Part Twenty-six
Arcid, gray smoke bellowed from the sewer grates and manholes up around the nearby buildings to the unblocked sky – turbulence and drag had elongated the smog to form spiky fingers. The air howled with the screeching advance of armed planes, pulsated with the chopping jar of surveillance helicopters.
The frenzied shouts of denizens echoed through the cavernous mazes of the lower parts of the city – the frightened merchants and shopkeepers fled from the maddening, raging mobs to the safety of the lofty upper levels that authorities had prepared for the emergency. The streets were aglow with the licking flames and flickering lights of the unruly surface. Blasting megaphones and wailing sirens completed the sense of absolute chaos.
Units of armed Amazonian guards – men and women – were deployed on foot by their Thundercat commanders. Dividing the rioting outcasts into smaller, more manageable groups, they corralled the throwbacks with their gunfire and Thundrainium gas. Slowly the troops led the malformed cats to the depths.
Engineers and technicians tended to the broken machines intent to repair the metallic heart of Metropolis that it might beat once more. Fire crews put out the flames. Construction men propped up the gutted, ransacked structures. Sanitation workers cleaned the debris, the shattered glass and scattered remains of the world turned up side down. All the while and with great effort order and control was restored – even local power was back on-line.
Sunset approached – as it always had for days without number – and in its flailing red, orange wake, the only throwback rebellion in memory had come to an end – or so the newsmen and broadcasters said to reassure the terrified public.
Kara was crouched on the street, on the very edge of the causeway, his right knee to the pavement, his left foot flat on the ground. He stared at the hundred-foot drop, smoke and ash brushing against his face. He looked at the bloody body of Algernon, his remains, unmoving, lay along his side. His balance unnerved, he sprinted away from the brittle overhang of the collapsed avenue.
He heard a coarse dragging from behind and turned around to see. "Caesar," he purred.
The cheetah doctor was helping the man across the road. His face was sore, eyes blackening, nose bleeding. His body ached, that unexpected fight with the half-human, half-tiger hybrid had taken the better of him. He limped, his left foot lagging, wincing with every step.
The lion rushed to him and grabbed him around the waist – holding and pressing their worn-out bodies together, in that all-too-brief moment they exchanged amorous kisses, punctuated by fragments of words softly spoken through sobs.
"They saw the robot for what it was," Kara said. "It was burnt and it tore to shreds."
"Can things ever be the same again?" Caesar asked as he wiped the blood off his nose with his sleeve – that was when he noticed –
"I don't know," the Thunderian answered, "I don't know."
"Kara, your face!" the human gently reached out and with his fingers roamed about the features of this friend. Nose, jaw, even lips had been transformed from the modern, accepted character to the ancient, out-casted quality. In awe he kissed each and every thing he explored. "Does it hurt?"
He shook his head and sighed happily. "The pain is gone. Oh, by Jagga, the pain is gone, Caesar – I'm free!" He put his hands on his own face not in shame anymore but to feel his newly formed countenance. Sobbing he asked: "Do I look beautiful?"
Sobbing, too, he answered: "Yes, of course, you silly cat." Hugging him, he petted his red mane and let his fingers fondle the hidden tips of his ears. "You are beautiful, don't you know that already?"
They stopped their quivering lips with a kiss.
"You two better get inside the hospital fast," the cheetah said. She drew their attention to her and she pointed them to the distance. Two things were happening at once: a small mob of workers was heading to the scene, their marching out of phase, their shouting incoherent and a large, black helicopter was aiming to land on the abandoned street, its rotating blades chopping the air, its gusting currents upsurging through the rubble. "Come on," she tried to drag the couple back but it was too late.
The throwbacks had been herded to that spot by the menacing gunfire of the air-vehicle. The Amazonian warriors were charged with the task of bringing that group to underworld. And they had another duty to perform, too, for their commanders had seen Kara and Algernon fight and had ordered their superior officer to rectify the outcome of that brawl.
In the meanwhile, as the vessel was being unloaded, a lone figure emerged from the crowd. He approached the dangling edge of the roadside and peered straight down its side. By then the upsurging smoke had cleared and the gory scene was easy to see, though it was bit obscured by the distance.
"Pumalo, go with the doctor," Kara said, he and Caesar had unlocked their embrace. "Who knows what they might do to you if they thought –"
He nodded, wiping the sweat off of his brow with his forearm. The puma step away from the treacherous fall to the lab-coated cheetah. In the way that only those of his kind knew, in plain sight he hid his large frame behind her small sleek body.
Giving in – as if they ever had a chance – the deformed Thunderians sat themselves down on the pavement, their hands behind their heads and waited for the inevitable. Twenty armed humans in dark, unmarked uniforms surrounded them and, with their barrels pointing, got them up to their feet and directed them to a platform. The makeshift elevator was set to take them back to their home in the deep, hot hives of Third Earth.
"Hold it right there!" a stern, female voice shouted. The helmet-clad woman brandished a massive, imposing weapon. "Don't move, freak!"
"What?" Caesar asked, incensed. He limped toward her – she and two male soldiers had come blazing in to the area outside of the hospital. "What's all this for?"
"Step away from the throwback!" she shouted again. "Now!"
One of the men behind her stepped forward, thrashing his weapon side to side as if to indicate to the man that he had to get back.
"This is outrageous," he continued to protest, "we've –"
"That throwback killed a citizen," the gun-toting man said. "There's only one form of punishment for that crime." One form, swift and speedy. "Now step away."
"That, citizen, was the one responsible for all of this – Kara –" he looked at the lion, still amazed at how quickly he had changed. He had emerged from limbo to his most natural state, his most complete form totally metamorphosized – and yet in that world of Metropolis –
Sensing something familiar about the helmeted woman, he inched closer to her and said: "I know who you are, you're Julia – but don't you –" he was about to say 'recognize me' but he realized then only too late that the words would fall on deaf ears.
Although all that could be seen of her face was the last half of her chin, enough change in her flesh was visible to notice that his words had had an effect – but not the kind he had intended.
"That's enough now step away!" the man with the weapon shouted, his voice drowning the presence of a helicopter that hovered about the scene.
"Wait, Julia," came yet closer to her and for a brief moment broke contact with Caesar.
"Kara!" The hazel-eyed youth, defying the weakness of his battered body, lunged upon the red-manned lion-cub and knocked him to the ground, holding his arms around him in a tight embrace.
In the ensuing chaos the soldier with the gun lost control of his senses and, believing that the life of his superior officer was in danger, he fired once upon the entangled pair that tumbled on the ground. In a flash the two dissolved, their bodies decomposed to a gray, chalky ash that for a moment and no longer retained the shape, contour and outline of their living forms then evaporated in puffs of smoke. The officer gasped and dropped his weapon as soon as he saw what he had done. His aim was for the throwback of course – death was his punishment – but –
"That's," the woman said, taking off her helmet, trying desperately to think of a way to explain the mess to Lord Phaeton. She was indeed familiar in voice and feature. "There's nothing to see here," she said to the cheetah and the lone figure behind her. "Get back to –" she paused for some reason, for no reason. She looked at the concrete where the faint outline of the man and the lion remained, etched in its very substance. She could not help but wonder why the cat looked familiar, despite the obvious malformity. Perhaps it was something about the mane, perhaps it was the color of the fur coat or perhaps it was nothing at all but a faint, foggy memory disfigured and distorted by time. "Get back, I said! There's nothing to see here."
"Fools," Pumalo spoke gruffly – the feline doctor took hold of his shoulder – "you don't know what you've done." The puma hung his head and sobbed loudly, turning around in shame. The cheetah patted his arm – her eyes, too, welled glossy wet.
The female soldier waved her arm at her backup and with that the group of three returned to the helicopter.