Soon lunch was over, and Bath’s reminiscing on the weekend came to an abrupt end. He returned to class, waited for school to end with unusual impatience, and then returned home. He immediately plopped down on the living room couch and grabbed the TV remote.
“Bath,” Avery exclaimed. “I'm watching TV! You can’t just change the channel.”
“I'm older,” Bath stated adamantly. He then continued with a softer tone: “Besides, it'll just be for a minute. I want to watch the news and see if anything is on about the incident that happened on I-295 this morning. If they aren’t discussing it, I'll change the channel back, promise.”
Avery sighed dramatically. “Okay, fine. Just this once,” she quipped. Bath smiled. She was a pretty cute kid, even if she was a bit whiny at times. Though he couldn’t really blame Avery for that: kids her age were supposed to be a bit whiny. He of all people knew that. Their parents had brought him to a psychologist when he was eight because of his apparently irregular behavior (not the first time, not the last time). He learned quickly that whining was an essential component of the American child that, when missing, suggested the child was critically defective.
Bath had snorted out loud when he'd realized this fact, startling the therapist. Humans.
“Looks like you're out of luck, Avery,” Bath grinned. A cast of reporters were currently discussing theories regarding the “Latest Terrorist Attack.”
Bath sighed internally. He had expected that people would label the attack as an act of terrorism, but he had hoped they would recognize it as environmental terrorism. From what he gleaned from the ensuing deliberations between the reporters and some random specialist they had on the line, not a soul had recognized that electric cars had been spared from the attack.
Bath considered sending in an anonymous tip. Then decided against it; he had another idea. It was nice and simple. Well, simple enough to think of nearly on the spot. Perfect.
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Bath headed out again at the beginning of rush hour. He went a bit further than the local I-295, not wanting to tip people off to his actual location. He ended up flying all the way to Chicago where he decided to attack another interstate, I-95.
He started out by doing the same thing he did before: ripping the gasoline cars' exhaust pipes aside with overwhelming force. But now, in the instant after he put the chaos into motion, he scooped up all the unharmed cars—which was only possible because there were so few of them; his long-range manipulation capabilities were still relatively underdeveloped—and set them ahead of the traffic disaster unfolding below.
He would die of annoyance if the humans still didn’t get the hint even after he airlifted every electric car on this section of I-95 to get them out of harm’s way.
Bath watched the scene below him unfold with a sense of curious fascination, like a child watching an ant colony respond to a threat. He beat his feathered wings steadily into the wind to keep his altitude and position relatively constant.
After about ten minutes of watching the aftermath, Bath realized that he really needed to get back home before Samantha and Brian wondered where he was. The East Coast was an hour ahead of Chicago-time and the trip took an hour one way when Bath went at top speed using mass-propulsion. He had left at 5 pm EST, had arrived in Chicago at 6 pm EST (5 pm local time), and would likely get back home at around 7:30 pm EST. That was cutting it fairly close; he planned to say that he was busy doing work and lost track of time. Losing track of time until 7:30, though, was a bit of a stretch.
Bath wasn’t familiar with the sensation of exhaustion, but all the long-range manipulation and high-speed travel was using up more of his energy than usual. When he returned home, he actually stumbled into his bed as he shifted back to human form.
"Damn," he gasped. He lay on the bed for a minute, forcing his vital patterns into normalcy. He put his clothes back on, went to the bathroom to brush his hair, and then headed downstairs. Samantha was in the kitchen cleaning up. She glared daggers at him.
Bath gave her a boyish smile that he'd first concocted when he was in middle school. Her appearance remained stoic, her eyes angry. Bath found the technique less and less effective as time went on.
“Bath,” she spat, gritting her teeth. “Where were you? We called for you to come down to dinner and searched the whole house!” Whoops.
“I was doing work in my room with headphones on,” he said sheepishly. “I completely lost track of time.”
“You didn’t hear us even when we were banging on your door?”
“Uh, no?”
Her eyes narrowed. "Bath, eat this and then come with me." She passed him a plate of food she had saved for him, taking it warm out of the microwave. Bath ate in silence while Samantha continued to clean.
He finished up and moved to wash the plate and utensils, but Samantha stopped him. “Come with me,” she commanded, and he followed. She led him outside. The sky was dusky, almost completely dark with the sun just barely lighting up the sky from underneath the horizon. The temperature would best be described as brisk.
“Mom?” he inquired as she led him to the park down the block. She moved gracefully, with purpose. The park was empty: Bath didn’t even sense much animal life around the park. The lifelessness was a bit jarring. Bath still detected a few animals, like a family of bats, several mice, and a cat in the bushes, but these were comparatively fewer animals than he usually sensed at the park.
He felt a peculiar sense of foreboding.
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Samantha sat down on the park bench and crossed her arms. Bath had learned years ago that night-vision was a no-no amongst humans because reflective retinas were so distinctive, so he could only just see her outline in the dying light. She didn’t appear tense, though her heart rate betrayed at least a small sense of nervousness.
“Mom, why have you brought me here? We could have just talked in the house, where it’s warm and we can actually see each other. I'm sorry I didn’t come down to dinner—”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“That isn’t what this is about,” she snapped. “You lied to me.”
“What?” Bath recoiled.
“You weren’t doing work in your room,” she asserted. “I know because you left your door unlocked and I looked inside. You weren’t there.”
Ah, crap. He couldn’t remember the last time he'd forgotten to lock his door; at least a year. Had he seriously left it unlocked? He could have sworn...would have sworn...
“Mom—”
“Just tell me you aren’t doing anything dangerous,” she sighed. “I'm not naive, Bath. You're growing up, going off on your own, whatever. But just tell me you're not doing anything to make me worry.”
Bath looked at her, his brow furrowed.
“Mom, there is no possible way for me to do anything that would put me in danger,” Bath said truthfully. “Don’t worry about me. I'm responsible enough.”
“That’s not very encouraging, you know. I'm not sure that I can trust you!” she hissed. “Don’t lie to me,” she implored, her voice dripping with hurt.
He met her eyes in the dark. “I'm sorry, mom. I'll be more considerate. I really wasn’t thinking about how my actions would cause you pain. I didn’t think you'd find out I was sneaking out. I thought not telling you was...a white lie, of sorts. I'm really not doing anything dangerous…”
...To myself, at least.
Mollified, Samantha stood and pulled Bath close for a hug. “I love you, honey,” she said tenderly.
They walked back to the house together. Bath held her close, noting with immediate interest the faint human heartbeat that he picked up in a grouping of trees just off to the side of the park.
He came back a few minutes later and was left curiously, furiously stumped: there was no human scent here. There was no indication a person had been in the trees at all.
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Bath felt a kernel of anger ignite in his soul. Somebody was acting suspiciously in this incredibly tiny territory of his, this little street, and he’d failed to ascertain their identity. His feline face (for Bath was now a black house cat) curled up in disgust, his tail twitching back and forth. What was this? How could somebody just...delete, for lack of a better word, their scent?
They couldn’t. Bath was fervently sure of this. But how did that explain the human heartbeat he had heard in the trees? Somebody had been here, and that person had managed to leave not a single scent behind.
Whoever this person was, Bath was certain that they were a threat to his current state of stability.
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Without any actual information to go on, Bath was forced to resign himself to being more cautious going forward. He fell back into million-year-old habits that he had let go of since entering cushy human society, lining all entrances to his abode with tiny feelers that acted like tripwires. This included doors, windows, even the chimney. He cut no corners protecting this place from any potential threats, placing tiny, primitive ears throughout the forest of the park and all throughout the yard surrounding his house. The ears when unactivated served as diodes. They were normally in an off state, listening to white noise, though they would switch on when they picked up what his subconscious recognized as human activity like speech or breathing. That’s when they would alert him so that he could listen in.
Since school was only a mile away, he could easily sustain this basic long-range manipulation indefinitely. Already, he felt better about the situation in his domain. He'd made too many mistakes tonight, mostly because he'd let down his guard after years of complete safety. At least now he was addressing some of them.
He tried to think of a reason why he had let himself be lulled into this sense of false security, this indefensible weakness. How had such a short amount of time as a human affected him so?
His words came out in a puff of breath: “Lisa.”
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Bath didn’t know how to feel about this realization. Had Lisa...made him weak? Made him want to live as a human, think as a human, be a human?
More importantly, what would he do about it?
Bath wanted nothing more than to run into the night, peel off into the shadow of the crescent moon, merge into the silky depths of the ocean. He wanted time to think away from human influence. But he had just set down all of his traps and couldn’t afford to leave his territory while a potentially hostile force was operating within it. Maybe he was being paranoid, but better that then too relaxed.
Bath continued walking around in the form of a black house cat. As he walked, he thought.
Why was there somebody here? That was the most pressing question of all. These past few years have been completely quiet. It’s too suspicious that as soon as I start my environmental defense initiative, a mysterious stranger appears that manages to evade my detection.
But how would someone ever connect him to...whatever they thought was causing the interstate traffic incidents?
There was absolutely no way Bath had been traced. For one, he traveled much too fast. Very few human aircraft could rival his speed; those that could, he would have sensed by virtue of their sound alone. Planes were incredibly loud; Bath doubted even the most advanced stealth fighter could escape his detection.
So he wasn’t traced.
That left only one other alternative that he could think of. A human knows what I am, and they suspect my involvement in the recent incidents. They are investigating.
Bath froze mid-stride. If they heard the conversation I had with Samantha... Bath hissed into the darkness. Why had Samantha even wanted to come outside anyway? It was cold and dark out; there was no reason to leave for the park. It all seemed incredibly suspect. His mother hadn’t been coerced into speaking with him—she wasn’t nervous enough—but all the same, she had acted too strange to ignore.
Bath realized that he was missing many necessary details. Forming a conclusive theory as to what the actual hell was going on was, at the moment, impossible. The mystery piqued his interest in a way few things did. Lisa was one of those few things: She was somebody who was human, but did the seemingly impossible that no one dared do. He was drawn like a moth to a flame in the face of such intrigue.
Since time unremembered, Bath had always found pure, unrelenting strength to be the only factor necessary for success. Cunning became more important to creatures over time, but for him, even cunning or intelligence seemed like luxuries: not really necessary but welcome.
But now, he was faced with a new kind of challenge that tested his mental limits.
A challenge worthy of a paradigm shift. An age ruled by intelligence. Perhaps an age leaving him behind?
I don’t really believe that, Bath asserted as he walked along the top of a picket fence. But all the same...collaboration on a mass scale is something that even I cannot fully combat. At least, Bath thought, not now.
He smiled despite himself, his muzzle jerking upwards at the edges, revealing a mouthful of sharp, white teeth. He let go of his worries, let go of the human. He thought of his opponent and laughed. Who actually dared to attack him? It was exciting. The predator roared with delight.
Come, challengers, he thought, his mental voice radiating out with all the strength of his conviction. For I will destroy you as I did the Old Continent. I will rend you so that your flesh weeps and your mind cracks like stone. To you I will be a terror transcending death itself.
And when I devour you, I will revel in your shattering and feast upon your agony.