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Hitch’s hand. Suddenly, he was gone from sight and touch. Hitch looked down, through the blood trickling from the cuts in his arm, long enough to read the name tag attached to a blood-soaked piece of a school girl’s uniform.
    When he looked up, it was too late. The giant shadow began to reveal details, bricks, windows, markings. He recognized hoses, then a swarm of small, glowing lights. In an instant he understood.
    Fuel pumps.
    Hitch’s reality erupted into flame and cinder. His screams were never heard above the explosion.

    Cat launched on cybernetic legs as the limo exploded behind him. He felt the heat of the flames all around him. Felt the air blowing all around him. It singed his hair and lapped at the few parts of flesh his armor revealed. He flipped and spun in the air. He landed hard; the impact of his armored boots cracking the asphalt. He shifted his gaze side to side to ensure no uninvited guests were filming the event.
    Cat watched the limo burn for nearly five minutes. Hitch’s wail made him chuckle. He pictured Amber’s face on the recording one final time, and nodded in satisfaction. The distant sound of sirens registered in his ears. Hitch’s cries had long been replaced by the crackling of flames. He gauged how soon the emergency crews would arrive, and then gazed once more at the burning husk of the limo. At first he questioned his own sanity for sticking around. Then he shrugged it off, considering the emotion justified given how many innocents the disfigured pederast had claimed in his time. He shouldered the shotgun he had drawn. He knew he wouldn’t need it, but a small part of him hoped the necrophiliac would somehow scramble out of the wreckage.
    Cat considered it all as he carefully made his way back to the Honda-Suzuki. There was more to be done. There were defenses to prepare. If Midas had hired him to off his disfigured henchman, it was part of a larger plan. If someone else had paid for Hitch’s long-overdue date with the reaper, there would be a price to pay. Cat smiled. As powerful as Midas was, he welcomed the challenge. It was a risk he’d calculated when he chose to take the hit on Hitch. Either way, he had just put out the welcome mat for a new enemy, right in the middle of investigating the Titan that killed Emory, and hiring his new partner. Cat scoffed. The dancing flames reflected in his yellow eyes and he felt that fate be damned, it was all worth it.
    He heard the sound of his laughter before he realized he was laughing. “Damn, Leon,” he said aloud, “since when do you give a chit about kids?”
    With a twist of the wrist, Cat turned back east toward Nitro City, and the unavoidable wrath of the Fixer known as Midas.

CHAPTER FIVE

    9 August 2033
    Cat knew better than anyone that he needed the right resources to survive, let alone turn a profit as an odd-jobs man. The same technology that made him powerful threatened his very humanity. Every ounce of machinery he accepted came with a sacrifice. If the scales tipped too far, the human he once was would be deleted and overwritten by a sub-routine. The man who was once Leon Caliber would be extinct. Only the machine would remain.
    To prevent that, Cat had hired several cybertechnology specialists as business partners. In his line of work, they tended to have very short careers. He’d been both fortunate and ignorant in his past choices of technology consultants. With Midas likely on his path, and the curious case of the raging MH looming, he needed someone he could trust if the chips came down and his system flat out rejected his cybernetics. The last thing he wanted was to follow in the giant MetaHuman’s footsteps, down the road to madness.
    Cat had conducted the interview process twice since arriving in Nitro City. His first partner, Renaldi, tried to go rogue and turn him in to the Seven Sisters coalition for assassinating their Vice President of Murders and Acquisitions. Cat rewarded Renaldi’s efforts with an