by Jack Truxton
There was a long pause on Candy’s end. While I was wondering if the jig was up, Annie too as she was suddenly by my side, clinging to my arm, Nyala never broke her steely gaze on her screen, projecting confidence and authority. A moment later, that silence broke.
“Done and done,” Candy reported as if this were just another day at the office. “I know Mr. Johnson won’t be happy, but he’ll understand, and the rest of the clients, well, the rest of today’s meetings are all small fry.” She laughed a little, adding a snort for good measure. “But you know all this stuff way better than I do, Ny. Just call down if you need a hand, okay?”
“Of course, Candy, and expect a new schedule within an hour or two. Thank you.” Before Candy could offer a last reply, Nyala tapped the screen and ended the call.
And that’s when she sunk to her knees, her tail drooping as her ears fell back, dropping her tablet to hug herself as she began the same shudders and shivers that Annie did. I crouched down beside her, wrapping my arm around her shoulders from the right, while Annie flopped down to her knees on Nyala’s left. The nurse Kat took Nyala’s hand in hers and went to work immediately, checking her vitals.
“You’ll be okay,” I soothed. “Just breathe. The shakes will pass.”
Annie nodded slowly, a smile on her face as her tail slipped from stuff concern to slow lashing. “Jake is absolutely right, Nyala. Your vitals are strong. It just takes a few minutes for everything to stabilize.”
“Fantastic,” the business Kat said with a smile and another shiver. “I’ll just sit here while it passes if you don’t mind?”
I gave her a warm squeeze. “Take your time, Nyala. You did an incredible job buying us time.”
Pushing back up to my feet, I scanned the room again. There was a door to lead further back into the office, a possible escape route, and I knew that there was a safe built into the desk, where Romine had stored each day’s ill-gotten gains and dispenses cash loans from. Between that and what Romine had on him in valuables, the plan seemed obvious.
Turning back to the pair of Kats, Annie doing her very best to help Nyala through the course of the cure, I rubbed my chin. “Okay, once you’re feeling well enough to talk, Nyala, we need to grab what we can and work a way out of here. With Romine out of the picture, a lot of these fraudulent loans would go away without anyone to enforce them, so if you can open the safe, we can take what we need to keep moving, then see if we can distribute the rest to charities or needy people. I’m not sure on the specifics of that.”
“Ooo, we are going to be superheroes, aren’t we?” Annie beamed. “We’ll steal from the bad guys and give to the poor!”
“More or less, at this point,” I admitted with a shrug. I mean, she wasn’t entirely wrong. What just happened could have been a scene from an e-comic. Turning my eyes to Nyala who already seemed to be passing through her temporary sickness, I added, “Oh boy, this has got to be a bit confusing for you, and you sure can’t make a decision about any of this without knowing what we’re doing.”
She started to stand, Annie giving her a look of concern. Nyala nodded at the nurse and patted her shoulder, which seemed to reassure Annie that the Abyssinian was all right. Once Nyala was fully to her feet, recapturing her dignity as she carefully smoothed out her suit and her tail, she cleared her throat.
“From what you have done and said here, the both of you, I think I can infer quite a bit,” she began, snatching her tablet off the floor as she walked over to the now-messy desk, perching on one corner of it. As she folded those tanned legs in a rather deliberate faction, I admit I found it a bit hard to concentrate purely on what she was saying. “You ‘died’ in an industrial accident at Katsukami, but then you resurface with a nursing Kat that is acting without restrictions. And while you came here in part to clear your debts with Mario, you made a big deal of asking for my freedom. I saw it in your eyes, St. Clare. You care.”
Shaking my head a bit to break Nyala’s spell, I managed to look at her eyes and not those sexy legs that seemed to go on for miles. “I do, and yeah, you’re right. We came here as much to free you, to cure you of Katsukami’s bullshit, as to get Romine off of our backs.”
Getting down to business helped keep me on track, even as Nyala plucked a lollipop out of a pocket and delicately stuck it in her mouth, showing her cute fangs as she licked at it. While Annie had that earnest, bubbly charm and wholesome beauty that endeared me to her, Nyala had cornered the market on the whole ‘drop-dead sexy professional’ thing.
“And we’re not stopping here,” I said with resolve in my voice. “With some resources, I can make as many doses of this cure as I need, and with the abuse you Kats have had to endure, both from callous owners and Katsukami itself, well, it’s about time for a revolution, don’t you think?”
“Yeah!” Annie cheered as she hopped in place, punching up into the air. “It’ll be just like it is on the show, Nyala! We’ll be heroes like Krusader Kat!” As she settled down, she matched her earnest smile against the business Kat’s vaguely skeptical look. “I know it seems crazy, and I must seem like such a ditz, but think about this.” Annie raised a finger, her voice growing strong with her conviction. “Did you think when you woke up this morning that you would be freed today? That you wouldn’t need a Master anymore?”
Nyala’s jaw worked as the lollipop shifted from one side of her mouth to the other as she broke from Annie’s gaze, glancing at her tablet. “No, I didn’t. I never thought I would be freed from this fat pig here.” She thumbed at Romine’s cooling body before looking over at me. “St. Clare … Jake … if you really intend to do this …”
I nodded fiercely. “Oh, we’re doing it all right. I know it seems impossible, but the truth of the matter is that people only allow what happens to you Kats because Katsukami controls the narrative, hides the truth of what you are, what you can be, and what the company does to you.” I clenched my fists. “Annie opened my eyes, and we can open the eyes of the world. We can win this.”
“You know what?” Nyala murmured softly, her tall ears fully engaged as her tail started to quiver with joy. “I think you can, I really do, which means that there’s no way I’m not going to help too.”
Annie clapped happily, beaming at the both of us. “That’s wonderful! Nothing can stop us now!”
“Thank you, Nyala,” I said with a smile. “Now, we better get everything we can and get out of here before—”
“No!”
Nyala’s objection was accompanied by the finality of her crunching down on her lollipop, snapping all attention in the room to her. As Annie and I blinked at her, she slipped down off the desk, hand on her hip as she cradled her tablet like the Statue of the Liberty. “If you want to really do some good, you need resources and a safe haven, Jake … and if you trust me, you can get all those things by staying right here.”
16
It only took a second for the shock of the suggestion to pass, and I already felt like I had an inkling of what shape Nyala’s idea would take. I hooked my thumbs in my pockets and nodded, Annie folding her arms behind her back next to me. “We trust you, Nyala, so lay it on us.”
A smile cut through Nyala’s professional air, a smile of honest relief. “Thank you, Jake, and you too, Annie.” A quick breath later, she was in full business mode. “While I could bore you with all the specifics, I will summarize my concept in the simplest points possible without insulting your intelligence.” She glanced over to where Bimmy and Jimmy, patched up under Annie’s tender care, were slowly starting to stir. “And we don’t have as much time as I would like.”
“We’re all ears!” Annie mewed, sticking her fingers behind her ears in a vain effort to make them as tall and perky as Nyala’s.
Trying to look serious despite Annie, I just nodded for the business Kat to continue.
“Very good.” Nyala tapped at her tablet, looking at us sidelong. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but I was the one that was responsible for all the positive business
decisions made by Mario. In essence, I ran everything, I ensured that we made money, and I made sure that what respect he showed to his employees came from me. There’s no reason to throw this all away.”
I arched an eyebrow. “I can see where you’re going, but there are a couple of issues.” I grinned as I saw the knowing look in Nyala’s eyes. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”
“As surely as you have figured out what I wanted to suggest,” she answered with a smile, her tail tip starting to sway with contentment. “I believe that, with the right story, I can convince everyone here to continue with business, taking orders through me and not questioning the fact that Mario isn’t appearing in person, at least for long enough to show that they are better off under new management.”
Annie chimed in, waggling her eyebrows for emphasis, “We Wonder Kats are extremely persuasive, dontcha know?”
Mulling it over, I nodded slowly. “I don’t doubt it. We can basically do what you were already doing, just with a few little changes. You give the orders, make the plans, and I’ll keep an eye on what’s going on and provide input through the smartglasses. Considering I know just enough about money to have basically sold my soul to Mario in the first place, you’ll be in charge.” I raised a hand before Nyala could reply. “But there’s one thing I want to make clear before I give an okay on this.”
She nodded slowly, looking deep into my eyes. Her tall ears were pointed straight up, her tail was quivering, and her golden eye were practically glowing with desire. “Considering I owe you not only my freedom but my salvation from Mario, I will do anything … anything ... to fulfill your requests.”
“Wow, that’s … extremely broad,” I murmured, mostly to myself, but considering the Kats’ hearing was at least as good as mine, I knew Annie and Nyala both heard it. Clearing my throat, I raised my voice to a normal level. “Anyway, if we’re doing this, we need to completely change this place around. I’m not going to be a loan shark, stiffing poor people out of their last penny with interest and then breaking their legs and stealing everything they own. I don’t care how good the money is.”
Nyala arched an eyebrow as her lips quirked into a smile. “I’m glad to hear you say that. While I won’t lie and say that we can turn this business fully legitimate anytime soon, I think that we can use the money and power here to do real good. You aren’t against a bit more of these righteous Robin Hood activities, are you?”
“Considering everything I want to do is going to piss off the powers that be, yeah,” I said with a grin. “We might be the good guys here, but we sure as hell are going to be criminals.”
Annie suddenly squeezed me tight, her tail quivering with glee. “I’m soooo excited! We’ll be heroic outlaws! Living on the edge! Striking for justice before melting back into the night! We’ll be …”
As if unable to resist, drawn into Annie’s vortex of excitement, Nyala joined in as Annie cried out, their two angelic voices as one, “Krusader Kats!”
I buried my hands in my palms, but I’ll be honest. I was smiling and laughing the whole time.
With that settled, we had to get to work and get to work fast. The neo-roid mods on the big boys enhanced their stamina to the degree that they recovered fast, even from the beatdown they had suffered. To set the stage properly, well, we had to dispose of Romine’s body, the only really disturbing part of the plan to me. The funny thing wasn’t that I felt guilty about it. While I hadn’t come here to kill the bastard, I sure wasn’t going to cry over the fact Mario had pretty much killed himself, all because he couldn’t accept that he’d been beaten. He’d gotten everything he deserved.
No, it was just a bit gross to haul his corpse over to the incinerator chute that was concealed behind one of the office’s wood panels. I didn’t even ask why that chute was there, the answer was obvious. We shoved the corpse down to its fiery fate, joining Romine in Hell where he belonged.
“Here!” Nyala pushed Romine’s smartglasses into my hands. “I think we’re almost out of time.” Jimmy, the least hurt of the two twins, was starting to groan now. “Mario’s … personal chamber is right through that door. Trust me, no one would dare look in there.” She pointed to the door I had noticed earlier in the back of the office.
“Come on, Annie.” I slipped the glasses on as the door slid open from a tap on Nyala’s tablet. “Don’t worry, you’ve got this, and if you don’t …”
“We’ll be right here!” Annie finished with a salute, lingering long enough that I felt the need to yank her into the bedroom by the waist. I barely got her through before the door slid shut again, leaving us alone inside what had to be the most overdone, tacky bedroom I’d ever laid eyes on.
It was as gaudy and tasteless as every other bit of the building’s décor but upped the ante by giving us way too many insights into the departed Romine’s fetishes. Taken in bits and pieces, there wasn’t anything that screamed of wrongness, but it was more that they evoked the thought of Mario’s fat ass done up in a set of medieval stocks covered up in plush red velvet that made my guts squirm, and that wasn’t the half of it. He even had one of those circular rotating beds covered in a leopard skin print comforter, right out of some vintage porno vid.
Annie’s eyes went wide, and she blushed a bit, getting up on her tiptoes as if to minimize contact with the ground. “Milk and cream, I’m resisting the urge to just start shoving things into that incinerator right now!”
“Just stay close to me and don’t think about it,” I soothed. “Trust me, I’ve got those same urges.” Holding Annie close, I focused on the smartglasses and the information being fed through them.
I let out a low whistle as I realized that these things were connected not only to Nyala’s tablet and Romine’s desktop computer but to the entire building’s security suite. Having used units like these a few times both in school and at Katsukami, it didn’t take long to adjust to using my eye movements to control the feeds. I brought up the security cameras in the main office, the audio off of them, and a messenger window to Nyala.
By the time everything was set, Nyala was helping a moaning Jimmy to his feet. “Easy now,” she purred, back into super professional mode. “Everything is fine now. Master Romine dealt with St. Clare.”
The way the big man grunted, I could tell that even with his roid-addled brain, he didn’t quite buy that. Shaking his head as he got his footing, Jimmy focused on the Kat in front of him. “Where boss?” His beady eyes drifted to his twin, still not up yet. “Is Bimmy okay?”
“The Master is in his private room,” Nyala said without losing a beat. “You remember that … pretty kitty, right? Master Romine is petting that kitty.” Again, I was amazed that she managed to hide her disgust, but she did. Patting one of the giant’s hands, she glanced at his brother. “I’m sure he is hurting like you are, but he will be fine.”
That seemed to be more than enough to placate Jimmy. He rubbed his face, gingerly prodding his bruises like they were curiosities. “Okay, Ny. Sorry, couldn’t shake Jake. Strong. Kitty strong too.”
“It’s quite alright.” Nyala stepped back, glancing at her tablet. “At least with me. But you know how the Master can be.”
And there I saw a bit of an opportunity to start to shift things around here. “Nyala, see if you can soften this a bit,” I said aloud, the smartglasses' microphone translating my speech into text for the messenger app. “I know these guys may not have been the best before the mods, but maybe we can turn them around. Maybe even cure them too. Heck, we need to start somewhere to shift the employees here if we’re going to turn this thing around.”
Nyala’s ears twitched as it came through her tablet, but that momentary surprise rolled off her like water off a duck’s back. “Though I will confess, I think you may have impressed Master Romine this time.” Her golden gaze swiveled up to shine on the pair while Jimmy picked up his still-groggy brother. “He did say something about how he was proud of your courage taking on someone more powerful than you.” She arched
a delicate eyebrow as her ears swiveled forward. “I believe his exact words were something about your great, brass cojones?”
Bimmy blinked slowly, definitely not all there yet, while Jimmy’s craggy face split into a big, goofy grin. “We’re happy if boss happy!” He tried to puff out his chest, but that only made him groan from his injuries. “Uh, Jimmy still not feel good.”
They had all the straight-forwardness of preschoolers and probably as much cognitive ability, a bit worse off than what neo-roids should have done to a normal mind. Did Romine mod people who already had mental disabilities? I wouldn’t put it past him. Thank God he was dead.
“If you think they’ll go for it, give them the day off to recover,” I said, shaking my head a little. “I definitely want to see what Romine has on them after this, too.”
Annie’s curiosity was up now, and she was trying to find a way to peer over my shoulder and through the lenses, which just turned into awkward scrabbling and stretching. “What’s going on, Jake? Can I help?”
As I tried to shoo her off, Nyala’s face was contorting as she tried to hold in a laugh while she looked at her tablet. I guess this model of smartglasses had radial cameras because it was obvious she had a feed of Annie’s current goofiness. Still, she managed to contain herself, mainly by forcing herself to look away and up at the twins, who were both trying to stand at their usual spots at full attention. Neither was quite up for it, still in considerable agony from the thrashing we gave them.
“Gentlemen,” Nyala began, but when the two grunts ignored her, she cleared her throat and tried again with a different tack. “Hey, boys!” That got their attention, the twins swiveling their little eyes towards her and trying not to look hurt. “I just received orders from the Master. He wishes me to thank you for your excellent work today and wishes me to give you the rest of the day off.” She tilted her head and smiled. “After all, you can’t do a very good job guarding the Master if you aren’t well rested!”