4-2: Cutting Crap

The fire truck pulled up while I was staring at this asshole of a cat. It stared right back at me and cocked a head to the side. Meowed as though it didn’t have a care in the world.

Other than being stuck up a tree. And being possessed by an alien parasite of some sort.

“Mistress,” CORVAC said. “Have you ever entertained the notion that perhaps you are incorrect about the cats being from that world?”

“I’ve entertained the notion,” I said. “But the evidence fits. You explain how Fluffy here is packing that same radiation signature. Something came through those portals other than the giant lizards.”

“As you say, Mistress,” CORVAC said.

The cat had long fluffy white hair. It looked like it might be a purebred of some sort, which wasn’t exactly a surprise in this part of town.

It would be just like some spoiled little rich girl whose parents robbed this neighborhood of its character by moving here because it was “so amazingly awesome raising a kid in the city” to lose her purebred cat that cost thousands of dollars up a tree.

“Come on you asshole,” I said. “Tell me what the hell you’re doing on this world.”

I moved in closer. The tree really was a big motherfucker. Big enough that its branches surrounded me. I felt like I was in a whole new world. It was like a little piece of jungle in the middle of the city.

“Come on you bastard,” I whispered. “Just you and me. So let’s dance.”

Remember all that talk about how big and fluffy that cat was? Yeah, it was one of those cats where most of its volume was taken up by its fur and not by actual body size. Which meant the fur was deep enough and luxurious enough that it could totally hide all sorts of small weaponry, which came as something of a surprise.

The cat growled, hissed, swiped at me, and then with the paw I wasn’t watching it pulled out what could only be a miniaturized raygun.

The thing looked like an early variant of one of my disintegrators back when I made them look like real guns rather than packing them into a wrist blaster. I knew the ominous hum of a weapon that was ready for business, and I dodged out of the tree as the cat started firing.

Son of a bitch!

“What were you saying about this cat not being a problem, CORVAC?” I yelled as I put my forward shields up just in time to take a couple of blasts. That cat was fast!

“I apologize, Mistress,” CORVAC said. “It would appear that once again you are correct, and I was wrong in my assumptions.”

“You’re damn right you were wrong in your assumptions,” I growled right back.

The crowd gathered below screamed in surprise. The girl in particular let out an ear piercing shriek and started screaming something about how she didn’t want me to vaporize her kitty.

I smiled. The little shit did know who she was dealing with.

The only problem was the little shit was also totally being a little idiot. Anyone with half a brain could see the energy blasts were coming from the tree and not from me. I looked down at the girl and held up my wrist blaster then shrugged.

She seemed to finally get what was going on. Everyone else seemed to finally get what was going on. The crowd all turned their attention back to the tree in time to see the cat running out to the edge of a branch and launching itself at me, firing its tiny weapon the entire time.

I liked to think I’d seen it all in this line of work, but a cat jumping through the air firing off plasma blasts really was something you didn’t see every day.

So far that energy weapon wasn’t doing much to drain my shields, but I knew the moment I got cocky would be the moment it pulled something out of its fur that could really give me a bad day. So I jerked around like it was actually doing some damage with that little pea shooter.

“Come on you fluffy bastard!” I growled. “Hit me with your best shot!”

The damn cat slammed into me, and it hit with a lot more force than I expected from a little ball of fluff. Like we’re talking I wasn’t play acting as I went flying through the air.

“Fuck, that hurts!” I growled.

We went tumbling to the ground and rolled end over end on the pavement a couple of times. When we came up I felt a little scuffed, but my shields had absorbed most of the damage.

That was the thing about fighting what amounted to a tiny cute little kitty cat. It might be stronger than your average cat, but it still wasn’t putting out the kind of energy that, say, Fialux or a giant irradiated lizard could put out.

Fialux. A wave of longing and despair washed over me. I pushed down on it as quickly as it hit me, but it hit me way harder than the damn cat.

“Mistress, are you all right? I detected a spike in adrenaline, breathing, and pulse just now that goes beyond even what you would experience in a fight,” CORVAC said.

“You bet your ass you just got a spike in adrenaline,” I said. “Happens every time I think about her.”

A pause. “I am sorry, Mistress. I know you miss her greatly, and if this pursuit will help you find her then…”

“Can the platitudes, CORVAC,” I said.

“Of course, Mistress,” CORVAC said. “Besides. With the surprising frequency that heroes and villains return to life in this city, it would not be completely out of the realm of possibility for her to…”

“I appreciate the sentiment, but could you stuff it? Trying to work here,” I said.

I stared at the cat. All the people on the ground had made room around us. Somewhere in the fall the cat had also stuffed its weapon away. 

I didn’t think for a moment that the people surrounding us would be stupid enough to fall for an obvious ruse like that, but then I got a good look at the expressions on everyone’s faces and realized that yup, once again I’d completely underestimated the stupidity of your average Starlight Citizen.

That happened to me a lot.

Damn it.

“You can’t be serious,” I said to the crowd. “You all saw that cat firing a plasma blaster at me! What the hell are you…”

They all stared at me with daggers in their eyes. If looks could kill then they’d be hitting me with the kind of looks that would have my shields raising to prevent me from taking damage. They were nasty looks, is what I’m getting at.

I didn’t understand it. It made no sense. They’d seen the thing firing at me, and even your average idiot in Starlight City couldn’t…

“Mistress,” CORVAC said. “Would you be willing to try a little experiment?”

“That depends. How likely is this experiment to get me conveniently killed so I’m out of your hair for good?”

“Not likely at all. I need you to allow me to have control of the mind control filters on your suit,” he said. “If I am correct in my assumption, then you will not have the capacity to raise them on your own after lowering them.”

I looked around at everyone again, really looked at them, and realized what CORVAC was getting at. I hadn’t had to think about that particular piece of my suit’s kit since I went up against Rex Roth, but as with all the safety features on my suit it was always there humming along in the background protecting me.

And apparently it really had been protecting me and I didn’t realize it.

The little girl who’d lost her cat let out a tortured sob. A couple of firemen came up behind her and put their hands on her shoulder, comforting her now that it was obvious Night Terror had come down from on high to personally euthanize the little brat’s fluffy kitty. They glared at me like they’d love nothing more than to turn their hoses on me.

Not that it would do a damn bit of damage to yours truly.

I turned back to the little girl. Glowered. If I managed to rescue Fialux we definitely weren’t adopting or anything like that.

“Fine,” I said. “Experiment away.”

For the briefest of moments everything seemed wrong in the world even as everything seemed right in the world. I was staring at a fluffy little kitty cat, and wasn’t it the cutest thing ever?

At the same time I was horrified with myself. Why was I standing here pointing my wrist blaster at this cat? I wouldn’t dream of hurting a little ball of fluff like that. I wanted to cuddle it and take it home and feed it and voluntarily scoop its shit out of a smelly box of dust I put in my nice clean lab and…

Reality hit me like a brick wall. I was Night Terror, and I was hunting down an intelligent alien parasite that’d decided to take up residence inside cats for some reason. I was pointing my wrist blaster at the bastard because it’d just attacked me.

Damn. That was some powerful juju this thing was putting out into the world.

“Seriously?” I asked. “You’re using mind control on these people?”

The cat sat down on the pavement and started licking its paw. I growled and figured if all these people were going to accuse me of trying to euthanize this cat with super science then I was going to actually do the crime I was already doing the time for.

A blast from my wrist blaster kicked up some of the pavement around the cat, and from the way it jumped that certainly got its fucking attention. Also? I’d forgotten how fast these furry fuckers could be.

“I said it before and I’ll say it again,” I said, my wrist blaster providing a pleasant ominous hum as a background to my threat. “I know what you are. Cut the bullshit and maybe I won’t kill you.”

“But what about all the others that you’ve…”

“Cool it CORVAC,” I muttered under my breath. I hoped it was low enough that even cat ears wouldn’t pick it up. “What this thing doesn’t know isn’t going to hurt it.”

“But it is very much going to hurt it considering what you did with all the others,” CORVAC said.

“Okay, so what it doesn’t know is going to hurt it, but it doesn’t know that, so let’s go ahead and lie and see if it works.”

“As you say, Mistress,” he replied.

I turned back to the cat. “So what’s it gonna be Fluffy? Instant death, or are you going to drop the act and tell me what I want to know?”

Quick author note. I'm going to be on vacation next week for fall break. In the past I've killed myself trying to get stuff out and ended up failing while also stressing myself out on vacation, so I'm just not doing that this year. There will be no updates next week, and they'll resume the week after. Thanks for your patience!