Authors: Nick Kelly
Loverboy flailed an attack, his blows paranoid and uncoordinated. The attacker pulled back, still holding the glass. For several seconds, Jerry’s arms struck nothing, just repeating a gesture of desperation. When he looked up, it was still there, holding the glass.
“I’ll ask you again, Jerry. Cognac? Isn’t that always the pre and post-party ceremony?”
“Why…what…what do you want?”
“Are you gonna drink this, or am I gonna make you?”
“I can pay you…What do you want, man?”
“Last chance. You slammin’ this one?”
The assaulted man stammered something unrecognizable. He was blubbering tears already and had probably pissed himself in his drugged and inebriated state.
“Suit yerself.” The yellow-eyed figure darted forward, slamming the cognac against the side of Loverboy’s head. The glass shattered, showering him in a hail of shards and brown liquor.
The panic cut him more deeply than the glass. He struck out blindly with his legs, covering his face and head with his arms. “Stop! Stop! Come on, what do you want?”
A gloved hand gripped his chin between his covering arms, yanking him forward by his jaw. “Go home. Explain yourself. Be ready for the consequences. If not, I’ll deliver the body of your little whore to your office.”
The figure pulled him close enough to witness his own punctured face in the reflection of its yellow eyes. “Each of the next ten days, one piece at a time.”
Loverboy’s head struck the tinted glass as the attacker pushed him backward. His eyes were dazzled. His brain swam in pain. His leg was bleeding through his suit, and there were contusions to his face and skull. He looked down, choking slightly on fear and pain. His attacker was gone.
So was the bottle of Cognac.
He fell forward, his face in his hands. The motion pushed shards of glass further into his forehead and cheek, but the heaving of his chest and the burning inside far outweighed the pain. He choked on his own guilt and anguish. Whatever that thing had been, it had delivered the ultimatum: Confess what he had become, or simply what he had done, and why.
Jerry turned his bruised and bloody vision upward to the night sky. Rain fell down on him, streaking the blood and fear down his brow and into his eyes. It stained the creases of his face, dripping into the fake leather of the limo. There was no sign of the attacker, only the night sky, the stars reflecting down upon him like a mirror of his own guilt.
He reached a shaking hand to the phone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The ringing comm promptly ended Cat’s dream involving Swedish twin nymphomaniacs and a hot tub. He let it ring a few more times before answering with a sarcastic, “All lines are busy, hold please.” Running a hand through his hair, he reviewed the night’s events while searching for an antidote to the cottonmouth he suffered.
He’d returned from visiting Loverboy, chilled the Cognac and changed into more comfortable attire. He’d cleaned and inspected his guns, meditated and spent some time upside-down on the inversion table to help his back. After that, he’d made the mistake of checking messages. It took three glasses of the Cognac for him to authorize the amount Will had demanded in his invoice.
Rubbing his face, he returned his attention to the comm. “Checking your news feeds, M'sieu Catwalk?”
“Not quite yet, Delambre.”
“Good. I’ll wait. You’ll want to check this morning’s messages.”
Cat knew better than to second-guess the scholar. He immediately flipped to his messages. There were two marked as unread. One was from Mrs. Loverboy. It read only, “Thank you.”
The second was an encrypted financial statement noting a deposit three times the amount he’d agreed to when he took the case. Putting the pieces together, he returned his ear to Delambre. “What did I miss?”
“Would you like the feed or my version?”
“Surprise me.”
A video feed popped over the comm, expanding to full screen before him. The familiar visage of Scoop McEwan provided every sensational detail of a murder-suicide involving a director of operations for an off-world transport firm, his wife, and his mistress. The faces of Loverboy, his blushing bride and his lover graced the screen next to Scoop. The whore was even wearing the nurse’s outfit. Cat tried to refrain from laughing but hadn’t the slightest hope of doing so. “I can’t believe it.”
Delambre responded, “So you’ve seen it. I find your inability to believe such a rash and hostile execution a probable course of action.”
“Oh, it ain’t that,” Cat replied. “I can’t believe she paid first!”
They caught themselves laughing at the same time. For Delambre, it represented relief. After all, their last few interactions carried quite the current of tension. For Cat, it meant that the check he’d just stroked to Will wound up costing him nothing.
Cat followed the details with Scoop muted. Loverboy had called home and apologized. By the time he got there, his wife was gone. She’d left a note stating her intent to kill the mistress. When Loverboy backtracked to Hydrogen Alley, his wife engulfed the entire place in flame and nitrous, killing the couple and a dozen of the cleaning crew.
“I didn’t know she had it in her,” Cat said absently while he watched.
Delambre chuckled on the other end of the comm. “None of us did. As you might say yourself, ‘Ain’t that a bitch?’”
Catwalk laughed so hard he dropped the comm and ended the call.
The scientist removed his fingers from the trigger of the airbrush. He had drawn an exact mirror image and every pore needed to reflect its intended opposite. The angel’s eyes were an exact match, each framed in a delightful eclipse-like black. She remained perfectly still, awaiting his direction. He paused longer than he should, if only for effect. “Open your eyes, Angelyka.”
From her knees, she followed instruction, raising her gaze to meet that of her creator. Her makeup was complete, perfect for her on-camera debut. After all, she must appear without flaw in the lens when she ripped the Cat’s heart from his chest. The coverage would undoubtedly be present when the latest of the high-profile threats appeared again on camera. The media was always hungry to feed its audience. He would have been remiss if he didn’t tailor his creation in the perfect visage for her time in the spotlight.
The scientist brushed the back of his hand against his angel’s cheek, and she leaned into his touch as if it was salvation. “Soon, Angel, you will have your freedom to slay our newfound enemy.”
“The execution of this target pleases you, my master?” her slightly synthetic voice replied in question.
“Ah, yes, Angel,” he grinned, “more than you can fathom.”
The construct’s eyes flashed with direction. “Then his demise shall serve as my only goal, Master.” Her hands closed around his own, the faint outline of painted artwork on her palms.
The scientist grinned, stroking her hair. His thoughts were a step ahead of her as always. He saw not only the assassin’s execution, but that of the geneticist and his whore daughter as well. He smiled. “I have faith in you, my dear. I have no doubt you will deliver all that I expect of you.”
“When the time comes, I know you will kill the hitman without remorse or hesitation.”
The Angel smiled a silent confirmation. She was programmed for exactly that purpose, and her painted face reflected submission to his wishes. She would perform exactly as she had been instructed.
Kill enemies upon direction. Slay any opposition.
Kill the Cat.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
9 September 2022
The breeze shifts intermittently from scarcely a touch to an occasional full breath against his skin. Leon looks out over the scrap yard, savoring the pause in the endless acidic rainfall. The puddles form and grow on the gravel of the rooftop. The air here is cool enough without the wind’s assistance. It’s quiet. A few stray locks of black hair stream across his face, not quite enough to interfere with his view of the scattering vermin below.
He exhales, the smoke choosing directions as random as scared roaches at the first sign of light. He licks his lips ever so slightly, savoring the acrid taste of the cigarette. Without looking, he extends it to his right, into the nervous waiting hands of his newfound friend. Mi-Young focuses so intently on the cigarette that her eyes nearly cross. She takes it. After all, she promised she would. Rather, she’s claimed she already smoked plenty of times in the past.
One inhalation of smoke draws the light on her bold-faced lie. It takes almost 20 seconds before she regains her breath, almost three minutes before she regains her natural color. By then, Leon has taken the cigarette back from her, taking several drags while she restores her demeanor. “What was it you claimed, sis? I remember something about a pack-a-day habit fer a few years?”
She shakes her head mutely. The attempt at a clever retort invokes another coughing fit.
Leon turns his gaze back to the scattering homeless below. “It’s a skill like anything else, Dearheart. Hell,” he inhales deeply from the cigarette, “even rookies have skills.”
The young Asian girl who has mentored him since his admission finally acknowledges that he may know something she doesn’t. She waves a hand as if to end the conversation. “Oh, good gods of cement and mortar, Leon. Why would you even want to be able to do that?”
Leon simply takes another drag off of the cigarette, blowing the smoke towards the heavens. “You taught me before, Mi, about focusing on my inner self…J-breathing and such mumbo-jumbo. Your strength is in savin’ yourself by believin’ in who you are. My strength may be the opposite. Maybe my goal is ta teach you that you can kill yerself regardless of yer position on life.”
The black-haired girl stares at Leon mutely. Her intention from the beginning has been to teach him about the points of life worth living. Perhaps, for the first time, he’s introduced to her instead the reasons not to.
After a pause, the boy speaks, smoke cutting his lips with each word. “It’s who we were, to some degree, which makes us who we are.”
The statement slapped him with such accuracy it was refreshing. Catwalk looked at the clock, remembering at the last moment to invert the numbers. The display read 1725, meaning he’d been hanging upside down and meditating for nearly twenty minutes. His legs didn’t ache at all, but he felt the strain in his upper body from the weights in his hands. After all, he’d been exercising the practice of J-breathing he learned in the orphanage. Focusing, he curled his body upwards, and his abs and arms screamed in protest.
He slapped the dumbbells back into their mounts in the ceiling and gripped the straight bar. Unhinging his legs, he dropped to the ground, landing in a crouch. The change in blood flow struck him hard. The swelling was visible in his limbs. He remembered the quote he’d made a decade or so ago. “It’s who we were, to some degree, which makes us who we are.”
Catwalk smirked. Back then, at St. Patrick’s, he’d meant that being a ganger had taught him how to smoke. Now, that statement bore even more accuracy. If he’d never been the invalid, he would never have been the police experiment with the cybernetic legs and spine. If he hadn’t ever become that cop, he wouldn’t ever have come to Nitro. He wouldn’t have become a cleaner. He wouldn’t have met Delambre, or Eva.
Or Delilah.
Shockit. The realization hit him hard. He would barely make it to pick her up if he didn’t move right now. Pain be damned, Cat sprinted to the shower. He had a date and lasting memories or physical therapy would have to take a backseat for the time being.
Within minutes, he was astride the H-S, full-throttle to pick up the redheaded goddess. The cycle answered his slightest lean or inflection of his wrist, just as it was designed. From brake fluid to heads-up display, Cat knew every centimeter of the custom cycle like an extension of his own skin. He found the Interstate and triggered the Nitrous. In seconds, his taillights disappeared into the distance.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Cat whistled to himself when he approached the glorious entryway to Hotel Infinity. He caught himself gazing far too long at the architecture and immaculate landscaping. He wondered how many times someone had to gaze on the building before it stopped being impressive. It appeared as elegant as ever, but slightly different. He chuckled. There simply wasn't a more appropriate palace for the divine Delilah Dupree.
The Honda-Suzuki roared to an unwilling silence as he parked it once again near the entrance. Cat dismounted and patted the tank of his obedient companion. The two of them had experienced quite the workload. Returning his gaze to the hotel, he bound up the stairs, stopping to see which doorman was on duty this starry evening.
An enormous man stepped from the doorman’s post. His frame suggested that he might spend time as a stunt double for Hovertanks during his off hours. His well-trimmed but full beard made him appear more bear than man. There was no denying that this man was bred or trained to run off the unwelcome guests clamoring to visit one of Nitro City’s most sought-after figures. The buttons on his perfectly pressed uniform coat were so polished that Cat caught his own reflection. He fixed his gaze on the cleaner. A white-gloved hand slowly rose to the brim of his cap. "May I assist you, sir?"
Cat popped his helmet off with practiced ease. His eyes rose to meet those of the doorman. "I'm here to meet with Madam DuPree."
The massive protector eyed the strange newcomer with distrust. With a deep, throaty scoff, he opened a small leather bound writing pad and consulted it. "One moment, sir. Your name?"
"Catwalk,” the hitman replied. If this guy mentions that damn song I'm going to gut him right here he thought behind a gracious smile. "Catwalk Caliber if it's a first and last name thing, you understand."
The bear scribbled something in the pad, most likely a note not to trust this visitor. "Mr. Caliber.” He had paused for obvious effect. "Ah yes, Madam DuPree is expecting you. If you'd care to go into the lounge, I'll inform her that you are here."
Cat nodded, then stopped suddenly. "Hey."