Chapter 35
Cynthia put the takeaway coffee cup on the table in front of her.
She sat back and took a deep breath.
It had been a long morning; it had been a long few days.
Matt and Ryan had brought her back from the little desert by helicopter the day after they had found Kara and herself. They never found Courtney. Mirage remained at large, but Cynthia had a feeling that she would not be around Melbourne for a long while. While they sat shivering in the desert waiting for dawn, Matt had told her about Tony’s ability to manipulate. The only way to tell if he was truly Post-Human would be a DNA test, but now it didn’t really matter. He was gone and it was over. He wouldn’t be preying on anyone now.
Cynthia had woken up in a bed in Chinatown, under the care of a Chinese healer. Matt was too afraid to bring her to a public hospital; it would have been too dangerous. They would never have let her go.
The Chinese healer was a lovely old woman who had stayed close to her, but did not dare touch her after she was warned, by Matt, about the danger of touching her skin.
When she awoke she was fed and was able to have a shower on her own. The best part was the quiet.
Now that she was outside, she was confronted by the bustle of the city. The restless, unsleeping machine of relentless human life.
She closed her eyes as she tried to block out some of the sounds.
This morning was harder to face than recovering from the ordeal in the desert. She had made a decision about the direction her life would take. She was done with killing and she was done with being a criminal. It was time for her to try and find her own two feet and face the world. Cynthia had handed her resignation to Bronson Carlyle earlier this morning. It was done.
It was a decision she had made when she woke in the stretcher in Chinatown. She was tired of the violence and she was tired of punishing herself for the life she had taken so many years before.
If Tony had taught her anything, it was that she needed to stop feeling sorry for herself. It was her weakness. Her guilt went hand in hand with working for Carlyle.
Bronson Carlyle had nurtured her ability and encouraged her training. He had made her feel that this was where she belonged. It was all she was good at. It was what she was born to do.
But it wasn’t.
She knew that now. She could be who ever she wanted. She could not allow her ability or her employer to decide who she was.
She was an artist. Cynthia loved to draw and paint. She was a creative person. There were some issues to sort out, but she knew who she would like to be and it wasn’t a killer or a criminal.
Ryan and Kara were going to use their money to move away from Melbourne. Kara had told her that she wanted to see more of the world. She didn’t want to spend her life stealing material things from rich men, she wanted to accumulate some new experiences instead; memories. Ryan had not left Chinatown since he was a boy, so he quit working for Bronson Carlyle, to go with her. He wanted to see Hong Kong, where his family had come from and visit the grave of his mother and father.
Matt had also retired from his position as Carlyle’s private detective. He was filling out an application to become a police officer and hopefully, work his way up to being a real police detective, though he would continue to write his books. He knew a number of people in the Melbourne Police Department, who promised he would excel to the position of detective.
Mirage was gone.
Matt and Ryan called her name and searched everywhere they could while they were in the desert, even searching from the helicopter. She was nowhere to be seen. Cynthia hoped that Courtney Kennedy stumbled onto a farm somewhere to start a new life. She was a troubled girl that had a past to bury, like she did.
Bronson Carlyle was a mess.
His criminal empire was fraying and so was his sanity. Since discovering the truth about his son, Carlyle had become reclusive and would drink more excessively than he used to. Tony was his only child and he thought he had done the right thing, sending him to America, but it turned out that Bronson’s friends, were not who he thought they were. He blamed himself, for exposing his son to the violent influences that had twisted his mind. In truth Bronson would have liked his son to come back to Australia and become an honest and legitimate businessman, but the apple fell closer to the tree than he would have ever expected.
Matt and Ryan went to his penthouse after they returned from the little desert and told him everything. They even brought back Tony’s body to give him a proper burial. Bronson was quiet and drunk. He said nothing when Matt and Ryan told him that they were done with the criminal world. They felt it was time to move on.
Cynthia picked up her cup for another sip.
Cynthia had waited till she was strong again before going to see Bronson herself. She couldn’t even get to him. His guards would not let her in. They told her that he was not feeling well enough for visitors.
From what she had heard from Matt yesterday, she didn’t think he would show himself anywhere for a while. His clubs and drug distribution networks had slowed to a halt, and some were compromised. Some of the employees that ran his illegal exploits were loyal to Ace of Clubs and they had disappeared or simply just disbanded.
Some of these ex-employees were using Bronson’s resources to fund their own little criminal empires. Little drug companies and distributers, gun runners and illegal gambling groups were setting up in many of the dingy hollows that Bronson had lorded over. He was a fallen king and he could not control his vassals any longer.
Cynthia watched the people of Melbourne march to and fro on the footpath in front of her. It was lunchtime and hundreds of business men and women rushed about trying get the most out of the lunch hour.
She sat alone on one of the few tables that sat on the footpath, in the smoggy city air. She loved this city and she loved to watch its people. They were like robots. Each programed to fulfill a simple task and then go about their business. She wondered how many of these smartly dressed men and women knew about the rotted underbelly of society where she had spent years working. She wondered if they even suspected that there were bodies of criminals rotting away under the sand and leaves out in the Little Desert National Park. She wondered if there was a place for her among these blind masses.
They move so fast.
They live so fast.
And they don’t even look around to see her in her white blouse and dark blue bell bottomed jeans. The long white silk gloves she wore were not even given a second glance. She was one of the many in their eyes, but she knews she is like a lion in their midst. She was a woman who could kill with a touch.
Where was her place among these people? Could she ever feel like she was one of them?
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
She had a plan.
This afternoon she was looking at a new apartment. She would rebuild her life and her art studio and she would paint again. This time she had something new to paint. She would paint from that darker side of herself, the killer, the side she would hide from the world.
Deadfall was gone. She would kill no more.
She could see the designs for her future works, floating about in her mind.
She would paint the woman trapped in the mirror, sitting in the dark, unable to spread her foul crows wings. That will be Deadfall’s cage.
Cynthia Abell refused to live as a guilty monster any longer. She would live according to her wants and needs; she would never let her ability rule her life again.
Epilogue
Cynthia drained her takeaway cup and sat it on the table.
This was her first day of freedom.
She stared at the towering buildings and the people passing her by while she considered what she would do with her day.
Perhaps, an inspiring day at the National Gallery, she thought, or maybe browsing some secondhand book shops on Bourke Street?
She glanced down at the empty cup, wishing she’d bought a large, instead of
a medium. In the place where her cup was sat, there was a fresh takeaway cup of steaming coffee.
Where did that come from?
She looked around at the people that march up and down the footpath. There was no one she recognized. And she had not seen anyone place the cup there.
She picked it up and investigated it.
It was a flat white, the same as her last.
As she put it down, she found three paper sachets of sugar, lying on the table in front of her. Her empty cup was gone.
Her eyes were wide. What’s happening?
She looked about frantically for the prankster responsible.
“Relax,” a young man with a short beard and longish hair, pulled out the chair opposite and sat down. “I don’t mean to startle you, Miss Abell.”
Cynthia had never met this man in her life, yet he knew her name. He sat with a self-satisfied smile on his face and a steaming cup of coffee in his hands.
“Who the hell are you? And how do you know my name?” Her eyes narrowed at the newcomer. She hoped it wasn’t someone sent by Carlyle to ask her to return to work. If there was a time when she was needed, it was now.
“Someone, wondering if you would like an avenue to express your talents to some degree.” The man said before sipping.
“I beg your pardon?”
The man gestured to behind her and she turned to look. There was another young man with a shaved head sitting behind her, at the next table. The young man turned and gave her a mischievous grin.
“Are you threatening me? Is that it? Do you think your jerk friend, with the shaved head is going to hurt me?” Cynthia smiled and shook her head.
On my first day of my new life, I get thrown back into this mess…
The bearded man smiled and took another sip of coffee. “No, Miss Abell. No threats. Drink your coffee. I bought it for you. I didn’t know how many sugars you like, so my friend, Ian here, grabbed you three.”
“I don’t want your coffee.” Cynthia pushed it further onto the table.
The bearded man shook his head and shrugged. “Yours after all, Ian.”
Cynthia looked at the where the coffee had been standing. It had vanished and the sachets of sugar were gone too.
She turned in her chair, to look at the man named Ian. He was casually sitting there drinking her coffee, a relaxed look on his face. She had not seen him move.
“What?” he said shrugging, “you said you didn’t want it. We can’t go wasting. This is Melbourne and a good coffee here, costs a mint.”
“How…” Cynthia turned back to the bearded man, who chuckled to himself. “Is he?”
“Post-Human?” The bearded man finished. “Yes. Ian Land can move incredibly fast over short periods of time. And he’s a little devil sometimes, which can wear out everyone’s patience.”
Cynthia felt like she had fallen out of the frying pan and into the fire. She had promised herself that she would renounce the Post-Human part of her life. Kara was leaving and Mirage was gone. She wanted to be normal.
“And you?” She looked him up and down.
“Yes, I am. My name is Brad Lewis. We have been watching you, for some time.”
“Watching me?” she raised her brows.
Brad sipped his coffee again and looked over at Ian. “We have been traveling around for a little while, looking for people like us.”
Cynthia crossed her arms. “Why?”
She was skeptical after meeting the last person who was searching for Post-Humans.
Brad gestured to the people filing past. “For them.” He watched for a moment in silence. “I don’t think we are any different to them really. We can do things that they can’t, that’s all. To some of us, it is a blessing, to others a curse.”
He gestured for Ian to come at sit at their table.
The man rose and sat down next to Brad at a normal, human speed.
“The world is changing,” Brad continued. “I have seen it. Like being a spectator for the grand documentary of natural evolution. I have seen it.” He stared vacantly at the people that past them by. “My ability allows me to remember every word I read. I could retell War and Peace to you, if you were bored enough to want to hear it. But my preference is to read every piece of news and every hidden file on every hidden person in the world.” He placed his coffee cup on the table. “That is my curse. With this ability, I can see the changes taking place for better, or worse.”
Cynthia nodded, following Brad’s story, but keeping her guard up.
“The world is changing, Miss Abell and it is happening fast. These people go to work and live out their lives, the way they want to and the way they think their parents had before them, but reality is very different. They are barely keeping traction anymore. Technology is advancing at a rate, faster than any other period in history. The rich are beyond rich and the poor are dangerously susceptible to suggestion and can be manipulated. And then there is us, Miss Abell. The governments of the world have been aware of Post-Humans for decades, but only now, are the rumours of our existence, coming to light in public.” Brad sat forward. “They will fear us, Miss Abell and they should. Not all of us are honest.”
Spiels about an inevitable future were still very familiar to her. Anthony Carlyle, the notorious Ace of Clubs, had only been dead for four days.
“What are you saying? That I’m dangerous and you want to kill me?” Cynthia spat back. “I don’t understand why you need to come to me, of all people, in a public place like this for a foreboding conversation.”
“Forgive me,” Brad sat back and glanced at his friend. “Ian and I have been working very hard, to find our place in this brave new world. I will assume you have too.”
Cynthia said nothing.
“We want to unify our kind, in a way that is both hopeful for us and helpful to them.” Brad gestured to the people passing by. “We want a purpose. And we plan on etching our names into the history books as the Post-Humans that made a difference. We want to unify a group of young, intelligent Post-Humans so they can try and bring some justice and protection to these people.” Brad sat back and looked at the people rushing by and the tall buildings. “Miss Abell, they move so fast. They live so quickly and they don’t see their world crumbling around them.”
Cynthia narrowed her eyes at the two men.
“What do you mean by crumbling?” she asked.
“You were one of those cracks in their fragile reality once. You took the Post-Human name, Deadfall and you worked for a criminal figurehead.”
Cynthia began to get up, but the man named Ian gestured that she should wait. “He is only one of many Miss Abell.” Brad shrugged. “You know this. He has fallen, from what I can tell. I heard about The Ace of Clubs. There will be more and more like him, all over the world as we become recognized.”
“Tony Carlyle was insane.” Cynthia clenched her fingers tightly together.
The sunlight sparkling on her white, silk gloves.
“Maybe. His kind could be everywhere. That’s why we need to give the people a reason appreciate us and respect us. We need to give them heroes.” Brad finally smiled.
“Heroes? Like super-heroes? As in comic books? Why do the people need comic book characters? You must be crazy, too. We are human, like them. We need to unify with the normal people.” Cynthia shook her head.
Brad drained his coffee cup and sat it on the table.
“It’s not about being super-heroes.” Ian said as he poured in all three sugars. “It’s about being a symbol they recognize. They associate heroes with good and stability. If we are just Post-Humans, they won’t understand. The human being’s first reaction to change is fear. It always has been and always will. And we aren’t just a new software program or an alternate fuel source, we are them. We are the people that were living among them the whole time. Of course when some genius says it like that, on national television, everyone will be afraid. They won’t rush next door to visit their Post-Human neighbour and beg for demonstr
ations of their abilities. They will cry deception.”
Cynthia nodded slowly as she thought about this.
“Fear,” Brad added, “will drive them and deception is what they will cry when they openly seek us out.”
“And becoming super-heroes will change this? How?” Cynthia challenged.
“It won’t change anything,” Ian said as he sat back in the chair. “It will soften the blow.”
Brad nodded. “And not super-heroes, just people with the ability to make a difference. The time that we are unveiled to the world is coming, fast, I have seen it in the texts of the world. Everything about human culture is racing towards its own demise and we are one of those linchpins. We have to do anything we can, so we aren’t just deceivers. That is why we are creating, The League.”
Cynthia understood. Everything that had happened to her in the last two weeks told her that the world was changing. She had met two other Post-Humans and a man who was hell bent on tearing society apart at the seams to rid the world of them. Brad Lewis’ premonition of cultural destruction was something she felt. She was part of it, she just wanted to hide from it.
She sat her crossed arms on the table. “So where do I come into this, Mr Lewis?”
Ian sat forward and Brad smiled as he placed his coffee cup in front of him. “I have a job proposition for you, Miss Abell.”
Also by Thurston Bassett
and Kalamity Press
The League
Book One of the Post-Humans:
Prologue
7 years ago, when it began.
It was Tim’s eighteenth birthday, Athan was nineteen. Athan had been a year ahead at high school, and was in his second year of university. He studied Fine Art and Art History; drawing and painting were his passion.
He was also trying to become a little more confident than he was in high school. He was a fairly introverted person by nature, preferring to hide in creative activities and his comics.
Deadfall: A Post-Humans Story Page 21
