Chapter 20. Déjà vu

“Hurry up, the crowd is close” Casey said, excited

“What do you want to do with them?” Kelly asked, trying to hide the concern in her voice

“Giant woman things” Casey replied casually

They had stayed at the Millennium Tower for a while. If Kelly had had any doubts about how much of a psycho Casey had become, her “games” there had cleared them from her mind. Some of them had been even more disgusting than she could have imagined.

Sooner or later Casey had to run out of people easily within her reach. When she did, Kelly convinced her to move away from the tower. She said she wanted to see more of their city. With that, she managed to get Casey away from little people for a while. Kelly knew that they would find more people sooner rather than later, though. And when they did, she did not have too many tricks up her sleeve to stop Casey from wreaking havoc in the city again.

“Don’t you love the way they always end up packing together into mobs?” Casey asked. “It’s so predictable and just so damned stupid”

Kelly did not have anything to say in defense of the crowd. She thought the same. Up to some point, they stopped looking like people when they reacted to their presence.

“I guess it’s natural. We are pretty damn big” she said, just pointing the obvious

 Then, Casey turned and said:

“Truth or dare?”

Kelly was completely taken by surprise. She managed to answer:

“Truth”

“Are you jealous because of not being the only giant around?”

“No. Maybe I would be if it were someone else, but having a good friend around is actually good” Kelly lied.

“You almost made me cry, girl” Casey said, laughing. “I need to admit that I was both jealous and worried when I found out about you. I’m still jealous, but the fact that it’s you makes things a little easier”

Then, Casey smiled and said:

“I choose dare”

Kelly thought about the irony of the situation while her mind tried to go through some possibilities. She knew that no matter what she thought about, Casey would end up making a mess. And Kelly would feel guilty about it. Then, an idea came to mind. She suppressed a smile as she said:

“I dare you to bring me that bus over there”

Kelly was pointing at a very noticeable city bus a block and a half away.

Casey chuckled and said: “Piece of cake”

“I did not finish…” Kelly replied. “I dare you to do that without killing anyone”

Casey’s expression changed.

“It’s packed from here to the bus” she protested

“Yeah, looks like that” Kelly said, smirking, trying to convey the idea that not letting Casey kill anyone was just a trick she had come up with to win a game.

“You bitch” Casey said

“You can yield” Kelly replied as she arched her eyebrows

“Yield?” Casey said. “Get ready for your next challenge. I’ll get done with mine in no time” she added.

Kelly saw Casey turn and face the crowd. She had never seen her so careful before. Kelly managed to suppress a giggle. Challenging Casey to be careful with people both resolved an immediate issue and put some pressure on her.

“Who knows, maybe she finds out that using her size without killing people can actually be better than being a fucking psycho” Kelly thought

Casey advanced until her toes were just behind the tiny people at the back of the crowd.

“Would it be too much to ask of you that you just cleared a path for a couple of blocks?” she asked in a quite unconvinced tone

At her feet, people run into every possible direction, many times bumping into each other. High-pitched screams easily reached her ears.

“Ok, I’ll need to handle this myself, then” Casey thought

Crouching, she brought her two hands into the crowd and scooped two handfuls of people, taking a lot of care to be gentle enough.

Standing up once more, she looked at the dozen or so people in her hands and said:

“This is your lucky day. I’ll set you down; make sure you get the hell away from me when I do that. I would really hate to step on you this time”

Turning, she carefully dropped the people on the street between her and Kelly and then dropped to her knees. She scooped another two handfuls and set them behind her as well. Turning, she got frustrated when she saw that the crowd had just filled the gap that had been left by the people she had picked up.

“Fuck!” she said between her teeth

Scooping another group, she kept them in her hands as she observed the rest of the crowd quickly filling the space. Apart from the density of people being a little lower, nothing too relevant had changed in front of Casey.

“Are you people stupid or what?” Casey said, frustrated. “What do you want? You want me to crush you?”

She needed to try something else. Remembering the river, she just puckered her lips and blew gently. Dozens of people were sent off their feet. Unfortunately, this did not clear a path for her. It just made people to lie on their stomachs and backs instead of run. She knew that she could blow stronger and make some people actually fly, but this was too risky, since she did not really trust their ability to survive the flight.

She needed to find an alternative. Looking back over her shoulder she saw Kelly observing her with a smile on her face.

“Does she think she’ll beat me? I’ll fucking show her” Casey thought, looking around for alternatives.

Her eyes set on something and she decided to give it a chance. Bringing her hand to the sidewalk, her fingers found the fire hydrant and easily broke it. A high-pressure column of water soon erupted from the sidewalk. Partially covering it with her fingers, Casey directed the pressured water into the direction of the crowd. The results were immediate. A sizeable group of people was pushed by the water and cleared an area right in front of the hydrant. And, thanks to the pressure of the water, no one could fill in the gap, afterwards.

She played with her fingers, moving the stream of water around until she had a large enough clear semi-circle in front of the hydrant.

Her little experiment had taken care of about half of the problem. Now, she had a free path for about a block. She felt proud of the solution she had come up with.

Standing up, she quickly took advantage of that until her toes were right behind the people again. She observed the bus from her vantage point of view and felt frustrated again. It was but a couple of steps away, but there was no way she could take those steps without her feet landing on people.

She needed to find another trick. The trees on the sidewalk gave her an idea. They must be about fifty feet tall, so it was easy enough for her to reach out and rip one of them off. Once she had it in her hand, she used it like a brush and moved a group of people away from her and into the sidewalk where the tree had been. She was careful, since she knew that even like this, she could end up hurting the people. The gap that she had cleared was starting to be filled in with people, but she easily corrected that by carefully sweeping the tree again.

A few seconds later, she was standing again and the path between her and the bus was clear. She took a couple of small, careful steps towards it and then bent down and easily grabbed it with one hand in the center of its roof. She turned in the direction of Kelly with a proud look in her face. Then, her expression suddenly changed.

Kelly did not understand what was going on. Then, a thundering voice behind her said:

“Leave them alone”

Kelly did not need to turn to know who that voice belonged to.

“Oh, fuck” she said

Forgetting about all the care she had had until then, Casey started to stomp her way back, bus in hand. The only thing that prevented the body count from getting higher was that Casey herself had cleared most of the path when she had been advancing towards the bus.

Turning, Kelly saw Lisa was advancing down the empty avenue, her teeth and fists clenched.

The situation had been bad enough with just Casey. Now, it risked becoming a nightmare. Kelly knew that everything was going to go to hell in the next ten seconds. She tried to find a way to stop the unavoidable, but she did not know how. Then, as both Casey and Lisa were about to reach her, she took a step to the middle of the road, stood with her arms spread wide and yelled:

“Stop for a second, for God’s sake!”

She did not know if it were her words or the deafening volume at which she had pronounced them, but both Casey and Lisa stopped. Plenty of windows shattered.

Kelly knew she did not have too much time. Standing sideways, so that she could see both of them while she kept her arms extended and her palms flat, as if creating an imaginary barrier, she said:

“Please, stop and listen to me before you do anything stupid”

Casey was stopped, but her stance suggested that she would charge in Lisa’s direction at any moment.

“I’ll kill Lisa first. Then you can say anything you want” Casey said

“Stop right there, for fuck’s sake!” Kelly yelled again. “I just need you to listen to me for a second!”

Apparently, the volume of her words had some effect again. Both women were still tense but were not moving. Whatever she had to say, Kelly knew that she had to say it now.

“Look, I know that you two hate each other. But you need to keep your head cool for a second and listen to me, ok? Look at us! We are huge again. Even bigger. I don’t know how the fuck it happened, but it happened again. Last time we fucked up. It was everyone’s fault. But it doesn’t need to happen again. I’ve been thinking about this. You just need to listen to me, ok?”

From the look in Casey’s and Lisa’s faces, she knew that she would not have time for a very long speech. Then, Lisa just said:

“I saw you on TV. You are enjoying this”

 Her tone was accusing, disappointed.

“Of course I’m enjoying this. This is the best thing ever. Look, Lisa, you need to look at this with your eyes open. You’ve grown again. We all did. We cannot prevent this from happening to us. I know it. And I know you’ve felt it too. We will never be normal again. And you know what? I don’t want to! Why should I, when I can be bigger, and better. When I can be in charge. And why should you?”

“I’m married! I have a daughter!” Lisa said

“How can you help your husband and daughter more? Like this or caged in a lab? Because you know that’s where they’ll put you if they ever find the way to reduce you again. I, for one, know that I’m not getting back into a lab”

“Stop wasting your time” Casey said. “You know she’s a fucking wimpy. She’s always been. And I’ve spent 6 years in prison because of her!” she added in a very angry tone

“Casey, you need to listen to me as well. We can be goddesses. The three of us. We can rule, do as we please and get anything we want. And we can have fun. We can have tremendous fun. But you need to stop being a psycho. People will eventually accept us. They will have no other option than to accept that we are in charge. But as long as you keep killing them for sport, they will keep on fighting back”

“Let them try” Casey said, shrugging

“We cannot go on like this forever, Casey. If the three of us can work together, this can work out well. But we all need to put something on our side” Kelly said

“The more you talk, the more it looks like you are asking us to be like you” Casey said

“This is the only way this will work” Kelly said, almost pleading

“Why?” Casey said. “Last time I checked I was well over two hundred feet tall, so the way I see it, I can do anything I fucking want”

“Casey…” Kelly said

“Are you going to fight me?” Casey said, looking straight into Kelly’s eyes.

Kelly waited for a couple of seconds and said:

“No, I’m not going to fight you” Kelly said

“Kelly!” Lisa then said, making her turn.

“You are both wrong. If no one is going to take my side, I’m not taking anyone’s side either”

Just then, Lisa was hit hard with something. It took Kelly a second to realize that it had been the bus that Casey had been holding in her hand.