“I’m afraid, Caesar,” the young lion clung to his human in a tight embrace.
Into his ear he spoke softly:“So am I.”
Moving the pair out of the way, the large cat rushed to the wooden door and nearly smashed it free from its hinges.It was a thick slab, unlike the others and seemed to have been reinforced.He tried again and in so doing retracted much of its oak frame and exposed the iron beams embedded in it.Frustrated beyond bearing, he gave it one last kick and it fell, lifeless.
“It’s now or never,” the puma growled, his gruff timber an accident of his cranial design.He grabbed the two and shoved them forward, into the passage, he himself following closely.The ceiling was low and he had to stoop on his knees to fit through.Shredded cobwebs brushed against his mane, sharp sprinkles of paint rained on the fur of his shoulders and back.
Outside, the climate of Metropolis was unnaturally calm and silent.The air was still, the sounds of the city had been muffled.Dark shadows had been cast over the scene, not clouds, not the slant of buildings, it was, instead, a more dubious cause, a more sinister predicament.Lights, streetlights, traffic lights, spotlights were off, all of them everywhere.Electric vehicles were stopped, gadgetry remained in perpetual stasis.
Tall towers and cascading structures loomed naked and unprotected, their godly luster gone, their stature reduced to the mere shards of their former selves.
“Ahhh!” the lion screamed and collapsed.
Shocked, his friends looked on in helpless horror as he squirmed on the sidewalk.
“Cub,” Pumalo held his arms and gently eased him up.“What is it, what’s wrong?”
Kara covered his face with his hands -- Caesar drew them back.
Blood tickled from his misshapen nose but it was the teenager’s mouth that was the cause of his extreme discomfort.The muscles wrapped around his jaws had shifted position and the effect was unutterably painful.Masses of flesh in his face moved below his tight hide and in response his mouth snapped shut.Fighting back the tears, he exercised his jaw, open and shut, the way he had taught himself earlier.
Barely audible, he said:“Sorry, it happened again.”His lips were only slightly parted and did not move as he spoke.“I didn’t think it would happen again.”
Caesar rubbed the cat’s hands:“Your face is changing,” he leaned over and kissed his cheek, “is it better now?”
“Much,” he nodded.
Pumalo gave him a tight squeeze and helped him to his feet.
Algernon slumbered in bed, uncovered.Long days and nights of work had weakened the outcast doctor.Having unleashed upon the world his lifelike robot, he set the alarm to noon and prepared himself for a long, drawn-out rest.But the device had failed and it was both directly and indirectly his fault.
He rubbed his eyes as rays of bright light seeped through the windows of the bedroom.He looked at the clock but its green digits had faded black.Disturbed, he eased himself out of the bed and looked around the chamber.The security monitors were off-line, the telephone was dead, the crystal radio received static only.
The unblocked daylight irritated his eyes and the effect distracted his mind.He rushed to the windows, intent to shut the portals.At that very moment a series of explosions shattered the ground and almost knocked him off his feet.The human-tiger staggered up and peered out of the pane, covered in the relative safety of the curtain’s dark fabric -- a large mob, formless and indistinct by distance, had emerged from the cavernous recess of the city.
“Lord Phaeton’s plans are going better than expected,” he chuckled.To think that it had worked so well, so quickly.Were the throwbacks so gullible, or was his machine so perfect?
Personal safety was an idea too superfluous to the doctor at that moment.He had instructed his creation to keep the rioting and looting as far away from his home as possible.Besides, the lord of the Thundercats would have never let anything happen to him.Who else could build the robots for him?
His eyes started from their sockets in flash of terror.
Caesar stood just a hundred feet from his house, on the abandoned streets, with two throwback at his side.
“No!” he shouted as he ran across the room.Either the machine had malfunctioned or the unthinkable, the unimaginable that happened.Down and endless flight of stairs, past swinging doors and through darkened halls he made his way to the storeroom next to his lab.At once his red, black striped face lost its color.He could see it, it was obvious -- the prisoner had escaped, the real Caesar had been set free.
Falling on his knees he pieced his fate together:“If the facts are ever known, if the people are told that it was my robot that started this and not that human, not even Thundercats could save me.”
Resolved, he had one option left and he had to act fast, every moment, every second delayed was irrecoverable -- he had to kill the man himself.
“Do you know what section this is?” Kara asked, ducking beneath the trunk of a sitting car.
“It isn’t familiar,” he answered, “but if the towers are our guides,” he pointed up, “then the hospital isn’t too far away.”
A loud, wailing gasp -- screaming, tearing -- an explosion silenced the ruckus.
Pumalo slunked out from behind the side of the vehicle into the huddled group.“The rioters are coming,” he announced.
“I’m sure they wouldn’t damage the place or hurt the people in it.”
He brushed the lion’s red mane and nudged his ear.“I hope so, too.”
“The soldiers might still be in there,” he added.
“They have a bigger problem to deal with right now,” the puma said.
He nodded: “Yes, yes, I’m sure the Amazonians’ll need every man and woman on duty --“
The growling shouts and screeching flames came nearer and nearer.The pavement pounded, the buildings trembled.The air came alive with the telltale sounds of death and destruction.
“I need to see the people there,” he told the others, “they know me, they’re on my side, if I can explain this to them then I’m sure they’ll help me.”
“What can we do?” the large cat asked.
“You and Kara can blend into the mob -- it’ll be hard to convince them that the robot’s a fake but if you could bring it and them to the hospital, I’ll come out to them.They’ll know me, I’m sure of it.”
The three stood, the lion wrapped his arms around the man’s waist.In tears he said:“Don’t go, please don’t go.”
Caesar rubbed under Kara’s chin, slowly, softly, pleased to hear a slight purr from his cat.“I have to, I can’t abandon them.”He paused to kiss his lips.“I’m counting on you two.It won’t be easy, but we can bring this to an end.”He gave the teenager one last hug.“The truth will come out, my lion, no power in Metropolis can stop it now.”
He could not bear to keep his eyes off of him, even as he lurked through the maze of the streets, even as Pumalo tugged at his arm, he could not help but stare while his beloved vanished into the haze of the distance.He stood still, heart-heavy, watching, waiting, all the while the chronometric ticks of seconds lengthened and broadened until at last it seemed that time itself had melted away.A dark-clad figure moved about the sidelines, following the human’s every move.Stealthy and indistinct, the teenager focused his eyes upon it and in the blink of his eyes the dark shadow disappeared -- he shook his head and --
“We have to go,” the large cat told him.“He’ll be safe, he knows what he’s doing, Kara.”
“I know, I know,” he no longer resisted the puma’s insistence to move forward.“I worry too much.”
The shouting and rioting throwbacks had emerged from the horizon.Hundred of displaced workers trampled the sidewalks and avenues, smashing glass storefronts and beating steel frameworks to piles of groaning rubbish.Vehicles were overturned, homes were looted, the visible and outward signs of civilization and progress obliterated and set ablaze by the torch-bearing, club-wielding rioters.
“A mindless sea of Thunderians,” Pumalo quipped.“What have we gotten ourselves into?”
Kara was taken aback in terror -- what had he gotten himself into, he wondered.No longer restrained by inhibitions, the individuals had dissolved from their particular characters to a mass of chaos, a machine of violence.It understood no reason, it knew only hate and destruction and its application wanton and unrestrained.
“We have to find the fake Caesar,” he said at last, “he’s the one directing them.They’ll follow him to the ends of Metropolis.”
With one last look back, the two headed forward, into the raging core of the invading beast.
Continued...
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