“She also gave you the finger,” Harry
supplied.
Farrell grunted something vicious under his
breath, waited a couple of minutes, fingered his Taser, and then
banged on the door. “Are you finished?”
A meow answered him, and then they heard the
sound of the toilet flushing. The cat-girl came out, shook the
water off her hands, and stopped to stare at Harry. “Meow,” she
said again, but this time it didn’t sound like a cat’s meow. It
sounded like a human saying the word.
Then she stopped, sniffed the air, and took a
step in his direction. He was transfixed, and while one part of him
wanted to retreat, the other part wanted to see what would happen.
She took another step and then jumped and yowled as the agent
zapped her. A series of snarls and hisses emanated from her mouth,
and after turning around, she backed into the cell and watched him
through narrowed eyes. Farrell closed the door and locked it.
“She seems to like you,” he observed as he
moved out of range. “You think she’s cute, like those furry
animated creatures or something?”
Harry didn’t know what to say. He stood
there, mouth slightly ajar, and then shrugged and turned his head
away in order to hide his embarrassment. Yeah, he thought she was
cute. “I guess she’s okay.”
A chuckle came from the older man. “Maybe
you’re right. I’m a dog man, myself.”
Farrell’s hand went to his jacket pocket and
he took out a pager. He checked it and turned it off. “I have to go
upstairs for a moment. When I come back, I’ll bring someone to take
a blood sample from her. Don’t move, got it?”
He quickly left the room and closed the door
behind him. Harry went back to his chair and sat watching the
cat-lady—and then he then decided to call her a girl. Even with the
fur and the feline features, she still appeared to be more human
than animal, and overcome by curiosity, he walked toward the cage.
The prisoner sat on her haunches, staring at him. He got to within
two feet of the bar and halted. “Uh, hi, I’m Harry Goldman. Do you
have a name?”
No answer.
“I’m a researcher here. The man with the
Taser, his name is Miles Farrell. He’s an FBI agent.”
The girl still didn’t speak. She stared at
him, her eyes wide and curious and then with a quick movement,
reached out and gently touched his hand. The contact sent an
electric shock through him…and suddenly he felt ridiculous, like he
was conducting some kind of ESL class with a very attractive
student. “Do you understand…?”
“What are you doing?”
Farrell’s voice came from behind him and
Harry whirled around, caught off guard. He felt the blood rush to
his face from embarrassment and mumbled, “Oh, well, I thought that
maybe if I talked to her…”
“You’re not supposed to,” the agent said, and
the disgust came out in his voice. He came over to the cell and
pulled Harry out of the way. “You’ve seen what she can do
damage-wise, right? What makes you think she won’t turn you into a
ribbon? Is she
that
cute that you have to get a
glimpse?”
“I was just trying to help.” As soon as he
uttered those words he felt totally foolish. It was such an
overused expression, and lame, too. But what was he supposed to do,
anyway, just hang around and play with the numbers? The girl was a
prisoner, and a pang of empathy went through him.
Clearly, Farrell didn’t have the same kind of
empathetic emotions, and after swearing quietly, something about
dumbass young people being incompetent and thinking with their
balls instead of their brains—his last comment made Harry turn
bright red—he turned to the man at his side and pointed at the
cage. “Do what you have to do.”
The technician, short, fat, and bald, stared
at the prisoner and took a step back. “You want me to get a sample
of
that
thing’s blood,” he asked in a high-pitched nervous
voice. His hands quivered and sweat popped out on his forehead.
“She looks like she wants to eat me.”
“Get over it,” Farrell said, and his voice
rose in exasperation. Harry thought the whole tough-guy routine
pretty dumb and totally unnecessary. Perhaps federal agents took
classes that taught them to be badasses or totally impersonal
asses. Whatever, he kept his mouth shut and waited.
“We need a sample so our whiz-kid over here
can figure out what she is.”
The fat man reluctantly nodded and slowly
reached into his pocket to withdraw a plastic syringe and a glass
vial. When he started in the direction of the cage, however, the
girl started hissing and lashing her tail, and then pointed to
Harry. Farrell noticed the gesture and gave a harsh chuckle. “It
looks as though you’ve made yourself a friend, kid. Join the
crowd.”
Reluctantly, Harry sidled over to stand with
the other men. The technician got the syringe out and took off the
plastic tip. “I’m ready.”
Farrell took out his Taser and opened the
door. The girl backed up against the wall, a low moan combined with
a snarl coming from her lips. Harry figured she was scared and
remembered what most animals did when confronted by bigger or
multiple foes. “Don’t you think we should wait or something?” he
asked.
“We don’t have time.”
Harry really didn’t think all three of them
being in the cage was such a good idea and knew she’d fight. The
next two seconds proved his assumption correct. The cat-girl waited
until the trio got within striking range, and then she lashed out
with a fist and caught him on the side of the head. He’d been
smacked before, but never like this. A second later, the concrete
hit his face. This is it, he thought, I’m toast
.
Out of the
corner of his eye, he saw the girl slash the technician’s arm and
heard him scream.
Soon the cage was filled with swearing and
hissing, spitting, cries of pain, and the spray of blood dotted the
walls. Then the sound of the Taser rang in his ears, a sharp,
snapping sound with the blue and yellow crackle of energy filling
the air. He heard the girl screech in anger as the agent zapped her
at least three times, and then his eyes closed. Farrell’s voice
came through just before the darkness took over. “Well, at least
she knows who’s in charge around here. Let her try giving me the
finger now.”
“Whatcha gonna do about it?”
Dream state time once again, and memories of
days past circulated through Harry’s mind. He’d gone to the
Portland University lab a couple of years before in order to check
on some data and maybe work on his pet project, protein synthesis.
Most of the regular students already knew of his reputation. Some
liked what he did, others called him a nerd, and most of them left
him alone. Whatever, he just wanted to do his research and go
home.
On his way out, however, as he crossed the
football field to get to the parking lot, a couple of jocks in
their football uniforms decided to have a little fun. He saw them
amble over, observed the way they swung their arms around like apes
on steroids, and hey, target practice time! They walked right into
him and knocked his books to the ground. “What’s your problem?” he
asked.
Smart response, but from the grins on their
faces he knew this would not end well. The myth of a jock’s brain
being of inverse proportion to his bicep rang in Harry’s head for a
moment…and then he decided it was no myth. He stood rooted to the
spot and stared at the guys who outsized him by five inches, at
least sixty pounds, and a lot more muscle.
“Do something, wonder kid,” one of them said,
openly smirking.
Frozen with shame and incapable of moving a
muscle, he let his eyes scan the turf and measure the blades of
grass, and the thought of
what can I do
entered his head.
One of the players picked up a textbook and dropkicked it twenty
yards away. “Go on, punk, tell me the physics equation for that,”
he taunted.
Yeah, what
could
he do? The jocks
would have to ruin his day, and they dared him to formulate a rapid
response to counteract their threat. He might have been ten times
smarter, but in real life—and real-life confrontations—he was the
ant and they were the boot. They knew it, too. Both dudes stood
there, every muscle in their bodies tensed and waiting for the
chance to whip his butt just for the sheer fun of it.
Harry wouldn’t let them. Without a word he
bent over, retrieved his books, went to the parking lot to find his
booted text resting atop a car and took the bus home. Inside his
house, he didn’t bother glancing at his father who sat in the den
picking through the daily paper. After blindly finding his way to
his room, he sat at his computer and silently raged at his own
weakness.
“Harry?”
The elder Goldman stood in the doorway. Harry
rotated on his chair in the opposite direction. “I’m studying,
Dad.”
No, he wasn’t. The computer hadn’t been
turned on. He’d been staring at it, unmoving, for over twenty
minutes, feeling like a lab rat caught in a cage with nowhere to go
and nothing to do but wait for the next experiment. In short, he
felt powerless.
Even the ordinarily friendly confines of his
room gave him no comfort. He likened his room to a castle, a
sanctuary, a place where he was in control of his own life and his
own destiny, but now, he sensed a total lack of control, and he
sure as hell didn’t have the heart to do any research.
The elder Goldman walked in and sat down on
the bed. He was smart enough to know by the expression on his son’s
face—one of worry and fear—that something bad had happened. “You
had yourself a bit of a problem, didn’t you?”
Reluctantly, Harry nodded and related the
incident. His father sighed. “I went through the same thing when I
was younger. Fighting back isn’t the best way, but sometimes you
have to.”
Yeah
,
Harry thought, fight back and
get my ass kicked
.
“You once told me I could fight back in
different ways.”
“You’re not thinking of using itching powder,
are you?” The look on his father’s face could only be described as
horrified and Harry recalled the incident that got him suspended in
junior high.
“No.” Shame washed over him. “But what am I
supposed to do?”
His father shrugged and patted him on the
shoulder. “Hit back. You did once before in junior high,
remember?”
Anguish boiled to the surface and a hot gush
of tears tickled his eyelids. With a massive effort, he fought back
the urge to bawl. “I got my ass kicked, Dad. I’ve always gotten my
ass kicked!”
A nod came his way…but this time his father
didn’t offer any sympathy. “Yes, you did, but you did what you
thought was right. No one really likes fighting except the
terminally stupid, but sometimes you have to. You may lose, but
there’s no shame in losing. There
is
shame in not doing
anything about it if it means losing your self-respect.” He got up
and left the room, and Harry sat there thinking about his father’s
words.
Soon after, boxing videos became his
exercise. It was just him and his shadow and time to beat up on it.
Too shy to join a gym and feeling too weak, he searched the
Internet and found a few instructional videos, and after his
parents had gone to work and he’d completed his studies for regular
school, which took all of ten minutes, he jogged on the spot,
practiced murdering his sun-cast image for thirty minutes with
jabs, crosses, and uppercuts, and did pushups and sit-ups and
bodyweight squats ad infinitum in an attempt to carve a reasonably
buff bod.
Try as he might, though, while he gained
endurance and a little strength, he didn’t develop the muscles
capable of intimidating anyone from punking him. Bad genes and all
that, he mused after another sweaty, all-out training session.
Still, he hoped that if a problem arose in the future he’d be
ballsy enough to hit back…
“Hey, are you okay?”
The voice came like an insistent mosquito
whining in his ear, and the question was repeated. “No, I want to
sleep in,” he mumbled.
“Wake up!”
The pain in his temples forced him into
consciousness and he sat up groggily and inspected his
surroundings, a splitting headache temporarily obscuring his
vision. He was still in the lab, sitting on a cot. Farrell stood
three feet away, his face impassive as usual. “Are you okay?” he
repeated. “I brought a cot down from the storage room.”
Harry rubbed his jaw. “What happened?”
The agent started to laugh. “We had a rerun
of
Wild Kingdom
, that’s what,” and then he cut his mirth
short and got serious. “The technician got carved up pretty good
and you’ve been out for a few hours. It’s night time, around
eight-thirty. She’s a hell of a fighter, I’ll give her that. I had
to tase her three times before she went down, but we got the blood
sample.”
He pointed to the table where the computer
was. Talk about an upgrade! An electron microscope had been brought
in, a centrifuge, and a whole host of other equipment including a
DNA analyzer, all of which piqued Harry’s interest. “You feel well
enough to run some tests?” Farrell asked.
“What did the technician say?”
“Wait a second.” He walked out of the room
and Harry swiveled his head over to look at the cell. The girl was
lying down in a fetal position, her tail twitching slightly, and a
few incoherent sounds tumbled out of her mouth.
The sound of the door opening interrupted
him. The FBI agent returned with a file folder in one hand and a
cup of water and some aspirin in the other. Harry gratefully took
the medicine, and after choking the bitter aspirin down with the
water, he waited for the ache in his head to subside.
Farrell indicated the file in his hand. “We
called in one of our female doctors to examine the girl while you
were sleeping. I wouldn’t want to be accused of molesting a woman,
or whatever that thing is.”