Catnip (13 page)

“Well, yeah,” he answered. “You know I’m
innocent.”

Jason had already started to shake his head.
“Man, are you naïve or what? The feds can trace stuff back in,
like, ten seconds. They’ll send their own here, you know? I can’t
do prison, man!”

“Oh, you can’t do prison?” Harry pointed an
accusatory finger at Jason. “Hey, think of where I’ve been the last
few months. Think of how those reporters just crapped all over my
father’s name. What I’ve gone through, it wasn’t summer camp time
for me, either. And Anastasia’s had it worse.”

For his part, Jason threw up his hands as if
to say his genius buddy was an idiot and returned to his computer
games, all the while mumbling about cops busting down doors. Harry
felt bad, but at the same time he
had
done nothing wrong. He
cursed his own lack of foresight and damned himself for actually
trusting the authorities to do the right thing. Still not over his
mad, he busied himself with his computer simulations and studied
the data intently for over an hour.

“Are you into her?”

“What?” Harry blinked and came back to
reality. He’d been thinking about enforcing the DNA transfer matrix
by employing another kind of protein enzymatic shell…but the
results showed up negative time and again. He swiveled around in
his seat. Jason had taken a break from blowing up the universe to
ask the question.

“Are you into her?” Jason repeated. His tone
was one hundred percent serious. “I mean, like I said before I
think she’s sort of cute, but would you wife her?”

Harry felt his face turn acutely hot. He’d
figured it would only be a matter of time before someone asked him
the question and now that it was here…

“We just met, but, well, she’s cute, yeah…I’d
like to get to know her. Wife her…?”

His voice trailed off and Jason gave a
thoughtful nod. “It’s sort of weird in a way, but you know, if you
like her, it’s totally cool. I mean,” he ducked his head and his
voice got low, “have you ever had a girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Me either,” Jason replied. “The games are my
friends, you know? I figure one day I’ll meet someone…maybe. But…”
he paused for a moment, “I think Anastasia’s really nice. It isn’t
every day you meet someone like her.”

Harry started to say something to the effect
of his friend living his life in a fantasy world full of elves and
pixies and other strange make-believe creatures. To him it meant
denying reality. He’d always done things in the most practical way,
been a good kid, and never gotten into trouble…except for the
fateful experiment that had cost him his future.

Now his whole existence had been turned
upside down and
he’d
entered into a very fantastic yet
realistic scenario in which he cared for—yes, admitting the truth
to himself—even liked, Anastasia. A riot of emotions ran through
him, but the strongest of them was…
affection.
Yeah, he dug
her, and dug her hard. “She’s fine, just like she is. Does that
answer the question?”

“It’s close enough.”

Jason gave him a shrug as if to say do
whatever you want, but then added, “If you really wanna do
something, don’t sit on the fence about it. Wise man say, pick
chair and sit in it.”

He went back to his game. Harry stared at him
and realized his friend was right. Pick a side and go with it. He
ran the scenarios again, but found himself thinking too much about
Anastasia, and the equations got all jumbled up in his brain.

Harry then wondered how his lady companion’s
features would change if the reversal process actually worked. He
was close, very close, but the final answer wouldn’t come easily
and required more thought.

She was Russian…Russian ancestry…what breed
of cat had she been mixed with? He called up a website on Russian
cats and found a dizzying assortment of Russian Blues, Blacks,
Whites and tabbies, Ussuri, Donskoy and Siberian.

However, try as he did, he found the cat
genes in her DNA resisted typing, so after channeling his creative
powers in a different direction he simply took them out and subbed
in human ones. Within an hour, a more recognizable girl’s face
appeared.

He kept refining the image and a tap on his
shoulder startled him and he whirled around. His cat-lady friend
stood there, a questioning look on her face. “Is that supposed to
be me?” she asked.

Harry nodded. “I think so. I went on your
facial structure and my own idea of what I figure you’d look
like.”

Anastasia leaned her face in closer to look
at her computer image. It showed a young woman perhaps twenty years
of age with a pretty, angular face, deep-set brown eyes and high
cheekbones. Long, dark hair completed the picture. She stared at
her maybe-image for a long time and then sat down on the floor.

“So that’s what I might have been,” she said
softly and her voice began to quiver. “I never knew. I don’t
remember who I am, what my face really looked like or even if I had
parents.”

Tears fell from her eyes and she hastily
knuckled them away. Her voice shook with the realization of someone
who’d had their life stolen from them. “I don’t know who did this
to me or why. I don’t know if I was a good person or someone
rotten. I woke up looking like…a mutant and now…all I’ve got is an
image of what I might have been. All I want is to be normal again,
look like someone instead of a…a freak.”

She sat there crying quietly. Jason shut off
his game and mutely stared at the floor while Harry simply felt
helpless. Finally, as a gesture of support, he touched her on the
shoulder. Her body stiffened briefly and a second later, she patted
his hand. “If it makes you feel any better,” he said quietly, “I
think you look pretty.”

Anastasia’s voice came out dully. “You mean
pretty good for an animal.” She wiped away more tears and yet they
still hung from her eyelids like drops from an early morning rain
shower.

“No, you look pretty.” The words suddenly
tumbled out of him, but he meant it. To him, she
did
look
gorgeous. “You really do.”

He hadn’t meant to be so direct, but the way
she looked at him, her lips moving but not forming words, and the
way her eyes caught his as if staring into the depths of his very
soul…something was happening and then realized it had to be…

“Don’t say anything,” she whispered, and
leaned in closer.

Oh man, he thought. Her body heat seemed to
reach out and envelop him in an invisible embrace, and the clear
and sweet warmth of her breath puffed against his face. Talk about
animal attraction in the first degree! It was as if her body gave
off its own aura, a kind of drug that enticed him. His heart
started to pound and his breath caught in his throat as they moved
toward each other…

Only to be interrupted by the sound of the
doorbell ringing followed by a knock at the front door. Jason had
picked his head up to stare at the ensuing lovefest and peeked out
the window. “Crap,” he whispered fiercely, “we got company! The men
in blue are here. I
told
you contacting the Feds was a bad
idea!”

“Mr. Parham,” a voice called from outside,
“My name is Officer Meadows. I’d like to ask you a couple of
questions.”

Oh hell, Harry thought. They traced the
call!

He grabbed Anastasia’s hand, ran to the
doorway, took his shoes, and then they ran upstairs to her room and
took refuge under the bed, flipping down the bed cover as they did
so. He strained his ears to pick up the sounds downstairs and heard
the sound of the door opening and Jason’s voice. “Yes, officer, can
I help you?”

The cop mentioned the police force had been
searching every house at the behest of the FBI. “You’ve been
watching the news, haven’t you?”

When Jason replied that he had, Meadows
sounded almost apologetic. “It’s an inconvenience, I know, but we
have to.”

Tracing the cop’s movements from the thud of
his footsteps, Harry heard him walk into the main living room, the
dining room, and then he heard the sound of heavy footsteps
trodding up the stairs. Anastasia growled slightly and he gently
put his hand over her mouth. “Shh,” he whispered. “He’ll be gone
soon.”

In the darkness, lying next to her, he became
aware of her presence even more so than before. Her yellow eyes
shone out and practically illuminated the dark space they’d boxed
themselves into. She took his hand away from her mouth, but didn’t
let go of it. “Okay,” she whispered back and fell silent.

The sounds of the policeman’s shoes clomping
from room to room grew louder. The officer then entered their room
and he stopped just outside the bed. “Hey,” he called out, “do you
keep a cat or a dog? There’s a lot of fur here.” A series of
sneezes followed. “Does your pet shed or something?”

In the darkness, Anastasia started to growl
again. The policeman stooped down and her noise—it came from her
belly and seemed to fill the room—got steadily angrier. She slowly
extended her claws, ready to strike. The bed cover went up and so
did Harry’s fear level as the cop asked, “Hey, kitty, you want to
play?”

Anastasia suddenly yowled and Harry didn’t
know if she was scared or she wanted to scare the cop away. It
didn’t matter. The sudden explosion of rage terrified the living
crap out of
him.
From downstairs he heard Jason’s strangled
reply. “Yes, sir, I’ve got a cat. She was abused by her former
owners…she doesn’t like strangers.”

The yowls continued, and Harry did the only
thing he could think of under the circumstances and also did what
he’d wanted to do only moments ago—he twisted his head over and
kissed Anastasia right on the lips.

Her eyes widened in shock and slowly closed
in a lazy, sensual way. Her tail, powerful and flexible, slipped
around his waist and pulled him even closer to her. They lay
together, still locked in their embrace, and finally the bed cover
dropped and they heard the policeman go downstairs.

“Yeah, your cat’s got problems,” the cop
said. “Thanks for your cooperation.”

The door shut, but Harry’s mind was focused
on the girl in his arms and he didn’t want to let go, now or ever.
Unfortunately, moments like these were precious and few as ten
seconds later Jason called out, “All clear!” and reluctantly they
broke the lip-lock with each other.

She cleared her throat quietly. “That was
some kiss,” she murmured. “You want to tell me why?”

His mind whirled with emotions, and whether
it was pheromones or mutual attraction—call it whatever you wanted
to call it—he
did
like her, and who cared if she was the
first cat-girl he’d ever kissed?

“I, uh…you make me feel better about
being…me,” he said. He hesitated and then blurted out, “I like you
and I think you’re hot.” It was probably the wrong thing to say,
but Anastasia nodded slowly.

“I, um, woke up before and heard what you
said to your friend, the part about wifing me,” she said. “Is that
how all high school students talk?”

Well, actually Jason had mentioned the
wifing
part first, but whatever. “I can’t tell you. I
haven’t been to high school in a long time. But,” he hesitated,
“I’m into you now, and I, uh, I hope you’re cool with that.”

She ducked her head briefly and then locked
her eyes onto his. “That’s how I feel, too,” she said, and stroked
his face with the very soft fur on the back of her hand. “People
say that cats are fickle, you know? But I’m not a cat, and I know
what I like.”

Embarrassed and yet not, he mumbled, “Uh,
yeah,” and scrambled out from under the bed. She followed him and
they walked downstairs together, arms around each other’s
waist.

Jason observed their entrance and nodded as
they reached the bottom. “I see things between you turned out
okay,” he said, a smile on his face. “It’s a little fast, but hey,
whatever makes your day brighter.” He wiped nervous sweat from his
forehead. “Cop’s gone, by the way.”

Harry nodded. The cop had gone…but someone
new had entered his life and her name was Anastasia.

An hour later, he was back at work on the
computer running his simulations. His girlfriend—yes, it was
official—sat beside him. An occasional purr came from her mouth and
periodically she rubbed her face against his shoulder. Their host
busied himself with his computer games and then went to work on his
own computer. He had to send out e-mails to his various online
buddies, and the morning passed quickly.

Jason glanced up from his computer just in
time to see her rub her head against Harry’s chest. “Well, gotta
hand it to you, bud. You sure have a way with the ladies.”

Anastasia smiled. “You have a way with
compliments. Keep laying them on.”

He laughed, but abruptly a sober look settled
over his features. “I’ll save them for later because I’ve got bad
news and worse news,” he said. “Which do you guys wanna hear
first?”

“Does it make a difference?” Anastasia
asked.

The gamer shrugged. “Not really, but I
figured I should give you a couple of options.”

Harry figured there weren’t many options.
“Okay, give us the bad news.”

Jason swiveled the computer around to face
them. A screenshot of a map showed police checkpoints all over the
city, at the airports, the piers, and the bus terminals. “The bad
news is everywhere is cop city. The worse news is that Manhattan’s
gonna go on lockdown, at least that’s what the online sources are
saying.”

Yeah, worse news was worse news, Harry
thought. He couldn’t stay here anymore, and didn’t want Jason’s
life to be ruined. It was bad enough
his
life and
Anastasia’s life had been screwed. He couldn’t risk someone else
getting hurt.

“We have to leave here,” he finally said.
“Your parents are going to come back soon and we can’t be sure the
thing that attacked us won’t track us here. You’ve helped a lot
already.”