Speed Brake

She was unwanted.

Prior to the economic crash of the United States and the subsequent balkanization of the Union, there were roughly 140 abortions per hour performed nationwide. A great many of those abortions were to young black girls. Even after the collapse the number was still huge. She was one of them.

The abortion was a fiasco from the beginning. The abortionist was half drunk but even on his best days he was an incompetent butcher. He botched the job badly. The mother was fatally injured and the fetus was alive when it was removed. The mother, in great pain, was screaming and thrashing about on the operation table and somehow the fetus was dropped onto the floor where it was then kicked under a table.

The fetus lay under that table, writhing in pain, making pitiful bubbling squeaks in an attempt to cry. It was dying but it wasn’t going easily into the cold dark night. It was a fighter. It had never seen the light, yet it resisted the dark. Sometimes the genetics come together in such a way to form an individual who has no quit. These rare people are as stubborn as a corral full of mules. They had NO give-up... none. They can be killed but they can’t be conquered.

This baby was like that...in overwhelming abundance. She was seven sigmas to the right of norm when it came to stubbornness. From before the time of her natural birth she was unnaturally stubborn. She would probably die, she should have already died. The fact that she had not ALREADY died was a miracle in itself....but she was genetically unable to quit.

She continued to fight. She struggled, she fought for her FIRST breath. Against all hope, against all odds, she labored for another breath. For another...and another. . The unnamed, unwanted, horribly wounded, partially crushed and bleeding fetus that could have been a beautiful black girl....continued to fight death every inch of the way. She looked death in the face and spit in his eye. She snarled and growled and screamed and shrieked to the extent of her ability to do so. She hadn’t lived yet...therefore she didn’t need to DIE yet...she was NOT giving up.

               *                         *                                *  

The old man was tense. The cat was tense. They were where they did NOT want to be. Even armed to the teeth with cutting edge weaponry and riding in a futuristic machine they didn’t feel secure.

They were skirting East St. Louis.

The fact that an occasional AK-47 round would fly out of the darkness and go sprang’ing off of the truck didn’t make them feel all warm and fuzzy either. They’d come to East St. Louis to assist members of the Resistance. They’d made multiple blind drops of small quantities of Xyloclondian dust. The unheard of capabilities of the dragon truck allowed them to do so without even having to slow down.

The dragon truck was noticeable. It was unique. It’s appearance drew all eyes like a magnet, even at night. At night no one noticed the highly stealthed, almost invisible UAVs which were quietly tube launched by compressed air. The launches made no sound and were obscured by the glare of the truck’s chicken lights. The camouflaged stealth UAVs then rapidly flew to their destination.

There were hundreds of cells of freedom fighters in the city. They each had clandestine 3-D Printers with which they built weapons , communication devices and other implements for the resistance. Xyloclondian dust, and the included digital printer files, improved their output by orders of magnitude. The files and the dust were provided by Texans...almost for free. In theory there was commerce but in actuality it was foreign aid. All over Texas there were people developing, testing and then digitizing new weapons and other devices, many of which were made available to the resistance.

The cat and the old man were dust bunnies. They supplied dust to a large number of such 3D wielding underground resistance groups. ....the Anti-Hussein's...the Anti-Jihadists, the underground Christians. Those people weren’t willing to run but would rather stand and fight. They needed all the help they could get and the Old Man and other’s like him from Texas did their best to provide some of that help.

Suddenly the cat stiffened. He had been curled up on a flat spot. The cat had appeared to be totally relaxed as usual. To all outward appearances he had been asleep. In actuality he had been alert. He jerked as if hit by a high voltage wire, all hairs bristling.

In a flash the cat was gone. The automatic hatch barely had time to swivel out of the way as the cat leaped thru it.

“Dammit Boy” shouts the old man as he scrambled to follow. “Wait for me!!”

“No time” Replied the cat as it vanished into the darkness.

                    *                          *                           *

I taste a scream. I smell terror. I see agony. I hear pain. A young one nearby is in terrible danger. Although I am a neuter at present I still feel a parental instinct to protect the young. Something is special about this one, but I know not what it is. I feel a compulsion to act. Terrible danger, death, pain and agony are not unusual in East St. Louis but something about this one is different. I can’t explain why but I’m drawn. I leave the truck in a hurry and sprint as fast as I can toward that bright light of pain. Like the fool that I am I’ve left all my weapons behind. All I have are what my maker provided at my creation. I hope they will be enough.

I run down many streets and turn into an alley, a normal house cat can run at speeds of up to 30 mph. The Egyptian Mau, exceptionally fast, can reach up to 36 mph. I’m much faster. I cover a great distance and part way down the alley there is a light....the pain is emanating from the same room as that light. I leap at the window in the door and crash thru, breaking the glass and cutting myself as I fall to the floor on the inside. My nanites go into crash repair mode....my blood sugar elevates as does my blood pressure, my nervous system goes into overdrive and my neural battle computer slams into general stations. I go hyperactive.

Inside the room is as scene from hell.

A young black woman is writhing, twisting, and squirming in agony. She is tied to a table. She is nude and covered with blood from the crotch down. Her screams are gut wrenching, soul shredding and throat ripping. An immense fat man is trying to hold her down with one hand. He has what appears to be a bloody knife in the other hand. There are other people in the room, possibly female, but they don’t seem to be accomplishing much. They dither. Blood is everywhere. A TV blares in another room. Somewhere a telephone is ringing.

I notice all this peripherally. None of it is most important to me at this time. They are not what has drawn me. My focus is on the floor, directly in front of where I landed after jumping thru the door’s window. Tunnel vision reveals a long smear of blood and a tiny human baby is at the end of that smear. The tiny infant was kicked against the wall, under a table it is choking, gasping, and spitting while fighting for the last tattered remnants of it’s life.

I dig out, claws ripping long gouts from the hardwood floor, then I leap across the room. I land and slide to the side of the baby. I bite into the back of it’s head and neck. I inject nanites into it’s brain. The baby is tiny. She is so small that my teeth in her skull will provide sufficient antenna to control the nanites that I inject into her bloodstream, especially the ones in her brain. After a few moments analysis the nanites go into a frenzy of repair. Perhaps the nanites could buy her a few more minutes, a few more hours of life until I can think of something else, until I can do something else. I have no idea what. I’m acting on pure impulse.

I lift the baby , like a lion would lift an antelope, and attempt to leave. I’m blocked. The fat man and the other occupants of the room, except for the woman on the table who now appears to be dead ...are staring at me in horror and rage. They are between me and my exit.

The fat man kicks at me.

Bad move. He moves so slow. In my hyperactive state it seems that he moves in slow motion. It is easy for me, while still holding the tiny fetus, to dodge the kick and slash his ankle with the claws of one of my paws. Blurt spurts. I’ve managed to slice the The posterior tibial artery . I’d been hoping for the achilles tendon but this is more permanent. He screams and begins to fall. If he falls on his knife then so much the better, but if he doesn’t staunch the arterial flow from his ankle he will bleed out and die.

I’m still holding the fetus in my jaws while I try to get past the other occupants of the room. When I run between their legs, however they kick and try to stomp me. In self defense I slash more ankles. I try for arteries and tendons. I’m successful often as not.

People scramble this way and that and furniture and appliances get knocked over. Suddenly there are gunshots and bullets go everywhere. Lucky for me the shooter is from the “Spray and Pray” school of firearms usage. The shooter is not accurate at all. His shots miss me but one of the humans is not so lucky. She screams and falls, blocking the shooter. Glassware has shattered from the gunfire. I smell the reek of chemicals. I recognize ether and alcohol fumes. There are other vapors that I don’t identify. Suddenly I hear a “whomp”. A fire has been ignited.

The way in which I had entered is blocked by the spreading fire and the gunman so I must take a different route out. I leap, and crash, thru a different window.

I acquire more cuts and slashes. I attempt to protect the baby as best I can but I am not totally successful. She also gets cut.. I limp and hobble as fast as I can, bleeding.... away from the carnage and spreading flames.

In the distance I hear sirens....and more gunshots. Perhaps I’ve accidently started a gunfight between rival gangs. Unfortunately some of the bullets hit nearby. The bullets are getting closer.

     *                         *                              *

The old man looks up as the cat streaks out the hatch.

“Dammit Boy” shouts the old man as he follows. “wait for me!!”

“No time” replied the cat as it leaps off the truck and bounds away into the darkness. In seconds the cat is gone from view.

The old man is much, much slower than the cat and realizes that following on foot is hopeless. The old man and the cat are cybernetically in tune so he knows everything that the cat is doing. He sees and hears everything that the cat wants him to see and hear. The old man mentally orders the truck to circle the general area, staying on main roads. He then deploys a uni-pod. The old man boards the uni-pod as it is ejected. He chases the cat.

The uni-pods are tiny. They’re basically streamlined electric unicycles. They are quick, silent, agile and can go almost anywhere. They travel much, much faster than a human can run, they are almost totally silent, they are hard to see at night with no lights, and they are weaponized. .

Even so the old man falls behind the cat. He loses ground rapidly. He is aware of the cat’s activities via neural link and is ready when the cat reappears out of the darkness. A few rounds from the uni-pod’s onboard cyber-rifle puts an end to those shooting at the cat. They lose interest permanently. Cyber-Rifle Counter Battery fire is frighteningly accurate.

The old man scoops up the bleeding cat and baby and makes a u-turn. He races to intercept the cruising dragon truck. They ‘crash- board’ while in motion and the truck speeds up and leaves the city.

          *                         *                               *

“This is another fine mess you’ve got me into Ollie” says the old man as he lays the barely struggling fetus on a warm padded counter, and begins to clean the infant.

“Why is that Stan” quips the cat. ‘We need a Speed Brake...that’s it.’

“How is it an alien cyber-cat knows Laurel and Hardy? Hell, most PEOPLE don’t know who Laurel and Hardy are now.” mutters the old man rhetorically as he wraps the now clean fetus in a warm blanket. “it’s going to die you know...not even your magic nanites can keep it alive much longer. They’re the only things that’s keeping it alive now”.

“I know that” says the cat. ‘Since you’ve got hands would you place HER in the docbox please?”

“Marvelous things...hands’ said the old man as he did so...tossing the blanket over his shoulder where it was snatched out of the air by a robotic arm to be cleaned, folded and stored for future use.

“What came over you, anyway” said the old man, looking at the cat. “I know this is horrible but it happens a dozen times a day in those ghettos”.

“I know” said the cat...grooming himself as cats do “but there was something special about her. I can't’ explain it. The sensation was akin to a strobe light in darkness, hypnotic, not to be ignored”

“So...she’s going to be our speed brake huh?” mused the old man..fidgeting, nervous and wishing that he had a cigar, but not willing to look for one.

“Yup” said the cat, as it licked it’s fur.

The old man frowned at the cat and started to say something when he was interrupted by the smell of a fine cigar.

A robotic arm telescoped across the cab carrying a lit cigar...stopping in front of the old man. The old man took it and raised a questioning eyebrow at the cat.

“Yup” said the cat, still grooming.

“Thank you” said the old man and began to smoke in thoughtful silence. “do you compulsively groom yourself when you’re nervous?”

“Yup” said the cat, still grooming.

The banter didn’t help to distract them. The cat and the Old man were both intently concentrating on the DocBox...which was almost done preparing the ‘speed-brake’ for installation.