight would do the work. It would land in the human’s head. And then he could go home. Just let the blade do the work. His arms shook. They were tired. The blade grew heavier with every second.

Moomamu sighed, lowered the blade and threw it to the floor.
 

“I can’t do it,” Moomamu said, to himself at first but then louder to the crowd. “I can’t do it!”

With a single wave of the prince’s paw, an arrow flew through the air and rooted itself in the human’s skull. His head dropped instantly. His body stopped shaking. His breathing no more. He was gone. The miracle of his life evaporated into nothing. The large doors next to him opened and a flood of soldiers entered, surrounding Moomamu within seconds.
 

JoEl The Engineer

JoEl didn’t sleep. It wasn’t in his genes to do so. Instead, Nebulans recovered by lying face down on the floor, zoning out, and disappearing into a dreamless meditative state.
 

By the time he awoke the Earth had rotated, revealing the morning grey sky. The air around him was thick with a mist so dense he couldn’t see the edges of the field. The grass he’d been lying on was soaked with dew and moisture from the air. His skin was below optimum temperature.
 

“Marvellous,” he said. “Amazing that Earth weather can go from such extremes in such a short space of time.”
 

On Gamma Nebulous, there were seventy-two hours in a day, and summers and winters lasted for years, not months. To see the weather go from hot to cold in a single twenty-four hour period was astounding to JoEl. What would his son have thought?

JoEl climbed to his feet and looked around at the place he’d decided to settle down in the night before. He’d walked through the wooded area behind the target’s house. He’d walked through the trees and out into a group of squared-off patches of land. Some of the squares were littered with farming animals; the types with curly white fur, and some larger bovines with brown and white patches. They were simple creatures.
 

Now in the morning he saw silhouettes of the animals in the fog. Shadow-puppets in the atmosphere.
 

Fully rested, it was time to walk onwards. He needed to find himself new transport. He needed to find himself food and sustenance. Passing a herd of the patchy browns, he came upon a young one. Full of energy and youth. Its eyes were pinky-white with big brown pupils. A majestic specimen. It stood proudly a few feet from JoEl. He walked towards it and removed his glove. With a single swipe of his hand, he could end its life. He could close its breathing holes. It reminded him of the carven animals back on Gamma Nebulous.

The creature took a step backwards and made a sweet gargling sound with the air.
 

“It’s okay, little one,” JoEl said as he slowed his walk. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The proud little creature gargled again and took a step towards JoEl. It was smaller than the others on the field. JoEl reached his hand forward towards its white face. He reached over the wet nose and ran his hand over its snout. The short hairs were pleasant to his touch. He moved upwards and over the eyes of the creature to its head. He ran its ears between his finger and thumb.

“Such a beauty,” he said. “Oh, if only my TeAl could meet you. He would love you.”
 

The creature turned and scuttled away, back towards its family in the mist.
 

JoEl continued on. Just over the next fence past the woods. That’s where the humans lived. That’s where he’d find his new transport.

***

An empty square of gravel with white-painted lines along the floor. A large building of groceries and food. The sign that read ‘Supermarket’. Still, in this early hour the humans had yet to start their days. There were only two human vehicles parked up in the square. The first one JoEl tried was empty, but on closer inspection he found a chunk of yellow metal fixed to one of the wheels. A contraption to stop the machine from working.

His choice had been made for him. The second vehicle it was. Definitely in an operational state. The human driver was still inside. Tribal music roared out of the open window. The smell of drug smoke not far behind. In the dim fog, the lights inside the car were a homing beacon. A signal designed to lure wayward travellers, such as JoEl.

The driver inside didn’t notice JoEl until he tapped on the window. He jumped in his seat as JoEl tapped again, smiling as wide as he could.

“Good morning,” he said. “I wonder if you could help a fellow humanoid out?”

“What the fuck, man?” The human quickly put out his smoking equipment and rearranged himself. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes. The creature was a foul-looking thing with a few hairs on the top of his lip. Eyes hazy and unfocused. Hair unbrushed. A huge coat and garish golden chains dangling from his neck. JoEl waited, still smiling, until the youth had hidden his drugs and put his still-smoking drug-stick out. “What the fuck do you want, geez? You can’t be popping out of nowhere like that, you creepy shit.”

“What language you speak? Incredible,” JoEl said, beaming with curiosity.

“What are you talking about, bruv? You better step on otherwise I’m about to batter you. Ya get me?”
 

As the youth spoke his head bounced left to right and back again. It danced on the flimsy neck and weak backbone.

“I’m sorry to have offended you, human, but I need your help. I need your car.”

This appeared to upset the youth even more as he reached over and flicked a switch on the dashboard, cutting the music off. He threw his door open and climbed out of the car. He turned out to be a tall, ratty-moustachioed individual. Lanky, indeed. He towered over JoEl.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” JoEl tried to say but the youth threw his closed fist at him. It connected with JoEl’s chin and nudged his face an inch or two to the side. He almost hit JoEl’s red lenses.

“I’m sorry that you can’t help me,” JoEl said, as the youth swung his fist again.
 

This time, it didn’t connect with JoEl’s face. He caught the fist in his gloved hand.
 

“What the fuck?” the youth said before JoEl squeezed down. The fist loosened, but JoEl squeezed further. Flesh in a vice. It tightened. The youth screamed as the bones broke and the skin split along the sides. A tooth of bone poked through and the youth howled.
 

JoEl released the hand and the teenager fell backwards onto the floor and writhed around in agony.

“Apologies, young man,” JoEl said. “I didn’t want to have any more collateral than there already was.”

“You dick, you dick, you dick.” The youth rolled around and wept. He was in shock.
 

“No matter.” JoEl knelt by the human and shook his head. “I will help you. I will make you whole again.”

As he reached for the damaged hand the youth recoiled.