Cat buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly. To find her sister alive after all this time, and then to lose her so sickeningly… She’d never thought the world could be this cruel. Then again, until today she’d never known that this was a world of mutants and telepathic, homicidal clowns.
Kinslow tapped her on the shoulder repeatedly until she moved her hands away and glanced up at him through her tears.
“Mr. Dowling wants you,” the mutant said pleasantly.
Cat looked across at the clown. He was smiling and nodding at her while her nephew was being carried up to the cannon.
Cat wailed and covered her face with her hands again.
“Don’t be like that,” Kinslow cooed. “Maybe he wants to cut a deal. Maybe you can save the little boy if you hurry.”
“You really think so?” Cat moaned, peering at Kinslow through the cracks in her fingers, not daring to believe there might be any hope.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Kinslow said with a twinkling grin.
Cat was certain that she was being toyed with, but regardless of that she got to her feet and staggered into the ring. If there was any possibility that she could save poor George, she had to take it before it slipped away. After all, there were no second chances in life.
“Auntie Cat!” George cried with shock when he spotted her.
She cringed but forced herself to look up at the shrieking boy and smile. “It’s OK, George. I’m going to sort this out.”
“Mummy?” George roared. “Daddy?”
“They’re fine,” she lied. “They’re waiting for you outside. But I’ll see if I can get the clown to let you walk out to join them, so that you don’t have to be fired through the air like they were.”
She didn’t know whether or not George believed her. Before he could ask any questions, he was pushed down into the cannon by the mutant who had carried him up to it.
Cat faced the smirking Mr. Dowling and said, “What do I have to do?”
The clown held out the cannon’s control to her.
“You’re out of your bloody mind!” Cat shouted. “I’m not going to execute my own nephew!”
Mr. Dowling cocked his head, his eyes darting wildly around his sockets, and he made a series of whining noises.
“He says you can swap places with the boy if you wish,” Kinslow said behind her.
Cat shuddered, but she had anticipated this and resigned herself to it. “Okay,” she sighed. “If that’s what it takes.”
She started forward, to climb up and rescue her nephew, prepared to sacrifice herself for him. She had seen other people do this when attacked by zombies, give themselves up in an attempt to save a loved one. She’d always considered them the most foolish of fools, but it was different when it was one of your own.
As Cat took hold of the ladder, she paused and turned.
“How do I know that you’ll let him go?” she asked.
Kinslow laughed. “We never said we’d let him go.”
Cat’s face fell. “But you promised…”
“No, no, no, no, no,” Kinslow tutted. “Mr. Dowling only said you could swap places with the boy. He never said anything about what would happen to him after you were dead.”
“What will happen to him?” Cat asked.
Kinslow shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Mr. Dowling might let him go, or turn him into a mutant like me, or send him back up to be fired out of the cannon after you.”
“I need to know,” Cat groaned.
“You can’t,” Kinslow said. “We’re not offering you a deal, just a chance to buy the boy some time. After that, his destiny lies in the lap of the gods. Well, in the lap of Mr. Dowling.”
Cat stared at the mutant with horror and her hands fell by her sides.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Save your breath,” Kinslow sniffed. “Are you swapping places or not?”
“I will if I can save him,” Cat wept. “But if you’re going to kill him anyway…”
“We might not,” Kinslow reminded her.
“I need a guarantee,” she shouted.
“Mr. Dowling isn’t in the guaranteeing business,” Kinslow replied coolly. “Now, are you climbing up there or not?”
Cat shook her head uncertainly. “I need a minute to think about it. I…”
Mr. Dowling made a low, guttural noise.
“What did he say?” Cat asked.
Kinslow chuckled heartlessly. “He said he would grant you a favor and do your thinking for you.”
And with that, Mr. Dowling pressed the button and George Bearman, Cat’s eight-year-old nephew, was sent shooting to his doom, leaving his aunt to collapse to her knees in the center of the ring and wail wretchedly while mourning all that she had lost.