The unbearable weight of waiting ... - Part 4
The tiny, almost invisible, grapple released, the cord retracting and Caitlyn dropped like a rock onto the gravel that covered the roof of the next building. It only proved that every single incredible gymnastic act she had performed as Blood Obsidian came from the suit. Thankful that this suit given to her by Kyle protected her from scrapes as well as, maybe, bullets, she dragged herself back to her feet. This was not the first, or only, time she had made a terrible landing.
Pho-Boy sat on a parapet, awaiting her, and she tried to show a modicum of dignity as she moved toward him, glad that he couldn't see the pained expression beneath the mask. To his credit, he hadn't said a word about the numerous falls, the several times she had swung one way, or the other, when she should have swung the opposite. Or that one time where she almost lost both her dignity and virginity on a smoke stack that just appeared from nowhere.
"This doesn't feel like training. It feels like some kind of show made from videos posted online that really embarrass the ..." Caitlyn paused as Kyle held a finger against his exposed lips before pointing down below. "Is this it? Is this ..."
"No. This is what we call 'opportunity'." He waited until she neared him, looking over the edge. "On the job training. What do you see?"
Bad people. That was obvious. People moving boxes, into an unmarked van, in the middle of the night tended to be bad guys. She got the impression that Kyle expected more than that. If it was obvious, he wouldn't ask her what she saw. Taking a closer look, she wished she had the enhancements her own suit provided. She could use the night and telescopic vision that it gave her. Instead, she had to rely on her eyes and they weren't helping.
Then she saw it, something swishing inside the doorway. It looked like a tail. And, to the other side, a man with a rifle. Kneeling, almost hidden behind boxes, that man covered line of sight out of the alley. She pointed to the gunman and then wiggled her finger as pointed at the door. Kyle nodded.
"So, what do we do?" She eased herself back, out of sight. "What's the plan?"
"Punch bad guys." Kyle jumped up, pirouetting in the air and, as he began to drop over the side of the building, lifted his arm to fire the miniature grapple. "Plans are for smart people."
Caitlyn almost fell over the parapet as she rushed to see Kyle leap downward. He had already landed on top of the van, rolling along the top, coming to a stop in a crouch. The guy with the gun reacted immediately, but didn't fire wildly, sending two shots Kyle's way, moving, firing two more. The other goons threw the boxes into the van and reached for hidden guns, but Kyle had already moved, bouncing and leaping. He turned his hand toward one guy, firing something that struck the bad guy in the face, popping and covering him with some kind of smoke.
The man began to scream, swatting away at something only he could see, firing his pistol in random directions. Unfortunately, one of those shots caught Kyle in the leg, dropping him to the roof of the van. Caitlyn had moved before she even knew what she was doing and, like an idiot, had dived head-first over the parapet. She had fractions of seconds before she splatted into the ground and she doubted Aunt Mary would forgive her breaking curfew.
At the last moment, she lifted her hand and whatever wonder computer was inside the gauntlet, it recognised what she wanted, firing the grapple and allowing her to arrest her fall with a twang as the cord drew taut. She swung, legs held tight together, and smashed her booted feet into the face of the man with the rifle. She almost made the landing, too, but her foot landed on the man's shoulder, a cruel sounding snap reaching her ears and the man howled in pain.
"Don't apologise to the bad guys!" She whispered to herself as she tried to regain her feet. "Don't apologise to the bad guys!"
Something struck her, sending her spinning backward and lowered her centre of gravity to catch her footing, spreading both hands out to the side, only to find a bizarre sight in front of her. It was a man. At least, she thought it was, with great, fluffy, mutton-chop whiskers and a half-face mask that resembled the look of a monkey. In fact, his entire outfit made him look like a monkey, and it was the swishing tail that had caught Caitlyn. Now that tail whipped out toward her again. Somehow, she would never be able to say how, she managed to flip backward, out of the tail's range.
"Very impressive, but you-hoo-hoo-ha-ha-ha-ha will never escape the clutches of ..." He literally made a pose in the middle of a fight, though it looked more weird than impressive. "... the Spider Monkey!"
Caitlyn raised her arm, firing the little grapple onto Spider Monkey's chest, gripping skin and chest hair alike, and pulled him forward even as she pushed against the wall she had backed up against. She launched herself forward, meeting the Spider Monkey half-way and punched him solid on the jaw with that big gauntlet, almost toppling him head-over-heels backward. Landing, she crouched, spinning to see where the last two bad guys were, only to hear clapping coming from on top of the nearby van. Kyle, uninjured, stood with two men, unconscious, fastened together with cable ties. Where Kyle had hidden those, Caitlyn didn't know.
"Well done! I knew you could do it. All that almost falling, almost dying, almost impaling yourself, yes, I saw it, and the screams. You didn't have faith in yourself. You didn't trust yourself." He jumped from the top of the van, tumbling in the air, and landed next to Spider Monkey. "You don't get combat trained by Trooper Jane and not gain a lot of heroism. She has that affect. It's like, you really, really don't want to disappoint her because you know she'll just say, 'never mind, soldier, you'll do better next time', in that way she has that really makes you feel guilty that you didn't try harder."
Caitlyn could only gawp at the boy. Of course, he couldn't see it through the mask.
"You talk. Like, a lot." She looked down at Spider Monkey and the other man, clutching at his damaged shoulder, and had to remind herself, again, not to apologise for hurting them. "What do we do with them?"
Kyle squatted down, pulling something from the cuff of his gauntlet, and turned Spider Monkey onto his front, pulled his arms behind him, and the thrashing tail, and tied them all together with a cable tie that Caitlyn thought must be a lot stronger than the cable ties found in hardware stores. He did the same to the injured man, apologising as the man yelped in pain, and patted him on the injured shoulder. Then, as an afterthought, he broke down the rifle, tossing the parts behind him.
"Now, we finish what we came out here to do. Local cops are on their way. I called while you were dealing with these dudes." He clapped his hands together, as though dusting them off, and pointed one hand upward. "Keep up!"
The grapple fired upward and the last thing she saw was that grin on his face as he shot up into the sky. He had an energy about him that Caitlyn doubted she could keep up with if she hadn't had probably the worst school day of her life.
-+-
Back at Aunt Mary's King's Field apartment ...
Mary had tossed and turned for over an hour, now, thinking back to the events from earlier. She couldn't deny her disappointment in Caitlyn. Ever since she was a child, following the loss of her parents, Mary had expected Caitlyn to go off the rails at some point. How could any child not fall into that kind of thing? All that pain, that anger that a child must feel, not truly understanding why her parents were never coming back. It had to have an outlet somewhere, but Caitlyn had never shown it.
Richard had helped there, showering the girl with affection, bur never allowing it to go to Caitlyn's head. Pushing her in the things she found interest in. Teaching her how to be good and kind and selfless. All the things that came so easily to a man that had suffered his own hardships as a child. After Richard died, Mary had expected the pushback again and, yet again, it hadn't come. Caitlyn had mourned, but she had never rebelled. Now, however, it looked like that rebellion had begun with a vengeance.
Still, she felt she had been a little harsh with the girl and that played on Mary's mind. The kind of worry that simply would not hold well until the morning. The kind that would fester and cause rifts between two people that only had each other in their lives. She couldn't bear losing Caitlyn as well. Wrapping her gown around her, she crept to Caitlyn's door, making soft taps against the wood that needed painting. One of Richard's jobs that Mary would have to do. One day.
"Caitlyn? Honey? I just want to talk. I do want to believe you. No, I do believe you, but you need to tell me everything so that I can understand." She paused, listening for any movement that would tell her Caitlyn listened. The only thing she could hear were the sounds of the city outside the window. "If you ever feel things are getting too much for you, I'm here. I'm ready to listen. You only need to talk. We only need to talk. Can you hear me, honey? Caitlyn?"
This was unlike Caitlyn, too. She was never one to ignore people, no matter how angry she may be. Even if she only gave a few curt words through a closed door, she would always answer. And those noises Mary could hear? The city noises. The shouting and the sirens and the slow, low rumble of traffic that never seemed to end. It all sounded too loud.
She didn't like doing it. Keeping Caitlyn's privacy, especially now, as a teenager, was important, but something felt off. Turning the handle, she pushed open the door and looked around the edge. The curtains on the window billowed into the room, caught by the wind from gap of the frame lifted and held open. And, there, on the bed, Mary saw only rumpled sheets. Of Caitlyn, she could see nothing.
"Oh, my girl." She moved to the window and looked out over the street and the roofs of nearby buildings, shaking her head. "Whatever you're going through. You just be careful and come back to me. You come back and be my girl again, you hear?"