That’s how Jelly felt for a time once the headlights disappeared. She opened her eyes very slowly.
A horizontal slit let a flood of white and pink light into her retinas. It should have hurt but it didn’t. Instead, it had a soothing effect.
Her left paw lifted into view, complete with her titanium claws. She exercised them, retracting them in and fanning them back out. A tiny whirring occurred, followed by a streak of blue shocks.
Her right paw waded in front of her face, blockading the view of the length of her body.
An endless gloop of pink stuff cocooned her outstretched body as if being smothered by a warm duvet.
No more suffocating. No more water. No more anything.
She tried to flip around to her side but couldn’t. Perhaps she was too relaxed? Not as such. She wanted to move around - but simply couldn’t.
Her limbs worked, evidently. She wasn’t tired - quite the contrary.
She lifted her face to the side and stared at the sticky, pink substance and tried to meow at it.
But she couldn’t speak. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.
A face emerged within the pink, jellied tomb. A nose, then two cheekbones and a pair of eyes. It moved around and stared back at Jelly.
"Ha… Haloo… ?" Jelly mouthed.
A smile stretched across the image of the woman’s face and nodded. "Hello, Jelly," it said, softly.
"Mwaaa-ack,’ Jelly nearly squeezed out a sound but it was of little use. She pained when she tried to speak and so decided against it.
Another face appeared directly above her. A Japanese woman Jelly had met on Space Opera Alpha. Her name was Zilla Chin-Dunne.
"Zaaah…" Jelly tried and licked her mouth.
Zillah’s face nodded and slowly faded away from the sloppy, pink ceiling.
Jelly made the mistake of blinking. Blackness fell for approximately two-fifths of a second and turned back to pink. Another blink. The gelatinous catacomb turned black.
Another blink, and it turned pink once again.
It frightened Jelly to the point where she didn’t want to blink ever again.
Before she had time to display her defiance the entire womb-like tomb rotated around her body. The sound of the movement was intense. She wasn’t able to block her ears with her paws. Try as she might, she’d just have to put up with the deafening sound.
"Meeeooowwww…"
"Jelly," a voice whirled around the increasing spin of the tomb, "Something fantastic is coming…"
"Mwaaaah," she screamed and clamped her face with both paws, careful not to take her eye out with her infinity claws.
Lightning bolts struck around the internal walls of the tomb, briefly illuminating it to resemble the inside of a human brain.
Then, Jelly herself began to spin around sideways.
At first it was quick, but as the tomb’s rotation sped up so, too, did Jelly’s - in the opposite direction.
Spin… spin… spin…
Faster and faster and faster…
A rocketing thunder clap lit up the tomb as it smoothed out into a perfect cylinder, spinning faster than was comprehensible.
Jelly’s meowing bleached into a blend of gargles and growls then to nothing as she rotated several hundred times per second.
The thunder bolts intensified as a pang of white light broke out from her face.
Perfect oblong particles broke along her whiskers, streaking out to her nose and cheeks, shifting them away from her head.
Just then, a storm of choral music piped in, smearing into the brilliant white light as Jelly spun around even faster. And faster. Her body blurred she was spinning so fast.
Her body ballooned due to the inertia until it reached the insides the tomb in all directions. Jelly’s zippy revolutions per second were beyond measure.
Spin-spin-spin-spin… Jelly let out a prolonged growl of pain.
The white light exploded into a miasma of heavenly outreach.
Seconds later it swallowed onto itself, leaving absolutely nothing left… of anything.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
USARIC Headquarters
Cape Claudius, South Texas, USA
The staff parking lot.
A quartet of USARIC mercenaries decked out in standard-issue armor bundled an elderly man into the back of a limousine.
"Get in, now," the leader of the squad stood next to the door as the man got in.
"Sheck is secure," he said into his black-coated utility sleeve. The USARIC logo adorned the underside of his forearm, along with his first initial and surname - K. Too.
He listened intently to the response.
"Kaoz," Marr shifting his behind across the length of the limousine’s back seat, "Are we going or what?"
"Team, listen up," Kaoz addressed his three subordinates and pointed at the peninsula in the not-too-distant horizon. "We’ve had a major security breach at the Animal compound, Sector Z118."
"What happened?" asked one of the mercenaries, ready to spring into action. "What kind of breach?"
"Most escaped. The perps have been dealt with but the subjects in the second bay escaped."
"Escaped?"
"They’re headed for the peninsula.”
The reflection of the incomplete Space Opera Charlie vessel smeared across Kaoz’s visor.
"Set up a task and finish team to bring them back. They’re not regular felines."
“They’re not?”
“No. Don’t ask any questions. Just find them and bring them back. Dead or alive, I don’t much care at this point.”
"Understood," Kaoz stepped into the limousine and took a seat opposite Maar. He thumped on the driver’s compartment, "Let’s go."
The driver slammed on the gas and drove toward the gated exit. A kick of dust lifted from the ground and into dusky haze of the setting sun.
Maar almost freaking out inside the car. He couldn’t get comfortable, fidgeting around with the belt clip in the padding of the plush seat.
"Don’t be anxious," Kaoz flipped his visor over his head and pinched his mouthpiece, "You’re perfectly safe now. ETA, ten minutes."
"Good, good," Maar looked over his shoulder and saw the USARIC building vanish into the distance, "Please tell me this damn car is bulletproof?"
"Of course it is."
"I’m sorry. Can we talk business, please?"
Kaoz and Maar turned to a stern-looking man with silver hair sitting opposite them. He pressed his back against the glass compartment between them and the driver.
"Sorry, Crain. What’s the update?"
Crain McDormand - USARIC’s head of the legal counsel and the chair of the select committee. Not someone you’d want to get on the wrong side of. He had a manner about him that suggested he’d take you down in court for looking at him the wrong way.
Crain opened his palm and pulled out his thumbnail, "About fifteen minutes after Vasilov was executed someone sent an Individimedia broadcast from within USARIC’s animal compound."
He set his cuticle down on the champagne unit next to his knee.
"Some guy with blue hair you might recognize."
The thumbnail projected a paused holographic image of Handax Skill in the middle of the limousine.
"I think I’d recognize a cretin with blue hair," Maar kept his head away from the passenger window. He wasn’t terribly interested in a stray bullet flying through his cranium. "Who is this guy?"
"His name is Handax Skill," the man explained, "Sort of the leader of PAAC."
"People Against Animal Cruelty?" Kaoz asked and shook his head. "They’re always disturbing us."
"They did a great job in the past hour, I’m afraid to say," Crain snapped his fingers and sat back into the chair, "I could fill you in verbally. The broadcast does a better job of explaining just how bad this is than I ever could."
"They kill Dimitri and there’s more bad news?"
"Just watch."
Maar leaned forward as the recording played. A sou
nd of gunfire and commotion rattled around the walls of the limousine.
Even though Handax was long dead it felt like he was directly addressing everyone in the vehicle. Maar found it doubly worrying. He’d failed to realize that Handax addressed a lot more people than just those in the car.
"Bisoubisou never boarded Opera Beta. We found her body at the compound along with hundreds of others. Those we found alive and well, we rescued. USARIC has killed three of my team. Moses, Denny and Leif—"
"—Oh no… no…" Maar gasped and held his mouth in shock, "Did this Individimedia go live?"
"I’m afraid so," Crain frowned.
"What? How many saw it?"
“Tens of thousands, if not more. Keep watching.”
“That’s okay,” Maar tried to calm himself down, “We’ll just deny it and claim—”
"—They’ll deny it, of course," Handax’s recording continued much to Maar’s worry, "They’ll claim they went missing and have no involvement. In a matter of seconds, I’ll be joining them."
"Over there!" screamed another voice in the recording. "Hey, you. Put your arms above your head and drop to your knees."
Handax turned away from the broadcast to a cacophony of bullets. The recording paused, offering Crain, Maar and Kaoz a view of the ground.
"Oh, for heaven’s sake," Maar thumped the seat in anger and wiped his sweating brow, “USARIC shot the protesters dead on a live feed?”
Kaoz and Crain didn’t know how to respond. They watched their boss try to calm down.
The roads were empty right now. Maar was surrounded by advisers and bodyguards, two of whom were with him in the limousine. Many more were stationed at USARIC’s Research & Development Institute twenty miles away to the north.
"I’m…" Maar whimpered, "This was a mistake. A big mistake."
"What was a mistake?" Crain asked with no hint of emotion.
"The Star Cat Project," Maar pointed around the interior of the limousine, "Opera Beta, all this. How long ago was the broadcast?"
"Thirty minutes or so."
"Ugh," Maar hung his head and sniffed, "All hell is going to break loose."
"Maar, if I may say so. I don’t think any of this was a mistake. You made decisions in USARIC’s best interests. If you had failed to act on Saturn Cry, or Tripp Healy’s request to find a suitable subject, we could well have regretted it. In my view, you had no choice."
"Try telling that to Dimitri," Maar looked up and stared Crain out with his now-reddened eyes, "He’s not even around anymore to argue with you."
"It’s terriful what happened to him,’ Crain tried to sympathize, ‘but this was always going to be a contentious issue. It’s just very unfortunate—"
"—They shot him in the chest and practically destroyed the animal compound," Maar interjected with a healthy dose of venom, "They’ve set a dangerous precedent. You know what people are like. When one maniac shoots a place up and becomes a household name they spawn thousands of imitators!”
"I’m sure it won’t come to that, Marr,"
“Thank God social media is a thing of the past. Everyone would be getting ideas."
Crain tried for a smile of reassurance. "They targeted Vasilov because of his Russian connection. The two aboard Beta who defected and tried to sabotage the mission."
"You’re not the one in my shoes, Crain," Maar said. "I want my wife and son relocated to safety."
"It’s not necessary—"
"—Have it done right now, Crain," Maar snapped in a fit of rage, "I can’t have them in the firing line. Compounds collapse. Important people get shot. Innocent bystanders die."
Crain slipped his thumbnail onto his thumb and shook his head.
“Crain?” Maar threw the man a remorseless look, "Wives and children burn, Crain."
Moscow, Russia
Second Sub District of Ramenki
Seven-year-old Remy Gagarin looked up at his mother with an angelic smile. She spat into her palm and wiped a black smudge from his cheek.
Vera Gagarin held his face in her hands and made sure he looked the part.
"Mom?"
"Yes, Remy?"
"Why must I speak in English?"
"Because, son, most who watch will not understand Russian."
She palmed his dark, gelled hair over his scalp, smartening his look. She took a step back and eyed him up and down, "There, that is much better."
Remy held out his arms. Dressed in a very attractive suit and tie, he looked approximately a quarter of a million dollars.
It had been nearly two years since Space Opera Beta left on its mission to Saturn.
Remy looked at the marble mantelpiece as he pulled his shirt down. Pictures of him with various celebrities, including Maar Sheck, adorned the wall.
He’d become famous for a time - the handsome boy whose Russian Blue had won the Star Cat Project.
He missed Bisoubisou beyond all measure. His family’s new-found riches staved off the regret for large periods of time. The sickening feeling of giving her up for the sake of the good life crept back in. He’d grown up a lot in the past twenty-four months.
Vera didn’t much care about Bisoubisou. She and her son rarely spoke of her.
His mother had never been of a cat lover. It was her son’s cat as far as she was concerned - at least, that’s what she’d tell herself whenever she experienced the odd pang of regret.
The most fierce regret came in the form of the occasional sadness in her son’s eyes. He walked over to the Bisoubisou action figure perched next to the photos. A five-inch rendition of the cat he once had, which resulted in a brief, but Pyrrhic, smile of affection.
Vera’s forearm pulsated. She pushed the black ink around into a circle on her skin and looked at her son, "You still miss her, don’t you?"
"She is in space helping the American astronauts," Remy was lost in his own naive contrition. He put the figure down on the ledge, "One day she will return."
"Okay, she is ready," Vera pulled an antique chair across the rug and set it beside their expensive couch. "Come, sit next to me."
Remy sat next to his mother on the sofa. She removed her thumbnail and placed it on the Edwardian-style coffee table in front of their knees. "Now, remember. You speak with precision. No filling time with lessense."
"Yes, mother."
"You answer the questions she has with as few words as possible and be polite when you do it."
"I will."
"Very good,” she snapped her fingers, forcing a projected holographic image of a woman to appear in the middle of the room.
"Ah, I’m here!"
A life-size image of Dreenagh Remix pinged to life in the middle of the coffee table. Her shins were out of view as she stood within the coffee table. "Oh, I’m sorry," she looked down and stepped out through the wooden slab.
"That is quite okay."
"Ugh, I hate these live feeds sometimes," Dreenagh chuckled. Her transparent visual representation shimmied up and down like a drunken ghost trying to maintain the strength of its connection from the ether.
"You know, one time, I appeared in my boyfriend’s toilet while he was brushing his teeth. So embarrassing!"
Dreenagh’s affable humor didn’t wash very well with the Gagarin family. She shrugged her shoulders, pulled up her left sleeve and pointed at the chair, "Is that for me?"
"Yes," Vera pushed her long ponytail behind her neck and showed Dreenagh right side of her face. "I prefer if you show this side as it is better than my left."
"You’re gorgeous, you have no bad sides, Vera," Dreenagh held out her see-through hand. A tiny drone built itself from the surface of her skin. "How are you, Remy?"
"I am well, Dreenagh. Thank you."
"You excited about the interview?"
"Yes. I think so."
The drone whizzed from Dreenagh’s palm and zoomed twenty feet away. She angled her fist to the right, moving the holographic drone above the coffee table. "Okay, ready?"
"We
are ready," Vera held her posture steady for the drone.
"Amaziant, here we go…" Dreenagh turned to the drone. The light beaming from its iris blasted out and highlighted the contours on each of the three bodies.
"Hey, good people," she smiled at the drone and jumped into professional-mode, "Dreenagh Remix here on Individimedia forty-four. As we approach the two-year anniversary of the Star Cat Project and Opera Beta’s mission to Saturn, I’m here, so to speak, with the Bisoubisou’s owners for an exclusive update."
Dreenagh turned to Remy and gave him a media-strewn smile. "Remy Gagarin. You must be very excited?"
"Yes, I am. My cat is going to help people."
Vera placed her hand on his knee. "Yes, we are most proud of Bisoubisou."
"Now, Vera, as Remy’s mother, how has the past two years affected you?"
"Oh, we have been most fortunate. We have the satisfaction of knowing our beloved pet is helping USARIC on their vital mission," she beamed, and eyeballed the interior of their expensive front room. "As you can see, the money has helped, too."
"So I see," Dreenagh’s holographic image sat forward, impressed by the no-expense-spared decor, "I gather the quarter of a million dollar prize money was just the beginning?"
"Indeed, it was very helpful," Vera smiled at Remy, "Since then, Bisoubisou has become a hero and we have become like celebrities."
"I guess the celebrity endorsements contributed to your wealth, too?"
"My mother had a small part in Star Jelly thirty-eight as a scientist."
"Oh, yes," Dreenagh chuckled politely, "The Star Jelly movie franchise. She was very good at acting, wasn’t she?"
"Yes," Remy said, "And I appeared in cat food commercials."
"Meow-nom-nom," Dreenagh enacted the famous line from the commercial. "I’m sure people say that to you all the time, right?"
"Not really," Remy said. "We try to stay away from poor people."
"Oh."
Vera rolled her shoulders and held her neck out, attempting to remove her double-chin from the drone’s feed. "Yes, it got very much bad after everyone found out where we lived. So we moved here. Remy is now home-schooled."
"A very wise idea."
"Yes."
Star Cat: Pink Symphony Page 13