EXODUS

— by Jeff Karamales

Chapter 19
The Turning of Worlds
 

Andre Bolivar looked up as uniformed guards and his lawyer gathered outside of his cell, the man sitting up straight, sure that they had come for the sole reason of his release. He would most assuredly be expecting an apology for the treatment that he’d received. To be pulled from his office, his receptionist in complete shock as uniformed police and EuroPol agents, the continental law enforcement agency that was able to function across all boarders of the different countries of Europe, came to arrest the man. Much to her credit, Miss Anna Beren, having been hired more for her attractiveness and the manner in which she filled out a skirt than her clerical skills, had immediately summoned Andre’s lawyer.

Bolivar was certain that the charges that had been leveled against him could be beat. He had been accused of human trafficking, interference with the politics of another nation, violations of Human Dignity laws, human rights violations, bribery and several other counts that also crossed international lines.

Oddly enough Andre wasn’t overly concerned. Compared to others that had committed worse crimes, the man was sure that he would spend one, perhaps two years in a detention facility that would be more resort than prison, his wealth ensuring that even while incarcerated he wouldn’t have to do without the comforts of a civilized existence.

At most he believed that the worse he could suffer was dismissal as the Lead Director of the Terran Colonization Coalition. That would be acceptable, all things considered. His accounts, deposited with banks that were even more untouchable than the noted Swiss Bank, would furnish him with a most comfortable life. As he stood to face the gathering, he felt that perhaps something in the tropics was in order, the man having more than his fill of cold European winters and mountains and let a small smile play at his mouth as he considered how sugar white sand would feel between his toes and no shortage of stunning, tanned women to while away his time with.

It wasn’t until a priest, complete with robe and hat marking him as a Bishop in the Roman Catholic faith, moved into view that Andre experienced a moment of doubt.

The door slid open on a metal track that could have stood a good oiling and the screech of metal on metal set the hair on the back of his neck on end. His surety that he was going to be released began to falter as he saw the expression of gentle sympathy on the priest’s face, and the look of disgust on his lawyer’s while the guards seemed stonily resolute.

“Andre Bolivar,” the guard commandant said in English, his voice thick with an accent stemming from Romansh, the standard language of the man’s particular portion of Switzerland, “We are here to convey you to the place where you will be incarcerated for the rest of your natural life for crimes that are in violation of the recently passed Furmanitarian Laws established for the protection of human based hybrid life forms known as Furman, kidnapping, human trafficking and the illegal imprisonment of representatives of Furmankind. A priest has been requested so that you may give confession, if you so desire, and receive communion prior to the commencement of your sentence whereupon you will have no contact with any individual outside of the guards or staff of this prison.”

Andre blinked twice as what was said sank in. “Incarcerated? For LIFE?!? What Furmanitarian Laws?” he asked, his voice raising in pitch and volume as he sneered at the guard. “You fool! They live because of ME!” The man didn’t struggle, too stunned to realize that the two guards that pushed into his cell were there to put shackles on him until it was too late. “It was because of me that those creatures even came to be!”

Bolivar was pulled out of the cell once the restraints were in place, the guards pausing momentarily as Andre’s lawyer held up his hand for them to wait a moment. Jurgen Stalzen had served Andre’s father as a lawyer before doing the same for the younger Bolivar. As he halted Jurgen’s eyes narrowed as a disgusted from twisted the older man’s mouth. “I’m glad that you father isn’t alive right now,” he said, the words in Andre’s native language of Belgian. “The things you have done, the lives that you have twisted and destroyed…I hope you burn in Hell for what you have done when you finally die. Speak to the priest, Andre, but I don’t think it will help you in the slightest when the time for God’s judgment is levied!”

The condemned man blinked at the vehemence in the older male’s voice, shocked that the other man could abandon him so readily. “Jurgen! Please! You can’t mean that!”

“Your father was a good and decent man,” the lawyer said bitterly. “He was a prince among men and sought to better the world, not use it for wealth and power and the things that you have done! He would never have condoned your actions and would have sickened him. You would have disgusted him as much as you disgust me!” As if to further drive the point home, the man spat on the front of Andre’s prison jumper before turning his back on the son of his oldest friend, hiding the moisture that began to fill his rheumy eyes while his hands shook in anger and the muscles of his legs trembled.

The guards turned Bolivar away, the priest reciting a prayer in Latin as he made the sign of the cross, following guards and prisoner as they filed down the corridor. Andre found the prayers that he’d grown up with as a good Catholic comforting on some level even while his mind rebelled at the thought of being held for life. He had saved others that were to be executed for a far grander purpose that trumped their crimes. Surely some had died during the experiments, but they would have all died regardless. How dare he be condemned for trying to improve Earth’s hopes of reaching the stars by using the dregs and cast offs of society. How could they do this to him for taking murderers and rapists and men and women that would destroy civilization one victim at a time when he fought to spread civilization to the very heavens?

Andre blinked as he was led not to an isolation chamber, but a sunlit courtyard deep within the walls of the prison. He snarled in pain as he blinked rapidly to adjust to the harsh glare of the summer sun overhead. “What is happening? Where are you taking me?” the man asked acidly.

The lead guard shook his head. “You,” the guard said as he pointed at six marksmen in black overalls, “are to be the first to pay for your crimes in a very unique manner.”

Andre snapped his head up, looking at the marksmen all in black that surrounded the courtyard from an elevated ledge, their faces covered by balaclava masks and their eyes by amber lens shooting glasses. There were no discerning features, all of them seeming to be the same size and weight, all of them with lethal looking military style rifles. Behind and to the side of two of the riflemen were benches with spectators to the appearance of the man before he was locked away for the rest of his life. Andre first saw the stern face of Ásmundr Gustavsson, a man that had put as much research, material and money into the colonization of other worlds as some countries.

Granted, Ásmundr benefited greatly from some of the discoveries, one of his companies developing new medicines from some of the finds or gaining wealth in the form of rare metals and the like that were shipped back to Earth. Andre had considered the man a contemporary, a peer, almost a friend, but the look in the Swede’s blue eyes said that Ásmundr thought even less of the shackled man than Jurgen Stalzen did. Next to him was one of the creatures that he’d ordered Emily Lesko to create, the being a perfect blend of man and cat. In the glowing yellow eyes that glared at him, Andre Bolivar only saw a fierce, burning hatred.

One of the guards that escorted him unshackled the prisoner’s wrists before following the others back through the door they came in from, leaving Andre Bolivar alone in the courtyard that was completely enclosed. “What is this?” he demanded, looking from Ásmundr Gustavsson to the cat man to the warden of the prison and a few other spectators he didn’t know. “Am I to be sentenced, or put on display?” Andre pointed at the savannah cat. “And what is that doing here?”

The warden stood and spoke, an aide stepping forward and translating into English for the rest of the witnesses to the execution.

“Andre Bolivar, you have been found guilty of violating the internationally ratified Furmanitarian Laws guaranteeing the safety of the modified life forms now known as Furmankind. Your actions, and the actions that others have taken on behalf of orders handed down by you from your position as Lead Director of the Terran Colonization Coalition have resulted in the deaths of one hundred and nineteen furmen, sentient beings recognized by the World Court, the European Union, Asian Alliance, the United Nations and several dozen countries.

“In accordance to the laws that were passed, the death of Furmankind, directly, or in your case, indirectly, though with full culpability, punishment is death by Furmankind. Your sentence, however, will be imprisonment in isolation for the rest of your natural life. This is the last time individuals outside of this prison will look upon you. Once you are conveyed to your cell, you will have no contact with any other individual, man or woman,” he looked at Wyatt and nodded. “Or other. May God have mercy on your soul.”

The translator stepped back and the warden looked once at Bolivar before wiping his wide forehead with a handkerchief and nodding to the savannah cat.

Through the door that he’d been brought to the courtyard through, two more guards in black with masks and amber glasses exited and grabbed Andre Bolivar by his upper arms, frog marching him to the door on the opposite wall. At first he was too stunned, Andre not quite believing that this was actually happening. His earlier contemplations of retiring on a tropical island, of only serving a few years in a secure facility dissipated like fog before the illuminating rays of the morning sun backed by a steady breeze.

Only as the trio approached the far door did the full implications of what he’d been told reach Andre’s mind and he began to thrash wildly. “No! NO! You can’t do this!” He looked up, his expression pleading as he found Ásmundr looking down on him in contempt while slowly shaking his head. “Don’t let them do this!” Then the struggling man found the anthrocat, the cold fire of his eyes not having changed in the slightest. “I saved you!” he cried to Wyatt. “If it wasn’t for me you would already be dead! Don’t let them do this!”

The screaming became more desperate as the guards led their prisoner through the door and into the corridor beyond until Bolivar’s cries were silenced altogether. When even Wyatt’s ears couldn’t hear the man anymore, the anthrocat let his shoulders slump as he closed his eyes. He gripped the railing of the ledge tightly as the warden moved forward to the pair.

“Andre Bolivar will be spending the rest of his life in an isolation cell,” the warden said as he again mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. “It would be kinder to have him killed, but then I am thinking that Herr Bolivar is not very deserving of kindness.”

“And he’ll have no contact with anyone?” Ásmundr asked.

The warden shook his head. “Not even the guards that will take him his meals will speak to him.” The man looked at the Fur with a curious expression. “I am a man that believes punishment should fit the crime,” he told the feline. “I don’t think that there is quite the punishment that can be assigned to Bolivar. I think that only God can justly rule on this one, but as he hasn’t made His will known, so this will have to suffice for earthly justice.” The warden began to walk away, his aide following like a puppy that was eager to please. “I don’t expect the man to last more than a few years, at best, before madness takes him,” before heading back to his office, leaving Ásmundr and Wyatt alone.

The cat man continued to look at the door that Andre was hauled through, the guards still not having emerged and flexed his paw-like hands on the rail so tightly that the tips of his claws pierced the skin of his pads. It wasn’t until blood began to drip slowly that Ásmundr spoke to his companion.

“Wyatt? Are you feeling unwell?” Ásmundr asked as the savannah cat slumped against the wall.

The Fur shook his head and closed his eyes trying to get his physical and emotional center of gravity back. “No. I’m not well and I don’t know if I ever will be again.” He opened his eyes and turned to the man beside him. “I…I want him dead, Ásmundr, but I hate myself for feeling that. With everything that he’s done…ordered to be done…this is all we get?” Wyatt released his hold on the rail and looked at the damage he’d done to himself, his fingers flexing so that claws appeared and disappeared. “It’s not right.”

“No,” Ásmundr agreed. “It’s not right.” He steered the Fur to the door the warden had gone through pointedly glaring at one of the black clad guards that stared at the cat man, his finger twitching towards the trigger guard of his rifle before Gustavsson shook his head as he and Wyatt continued through the door. 

*** 

Once on the way back to Stockholm, Wyatt opted to stay at the partially renovated Olympic Village where the other Furs were staying, the need to be around others growing stronger as the miles passed beneath the wings of Ásmundr’s personal plane. The events at the hearing and witnessing Andre Bolivar’s sentencing weren’t sitting well and he craved the companionship of the others that he’d made it off the island with. Fortunately Halley was understanding in his choice of wanting to be in his own quarters that hadn’t seen much use, most of his time having been spent as a guest of Ásmundr Gustavsson in his manor house. As the savannah cat sat brooding in a window seat, not really seeing the spectacular fiery orange and magenta sunset, he felt the anticipation grow. In an effort to cheer her lover up, Halley took the aisle seat next to Wyatt, holding out a gin and tonic complete with straw with a warm smile.

“Thanks,” Wyatt told her softly, accepting the drink but not taking a sip, content to hold the glass in his paws.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” the anthrocat asked evasively.

Halley took his arm, her fingers winnowing through the fur to massage the bicep underneath, leaning her body close enough so that her breasts pressed against as much of the savannah cat as she could manage. “You know. You’ve been sort of distracted since we got to the airport. You’re tense.” She smiled as she finally got him to look her in the eyes. “So? Wanna talk about it?”

Wyatt sucked the gin and tonic down in a single mouthful and put the glass on the small table in front of the seats and leaned against the girl. “I’m just tired, I guess. I want all of this to be over, I want to be around the others even if they don’t really know who I am. It feels wrong when I’m away from them for too long. Weird, I know, but I do feel better. That and I guess I just feel out of sorts.”

The young woman nodded and smiled. “It makes sense, Wyatt. You’re part cat now, you know. Cats like hanging around other cats a lot of times. They’re social creatures for the most part, just as humans are. You haven’t really been paying attention to the part of you that’s a savannah cat and you might be feeling the strain.”

“How could I not pay attention to the part that’s a cat?” he asked with a slight coolness to his tone. “It’s not like I have a choice, do I?”

Halley let her hand come to rest on the male’s cheek. “Wyatt, don’t get mad at me, but you haven’t accepted this part of your life. You might’ve coped with it so far, but you haven’t accepted it. Being around the others that were with you, letting yourself relax, maybe acting along with some of your new urges.” She looked at him shrewdly. “When was the last time you played? You’ve been so wrapped up in everything that’s going on that you haven’t allowed yourself to do anything fun. I know it sounds silly, but playing releases tension, stimulates the flow of endorphins and is vital to your health. Cats need play, otherwise there wouldn’t be millions of toys sold every year. It’ll help keep you healthy.”

The Fur frowned. “But there’s too much to do!” he whispered vehemently, not wanting to disturb the others on the plane.

“And it will still be there tomorrow, Wyatt,” Halley said softly. “You won’t do anyone any good if you’re too stressed to finish this fight.” The young woman had absently stroked the fur of Wyatt’s arm as she spoke, the action soothing both, but it also helped her think. “Hmm. I just had a thought.”

“About what?”

“You told me you used to run a boat. Maybe some downtime with the others at the Village will help. Then we could go boating. You said the sea always made you feel more calm and alive…”

The cat man blinked several times. He’d found a channel on the computer that Ásmundr had let him use and found videos of sport fishing off the coast of Florida, the same type of charters he used to run before his arrest and for a moment he’d imagined the sun and wind with the tang of salt air in his nostrils. It had almost felt like he was there, watching from the flying bridge as a marlin broke the water and walked along the surface of the rippled ocean before diving back into the depths with a splash that foamed the small waves.

Halley could tell the effect on her lover as her idea took hold, Wyatt’s eyes widening as his pupils dilated and his ears perked up so far that she could almost hear the skin stretching. “What says you, lover mine?” the girl asked teasingly. “Want to show me what you can do with a good boat on the open water?” Her smile turned into a challenging grin. “I could get a bikini…”

Wyatt chuckled softly, his voice more of a stuttering chuff. “I wouldn’t mind that.” He sighed as the girl snuggled a little closer and it was a few minutes before the savannah cat spoke again. “So how did you know that I was getting homesick for the water?”

The young woman shrugged. “I majored in genetic biology, but I minored in psychology.”

“Really?”

It was Halley’s turn to laugh quietly. “Silly kitty. Anybody that goes into medicine minors in psychology. It’s an easy course, and it gives a person time to figure out what to major in while getting all of the electives out of the way!” She rubbed her cheek on the fur of the feline’s arm and shoulder. “It does make it easier to deal with people sometimes.”

— NEXT CHAPTER —

Unless otherwise noted, all material © Ted R. Blasingame. All rights reserved.