Caity's World, Part 33

Caitlyn walked toward the stadium, the cage rolling along beside her.  O'Connell, Hawkins, and Kim-na walked a little ways to her left, but she clung to Steven as though she might collapse without him.  The brute tromped along behind them, its oversized mitts dragging in the dust.  The night was so quiet that she could hear every leaf and stone her hooves touched — and a sickening sizzling noise coming from the glowing cage.  She huddled close beside Steven, shying away from the horrors all around her.

The slumped pale silhouette in the cage was nearly motionless, but suddenly it spoke.  "I — I'm sorry," he said.

"D — Daddy?"  She looked up at him.  "Is that really you?"

"I'm sorry for all of this," he said.  "I never in my worst nightmares imagined things might turn out like this."

"It's okay," she said.

"No, it isn't," he said.  "I left you and your mother and your sister all alone for papers and reports and computer screens, and — Caity, my work turned you into a horse, and Ellen's in such terrible shape, and everything's a mess.  My mess.  I should've been there for you every year of the last decade, not in some research lab destroying the world.  And even afterward — even afterward, I should've been there beside you, not in a decrepit library studying this disaster I've wrought."

"Daddy — it's — it's okay," said Caitlyn, choking back her tears.  Steven pulled her close.

"No, it isn't," he said.  "Look at you, Caity.  Mother Mary and Joseph, look at what I did to you."

"I know," she said.  "I'm not what I used to be.  But — he's a centaur too."  She squeezed Steven's elbow.  "It's weird, but it sorta works, somehow."

"I can't tell you how many times I wanted to tell you how sorry I was, but I never could.  So I just — just followed you sometimes.  Watched my little girl, all grown up.  I checked in on you and Ellen and Sharon, but I was a coward, watching from shadows, and never having the guts to say what I should've to you all."

"That — that was you in the park, wasn't it?"

The silhouette nodded.  "I wrote that little warning letter in your apartment too, back when I could still touch a pencil and hold it up.  I knew the Human Society had ransacked your apartment, but I didn't then know that this van der Wals guy or Ellen were involved with them."

Caitlyn walked in silence for a little while, then looked up at the silhouette again.  "Daddy, what's happening to you?"

"I'm — going," he said.  "I've been going for a long time, and I can see where now.  It's not another world, not another dimension or anything:  It's — a different kind of existence.  I'm not dying; I'm just — going somewhere else.  There are other people — things — creatures — there.  I can see it well, but you look fuzzy now.  I can barely see you.  I'm more there than I am where you are.  I'll be gone soon.  This cage is loosening me, making it go so much faster; I thought I had another year or two, but I'll be gone before the night is out."

"No!" cried Caitlyn, squeezing Steven's arm.  He pulled her closer.

"Don't worry, Caity," said her father.  The silhouette turned and looked at them, and they could just make out a smile.  "You've managed without me for a long time, and it looks like you've found a man who'll take better care of you than I did.  You'll be fine, I think."

Steven smiled in return, and nodded.  "I'll do my best, sir," he said.

Suddenly the brute stopped.  They'd reached the entrance of the stadium.  It was poorly-lit, and the dark, barred gate leading to the field looked distressingly like a mouth, the bars its hard steel teeth, ready to tear them each limb from limb and devour them.  Caitlyn looked back over her shoulder.  Far behind them across the battlefield, the military had regrouped, and a huge number of men and trucks had lined up and General Silver was standing between them, barking unintelligible orders.

Caitlyn turned back around and met the grinning figure of van der Wals, surrounded by a few circling wolfmen.

"Well, now, it's been awhile, love; did you miss me?"

She spat in his face.

"I missed you too," he said.  "But first things first.  You've brought along some baggage."  He held up a gun to Hawkins's forehead, and fired a single shot.  The man slumped to the ground, blood pouring from his head.  Caitlyn cried out in terror, and even Kim-na jumped back.

"Really?  You're really that squeamish?" said van der Wals.  "I can't think what I ever saw in you — ah, that's right, you're going to give me infinite power.  Funny how that can change a man's perception of a girl."

Caitlyn spat at him again, and missed this time.

He pointed the gun squarely at her, and she cowered.

"Gracious, you really are squeamish," he said.  "I can't have you dead, you know.  The machine's security needs both you and your sister alive.  That was clever, by the way," he added to the cage.  "The machine needs Santa and Bunny People?  Took us a little while to riddle that out:  Christmas and Easter people, 'C and E people,' Caitlyn and Ellen.  Very nice.  Not especially difficult, but nice.  But time is wasting, and I think we ought get this show on the road."

He turned to the brute and the wolfmen, which were now circling the centaurs.  "Disarm them, then bring them up to my study.  Use the freight elevator.  I want to show them something.  And take Camberley down below."

*   *   *

It had once been a lush rear skybox for elite donors, and although the rest of the building still showed signs of damage and warping from the Change, van der Wals's study had been redecorated and refurbished and now was likely more elegant and opulent than it had ever been.  Mahogany and red-velvet walls wrapped in a semicircle around a long series of windows that opened onto the battlefield below.  The floor was some kind of black marble, with several large red Persian rugs neatly arrayed across it.  There were a few leather chairs, and a fully-stocked bar along one wall.

Van der Wals was standing in front of the bar when they arrived.  He was dressed in a dark suit, but he wore no tie, and his collar was unbuttoned and his short dark hair was neatly teased:  Had he been anyone else, he might have looked dashing.  Along the far wall, Ellen stood slouching, still in her blue dress, still staring vacantly at the ceiling, and her husband stood beside her, a maniacal grin on his face as his unblinking and unfocused eyes gazed into the distance out the windows.

The wolfmen ushered them in, one at a time.  The brute had waited outside, unable to fit in the freight elevator.  O'Connell entered last, and the wolfmen closed and locked the door behind them.

"May I offer you a drink?" said van der Wals.

"Just do whatever you're going to do and get it over with," said Caitlyn.

"Really, I'd recommend a drink," he said.  "Miss Marine Corps especially would want one, I think."

O'Connell glared at him.

"I've won, you know," he said, turning toward her and flashing a white-toothed smile.  His eyes shone terrifyingly in the dim lighting.

"They're not going to give up until they stop you," said O'Connell.  "Every last man who swore to defend this country will hunt you down."

He strode calmly from the bar over to the window.  "Yes, I'm quaking."

He turned and looked out the window, occasionally sipping his glass of wine, and for a while he said nothing even when they asked questions.

Finally, unable to restrain her curiosity, Kim-na walked over to the window.  She froze, and nearly dropped her empty backpack on the floor, her jaw gaping.  The backpack dangled back and forth in her hand for a moment, and then she shook her head and whistled.  "Holy shit," she said.  "Look at 'em all.  Damn, van der Ass, you goin' down."  The others came over to the window.

"I have to give them credit," said van der Wals.  "They're trying their best."

Outside, the military had lined up, and they were a full force — a phalanx of armored men, dancing from one foxhole to the next, firing their rifles and machine guns at every turn.  A double line of tanks followed close behind them, firing at the stadium, offering the men cover as they darted ever closer.  The approaching gunfire was lighting up the battlefield like brilliant moonlight sparkling on the ocean.  The window glass must have been fairly thick, because all they heard of the battle was a continuous low thumping in time with the tank fire.

"What're they shootin' at?" said Kim-na.  She looked over at van der Wals, but he sipped his drink and didn't reply.  "They ain't hittin' us."

Then the field just underneath them lit up, and at first Caitlyn thought that the stadium's spotlights had been turned on, but the lights were moving.  They inched toward the field, slowly and steadily, and at last she could see the source:  They were people, humans, six of them, four men and two women, each a golden yellow from head to toe, surrounded by glowing balls of golden light, and approaching the military men as if strolling through a park on a summer's day.  The bullets and tank fire bounced harmlessly off the balls of light, and the glowing people seemed to make no effort to defend themselves:  Indeed, they barely seemed to notice anyone else on the field at all.

"What — what are they?" said Caitlyn.

"Do you know what M is?" asked van der Wals, sipping his wine.  "I mean, really know?  What it's made of?"

No-one spoke.

He smiled.  "It's dirt," he said, digging his left hand through the pot of a nearby potted plant and holding some dirt up for them to see.  "And grass.  Plain, old, common everyday dirt and grass, refined a bit and reshaped into pills, with a little water and oil and starch mixed in to hold it together, but dirt and grass nonetheless, dug right from this very stadium's grounds.  Seems this common everyday dirt was somewhat affected by the Change, and became a bit less common than common everyday dirt."  He sipped his drink and then set it down on a small table.

"So — they're high on M?" said Caitlyn.

"Refined M," he said.  "You didn't think we were selling the best of it, did you?  Ten times the power, with only a fraction of the brain damage."

They watched as the six strolled toward the military.  The woman on the end reached the green-clad men first, and she didn't seem to even notice as she walked right through them, her ball of golden light disintegrating everything it touched, ripping man and rifle and armor and truck alike atom from atom.  One by one, the fighters succumbed to the marching balls of death, and in just a few moments, the military's ranks had been halved.  Someone must have sent a signal from the base, though, because suddenly the fighters turned in unison and retreated toward the tank and truck line.

Van der Wals took a small remote out of his vest pocket and held it up.  He pressed a button on it.  "Finish them," he said into its microphone.  "No interruptions."

"Yessir," said a random male voice on the other end.

The six stopped walking and stretched their arms above them.  Giant glowing, golden hands thrust from the balls of light surrounding them.  The hands shot across the battlefield, and when they reached the fleeing fighters, they grabbed one in each hand.  Then the hands swung back and forth, battering the men with their own comrades, some getting bowled over, some getting thrown from the battlefield, some simply splattering in place, until every last one had fallen.

Then the golden hands reached farther, grabbing the tanks and trucks that were attacking them, and in a moment one tank was in the air, and then a truck, and suddenly they soared through the air and smashed into each other.  A brilliant orange fireball lit up the battlefield, soaring into the sky, as a golden man tossed the destroyed vehicles aside like children's toys.  Another fireball burst from the far side of the field as two more exploded.  In but a few moments, ten, twenty, thirty tanks and armored trucks were reduced to flaming heaps of metal and oil and gasoline, and the golden foes did not even look winded.  Only a few soldiers from the rearmost ranks were fast enough to flee their vehicles, and fewer of them escaped:  Most were crushed by golden hands dropping their own destroyed vehicles on them.

The remaining men at the camp were scrambling, but there was little they could do:  They were outmatched, and they knew it.

"You never stood a chance," said van der Wals, turning from the window to O'Connell.  "I'm sorry to have to tell you that now, but you really didn't.  I won before you even arrived; I won the day your government abandoned this destroyed wreck of a city four and a half years ago; I won the day they gave up and completely ignored the most valuable dirt in the world."  He threw his fistful at O'Connell.

O'Connell seethed.  In a flash, she snatched his glass from the table, smashed it against the window, and drove its shards toward him - but he was surprisingly agile and leaped back, just beyond her reach.  A shot fired, and blood welled up from the middle of O'Connell's chest.  Smoke wafted from the barrel of the tiny pistol in van der Wals's hand.

She flew toward him and grabbed his collar.  "Do you know why driders are so successful in battle?" she said.  "Everyone shoots where we have no vital organs."

She spun around and flung him against the wall, but he was surprisingly agile and whirled in the air and bounced off the wall.  He flipped over and landed on his feet as if nothing had happened, and rapidly fired another four shots.  O'Connell collapsed to the ground as blood began to pour out from under her.

"Do you know why you should never tell people your weaknesses?" he asked.  "If your heart's not in your chest, it must be somewhere else, mustn't it?"

O'Connell made as if to speak.  She reached out toward him with one hand, and then fell over.  Blood dribbles from her mouth.  Caitlyn ran to her and knelt down beside her, cradling her head.

She looked up at Caitlyn.  "Sarah-Ann — she's — like a sister to me.  If — you make it — make it out — take — take care — take care of — " she said.  She coughed up blood once, twice, a third time, and then Yuri O'Connell died in Caitlyn's arms.

Caitlyn glared at van der Wals.  "Monster!"

"Takes one to know one," he said cheerfully.

She lowered O'Connell's head to the floor and stood up, shaking.

Ellen suddenly spoke.  " — brief was filed last Thursday, Your Honor."  Everyone turned to look at her where she stood in the far corner with her husband and the wolfmen, and she crumpled to the floor like a rag doll.

Caitlyn cried out.  "Ellen!?"

The wolfmen leaped forward to surround Ellen's fallen body and growled at the others.

"Oh, don't worry, she's always like that," said van der Wals.

Caitlyn glared at him.  "What the hell do you mean, 'She's always like that?'  She's never like that!"

"Well, what do you expect she'd do after her regular morning cup of coffee laced with M?"

"You gave her M!?" cried Caitlyn.

Van der Wals turned around and walked back over to the bar.  "Relax.  It's a very low, very pure dose.  Keeps her influential in the world, but still pliable when I need her to be.  You didn't think she won all those court cases on her own, did you?  The Human Society needs money, and her 'magical' talents in court have proven to be a surprisingly good source."  He poured another glass of wine.  "Really, there haven't been any problems since she fried her husband's brain a few years ago.  Accidental double dosage that day.  My apologies for any long-term damage."

Ellen's body spun up onto her feet.  " — dammit, I told you to pick up milk on your way home," she said, wobbling, and collapsed again.

Caitlyn gulped.  "How — how long is she — is she usually like this?"

Ellen spun up onto her feet again.  " — double latte," she said, but this time she didn't collapse.

She blinked a few times, then stood up straight and straightened her dress.  "William—?  Cait?  What — what's going on here?  Oh, my God, what's that?" she asked, pointing at O'Connell's body.

"That's nothing you should worry about.  We were just about to leave," said van der Wals, and he waved at the wolfmen, who raced over and started ushering the centaurs from the room.  "You're here, and Caitlyn's finally here, and Command's been reassembled.  It's finally time to fix the world."