Catharsis (Book 2): Catalyst (20 page)

            As the men turn and squint in a vain attempt to discern what is making the outrageous racket across the street, my silent, gray gifts
poompf
into the grass around them undetected.  Their attention is focused elsewhere, and they aren't paying any attention to what is occurring right next to them.  All three rocks land exactly where I want them to with no further issue.

            "Four dropped," I whisper to Ren as I scurry out from behind the slide and continue my circuitous route of the houses.  "Moving now."

            By weaving my way from one side of the two houses to the other and deploying distraction techniques when necessary, I manage to drop six more of the rocks in the area before coming up on the last part of the houses I have to bug: their front doors.  I had been avoiding the front doors up until now as the men stationed there never wander and never leave their posts.  There is no useable window of time for me to take advantage of, and that means I have to step up my game (and my distractions) in order to create one.

            I've already been here an hour longer than I had planned to be, but since this is my last stop of the night and I haven't really been exerting much energy, I figure there's no hurry.  Might as well take my time and do the job well as opposed to hurry and need to come back later. 

              Sitting and watching the busy movement of the men across the street, I can tell my constant interfering with their schedule has them on edge.  Even though I haven't ever watched them under any other circumstances other than tonight’s, their hurried remarks, brusque attitudes and sharp replies all lead me to believe I've gotten them rattled.  There’s every chance they’ve heard rumors about the attacks I’ve launched on their other locations, and they know their bosses must have a reason for fortifying this place now.  And who knows how long they've been set up here waiting for an attack without getting one.  That must be making them antsy.  And now here I am showing up and making sounds just outside of their field of vision and getting them spinning every which way to chase the phantoms I keep creating for them.  It's been entertaining and useful in helping me achieve my goal, but I'm not sure how it gets me past my current dilemma. 

            No matter how many distractions I've created tonight, the men flanking the front doors at both houses have never left their posts to investigate.  The best I've managed to do is to get them to hunker down and raise their rifles threateningly to point out at the nothingness surrounding them.  I don't think if I were to even explode a car down the street they would twitch a muscle in consideration of checking it out.  I'm not sure how their superiors have convinced them to stand tall in the face of whatever happens, but they've done a great job of it. 

            Staring at the men across the street in abject frustration at my inability to solve the issue, I drop my chin into my hands and sit cross-legged in the shadows.  On the ground around the front porch where the men are standing I can already see a large number of rocks strewn about.  If I could just get
my
fake rocks in among those real ones, then I'm sure they'd sit forever without being noticed.  But how can I get my rocks over to those piles without them being seen?  If I could just throw them and have them blend in…

            With that thought, my head pops up, and I blink in stark realization.  I've solved it.  I can hide the rocks in plain sight.  I
can
just throw the rocks at them and have them not be noticed...as long as they are just several of a whole storm of rocks being thrown.  The memory of the first time I assaulted one of these Action Houses floods back through my brain, and I remember pelting the men guarding the front doors with rocks.  That was how I managed to gain entrance.  By throwing rocks at them.  Why not do it again?  Or at least make them
think
that's what I'm doing again.  If I can gather up enough rocks and just throw them over like I'm attacking, then I can slip in the occasional foam rock and it won't be noticed.  All my rocks, even the fake ones, will just blend in with the ones already there.  I can disguise them by putting them out in the open.

            "I'm a genius,” I laugh out loud and then wonder if it'll get a reply from Ren.  It doesn't, though.  He's too absorbed with his new toys to respond to a comment like that.

            Getting up from my sitting position, I hurry off to begin scouring the neighboring yards for their collection of useable stones.  I need to find some that are of a similar size to our false ones so I don't bring extra attention to our decoys.  Having a size limitation in mind while hunting keeps me focused, but it also slows me down as I have to discard the majority of throwable stones that I find.  After an hour of searching and running back forth, I manage to create four separate stone piles in different places around the houses so that I can keep moving and not stay stationary during the operation.  I'm pretty sure the thugs will either start shooting in my direction once they figure out where the rocks are coming from, or send someone to investigate.  And either way I want to be gone within seconds of throwing the first rock.

            "If this works, then I'm definitely a genius," I tell the first pile of stones as I squat down next to it and pick up a couple to test their weight.  "And if doesn't," I say and shrug.  "Then at least I got to throw rocks at bad people.  That's really a win-win in the end."

            Raising my voice slightly, I tell Ren, "Preparing to drop final mikes on target.  Should be placed and operational in under a minute."

            I figure I'll target the furthest locations from the house first, and then work my way inwards.  Hefting several of the stones at once, I begin the process of arcing them up and through the air so that they will land on the hoods and windshields of the cars waiting along the curb.  I know these cars don't technically belong to the people who work the drug trade, but they do belong to the customers and that makes them nearly as bad.  Before the first rock has even landed, I quickly pull out one of my foam rocks and toss it so that will land near the first house's mailbox.  It isn't going to land right next to the others, but I figure they might not notice or just assume it's an errant throw.

            The first stones begin to rain down on the waiting cars, and the response is immediate and impressive.  Men from all over both yards turn and bring their rifles to bear on the people trapped in the cars as round chunks of granite continue to bounce off and shatter their windows and dent the frames of their cars.  There is a lot of shouting and arguing, but not a single person takes off running.

            With my remaining eight rocks at this location, I pick out several men in the yard (and one of the nicer cars) and throw the rocks as hard as I can.  The expensive-looking car's windows shatter and the front tire pops with a
FWUM-hiss
of air.  The men I target mostly make it out of the onslaught unscathed as I didn't take time to aim.  I just wanted somewhere to throw.  Unfortunately, one of the men I had aimed for was stepping forward at the time.  The movement put him straight into the path of my laser beam of a throw, and he took the stone to his exposed head.  Blood goes up in a spray around him as he drops to the ground in a heap.  With one of their own now injured and possibly removed from battle permanently, the remaining men leap into action. 

            But their movements are far too slow for me.  As they start to figure out where the rocks were coming from and the first few men fire controlled bursts into the woodpile I had been hiding behind, I've already sprinted fifty yards to my next store of stones.  Within seconds the operation is repeated, except this time I drop our tech in the front yard between the two houses where the patrols and customers are constantly passing through.

            Again, the thugs swivel to target my new position after I've already left it and moved on to the next.  Their intentions may be good, but I'd already anticipated those actions and planned for them.  This is not a night where I'll be beat easily.

            My last two stockpiles of rocks are depleted quickly, and as soon as I see my final foam stone bounce harmlessly past the feet of a man standing guard at one of the doors, I turn and run for the safety of the fast food parking lot where I hid the Zero. 

That went about as well as I could have hoped.  I guess I am a genius after all.  Might as well let Ren in on the revelation.

            "Hey Ren," I tell him as I run.  "Mission accomplished.  All tech has been delivered, and it's official.  I'm a genius.  Over."

            "Good job Cat," he tells me almost immediately, and his promptness catches me by surprise.  "I think I may have to actually agree with you this time.  And your final diversion has already paid off dividends."

            "Uhm, good," I tell him, and then think about it.  "How?" I wonder out loud.

            "Well, after your attack, they've gone into lockdown mode at that location.  That’s fine.  I kind of expected something like that.  No big deal.  But here's where it gets fun.  They are giving their customers the addresses of other places to go tonight for business.  They're sending them to other Action Houses instead of the ones you just hit."  He pauses and takes a breath, and a small chuckle escapes him.  "I've already recorded the names of three more targets in just the last minute."

            "Well, that's just awesome," I tell him and smile.  "That makes me an even bigger genius than I had thought."

            "Yeah, yeah.  Don't let it go to your head.  Just hurry on back here so you can start helping me sift through all this data.  Your lack of a need to sleep is going to really start paying off for us."

            Ugh.  The last thing I want to do with my sleep-deprived nights is spend them sitting and listening to criminals converse about banal activities like what stores sell the best bullets, who has the shiniest knife, or whatever else it is they chat about.  That's Ren's happy place not mine, but now's not the time to break that to him.

            "Ok.  I just have to stop and get something to drink first.  Then I'll be home."

            "Turn off your mic then, and I'll see you when you get here."

            At least that was our plan until an hour later when my phone rang, and then everything changed. 

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

            It is barely eleven o'clock at night by the time I finally track down enough lone individuals wandering the streets of our city for me to get my fill of the warm, red nectar that sustains me.  Still not wanting to get back to Ren and his mountains of recorded audio to listen to, I take some time to cruise slowly through the streets of the city and check out the denizens.  If I'm going to risk my life on a daily basis to make their world better, then it's also nice on occasion to get to see them as they interact with each other (Although it
is
weird how much I keep thinking about the people of the city as a separate
them
.  Mentally, it feels like I am already disconnecting with the citizens that I strive to protect.  Maybe that's because I also have to see them as a food source...).

            When my phone goes off several minutes later as I’m passing a young mother pushing a baby carriage down a well-lit downtown street (What is a baby doing out at this time of night anyway?), it startles me.  Even though it's just my helmet vibrating around my ears and a slight
pinging
sound to alert me to the fact that someone is trying to get a hold of me.  Well, not
someone
.  Only one person calls me since Ren would just use our radio, and I’m still not used to her having my number.  It’s only been a couple of weeks since I finally broke down and gave it to her.

            Without needing to look at the Caller ID, I answer the phone and say, "Hey Leyna, what's up?  Bit late for a week night isn't it?"

            Her sobbing drowns out my last few words, and I realize both she didn't hear what I just said and that something is very wrong.  I've not heard my sister cry like this in years.  She may have been painted with a touch of the drama brush, but even she doesn't usually bring tears into her meltdowns.  She always says it makes a girl look weak, and she's too stubborn to ever be weak.    

            That thinking is partly why I still love her so much.

            "Hey what's wrong Leyna?  Speak to me," I tell her and drop the original jocular tone from my voice to embrace my more concerned and sisterly one.

            "They did it, Cat.  They finally did it, and I can't take it," she wails into the phone.  "They can't do this to me.  It's not fair.  I'm not a kid anymore."

            Pulling over and stopping my bike next to the curb, I settle in for a long conversation that I'm thinking is going to need all my concentration and attention.  Whatever's going on has to be pretty big to get her worked up like this.

            Listening to my sister's pathetic sobs over the phone, I reflect on the me of just a few seconds ago and curse myself for not wanting to go back to the warehouse to listen to audio.  In my desperate attempt to avoid work, this is what Fate has served up for me.  A distraction to trump all distractions: younger sister family drama.

            "Slow down Leyna, and tell me what's going on.  Who are we talking about?  Is it mom and dad?  What'd they do?"

            "Cat, they grounded me and told me I can't see him.  And they embarrassed me.  He probably won't ever talk to me again.  They ruined everything."

            "Him who?" I ask struggling to catch up.  "The guy you've been thinking about dating?  I didn't think it was anything serious.  You just told me the other day that you haven’t even gone on a date with him, yet.  What changed so quickly?"

            "Well," she starts and her crying abates a bit as I can hear her thinking her way through her words.  "I might not have been completely honest with you, Cat.  We've kinda been moving along much faster than I've let on."

            "What?" I nearly shout the word into my helmet and the echo bounces around my head like a loose ping pong ball.  I'm not sure what shocks me more:  the fact that she's moving much faster than I had been thinking - which was already faster than I wanted her to - or the fact that she had been lying to me.  The fact that she
could
lie to me.  So easily.  "Explain," I tell her and do my best to control my own breathing.

            "Cat," Leyna wails again.  "They caught me trying to get out tonight, and they made me call him and now he hates me and he'll never talk to me again."

            That was some good information, but her avoidance of my real question isn't lost on me.  "Uh huh," I say simply.  "That's real interesting, but let's go back a bit further.  To the part where you've been lying to your sister for who knows how long.  Let's explain that part."

            "Oh," she says meekly.  "That part."

            "Yeah, Leyna," I growl without a hint of a smile in my voice.  "That part."

            "If you're going to act just like them and be all judgmental about it, Cat," she begins with just enough of a haughty hint to her tone to let me know she's trying to redirect the conversation and hoping I don't notice.  "Then I'm not going to get into it with you.  That's not why I called."

            "Leyna," I say with just a hint of the deepness in my voice that I've used to get my way with any number of street thugs these last several months.  "Don't try and shift the blame here.  If you want me to listen and help and console, then I need to know what all has been going on.  I'll worry about being judgmental later.  For now I just want information.  Real information.  Not whatever fairy tale you've been spinning me lately."

            She sighs, and I can hear the hyped up emotions drain out of her with the sound.  "Ok, Cat.  Sure."

            "Thanks.  Now how long have you been serious with this guy?"

            She pauses before answering, and I don't know if it is to delay the conversation or because she’s busy thinking.  But before I can interject, she tells me, "A little over a month now.  It was pretty much like I told you at the beginning," she says as she starts to talk more quickly and pack in the information.  "That part was all true.  I hadn't ever meant to lie to you, but then things sped up and you and I didn't talk as often.  And he really seemed to like me, and it was nice having a guy be so...well, nice to me."  She stops to breathe and then continues.  "And you didn't seem like you approved of me being with a guy.  Any guy.  So I kind of fudged the details a bit so that you wouldn't worry about me."

            "Leyna," I finally interrupt her.  "I'm supposed to worry about you.  I'm your older sister.  It's what older sisters are
supposed
to do."

            "I know, Cat.  But you always seem so busy with what you're doing in the city.  And I know I can't really ask all the details about what you do with your time, you've told me that.  But lately you've seemed really distracted and caught up with whatever is going on, and I didn't want to add to that.  I didn't want you to have to add ‘worrying about me and a guy’ to your list when you were already weighed down with your more important things."

            Even though I know her words weren't intended to sting like they do (I sense no malice in her words.), they hurt.  The idea that my little sister thinks I have bigger things in my life than her wounds me more than anything else I've experienced over the past year.  Maybe I have become too absorbed lately with Chadwick and the drug cartels.  I'm losing focus on what should be the essential things.

            "Leyna," I squeak out in a higher voice than I had intended.  "There's nothing more important to me than you.  Ever.  I'm sorry I lost sight of that lately.  I really am."

            Closing my eyes and doing my best to control my breathing, I ask the question that I know needs asking, but that I dread to hear the answer to.  "So tell me about this guy.  What's he like?"

            "Really, Cat?  You wanna hear about him?"  And her voice sounds like the little girl she really is, and I'm reminded all over again that my family has gone through more hardship than it ever should have at way too early of a stage of life.

            "Yeah, of course I do,” I tell her and I lean forward on my bike and rest my head against the handlebars and prepare myself to absorb information that I really don't want to know about.  But I'm doing it for her.  She needs me right now, and this is how I can be there for her.

            "He's tall and blond and handsome and has great teeth, and he smiles all the time and he's super friendly and he's never mean to me," and her recitation of how awesome he is continues for several minutes before I get a chance to introduce another question into the conversation.

            "Ok, ok, Leyna, I get the picture," I finally say.  "Enough about how much of a human Adonis he is, why don't you tell me about these supposed 'dates' he has taken you on that I never got to hear about."

            From what she proceeds to tell me over the next several minutes, the guy seems to be mature and have good taste.  He's taken her out to dinner and movies a few times.  They even went ice-skating once at the local forum.  He always pays for her and lets her choose the movie or the event or the restaurant, and more importantly they haven't progressed beyond a simple goodnight kiss between the two of them.

            "Really?"  I interject after she tells me that.  With just that little tidbit of information, I'm already feeling better and more relaxed.  Maybe the boy isn't so bad after all.  I wonder why mom and dad are so against him.  He seems like the perfect person for her from what she's saying.  "That makes me feel better, Leyna.  It really does.  He sounds like a great guy.  So why don't mom and dad like him then?"

            "Uh huh," I hear her mumble distractedly, and I can tell I don't have her full attention.  Just as I get ready to chastise her for being rude during our conversation, she bursts out with, "Cat!  He doesn't hate me.  He doesn't.  He forgives me and wants to talk.  Isn't that great?"

            "What?"  Her sudden jump in topic has completely confused me.  "What are you talking about?"

            "He just texted me while we were talking, and I checked it.  He said that he understands, and it's no hard feelings and he wanted to know if he could call me."  She does her best to suppress a giggle, but it isn't very effective.  "I told him of course.  I think he's going to call me any minute.  Isn't that great?"

            "Yeah, it's great Leyna.  I'm happy for you.  I really am.  I hope things work out."  I swallow and consider whether or not I should bring up my earlier question before we got interrupted.  Finally, I decide I might as well.  Otherwise curiosity might needle at me the rest of the night.  "So, back to what I asked a moment ago, why don't mom and pop like him if he's so great?  I don't get it."

            "Oh that," she says with only a slight dimming of her bright bubbliness.  "They're just being old fuddy duddies who won't embrace the world of today.  It's no good reason at all."

            "Ok," I say and laugh.  That is a pretty decent view of our parents even though I do love them to death.  'Cutting-edge liberals' was never something they embraced.  "But expand on that to ease my curiosity."

            "Fine, but don't you get all preachy on me, too.  I don't want you trying to ruin my good mood."

            "What?  No.  I already told you, I'm past that.  No judging tonight, right?"

            "Ok, Cat, thanks," she says and breathes a small sigh of relief that I can hear over the speaker.  "They're upset because he doesn't go to my school and we met online."

            "That's why they're upset?  I agree with you that that isn't a very strong reason.  Meeting people online is supposed to be a pretty big thing now.  It might not work for me, but I can't see that being a reason to not like the kid."  I consider what she told me and our parents' reaction and then address the other part of what she told me.  "So if he doesn't go to your school, then what school does he go to?  Must be one nearby if he can still get to you for dates.  What high school is it?  Is it downtown?  Is that why they aren't happy?"

            She doesn't respond right away, and something tells me I've stumbled upon the real source of the friction between Leyna and our parents.  "Well he doesn't go to any of the nearby high schools, actually."

            Figuring out why my parents got so upset with her, I do my best to not let my own opinion of her choices seep into my tone.  "So he dropped out?  Ok.  That's not that bad.  A lot of good people make that choice and go back to fix it later in life.  That doesn't make him a bad person."

            "He's not a dropout, Cat.  He's really smart.  Really, really smart," and as she says the last words her voice fades out for a second letting me know she has another call coming in.  I'm assuming this is the guy calling her back.

            "What do you mean he's not a dropout?  Is he in college?  Leyna, are you dating a guy in college?"  My voice starts to involuntarily rise as I comprehend what she is telling me and why my parents got so mad.  A dropout is one thing, but dating a guy that's in college when you're only an underclassmen in high school?  That's just wrong.  And illegal.

            "That's him, Cat," she says, and I can tell she's ending her conversation with me to start one with him.  "I gotta go.  I'll call you later.  Thanks for talking with me, though.  I feel better.  You're the best."

            "Leyna!"  I nearly holler into the phone.  "Is he in college?  Tell me?"  I need to know.

            I can hear breathe quietly for just a moment before answering, and those two breaths she takes will stay with me for the rest of my life.