“Wh-what is it, Furie?”
“Gift.”
“A gift?” he asked. “What gift?”
“Mommy says it’s called Pink Sym—”
WHUMP.
Julie ran into the bay and hollered at Maar, scaring the living daylights out of everyone.
“Mr. Sheck?”
Maar clutched his chest and stomped his foot on the ground, “Damn it. What did I tell you about sneaking up on me?”
“It’s Hughes.”
“What about Hughes?”
“He’s woken up,” she blurted.
“What?”
“Come with me. Quick.”
Maar didn’t know what to do next. He could stick around to find out what was happening with Furie - whoever she was - or go and quiz Alex.
“Rowan?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Stay here with Jonas and report back to me in Hughes’s bay. He’s woken up, apparently.”
“Yes, sir.”
Maar made for the door, “And whatever you do, make sure that cat-girl thing stays in this bay and doesn’t leave.”
“Of course.”
Julie hurried along the corridor and pushed past several oncoming medicians.
One of them - a young man named Nathan - made a beeline over to her, “Julie, Julie—”
“—What is it?”
“I think he’s going insane.”
“Did you administer the tranquilizer?”
“No. Every time we get near him he lashes out.”
Maar and Brayn caught up to Julie and demanded answers.
“What the hell is going on?”
SCHLAMM — BOOM.
Julie, Nathan, Maar, and Brayn - and the nearby medicians - all turned their attention to the tenth bay door up along the corridor.
Bay Thirty-Three.
“Let go of me, you asshole,” a familiar voice thundered through the open door. “Where is she?”
Julie darted up the corridor with the others in tow.
“What did you do with her?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Nathan protested.
“Yeah, that’s the whole problem,” she said as she reached the door, “The E-MRI was half way through its cycle, and he woke up—”
Her heels skidded to a halt as she looked inside the bay.
“God damn it.”
Julie bolted into the room and made for the computer, “Why did you leave him alone?”
Nathan ran into the room with Maar.
Brayn followed in after them and drew his firearm at the topless man sitting on the bed.
He shook his wrists and ankles away from their shackles to little success
“Hey, you,” Brayn threatened. “Calm the hell down.”
Alex sat upright and took a deep breath through his breathing apparatus.
“Where is she?”
“Where’s who?” Maar said as he calmly approached the bed. “Alex J. Hughes?”
“Yeah.”
Maar arrived at the foot of the bed and folded his arms, “Opera Charlie, Alex J. Hughes. I want answers.”
WRENCH — CLANG.
“Untie me, Maar.”
“Nu-uh. Not till you’ve learned to calm down. Everything will be fine. Now, tell me what happened.”
Alex pulled his wrists to his chest and rocked the gurney from side to side, “Damn it. You don’t understand,” he spat, “What did you do with Jelly? Where is she?”
Maar grinned as he sat on the edge of the bed. “She’s all right. Her and her daughter. That is her daughter, isn’t it?”
Alex leveled his breathing and stared at the man from behind his thick rubber facade.
“Isn’t it?”
Alex nodded and turned to Julie at the E-MRI console, “What’s she doing?”
Brayn sneered at Alex and kept his gun pointed at his face, “We’re asking the questions, now, asshole. Shut up and answer the man.”
Maar tapped the mattress with his fingertip, “Alex? Look at me.”
Alex turned, slowly, to Maar and slowed his breathing.
“You’re clearly in shock. You’ve just survived one of the roughest water landings we’ve ever seen. I can’t imagine how much trauma you’ve been through.”
“You don’t understand—”
“—You’ve been away for years. A lot’s changed here since you’ve been away. I think you need to rest and recoup for a while. Prepare yourself to do some explaining.”
“Don’t tell me what I need,” Alex struggled to remain calm. “Where’s Jelly?”
“All in good time, Hughes.”
“Did she survive the landing? Please, tell me she and her daughter survived the landing at least.”
Biddip-beep.
The heart reading on the machine began to sped up. Alex looked down at the pads attached to his chest.
“Alex, listen,” Maar said. “You tell us what we need to know, and we’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Nathan paced around the gurney and tried to clock every conceivable angle of Alex’s head and torso.
“Alex J. Hughes?” he asked with an air of suspicion. “Can I ask. How are you feeling?”
Alex took his time to respond.
“Fine.”
“Are you sure?”
A sliver of pink dust crept up the inside of his breathing apparatus.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
Nathan looked from the concerned Julie, and back to Alex once again.
“No pains? No aches? Discomfort?”
“No.”
“Are you feeling queasy? Anything like that?”
“No.”
“Hmm.”
Nathan turned to the image of Alex’s lungs on the E-MRI screen, “Mr. Sheck?”
“What is it?”
“Alex is carrying something in his lungs—”
WRENCH — CLANG-CLANG.
“Goddamn it,” Alex pulled in his shackles twice as hard, “Let me out of here, you assholes.”
Maar stood up and nodded at Brayn, “Keep your gun on him.”
“Don’t worry about that, sir. I’ll blow his infected brains out if he so much as looks in the wrong direction.”
Alex twisted his head and grunted at Brayn, who lifted his gun between the man’s eyes.
“That includes me, asshole.”
Maar looked at the holographic imprint of Alex’s lungs displayed on the side of the machine, “What do you mean? Carrying?”
Nathan pointed at the shadows across both lungs.
“This unidentified substance here, and here. It’s also present in the subject in B Six-Five.”
Alex heaved and screamed at the top of his lung, “You’ve got Furie? Where is she? Bay sixty-five?”
“Yes,” Nathan said. “Why does that concern you?”
“Damn it. You don’t know what you’re dealing with,” Alex’s muffled roars pushed the mask a millimeter away from his face as he spoke, “She’s toxic. You need to get her in quarantine.”
“Toxic?”
Julie and Nathan turned to each other, quizzically.
“Nathan, go and clear Bay Six-Five,” Julie snapped. “Get Rowan out of there and into quarantine. Now.”
“She passed the Q test before she—”
“—I don’t give a damn if she passed it already,” Julie said. “New information has come to light, courtesy of Hughes. It must have gone undetected. Go, now.”
“For heaven’s sake.”
Nathan darted out of the room and made his way back to Bay Sixty-Five.
Alex hung his head and tried to ignore the barrel of Brayn’s gun, “Please. Tell me no one has come into contact with her?”
Maar grimaced and felt his patience drain away.
“Don’t worry, Hughes. We’re on it. What we’re less on, if you like, is what happened on Charlie’s mission. Why you and Jelly have returned, and not the rest of your crew. I want you to tell me everything you know, starting with Opera Charlie and what
occurred when it connected with Opera Beta.”
Alex looked up at Maar and clenched his fists.
Nathan ran into Bay Sixty-Five and pushed his way through the crowd of trainees peering through the Perspex wall.
“Christ. Get Jonas out of there. Now.”
Rowan looked over from the control deck and yelled at Nathan, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s the girl.”
Nathan looked dead ahead at Jonas rising to his feet in front of Furie.
“She’s toxic. She’s carrying something. That, that, thing inside of her.
Everyone turned to Jonas’s right hand as it moved away from the glowing, pink orb in Furie’s belly.
Rowan yanked the lever down and moved his mouth to the microphone, “Jonas. Get out of there.”
KER-AMMMMM — BZZZZ.
The inside of the analysis lab dimmed, startling both Jonas and Furie.
Jonas felt around his breathing apparatus and looked at the two-way mirror.
“Hey. Why did you open the door—”
“—Jonas?” Rowan’s voice rumbled into the man’s headset. “No time to explain. Get out of there. Leave the subject inside.”
Furie growled at Jonas, having heard the tiny echo of a voice coming from his breathing mask.
“Is someone talking to you?”
“What? No,” he lied.
Furie jumped off the bed and landed on her hind paws. She waved her tail around like a whip and took a keen interest in the giant mirror on the opposite wall.
It felt strange to her.
There she was, her own body reflecting back in the mirror, unaware of the USARIC trainee medicians staring back at her from behind the wall.
She walked towards it and stared at the crowd. In her mind, she stared at her own face.
“Is this me?”
“Furie?” Jonas asked, softly.
She turned around and lifted her ears, “Huh?”
“Listen. I have to go for a little while. Will you be a good girl and stay here until I get back?”
She considered the offer as the medicians, and Rowan and Nathan, held their breath for an answer from the upright cat-girl.
“Good L-Lord,” Rowan stammered. “I can’t b-believe what I’m seeing.”
WHAAAARRRMMM.
The pink orb in Furie’s belly shifted up toward her chest and glowed twice as strong as before. She pressed her right paw over it and squeezed, gently, as she smiled at Jonas.
“Will you take me to my Mommy if I wait?” she asked.
“Sure,” Jonas lied once again.
The four black lines crept across the white wall and formed the outline of the door.
“Jonas,” Rowan advised. “Get the hell out of there. Now.”
Furie ran her tongue across her teeth and turned to her reflection in the mirror, “Okay. Friend.”
“Yes. Friend. Good girl.”
Jonas slipped through the door and shut it behind him.
Rowan, Nathan, and the twenty trainee medicians leaned towards the glass. They got an upfront and personal view of Furie pacing towards them.
She extended her paws, fanned her cuticles and slapped them against the glass.
KER-CLINK.
Her mouth moved, but her voice was inaudible. Instead, the microphones in the room piped her voice through the speakers in the viewing gallery.
“Furie,” she said. “It’s me.”
The cat-girl had fun pressing her claw against the one on her reflection. She drew it down to her chest height and examined her bare chest.
“You’re so pretty,” her lips spoke, with her voice funneling into the room a second later.
Her claw screeched down the reflective mirror and arrived at her waist. Naked as the day she was born, she tilted her head at her thighs and turned her hips to the side.
“Mommy is coming,” she said as she lifted her tail through her left paw.
WHIPPP.
“Heehee,” she giggled, taking great joy in playing with her own reflection.
CLANG.
The trainees yelped as her claw hit the glass once again. She leaned forward and stared everyone in the face, or so it seemed.
“I… see… you.”
One of the trainees burst into tears.
“It’s an abomination. H-How could they have d-done this?”
“It’s not our fault,” another trainee said. “Something happened up there. There’s nothing we could have done to stop it.”
The upset trainee pushed her way through the others and left the bay, once and for all.
“Everyone, please,” Rowan said. “I think it’s better if you left, now.”
Of course, no one dared to leave. They stayed to watch Furie dancing on her feet and clapped her paws together.
“Friend, friend, friend,” she sang, overjoyed at the prospect of an imminent reunion with her mother.
Furie looked at the half-cat, half-girl in the mirror. “Hmm. You’re pretty. What’s your name?”
She affected a slightly higher tone of voice and role played the part of her new “friend.”
“Furie. I’m a Star Cat,” she said as she preened in front of the mirror. “What’s your name?”
She blinked and rolled her shoulders, returning to the room, “My name is Furie, too. Furie Anderson. My Mommy is Jelly Anderson, and she’s the bestest Star Cat ever.”
Furie moved her face to the glass and held out her tongue, “I like you. Furie Anderson. Friend.”
“Friend,” she replied.
Sniff-sniff.
She wiggled her nose and took in the scent of her new friend in the mirror.
Sniff-sniff-sniff.
The scent drifting up her nostrils wasn’t one she expected. If anything, the girl standing in front had a distinctly clinical air about her.
“You smell funny,” Furie said at her own face.
“I’m not funny,” she playfully responded, “You’re funny.”
Rowan blinked hard, unable to tear his eyes away from the role play taking place in front of the two-way mirror.
“I must be dreaming. This isn’t real—”
“—Oh no, no,” Nathan muttered in astonishment, “It’s real, all right. Look at her.”
Furie extended her tongue and attempted to lick her reflection’s forehead.
“You have an F, too.”
Every time she tried to move, her “friend” moved with her.
Their tongues met across the cold glass.
“Stop moving, Star Cat,” Furie said in a fit of irritation. “I’m trying to lick you, but you keep moving.”
“I’m sorry, Furie,” she said on behalf of her friend, “Everything I do you do at the same time. Stop copying me”
“Stop copying me.”
“I’m sorry,” Star Cat returned.
“Stop copying me,” Furie barked at the same time as Star Cat, who mouthed the same sentence and enacted the same gesture. “You’re doing it again and I don’t like it.”
The pink orb in her stomach enlarged the angrier she got, “You’re copying me, and I don’t like it. Stop it.”
“Stop it.”
“Nggggg.”
Furie burst into tears and crumpled in a heap on the floor, “Stop doing what I’m doing.”
She looked up with tears streaming down her eyes and pointed at her reflection, “You’re even crying like me, too. I hate you. I HATE YOU.”
She pushed herself to her hind legs and swiped at her own tail.
Nathan turned to Rowan for a reaction, “She’s going berserk. Can’t we put her under for a while?”
“No. Not till ar-Ban gets back.”
“Screw ar-Ban. That family isn’t exactly the best commercial for dealing with the Andersons. I’ll go in there and deal with her myself,” Nathan said.
“No. Let them—her, fight it out together.”
“Are you insane?” Nathan shrieked. “It’s just one of her in there, not two. She’
s arguing with herself.”
Furie hopped over to the gurney and yanked on the loose carbon fiber strap. She sunk her fangs into the coarse material and tried to tear it in half.
GNASH — CHEW.
“Grrrrrr,” she fumed as she whipped her tail around in a frenzy.
Her eyes turned a sickly yellow.
The fur on her shoulder lifted towards the ceiling.
She harnessed the anger inside her and picked up the metal chair from the corner of the room.
“I hate you.”
“MEOW.”
Furie roared into the mirror and launched the chair right at the two-way mirror.
SCHWA-SCHTAAAANNNGGG-GG!
The legs on the chair pinged off the mirror, leaving barely a dent in it.
Furie bushed her tail and heaved with extreme anger at the girl doing precisely the same in the mirror.
“Stay away from me,” they both said before turning away from each other.
Jonas and Nathan hurried along the corridor.
“What’s going on in there?” Jonas asked as he removed the mask from his face, “Why all the urgency?”
Nathan moved ahead of his colleague, “Hughes has come-to. He’s speaking about something toxic. That thing inside the subject in B Six-Five went undetected during quarantine.”
Jonas felt his throat start to tremble.
“What happened when you touched it?”
“Nothing. It just sort of vibrated,” Jonas quipped. “What state is Hughes in?”
“I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”
The two men turned the corner in haste and ran along the corridor to Bay Thirty-Three.
CHAPTER SEVEN
— Bay 33 —
Maar watched Brayn attach a pair of DecapiCuffs to Alex’s wrists.
“Hold still, dickhead.”
“What are you doing?” Alex squealed from under his oxygen mask.
“Just a precaution, Hughes,” Maar chuckled as he saw the reflection of the door to the bay in Alex’s visor.
Three USARIC mercenaries moved into the room and lined the wall, waiting for instructions.
Maar grinned at Hughes as the cuffs sealed around his wrists.
SCHWUNK — CLICK.
Alex writhed around in his seat, desperate for freedom.
“Ah, good. He’s awake.”
Star Cat Forever: A Science Fiction & Fantasy Adventure (The Star Cat Series - Book 6) Page 8