| Kitty was on the edge well into the next week. Agent Brestin still leered at her, and made suggestions, but never went so far as to initiate any contact. She couldn't bring herself to tell anyone, but the two people closest to her could tell she was disturbed by something. Her tension communicated itself to them, just as theirs communicated to her. Kurt was also nervous about something he hadn't told her about. He was solicitous as always, a constant comfort for her, but something was weighing upon her husband. She tried to be there for him, as he always was for her. Karla was really focused on her performance, as edgy as Kitty had ever seen her. "I've never really done well on my missions, Kitty," Karla told her. "I never completely failed, but I've never earned my mission card, either. I just gotta do it, this time." It wasn't clear to Kitty was it was so important to her friend, but she tried to support and encourage her anyway. On Thursday, Karla gave her a hug as she left, despite the guard's glower. Tomorrow was the mission day. "Good luck, Karla," Kitty said. "Thanks, sweety. I think I'm gonna need it." It was lonely without her. Without her friend to talk to, it was five hours of damp, noisy drudgery. Dirty clothes came in, were sorted, washed, dried, sorted again and sent back to the wearer. Every part of the work was unpleasant in unique and interesting ways. Saturday morning shift was a repeat of Friday. It was just work now. But Karla should have been back today... She knew better than to ask about her. That was a big no-no. You never asked where a Hound disappeared. They just did sometimes, and often they never returned. As Kitty was leaving her lunch, Major Hedrick and Trainer Howards intercepted her. What was Howards doing here on a Saturday? "Hound," Howards said. "Let's go back to the dining room." The other lunching Hounds left the room as they found a clean table to talk. A work detail came in and started cleaning up, carefully ignoring Kitty and the men. The major nodded at Howards, and the agent did the talking at first. "We are here to offer you an opportunity, girl. A situation has come up, and it has been determined by the major's department that the most advantageous way to exploit it, is by offering you a chance to earn your Mission card, by performing a special test, today aboard the Carrier." She could get her own Mission card? That would be nice. But... what would she have to do? What is the nature of the test?" she said. The major spoke this time. "To fully understand what we are asking, you have to understand what happens to a Hound or a Worker who is no longer of any use. They are not simply executed, they are studied, to see what makes their mutations function. Once the mutant is dead, the study is continued post-mortem, but they much prefer to perform the study before that..." Kitty shuddered. Shades of Doctor Mengele(*)... "We have in our custody a Hound who has 'washed out', and is no longer useful to the program. The research department is clamoring for the rights, but your trainer has a previously standing claim on such a person to provide a graduation test for yourself." He leaned back in his chair. "My department was called in to make sure that you were able to handle the assignment." Kitty frowned. "And what is the assignment...?" "A useless Hound is a dead Hound, as you well know. It is the manner of death that is the question here. So, what will it be for them? Living vivisection, or a fast, clean death... by your knives. "You want me to... Oh, God. Why me?" Howards took up the argument. "Because, for all your target practice, and the duel with Ox, you've never killed. We didn't give you those blades as a fashion statement. We want you to kill with them. You need the actually experience to get you over the hump, and Hedrick here things that by posing it as a favor to the target, that it might be easier on you. Up to you, though." "Ca-can I see the... target first before I decide, and talk to them?" Howards looked at Hedrick, and the major nodded. "Yes. That will convince you that the target has agreed to this form of execution, as opposed to the other option." Part of her wanted to be sick. More of her was trembling on the knife-edge between withdrawal and hysteria. She felt like pieces of her wanted to fly apart at the seams and never return. Blood. It all came back to blood. She stared down at the table. This was the choice she'd made, to protect Kurt. "I want to see them, talk to them, first. Before I decide." They looked at each other. Hedrick cleared his throat. "I believe that you know her." Kitty grimaced, her eyes screwing shut. Karla. They wanted her to kill Karla. But if it was that or let the butchers at her... "How do I know that this... vivisection thing you mentioned is real?" Hedrick nodded again. "I thought you might ask that. I brought some photographic records. They're disturbing." He put a photo album on the table. In it were page after page of subjects, each starting with a 'before' pictured, and ending with the 'after'. In between were several shots of the procedures done on the mutants, who were obviously awake and aware of them. The pictures showed some faces that were screaming, and some that were weeping. All wound up dead in the closing shot. Eventually. Kitty closed the book with trembling hands. "Can I see her now?" Howards nodded. "She's set up in your training room." Kitty walked with them to the room. She went to the dressing room first, and put on her cat suit, settling the wrist sheaths on her arms. Then she went into the training room. Karla was bound onto a brace, sort of a gurney tilted up at an angle. She looked beaten up. One arm was bandaged heavily, and there were marks of combat everywhere Kitty could see. Over her belly were three neat parallel cuts through her uniform that had barely marked the flesh underneath. Kitty couldn't help but try to analyze what had made the marks on her stomach, and elsewhere on her friend. Some kind of tri-bladed knife? Karla looked up, and Kitty's belly knotted at the despair she could in her eyes. Karla nodded to her painfully, and Kitty approached her. "Hey... Kit." Her voice was hoarse and halting. "Don't... believe. Everything... you see. S'stay..." "The last word was interrupted by Hedrick. "As the question you came here to ask." Kitty bit the inside of her lip. What was she about to say? "Do you want... this..." She patted the blades on her arms, "Instead of... the other... the research." Karla looked her full in the eyes. "Trust you. Make... quick. Clean. Don't trust... them." Her eyes closed. "M'sorry. Please." "Well, Hound?" Howards asked. "The first kill is always the hardest. If you decline this, your next opportunity may not be so easy on you." Kitty wanted to scream at him, you think this is easy? But it was. She had to do it. Karla was her friend, and she couldn't let her die a slow and painful death. She just couldn't. "I'll do it." Her tone was flat and distant. Karla looked up again, a glimmer of gratitude in her reddened eyes. "Thanks Kit," she whispered. "Sorry. So sorry." Kitty nodded brusquely, and paced off to her target practice range. "Close your eyes," she ordered. "I don't want you to flinch." Karla screwed her eyes tightly shut, her breath coming in gasps of anxious fear. Kitty looked for her center and found it, with an effort, in Kurt. Shikt. The daggers snapped to her hands. Cleansing breath. Heart. Left eye. Bright blood splattered from the wounds. Karla lurched in her bonds, and gave a painful gasp, then collapsed limply, her last breath leaking from her in a sigh. Kitty flinched, but made herself finish the pattern. She drew the other two daggers from her boots. Right eye. Throat. No movement from the body. No sound except the wet thunks of steel striking flesh. The throat wound hardly bled at all, and it was dark and sluggish. "Excellent marksmanship, Shadowcat," Howards said. "Retrieve and clean your blades." Kitty picked up a towel from the trainer table, and walked up to the corpse that had once been a friend. The dagger in the throat came out pretty easy, with a scrape against cartilage. The ones in the eye sockets withdrew with a sucking sound that made Kitty struggle to keep her lunch. She'd had to give a yank to the blade protruding from the ribs. It was caught on the rib cage a little, but then pulled free. She took them to the table, and cleaned them thoroughly. She wanted no telltale trace left to remind her of this... crime of compassion. Some orderlies came in and cranked the brace down to the horizontal and wheeled it out. Kitty followed it with her eyes. Shalom, Karla. May you be in a better place. She could feel Hedrick watching her, so she turned around and looked right back, raising her eyebrows at him. "You may be controlling your reaction," he told her, "but be assured, there will be one. It's human nature." Oh. So, now I'm human. News to me. She nodded. Howards handed her a Mission card. "You can have the afternoon work shift off. The Hounds lounge is a good place to hang out. It's next door to the Mission dining room." "Thank you, sir. That sounds like a good idea." She took off her knives and went to the showers, trying to wash the stench of guilt from her. No luck. She changed into her jumpsuit and went to the lounge. There were televisions here, and magazines, all of which appeared to be censored. Nothing resembling news was allowed to reach the Hounds. She curled up in a chair and blankly watched sitcom re-runs. It was going to be a long time till dinner... * * * This time she loitered inside the dining room, waiting for Kurt. A guy Hound she didn't know tried to shoulder her aside on general principles, not because she was in his way. "Watchit, no-name." She dodged and tripped him so he stumbled. "Got a name, so fuck off," she said. "Little Kitty's got some claws, now?" Brad laughed as he heard this. "I don't believe you." She showed him the card. "It doesn't matter what you think, Brad." He snatched it out of her hand, and held it out of her reach, laughing. She grabbed him and phased them both knee deep into the deck. "Now, what happens if I let you go, Brad? They'll have to cut 'em off, and then the research guys'll get you. Give. Me. The. Card." He did, and she lifted them above the floor, and dropped him. She air-walked to the door, and finally went solid when she saw Kurt. She gave him a hard hug. When they pulled apart, he took the card from her hand and looked at it, then gave it back to her. He smelled... sooty. "Hi love," she said. "Liebchen," he murmured, and kissed her on the cheek. "Let's eat." Dinner was quiet, and so was the walk home. When he closed their door, he put on some music and took her to the couch. "Can I tell you about my day at work, Katzchen?" She nodded. Anything, so she didn't have to talk about her day. "It was a regular day, until the second shift." She flinched, but he continued as if he hadn't noticed. "Late in the shift, we got a 'special disposal' delivery. Joe and another guy usually deal with those, but the guy was out sick today. Joe called me to help him with it." He played with his tail, not looking at her. "We wheeled it to the furnace room, and I smelled... death, and blood. There's this incinerator, with a sliding tray, like... a crematorium. We picked up the... body, and the sheet slipped off. I saw her." Kitty covered her face with her hands. He knew. "Despite the wounds, I knew her face. I must have said her name, because Joe asked me if I knew her. I said, yes, she'd introduced us to each other. She was... our friend." He took her in his arms again, and she shivered when she caught the faint smell of smoke in his hair. "We put her through the fire, Katzchen. It reeked so, even with the blowers running." He was quiet for a while. "Joe left, during. When her ashes came out, he scooped some up in a little tin, and gave it to me. 'Nobody does anything for them,' he told me. 'Maybe you can think of something'. Then he had me scrape the rest of the ashes into a bucket, and throw them overboard. That's how dead Hounds are treated. Like rubbish." She clung to him desperately, burying her face in the velvet of his neck. "I recognized the knife pattern you'd told me about," he said. "So, I know you were the one that did it. When I saw the card, I knew they gave it to you for doing it. But... will you tell me... why?" "There's this research department here, Kurt. Doctors and scientists. They study mutants, and their powers, living and dead. They love to dissect them. Dead, if they have to, alive if they can. They wanted her, to cut her up alive. Howards had a claim for... some Hound under a death mark, so I could... have my first kill. I saw the pictures, of them doing things... and they were awake and screaming. That was why I even thought of doing it." She pulled back and looked in his eyes. "She asked me to, Kurt. They let me talk to her. She said... that I'd make it quick and clean. She said... please." She was crying finally, shaking. He looked back at her face for a long moment, and nodded. He reached into his thigh pocket, and removed a little candy tin. "Here's what's left. The rest of her must have... landed already. Ach, mein Katzchen, you must feel so terrible." She nodded jerkily and burst into racking sobs. He held her and whispered words of comfort to her. She just wanted it to go away, as he'd helped her chase her other nightmares away... But this one wasn't leaving. Now, truly, there was blood on her hands, and some remaining fragment of innocence left in her, died. This one she couldn't dismiss, because she'd been given the option to refuse and she'd consented to the act. She had no one to blame for this sin, but herself. God help her. "I feel so old and ugly," she whispered. "I'm a murderer." "You did it out of mercy, Katzchen, not a desire to kill." "She's still dead, and nothing will change that." "From what you told me, she would be dead now, anyway. She was the granted the choice of her death, and she asked for you, her friend." He took her cold hands in his, ignoring her flinch. "These are the hands of mercy, liebe." "Killing is still killing." Thou shalt not kill... "Even the legal system recognizes degrees of killing. Willing killing is murder, yes, but something like this, they call it manslaughter." "Sounds even uglier." She sniffed and scrubbed her nose. "But it is why you did it, liebe, that makes all the difference. Mein Katzchen?" "Yes?" How could he look at her, after... "I love you. I will always love you, no matter what you've done. Now, come to bed with me, wife. The morning comes early." "I don't know what I'd do without you, Kurt." "Nor I, without you, my schatz." (*) For more of the Angel of Death, check out Doctor Mengele Chapter Eighteen Back to Main Page Back to Fanfics Back to Series Index |