by Jack Truxton
“Whoa, whoa, hold on, Annie,” I managed to get out while she was catching her breath for the next part of her plea. “You don’t need to ask me to do that, because I was already planning on it.” I held up the finished injector, twirling it in my fingers for emphasis. “I mean, we’ll have to start small, work smart, and have more than a little luck on our side but—”
“No way!” Annie cried, planting her hands on the counter in shock. “Really? You really, really mean it? I mean, I know you care, not just about me but all the Kats, but to take on a giant corporation with bajillions of dollars, thousands of goons, anything they want in the world for tech and weapons, and massive geopolitical influence, well, I just wasn’t going to assume!”
I laughed a bit nervously. “Geeze, when you just out and say it like that, Annie, you kind of make me look crazy to even want to try … but how could I do anything else?” I thumbed at myself. “If anybody has a snowball’s chance in Hell to fight back against them, it’s me” – I turned the thumb into a finger pointed at Annie – “and you, working together.”
The Kat looked at me with awe, her hands clasped before her mouth as her eyes glittered. “You are soooo brave, Jake. I’m so lucky, the luckiest Kat ever, that you opened that door.”
“I’m just doing what anybody with a heart in their chest would do if they saw what I did,” I said with a shrug. “And as for luck, just keep hoping our luck holds out. I mean, Katsukami thinks we’re dead for now, but it’s only a matter of time before they find us. When they do, who knows what the heck is going to happen next, right?”
And, of course, the moment I let those words slip out of my mouth, someone knocked heavily at the front door.
10
Unlike the last time there was a visitor at our door, Annie didn’t immediately skip over to answer it, though her body started to tense to do so, one hand stretching out as if on instinct. Before I got a chance to stop her myself, she snatched her own outstretched hand with her free arm and drug it down like it was a deadly cobra, her tail curling back defensively and ears flattening.
Catching her eye, I put a finger against my lips. There was no delivery drone this time to explain the knocking, so there was no one at that door I wanted to see. Sure, it was likely Mrs. Patrusky, unsatisfied with the call to confirm my demise and now in full snoop mode, or maybe Blonsky the landlord. Of course, that was unlikely, as the lazy ass rarely showed his face at the apartments for fear of being forced to actually fix an issue.
Whoever it was, it was in our best interest to leave them alone. I was worried about what might happen if they didn’t go away, though. If they did something else when we didn’t answer. With that in mind, I gingerly stepped towards the door, mentally cursing at the stupid broken camera as I moved to position myself towards the door’s hinges. If whoever was incessantly knocking decided to move on to breaking and entering, I could maybe take them by surprise by being in their blind spot.
Annie seemed frozen on the spot, eyes wide as she stood in the kitchen area. Her gaze darted from me to the door and back again in total indecision. Trying to hear if anything was going on through the door, I cast a sidelong glance at her and waved at her, trying to motion for her to duck down behind the low counter in the middle of the room. You know, that whole hiding thing.
She blinked in slow confusion at my gesture, quirked her head, and hesitantly waved back at me.
Guess Wonder Klass hadn’t prepared Annie for home invasions. Her programmed response was likely to call the police, and while she had the freedom to not do that, she had no clue what to do. I was about to whisper-hiss for her to hide when I heard the sound of metal scraping on plastic, the door rattling a little. Damn, someone was messing with the door lock. The lock itself was electronic, so that was likely the sound of a probe to hack the lock. I could even smell the faint whiff of ozone and melting plastic, something that only my new nose would have detected.
Now, I didn’t know that much about hacking locks, but I’d had to break into my dorm room a few times after curfew. That limited knowledge told me we had literally seconds before our new friends were going to pay us a visit. Flattening myself against the wall, I really wished I had grabbed something to use as a weapon. Glancing over towards Annie, she seemed to be going into full panic mode, clamping her hands over her mouth to keep silent.
With only a moment left, as I heard the lock click, I gave Annie what I hoped was a calming smile and pointed at the frying pan sitting on the counter. She looked down at the pan, up at the door, and that seemed to make her understand. Snatching up the heavy cast iron cooking implement, her ears pulled up some, swiveling back into cat attack position as her tail started to poof up.
And that’s when the door creaked open ever so slowly. Whoever these guys were, they were trying very hard at this point to be sneaky, which kind of seemed stupid when they had been knocking earlier. Maybe now that they thought no one was home, they were going into full-on crime mode or something. I think the two slabs of beef that slid through the doorway were actually being quiet, but to my new senses, they were loud, clumsy, and drenched in cheap men’s cologne.
The two dudes were dressed about as cheaply. Maybe they had a fetish for velour, or maybe they just really liked the way the shiny, ill-fitting tracksuits made them look. The lead goon, because that’s what they obviously were, was garbed in shockingly bright mauve, a cheap gold chain dangling around his neck, while his buddy’s suit was in a sickly shade of puke green, made worse by the plush material. For some reason, probably robbery, they had framed hiking backpacks, clearly empty, on their backs, and their zippered track jackets had conspicuous bulges. While anything more dangerous than a taser was outlawed for normal folks, these guys weren’t law-abiding citizens. They were almost certainly packing real, honest-to-God firearms.
As they stepped through the door, they froze the moment they saw Annie, and Annie froze as well. Though they were each a good six foot three, the goons were obviously shocked that there was someone here at all, and Annie, well, she was a nursing Kat. Even though her limiters should be off, I doubt she’d ever been in this kind of situation before nor had she been trained for it. She wasn’t a Ninja Kat, after all. Our attempted escape from Katsukami was just that, an escape, not a potential fight.
I didn’t freeze though. I’m not quite sure why. Maybe it was the injection of unadulterated biodroid genetics giving me reflexes and instincts that would make an honest-to-God tiger proud. Before the two thugs got any untoward ideas towards Annie, like drawing whatever was in their jackets or their pants, I reached over and shoved the door closed, a loud slam echoing through the room.
The sudden noise startled the already surprised goons. Mr. Mauve scrambled for his jacket as he clumsily spun, and Mr. Puke let out a surprisingly girly shriek. You’d think that crooks would be a little, well, bolder, but then again, Batman did teach me that criminals were a cowardly and superstitious lot.
Speaking of superstitious, Mauve’s eyes went wide as saucers as he fumbled a cheap, plastic pistol, obviously illegally 3D printed, out of its hidden holster. “St. Clare? But, but you’re dead! Johnny, it’s a ghost!”
Johnny, the former Mr. Puke, only shrieked again as he almost tripped over his own two feet in his efforts to face down my spectral self.
Honestly, if Mauve weren’t about to point a gun at me, I would have found the pair way too funny to actually do anything to. Annie and I would have broken down into laughter, patted them on their adorable bull-necked heads, and sent them on their way, all crimes forgiven after their little comedy show.
But he had a gun, and that changed everything. Annie’s indecision was gone as she hissed and charged, frying pan held high, as my new reflexes kicked in. Ducking forward with blinding speed to throw off Mauve’s aim, I was on him before I even realized it. Snagging his right wrist, I clamped down and twisted, bone-crunching in my hands as he let out a cry. The gun tumbled to the ground, anger and pain replacing the fear in the goon’s
piggy eyes.
Pretty sure he knew I wasn’t a ghost anymore. Mauve raised his left hand, clenched into a fist the size of a holiday ham, ready to plow my face in, when a loud CLANG cut through the sounds of the scuffle. The big goon went completely stiff, his eyes rolling up into the back of his head before he fell forward. He would have done a deadman’s belly flop on me if I didn’t dance to one side, letting Mauve crash down on the ground like a felled oak.
Annie, both hands clenched around the handle of the pan hard enough to deform the iron, was left standing in Mauve’s place, eyes closed, her devastating cooking implement still held at the exact position where the goon’s head had previously been. One eye peeked open just a little, and she let out a squeak of, “I’m sorry!”
Spinning towards the other thug, I glanced sidelong at the Kat. “Annie, they’re trying to kill us. You don’t have to apologize!”
While we had been dealing with his friend, Johnny had come to his senses. He whipped out his own pistol as he got his feet steady. “You’re gonna pay for that, you bimbo Kat!”
Annie let out a yowl of fear, holding out the pan as a makeshift shield between her and the barrel of the gun. It was just the sort of crazy, silly thing I’d expect from her, but there was no way we were going to put her frying pan bullet shield to the test. I would never let that happen.
Time seemed to slow as adrenaline spiked in my system. Stepping between Johnny and Annie, it was like I could see every muscle tense in the goon’s hand, his finger starting to flex on the plastic trigger. Before he could finish that pull, I shoved Johnny’s gun arm up towards the ceiling, throwing off his aim as I fired off a kick with all my new strength right into his left knee.
The little home-made pistol let out a thunderous boom that was a complete mismatch for its minute size, but the slug plowed harmlessly into the cheap plaster above us. Johnny’s knee wasn’t quite so lucky. My foot slammed home with enough force to tear tendons and break bones, causing Johnny’s leg to buckle at an unnatural angle before he collapsed entirely onto one side.
“Milk and cream!” Annie exclaimed, peeking around the edge of her impeccable pan defense. “Jake! You got him! You saved me!” She blinked slowly. “Mr. Brenton would have let me get shot, let me die for him.”
I growled at that, equating her former master’s disregard for her life with these goons as I followed Johnny to the ground, tearing the gun out of his grasp before he could take another shot. It was easy, even if I didn’t have enhanced strength now, as the agony of destroying the goon’s knee had turned him into a crying, whimpering mess. Getting to my knees, I pointed the gun at Johnny’s head, and those whimpers shut right up.
Guess it’s true. Big bullies cave fast when the shoe’s on the other foot.
“Annie, make sure Mauve’s out, and get his gun,” I called behind me, trying to keep my voice low. Not that it’d help one bit, not with a gun going off. Still, considering the neighborhood, it was a fifty-fifty shot if anyone would even bother calling the police. It’s not like we were in a corporate-sponsored complex.
I could practically hear the air snap as I’m pretty sure Annie did another of her cute salutes. “You’ve got it! Nurse Annie is on the job!” I was definitely going to have to teach Annie a bit about the whole ‘staying quiet when you’re hiding’ thing.
Keeping my expression level and focused despite Annie’s antics, I kept the pistol trained right between Johnny Puke’s wide eyes. “As for you, Johnny, start talking. I don’t want to have to hurt you anymore, but I will if I have to.”
“Sure, sure, man,” he rambled between pained seething breaths, his hand cradling his blasted knee. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just don’t kill me.”
“First things first then,” I shot back, trying to look as mean as possible. “Why are you here, and who sent you?” Letting out a short, exasperated sigh, I added, “Yes, that’s two first things, but damn it, you know what I mean, right?”
Johnny nodded rapidly, more than willing to agree with the guy with the gun. “We were here to rob the place, make back some of the money you borrowed from Mr. Romine. I mean, you couldn’t pay it back when you were, yanno, dead.” Sweat poured down his brow as he frantically looked me over. “You are alive, right?”
I didn’t acknowledge his question. Partly because it was plain stupid, but more because we had bigger problems. While Romine still thought I was dead, that was very temporary. Even if these guys didn’t go back to tell him all about me, Mario Romine wasn’t in his position because he was stupid. He’d put two and two together very quickly and compound our troubles.
Unless we headed that trouble off before it got going.
“Johnny, you’re going to give me all of your cash, all of your weapons, and then you’re going to leave here and forget that we ever existed,” I said finally, keeping my gun on him as I glanced over my shoulder at the nursing Kat, happily checking Mauve’s vitals while humming away. “Annie, can you hurry that up? We’ve got to go!”
11
“When I said we had to hurry, Annie, that didn’t mean ‘apply full trauma care to the two guys that were about to shoot us,’” I pointed out as we did our level best to sneak down a side street, on our way to the aging Muni station near my house. Even a century later, the San Francisco Municipal Railway was a reliable way to get around town, so it was our best bet to get where we needed to go.
“I know they were bad guys,” Annie countered, pulling on the straps of one of our new hiking backpacks, generously donated by an unconscious Mr. Mauve, full of the most vital things from the apartment, like my genemod station. “But a doctor’s oath is to respect all life. Even badly dressed, stinky life.” She flashed those big blue eyes as her tail swished to and fro. “I have to stay true to my Nurse Kat principles!”
I smiled and laughed a little, slowing down as we reached the far end of the alley. “It’s okay. If we’re going to be high-minded revolutionaries, principles are pretty important … but you’re even more important, at least to me. Just don’t be surprised if I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you off once or twice so that you don’t get yourself killed at some point.”
“I’ll never be mad or surprised when you save me.” She smiled sweetly and hugged my arm. “Sooo … I have to ask. Where are we going? Why are we going there? Who were those two horrible people? Why did we have to loot your own apartment? Are you sure we won’t ever go back? And aren’t we breaking curfew?”
“We aren’t just breaking curfew, we’re curb stomping a hole in it,” I began, adjusting my own backpack, courtesy of Johnny Puke, filled to the brim with clothes, and whatever critical odds and ends that didn’t fit in Annie’s pack. “So, we’ve had to take the back streets to the train station, stay away from any of the usual places the police patrol for strays. As for the rest, well, we’re almost there, so if you can wait for a few more minutes, I’ll answer all those questions and more.”
While I had a fair bit of cash now burning in my pocket from Romine’s goons, I didn’t bother with their guns. Johnny’s had practically melted from his one shot, the downside of the all-plastic construction that let it get through police scanners, and I didn’t have any real-world experience shooting them. In the end, I just crushed up Mauve’s pistol into crunchy scrap and left it in the garbage.
Annie nodded, understanding brightening her eyes as we slid up the wall of the alley exit. “Okay, I trust you,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper that I wasn’t sure a non-Kat could even hear. “I hope you don’t think I’m stupid, Jake. It’s just … well, this sort of thing isn’t something I’ve been programmed for or trained about. For the short time that Mr. Benton had me before he … couldn’t stand my fur anymore, he always said that we Wonder Kats shouldn’t stray beyond our means.” She chewed on her lip with those cute fangs. “I don’t really believe that, but …”
“Annie, you helped me crack a complex genetic puzzle to intricately replace an entire chunk of your own g
enetic structure without causing super-cancer, and you make a mean cup of coffee.” I was smiling as I peeked out of cover to the normally bustling street in front of the Muni station and the relative safety it provided, even though I was harboring a deeper and deeper anger for this Brenton chap. “You are anything but stupid. Like, the absolute cosmic opposite of stupid, that’s you.”
She let out a sigh as she stayed flattened against the wall. “What a relief! I was … no.” She stopped herself, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, I’m still a bit … nervous about …”
I turned back to her, the road safe for now, and squeezed her shoulder. “It’s okay, Annie. Just know that I’m with you to the end.” Yeah, Mr. Breton was on my list for dooming Annie to die because of the shock of white in her lilac hair, but it’d have to wait. “Now, we’re going to make a dash for the train station, then nab a ticket across town. Once we’re on the train, I’ll explain everything.” I slid my hand down her arm, along her smooth skin, and took her hand. “Ready to really book it?”
“Like run all out, as fast as I can?” Annie said, a grin forming on her lips as her tail began to wriggle with anticipation. When I nodded, that grin went into full Cheshire cat territory, squeezing my hand. “You bet I can!”
I couldn’t match that grin, but I tried my damnedest. “Then let’s go!”
With that, we broke off into a full-on sprint, like really cut loose, something I hadn’t done since the explosion. There was a glorious sense of freedom with every bounding step as we ate up the pavement of the deserted road. It was how I imagined flying without a plane must feel like. The wind whipped through my hair, Annie right next to me giggling with glee. While I was trying for the low-profile thing, I couldn’t help myself but join in, laughing as we rocketed across the ten-lane mega highway.
I had the distinct feeling that Annie hadn’t ever had a chance to really push herself either. The only downside in retrospect was that it was over way too soon. Not even a minute before we began our madcap dash, we were skidding to a halt in the stuttering lights of one of the AutoCab stations in front of the transit hub, still laughing as we caught our breath.