Story: Nine Lives (all chapters)

Ikimashou!

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PROLOGUE: A Matter of Trust

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Annette stepped out of the subway entrance gasping for air. The recent push for elevators in train stations (thereby making them wheelchair-accessible) hadn\\\'t gotten around to the York Street stop, which meant anyone wanting to leave the station had better be in top physical condition. The curly-haired blonde looked at the last flight of stairs with disdain. “That\\\'s it! There\\\'s no way in hell they\\\'re making me come out here again!” Taking a few deep breaths, she stepped out of the nondescript building that served as the entrance, and headed down the sloped street. “It was a stupid idea to come all the way down here to begin with!” After a couple blocks, she found herself at a desolate intersection. There seemed to be abandoned warehouses on every corner, and not a person or a parked car to be seen. Annette\\\'s irritation began to morph into worry. She knew this wasn\\\'t the safest neighborhood in Brooklyn, but as the saying goes, \\\'you go where the story is.\\\' She checked her notepad to make sure she had the right address, turned a corner and headed towards her destination. “If I make it back alive, I\\\'m asking for double pay...or a transfer!”

The place wasn\\\'t hard to miss, given the large silver wrench bolted to the front side of the squat building. Above the wrench the words “GEAR WORKS” shone in all its metallic glory. “Could be worse...could have some severed heads or bloody chicken feet or whatever. Oh well, let\\\'s get this over with.” Annette stepped up to the large iron door and pushed the call button. A loud buzz echoed inside the building, giving the reporter the impression the place was much larger than it seemed. After a minute, she pressed the button again. Another buzz, followed by a loud bell.

A sharp crackle got Annette\\\'s attention. It came from a small speaker beside the door. “Excuse me, but do you realize what time it is? We do not accept customers without an appointment, and we certainly do not accept them after midnight.” The voice was firm and unwavering...and definitely female.

“Hmph!” The blonde took a step back, then glared at the speaker as if to intimidate it. “Hey! I didn\\\'t want to come out to this dump in the first place! You called me, remember? So can the attitude and let me in!”

A slight pause, then the speaker crackled to life once more. “My apologies, Miss Stanhope. Please come in.” This time the voice was softer, but just as direct. Again a bell sounded, followed by a different buzz.

“Thank you!” Annette said haughtily. A couple of clicks, and the large door swayed inward a little, allowing Annette access. “I guess that\\\'s my cue.” As she stepped in, the door slowly closed behind her, the locks tumbling into place. The petite reporter peered at the multiple locks, wondering if they were there to keep people out...or keep them in.

“Please use the door opposite the exit, Miss Stanhope, then have a seat. I will be with you in a moment.” The voice came from everywhere...or at least it seemed that way, as there were no visible speakers.

Annette loosened the sash on her overcoat and looked around for a moment. The parlor was surrounded in dark brown tones, the recessed lighting in the ceiling the only decoration. As she walked arcoss the room, a click sounded and another door opened. Annette approached the door warily, hoping whatever was on the other side was more inviting than this.

The next room was quite large and extremely well-lit. A row of pick-up trucks of various sizes lined the fromt of the room, most without tires or doors. A couple of forklifts sat idly in one corner of the room, while a large machine of some sort hummed in another. Not far from the door sat a small desk and two cushioned chairs, one on either side. Annette sat in one of the chairs as she scanned the assorted piles of paperwork scattered across the desk. Most seemed to be invoices of some kind, mixed with a few enveloped decorated with the same wrench logo she had seen outside the building. “Funny,” she mused, “no one said anything about this being a chop shop.”

“That\\\'s because it isn\\\'t.”

The voice was the same as before, but this time Annette thought it seemed to come from directly behind her. She practically jumped out of the chair and crumbled to the floor, letting out a shriek. “Wh-wh-where did you come from?”

The owner of the voice let out a laugh. “I\\\'m sorry. I walk quite softly, so people tend not to hear me coming. My apologies for...disrupting you.”

Annette gathered her composure and then took a minute to see who it was that frightened her. The first thing she saw was a pair of black slippers on some pretty small, black-stockinged feet. They were attached to a pair of calves that Annette wish she had, as they seemed to belong to a dancer. The rest of the body was, to the reporter\\\'s dismay, covered in a long white lab coat, which was crowned by probably the prettiest head Annette had ever seen. The other woman\\\'s face was almost triangular, a small chin tapering up and out to hold full lips, high cheekbones and an emerald-green, almond-shaped left eye. The face was striking enough, but the hair that surrounded it was eye-catching in it\\\'s own right. It was a dazzling array of patched colors; brown, black, grey and an odd shade of orange-red amid a sea of snow white. It was fluffed, almost \\\'80s-style, and hung well past the woman\\\'s shoulders. She had a long white bang which covered her right eye, which Annette wondered was a beautiful as the left one.

The woman stuck out a small, delicate hand. “Please, let me help you...unless you plan to conduct your interview from the floor. Trust me, these chairs are much more comfortable.” She grasped Annette\\\'s hand and gently lifted her to her feet.

The blonde let out a half-embarrassed “thank you”, but she never let her gaze leave the other woman\\\'s face. “You\\\'re...you\\\'re Miss Attaturk?”

“That\\\'s Dr. Attaturk, but you can call me Naya. If we\\\'re going to do this, we might as well be as comfortable with each other as possible, right?” Her lips curled into a smile, which brought more color to Annette\\\'s face than the reported could fight down.

“Uh...yeah, right. Comfortable.” Something about the womam set off an alarm deep in the recesses of Annette\\\'s mind, but she wasn\\\'t listening to that at all. She was too busy enjoying the feel of Naya\\\'s warm hand in hers, and basking in the warmer smile the other woman was offering. Suddenly the other woman let Annette\\\'s hand go, and reallity slowly crept back to her mind. She had a job to do, not someone to pick up. “So...uh...why did you choose me to do this interview? I mean, there\\\'s so many others out there...Pulizer Prize-winning journalists you could have related your story to. Why me?”

“To be honest, I like your work.”

That response brought Annette\\\'s eyebrows so high they almost reached her hairline. “What? I\\\'ve only been writing for the Courier for a little over a year. What could you possibly have seen that you liked?”

“Your honesty. That, and your sense of loyalty.” Naya waved to one of the chairs and waited for Annette to have a seat. She then walked around the desk and took a seat of her own. “I read your piece on the backdoor deals that resulted in the creation of Brooklyn Bridge Park. I must say you ruffled a few feathers there, but the end result was that the park remained public instead of being private, and a few heads got to roll in the process. The thing that impressed me most is that you never gave up your sources. For a budding journalist such as yourself, that was a very dangerous thing to do.”

“But that\\\'s the first thing I learned when I broke in the business—never give up your sources!” Annette\\\'s proud delivery made Naya\\\'s smile evolve into a toothy grin.

“Remind me to thank your professor, or editor...or whoever taught you that! It\\\'s not just that; I can tell by your writing style that you\\\'re curious...you like to find the answer to questions that no one wants to ask, or just takes for granted.” Naya paused for a moment to gather her thoughts. “So, I know I can trust you to keep my identity a secret, and to let the world know what has happened to me. I did have reservations about bringing you into this—I\\\'m sure you have your own life to lead, with your own concerns and someone to love or who loves you...”

Annette\\\'s heart jumped at the utterance of that last sentence. True, she had her own life, but it was a solitary one, mostly spent chasing down leads that rarely turned into anything resembling the park scandal. “It\\\'s okay, really,” she said nervously. “I\\\'ve been looking for someone—er, something like this for awhile, so don\\\'t worry.”

Naya giggled a bit at the little slip. “I don\\\'t want to disrupt your life, but I have a good feeling about you.” She eyed Annette up and down, then nodded. “Yes, yes...a good feeling indeed. So, shall we get started?”

“Just a moment...” Annette reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a microrecorder, along with a few blank cassettes. “I\\\'m not sure how long this will take, so I want to be prepared.”

“Good idea,” Naya agreed, “as this will indeed take some time. Tell me, Annette...do you know what is located at the corner of John Street and Adams Street?”

“Wait...let me guess: the burial place of John Adams?”

Naya laughed. “Nice comeback, but you\\\'re incorrect. There is an electrical power plant on one corner...or at least, that is what you\\\'re supposed to see there.”

“So you\\\'re saying that it\\\'s something else entirely...but I have seen it. Definitely looks like one. Even has that weird electrical vibe coming from it.”

“All by design, I assure you. I used to work there, so I can say with absolute certainty that it\\\'s anything but a power plant.”

Annette\\\'s interest was piqued. “So what is it, then? A covert spy headquarters? A base for a terrorist cell? An evil villain\\\'s secret lair?”

Naya set her head on her folded hands and watched as Annette\\\'s mind stewed over the countless possibilities. When she got her fill of fun, she tilted her head to the side. “Would you believe a secret government laboratory working on experiments involving human/animal hybrids with the desired result being a race of super-warriors specially designed to fight the war against terrorism?”

“Uh...no?”

The dumbfounded look Annette wore on her face, coupled with her glazed-over blue eyes, led Naya to take a different tack. “Hmmm...it appears I\\\'ve broken your mind. Let\\\'s try something else. I\\\'m sure this will convince you.” She rose from the chair and moved closer to Annette. As she drew her face closer to the reporter\\\'s, she lifted the white veil of hair that draped over her right eye.

The daze Annette was in was over and done at that moment, for what she saw needed her full attention to process.

“What...what happened to you?”

Behind the shaft of hair, a swath of pitch-black skin surrounded an almond-shaped eye. Unlike Naya\\\'s left eye, this one was gold in color. The pupil was slit, hiding a deeper gold iris behind it.

“It\\\'s...it\\\'s almost like a cat\\\'s eye...”

“No,” Naya corrected, “it IS a cat\\\'s eye.” She squatted down in front of Annette, her fists balled and placed flat in the space on the floor between her legs. “I am putting us both at risk at what I am about to do, so be prepared to run if I tell you to, okay?”

“But...” One stern stare from Naya erased any questions from Annette\\\'s mind. “Okay. Just don\\\'t try to kill me.”

“I will be the least of your problems.” Naya let out a deep sigh, and concentrated. In a moment she disappeared, the lab coat falling to the floor. “Could you remove the coat from the floor, please? I just had it cleaned, and the dry cleaners charges a fortune.”

Annette was sure she heard Naya\\\'s voice, but she wasn\\\'t sure where it came from.

“Lift the coat, please! It would be quite embarrassing to be caught like this!”

The reporter\\\'s eyes returned to the rumpled coat lying on the floor. “I\\\'m...I\\\'m sorry!” She tried to gather the coat up quickly.

“No! Just pick it up by the collar! Otherwise you\\\'ll probably suffocate me!”

“Oh...right!” She wasn\\\'t sure how this made a difference, but Annette did as she was told. As she lifted the coat off of the floor, a soft thud sounded.

“Ah, that\\\'s better. Now, just drape the coat over your chair and follow me. We need to be out of here within the next two minutes or the Chimera will come after us.”

The fact that the beautiful woman Annette was interviewing just disappeared into thin air was enough to temporarily shut her mind down. The fact that a calico cat just told her that her life was in iminent danger put her at a high risk for serious brain damage.

- - - - -

“We got something!”

A burly man in a dark suit lifted his head from the pile of paperwork on his desk at the sound of the message coming through the speakers. “Where is it located?”

“Not far from here, sir. About three blocks away. There\\\'s no civilians on the streets at the moment...shall I send the Chimera?”

The man thought for a moment. “What\\\'s the local police situation in the area?”

“There seems to be a patrol car at the Sands Street ramp of the Brooklyn Bridge. It\\\'s within earshot of high-damage action, sir.”

“Hmmm...send the Chimera, but order it not to do any damage. I want the target returned alive and in one piece. Am I clear?”

“Understood, sir! Chimera deployment in sixty seconds!”

“Keep me appraised of the situation...and let me know immediately when the target is secured and back at base.”

“Yes, sir!”

The speaker went silent. The man behind the desk, however, was anything but. “Damn her! She\\\'s toying with us! She could\\\'ve gone anywhere in the city—hell, anywhere in the world! What the hell is she up to?” The man looked at the open folder on top of his desk, where a picture of Naya lay face up. “I don\\\'t know what your game is, but I\\\'ll make sure you\\\'ll use up all nine of your lives before you get the better of me!”

- - - - -

“You wouldn\\\'t happen to have a car, would you?”

“In this city? Are you kidding?” Annette replied, trying her best to keep up with the cat. “I keep my Metrocard with me everywhere I go!”

“It\\\'s just as well...you\\\'d probably be run to the side of the road or something. Besides, there should be more than enough people for them not to do anyhting serious.”

Naya led Annette to the back of the building, just as a loud thumping sound had come from around the corner. “Time to move! We\\\'ll take the subway. I have someplace we can hide until I can return to human form.”

“What was that noise? Is that\\\'s what\\\'s after us?”

“I\\\'m afraid so, but let\\\'s not wait here and serve it tea and cookies...” The pair made their way as quietly as they can away from the building and towards the station, staying in shadows as often as they could. Just as they thought the thumping noise had stopped, it started again; this time it wasn\\\'t banging against a door, it was stomping along a side street.

Annette stopped for a moment. “You think it knows we left?”

“It does now,” Naya groaned. She lifted a paw to point down the street, where a large body was moving its way clumsily along the cobblestones. “Shhh...” Naya ran off towards the station, Annette following as close as she could.

The beast followed its quarry out from under the Manhattan Bridge and onto Sands Street, where some early-morning traffic was approaching.

Ah, a break! “Annette...quick, get across the street!” Naya waited until the other woman was clear, then ran out into the oncoming traffic.

“Naya!!! What the hell!?!?!” The blonde screamed as car after car swerved or braked to keep from hitting the calico.

While Naya was busy dodging traffic, the beast that pursued her stopped in its tracks, then hugged a nearby wall. Soon it\\\'s color went from a deep black to practically transparent, matching its surroundings exactly...as long as it stood perfectly still.

The second she couldn\\\'t see the beast anymore, Naya ran back to Annette, then the pair headed for the train station. The sound of the police siren caught Annette\\\'s attention before she could scold the cat.

“Is that your cat, Miss?”

“No, officer,” the reporter said anxiously. “It...it just likes to follow me, I guess.”

“Maybe you should take it home. Don\\\'t know why it ran out in traffic like that...maybe it wants to test the whole \\\'nine lives\\\' theory, huh?”

Annette tried to match the cop\\\'s chuckle, but she really wanted to get away from him...and fast. “Yeah, cats are kinda crazy, huh? Well, we\\\'d better go. There\\\'s no telling what she\\\'ll do next!”

“You have a good night, ma\\\'am.” The officer waved and returned to his car.

“You too, officer.”

Naya watched as the car backed into its customary spot, then joined Annette at the entrance of the subway. “I resent being called \\\'crazy\\\', you know!”

“What else would you call that stunt you just pulled? You could\\\'ve gotten killed!”

“True, but that would\\\'ve been better than being caught by the Chimera.”

“Are you sure it won\\\'t follow us down here?” Annette wondered.

“Not a chance,” Naya answered. “They won\\\'t risk using that where people can see it. Too many questions to answer.” The cat strolled under the turnstile as Annette swiped her card and went through as well.

“Maybe it would be best if I carried you. Animals running loose in the subways is kinda frowned upon...unless you\\\'re a rat.”

Naya thought about it, started to protest, then thought better of it. She hopped up on the top of the housing of the escalator. “I guess you\\\'re right. Besides, I could use a little pampering after that little bit of exercise.”

Annette rubbed the cat\\\'s head a bit before picking her up. She opened up her coat and cradled the cat inside, allowing Naya to stick her head out.

“Mmmm...the only way to travel!” Naya said with a purr. “If you don\\\'t mind my saying so, your chest is quite comfortable.”

Annette wanted to say something, but the blood flow to her head put too much pressure on her brain to respond.

- - - - -

“Target has gone underground, sir. She\\\'s taken the subway.”

That bit of news didn\\\'t make the burly man any happier. “What about the Chimera? Has it been recovered?”

“Yes sir. We had to wait while the locals settled a traffic matter. Might I suggest we send the Control Squad instead?”

The man cringed. The Control Squad was indeed efficient, but they had no regard for secrecy. Aquiring their target at any cost was their claim to fame, regardless of the collateral damage they caused along the way.

“We might have to, unfortunately.” Another long sigh. “Check the transit security cameras. She has to get out of there somehow.”

“On it, sir.”

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End of Prologue

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Disclaimer: The building described in this chapter actually exists at the \'odd intersection\' mentioned below...which also exists.  Do a Google search of the intersection, and be amazed!  Oh...story\'s mine, characters are mine, too.  Just so you know.

Ikimashou!

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Chapter 1: It Takes A Village...

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The last car of the Manhattan-bound “A” was practically empty, save for a man who seemed to be asleep in one end of the car. Annette entered the car and moved to the other end, keeping an eye on the other passenger. She waited until the train pulled out of the station, hoping the noise would cover her conversation with her own little passenger.

“Where are we going? Do you know where to get off?”

“Sure I do,” Naya said, poking her head out of Annette\'s coat to take in her surroundings. “We take this to West 4th Street. From there we walk.”

“But what about the...what was it? Chimera, you said? What about that thing?”

“Like I said, they won\'t let it loose there. Too many people...that\'s one of the reasons we\'re going there. When I first got out, I had already set up a back-up hideout in case something happened to Gear Works.” Naya licked her nose once, then frowned. “Ugh...something smells horrible!”

Annette flushed for a moment, then sneered at the cat. “Hey, I took a shower today! It\'s probably that guy over there! Besides, don\'t you have a hightened sense of smell or something in this form?”

Naya shook her head. “Cat. C. A. T. True, my senses are much better in this form, but sense of smell only goes so far for my feline side. You want a more discerning nose? Get a dog!”

“Sorry...no need to get all huffy about it. Just asking...” The reporter closed her coat as the train made its way into the Broadway-Nassau stop. “You know, maybe we should wait until we get wherever it is we\'re going before I ask anymore embarrassing questions, okay?”

“Maybe that would be best.”

Annette thought Naya took the slight a lot harsher than she should have. Finding out why would have to wait.

- - - - -

“Sir...the Overseer wants a status update. Should I patch you through?”

“Stall him.”

“For how long, sir?”

“Until I tell you to stop, dammit!” Losing track of Naya was ticking the burly man off to no end. “Nevermind...just put him through. No sense delaying the inevitable.”

“Will do, sir.”

The room darkened and a large LCD screen lowered from the ceiling. A set of color bars was soon replaced by the head of an extremely angry-looking man wearing a chocolate-brown military uniform. Behind him was an empty wall, save for a room-sized flag pole from which the American flag drooped.

The burly man stood at attention and saluted the screen. “Captain Armbrister reporting, sir.”

“Let me guess, Armbrister...you still don\'t have her, do you?”

“Straight to the point as usual, sir. No, I do not. I do have surveillance covering her possible escape routes, so it\'ll only be a matter of time until--”

“Can it, Captain!” The Overseer leaned closer to the screen. “You\'ve already had a year, and that puts us a year behind schedule. You do realize we have a staging area already set for the near future, don\'t you?”

In the back of his mind, Capt. Armbrister ran through the file that listed sites near the Gulf of Bahrain as possible \'staging areas\' for their latest \'tests\'. “That I do, sir. And I can assure you, we will be ready when the time comes. The package will be delivered and ready to be deployed well in advance of the target date, sir.”

“It had better be, or I know who my next \'test subject\' will be. Am I making myself clear, Captain?”

“Irrefutably transparent, sir.”

The monitor went dark without another word, it then returned to its hiding spot in the ceiling, and Capt. Armbrister stood once again in the small, now-lit room. He was sweating profusely, and his fists were balled so tightly it seemed his knuckles would pop out of their own accord.

“Davies!! Get Cortez of the Control Squad into my office ASAP!”

- - - - -

“Ah, that\'s so much better!” The relatively fresh air was, well, like a breath of relatively fresh air for Naya as the pair made their way through the streets of Greenwich Village.

“Shhhh!” Annette whispered into her coat. “You don\'t want people to hear you, do you?”

Naya dialed her voice back a few decibels. “Sorry...forgot myself for a moment there. Really, I\'d think if the city opened up the bathrooms in the subways, there wouldn\'t be so much--”

“What part of \'shut the hell up\' don\'t you understand?”

That comment received a few odd stares from some late-night strollers. Annette noted the stares and tried to cover herself. “Oh, I\'m sorry! I..I didn\'t mean you! It\'s my girlfriend on my cell...she never knows when to keep quiet!” After getting no reply from the passers-by, she let out a huge sigh.

“You know, we could just go with that! With so many people talking on their headsets or hands-free cells these days, you\'d think they were all insane if you didn\'t know better.”

Naya had a point, the reporter had to admit, but talking on your cell is one thing; talking to a cat with it talking back to you is something else entirely. Annette just let it drop right there, not wanting to make herself seem any crazier than she already felt.

And that was becoming a problem in itself; the closer the duo got to their destination—wherever that seemed to be—Annette felt more and more stressed, as if she was going somewhere she really shouldn\'t. Soon they came to an intersection, and what little hairs the reporter had on her skin practically screamed to disloge themselves.

“Where...where are we?”

“You tell me,” Naya said, almost teasingly.

Annette looked for the street signs, and when she found them, her jaw dropped.

“That\'s...impossible...isn\'t it?”

“You\'ll get used to it, trust me.”

Annette had a hard time figuring out how two streets that normally ran parallel—albeit six blocks apart—had managed to cross each other at right angles. Yet, there they were, two street signs that read “W 10 ST” and “W 4 ST”, perpendicular to each other, on the same lamppost.

“That makes no sense whatsoever!”

Naya laughed. “Of course it doesn\'t...that\'s why I like it! Let\'s go inside...it\'s the brownstone over there, by the office supply store.”

Annette took one more sideways glance at the street signs, shook her head, then entered the building. She loved the idea of living in a brownstone; coming from a tenement herself, it had always been her dream. Unlike this building\'s designers, however, she had the good sense to dream of having an elevator installed.

“Come on, it\'s only four floors,” Naya chided as she nimbly ran up each flight and waited at the landing of the top floor, swishing her tail in mock impatience.

“Remind me...(pant)...to feed you...(cough)...to the Chimera...stupid cat!”

“I\'m far from stupid, I\'ll have you know. I have degrees in both genetics and biophysics. They don\'t just give those away in cereal boxes.” She waited until Annette neared the top of the staircase, then went towards the door of her apartment. “Just turn the doorknob. I would do it myself, but I seem to have lost my thumbs in the transformation.”

The reporter took a minute or five to catch her breath, then opened the door. “Aren\'t you afraid someone\'s gonna come in and steal your stuff?”

Naya snickered and entered the apartment. “That would be difficult, unless they knew where to look. There are two switches on your right as you come in. Use them, please?”

Annette felt along the wall until she met the switches, and then pushed them. The resulting glare seemed to swallowed her whole. After taking a minute to adjust, she noted that it wasn\'t that the light was so bright, but that the walls, ceiling, and even the tiling on the floor were wedding-gown white. The small foyer had nothing to break up the all-emcompassing whiteness. There were no wall decorations, no furniture, not even a trash can or a stray hanger. The foyer was so empty, in fact, the dust even seemed to be missing.

“I like what you\'ve done with the place,” Annette sarcastically drawled. “Very obsessive-compulsive.”

“You\'re just looking in the wrong places, Annette. Have a seat...I\'ll be out in a minute.” The calico walked into a small room, leaving the blonde to fend for herself.

“Yeah, I\'ll just pull up an imaginary chair.” The reporter looked around the foyer, trying to assess her surroundings. Three doorways led away from her; one to a small kitchen, in the same shade of white save for the large appliances which were covered in stainless steel. There were no visible utensils or dinnerware, nor small appliances like a coffee maker or toaster. Another doorway led to a modest-sized yet incredibly empty room. Even with its lights out, the room glowed from having the same color scheme as the foyer. The third door marked the room Naya had walked into.

“I don\'t mean to sound rude, but this place creeps me out to no end. I keep expecting guys in white haz-mat suits to come decomtanimate me.”

“Or you just do that yourself. The shower looks pretty nice, and I hear the water\'s usually hot. I\'d recommend it.”

Annette had gotten so used to hearing Naya\'s voice come from below her that having it eminate from directly behind her head startled her. She turned to say something, but was surprised further to see Naya back in her human form, wrapped in a full-length robe.

“For a reporter, you\'re quite skittish.”

“My stories don\'t usually scare the bejeezes out of me!” She gathered her wits, then followed Naya to the kitchen. “I\'ve been meaning to ask you...why did the Chimera chase us--”

“Me,” Naya interrupted. “It chased \'me\'. It didn\'t even acknowledge you.”

“Okay...why did it chase you when you changed into a cat?”

“That would take quite a while for me to explain, and a few more years of graduate school and military training for you to understand, I\'m afraid. Let\'s just say I have a homing beacon installed somewhere deep inside my body. When I transform into feline mode, the beacon sends a signal back to the command center, or in this case, the building you thought was a power plant. They then send out the Chimera to retreive me if my \'mission\' is done, or to kill me if the mission is compromised in any way. It responds to the same beacon, and ignores all other targets.”

Annette closed her eyes for a moment, giving her brain time to process the information. “So, what you\'re saying is, if you didn\'t change into a cat, then that thing wouldn\'t have chased you, right?”

“Right. I knew you had a good head on your shoulders.”

“Then why did you...” Before she could finish the question, the reporter\'s mind played the scenario through: She changed into a cat because you wouldn\'t have believed her if she said she could do it. Just as you didn\'t really believe the power plant was a secret government laboratory. She did it to prove herself to you, because she trusts you...enough to put her life in danger. Now don\'t you feel stupid? “...oh. Nevermind. I\'m sorry, Naya.”

The white-haired woman smiled and put a hand on Annette\'s shoulder. “It\'s okay. Thanks for proving me right.”

“Can I ask another question?”

Naya smiled. “Sure. What is it?”

“Well, when we got away from the Chimera, why didn\'t you just change back into a human before we got here?”

“You do realize cats are naked, right?” Naya\'s smile grew wider, and Annette swore she saw a hint of mischeviousness in the other woman\'s left eye. “I\'ll give you a second to imagine what would happen.” When Annette\'s face burst into a deep crimson color, Naya let out a melodious laugh. “And on that note, the interview is over for the night. Let\'s get some sleep.” She let go of Annette\'s shoulder and walked into the threshhold of the bare mid-sized room. She stopped and lifted her right hand, forming a paw which she used to beckon the blonde.

Annette smiled at the gesture, then remembered the lack of furniture. “Sleep...where??”

- - - - -

Capt. Armbrister was deep in thought. Normally, he\'d be deep in dreams right about now, but the events of the last few nights have robbed him of that pleasure. Instead of images of his wife and twin daughters enjoying a nice little vacation in the Alaskan wilderness, the only image in his head was of a lab experiment gone rouge, a defiant smirk on her face. What bothered him most about the whole affair was that he was the one who selected Naya in the first place, and now that choice had bitten him in the ass.

A sudden rap at the door tore the captain away from his thoughts. “Enter,” he barked.

The door opened, and a tall man entered the room. He immediately closed the door behind him, and stood in front of it at full attention, as if to keep anyone else from entering the room. His eyes quickly scanned the room, then fell on Capt. Armbrister. The newcomer showed a nanosecond of displeasure before returning to his stone-faced countenance with a quickly-snapped salute. “Sergeant Guillermo Cortez, reporting as requested, sir.”

“At ease, Cortez...no need for formalities.” The captain remained seated in the chair behind his desk, making not a move to stand or return the salute. Instead he grabbed the folder from the top of his desk and closed it, offering it to the black-clad sergeant. “I\'m sure you know why you\'re here, so I won\'t keep you. Here is your target. I want her back alive, and in one piece.”

“That may prove to be...difficult, sir.”

“I\'m sure you can find a way...provided you and that pack of wild dogs you call a squad can restrain yourselves from being a weapon of mass destruction.”

Cortez turned up a lip at the remark. “We do our job, sir. How we do it is irrelevant—as long as it is done, and your ass is covered. We cannot be held responsible for things such as collateral damage.”

“Not having a conscience must be quite the luxury.” Armbrister watched as the wiry young man moved quickly across the room and recovered the file. “Whatever you need to know is in that folder.”

“Correction, Captain—whatever we need to know, we already know. You\'ll hear from me soon.” The man moved back to the door and gave another salute, this time waiting for the captian to reciprocate. “By the way, sir...your daughters are quite beautiful. I wonder how they\'d look with cat\'s eyes...or worse...” He left the room as quickly as he entered it, not giving the now smoldering captain time for a retort.

Armbrister made a move to clear his desk in a fit of anger, but he stopped short when he saw the picture of himself and his family. He picked up a briefcase, tossed the picture in along with a few other folders, and left the room, slamming the door shut.

- - - - -

The smell of coffee caressed Annette\'s nose, and alerted the rest of body that morning had come. “The best part of waking up,” she half-sang.

“You might want to stop there, sleepy-head; otherwise the copyright police will be after us as well...and I hear they\'re worse than the Chimera.” Naya offered a mug of coffee to her yawning guest, before setting her own mug on the floor and sitting next to it. “I take it you slept well.”

Annette took the cup in one hand and fumbled for a place to set it neatly on the floor; a difficult task, given she was surrounded in linen and laying on a double-thick comforter. “Considering I slept on the floor, yeah, it was actually pretty nice. Where did you get this?” She patted the comforter, marveling at its thickness.

“From a friend of mine. She never could get used to sleeping in Western-style beds. She left it to me when she...went back home.”

The lowering of Naya\'s tone signaled Annette to change the subject. The petite blonde rubbed her eyes and took a good look at the other woman. Despite the wildly-colored hair and oversized paw-print pajamas—or maybe because of them—Naya struck quite the cute figure as she stared deeply into her mug of coffee. Annette thought she looked like a character from one of her anime; considering the girl actually could turn into a cat, the thought wasn\'t that much of a stretch.

“You wouldn\'t happen to have cat-ears under all that hair, would you?” When her attempt to lighten the mood got no response, Annette sat upright, gathering one of the sheets around herself. “Sorry if I brought up a bad memory, Naya. I didn\'t mean to...”

“It\'s okay...actually I\'m the one who should apologize.” Naya lifted her hed away from the cup. “You did nothing wrong. I just have to remember that what\'s past is past. I have more pressing issues to worry about.” She took a sip, and her hair seemed to bristle for a second. “Mmmm! Oh, and to answer your question...” She scooted over to Annette and placed her head in the reporter\'s lap, face up. “Check for yourself!”

Annette flustered, struggling to keep her mug from spilling. She sat it on the floor and huffed, “You could have just told me whether you did or not!”

“But what would be the fun in that?” Naya said with a grin.

“True...” Annette was amazed by the softness of Naya\'s hair; she started at the top, letting her fingers work their way deep into the other girl\'s mane. It was heavier than it looked, but the reporter surmised that came from the sheer volume of it. She moved to the spot where she figured a cat\'s ear would be if Naya had them, but finding nothing but more hair she let out a small whimper.

“Disappointed?”

“Sorta,” Annette answered with a pout.

“I could always go to the costume shop on Sixth and pick up a pair, but they don\'t have them in calico...”

The blonde removed her hand from Naya\'s hair, using the fingers to lightly flick her on the nose. “Fake ears are definitely unacceptable!”

Naya nodded empathically. “Real ears are much more useful! Same with fake tails...they do nothing for you if you can\'t use them for balance or language or other things...I always miss not having mine in human form. But then I don\'t really need one this way, so--”

Something about what Naya said didn\'t sit well with Annette. “So you prefer being feline to being human?”

“Of course!” Naya said matter-of-factly. “It\'s only natural, considering...” Naya saw the slack-jawed look on her guest\'s face and realized something had been lost in the conversation. “Ah, I seem to have omitted a very important fact.”

“You were a cat before you were human??”

Naya snickered. “Looks like I\'m out of the proverbial bag.”

- - - - -

A black SUV made its way along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, taking advantage of the light northbound traffic. Six black-clad figures sat silently in the vehicle, as the seventh—the driver—briefed them on their mission.

“As you can see, the target shouldn\'t be hard to notice...at least not in her human form. Your gear is equipped the usual equipment, but for this mission we\'ll be using special trackers. They\'re smarter than the Chimeras, and much faster.” Cortez spat out the window before turning his eyes back to the road. “Be sure to look over the operations sheet when we return to base. We will deploy the trackers at intervals throughout the boroughs. She has a limit to how long she can maintain her human form, so we will just wait her out. Between them and the traffic cameras, we should be able to spot her within 24 hours. Any questions?”

“The report states that the target must be taken alive and unharmed. Should we use the tranquilizers, sir?” a young male voice asked.

A female voice chimed in. “That could be troublesome, as she has excellent vision and reflexes. I\'d rather just shoot her and get it over with, but seeing as that\'s not an option. I\'d suggest the trap-and-crate method, sir,”

“Depending on the situation, we might be able to use both...or worse.” Cortez noticed the exit sign, and quickly swerved to utilize it, crossing two lanes without so much as a second thought to what little traffic was behind him.

- - - - -

It took about an hour for Naya to unscramble Annette\'s brain. Years of cartoons, bad sci-fi movies and tales of government experiments gone horribly wrong had led the reporter to believe that all species of abnormal humans were either the result of normal humans being altered in some freakishly senseless way, or beings from another planet posing as humans bent on world domination. Trying to explain life as a cat prior to life as a human was quite the challenge in itelf; explaining her mastery of subjects even normal humans have trouble with, that was a entirely different matter.

The blonde did her best to follow the mental road map Naya had laid out for her. “Okay, let me see if I got this right; You were rescued from a shelter by the government, implanted with some sort of DNA-altering enzyme or whatever, and then raised in a laboratory for awhile before you turned human and went to school? Even the worst fiction writer wouldn\'t dare come up with a story as weird as that! No one would believe it!”

“My point, exactly,” Naya said with a smile. “You see, this is the way things work. The more impossible things seem to be, the more likely someone has already done it covertly.”

Annette thought for a minute, then remembered the news story of the people who swore they saw someone shoot down a passenger plane with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. At the time the government dismissed the incident, saying no such weapon even existed. Years later, those very same weapons were being used in the Middle East.

“But still,” she whined. “That\'s just so...incredible. How old were you when you...er, um...changed...for the first time?”

“When adjusted using the human-to-feline age ratio, and accounting for certain hormonal changes and bio-chemical checks and balances, I\'d estimate it occurred in my mid-teens. All in all, pretty normal by anime or comic-book standards, right?” A slow nod was all Naya got in response. She stood and walked to the doorway, facing away from Annette. “It was pretty painful—and confusing—at first. I mean, there\'s an entirely different set of thought processes in play, not to mention body parts and senses that didn\'t exactly perform a smooth transition. One night I\'m sleeping curled up in a ball on a pillow; the next my senses are all screwed up, my whiskers and tail are gone and I can\'t keep my balance...and everything—even my skin—hurt! I cried, but it sounded strange, which scared me even more. I was sedated and kept in an \'isolation tank\' for a month, my body switching back and forth of its own accord.”

“There\'s no words that can describe how terrible that must\'ve been for you, Naya.” Annette got up from the floor and walked towards the other woman, finding a spot a respectable distance away from her. “I\'m sorry.”

“Thank you, but there\'s no need. Once the changes started to normalize, I began to get used to my new self. It took almost a year, but I figured out how to change on my own, and once I got used to human senses and their limited physiology, I learned to manage movement. Surprisingly, my brain seemed to process things pretty quickly—I\'d like to say it\'s because cats are just plain smarter than humans. We already have language, desires, and a basic sense of morals, so learning their human counterparts was just a matter of translation. The sciences were a bit more complex, but I guess you can say I did pretty well...so much so, in fact, the government saw to my schooling up to and including post-graduate studies. Of course, I had to do this as a human, and no one was the wiser for the most part.”

Annette let out a long whistle. “And anyone who even had an idea that you weren\'t human would soon disappear under \'mysterious circumstances\', right?”

“You watch way too much television, you know that?”

“There\'s no such thing as too much TV!” The sheet-clad woman took a step closer to Naya. “But characters in situations like are usually lonely, and bitter about being a lab rat...sorry, lab cat.”

The white-haired woman turned to Annette with an approving smile. “You\'re learning...this is good!” Allowing herself to take in Annette\'s return smile, she turned her head away again. “At least they got that part right. I had no friends in the lab, and classmates and acquaintances at the university...thank goodness for Megumi. I\'d probably end up being a crazed killer if it weren\'t for her.”

Annette peered around to see the slight blush in the other woman\'s face. “Megumi, huh? So the futon belongs to her?”

“Belonged...past tense. She left it to me when she went back home. I had confided in her about what was happening with me; instead of shunning me as some kind of freak or exposing me, she consoled me, and we became very close.”

“Too close, I\'m guessing...”

“Yeah...” A long silence followed. Naya felt Annette\'s hand gently take one of her own, and she let it be taken. “We knew it would happen, but we didn\'t care. She said I was entitled to some happiness, and that if she could provide it—even for a little while—then it was worth any price she would have to pay later on. Those were the last words she said to me before she was escorted on a plane and told never to come back.”

Annette wanted to apologize again, but she knew it would be rebuffed. She gave Naya\'s hand a soft squeeze instead. “Can I ask another question?”

“You wouldn\'t be you if you didn\'t, would you?”

“Where did you get the coffee? There\'s nothing in the kitchen—literrally—yet, you got coffee. How?”

“SeattleSips, of course! They\'re everywhere...and they have beautifully large cups!”

Annette rolled her eyes, then thought of something more important. “Wait—you went out like that? What about the people who sent the Chimera? Don\'t you think they still looking for us?”

“True, but their coffee is worth the risk!” Naya left the doorway and returned to her spot on the floor, where her now tepid coffee waited for her. “Maybe I should just put some ice in it...” Seeing the incredulous look on Annette\'s face made Naya take a serious turn. “Not to worry...I know the janitor here; he saw us enter earlier, and thought we might need a jump-start this morning. Then again, knowing him, I think he might have had more than coffee on his mind after seeing us together.”

Annette took a sip of her own cool coffee and nodded. “Not a bad idea, that...” she mused to herself.

Or so she thought, as Naya snickered. “Better be careful; I hear bestiality is illegal in New York...”

“I did just say that out loud, didn\'t I?” Annette gathered up the rest of the sheet and buried her face in it.

Naya laughed at her guest\'s expense. “Come on out of there...one of us has to go get breakfast, and I don\'t have money...”

“...or a conscience!”

- - - - -

After a shower and a little more ribbing from Naya, Annette made her way downstairs to the local bakery. On the way back, she passed a middle-aged woman in a motorized wheelchair. A capuchin monkey rode in the woman\'s lap.

“Um, excuse me, Ma\'am, but is that a \'helper monkey\'?”

“Yes, she is,” the woman said politely. “Her name is Gina...say hello, Gina!” On cue, the little monkey moved from the woman\'s lap to her left shoulder. She screeched a greeting and then returned to her spot. “She\'s very smart! I would be lost without her!”

“She\'s adorable!” Annette gushed. She waved goodbye to the woman, and the monkey waved back. The reporter smiled and returned to Naya\'s apartment.

The woman guided her chair to an intersection and looked around to see if anyone was looking. She then pressed an extra button on the top of her blouse. “Unit WV checking in. Commencing canvas.”

- - - - -

A black SUV rolled to a stop in front of a schoolyard. Sgt. Cortez rolled down the driver\'s side window and was about to pick up his binoculars when a sharp beeping sound came across his handset. “Check, Raptor Unit.”

“Raptor Unit reporting update on status, sir,” the male voice on the other end answered. “Manhattan\'s covered from the Battery to Houston. Ditto for Northwest Brooklyn and Southwest Queens. We are experiencing delays in the South Bronx, but Staten Island, Roosevelt Island and the Rockaways are in play. Owl Unit has 85% of the street cams, as well as all subway and airport security cams. We should have full coverage within 90 minutes.”

“Good work, Raptor Unit. Come back in 30.”

“Will do, sir. Raptor Unit out!”

Cortez allowed himself a smirk. He watched two redhead girls chat with their friends before they all went into the school. He then pulled the SUV from his surveillance position, merging into the rush-hour traffic.

- - - - -

“What took you so long?” Naya\'s voice echoed from the bathroom, as Annette set the baked goods on the kitchen counter.

“You don\'t have an elevator, remember? Not all of us are physically gifted.”

“Some of are more \'gifted\' than others...” Naya appeared at the entrance of the kitchen, dressed the same full-length robe. She also wore a leering grin, which made Annette a little nervous. “You have a nice body; you just need some conditioning, that\'s all.”

“Um...thank you?” The comment made the reporter think twice about eating the two glazed donuts she bought for herself. “Speaking of which...I\'ve been wondering. When you change into human form, where does all the fur go? And what about the colored patches on your back?”

“Well, you\'ve already seen my right eye...come here for a second...” Annette came a few steps closer, and Naya turned to face away from her, untying the sash on the robe. “Now look at my back. Don\'t worry...I won\'t drop the robe.”

The blonde took one hand and lifted most of the hair from Naya\'s back, revealing the same pitch-black shade of skin on the woman\'s neck as over her right eye. As she slid the robe over her shoulders, she saw patches of brown, grey and orange among a sea of black. “How...how far down does it go?”

“It stops just above my tail, and around my sides. I have some spots around my stomach, but it isn\'t nearly as bad. I\'m used to it, but it\'s not exactly something I can wear a strapless dress with now, is it?”

Annette took a finger and outlined one of the brown patches just under Naya\'s left shoulder blade, marveling at the softness of her skin. “So, the hair just retracts then, right?”

“Not exactly. Since humans have more surface area than cats, the hairs spread themselves out more and appear to be much finer. They\'re there...you just can\'t see them.”

“Wow...” Annette was practically stroking Naya\'s back, making the other girl start to squirm.

“You might want to stop doing that...unless you\'re planning to take some responsibility!”

“What? Oh...OH!!”

Naya laughed heartily listening to the blonde try her best to compose herself. After catching her breath, she covered herself and moved to the counter, taking the glazed donuts out of the bag. “For me? Thanks! I\'m going to need all the sugar I can get for our next trip!”

This caught Annette by surprise. “What \'next trip\'?”

“Later,” Naya mumbled through a mouthful of donut. “It\'s breakfast time!”

=====

End of Chapter 1

=====

Disclaimer: "Wash.  Rinse.  Repeat."  Now, go read!

Ikimashou!

=====

Chapter 2: Helper Monkey

=====

“So, are we ready to go?”

Annette gave the white-halred woman a worried look. “You sure you wanna do this?”

“It\'s not like I have a choice,” Naya answered. “I can\'t hold this form for much longer, and I\'d rather be somewhere where it\'s harder to find me, than sitting here and waiting for them to come get me.” She gathered her hair and bundled it inside a scarf, tying it as best she could.

“You got a point, but we can\'t keep running forever.”

“I don\'t plan to...we need to get evidence beyond just my body. We need to expose the Brooklyn lab, and the people behind it, without getting caught.”

Annette took one last look around the apartment, then closed the door behind her as Naya made her way to the stairs. “And how are we supposed to do that?”

“If I knew that,” Naya said with a big smile, “I\'d have done it already!” She ignored the shocked look her new-found sidekick gave her. “First, we\'ll get someplace where I can change, then we go to your paper. Once you get the ball rolling, I\'m sure we can get help from other sources.”

“You\'re putting a lot of faith in me...too much, I think.” Annette slowly made her way down the stairs.

“You\'ll be surprised what you\'re capable of, Annette.”

The pair made their way down to Sixth Avenue, which was already buzzing with pedestrians and traffic. They settled in a side street not far from Washington Square Park. While Naya was used to just disappearing in a crowd, Annette still had to get comfortable with the idea—especially since it meant she might have to run at a moment\'s notice. She looked around to make sure no one was looking, then nodded to Naya.

“When I\'m done, toss the clothes in the garbage, okay? Don\'t want anyone thinking about doing any forensic work...” With that, Naya transformed and walked out from under the pile of clothing.

Annette discarded the pile, tossed it in a nearby dumpster, then scooped up Naya and tucked her inside her coat. “Okay, let\'s go!” She stepped out of the alley, and weaved through the park, making her way toward Fifth Avenue. She noticed the woman she had seen earlier. “Hey Naya...have you seen her around before? The lady with the helper monkey...she seemed really nice.”

“No...not that I can tell. How do you know her?”

“I saw her this morning, when I went to the bakery.” She noticed the monkey seemed a bit agitated by something. “That\'s odd...she was very well-behaved when I saw her.”

“Really...” Naya felt the hairs down her spine stand stiff. “Let\'s get out of here, Annette. I\'m not getting a good feeling about this...”

“Oh...okay.” The reporter took another look at the monkey, who seemed to be staring directly at her. “Creepy...”

- - - - -

“Unit WV reporting...I got a ping, but the target hasn\'t been spotted yet. Requesting tracker release.”

Cortez picked up the headset communicator from his desk. “Request granted. Be sure to keep me posted.”

“Will do. Unit WV, out!”

The sergeant waited until the connection dropped, then established another one. “Owl Unit, check!”

“Owl Unit, standing by.”

“Target is in play...Washington Square area. Get me a visual.”

“Will do. Owl Unit, out!”

“Raptor Unit, stand by!”

“Raptor Unit, standing by.”

Cortez opened up a laptop and made some notes. “Time to show \'em how it\'s done...”

- - - - -

Annette stopped in front of the West 4th Street station. “Maybe we should catch a cab. It\'s gonna be crowded like crazy down there.”

“Better for us,” Naya replied. “Big crowds means no Chimera. And as long as I keep my head down—and you don\'t lose your coat—we\'ll be fine.”

Sitting under a parked car, Gina watched as Annette walked down into the station. She reached behind her and pulled out a small device, pushing a small button on it. She screeched twice, then put the device back behind her, scampering off along the curb.

Down in the station, a security camera zoomed in on the people coming down the stairs at that particular exit. The feed was diverted from the station booth to a mobile unit parked at Washington Square South.

“Get facial recognition on these people, and see if anything pops,” a woman barked.

“Yes ma\'am!” The young man at the console did as he was told; soon multiple windows full of data appeared on the three screens he had set up in front of him. “She\'s not in any of them, ma\'am, and no one seems to be a person of interest. A few students, a couple day laborers, some local people...and a reporter.”

“And why would I be interested in a reporter, Jenks?” The woman had an impatient tone.

“Well, ma\'am...according to the data I have, she shouldn\'t be in the area unless she\'s either working on a story. Her paper is based in Brooklyn, and most of her work seems to be centered there. It\'s probably just her day off or something, but...”

The woman took a look at the surveillance film. “Something about her stance seems wrong...no one walks with their hands in front of their chest like that unless they\'re holding something...or hiding something. Get Unit WV to re-send the tracker before that woman boards a train. I want to know where she\'s going...and what she\'s hiding.”

“Yes, ma\'am!”

As the man did as he was told, the woman picked up her headset. “Owl Unit 4 reporting. We have a yellow tag. Repeat: yellow tag. Will update shortly.”

Cortez\' voice came back over the headset. “Very good, Constanza. Send me what you got, and keep me posted.”

“Already done, sir. Owl Unit out.”

- - - - -

Cortez looked over the surveillance film and had the same suspicion that Constanza did, although his theory was a bit skewed. “Either she\'s hiding that damn cat, or she needs a better bra!”

- - - - -

Annette was having a little bit of trouble holding the squirming Naya in place. “Hey, do you mind? We\'re supposed to be inconspicuous, remember? With you moving around like that, I must look like I\'m groping myself!”

“Sorry,” Naya\'s muffled voice replied. “It\'s a bit hot in here. I think it would be better if you calmed down as well.”

“The train should be coming soon. Hopefully we can get a seat...”

As if an answer to a prayer, the Queens-bound “F” roared into the station. Annette walked down to the last car, which only had a few passengers, and found a window seat. “Ah! Air conditioning! That\'ll help!”

That it did, as Naya began to feel the cool air drift down inside Annette\'s coat.

Above them, Gina worked her way along the beams between the tracks and settled herself on top of the last car of the train. A couple people noticed and pointed, but the incident went mostly ignored.

Twenty minutes later, the train pulled into the Roosevelt Avenue station in Queens. Annette waited for most the passengers to leave before getting off herself, hoping to lessen the chance of getting jostled by someone. Unseen by her, Gina climbed down the back of the train and waited just off the end of the platform.

“How\'re we doin\' in there?” Annette said to her chest with a smile.

“Pretty good, considering. Even better if I could use my hands.”

“Enough, pervy cat! We\'ll be at my place in a few minutes, then we\'ll...” Annette thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye, but shrugged it off.

“Something wrong?”

“Nah...just my paranoia going up a notch. Man, will I be glad to get home!” As the reporter climbed the stairs to the exit, Gina took the more direct route, scaling the walls and going up through the grating in the ceiling and into the street.

The little monkey followed Annette to a modest little tenement building just off 34th Avenue. She waited until the blond went inside, then reached behind her, once again pulling out the device she held.

- - - - -

“Unit WV reporting...tracker has yellow tag in place of residence. Please advise.”

“Interesting,” Cortez mused. “Have tracker hold position until Unit JH takes over. Understood?”

“Will do, sir! Unit WV, out!”

“Owl Unit, check!”

“Owl Unit reporting, sir. Confirmed sighting of yellow tag. Video on its way...now.”

Cortez allowed himself a laugh when he saw Annette still hugging her chest. “Constanza...see if you can pull up any video of that woman leaving or entering any of the stations in the past twelve hours.”

“Stand by, sir...” A couple minutes passed until the woman\'s voice was heard once again. “Found her, sir. Apparetnly she was in the vicinity of the target\'s last known sighting. She also was on the \'A\' line at West 4th Street not long after the target went underground. I\'d say that\'s more than a coincidence, sir.”

“Agreed, Constanza...good work, as always. But until we have concrete evidence of the two of them together, we keep our distance. Stand by, Owl Unit.”

“Owl Unit, standing by!”

=====

End of Chapter 2

=====

Ikimashou!

=====

CHAPTER 3 – Home Sweet Home

=====

Annette heaved a sigh of relief after she closed the door of her apartment behind her. She opened her coat, and gently set Naya down on the floor. “Make yourself at home...as you can see, I actually have furniture!”

“That\'s because you don\'t live your life on the run.” Naya found a sofa to her liking, curling up on one of the plush pillows. “But then, you don\'t need to...or at least you didn\'t, until you met me.”

“Not true,” Anette said from her kitchen. “I\'m rarely here. I\'m usually either out on a story or working at the office. Not having a computer of my own is kind of a drawback. Would you like some tuna?”

“No self-respecting cat would turn down fish! And it\'d better be solid white albacore...otherwise you can keep it!”

The blond had to laugh at her guest\'s pickiness. “You do know you\'re endorsing the stereotype, right?”

“Ask me if I care,” Naya replied, her tail twiching in anticipation. “It\'s been awhile since I had anything other than sardines or junk food. I hope you have more than one can.”

“That\'s something else I\'ve been wondering about...what else do you eat?”

“Anything that I can metabolize quickly, as I need a lot of energy to deal with the transformation. Where you\'d have a problem eating food with a lot of sugar or fat, I burn it off easily. It\'s why I have such a sleek figure.”

“I hate you!” Annette yelled with a laugh. “You are right, though...you could probably be a model with a body like yours.”

“I already have the catwalk down...” Naya was interrupted by what she thought was an unusual sound for an apartment building. “Ah...Annette? No one in your building has exotic pets, do they?”

The other woman entered with a bowl of tuna in one hand. “Not counting you...I don\'t think so. Why?”

“You\'re gonna think I\'m crazy, but I thought I heard a monkey.”

Annette cocked her head to the side. “Really?” When she saw that Naya didn\'t immediately dive into the tuna, she had a feeling the cat wasn\'t making it up. “Maybe you\'re thinking about Gina, the helper monkey we saw in the Village. She was cute, wasn\'t she?”

“Maybe...but I doubt it was her. Even a genetically-enhanced monkey can\'t get out here that fast on her own.” The smell of the tuna was becoming too good for Naya to ignore. “If you don\'t mind, I\'m going to be rude and not use utensils for this.”

“The fact that a talking cat that can transform into a human just dismissed the possibility of a genetically-enhanced monkey tells me there\'s somehting terribly wrong with the world.” Annette just shook her head and left the calico to its snack.

- - - - -

A black town car pulled into the driveway of a two-story home in Rockaway Beach, and out of it stepped Capt. Armbrister. He took a moment to compose himself, adjusted his tie, then headed for the doorway of his home.

A short, rotund redhead met him at the door. “Ah, Ed! Good timing! I was hoping you\'d be here before the girls got home.”

“I hope you have good news...I could really use some right about now,” the burly man said to his wife.

“Oh? Did something bad happen at work today? Oh wait, I know...” The woman put her hands on her hips and stuck out her chest, affecting an official tone. “It\'s a matter of state security. That\'s on a need to know basis, and you don\'t need to know!”

Armbrister laughed for the first time in what seemed like days. “Good to see my training is paying off!” He gave his wife a hug, then walked with her into the living room, setting his hat on the table. “No, it\'s not that bad. Just a little something that has to be taken care of before we can begin our trip.”

His wife sat next to him on the sofa, leaning up against his arm. “Well, as long as it doesn\'t interfere with our trip—the girls have been looking forward to this forever. Speaking of which...” She moved the military hat and undid an envelope that was under it. “The tickets came in the mail today! I still haven\'t told the girls exactly when we were going...they\'ll be so excited!”

“Are they dated?”

“Nope...thanks to my connections with the airline, I was able to get open-ended tickets! We can go when we want and leave when we\'re ready!”

“That\'s my Elena,” Ed said, putting his arm around the smaller woman. “I knew you\'re were good for more than just those child-bearing hips of yours!”

The redhead turned her head up to see her husband\'s smile, then she swatted him on the knee. “This is gonna be great...” she said lazily.

“Yes, it will.” As much as Ed wanted to share in his wife\'s excitement, in the back of his mind Naya\'s face still smirked at him. Cortez\' remark didn\'t make him feel any easier, either. Regardless, he kept a brave face on for his wife and family. “It won\'t be long, honey...”

- - - - -

Naya stretched and let out a nice long yawn. “You wouldn\'t happen to have a nice pants set I could fit into, do you?”

“No, but I have a cat carrier,” Annette answered sarcastically. “You really should find some way to transform without always being naked.”

“Or I could just have you buy me new sets of clothes wherever we go!”

Annette nearly choked on the soda she was sipping. “Are you crazy? On my salary I can barely afford this apartment! You used to work for the government...didn\'t they pay you well?”

“Oh, sure...and when I filled out my W-2 form, and they asked for my occupation, I put down \'laboratory experiment\'. I\'m sure that got a few chuckles down at the IRS.” Naya waited for the joke to settle in Annette\'s brain, and when the light finally came on, she got back on topic. “Seriously...I\'m going to need some clothes if I\'m going to meet your editor.”

Annette got up from her seat and walked to her closet. “Well, if you don\'t mind going casual, I have a sweatshirt and some jeans you can use...though I\'m sure you\'re gonna need a belt for these.”

“As long as I can move in them and they\'re clean, I don\'t really mind. Oh, and don\'t worry about the underwear...never cared for that stuff in the first place.”

The blond looked at the cat as if it had three heads. “How can you not wear...oh, right. Cat. I\'m really gonna have to get used to you.” She tossed the clothing in Naya\'s direction. “I\'ll give you some privacy.”

“Why? I\'ve undressed in front of you before?”

“Yeah, but that was different...you went from human to cat then, and I didn\'t see what was under the lab coat,” the reporter\'s face had a faint red glow about it. “You\'re telling me you were naked under there?”

“Well, other than the stockings and slippers, yeah!” Naya shrugged her shoulders, as much as a cat can do so. “You were expecting a three-piece business suit? I usually have no need for clothes, so I keep them to a minimum.” She moved over to the clothes and, after giving then a sniff or two, nodded in approval. “These will do. You can stay and watch, if you like that sort of thing...I don\'t mind.”

Annette didn\'t need to be asked twice. She picked up the empty plate Naya had been eating from and made a beeline to the kitchen.

“Chicken!” Naya yelled after her.

- - - - -

“Owl Unit reporting!”

“Go ahead, Owl Unit.” Cortez was checking another surveillance camera when the radio call got his attention.

“Thought you might want to see this, sir. We found a traffic cam under the Manhattan Bridge at Sands and Jay...it took the following footage last night at about the same time the Chimera chased the target. Sending it now.”

The tall, wiry man watched as the camera showed an empty street corner. After a few seconds, a figure ran across the camera\'s view and into the street, followed by a person. Shortly after them, the black outline of the Chimera nearly filled the screen. He thought it would also move across the screen, but it stayed in place for a moment, then faded into the background. “The flaw in their plan...that\'s why they never succeed.” He rewound the video clip and zoomed in on the first image—it was definitely a cat, but the camera\'s resolution wasn\'t sharp enough to show if it was Naya. He then moved the clip forward until the woman came into view. Again, the blurriness of the clip proved troublesome, but at least he could match the coat and jeans. “Definitely not a coincidence, Constanza. Find all you can about this person—use the image from the West 4th and Roosevelt cams—and send it to me. Cross-reference it with the address the tracker from Unit WV has. Unit JH should be arriving there within a few minutes, so forward everything to her as well.”

“Will do, sir...Owl Unit, out!”

- - - - -

The offices of the New York Courier was its usual hotbed of activity. Where once the sound of clacking typewriters all but drowned out any human speech, the humans had gained sway, drowning out the soft clicks of computer keyboards with phone interviews and interdepartmental banter. One constant in this sea of change was the editor\'s room, a bastion of solitude and quietness reserved for only those who were priviledged enough to captian such a noisy crew.

At this point in time, that job was held by Editor-in-Chief William Choi, the first Asian-American to head a major citywide daily. He was given a chance to prove his talents as a reporter at the Courier when no other paper would touch him, and now as an editor he gives others the opportunity to show their skills. One of his prize pupils was about to give him the story of his life.

“Sir, Miss Stanhope is on line three. Should I put her through?”

The dark-haired, moon-faced man\'s eyes lit up. “Of course! I\'ve been waiting to see what our little \'fishing expedition\' came up with!”

“Yes, Chief!”

“So, Stanhope...what did you find out?”

“Well,” Annette began timidly, “it\'s definitely a story...though, I\'m not sure if it\'s something we can write right away...”

“Meaning what, exactly? Do we have a story or not?”

Annette looked at Naya, who was now in her human form. “I think it would be best if she talked to you first and let you know everything first-hand. Then you can decide for yourself.”

Choi\'s deep-sounding laugh filled the glass-enclosed room. “That\'s what I like about you, Stanhope; always thinking \'exclusive\' when everyone else thinks \'story\'. Bring her in, and make sure to do so quietly...I don\'t want anyone else getting wind of this story before they have to, okay?”

“Right, Chief! See you in about a half-hour.”

“You got twenty minutes! Move it!” Choi hung up the old-style phone, and laughed again. This was a game he played often with Annette; sending her on leads most would think were wild-goose chases, only to have the blond come up with interesting angles on even the most mundane stories.

- - - - -

Annette snapped her cell phone shut, and gave Naya a questioning look. “Are you really sure you want to do this? I mean, who knows what\'s going to happen to you afterwards?”

“I\'m not worried about that,” the other woman said, brushing her multi-colored mane while paying strict attention to the white bang over her right eye. “What matters to me is that those people get shut down; after that, I can live my life in peace.”

“But how are you going to do that if your picture is plastered all over the front page of the Courier?? You\'re gonna become an instant celebrity...or at the very least, a local news story gone viral on the Internet!”

“The more people who know about what\'s going on, the better.” Naya waved off Annette before she could protest any further. “I appreciate your concern, but really...I wouldn\'t have done this if I didn\'t think this through completely. We cats have a saying that somewhat translates to, \'if my whiskers can fit, then I can fit.\' It means there\'s few situations we can\'t get ourselves out of under our own power. I have faith in you to get my story out; have faith in me to get us out of any trouble we may incur, okay?”

She wasn\'t quite sure what it was about Naya that made her want to trust her so much, but Annette couldn\'t help but feel the former lab cat was determined not to let anything happened to either of them. She must have been good at avoiding trouble to be a thorn in someone\'s side for so long; if cats really did have nine lives, she was certain Naya would risk them all. It just seemed to be Naya\'s way, and if that was the case, then Annette was going to make sure Naya got all the help she could give.

Annette put her cell phone in her pocket and walked up to the other woman. She took a long, hard look around Naya\'s nose, then held her hands apart over her shoulders. Then the reporter looked at her own shoulders, and wondered if she could fit through a hole of the same size.

“If it comes to that, I\'ll push you through.” Naya\'s smile reassured Annette, who smiled in return.

“Just watch where you put your hands, okay?”

“Okay, now that we\'ve bonded, let\'s go meet your editor!”

=====

End of Chapter 3

=====

Disclaimer: The driving maneuvers in the following chapter were done by professional drivers on a closed course...even if it does say otherwise.  Please do not try this a home.  Seriously.  You can kill a lot of people, and I\'d be in jail for a long time \'cause I\'ll be blamed for it.  And I don\'t like jail.  At all.

Ikimashou!

=====

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CHAPTER 4 – The Boulevard of Death

=====

A livery cab rolled up to the front door of Annette\'s apartment building, beeping its horn twice to signal its arrival. The reporter stepped out first, looking around to notice if anyone was watching.

Naya rolled her eyes. “Really, Annette...if anyone\'s spying on us, they won\'t be holding a sign reading \'hey, we\'re watching you!\'. Just get in the car already.”

The blond stuck her tongue out at her companion as they both entered the back seat of the cab.

- - - - -

Cortez\' face was a mixture of emotions. Part of it was curiousity, as a computer screen he was watching displayed the recent article about the Brooklyn Bridge Park scandal. Part of it was amusement, as that report was partially covered by the picture of a woman with short curly blond hair and a wide-eyed expression. “I was expecting some grizzly-faced, trenchcoat-wearing investigative reporter...this girl looks like she belong in a sorority dorm.” Yet, the information that came with the photo matched the byline of the article: Annette Stanhope.

“Unit JH reporting.”

Cortez picked up his headset. “Go Unit JH.”

“Yellow tag is in a livery cab heading towards Long Island City, probably to the newspaper. She is accompanied by another person, though it\'s tough to get a visual...could be the target. Sending surveillance photos. Awaiting further orders, sir.”

Cortez confirmed the blond as Annette, but the other person was wearing a large jacket with her head facing downward, her hair covered by a black cloth hat. “I\'d bet that\'s the target. We won\'t have another opportunity to take her...we\'ll have to risk it. Bring them both in.”

“Will do. Unit JH, out!”

Cortez closed the windows on his computer, then turned the unit off. “That\'s one story that\'ll never see the light of day.”

- - - - -

Annette gave the driver the address of the Courier, and soon the cream-colored sedan was on it\'s way down Queens Boulevard.

“You know, they call this the \'Boulevard of Death\',” Annette said lazily.

Naya took a look out of her window, noting the extreme width and insane number of lanes of the throughway. “I\'d spend all my lives just trying to get across this thing! And the drivers don\'t make it any easier...”

“Hey!” the cabbie shot back with a laugh, “I resent that remark! I\'m a safe driver!”

“Definitely a safe driver, definitely!” Annette giggled at the movie reference, which apparently went right over Naya\'s head. The reporter thought about explaining it, but was suddenly interrupted by a slight bump.

“Did we hit something?” she asked.

“No,” the driver said with more than a little fear. “Something hit us!”

Sure enough, a black SUV was practically kissing the cab\'s back fender...not safe to do at any speed.

“I don\'t think it just wants to pass us,” Annette said nervously.

Naya tapped the driver\'s shoulder. “Could you outrun it?”

“I\'m a safe driver!” the cabbie reiterated. “I don\'t want to lose my license!”

Another bump—this one a lot more forceful than the first—and Naya\'s patience was starting to wear thin. “You want to lose your life?”

“No!” The driver took a look behind him at the menacing minivan, then took a deep breath. “Here we go!” Suddenly the cab swerved into the express lane, narrowly missing a smaller car. “I hope you know I charge extra for this!”

“Are you serious!?!” Annette would\'ve smacked the driver, if her hands weren\'t busy fumbling for the seatbelt.

Naya kept her eyes on their pursuers. “Fine...as long as you get us away from them! She\'ll pay you whatever you want!”

Annette had just gotten the belt to click in place when Naya\'s remark startled her. “Wait...what??”

- - - - -

The driver of the SUV tried his best to keep up with the cab, which was practically swimming through traffic like a fish in a rock-filled stream.

“Stay with \'em, Frank!” A man in the front passenger seat reached down and pulled out a small handgun. “We\'ll take \'em at the next intersection.”

- - - - -

Annette was pounding on the back of the driver\'s seat with balled fists. “Can\'t this thing go any faster? They\'re gaining on us!”

“It\'s just a cab, lady, not a race car!”

“I don\'t care...just move it!!”

Naya saw an arm stick out of the passenger side of the SUV. “You might want to turn as soon as possible....he\'s got a gun!”

Annette\'s scream nearly drowned out the squeal the tires made as the cabbie suddenly made a U-turn, skidding across two lanes and into the opposite side of the street.

Naya was impressed. “Nice move! How\'d you learn to do that?”

“Playstation!” the man beamed.

- - - - -

The man with the gun ducked his head back into the chasing vehicle. “Follow them!”

The driver of the SUV handled the U-turn more skillfully than the cab driver, using a city bus as a buffer to keep him from skidding too far off course.

“Damn it...we\'re gonna get local LEO\'s if this keeps up. Hurry up, Frank!”

“You yelling won\'t make this thing go any faster, Joe!”

- - - - -

True to Frank\'s prediction, a siren rang out behind the two cars as they weaved through the eastbound traffic.

“Yay! The cavalry\'s here!” Annette said with a wide smile.

“Don\'t be so sure about that...they could be after us. Remember, we\'re speeding too!”

The reporter looked at her companion with a sour expression. “Killjoy.”

“Hey...just stating a fact.”

“Would you ladies mind if I took the side streets?”

Both passengers looked at the cab driver. “Why?” Naya asked, “you got a plan?”

“Better than that!” He gauged his distance from the next corner. “I hope your seatbelts are on tight.” He waited until the SUV was directly behind him, then he slammed on the brakes and made a hard right, drifting off of the boulevard and leaving the SUV to shoot past him. He then regained control of the car and took off down a narrow street.

Annette was wondering whether or not her insurance was up to date, while Naya smiled gleefully. “I bet your kids love playing against you!”

The driver\'s laughter filled the cab. “Who do you think taught me how to drive?” The man made two more rights and then a left, heading back on the westbound side of Queens Boulevard.

The police car that had been chasing them had just made it back to the Boulevard when it was clipped by the black SUV, who tried to beat the cabbie at his own game.

The sideswipe gave the cabbie enough time to find the onramp to the BQE. “It\'s gonna get a bit tricky from here, ladies. But don\'t worry, I got ya covered!”

Naya turned to Annette, “You wouldn\'t happen to have anything larger than a twenty in your wallet, do you?”

“Will you stop spending my money!!”

“Um, ladies...we have more company!”

The two women followed the cabbies pointing thumb behind them, to see two black SUVs and a couple cop cars in hot pursuit.

“Oh, come on!” Annette wailed. “It\'s not like we robbed a bank or killed someone...right?”

Naya took offense to the blond\'s questioning look. “What? What??” When Annette didn\'t relent, Naya did. “Okay, so I beat up a guard or two and memorized some formulas or whatever...”

That bit of info perked up the cabbie\'s ears. “Hey, were you on \'America\'s Most Wanted\' or something?”

“Shut up and drive!” the two women shouted in unison.

- - - - -

“Owl Unit reporting.”

Cortez had a feeling he was going to need some strong painkillers for the migraine he was about to receive. Helicopter footage of the chase had begun playing on the local news networks, and he was getting too good a view. “Go Owl Unit...please tell me something I don\'t already know!”

A long pause followed the sergeant\'s comment. Finally the woman known as Constanza spoke up. “Well, sir, we have the newspaper building covered. There\'s no way they\'ll get there even if they manage to elude the Raptor Units.”

Yeah, that migraine was preparing to rent Cortez\' head with an option to buy. “Has anyone managed to tell the police anything?”

“Well...no, sir. We thought it best not to compromise the mission.”

“They have to be dealt with. Tell the two vehicles in pursuit now to sheild the cops on the BQE...play the \'official business\' card with them. I\'ll alert Unit AS to intercept the target.”

“Will do, sir. Owl Unit, out!”

Cortez reached for the temples of his head. These women were much more trouble than they were worth.

- - - - -

Traffic had started to pile up on the northbound BQE, the rubberneckers watching the pile up of cars that had suddenly clogged the southbound side just before the 36th Street exit.

The sounds of screeching tires and crunching metal were fading in the distance from the cab. “What the hell just happened?” the cabbie yelled. “Those two SUVs just turned and crashed into the cops!”

The two female passengers looked behind them and saw the pile-up quickly become a distant memory as the cab took the exit and returned to the local streets. “What a lucky break!” Annette said, heaving a huge sigh of relief.

Naya wasn\'t so sure. “I don\'t think that was sheer luck. The police were getting too involved...I think they deliberately stopped them to take them out of the picture.”

“Why would they...” Annette suddenly remembered what happened with the Chimera when the police got involved. “Ah...they don\'t want to be found!”

“Bingo! We can use this to our advantage, like last time.” Naya looked around as the car moved through the streets, noticing an overpass a few blocks away. “How much further until we get to the Courier building?”

“It\'s right after that overpass. Why?” Annette watched as Naya undid her seat belt and leaned over to whisper to the driver.

“Yes, ma\'am!” the man replied to whatever it was the other woman told him. Soon the car pulled up under the overpass.

When the car stopped, Naya quickly got out and ran around to Annette\'s side. “Pay the man, and let\'s get out of here! Give him fifty—we\'ll give him the rest later!”

“What!?!?!” Naya\'s urging stare pushed Annette along, albeit begrudingly. She gave the man his fare, and left the cab. The minute she was out, he tore away from the curb like a bat out of hell. As he blew through the intersection, another black SUV turned a corner and immediately followed him.

The reporter\'s jaw hung for a moment. “How did you know?”

“It was odd that they just let us go like that,” Naya answered. “I had a feeling they had a back-up plan, and I was right.”

“I\'m guessing they knew where we\'re going next, huh?”

“I\'m afraid so, which means they\'re watching the building. If there\'s a way we can get in without being seen...”

Annette\'s eyes lit up. “There is!” She pulled out a cell phone and punched a couple of buttons. “Mike? It\'s me...can you give a couple of ladies in distress a helpnig hand? Really? That\'ll be great! Oh, and bring the truck and the gear...we\'re gonna need it. Thanks, Mike, you\'re a sweetheart! See ya!” She snapped the phone shut and leaned up against the brick wall, smiling broadly.

Naya raised her left eyebrow. The right one might have been raised as well, but it was hidden by her thick bang. “Who\'s Mike?”

“Mike,” Annette answered with a grin, “is my knight in rusty armor!”

=====

End of Chapter 4

=====

Disclaimer: Standard disclaimer rules apply.  Oh, and the newspaper building portrayed here actually belongs to a bank whose name rhymes with "kitty".  Please don\'t sue me, guys!

Ikimashou!

=====

Chapter 5: Breaking News

=====

It wasn\'t two minutes after Annette hung up that a pick-up truck pulled up under the overpass. The vehicle had seen better days...or maybe better decades, as it was quite old looking. The driver, a heavy-set man with thin jet-black hair and horned-rim glasses came around and gave Annette a big hug.

“Nice to see ya again, Blondie!” Mike\'s breath reeked of tobacco, but the reporter was used to it. The dishelved man took a look over Annette\'s shoulder. “Who\'s your friend?”

Annette broke away from Mike and did a proper introduction. “This is my friend Naya. Naya, this is Mike...he knows a lot of people who know a lot about a lot of people.”

“That\'s a lot of information to know. Pleased to meet you, Mike.”

“Oh yeah, a girl with a firm handshake!” Mike tested Naya by squeezing her hand a little tighter, and she was more than up to the challenge. “You don\'t get that too often...I like her already!”

“Sorry...I\'m already taken,” Naya deadpanned.

“Is that so?” The truck driver looked at Naya and then at Annette. “Ah-ha! I was wondering how long it would be before my little girl here would finally come out into the open!” His laugh echoed in the overpass.

“Knock it off, you two!” Annette\'s face was redder than the surrounding bricks. “It\'s not like that at all!” She ignored Naya\'s giggling and turned her attention back to Mike. “I need you to get us into the building...is everything ready?”

“Does this answer your question?” Mike walked back to the truck and pulled back a tarp that covered the bed of the pickup.

Even Naya had to admit to the brilliant simplicity of the plan. “I love it. Almost as much as I love her!” She gave Annette a big hug, sending Mike into another fit of laughter.

The reporter, however, was not amused. “I wonder if I can get a reward for turning you in!”

- - - - -

Capt. Armbrister\'s SUV sat in front of his daughters\' school, as the owner of said vehicle was waiting for them to exit. Seeing such a car parked there was not a rare occurrence in itself, as many parents were waiting to give their offspring and their friends a lift. What was strange was that none of them had military plates.

A set of matching redhead girls walked leisurely with a couple of friends, but they stopped short upon seeing the van.

“Tell me that\'s not what I think that is,” the first girl said.

“Alright...it\'s not what you think it is,” her twin said, not missing a beat, “...but it is.”

One of the girls\' friends, a tall, scruffy-looking boy, gave the girls an odd look. “Whoa...is that your father? What is he, like, a general or something?”

“More like a captain...or something.” Jane was the brighter of the twins, both in personality and academics. Her cheerful banter meshed well with her high marks, making her popular with both teachers and students.

Jenna was more of the physical side of the set. A star in atheltics and drama, she tended to keep people at a distance until they proved their trustworthiness. “Him being here means one of two things; either something terrible happened to Mom, or he got fired.”

“Ignore my gloomier half, Chet”, Jane said to their friend. “It could just be he has some free time and wants to see us.” She grabbed the boy by the arm and strode happily towards the SUV.

Jenna\'s dour expression darkened a couple shades. “Right...and that free time usually coincides with Halley\'s comet, doesn\'t it?”

As the trio approached, the captian stepped out of his vehicle, arms wide to accept the hug that always came from Jane. “How\'re my girls doing?”

The smilier twin didn\'t disappoint. “We\'re fine, Dad, and happy to see you! Is Mom okay?”

“Or does she even know you\'re here,” Jenna added.

Capt. Armbrister nodded. “Yeah, she\'s fine...and I\'m okay too. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

Jenna kept her distance, as always. “You didn\'t have to pick us up, y\'know. We have these things called \'legs\' that can take us where we need to go...especially since we don\'t live far from home. They\'ve been working fine so far.”

Her father just smiled. “Let\'s just say I\'m giving those legs a rest, then. Get in the car.” Jane didn\'t need an invitation, as she was already in the front passenger seat. Armbrister noticed Chet standing by the car, the boy\'s eyes checking every inch of the vehicle. “You need a lift?”

Chet\'s eyes lit up for a moment, but one sharp glare from Jenna put that light out in a hurry. “Nah, I\'m good. I\'ll take the bus.”

“Suit yourself, kid...see you later!”

Chet watched the car pull away and sighed. “Good thing she\'s not in the army, man!”

- - - - -

The offices of the New York Courier were housed in a tall building overlooking the East River from Long Island City. The jade-green glass exterior made it stand out like a shaft of crystal among the many industrial-era lofts and warehouses that surrounded it. Though the area is in the middle of a rennaisance, the Courier Building was considered the spark of such a rebirth, even if it was built more than 20 years ago.

An old, weather-beaten pick-up truck pulled up to the delivery entrance, the driver honking his horn once to alert the guard on duty.

“Hey, Mike! What\'s happenin\', man!” The middle-aged man came out and gave the hood of the truck a good solid bang.

Mike rolled down the driver\'s side window. “Not too hard, Lenny! She\'s on her last legs as it is, y\'know!”

“So what brings you out here today? Ain\'t you usually in Williamsburg fixin\' all them \'yuppie\' joints?”

“Yeah,” Mike said wearily, “it\'s a shame what they did with the place. Almost all the character\'s gone now. They even took down Serpico\'s building, man. Might as well be the Village.” He glanced behind him, and remembered why he was here. “Oh yeah, I gotta fix the sealant on a couple of windows upstairs. Even new building suffer from wear and tear...”

“Yup, just like us!” Lenny let out a chuckle. “Oh well, don\'t let me keep ya...I know how these guys get when you don\'t do what they asked you to do yesterday!” He went back to his station and raised the caution barrier, allowing the truck access. “By the way, we got some new kids in security today. Just tell \'em I said you\'re okay, alright?”

“Thanks, Lenny! You\'re the man!”

Lenny turned on the speaker. “You got that right!” His laugh filled the loading bay.

Mike drove the truck into a dark corner of the bay, then got out and removed the tarp. “You two weren\'t doing anything under there, were you?”

“What would possibly make you think we...” Annette caught herself when she realized Naya had an arm around her...in order to keep her from rolling into some of the equipment placed in the bed of the truck. She flushed and extricated herself from Naya\'s grasp.

“I tried,” the white-haired fugitive remarked, feigning dismay, “but there\'s only so many positions two people can perform in such a tight space...no matter how flexible she is!”

“Will you stop that!!” Annette let out an exasperating gasp. “Besides, you\'re the flexible one!”

Both Mike and Naya stared at the reporter in mock surprise. “Speaking from experience, I see!” If Mike\'s leering grin were any more lecherous, he\'d have been locked up on the spot.

“No! Wait...I mean, it\'s \'cause she\'s...well...ah...leave me alone!!”

Annette wanted to crawl under the truck, but her two friends wouldn\'t let her. “Come on,” Mike said, grabbing two pairs of coveralls from the passenger seat of his truck. “Let\'s get you two upstairs!”

The blonde looked at her companion, then shook her head in dismay.

Naya had a hard time muffling a giggle. “Don\'t worry...the \'make-up sex\' will be terrific!”

“Just. Shut. Up!”

- - - - -

“You sure you want to tell him now, Ma\'am?”

Constanza was beside herself. She knew Cortez would skin her alive if she told him the results of the chase. Yet orders were orders, so it had to be done. “Hey, we did all we could do. He can\'t fault us for that. We were just outplayed.” She inhaled deeply, then let the air out of lungs in a long, slow breath. “Alright...let\'s get it over with.”

- - - - -

To say Cortez was upset would be an understatement. The man was trying his best to keep his composure, but that slender thread it was being held by was quickly fraying. Having to deal with the local police was always a headache in and of itself. Add to that the fact that the news helicopters broadcasted the car chase to the entire city—and the chances of it going viral increasing by the minute—and Cortez was ready to bite the head off of the first person who said \'boo\' to him.

“Owl Unit reporting.” Fortunately for Constanza, her \'boo\' came via radio.

“Please tell me someone has those two in custody and that they\'ll be here shortly.”

“I...I can\'t do that, sir.”

Cortez\' voice was a few decibels under roaring. “Didn\'t the auxiliary van follow the taxi and apprehend them?”

“Well...yes. Unit LI did manage to stop the taxi, but when they investigated, they found only the driver. The other two managed to leave unseen. They are interrogating the driver as we--”

“SILENCE!!” Cortez\' last thread of composure had finally lost its last connective fiber. “Where did this incompetence come from? Did everyone suddenly forget what it is they were supposed to do?? How are we being outsmarted by a neophyte reporter and a damn cat?”

There was silence on the other end for quite awhile, then Constanza returned, hoping a change would help. “Sir, we do still have people at the Courier Building, as well as in the surrounding area. They won\'t be able to get into the building without someone noticing.”

“Right, just like they weren\'t even supposed to make it off the damn highway!” Cortez wanted to throw the radio, but a flash of reason reminded him that he needed it...even if it was to hear bad news. “The next time I hear from you, I want to hear that the Stanhope girl and that lab experiment she\'s running around with are caught; otherwise I don\'t even want to hear static from your radio! You got that?”

“Got it, sir...Owl Unit, out!”

Cortez let out a primal scream, then grabbed his head—he had forgotten about the migraine that was now pile-driving his brain.

- - - - -

The trio of workers stepped out of the service elevators on the 30th floor of the Courier Building and were about to step into the main hallway when Mike put a hand up, halting their progress. A security guard had been coming in their direction, when his radio beeped.

“Unit 30, come in!”

“Unit 30, all clear.” The man took a look around, then turned down a side hall. Mike waited until he disappeared, then waved the two women along. The three of them made their way into the front office, where the receptionist addressed them.

“Welcome to the Courier. Can I help...Annette? What are you--”

“Shhh!” The three overall-clad visitors panicked for a moment. “I need to see the Chief. There\'s something I gotta talk to him about, but I\'m not supposed to be here.”

The receptionist took a minute to scrunch up her face, then just shook her head. “What the hell, it just fits in with the rest of the weirdness here today...”

“What do you mean by that?” the reporter asked.

“Well...” The receptionist leaned forward, and the other three followed suit. “The security guards were all given a sick day...they\'re replacing them as we speak! I don\'t think they\'ve gotten to the video surveillance yet, so if you\'re going to see the Chief, you better hurry!” She pressed a button on a small console. “Your two o\'clock appointment is here to see you, sir.”

“Let her in, Sandy!”

“You know where to go, Annette. Good luck!”

Everyone waved to the receptionist, then went through the large glass double-doors emblazoned with the Courier\'s masthead. Sandy paid special attention to the woman with Annette. “Hmm...I wonder what her story is?”

The trio walked down the aisle seperating the sea of desks until they came to another door, which swung open. The editor-in-chief popped his balding head out from behind the door. “Don\'t just stand there! Come in! Come in!!”

Annette let Naya go in before her, but stopped Mike at the door. “Thanks for helping us, Mike, but I can\'t get you mixed up in this anymore than you have to. The less you know, the better.”

Mike gave Annette a hug. “I gotcha...\'protecting sources\' and all that. No problem...besides, if what that secretary said is right, you\'re gonna need a diversion to get out of here. I\'ll wait out here.”

“Thanks, Mike...you\'re the man!”

“So I\'ve been told!” he said with a laugh.

- - - - -

Lenny sat at the guard station listening to his usual soul music, when a series of sudden raps on one of the windows got his attention.

“Hey! What\'s the problem?”

A man in the same security uniform came up to the door. His face was expressionless, but his stance told Lenny this guy meant business. “I\'m your replacement. You\'re off for the day, company orders.”

“Oh really? Nobody told me about takin\' no day off!”

“That\'s why I\'m here,” the man said icily. “Leave now. Come back tomorrow.”

Lenny saw the man wasn\'t going to budge an inch, so he relented. “Oh hell, as long as I\'m still getting\' paid, it don\'t matter to me!” He left the office, tossing the keys to the new guard. “Don\'t mess with the radio! It\'s hard to get that station down here!”

The other man just nodded and went straight to his work. Once Lenny got around the corner, he pulled out his cell and called Mike.

“Looks like gettin\' out\'s gonna be harder than gettin\' in...hope you\'re prepared!”

“Not to worry, Lenny...it\'s all good!” Mike took a look back at the busy office and wondered what was going on that needed this kind of attention.

- - - - -

“So,” Editor-in-Chief Choi bellowed as he plopped himself in a chair behind his desk. “What\'s with the overalls?”

“Camouflage,” Annette answered. “We had a bit of a problem getting here.”

“We didn\'t have any trouble,” Naya corrected, “but our pursuers ended up...stuck in traffic.”

Choi shook his head. “Let me guess...that little high-speed chase on Queens Boulevard...”

The reporter bowed her head sheepishly. “Yeah, that was us.”

“Great!! We could use an first-person account of the story! Everybody else had to use news footage...you were actually there! Tell me, what was it like?”

“Ahem.” Naya mocked clearing her throat. “If you don\'t mind, we have a lot to talk about, and not a lot of time to say it.”

“Ah! Right, right...” Choi turned his attention to Naya, but not before glancing to Annette and pantomiming to her to make notes of the chase. “So, your name is...uh, Attaturk, right?”

“Yes. Naya Attaturk. It\'s my given name, though I\'m sure my parents didn\'t give it to me. I\'m sure they would\'ve chosen something we could actually pronounce in our own language.”

“Which is...”

“...difficult for you to comprehend.” Naya gave Annette a dubious look, and the reporter nodded emphatically. “What matters is, I wasn\'t born as a human...I escaped from my so-called \'handlers\' and now they\'re trying to re-capture me. I wish to expose them and their deeds before they find me.”

This time it was Choi\'s turn to give Annette the same dubious look Naya had done earlier.

“It\'s all true, Chief. She\'s not making this up.”

The questions came in a torrent to the chief editor\'s mind. But like any good reporter, he knew there were only a few questions that were essential to any story—who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Naya saw the wheels turning in Choi\'s head. “To save time, and to save your brain from frying like hers did,” she said, pointing to a protesting Annette, “here\'s the short-list version. I was born a cat; got adopted by a covert testing facility, who then fused my genes with human DNA; went through lots of trauma during the transformation stage; went to school as a human child; got two degrees; escaped from their overseer; tried to find as much information on them as humanly possible—pardon the pun—and then contacted your paper. Is that enough information for you to start your story with?”

The editor\'s glazed eyes suddenly came back to life. “Wait...you were a cat first? Then became a human?”

Naya looked at the editor in disbelief, then turned to Annette. “You sure you two aren\'t related?”

The blond shrugged her shoulders, then her eyes lit up. “You left out the part about the Chimera...that was crazy!”

“Ah, you\'re right! I almost lost one of my lives playing in traffic like that! It was fun, though!”

While the two women shared a laugh, the editor was still trying to sort things out. “Quite an interesting story you got there. The only things missing are aliens, guys in black suits and flying monkeys.”

“Oh, there was a monkey,” Annette added with a smile. “It was one of those helper monkeys, but she\'s okay. She was just having some issues with her owner, right Naya?”

The white-haired woman\'s laughter dissipated at the mention of the little primate. “I don\'t know about that. That thing made me feel quite uncomfortable.”

Choi couldn\'t bring himself to believe the tale told by the women in front of him, but at the same time they did risk their lives to get the story to him...if what they said was true. “So, who are these people, and what do they want from you?”

Naya sat up in her seat and took on a serious countenance. “The go by the codename The Zoo. Let\'s just say you\'ll never hear of them. They are a group that the government outsources to do things we would otherwise consider inhumane or unconstitutional. Think of some of the things Hitler was rumored to be doing back during World War II, or what we were doing in places like Tuskeegee and Montauk...well, they\'re following in what those people were doing—only with better, scarier technology that actually produces results.”

Choi took a moment, then prepared his next question. “How long has this been going on? And how is it that no one knows about it...especially today?”

“As far as I can tell, it\'s been going on for at least ninety years, but it really ramped up after the 1970s. In fact, Camp Hero in Montauk was one of The Zoo\'s hotspots. That place has been literally buried so deep in the sand that the people who live there are the only ones who even know about the rumors.” Naya took a deep breath before she continued. “Believe me when I tell you, The Zoo is alive and well...in places all over the country, and in places you\'d least expect.”

“Like the power plant by Brooklyn Bridge Park,” Annette chimed in.

Okay, Choi thought. These things do happen; you might not hear about them at the time, but they always seem to pop up years later, long after anyone can do anything about them and the people involved are either killed or died of old age. “So why are they after you? Okay, there\'s the obvious reason that you know about them and could expose them. Fine, I get that; but you could have told anyone. Why tell us?”

“Trust,” Naya said nonchalantly. “Like I told Annette, it\'s a matter of trust. All of the other large dailies are owned by corporations that have ties to The Zoo, whether financially or politically. Your paper has no such ties, so you don\'t have to worry about burying stories that might show supporters or board members in an unfavorable light.” She then turned to Annette and gave the blond a big smile. “Besides, your reporters have gained a reputation of standing behind their stories and their sources without compromise. An admirable trait I\'m sure they learned from their editor-in-chief.”

“Thank you for the compliment,” the short editor said with a slight blush. “But I\'m going to need more than an impromptu interview in order to put the name of this paper behind such a wild story. We need hard facts; data that supports your claims. What proof do you have, other than your sheer existence, that is?”

“She could transform back into a cat!” Annette was as wide-eyed as a grade schooler waiting for a magician to pull out another rabbit from his top hat.

Naya cut off Choi\'s request before the man could even make it. “No, let\'s not do that—it usually ends in a chase and all kinds of trouble. Instead, I\'ll just give you what you need.” She then turned to the now-frowning reporter. “If you don\'t mind, can you reach into your coat\'s left pocket and give him the flash drive?”

“The what?” The blond reached into her pocket, and sure enough, a small black plastic stick rattled around among her loose change. She fished it out of the pocket and examined the little device. “How did that get in there?”

“I put it in your pocket when I first met you...in case anything happened to me. This way, you would\'ve had the information one way or another. I must say I was disappointed when I saw you didn\'t have a computer of your own.”

“Excuse me for not being tech-savvy!” Annette snapped, sticking out her tongue. “Besides, someone doesn\'t pay me enough to get one.”

“Why do that, when you have one here...that you don\'t use!” Choi reached out a hand for the drive, but Naya took it first.

“You can\'t use it yet...there\'s a certain security protocol that has to be unlocked first.” She opened a small hinged part of the drive, and stuck her tongue inside it. “Biometric code. Only someone with my DNA can unlock it, and there\'s only one other person who has it. Otherwise it\'ll release a virus that not only fries your computer, but every server it comes in contact with.” Naya handed the device back to the editor.

“Devious,” Choi said with a smirk. “Is there some password I should enter?”

“No...just stick it in, and it\'ll do the rest.”

The editor did as he was told, and his computer screen suddenly became flooded with information, as one window after another popped up with data files, blueprints, photos, spreadsheets...all of these were blocked by a large black screen with “THE ZOO” in plain block lettering. An empty text box appeared under it.

“Oh,” Naya said with surprise. “Looks like you need a password after all. I guess they changed things a bit since I left.”

“What do we do now?”

“Enter the password, of course!” Naya left her seat and walked around the desk to face the computer. “Type in \'66nyaorru99\' and wait ten seconds before hitting \'enter\'.”

Annette gave Naya a quizzical look. “What does \'nyaorru\' mean?”

“It\'s a feline quote that doesn\'t exactly translate well in English. Let\'s just leave it at that, okay?” Naya\'s blush gave the reporter the hint.

Choi typed in the password and waited. Naya timed the wait, then pressed \'enter\' herself. The black screen disappeared, and was replaced with a \'welcome\' screen, complete with accessible menus.

“Pretty friendly, once you get through all the doors,” the editor remarked.

- - - - -

“Owl Unit reporting!”

Constanza\'s urgent voice riled Cortez from his nap. The pounding headache he had was less severe than it had been a half-hour ago, but he feared it was about to regain its intensity. “Go Owl Unit, and for your sake, you better have good news!”

“Good and bad, sir. The bad news is that we\'ve been hacked. The good news is, we\'re pretty certain the target was the hacker. We have her and the yellow tag surrounded in the Courier Building. We didn\'t have enough time to shut down the power before the hacking attempt, but we know where she is, and are awaiting orders to apprehend her.”

Cortez smiled for the first time in hours. “I\'ll take a win where I can get it. The hacking mess is Armbrister\'s to clean up, not mine. Go in and bring both women back to the power plant...no need taking them someplace else and giving them more information than they probably have already. Oh, and be sure to wipe out every computer and server in the building. Can\'t be too careful!”

“Will do, sir. Owl Unit, out!”

- - - - -

“It\'s a good thing this computer doesn\'t have a webcam attached,” Naya said warily. “Otherwise we\'d be watched from their end. As it is, they already know someone\'s here, so it\'s best to get what we need and get out.”

“How do they know?” Annette asked.

“They started tracking the ISP as soon as the password was entered. I had to wait ten seconds for the ISP scrambler to kick in. All I need is one file...” She clicked on a link, and a download window appeared on the screen. “...and we should be done before they can descramble the scrambler.” As soon as the file was done, Naya closed the site and disengaged the drive. She then opened the computer\'s DOS window, typed a few codes in and hit \'enter\'. The images on the screen swirled toward the center, as if they were going down a drain. In a minute, the screen returned to normal.

Editor Choi\'s jaw dropped. “What did you just do? I had a lot of files on that thing!”

Naya waved him off. “Not to worry. I just flushed the last session, as well as any trace that I was even online. All your files are safe, I assure you.” She gave him the drive. “I\'m going to give you an address I want you to mail it to. Send it via your mailroom as soon as possible. Don\'t use it on this computer—hell, don\'t use it at all...not unless you want a lot of guys in black suits knocking on your door.”

“How am I supposed to get the information out of it, then?”

“Once the drive reaches its destination, the information will be delivered to you. Like I said, there\'s one other person who can open that drive, and if I\'m right, she\'ll give you all the information you want and more. By that time, the people who are after us will leave you alone.”

“And you wonder why I don\'t have a computer!” Annette joked.

The editor couldn\'t resist one more question. “Um...In your human form, do you retain any part of your cat features? Like, do you have cat ears?”

Naya rolled her eyes. “What is this fascination with humans and cat ears?? You don\'t see cats trying on human ears, do you?” She turned to the editor and lifted the bang over her left right eye. “This, and the patches of color on my back and sides. If you want to see them I\'d be glad to oblige, but I have a feeling we won\'t have that kind of time.”

Choi looked at the golden eye surrounded by pitch-black skin, and nodded in approval. “Fair enough.”

Naya suddenly felt skittish, like something was about to happen. “We better get out of here before it gets crazy.” She moved around the desk and grabbed Annette\'s arm, lifting the girl out of her chair. “It\'s been a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Choi. Please do your best with the information—and don\'t let anyone shut you down for any reason. Trust me, there are many people who want to know what\'s going on...it\'s up to you now.” With that, she bolted out of the door, practically dragging a wailing Annette behind her.

Choi looked at the drive, then decided he\'d better hide it in case someone came looking for it.

- - - - -

Mike had been ogling the receptionist for the past few minutes. Judging from the smile on her face, Sandy seemed to be enjoying the attention. No words were spoken, but they did seem to make a connetion, and that was good enough for now.

That lovey-dovey atmosphere was disrupted by the sudden rush of air from the offices, followed by Naya dragging Annette behind her. The white-haired woman dumped the blond in front of Mike. “Time to go...as fast as we can.”

“Yeah, but...” Mike and Annette said in unison, albeit for different reasons.

“No buts...we have to move!” Naya was out the door first, Annette running behind. Mike took a look at Sandy, who tossed him a ball of paper. He opened up the note and smiled, extending his pinky and thumb and putting his hand near his head. Then he joined the other two women, leaving Sandy alone in her happy thoughts.

=====

End of Chapter 5

=====

Disclaimer: Again...kids, don\'t try this at home.  You\'ll see why later.  You\'ve been warned.  Read on, citizens!

Ikimashou!

=====

Chapter 6: A Lot of Problems

=====

Jenna sat in the back seat of her father\'s SUV, trying to figure out how long it would be before \'something came up\' with him. It was something of a ritual with them: she and her sister would meet him for an outing or lunch or whatever, only to have \'something come up\' at the last minute. She never liked the idea of coming in second to anyone, much less a faceless company that no one\'s ever heard of.

Conversely, Jane never seemed to mind. She knew her father had a job of some importance, so whatever time she spent with him was treasured. Rather than count the minutes until he had to run off on some mission or meeting, she spent the time cracking jokes or keeping him up to speed with how she and her sister were doing in and out of school. If there was a hard part for Jane, it was holding up both ends of the twins\' conversation with their father. She understood Jenna\'s point, but she didn\'t want there to be a space between them that could later be a chasm.

As the vehicle pulled into the driveway, Capt. Armbrister\'s cell phone buzzed. He interrupted Jane\'s latest tale of Jenna\'s acting prowess, and glanced at the text message:

“Capture imminent. Spend time with your family...for now. Cortez”

The burly man blanched for a moment, then regained his composure. He shoved the phone back into his pocket, then urged Jane to continue her story.

“So, where are you off to now, Dad?” Jenna drawled from behind him.

“If you must know,” the captain said with a smile, “we\'re off to the living room. Your mother and I have something to tell you both.”

The remark caught Jenna by surprise. “This should be good.” She undid her seatbelt and joined her sister in following their father into the house.

- - - - -

Naya led the way back to the service elevator, Mike and Annette pulling up behind her. “Okay, so we\'re back here. Now what?”

Mike thought for a moment. “We can\'t go back down. I had planned to use the window-washing scaffold to get us down, but we didn\'t have time to get it to the roof.”

Annette prayed to any god she could think of that the plan didn\'t work. “That\'s one fear I won\'t have to face, thank you very much!”

“Still, we have to get out of here before they get--” Naya\'s thought was cut off by a rush of people in black suits running to the editor\'s office. “Scratch that—we have to go right now!” The service elevator arrived, and the trio piled into it, closing the door before anyone noticed they were there. Mike inserted a key into a lock and turned it, revealing a series of buttons. Mike pressed the button marked “13”.

“Why not the top floor?” Naya asked.

“Cause I have a backup plan already in place...in case of fire.” The door opened to a near-empty floor. Some stray boxes and desks littered the space. “After the whole September 11th thing, all new buildings were supposed to be designed with easy-access exits for anyone trapped on high floors. This building was retrofitted with a \'fire tower\' that isn\'t in the original plans. That, and we renumbered the floors so that, like most buildings, we don\'t have a thirteenth floor, even though we do. So even if they manage to seal off every floor, they won\'t find this place!”

“Wouldn\'t it have been more convenient to come in this way?” Annette mused.

“Too bad it\'s \'exit only\', otherwise it would have been great.” The elevator reached the bottom floor, and instead of the regular doors opening, the back wall slid up instead, revealing the street.

Annette grinned widely. “Now that\'s convenient!”

“What would have been more convenient was Mike parking his truck here instead of the loading bay.” She looked up the block and saw one of the guards turn to make his way toward them. “Don\'t look now, but we got company!”

“I\'ll deal with him...just get yourselves outta here...and lose the overalls.” Mike turned and walked towards the guard, not waiting for a word of protest from either of the women.

Annette asked with a pout, “Yeah, but...we are we supposed to go?”

Naya took a quick scan of the area. “There!” She pointed to a municipal parking lot, then took Annette by the hand and walked briskly in that direction.

Mike did his best to stall the guard, pulling out all manner of identification. Unfortunately, the sharp-eyed man spotted two overall-clad people trying to leave the scene.

“They wouldn\'t happen to be working with you, are they?” the guard asked. “And if they are, why are they leaving in such a hurry?”

“Migrant workers,” Mike joked, trying to buy as much time as he could. “I tried telling them you guys weren\'t immigration, but you know how they are...skittish folks, I tell ya!”

The man pushed Mike aside. “Hey! You two!! Get back here!” As he began to pursue the women, Mike caught him from behind and punched him in the jaw. The guard simply turned, scowled at a very surprised Mike, and returned the punch, sending Mike spinning down to the ground. He then ran off to chase Naya and Annette.

“The things I do for friendship,” Mike mumbled before he lost consciousness.

Annette was having trouble keeping up with the more athletic Naya. “Keep going,” she said between gasps, “they\'re gonna catch me sooner or later. I\'ll just slow you down.”

“Maybe you should\'ve taken off the boots before you started running,” Naya cracked as she ran past Annette and toward the guard, who had already called for backup. She took a leap and caught him flush in the face with her boot. She took a minute to admire her handiwork, then took his stun gun. “These might come in handy!” She then ran back to the edge of the parking lot, where a barefoot Annette was waiting.

“You\'re right, those things are heavy...whoa! Is that a stun gun?”

“Want me to test it on you?” Naya fired up the charge just for show.

“We don\'t have time for that now,” Annette said as she broke into a run.

Naya turned to see more security guards running in their direction. “Maybe later...experimenting will surely be fun!” She stashed the stun gun and the radio in her pocket and followed Annette. The two women ran up to the main entrance ramp, where they scrunched down to avoid the guard before entering the lot. The man in the booth noticed them, but the sound of the oncoming guards got his attention. When he turned around again, the women were already out of his view.

One of the men waited until his colleagues had caught up with him. “Surround the place! You three, come with me!” Those four ran into the lot, while the others scattered around the perimeter.

“Now what\'ll we do?” Annette whispered. The two women had hidden behind a car in a dark corner of the lot. “You could change back into a cat and run away...”

“I\'m not leaving you here...I\'ll think of something.” She scanned the parking lot and noticed there was a door not far from where they hid. “Let\'s use that...anywhere has to be better than waiting here!” The two women stayed low as they duck-walked their way to the door. When she felt no one was looking, Naya opened the door and let Annette in first, then she followed, slowly closing the door.

Annette summed up her displeasure in five words. “It was better out there.” Naya had led them straight into a bathroom that was in serious need of cleaning. “You couldn\'t pick a stairway or broom closet or somehting?”

“How was I supposed to know? The door wasn\'t exactly marked \'Bathroom from Hell\', was it?” A thought crossed the white-haired woman\'s mind. “Would you mind taking off your overalls? I need to take a really good look at your body.”

“Are you serious?” the reporter whispered as loud as she could. “You can\'t possibly think of something like that now!”

“You\'re the one with those thoughts running in your head! Honestly, Annette, I\'m beginning to wonder if you\'re in heat.” She pointed to the air duct in the ceiling. “I just wanted to gauge whether or not you could fit inside there.”

The blonde examined the vent, then checked her hips. “It might be a tight fit, but I think I can make it. What about...oh, nevermind.” Naya had already shed her overalls and boots. Even in Annette\'s oversized clothes, the other woman slim body would easily fit into the duct. “Damn feline metabolism,” Annette cursed under her breath.

Once both women were out of their overalls, Naya stood under the duct and locked her hands together, waiting to give Annette a boost.

“Shouldn\'t you go first? After all, it\'s dark up there, and you have better eyes than I do for that.”

“Good point,” Naya remarked. “Besides, I\'m lighter than you, so you can boost me up first...then I can pull you up.”

“But wait...how are we going to open it.”

“Don\'t worry...it\'s already open. See? No screws!”

Annette suddenly felt a nauseous feeling coming on. “Please, Naya, if you find a camcorder up there, please don\'t tell me about it, okay?” She locked her hands and waited for her companion.

“Agreed. That\'s past disgusting.” She put one foot in Annette\'s hands and the other on the woman\'s shoulder, steadying herself while she slid the vent open. Sure enough, there was a camera trained toward the toilet. “Just a minute longer...” She took the stun gun and fried the camcorder with it. “Problem solved...now lift!” Annette did, and Naya slid through the hole with ease. She was grateful that the air conditioner took the smoke away from them. “Okay, now your turn.”

Annette lifted her arms up and waited for Naya to pull her up. “Ready when you a—ahh!!” She didn\'t expect to be completely yanked off of the floor. Unfortunately, her rear end didn\'t make the trip through the vent as planned. “I\'m stuck!!”

“Oh? Hmmm...what should we do now?” Naya\'s visible eye took on a gleam Annette hadn\'t seen. “I guess we have to resort to drastic measures.”

“I hope you\'re not thinking what I think you\'re thinking, Naya...please don\'t think that!”

“Well, it makes perfect sense when you think about it,” Naya said with an almost sadistically gleeful tone. “We need to have your muscles contract so I can pull you out. There\'s one sure-fire way to get that done...”

Annette had to concede to logic on this one, though that didn\'t mean she had to like it. “It won\'t hurt much, will it?”

“Nah...just a little tingle. Nothing more. I have it on the lowest possible setting.” Naya tried to be as reassuring as possible while still teasing the poor reporter. “Here we go...one, two--”

“Wait! Wait!!!” Annette panted, held her breath, then let out a long exhale. “Okay, I had to make sure I didn\'t scream. Okay, go ahea—NNNNNNNNNGGHHHH!!”

“That oughta do it!” Naya dropped the stun gun and grabbed the clenched Annette before she slid back into the bathroom. She then placed the cover back over the hole. “And another hypothesis becomes theory!”

If Annette wasn\'t still stunned, she was sure she\'d beat the feline woman within an inch of each and every one of her lives.

- - - - -

The sound of Annette collapsing in the duct caught the attention of one of the guards. He wasn\'t sure where he heard it, but he knew it was a loud metallic thud. Looking around, he noticed the bathroom door and went to check it. Just as his hand reached the handle, his radio went off.

“Come in, 5!”

“Five here,” the guard replied. “Checking the bathroom...thought I heard a sound coming from there.” He opened the door and found the overalls Annette and Naya left behind. He saw the vent and panicked. “They\'re in the duct! Repeat—they\'re in the duct! Check the vents!”

- - - - -

Naya heard the guards cries come through the radio, just as she was dragging a still-dazed Annette as quietly as she could through the ducts. She hoped she could get to the outside vent before the guards did.

“Leave me,” the reporter slurred.

“I already told you, no...and I\'m sorry about your condition. Didn\'t know the gun was set that high.”

“Riiiight...” The sounds of people running around roused Annette further. “Naya, please...leave me. Change and run away. They want you...they don\'t care that much for me.”

Naya was resolute. “I said no.” She thought about the path she took to the spot they were at now, then came up with an idea. “We\'re going back.”

“What?”

“We\'re going back to the bathroom. They\'re expecting us to escape...they\'re won\'t expect us to come back the way we came. We\'ll play it out, and see how it goes. If we go straight out, we\'re sure to be caught.”

“That\'s why I said go on by yourself...you have a better chance as a cat than dragging me along!”

Naya pulled out the stun gun. “Don\'t make me have to use this on you again. Just shut up. Can you move?”

Annette flexed her fingers and toes, then moved her arms and legs as much as the duct would allow her without banging into any of the aluminum walls. “Yeah I\'m okay...let\'s go.”

“Wait...I have to go ahead of you,” Naya said. “I know the way, remember?” She climbed over Annette as gingerly as she could, then led the other woman back to the bathroom. “You\'re staring at my butt, aren\'t you?”

“I would, but it\'s too dark...wait, did I say that out loud?”

- - - - -

One of the guards ran up to the leader of the group. “Everyone\'s in position, sir!”

“Good work!” The man turned to the main guard of the parking lot. “Are you sure there are no other ducts in this place?”

“Unless they can climb straight up, no,” the man answered. “There\'s a main duct that goes to the roof, but there\'s a fan up there...and it\'s three stories straight up. I don\'t even think a cat would try doing that.”

“Funny you mention that...thanks.” The leader of the guard unit waited for someone to call out that the women were on the way out, but that call never came. “What the hell?”

“Maybe they got stuck in there...there are spots that are tight.”

If the unit leader thought that was a joke, he wasn\'t laughing. “I\'ve had enough of this! Tear it down! I want every piece of that duct in the lot as soon as possible!”

The parking lot attendant\'s eyes grew as wide as tire rims. “Are you insane?? Do you know how much damage that\'ll cause? Not to mention I\'ll have to close the lot altogether...and let\'s not even get into the possibility of asbestos...”

“Shut the hell up! I don\'t wanna hear another word from you!” The unit leader waved for one of his men to take the attendant away. “Keep him quiet while we look for those two, got it?”

“Yes, sir!”

As the guards rushed back into the lot, Naya and Annette were already out of the duct and hiding under a car, looking for an opportunity to leave.

“We can\'t exactly go out the front door...what are we gonna do?”

Naya reached for the stun gun again. “Don\'t worry...I have a plan.”

Annette looked at the menacing weapon. “That\'s joke\'s starting to get old, y\'know.”

“I\'m not gonna use it on you this time—later, maybe—but not this time! Just watch.” She rolled out from under the car and under another one. She kept this up until she got near a guard who was going back to his van for tools. Without a word, Naya stuck the nodes of the stun gun to the guard\'s ankle, making sure to strike the area just in front of the ankle bone. That spot houses a large bundle of nerves and joints and when the charge went through, it completely incapacitated him, sending him crashing to the ground in a twitching heap. “That worked out better than I expected!” she said to herself. She gathered the keys to the van, then rolled her way back to a surprised Annette.

“Keys! You got keys! How did you do that?”

“I\'ll tell you later. Now, let\'s just get out of here!” The two women rolled their way back to the van, where the guard still lay unconscious. “Hmmm...I forgot something very important.” Annette looked at the other woman for a second, then her jaw dropped.

“You can\'t drive?”

“I\'m a cat! What do I know about driving?”

Annette snatched the keys, opened the door and shooed Naya to the passenger side. “So much for those two degrees.” She quietly closed the door and started the engine.

“I thought you said you didn\'t drive?”

“Right, I said I didn\'t drive...I didn\'t say I don\'t know how to drive!” Annette started the van slowly, and headed to the exit.

The problem with a large vehicle is that it\'s pretty difficult for it not to be noticed. Thankfully, with all the banging going on from the dismantling of the air ducts, Annette did her best to ease the van out of the lot. She would have succeeded, too, if it wasn\'t for that meddling caution bar.

“Hold on!” Suddenly the reporter pushed the accelerator down hard while turning the wheel, sending the van crashing through the barrier and skidding into the street. She righted the vehicle and took off down the street.

“Hey! Where are go—oh crap!!” The unit leader nearly had a heart attack as the car narrowly missed him as it bolted out of the lot. “After them! AFTER THEM!!”

“YEEEAAAAAH!!!!” Annette was in all her glory, streaking down the streets with no regard for traffic rules. “We\'re free! FREE!! I was so scared! I didn\'t think we\'d ever get out of there!”

“I told you we would leave together, didn\'t I?” Naya\'s voice was calm, but her eyes—yes, the one behind the bang as well—went wide with excitement. It was fun for her to see Annette like this. “When the adrenaline rush subsides, you might want to pay attention to the road before we hit something or kill someone!”

Annette didn\'t hear a word. She was drunk on speed, avoiding both pedestrians and cars passing on cross streets by sheer luck. The reporter was also happy that she could do something for a change; no, she had no special abilities or enhanced skills, but right now she had power—and that power set them free.

For a little while, anyway.

=====

End of Chapter 6

=====

Disclaimer: The place mentioned below does exist...or should I say, did exist.  It\'s still there, just not as...functional...as it was.  Or at least, that\'s what we\'re led to believe...(great, now I\'m gonna have the FBI checking on me!).  Don\'t sue me, please!

Ikimashou!

=====

Chapter 7: D.U.M.B.

=====

Camp Hero on the eastern tip Long Island is a tourist attraction; a sprawling national park that shows off the seaside beauty of the area. Not far from the sleepy town of Montauk, the idyllic setting has a very dark and controversial secret under its sandy beaches and marshy woodlands.

A black SUV pulled up to one of the hangars of Montauk Air Force Station. Quite a few people in black military-style uniforms were milling about with clipboards or talking with others. Cortez stepped out of the vehicle and was met by three of the black-clad soldiers, who sharply saluted him

“Right this way, sir.”

The four men entered the hangar, where the remains of a SUV sat. The front end was squarely smashed in, while the back left side was almost non-existent. Cortez examined the damage, taking a long slow walk around it. Once he returned to the other three men, he let out a long whistle.

“Did they survive the crash?”

“Yes, sir,” one of the men answered. “We have the target in a special holding cell. The other woman is in surgery right now. She received extensive damage. The doctors will be with you shortly.”

“Is the target unharmed?”

The three men conferred, then one of them spoke up. “Well, she was...in fact, she had some very serious injuries, but...”

Cortez\' patience was wearing thin. “Well, is she alive or isn\'t she?”

“Her entire torso was crushed,” the man answered nervously, “...but she came back.”

That got the sergeant\'s attention. “So, the rumors are true. Where is she being held?”

“Follow us, sir.” As they left the hangar, Cortez took another look at the wreck. “I\'m surprised the other one survived. I wonder if she\'d be a good candidate.”

The four men piled into an SUV and drove away from the airfield. Taking a little-used road, they drove down into a ditch, which led to a tunnel. Soon they reached a guard station that stood under a sign that read “Deep Underground Military Base – Personnel Only Admitted Beyond This Point”.

Cortez read the sign and laughed. “Please tell me they don\'t use the acronym for this place on anything.”

The driver grinned. “They don\'t—everything\'s spelled out. We don\'t even use USA here!” He showed his credentials to the guard and continued on his way.

After another long series of tunnels, the driver pulled the SUV into a parking spot, and the men filed out. Cortez grimaced as he saw a familiar sign. “\'The Kennel\', huh? I was wondering what Armbrister meant by that.”

“This way, sir.” The driver swiped a key card to unlock the door, and he and Cortez entered, leaving the other two men to guard the outside. He then had the sergeant stand on a spot near a blank wall. “For security purposes, sir.” Cortez nodded and the man took out a small device with which he took the sergeant\'s picture. A small card emerged from the device, which the driver handed to Cortez. “You\'ll need this to get around. It\'s a temporary pass...don\'t lose it under any circumstances.”

“You don\'t have to tell me, kid.” Cortez frowned at the picture, which looked more like a mug shot. “So, where do we go from here?”

“Through that door, and make a right at the first cell. She\'ll be at the end.” As Cortez began to leave, the other man saluted him.

The dour sergeant didn\'t return the salute. Instead he just nodded to the young man. “Don\'t bother doing that here...the rules don\'t apply.”

- - - - -

Naya was the picture of cuteness; a calico cat curled up in a sleepy little ball. Her dreams, however, were anything but cute. She twitched and shuddered from time to time, fighting all kinds of demons in her sleep.

“Awww...is the little kitty having a nightmare?”

The cat opened her black-covered eye to see Cortez standing about ten feet away from her. “You...you look familiar, and not in a good way,” she said groggily. Taking a look around, she was in an unfurnished cube of a room, a clear opening on one side that Naya knew was anything but open. “Where am I? And where\'s Annette?” She uncoiled herself and tried to stand, but stumbled to the hard ground.

“Don\'t look at me,” Cortez said with a smirk. “I just got here. I wanted to see how you were doing...actually, I\'m surprised you\'re alive at all. How did you manage that, by the way?”

Naya turned her back on the man. “I\'m a cat, stupid. We always come back.” She felt this man wasn\'t going to give her the answers she needed, so he wasn\'t worth wasting her time with idle chatter.

“I\'ve killed a few cats in my day, and trust me, they never came back.”

If that was an attempt at intimidation, Naya didn\'t notice...better yet, she just didn\'t care. “They have...you\'re just too much of an idiot to notice. Now, if you\'re not going to tell me where I am or where my friend is, could you please leave me the hell alone?”

“I can answer one of your questions,” Cortez replied. “The other one, well, that\'s in God\'s hands...as well as the butchers here.”

The cat\'s head turned around quickly. “What do you mean by that?”

“Considering the condition of the vehicle you were both in, I expected to be collecting two corpses.” He took a long look at Naya as he spoke. “You don\'t seem to have a scratch on you! Is that a result of your...resurrection?”

It took a moment for the context of Cortez\' words to sink in the dulled cat\'s brain, but when it did, Naya\'s eyes went wide with horror. “IS SHE ALIVE??” She rushed the open end of the cell, only to be rebuffed by what seemed to be bulletproof glass. “Tell me...TELL ME!”

“From what I\'ve heard, yeah, she\'s still with us...but barely.” Cortez tapped the glass a couple times and smiled. “Technology is something else, isn\'t it? Carbo-fiberglass. Can withstand a .357 magnum at point-blank range. I\'ve read about this, but to see it in person...amazing!”

Naya was on all fours now, her fur standing on end and her tail puffed. “If you bastards do anything to her, so help me you\'ll have hell to pay!”

Cortez let out a laugh that only managed to anger the calico. “What are you going to do? Scratch our eyes out? Pee on our furniture?” He caught his breath, then continued. “Besides, they\'re trying to save her...for now. I\'m sure there are a lot of questions they want to ask her about you. After they get their answers, however...” He let the comment hang right there.

“I\'ve got to get out of here...Take me to where she is! Right now!!”

“Sorry, kitty, no can do.” The sergeant noticed a clipboard on the wall just outside the cell. “Hmmm...seems you\'re due for an interview yourself in about an hour. I hope for your sake that your mind is clear enough to provide the information they seek. I\'d hate to see what would happen if you were...difficult...in any way.” He put the clipboard back on its holder and started towards the exit. “Oh well, there\'s nothing more I can do here until they\'re finished with either you or your partner. I guess I\'ll see what the rest of this place is like. I\'ve heard so many stories...”

“Wait! Wait a minute!” Naya watched as Cortez came back, a sadistic smile on his face. She had to get some information out of this man, so she thought it would be best to try an cooperate with him...if even for a little while. “Why aren\'t you surprised that I can talk?”

“Should I be?” Cortez\' nonchalant reply caught Naya by surprise. “I\'ve seen some strange things in my time, and you being in this place just makes perfect sense.”

“What is \'this place\', anyway?”

“Welcome to Camp Hero...where you\'ll probably be spending the rest of your lives.”

“Camp...Hero? Wait, you don\'t mean...” Naya had heard the rumors, and was one of the first ones to believe them. Considering her history, she had little reason not to. “It makes sense now...\'the best place to hide something is in plain sight\', right?”

“I heard you were a smart cat...I\'m glad you live up to your reputation!” Cortez leaned up against a wall, finding this conversation suddenly more interesting than an unguided tour through a secret military base. “So I don\'t have to tell you about the experiments that have been going on here, right?”

Naya sat upright, keeping her eyes on the man. “No, you don\'t. Officially the experiments—if they took place at all—ended in the 1980s. Unoffcially, there\'s no telling what they\'re doing down here.”

“You name it, they\'ve tried it. Time travel, biological weaponry, alien techonology, intraplanetary wormholes...there\'s even a theory that Nicholai Tesla\'s still alive and working around here somewhere, though, he\'d be well over 120 years old if that\'s true...”

“Or at least 80 if you account for the 40-plus-year gap due to time travel.” Naya thought for a moment, her tail twitching. “Do you know what kind of experiments they\'re working on at the moment, and do they have anything to do with Plum Island?”

“I\'d love to find out, but no...that\'s classified, even for me.”

“Forget I mentioned it, then,” the cat got up from her seat and took another much further away from the plexiglass opening. “What\'s going to happen to me now?”

“I was supposed to take you to Capt. Armbrister, but since the boys and girls here want a kitty to play with, I\'ll leave you for them. They\'d love to see the fruits of their labor.” Cortez saw the puzzled look on the Naya\'s feline face. “Oh, you didn\'t know? According to the folder I have on you, this is where you were born.” He retreived the clipboard from its holder and removed a sheet from it, putting it low against the glass so Naya could read it. “Check the vital statistics...see anything famiiliar?”

The cat returned to the glass and scanned the page. “And here I thought I was born in Brooklyn.” She read further down on the page and saw some notes that brought a slight smile to her face. She kept that to herself. “Thank you...Mister...”

“Sergeant Cortez.”

“Yes, Sergeant Cortez. Thank you. Now, if you would be so kind as to tell me where Annette is, I\'d greatly appreciate it.”

“Well, since you asked so politely...I don\'t know.” Cortez let out a little laugh at the cat\'s sudden flash of anger. “Honestly, I know she\'s here, but I couldn\'t tell you exactly were. Just be happy she\'s alive—if she still is—and if you\'re lucky, you\'ll probably see her again. Now if you excuse me...” He turned to go to the exit, but paused for a moment. “One more thing...can you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“Could you...turn into a human for me? I\'ve seen pictures of your face, but I wanted to see you in person.”

Naya let out a very disgusted sigh, but tried her best to keep a straight face. “As I would be completely naked if I complied with your request, Sergeant Cortez, I humbly decline. I may be nothing more than a laboratory experiment to you, and right now I am your prisoner, but I still have my pride.”

Cortez simply shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well, so much for that.” He went back to the exit. “On that rather disappointing note, I really have to go. I have a report to file, and someone I have to see...something that must be taken care of. It was nice meeting you, Naya. I had hoped to capture you personally, but a win is a win. Enjoy your lives.” With that, he exited the room.

Once again, Naya was left with her thoughts. While she beat herself up furiously for getting Annette involved in this whole mess—and probably costing the reporter her life—she was at least hopeful that she\'d see the blonde again...especially since the page from the clipboard said they were both to be taken to Plum Island once Annette was able to be transported.

- - - - -

“Are you ready, sir?”

“Yeah. Take me to the other woman.” Capturing Naya had been quite a torturous ordeal for Cortez; after talking to the cat, he felt a bit sorry for her. At first, he saw her as a freak to be scorned like the rest of the freaks The Zoo had turned out. Something about Naya touched him in a different way: maybe it was her politeness, once her claws were sheathed; maybe it was the overwhelming concern she had for Annette, a woman who seemed to be much more than a pet owner or a conspiring partner. Maybe it was the fact that she wasn\'t in control of her own destiny, and that all this was happening to her, rather than her being the cause of some overall problem. As much as it bothered the man to believe it, Cortez had to admit he actually liked Naya.

The driver took Cortez to another part of the underground compound, this time an open area with a surgical tent and lights set up in the middle of it. “Please have a seat over there, sir.” The driver pointed to a series of padded folding chairs not far from the makeshift operating room.

As he sat, a surgeon came out from behind the tent. Cortez had planned to see the man covered in blood, or at least stained with it. The other man\'s gloves and smock were practically spotless. “Sgt. Cortez, I pressume,” the man said.

“Correct. What is her condition?”

The doctor removed his surgical mask and measured his words carefully. “If I had to put it in a word, it\'d be \'miraculous\'. She had so much damage to her body I\'d have thought saving any of her vital organs—even her brain—would have been impossible. But, well...come see for yourself.” He led Cortez into the tent, bypassing the scrub room section of the tent completely. “She\'s unconscious, but other than that...”

There was blood all over the floor, yet there was none at all anyplace else. On the operating table, Annette lay naked to the world, without a single scratch or surgical stitch on her. Her hair, which had been curly in the video clips Cortez had seen of her, was not straight and longer than usual, surrounding a face that had an almost angelic glow about it.

“Are you sure this is the same woman?” Cortez asked.

“Definitely,” the surgeon replied. “I brought her in from the ambulance myself. At the time, she had serious lacerations to her skull, deep abrasions to her face and arms, her rib cage was in shambles from the force of the steering column being jammed into her torso, and both her legs were broken. I won\'t even get into how her heart was literally torn up, or how it took three of us to figure out what organ part belonged to each other. All of a sudden, things just...sorted themselves out, like her body was putting itself back together again. I\'ve seen some pretty strange things here, but that had to be the creepiest thing I\'ve ever seen.” By this time the doctor was visibly shaking; so much so that Cortez sat him down so the man could regain his composure.

“Did you do the regular battery of tests on her...blood panels, x-rays, CT scans...”

The doctor grasped his hands, trying to get a grip on sanity. “We didn\'t have time...the EMTs got the vitals, but once she came in, we started trying to work on her...and that\'s when it started.” The man leaned forward, beckoning Cortez closer. “I\'ve done some things here I\'ll never mention, but that? I don\'t even know how that\'s humanly possible!”

Cortez sighed, then looked the man square in the eye. “It\'s not...it\'s not humanly possible.” He backed a step away from the doctor, then looked at Annette. “Get a full blood work-up on her. Hell, do all the tests. I have a feeling we\'ll turn up something we shouldn\'t.”

“Yes, sir,” the doctor said. He stood on wobbly knees for a moment, stabilized himself, then went back to the surgical tent and told his assistants to perform the necessary tests.

Cortez pulled out his cell. “Owl Unit, check!”

“Owl Unit, reporting.” The reception was fuzzy, but Constanza\'s voice came through. “Shall I report the capture to Capt. Armbrister, sir?”

“Not yet, Constanza...we have a situation—a change of plans. I need all the information you have on Annette Stanhope.”

A bit of silence filled the air before Constanza replied. “The yellow tag, sir? I sent you information on her earlier. There didn\'t seem to be anything of interest, as I recall.”

“That\'s because we only considered her as an ancillary target. We only scratched the surface of her life,” Cortez commented. “Get me every bit of detail you can on her—family background, where she went to school, who she dated, what she likes to snack on at midnight, what her favorite brand of tampon is...everything!” The sergeant noticed he was clutching the phone so hard his hand began to cramp up. He took a deep breath before continuing. “Leave no stone unturned. She suddenly became a very interesting person to me...very interesting, indeed!”

“You\'ll have the information shortly, sir. If I may ask, what is about Miss Stanhope that has made her such a priority?”

Cortez stared at the phone for a moment, then laughed. “Don\'t tell me you\'re jealous, Constanza?”

Muffled laughter could be heard on the other end of the line, along with a loud \'whack\'. “Information will be forthcoming soon. Owl Unit, out!”

Cortez put the phone in his pocket. “I\'ll take that as a yes.”

- - - - -

Naya paced back and forth in her cell, waiting for the interrogation that was euphemistically called an \'interview\' on the sheet Cortez showed her. She had questions of her own, and hoped whoever was conducting the \'interview\' was more forthcoming than the sergeant.

Suddenly two trays slid out from one of the side walls. One had a plate of tuna and a fork, next to a glass of water. The other had a pair of orange pajamas. As the trays clicked into place, a voice came over a loudspeaker. It was a male voice, without accent or malice...very business-like. “Feel free to change into your human form, and use what we have offered for you.”

“Turn off the lights first, you pervert!” Naya snapped back.

“Ah, it\'s good to see you have kept an air of modesty about you, Naya.” The lights of the cell went off, and the translucent glass opening became more opaque, giving the cat a measure of privacy.

Once she regained human form, she quickly grabbed the pajamas and donned them, surprised at the precise fit. “Okay, you can turn the lights back on, now!”

The room returned to its original state, and the drawer which held the pajamas slid back into the wall. “Please enjoy the tuna...unless you would like something else. Some pastry, perhaps?”

Being she hadn\'t eaten in awhile, and the transformation burns a lot of energy, Naya wolfed down the tuna with gusto, taking time to breathe and drink a little water.

The voice waited until Naya was finished before she restarted the conversation. “You might be happy to know that your friend made it through surgery.”

“Annette! How is she?”

“Doing quite well,” the voice said, expressing a hint of surprise. “We were worried about how you would take the news of her death, but that was an unnecessary fear, as it turned out.”

Naya\'s eyes were wide with happiness. “When can I see her?”

“We\'ll let you know. Right now she\'s recouperating. Even so, when she revives, we\'ll have a few questions for her. When we\'re done, you can see her...but not for long.”

The white-haired woman didn\'t like that last part. “What do you mean by that?”

“We\'ve had a change in plans that necessitate holding you both for longer than we had anticipated.” The voice did not waver at all, which Naya took as a sign that something that something significant had happened...something they had experienced before, otherwise there would have been a bit of hesitation or surprise.

“What are you planning on doing with her?” she asked sharply.

“I\'m sorry, that\'s classified. Like I said, just be happy that you\'ll see her soon. Now, let us begin our interview, shall we?”

“The hell with you! I\'m not answering any questions until I see Annette!”

“And you won\'t see Miss Stanhope unless you answer our questions. So, you see, we are at a bit of a standoff...and you are in no position to dictate demands to us. I suggest you comply.” The voice showed a bit of emotion for the first time. It was angry, almost taunting.

Naya took stock of her position, and backed down. Making sure Annette was alright was her highest priority, and she wasn\'t going to do that by being obstinant. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“That\'s better,” the voice said, regaining the more stoic tone it had previously. “Now, we shall begin. How did you escape the power plant?”

“I walked out the front door,” Naya said sarcastically.

“Please cooperate. I repeat: How did you escape the power plant?”

“I repeat. I walked out the front door.” This time, there was no sarcasm in Naya\'s voice.

“You mean to tell me you just left the building, and no one stopped you?”

“Correct. Usually I was allowed to leave the compound for an hour or two, but only with an escort. While that was very confiniing at first, I found ways of putting a comfortable distance between us while still complying with the rule. One day I managed to put enough distance between myself and my chaperone and, well, I never came back.”

“Interesting,” the voice said, in pretty much the same way psychologists say \'interesting\' when they\'re not really listening to you. “What made you want to escape? Were you being mistreated?”

Naya looked at the ceiling incredulously. “Are you insane? Who would not want to escape a place where you\'re watched 24 hours a day? Where your every move is controlled and catalogued, and what little companionship you have is stripped away from you at the worst possible moment?”

“Ah...you\'re referring to the incident with,” the interviewer was interrupted by the sound of shuffling papers. “Megumi Morisato, was it? Sad that had to happen, but it was a matter of protecting our investment. Even if Japan is our ally, we couldn\'t have you coupling with her and leaving the country. You are, after all, American property.”

“Excuse me? I hate to break this to you, but my body belongs to me and me alone! Hell, both of my bodies belong to me! If anything, all you people got was the privilege of picking my brain and screwing with my life!” Naya was red in the face and panting for air. She noticed that the air conditioner had been turned off. “What the hell are you doing now, some kind of psychological torture?”

“Sharp of you to notice,” the voice said. Cool air started to flow in the room once again. “It appears our training has not gone to waste.”

“You\'re right about that, whoever you are! I will get out of here, and once I find Annette, we\'ll both be done with you!”

“Sure, sure,” the voice said placatively. “In the meantime, I have another question. What made you want to turn on the power plant? You could have just run away and never have to deal with them again.”

Naya let out a big sigh. “It\'s common sense, stupid! I didn\'t want what happened to me to happen to anyone else...animal or human. Once I gained human thought, I learned that what they were doing was wrong, and I wanted to find a way to stop it. I knew I couldn\'t do it myself, so I needed help.”

“Wrong? Why would you say that? Thanks to the research we\'ve been able to do over the past eighty years, we\'ve been able to help mankind in a variety of ways. From advances in techonolgy and science, to the latest, almost-daily breakthroughs in genetics. None of that would have been possible without places like this. Why would you want to destroy that?”

Naya hung her head, shaking it in disbelief. “I guess it\'s true what they say: \'the road to hell is paved with good intentions.\' You never once stopped to think about what the effect of your efforts were on both mankind and the animal kingdom, did you? All the people and animals that had died in your trials and tests, in the name of science...each of them were just a number on a file!” She found a spot near the wall and sat down, bringing her knees to her chest. “I know all too well about things like that...from both sides.”

“Ah, yes...I see that you worked on a project during your second life. Too bad it didn\'t bear fruit, but you\'ll be glad to know we have found the problems you were having a couple decades ago, and now it is a success. The ability to regenerate body parts is a long way from the liver trying to repair itself or the heart building bypass capillaries. I must say I\'m impressed that you would even attempt it.”

“Too bad it didn\'t work,” Naya said sadly. “So many people could be helped with that gene therapy.”

“Not to mention the cost-effectiveness of such a technique in the medical community, and of course, the military applications such a treatment would have!” The voice almost sounded ecstatic. “I\'m sure a grateful country thanks you!”

“What the hell are you talking about? The project was a failure.”

“Well, yes. In your hands, it was a failure...only because you were too occupied in romance to pay closer attention to what you were doing. We followed up on your work, and have had quite a bit of success with it...especially in the last 20 years.”

The researcher in Naya wanted to strangle that voice for stealing her work; the rest of her just resigned herself to the fact that, well, this was how the company operated. All intellectual projects were the property of The Zoo. No two ways about it. “Yay,” she sighed. “I\'m happy for you. Now, are we done? I\'m tired, and I want to see Annette. I\'ve done what you\'ve asked of me. Please honor my request.”

“Well, I am a man of my word,” the voice said. “I will grant your request. We will bring her to you as soon as she wakes up. I think she will be as happy to see you as you are anxious to see her.”

“Thank you.” Naya put her head on her knees, planning on getting some much-needed rest after such a tiring \'interview\'. “By the way...to whom am I speaking? I think it\'s rude for you to address me, when I don\'t know your name.”

“Right you are, Naya Attaturk. I do owe you that. I am Peter Tesla. Pleased to meet you.”

=====

End of Chapter 7

=====

Disclaimer: If you\'ve read this far, you know how this works.  If you\'re jumping in the middle, go back and start over--there\'s lot of potential lawsuit material that lawyers wouldn\'t make a dime on.

Ikimashou!

=====

Chapter 8: What Alice Said

=====

Annette wasn\'t exactly sure what was going on, but she felt herself moving. She wasn\'t walking; she knew that, as she was laying flat on something relatively soft. Her eyes were closed, but even through her eyelids she saw lights pass above her, so she surmised she was being taken somewhere. If that was the case, then maybe she still was alive. She started to take a mental inventory of herself and her well-being: Breathing was fine; there was no pain; her ears were picking up faint sounds, yet she wasn\'t able to discern them.

Soon the lights stopped passing over her head, and Annette was curious to see to where she had been taken. Slowly opening her eyes, she saw the high ceiling of a room; the walls were white on three sides, but she wasn\'t sure about the fourth. Suddenly a face came into view, and everything else seemed infinitely unimportant.

“Nnnn...Na...ya...Naya...”

Annette saw tears coming from the face of the white-haired girl, and she wanted to wipe them with her hand. It took awhile for her to remember how to do it, though.

“Shhh...just relax for awhile,” Naya said softly, trying hard to keep the absolute shock from showing in her voice. “Look at you! You don\'t have a scratch on you!” She fought the urge to give the blonde a bone-crushing hug, opting instead to pick up one of her hands and cradle it in her own.

Annette felt her hand being raised, and continued lifting it upwards, moving the bang from Naya\'s face and wiping the tear from her black-skinned eye. “Stop. I\'m...fine.”

“I\'ll say you are!” Naya looked her companion over, and stared at the ceiling. “What have you people done to her?” When no answer came, she just became more irate. “I know you\'re up there, Tesla!! Answer me! What did you do?”

“Naya...stop.” Annette tried to take her hand away, but Naya held it firmly, fearing it would be taken away. “I\'m...fine. Glad to...see you too.” She raised her hand a bit more, and this time Naya let her. She extended her arm and tried to put it around the other woman\'s neck. “Missed you. What happened?”

Naya put her head on the reporter\'s shoulder. “We crashed, Annette. It was terrible. I thought...I lost you. They told me you were very badly hurt, but...”

“I was, but...I remember laughing...and being with you. I was with you, and I was very happy.” Naya backed away from Annette\'s shoulder so she could see the blonde\'s face ease into a smile. “I don\'t know what happened next, but I was with you.”

“I can\'t give you all the gory details, Annette, but we crashed...terribly.” Naya saw the smile slide from the reporter\'s face, and it felt like a solar eclipse. “When I woke up, I was in this room, and I was told you were in surgery. I don\'t know how it happened, or what they\'ve done to you, but I\'m so happy you\'re still alive after that!”

Annette\'s face twisted into a question. “I was hurt, but I\'m not hurt now. I feel...different. My body feels...funny.” She removed put her arm down, and tried to remember how to sit up in the gurney. “My arms work, but...they won\'t listen.”

Naya\'s eyes widened. She had uttered a very similar sentence to herself lifetimes ago; the first time she changed from cat to human. The thought that people like Tesla might have done something to her friend re-energized Naya\'s anger. “Damn it, Tesla! I know you\'re listening! What have you done??”

“Why all the yelling, Naya?” Tesla\'s stoic voice asked through the speakers. “I thought you\'d be happy to see your friend again...especially considering her condition.”

“Answer me! What have you done to her??”

“We haven\'t done anyhting to her...not today, anyway. We were just as puzzled as you were about her...recovery. We were hoping she would tell you something about that.”

“Don\'t lie to me, damn you!” Naya was fuming, and in need of something to punch. “Get down here and face me this instant!!”

“I\'m sorry, Naya, that request won\'t be fulfilled,” Tesla said, his voice not wavering at all. “I am looking into her past, and as soon as I find something...well, I\'ll tell you what you need to know. Unless, of course, she can tell us something.”

Annette grabbed Naya\'s hand to get her attention. “I don\'t know anything. But please, stop fighting. Let\'s talk, okay?”

“You would do well to listen to her, Naya. Besides, the more she talks to you, the longer you can stay with her. That sounds like a good deal, doesn\'t it?”

Naya felt Annette tug her arm, and look to see the blonde\'s smile had returned. “Okay, then. We\'ll talk.” She then turned her attention back to the ceiling. “Would you mind giving us some privacy...better yet, can you get us out of here?”

“Sorry,” Tesla said. “You\'re too dangerous. I\'ll stop monitoring you for now, as something else needs my attention. You aren\'t the only thing I\'m keeping my eye on, you know.”

Naya wanted to say something, but waited for Tesla to continue. When the speakers remained silent for ove a minute, she looked back to Annette, who was still smiling.

“Thank you, Naya.”

“For what?”

“For caring so much about me. It might sound stupid, but maybe I\'m alive because of you...because you care.”

Naya put her head down, avoiding eye contact with the reporter. “That\'s...that\'s the dumbest thing I\'ve heard in a long time.”

What a stupid thing to say! I\'m the reason you\'re in here in the first place! You could have been killed...maybe you were killed! And yet, you have the audacity to thank me for caring for you? I nearly cost you your life!! That makes absolutely no sense at all! You should be hating me...at the very least, not wanting to talk to me. Maybe you lost a piece of your brain in that crash, and can\'t remember why we were there in the first place. Or maybe you\'re just plain insane! Either way...I\'m...

“I\'m sorry.” Naya put her head on Annette\'s stomach, facing away form her, and cried.

“No, Naya...I know what you\'re thinking, and you\'re wrong.” Annette concentrated, and both her hands found their way to Naya\'s head. She began to rub the other woman\'s head with one hand, while holding it steady with the other. “I chose to come, and I wanted to help you. It\'s not your fault.”

“But I called you. I knew it was dangerous, and I should have told you to go away...to save yourself from getting involved any further.”

Annette\'s face broke into a wide grin. “Not happening.” She wanted to tap Naya on the head, and was happy that her hand complied. “I will never leave you behind, just as you didn\'t leave me. Don\'t make me get the stun gun.”

Naya couldn\'t help but laugh at that, though tears were still falling from her eyes. “I was right about you...you are insane. That\'s why I love you.” She felt Annette tap her head again.

“I\'m glad I\'m still alive to hear you say that, Naya...and to say that I love you, too.”

“I really have to stop thinking to myself out loud,” Naya thought to herself out loud.

- - - - -

Cortez stared at the images on his laptop. There were quite a few windows opened, but two had the bulk of his attention. The first was a live video feed of an office that seemed to be completely disassembled. A young man in a black military unifom sat in front of the camera.

“We\'ve turned the place upside down and sideways, and went through every piece of data both printed and digital. Whatever information they might have exchanged, there\'s no trace of it here, sir.”

“What about the editor?” Cortez fired back. “Where is he?”

“We\'re interrogating him downstairs, but he\'s not talking...other than to ramble about the First Amendment and the Freedom of Information Act.”

“I hate those types,” the sergeant said with a sigh. “I hate the ones who actually mean it even more. Find something to use against him—infidelity, immigration, drugs, whatever...just get him to talk!”

“Will do, sir. Raptor Unit, out!”

Running his hand through his slick, black hair, Cortez now turned his attention to the second-largest window on his screen; a .pdf file which contained information on Annette Stanhope.

“Thanks for the information, Constanza...but you didn\'t have to physically bring it to me. This is the twenty-first century, after all..we do have technology in place to do such tasks.” Cortez stared at the strikingly cool brunette sitting beside him. “Don\'t get me wrong; It\'s not that I\'m not enjoying your presence, it\'s just that you didn\'t have to come all the way out here yourself.”

“For this,” she said, staring at the photo of Annette, “I did have to come here personally. There are things I have found that I must share with you directly...out of earshot of my subordinates.”

Cortez\' smile seemed to irritate the woman, yet he didn\'t hesitate to flash it at every opportunity. “So, to what do I owe the honor of your accompaniment this evening?”

“This.” Constanza clicked on a section of the file, and up came a close-up view of the “birth name” section, which was blank. “This.” She clicked on a second section, marked “date of birth”; it too was blank. “And this.” She moved to the “place of birth” field, but this was not blank; instead, it read, “Plum Island, NY”.

Cortez\' eyes narrowed at that close-up. “Tell me you\'re kidding.”

“I wish I could, sir, but I\'m not. This birth certificate is authentic; it hasn\'t been altered or copied in any way. What makes that more suspicious is that, while not having a given name on a certificate isn\'t unusual in the least, to have all that information missing is certainly unusual...add the fact that she was allegedly born on Plum Island—a place without a normal hospital, and piles of conspiracy theories—and you have quite the puzzle, sir.”

“What\'s more interesting is the fact that, as we speak, she\'s not far from there...in Camp Hero.” Cortez laughed, catching the brunette by surprise. “What it is that Alice says? Oh yes...curiouser and curiouser.” He turned to Constanza and flashed yet another smile. “Thank you for sharing this information. You were indeed correct in delivering it yourself. Make sure to keep this to yourself, as I have a feeling we\'ll be delving a little more into the past of Miss Stanhope...or whatever her name really is.”

Constanza mentally kicked herself; that wasn\'t exactly the news she wanted to hear.

- - - - -

The Armbrister house was quite noisy this evening, very unlike the quiet nights Ed and his wife Elena normally spent apart, and the twin daughters spent in their shared dorm room. No, tonight was a night of celebration; the family that usually spent so much time apart would soon be on their way to Alaska, all expenses paid. Most of the noise was Jane whooping at the top of her lungs, as she loved the breath-taking beauty the large state had to offer. Jenna was excited about the opportunity to do some downhill skiing, though she was much less vocal about it. For Elena, it was a chance to re-connect with her parents who moved there from Minnesota after the Armbristers got married.

Ed had an entirely different reason for the impromptu getaway, and its name was Cortez. The two men had been bitter rivals long before they ended up working for The Zoo; the fact that their paths crossed again was almost karmic. In order to protect his family, Capt. Armbrister would go to the ends of the earth—or at least, the end of the North American continent.

As the Armbristers prepared for their upcoming trip, a sulking Constanza left a black SUV, slamming the door shut as she left. Inside, Cortez ignored the woman\'s mild tantrum, preferring to stare at the image of Annette on his computer screen.

- - - - -

Annette finally had a chance to take a good look at her surroundings—such as they were—as Naya raised the head of the gurney at an angle. Her head was a lot clearer, not that she had a chance to nap for a bit. “Were are we? I\'m guessing wherever it is, it isn\'t good.”

“Camp Hero, Long Island.” Naya came up from behind the gurney in her cat form, jumped upon the bed and sat next to the reporter. “You\'ve probably heard of it...then again, you probably haven\'t.”

“No,” Annette said, scratching her head and smiling inwardly at the fact that her muscle reactions seemed back to normal. “I haven\'t really been to Long Island all that much, so other than maybe Nassau and Suffolk, that\'s all I really know about it.”

The cat looked at Annette sideways. “Are you sure about that?”

“Pretty much. Like I said, I really didn\'t have a reason to be out here. The paper doesn\'t cover Long Island—they leave that to the Tribune or Newsday—and we cover the Islanders hockey games by way of the Internet, so nobody goes to the Coliseum.”

“Well, they seem to be very excited about having you here...especially after the crash.” Naya looked at the ceiling.

“Yeah, I been getting that vibe from them.” Annette stretched her arms upwards and looked down at herself. “Naya...is it just me, or have I lost weight?”

The cat grinned. “I was going to mention that, but I didn\'t want it to seem like you weren\'t attractive before.” She waited to see if that comment warranted a swipe from her companion, and was happy that none followed. “It could be that, considering your mode of recovery, your body metabolized the excess fat and left you in better physical condition.”

Annette thought for a moment, then laughed. “Could you imagine if I broke this story? \'Crash Diet guarantees instant weight loss!\' The lawsuits alone would be insane!”

Naya lifted a paw and padded one of the reporter\'s breasts. “Then again...I think the metabolism train skipped a couple stops...looks like you actually gained a cup size!” She moved the paw to cover her face. “Oh, woe we of little boobs! I art jealous of thy bountiful bosom!”

“Will you knock it off, already!” The blonde brought her knees up to cover herself, although the sheet was doing a pretty good job on its own. “When are we going to get out of here? Better yet, how?”

Naya moved to the foot of the gurney. “As to the first part of your question, I\'m not sure. It looks like they\'re waiting on the results of tests they\'ve done on you before they decide what to do next. As to the second part, I don\'t think that\'s possible.”

Annette sighed dejectedly. “Well, at least we\'re together; that\'s what matters most.”

“Awww...what beautiful sentiments.” The voice that usually came from the speakers now came from the front of the room. “It\'s a good thing we don\'t leave you two in total darkness, or we\'d have to put a ratings warning on the security cameras.”

Naya saw the man\'s face and nearly fell off the gurney in shock. For someone who was supposed to be over 120 years old, Nikolai Tesla looked almost flash-frozen fresh. “That\'s impossible!”

“In a way,” the man said smugly. “I am Peter Tesla, the son of Nikolai. Yes, the resemblence is uncanny; even I have to admit that I am indeed my father\'s son...albeit without the idiosyncracies dear old Dad had.”

“But you don\'t look a day over 20! Even if, as the rumors state, he traveled through time, you\'d still be well over 40 or so. Unless...”

“...I was a clone or some other experiment? Is that how you wished to finish your sentence, dear cat?” Peter walked closer to the glass opening, coming almost in contact with it. “No, not a clone nor an experiment, I assure you. I am his son, armed with his knowledge and a wealth of advanced technology even he could never dream of.”

Annette had a hard time grasping all of this. “Wait...Nikolai Tesla? The electromagnetic genius? The guy who invented that crazy Frankenstein thingy with the lightning and the supposed \'death ray\'? You can\'t be his son..you\'re way too young!”

Peter found it hard to contain his laughter. “That \'Frankenstein thingy\'! My father would\'ve loved to hear you call it that! Probably would have invented something to disintergrate your head!” He composed himself, then began again. “For your benefit, Miss Stanhope, let\'s just say I have found a way to unlock the mystery to cell aging and death. It\'s all a matter of electrical charges, you know. Rather than fry what gray matter you do have, I\'ll just say I have had this appearance for nearly 40 years now.”

“You would make a lot of women happy,” the reporter said, shaking behind her smile. “So, why become a mad scientist instead? Someone stand you up at the Evil Genius High School Prom back in the day and you want to get revenge?”

“Science is my love,” Peter said firmly. “I love things that interest me. Right now, you interest me a great deal, Miss Stanhope. What you\'ve done has my mind reeling—quite a difficult thing to do, I assure you. Miss Attaturk there tried working on resurrection technique, and I must admit, she came pretty close to duplicating her own natural ability. We succeeded where she failed in a way; we can trick the mind into regenerating body parts efficiently.” He stepped away from the glass, then threw his arms wide, “But you...I would venture to get I can put you in a blender, and you would simply reassemble yourself!” He took out a notepad and scribbled something, then put the pad back in his pocket. “Yes, maybe we should try it! That, I would love to see!”

Naya cursed herself for being in her feline form. Even if she couldn\'t get through the reinforced plexiglass, she could have at least put up a stronger face. She put up as defensive a stance as she could; back arched, ears back and fur standing on end. “You\'ll do no such thing!”

“And you\'ll stop me...how?” Peter laughed and exited the room without saying another word.

“Is...is that what happened to me? Is that how I\'m still alive?”

Naya turned to see Annette examining her hands. She tried to step forward, but stopped when the blonde\'s confused eyes met hers.

“Did you do...something...to me?”

“No, Annette...I wouldn\'t, I couldn\'t!”

“But he said you were working on something...and I, I wasn\'t like this before...” The reporter didn\'t know what to do with herself, so she instinctively curled up, putting the sheet over her head. That move threw Naya off the bed. The force of the tug surprised the cat, who managed to turn her body just in time to avoid slamming her back into one of the walls.

After rebounding to the floor, she got her bearings and then sat under the head of the gurney. “I wouldn\'t do anything to hurt you, Annette...you should know that by now. I couldn\'t even if I wanted to—I\'ve spent almost all the time with you, running away from people. Trust me, I don\'t have my own secret lab...anymore.” She whispered that last word, noting how the Chimera and the good folks from the power plant must have gone through every inch of her former home/lair at Gear Works.

“But...I don\'t understand, Naya,” Annette whimpered, sounding like a little girl. “When did this happen?”

Naya thought for awhile, when a question came to her. “Did you ever get hurt before?”

“No...why?”

“Not at all? Not a cut or a bruise...anything?”

“Well...the stun gun hurt,” Annette giggled at that. “But otherwise, no...”

This made Naya very wary about what to ask next. “Annette...did you ever have a cold before?”

The blonde lifted her head from under the sheet. “Now that you mention it, no. Not even a runny nose. I\'ve never even been vaccinated...at least, I don\'t remember having them.”

Naya wasn\'t liking the sound of this. “You\'re not adopted, are you?”

“Why, yes! My parents were very nice people, but when I turned 10, they told me I was adopted. It didn\'t matter to me, as I loved them and they loved me very much.”

“Do you know who your real parents were? Or where you were born?”

Annette sighed. “No...all I know is that I was raised in Brooklyn, and that I was born in 1985. Since we didn\'t know what my birthday was, my parents chose February 14th, the day I came to them.”

“A Valentine\'s Day gift...a gift of love.” Naya shook her head. “How ironic.”

The reporter was beginning to pick up the same vibe her friend had, and it wasn\'t a good one. “Naya...are you thinking that these people have something to do with my real parents...or that I\'ve been here before?”

“I can\'t be sure, but yeah...it\'s starting to look that way.” She walked out from under the bed, gathered her pajamas, and transformed into her human form. “I can\'t seem to explain it any other way...unless you\'re an alien from another planet.” Naya donned the clothing, and then took a seat at the foot of the gurney. “I seem to remember someone else being in your position. He was adopted by kind parents, just like you...oh, and he\'s a reporter, too! Maybe I should get some kryptonite and see how you react to it...”

“This isn\'t the time for humor, Naya...” Annette tried her best to make that sentence sound serious, but she smiled when she said it.

“If this isn\'t the right time, then when is it?” Naya patted the other girls feet. “Don\'t worry. We\'ll get to the bottom of this somehow. For now, we have to get out of here before they decide what experiment they want to do first on you.”

“Maybe I should just use my super-strength and punch a hole through that glass.” The petite blonde flexed her now-slemder arms. “Though I\'m not packing as much \'oomph\' as I used to.”

Naya gave her companion a curious look. “Can you?”

“Can I...what?”

“Can you punch a hole through that plexiglass?”

It had been quite awhile since Naya heard Annette laugh as much as she did. Not the maniacal laughter she had while driving the SUV to its tragic doom; a hearty fun-filled laugh.

“I think you\'ve transformed one time too many, and you brain is still cat-sized!”

Naya wasn\'t laughing, though. She left the gurney and walked over to the glass, examining the edges where it sank into the surrounding wall. She then followed the wall all the way around the room, coming back to the same spot. She had wondered how the door opened in the first place, and lifted the bang over her right eye—her cat\'s eye—to get a better look at the glass. She noted that there was a thin seam in the center. It was angled in such a way that, unless you caught that angle in the right light, it was invisible to the naked eye...the naked human eye.

“I\'m pretty strong,” she said to Annette, “but I think this would take quite a blow to break. Care to give it a try?”

The blonde\'s laughter subsided when she saw Naya examining the glass. “You can\'t be...you\'re serious, aren\'t you?”

“Why not?” Naya said matter-of-factly. “Come over here, give it a good hard whack right here,” she pointed to the invisible seam, “and we\'ll be free!”

Annette gathered the sheet around her and slid off of the gurney, her balance taking some time to kick in. “I can\'t even stand, and you want me to punch a hole through that? Are you nuts?”

“I\'m serious, Annette.” The taller woman came over and put her arms under the shorter reporter, supporting her. “First, walk around a bit to establish your equilibrium. Once you do that, the rest should be easy.”

“For you, maybe—hey, watch your hands!--maybe you think it\'s easy for me to simply punch a hole through bulletproof glass, but I seriously think you have some screws loose. I mean, look at that! You\'re stronger than I am...if you can\'t punch it, what chance do I have? I just break my hand!”

“It\'ll just fix itself anyway,” Naya chided. “Come on...humor me.” She let the blonde go and watched as the other woman cautiously stepped to the glass.

“It\'s gonna hurt, isn\'t it?”

“I\'m guessing no...I\'m also guessing the one thing you can\'t tolerate is--” Naya looked up at the ceiling, then put her hands to Annette\'s ear. “Forgot they were listening. You\'re kryptonite seems to be electricity. Remember how you reacted when I stunned you?”

Annette\'s eyes widened. “You\'re right!”

And if that\'s true, then it all makes perfect sense, Naya thought. “So, have at it!”

“Where am I supposed to hit it again?”

“Right here.” Naya pointed to the spot, then stood about an arms length behind Annette. She took a quick look at the ceiling, and made a silent wish.

- - - - -

“This should be interesting,” Peter Tesla said from his observation room. A pile of test results sat to his left, the most interesting of these being the blood tests. “High electrolyte counts and an unusual amount of carbon-oxygen bonds. I wonder how that will manifest itself in you...excessive strength is plausible.” He pushed a button on a console next to the computer monitor. “Send a few guards to the holding cell...and equip then with tazers set to maximum. If they manage to get out of that room—and that\'s a very slim possibility—I want to be prepared to put them back in. Understand?”

“Yes, sir!”

- - - - -

Annette looked at the point on the glass and took a deep breath. “Okay. I\'m guessing I should give it all I got, right?”

“Of course...unless you think you can take it out with a love tap,” Naya said with a grin.

“Alright then...here goes...one...”

As the blonde cocked her fist back, the door to the room opened and guards poured in, tazers at the ready.

“...two...”

Naya caught sight of the guards and smiled.

“...threeeyaaaaaaaah!!!”

Just as Annette threw her fist. Naya grabbed Annette\'s other arm and flung her in the opposite direction, taking her into—and through—the rear wall, resulting in a pretty large hole that led into a corridor behind the cell.

“Ha! I was right!” Naya then dragged the gurney behind her and wedged it in the wall, hoping it would stall anyone who tried to come behind her. She then turned her attention to the other woman, who lay in a pile of rubble. “See? You could do it!”

“What the hell!!” Annette got up briskly from the floor, pieces of concrete falling off of her as she stood. “You just threw me through a friggin\' wall!”

“No, you broke the wall—I just gave you some added momentum.” Naya smiled and dusted off her seething companion.

“And how, pray tell, did you know you weren\'t throwing me into a wall of solid rock?”

“Because the room had sliding drawers...they had to come from somewhere, meaning there had to be rooms around the cell, and most likely, a pathway to get to those rooms. Glad to see my assumption was right!”

Annette looked over the white-haired woman\'s shoulders and saw the guards entering the cell. “Remind me to kill you later—a few times!--right now we have to get out of here!” The two women ran down the corridor, as the guards fumbled with the gurney.

- - - - -

Peter watched the events unfold with a surprised grin. “Wasn\'t expecting that! I wonder what else she can do!” He left the console and walked to an elevator. “I had better get to my room. I doubt they know where it is, but it would be had if they found what I have there.”

- - - - -

The corridor led to an underground road which led in two directions; the east road led to the hangar, while the west road led back to the \'staging area\'. The signs marking the destinations were digitally displayed. “I wonder if that\'s so they can re-configure the place at a moment\'s notice.” Naya said as she stood at the intersection.

Annette was already ahead of her companion, trying to figure out where to go next. She was surprised that, considering all the running she had just done, she wasn\'t out of breath at all. “This does have its advantages,” she said with a smile. She then turned to Naya. “So, where to now?”

“I guess that depends on you,” the other woman said. “Do you want to risk being caught again and see if we can find more information, or do you want to leave and fight them on the outside?”

After a second of thought, Annette took off towards the east. “I really don\'t want to be here, Naya!”

“Good enough for me!” Naya ran behind the reporter, then stopped short. “Annette, stop!!”

The blonde did so, then turned and rejoined Naya. “What\'s wrong?”

“Considering we just broke out of a supposedly inescapable holding cell, and the fact that this is a secret base with an untold number of military personnel, don\'t you find it odd that there are no alarms sounding? Or that the guards have stopped chasing us?”

Annette listened to the silence around then, and nodded. “You\'re right...it\'s almost like they want us to escape, or at least try to.”

“They\'ve been watching us in the cell, and I\'m thinking they\'re watching us now. We\'ve become lab rats in their maze, and they want to see how we get out of the trap.”

“Then maybe we shouldn\'t...” Annette ran towards the western end of the underground road, with Naya following her. “If we can find out what Tesla\'s up to, maybe we can shut this place down.” And maybe get to the truth about where I\'m from, she thought to herself.

“Spoken like a superhero, Miss Muscles!”

=====

End of Chapter 8

=====

Disclaimer: Blah, blah, my story...blah, blah, don\'t sue me.  There.

Ikimashou!

=====

CHAPTER 9: Weapons of Mass Distraction

=====

Cortez had tried everything short of waterboarding to get William Choi to talk, but the pudgy editor of the Courier was as tight-lipped as a crazy-glued oyster. Both men had their respective reputations to protect, and neither were budging an inch. Choi was known throughout the journalism world as a man with impeccable integrity; who never divulged a source, and always defened a story. Cortez was the man who could get anything from anyone at anytime...especially if that anything had great importance.

“Look, Mr. Choi,” the sergeant said with exasperation. “We\'re both reasonable men. You want a story, and I don\'t want that story to get out. Thus, we are at an impasse. I\'m not a big fan of impasses, and neither are my superiors. They can make your life pretty miserable, trust me. If they have to shut down your paper in order to get what they want, they\'ll do so.”

Choi kept a tough grin. “I\'m sure you\'ve already shut down my paper, or at least shut down the building while you search for whatever it is you\'re looking for. So that threat is weak. I will tell you this: Mine isn\'t the only paper in the city, or even the nation, that would love to hear about your superiors. You can\'t shut everyone down!”

“That\'s where you\'re wrong, Mr. Choi. We can enforce a news blackout throughout the country for the sake of national security. That alone will buy us time to find the information and destroy it before it gets out of control.”

“Then what do you need me for?” Choi asked smugly. “If the story broke, I\'m sure your people would treat it the same way they treat stories about UFOs...or shoulder-launched missles. You\'d just find someone to explain it away, or issue a press release saying it was a hoax. So do that, have a good laugh, and let me go.”

Cortez had to admit that this editor knew his stuff. “I\'ll hold you here as insurance. If that story breaks I want to see who breaks it, and what connections if any you have to the leak. If I find any such connections, Mr. Choi, your next story will be your obituary. Am I making myself clear?”

“Then you might as well kill me right now.” Choi didn\'t back down from the threat whatsoever. “You\'ll definitely link the information to Dr. Attaturk and my reporter, who obviously works for me. Even if someone else leaks it, you\'ll kill me anyway because it\'s what you want to do. If you really want to kill the story, stop wasting your time with me, and use your resources...I\'m sure you have enough to find a single piece of information.”

It was a sound argument, yet Cortez couldn\'t give in to it. At this point, an impasse was better than a loss. He left the room, locking the door and leaving Choi to have a laugh at his expense.

“I hate journalists,” the sergeant muttered as he left.

- - - - -

A small green car pulled up to a modest apartment building in the Minato ward of Tokyo. Out of the car stepped a middle-aged woman who dragged a large bag full of clothes behind her. It was the last thing she needed to move into her new place; after having some of her things go missing in her last move, she thought it best to take her personal items herself.

As she reached the door to her apartment, an envelope marked “Megumi Morisato” in Roman lettering caught her attention. “No one even knows I\'m here...who would send me mail?” She examined the small padded envelope and frowned, noting that the sender\'s address was left blank. Curiosity got the better of her, so she opened the envelope, finding a first-class ticket to New York. The frown turned into a sad smile. “Oh, Naya-chan,” she said fondly, “...what have you gotten yourself into now?”

- - - - -

Naya and Annette slowed down as they reached the entry to the staging area. Other than the fact that the surgical tent was taken down and moved, it seemed like business as usual in the vast space. People milled around performing various dutes, while this vehicle or that would occasionally prowl by taking someone to another wing of the compound.

The two women hid behind a large container. “Damn, I was hoping the surgical tent was still up,” Naya whispered. “There could\'ve been some useful information about you there.” Then she remembered the sheet Cortez showed her earlier on. “I know...there\'s a room here that they were going to take you to. If we go there, maybe we can find something.”

“Good...but we can\'t keep sneaking around dressed like this...at least, I can\'t.” Annette looked at her torn orange pajamas. “We\'re going to stand out so badly!”

Naya looked around and found a door marked “Stock Room”. “Luckily for you, I think we can get some nice off-the rack stuff!” She thought for a moment, then smiled. “Wait here for a moment...”

Annette watched with wonder as Naya simply strode across the room and walked to the stock room. The fact that no one noticed her boggled her mind. Soon the other woman returned with two lab coats.

“How did you do that? No one bothered to stop you!”

Naya smiled as she put on the white smock and removed the bottoms of her pajamas. “It\'s pretty easy for a cat. All you have to do is not do anything worth noticing. Remember when we first met? You didn\'t hear me coming, did you?”

“Yeah, but you came up behind me. I would\'ve seen you coming had I been facing the other way.”

“True,” Naya agreed, “but if your mind\'s occupied, like most people here, you won\'t notice a thing. Now, put on your coat, and follow me.” She helped Annette with her smock, and pointed for her to remove the pajama pants. “Orange kinda stands out. You might want to get rid of those.”

“But...it\'s kinda drafty without them. Besides, you just walked across the room in full orange pajamas!”

“I\'m a cat. I can walk quietly. You can\'t...you fidget too much. Now, let\'s go!”

The two women waited for a moment when no one\'s attention was focused in their direction, then they calmly walked out from behind the container. Naya\'s feet silently padded across the busy floor, while Annette shuffled to keep up. Soon the reporter fell in step with her companion, and their stroll across the room was nearly complete.

Annette looked up and saw a room with a light on. She followed the windows to a doorway, which stood in front of a stairway. “Let\'s go there. We might be able to find something.”

Without saying a word, Naya continued her pace, adjusting for the course correction. The two women reached the top of the staircase without abatement.

Seeing no one in the room, Naya opened the door and the two women walked in. It was a file room, with rows of cabinets facing away from a central desk. “You\'d think they\'d put this stuff on a computer or something,” Annette remarked.

“Could be they don\'t even trust their IT people. If so, why keep this door open?”

“You think Tesla knew we\'d come here?”

Naya looked through the cabinet labels until she stopped at the one marked \'1985\'. “I think you\'re right.” She rifled through the top drawer\'s files, stopping at a file marked with a black tab. As the others had more colorful tabs, this one caught her attention. “Looks like he even left a treat for us.”

Annette joined Naya at the desk, where they looked over the folder. The file held quite a few clipped groups of papers, each of which had a photo of a child attached to the front. The reporter picked a group of papers at random, and read through the information on the lead sheet. “I wonder if these kids all went through the same thing I did...”

Naya\'s face blanched when she saw one of the pictures. “I sure hope not...for your sake.”

Annette saw the shocked look on her partner\'s face. “Did you know her?”

“More than that, Annette...” the other woman whispered. “I killed her.”

“You what??”

Naya sat at the desk, her head buried in her arms. “It was an accident. My group was told that she was born with a small heart, and we wanted to find a way for her heart to grow at the same rate as the rest of her body. But the serum we created accelerated the natural regeneration process much too quickly. Her heart actually grew into her ribcage...and burst in her chest.” She let her head drop to the top of the desk. “It was horrible, Annette...we tried to help her, and we ended up killing her!”

“You...you tried to help her, Naya...” The blonde left the file on the desk and put her hand on the other woman\'s shoulder. “You could only do so much...”

“You don\'t understand, Annette...they lied to me—she was perfectly fine before we gave her the serum! They just wanted faster results, and played on our sympathies to kill a helpless child!!”

“You didn\'t know, Naya! Like you said, they lied to you! You can\'t blame yourself for that!”

“That\'s just it, Annette...we were so gung-ho about saving that girl, that we didn\'t fully test the serum. If we took even another day to run tests, we would have seen that it wouldn\'t have worked!”

Annette let Naya cry herself out, holding her and rocking her until her tears subsided. “Are the other kids in this file...are they dead, too?”

“I...I can\'t say for sure,” Naya answered, regaining her composure. She looked at more of the file, and saw something that caught her attention. “Do you remember anything about being on Plum Island?”

“No...why?”

“Because most of these kids were there, according to this. I guess it\'s safe to assume they were all used for some kind of testing, and that you were included with them.”

Annette\'s face brightened up. “So maybe my file is here, too?”

“I doubt it...remember, Tesla made it easy for us to come here—I think he wanted us to find this, but I doubt he wants us to find your file that easily.”

“So maybe we should find him?”

Naya looked at the blonde incredulously. “Now, why would you want to do a crazy thing like that?”

“Well, if he\'s really toying with us, I\'m guessing he wants to keep us busy while he does something else. He\'s keeping us occupied, Naya...he can get of us anytime he wants, but he\'s playing with us. Why?”

Naya followed Annette\'s train of thought. “I\'m thinking he doesn\'t have all the information on you that he wants, and he wants to see what\'s missing. Remember, you just learned yourself that you\'re practically indestructible.”

“But you\'d think he\'d know that already, considering he probably made me that way.”

“But what if he didn\'t?” Naya leafed through the folder once more. “What if it wasn\'t him, but Nikolai or someone else who headed the projects back then, and he\'s just now catching up? When I was with the project 25 years ago, we weren\'t in this place, so I\'d never come in contact with Peter. Hell, I didn\'t even know Tesla was around then...or if he even had a kid.” She found a page and took it out of the file, folding it and putting it in her pocket. “We have to get out of here. If he\'s gonna give us free reign in here, then it\'s best we find him before he does finish. And I think I know where...” She gathered the rest of the folder and put it back in the drawer.

“Where are we going?”

“To Plum Island. I think we\'ll get a lot more answers there.”

The two women left the room as it was, and headed down the stairs. “Naya...is it just me, or did it get really quiet in here all of a sudden?”

The other woman look over the railing of the staircase, and sure enough not one person was in the large room. “This can\'t be good...”

Suddenly the staircase shook violently, as if it had been hit by a truck. Both women were thrown from it; Naya landed on her feet, then barely avoided a tumbling Annette, who crashed into a large container.

“Annette! Are you alright?”

The reporter got up and shook her head. “I guess so...” She checked herself for wounds, but found none. “Yeah, I\'m okay...how \'bout you?”

“Fine...but if we\'re getting out of here, you\'re gonna have to pass Tesla\'s next experiment...” She pointed back to the stairs, where a growling Chimera was beating the ground with the staircase.

- - - - -

“You really should be charging pay-per-view prices for this, Tesla.” Cortez watched the feed from the room where Annette and Naya squared off against the Chimera on his laptop. “I was beginning to wonder why you let them go like that, but I can see the method to your madness.”

“There\'s nothing \'mad\' about it, Sergeant,” Peter snipped. “I just want to see if these two can be put to better use than the disposable dolls your agency wants.”

“Don\'t lump me in with those idiots! I just work for them...doesn\'t mean I\'m one of them.”

Peter laughed. “Oh, that\'s right. You have your own problems with them...especially a certain captain, if I remember correctly.”

“A problem that will soon be resolved, believe me.” Cortez took another look at the monitor. “Does she know about her real parents? I wouldn\'t think she\'d be happy.”

“No, and I intend to keep it that way...no matter how much her and that cat keep digging.”

“You know what they say about curiosity and cats, Tesla.”

“Let\'s see just how many lives she has left,” Peter said harshly.

- - - - -

“You ever fight one of those things, Naya?”

“Yeah, once...” the white-haired woman dodged a chair that was flung in her direction. “Let\'s just say I didn\'t end up on the good side, okay?”

“Thanks for the encouraging words.” Annette ran around the edge of the room, hoping to draw the Chimera\'s attention away from Naya. “Hey ugly! Come and get me!!” When the brute didn\'t acknowledge her, the blonde picked up stray chair and tossed it, hitting the monster in the back. “I said over here, stupid!!” That got his attention...for a second. “What\'s your problem??”

“Stop, Annette!” Naya finished her sentence just before ducking out of the way of the onrushing beast. It crashed into the wall, leaving a good-sized dent in it. “It\'s after me...if it\'s the same one we saw in Brooklyn, it\'s gonna ignore you competely!” She watched the Chimera shake off the blow and prepare for its next rush.

“Is that so? Well, I\'m gonna have to let him know I don\'t like being ignored!”

“Annette...what are you thinking? I hope you\'re not thinking of...”

She didn\'t get time to finish her sentence, as the blonde simply walked up to the monster and slapped it. Hard. Extremely hard. Hard enough to send its lower sliding away from its face and leaving it hang below its head.

“If that doesn\'t get his attention, nothing will!” Annette said proudly.

Naya wasn\'t sure if was her or the Chimera who was more surprised by Annette\'s actions. Both stared at the reporter with their jaws agape, though Naya still had the ability to close her mouth.

The monster wasn\'t happy about losing that ability. It let out an ear-piercing roar then glared at Annette.

“You happy now, Annette?”

The blonde didn\'t get a chance to respond, as the beast swatted at her, sending her flying across the cavernous room. She hit the ground hard, skidding to a stop against a wall.

“ANNETTE!!” Naya ran over to the slumped reporter, who coughed a bit as she tried to clear her head. “Are you alright?”

“That thing packs quite a wallop! How did you manage to fight it?”

Naya gave her partner a sheepish grin. “I\'d say \'fought\' wasn\'t exactly the word I used...it was more like \'evaded\'...” The two women looked in the direction where the monster was, only to see a blank spot. They looked all over the large room, but the Chimera disappered.

“Oh, now you\'re just cheating!” Annette yelled. “How do you expect me to hit you back when I can\'t even see you?”

“Allow me...” Naya lifted the bang over her right eye. “It\'s still here somewhere...it\'s using the camouflage to blend in again.”

“You mean like when it chased us in Brooklyn?”

“Right...hold on a minute.” She picked up a faint shadow of the beast holding its jaw, trying to align it with the rest of its face. Ah! Found you! “Annette, I want you to listen to me very carefully.”

“You have a plan?” the blonde said happily.

“That I do. When I tell you to, you\'re going to take a jump and hit that spot with all you got.” Naya pointed to a spot on the floor.

“You do know it can see me, right?”

“I\'m counting on it. It thinks it can see us, but we can\'t see it. That\'s why you\'re going to surprise it; it won\'t expect you to do that.”

Annette played the scene out in her head, and nodded in approval. “Sounds like a plan...let\'s do it!” She got up from the floor and took a fighting stance.

Naya shook her head disapprovingly. “You\'re supposed to be running, not fighting. Run. Jump. Then fight.”

Annette laughed, her cheeks flushing. “Oh, sorry. I\'m ready.”

“Okay, hold on...” Once again, Naya lifted the white bang over her right eye and found a good spot on the floor. “Ready...GO!”

Annette was off like a shot, spirnting across the floor before taking an enormous leap into the air, yelling like a mad woman as she jumped.

The Chimera was still trying to figure out how to re-hinge its jaw when it saw the blonde take flight. It wondered how a human could jump so high; it also wondered why a human would want to put a large crater in the floor, just as Annette just did. If it understood the concept of gratitude, the Chimera would be grateful that Annette\'s leap and devastating landing was terribly inaccurate.

Maybe that thought was a bit too much for the Chimera to bear, as its head began to pound—rather, something began to pound on it, hard and fast, one side then the other. The pain increased with every blow, making the beast how in pain. It tried to remove whatever it was that was bashing in its skull, but the beast\'s massive arms made that task impossible.

Naya had been giving the creature the brain-bashing of its life. She was alternating blows to its temples, holding on with her offhand to a mass of hair on top of the creature\'s head.

The Chimera wanted to rid itself from this pain as soon as possible. It fell to the floor, writhing in pain as it continued to try to grab the source of its pain from its head. Naya held fast, beating the beast with all she had. Soon the Chimera had had enough, and thought the best solution would be to run head-first into a wall.

Naya was so into her brain-bashing session that she didn\'t notice that the Chimera planned to bash its own head. Nor did she feel someone grab her before the beast crashed full-bore into the wall. She felt herself hit the ground and tumble a bit, before coming to a stop. The Chimera slumped against the wall as its head was inextricably lodged in. The beast twitched, made one last attempt to pull itself from the wall, then it slumped in silence.

Naya let out a huge sigh of relief, then wondered when she had grown another set of arms and legs. The extra set of limbs were wrapped around her, and there was an odd weight on her back. “Annette?” she asked in a dazed voice.

“You\'re welcome,” the blonde responded. “I really should\'ve let you hit the wall for pulling that trick on me, but since your plan worked, we\'re still alive and that thing is dead, I\'ll forgive you.”

“Thank you, Annette...and I\'m sorry for not telling you what my true intentions were.” Naya kept her eyes on the dead creature, so as not to have to face her friend. “I knew that you\'d want to go in and take it out by yourself, but it would\'ve seen you coming and probably rip your insides out. I didn\'t want that to happen, so I came up with that little diversion instead. I knew once you had its attention, I could attack it.”

Annette thought about the plan and, after some further consideration, agreed with it. “I\'m not crazy about the idea of you trying to beat it senseless by yourself; nor was I crazy about being a diversionary tactic, but it\'s much better than the alternative...it could have very well ripped my insides out, then come to kill you while I was regenerating.” The reporter stopped right there and thought about her sentence, letting out a chuckle. “Our little conversations are getting weirder and weirder, aren\'t they?”

Naya smiled, nodding in agreement. Naya felt Annette\'s arms begin to untangle themselves from around her, and she grabbed them and held them in place. She liked the feel of the position she was in, and saw no pressing reason for her to leave it.

- - - - -

Cortez closed the window on his laptop which showed the fight between the women and the monster, and maximized the window which contained the somewhat purturbed face of Peter Tesla.

“Hmmm...by that sour expression I\'m guessing you had money on the Chimera,” he said with a smile.

“Actually, I had expected this result,” Peter said in his usual matter-of-fact tone. “What bothered me was Miss Attaturk; her interference corrupted the data I sought.”

“You didn\'t expect Naya to just sit there and watch the Stanhope girl get mauled by that thing, did you?”

“No,” Peter answered, “but I would have liked to see what she was capable of without Naya assistance.”

“Unfortunately for you, it seems like they\'re a matched set now. You don\'t get one without the other.”

“That does complicate matters. I need to have them separated, but that is becoming increasingly difficult.”

Cortez grinned as his mind hatched a plan. “I have an idea...I would be able to take one of them off of your hands for you...or even both, if I may be so bold.”

“Bold? I\'d say \'insane\' would be a more fitting description! What would make you think I\'d want to part with both women, much less one of them?”

“What if I said I could provide you with the ultimate test/control subjects? This way, you can conduct your research on younger, untainted subjects, and I can control two...rogue experiments...before they go public.”

Peter\'s mind began to percolate. “You do make valid points, Sergeant Cortez. Let me think about it. Get me information on your, \'subjects\' as you called them, and I\'ll get back to you.” The window his face was in suddenly went black, signalling the end of the conversation.

Cortez grinned even wider. “Looks like we might have a trade. I best get my chips.” He pulled up another window, this one held a live video feed of Constanza sitting outside the Armbrister home. “Are we ready?”

“Just waiting for your word, sir. If I may be frank, sir, I would suggest commencing the operation within the next hour, as the targets will be waking up for school soon.”

“Good idea, Constanza. That\'s why you\'re my Number One.” Cortez saw the flush on the woman\'s cheeks, even as she tried to push the color back down. “Alright then...do it!”

“Understood, sir!”

- - - - -

The Armbristers were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of Alaska danced in their heads. Jean and Jenna had adjoining rooms, separated by a common sliding door. Each room was the mirror opposite in both layout and fashion sense, yet the twins shared the same penchant for sleeping facing towards their common door. After sleeping together in the same bed for years as children, they simply never grew out of the habit as teenagers. Jane once remarked that, when they get married to separate husbands and live miles away from each other, they\'ll probably still sleep facing each other.

Each of the twins\' rooms had a skylight built over their bed so the girls could watch the moon and stars before they fell asleep. Tonight, however, something was watching them.

After getting the go-ahead from Constanza, the local Raptor Unit made its move, splitting into two teams. One person from each team quietly removed the skylight windows and dropping a cannister of sleeping gas in each room. Then two members slipped in each of the rooms, gathered each of the girls, and sllipped out. Each team had one replaced the skylight window as the rest took the girls off of the roof. They gently laid each girl on the ground, gagged and bound them, and put them both in the back of one of the two SUVs that were parked in front of the house. When the last members left the roof, the Unit gathered in the other, and both drove off into the night.

The neighborhood—and the Armbrister home—was as quiet as it had been before the Raptor Unit. Not another creature stirred, not even a mouse.

- - - - -

“Owl Unit, reporting.”

Cortez smiled as he heard Constanza\'s voice come over the radio. “Check, Owl Unit. I take it you have good news to report?”

“We do, sir. Both packages secured without a problem.”

Cortez nodded in approval. “Take them both to Building 257. Park the van in the garage, and leave it there. I don\'t want to chance them seeing any landmarks once they wake up. We did police ourselves, did we not?”

“That we did, sir...not a trace was left behind.”

“Very good, Constanza. I might have to give you a raise for this. For now, get some well-deserved sleep. Pleasant dreams.”

“You...you too, sir. Owl Unit, out!”

- - - - -

Fresh off a win against the Chimera and a few hours sleep, Naya and Annette set off for a way out, and a ride to Plum Island. Naya was in her feline form, being carried by the reporter, who wore both lab coats in case her feline companion had a need to change back into human form.

“It\'s a good thing you\'re not heavy, otherwise you\'d be walking.”

The cat looked up at her handler. “I\'m too tired. I haven\'t eaten anything in awhile. You might not think it, but it takes a lot of energy to maintain that form!”

“So, maybe we should try finding some food before you cough up a hairball...or do whatever cats do when they get really hungry.”

Naya snickered. “We just revert to our basic feral instincts...and eat the closest food source we can find.” She put her head down and licked Annette\'s hand. “Mmm...tasty!”

“Very funny,” the blonde said with a smirk. “I\'m beginning to wonder how you\'d taste with barbecue sauce...or dipped in chocolate...”

“You might want to wait until I change back into human form before you try out your latest fetish, Miss Stanhope!”

Annette suddenly found it hard to get the image of Naya dressed in chocolate-covered lingere out of her head. Thankfully the sound of an oncoming jeep helped her out of her midnight fantasy.

“Uh-oh...here\'s comes trouble.” Naya squirmed a bit and tried her best to look cuddly and cute.

“Stay like that,” Annette whispered. “I can use that!”

“Can I help you with anything, Ma\'am?” one of the guards asked. “You look like you could use some assistance,” he pointed glanced at Annette\'s blond hair, which was a total mess due to the fight.

“Oh, you have no idea! I\'ve been chasing this one all over the base for hours—you have no idea what hell is until you tried chasing a cat!--and now look at me...I\'m a mess, and I\'m starving!” She looked down at Naya, who was sandwiched between Annette\'s breasts. “It\'s all your fault! Bad kitty!”

The guard couldn\'t help but look where the cat had been, no matter how flustered it made him. “Well, I, uh...I could take you both to the commisary. I\'m sure they still have something open, as night-shift folks like you gotta eat too, right?”

“You\'re so right, sir!” Annette leaned forward, giving the guard a better view. Even the driver of the jeep had to take a peek for himself. “I\'ll just hop in the back. Thank you ever so much for your help!”

Weapons of mass distraction, Naya thought to herself. When I get my lab back, the first thing I\'m gonna do is find the breast enhancement gene.

=====

End of Chapter 9

=====

Disclaimer: Though mentioned in the following chapter, Plum Island, NY and the complex formerly known as the Biological Animal Research Center have never been visited by me, therefore any experiments that may or may not have been carried out there are of a speculative nature only.  Oh, and I haven\'t read "Plum Island" by Nelsom DeMille, either.  Just though I should mention that in advance.

Ikimashou!

=====

Chapter 10: Two Birds in the Hand

=====

“You better have a very good reason for interrupting my research at this hour, Cortez!”

The sergeant looked at the image of a near-snarling Peter on his laptop, and couldn\'t help himself from sniggering.

“What is it that you find so funny?”

“I\'m sorry, Tesla,” Cortez said, catching his breath. “It\'s just that you\'re beginning to sound like quite the mad scientist! I wonder if you had a really evil laugh in your repetoire...”

The only reply the sergeant got to that was a cold, angry stare. “...maybe not.” He cleared his throat and took on an air of seriousness. “Well then, I may have something to put a smile on your face.” He held up a picture of twin redhead girls, both dressed in school uniforms.

Peter looked at the photo, then snubbed his nose at it. “You do know you could get arrested for what you\'re thinking, Cortez.”

“What I find interesting is that you were thinking of that...glad to see you\'re not completely messed up in the head.” The sergeant moved the photo from Tesla\'s view. “Those are the \'research subjects\' I mentioned to you earlier.”

“Twins, eh?” Tesla pondered the idea for a moment. It wasn\'t every day that one had the opportunity to use twin guinea pigs without creating them yourself...and since human cloning is still in its infancy, having someone drop a viable set of twins in your lap was quite the feat. “I assume you wish for me to simply turn Attaturk and Stanhope over to you in exchange for the twins, correct?”

“Correct,” Cortez echoed. “Think of it as trading known qualitites for limitless potential.”

“That would be an incorrect assumption, as Stanhope\'s potential has not been fully realized.”

“Alright then...think of it as you being able to put your own stamp on science. Create your own experiment, using one as a test and the other as the control. It\'s a rare opportuinty, Tesla...you shouldn\'t pass this up.”

“Will you shut up if I take these girls off of your hands?”

“No...but you won\'t have to talk to me at all after this. So in a way, you get your wish.”

That fact alone brought a smile to Peter\'s thin lips. “Fine, then. Deliver the twins to me, and I will have the other two sent to you. I do have one request, however.”

“And that is?”

“That they remain silent about what is happening here. If word gets out about Camp Hero or Plum Island, or any of our affiliated facilities, I want them both terminated immediately. Are we clear?”

That condition made Cortez pause: It would practically amount to him giving away the Armbrister twins for nothing. As he was interested in the abilities of Naya and Annette, he wasn\'t about to eliminate them. That would be his little secret; like the newspaper editor Choi said, word would get out sooner or later. To Cortez, it was more important to protect himself and his units, than to cover the butts of people he really didn\'t like in the first place.

“You have a deal, Tesla.”

“If I may ask a question, Sgt. Cortez...why these particular twins?”

The black-clad man\'s face took on a dour expression. “Let\'s just say I have a score to settle. A little revenge that needed to be served, that\'s all.”

“Now who\'s the mad one?” Peter\'s screen went dark.

Cortez folded down the lid of his laptop, and folded his hands behind his head. There was no rush to deliver the twins, so he felt a bit of sleep would do him good. It would definitely get the idea of what Capt. Armbrister did to him out of his head...if only for a little while.

- - - - -

The comissary was practically empty, save for a couple of late-night snackers. Naya and Annette were both very grateful for the kindness of the kitchen staff, who provided them with a nice meal.

“Yeah, if you consider a dollop of tuna a nice meal,” Naya said, staring at her food as she sat on the floor.

“What were you expecting, a T-bone steak?” Annette bit into a prawn, savoring the buttery flavor.

“You could at least give me a couple of those. I\'m a growing cat, you know! I need to eat a lot!”

The reporter looked around to see if anyone was looking, then she beckoned Naya to jump up to the chair next to her. She then took a prawn off her plate and fed it to the calico cat. “Say \'ahhh\'!”

Naya pouted...as much as a cat can pout. “Are you serious? You actually want me to beg for my food?”

“Aw, come on, Naya! You\'ll look cute doing it...and it adds to our cover.” Seeing that the cat was still unhappy about the idea, Annette brought out the trump card. “Please...for me?”

There\'s no way anyone could resist someone who uses that line. It\'s ever harder to do when you\'re looking into beautiful blue eyes like Annette\'s. Naya let out a big sigh and opened her mouth wide. “Ahhh.”

The blonde squealed with joy as she watched the cat take the shrimp in its mouth. “You\'re so adorable!!”

“First let me eat this shrimp...then you can kill me, okay?” Naya had to admit, though, that the prawn was worth losing a little dignity for. She devoured the crustacean, then looked at Annette. “Can I please have another?”

The reporter looked back at the cat like a mother scolding her child.

Another sigh from Naya. “The things I do for love...ahhh!”

As the two friends were enjoying their meal—Annette more than Naya—a tone sounded over the PA system. “Your attention please, your attention please! Naya Attaturk and Annette Stanhope please report to Dock 2 immediately...Repeating, Naya Attaturk and Annette Stanhope please report to Dock 2 immediately. Thank you!”

“You think someone knows we want to go to Plum Island?”, Annette asked.

Naya finished the last of her prawn. “Yes...and I think that person is our Mr. Tesla. I wonder what little test he has planned for us this time.” She jumped down from the chair and went back to the plate of tuna, receiving a cross look from Annette. “What? I need all the food I can get!”

- - - - -

Soon Annette exited the comissary, Naya once again bundled against her chest. A jeep awaited their arrival.

“Excuse me,” said the driver. “Are you Miss Stanhope or Miss Attaturk?”

“I\'m Miss Stanhope...this would be Miss Attaturk.” The blonde pointed to the cat-head sticking out of her bosom.

“Ah...okay...I\'ve been ordered to pick you both up and take you to Dock 2. Please get in.”

Annette got in the front passenger side. “Do you know where we\'re going from there?”

“I\'m sorry ma\'am, I\'m just supposed to take you to the dock. What happens after that, I have no idea.” He watched as the blonde had trouble wrapping the seatbelt around her. “Do you need some help, ma\'am?”

“Maybe it would be better if I sat in the back,” Naya said as she found her way out of Annette\'s cleavage and jumped in the back seat. “Pass me a lab coat, will you?”

Annette fumbled a bit before taking off one of the two coats she was wearing, tossing one in the back of the jeep. She then turned to the driver. “Keep your eyes on the road, soldier...”

The man wanted to say something about a talking cat, but that thought was completely lost when a woman with mostly white hair sat up in the back seat of his jeep, straightening the collar on her lab coat. “Can you buckle up now, Annette?”

The blonde had a much easier time getting the seatbelt around her. “Much better! You might want to strap yourself in as well, Naya...this poor guy might have a bit of trouble remembering what he\'s supposed to be doing.”

Naya leaned over and spoke in the driver\'s ear. “Dock 2, and step on it!”

“Y-y-yes, Ma\'am!!” The jeep peeled away from the comissary and into the night, the laughter of the two women on board drowned out by the squeal of burnning rubber.

- - - - -

The jeep arrived at the badly lit Dock 2, where two other vehicles were waiting.

“I don\'t like the looks of this, Naya,” Annette said over her shoulder.

“I\'m with you...all we need is a cargo ship and guys in Armani suits, and it would scream \'drug deal\', wouldn\'t it?” Naya\'s hair frizzed a bit, as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

“It seems everyone\'s here, then. Time to get this little party started.”

The two women turned to see a tall, wiry man step out of a black SUV.

\'Cortez,” Naya hissed. “What\'s going on here?”

“All in good time, kitten. I want to say hello to your friend.” The black-clad man stepped over to Annette\'s side of the jeep. “I am Sgt. Guillermo Cortez,” he said with a bow. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Stanhope.”

The reporter all but ignored his grandiose introduction. “Naya...you know this guy?”

The other woman kept an eye on Cortez. “Yes, unfortunately. We met while you were recouperating. It was he and his people who were after us.”

“No, dear kitten, you have that wrong,” Cortez interrupted. “We were simply trying to collect you—someone else actually wanted you, but now he has bigger problems to deal with.”

Annette unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to face the tall man. “So, what do you want with us, Mr. Cortez?”

“I have an offer for you both—especially you, Miss Stanhope—but I\'ll get to that in a bit. First, business must be conducted.” Cortez left the jeep and went up to where a second black SUV was parked. “Are we going to talk out here, or do I have to go in there?”

The door opened and Peter Tesla stepped out. “I hate the idea of meeting in the dark of night like a group of hoodlums.”

“You have no sense of atmosphere, Tesla,” Cortez said with a mock frown. “Nice to see you\'ve held up your part of the bargain.”

“Now it\'s time for you to hold up your end, Cortez. Where are they?”

“Patience, Tesla, patience...” He waved to his driver, and the man lifted the hatch on the back of his SUV. “Now...you can go see for yourself.”

Because of the angle the SUV was parked in, Neither Annette nor Naya had a good view of what was in it. “Somehow, I don\'t think this is a drug deal.”

Just as she said that, Tesla stepped over to the van and pulled out an ambulance gurney. Strapped to the top of it was a redhead who appeared to be completely motionless.

“Are they trading us for cadavers??” Annette asked. When the second girl was removed from the van, the reporter\'s eyes widened. “Okay...let me rephrase that: Are they trading us for twin cadavers??”

“That\'s beyond sick!” Naya interjected.

“I agree,” Tesla added. “I did not ask for dead bodies!”

Cortez joined Tesla at the back of the van, examining the two redheads. “They\'re not dead...simply tranquilized. They\'re in a very deep sleep. I will give you the drug to wake them shortly.”

“So, they are unharmed otherwise?”

Cortez waved off the smaller man\'s concerns. “Not a bit...they\'ll be a bit disoriented when they wake up, but that\'s because they think they\'re still in their rooms fast asleep.”

“You\'re nothing if not effective, Cortez.”

“Excuse us,” Annette chimed in. “But what exactly is going on here? Are we being traded for those two girls? And to whom?”

Naya assessed the situation. “Well, since it\'s Tesla who seems to be getting the twins, I guess we\'re ending up with Cortez. The good news is that, whatever Tesla wanted to do with us seems to have taken less precendence to those two ladies. The bad news is we don\'t know what Cortez wants with us...it could actually be something worse.”

“Oh, no,” Cortez cut in. “It definitely won\'t be worse. Trust me, you won\'t want to be where those two are going...unless you\'ve already been there, right kitten?”

Naya ignored the man\'s leering looks. “What are you going to do with them, Tesla?”

“Whatever I want!” He looked over the girls, then turned his attention to Cortez. “You don\'t have any paperwork on them, do you?”

“Oh, no...completely untraceable. In fact, their parents won\'t even know they\'re gone until they wake up tomorrow morning.”

“Those poor girls!” Annette exclaimed. “We can\'t let this happen, Naya!”

“There\'s not a lot we can do about it,” the other woman said dejectedly. “Even if we fought with these guys and managed to release them, where would we take them?”

Annette pursed her lips and threw herself back into the seat of the jeep. Cortez came back to her side of the vehicle. “I know you want to save them, but that\'s not your job right now. Right now, you both belong to me. I\'ll take you back to New York, then I\'ll tell you what your new roles are.”

“We were actually in the middle of something here, Cortez,” Naya spat. “There\'s some information we need to find.”

“You wouldn\'t be referring to the truth behind Miss Stanhope\'s birth, would you?”

Both women stared at Cortez in disbelief. “How did you know?” Annette asked.

“Because I was also interested...while we were tracking the kitten there, we noticed that you suddenly became a constant part of the picture. So we did some digging on you; the more we dug, the more interesting you became. Your miracle recovery after the car crash made you a priority, and your fight against that brutish monster...well, let\'s just say you two make a pretty good team. A team I want on my side.”

Naya continued to glare at the man. “Asking us directly just wasn\'t your style, huh?”

“The circumstances didn\'t permit it, kitten. I was originally hired to capture Naya by someone else, but since I actually hate the man, I had planned to use the kitten against him. Now I have two weapons instead of one. Worked out well for me, if I do say so myself.”

Annette was a good jump away from ripping into the black-clad man. “And what made you think we\'d comply with whatever orders you gave us? We don\'t owe you anything, and you\'re not paying us enough!”

“True on both counts, Miss Stanhope, but I have ways of convincing people to work for me...or at the very least, agreeing with me.” He waved his arm over to Tesla, who was happily watching his new lab rats being re-loaded into the SUV for transport. “He\'s a difficult man to please, so working with him requires knowing which button to press in order to make him happy. I can do the same for you both.”

“And how exactly do you plan to do that?” Naya asked pointedly.

“It\'s simple, really. Miss Stanhope needs information, which I have. You, kitten, need Miss Stanhope, whom I also have. As she also desires you, and I have you as well, I\'d say I have you both pretty well covered. Should either of you disobey me in any way, two sides of that pretty little triangle will disappear.”

“So if I fought against you, you\'d kill Annette and destroy her information...”

“...and if I fought you, you\'d kill Naya and keep the truth about my past away from me.”

Cortez smiled broadly. “I\'m glad to see we\'re all on the same page.”

Both women looked at each other and laughed. “Are you serious?” Naya caught her breath, then continued. “You could kill us, but we\'d both come back. I\'m not telling you what life I\'m up to right now, but I have a feeling my girlfriend here is more than capable enough to rip you to pieces numerous times!”

Annette nodded in agreement, then stopped in mid-nod. “Girlfriend!?! Does that mean we\'re officially a couple now?”

Naya smiled and blushed. “Why not? Considering what we\'ve been through, I can\'t see any reason why we can\'t be.”

Before Annette could reply, Cortez cut in. “Before you two start picking out wedding dresses, I\'d like to reply to that little threat. I have snipers trained on both of you as we speak. I can disable either of you at a moment\'s notice, contain you and have you carted away before either of you respawn. So, even if you do kill me, I already have someone else in place to handle you both.” He smiled smugly at the two women, who looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. “Are you ready to comply now?”

“I hate thorough people,” Annette griped. “So, where are we going?”

“To confirm a few things...” Cortez beckoned the two women to leave the jeep and follow him. He led them to a small motorboat, which had an ample number of armed guards aboard. “Next stop: Plum Island!”

- - - - -

The editor of the New York Courier surveyed the damage to his office. Just about every inch of the place was taken apart; every drawer, every piece of furniture, even the window sills were pryed open and searched. The disarray of the room matched the dishevled look of its owner, who was both haggard from lack of sleep, and ragged from the rough treatment he received at the hands of Cortez. Even with all this, William Choi had reason to smile. The evidence he had been given by Naya was already gone by the time Cortez\'s unit showed up, sent down an old mail chute used for only the most sensitive material. By the time the unit had finished tearing up the office, the mail was already sent out for the day, so even if Cortez\'s men thought to look in the mailroom, they\'d have found nothing but letters to the editor.

Choi found a spot on one of the windowsills that hadn\'t been chewed up and sat there, further surveying the damage. His source still hadn\'t been revealed, his paper was still running, and he still had his life. Losing a few pieces of furniture in the process meant nothing compared to that. “Maybe I should take the cost of refurbishing this out of Stanhope\'s salary...whenever she gets back.”

- - - - -

It didn\'t take long to get to the small, nondescript patch of land known as Plum Island, but the number of Coast Guard ships greeting the small motorboat Naya and Annette rode on gave the women the impression they were entering an unfriendly country.

The blonde looked at the stern faces of the men on the approaching boats. “This can\'t be good...”

“Agreed,” Naya said with a nod. “If that\'s the welcoming committee, I\'d hate to see what the house-warming party\'s like.”

Cortez\'s boat pulled up to the first boat, and the tall man himself waved to the captain. After taking out his wallet and showing the contents, the Coast Guard boat pulled up behind the motorboat, serving as an escort through the rest of the mini-fleet.

“I wonder who he kidnapped to get that kind of clearance,” Naya joked, while her partner just looked on in awe.

The motorboat\'s escort peeled off as it pulled into a small dock. Cortez collected the women and led them to a jeep. “This will take you to your next destination. I suggest you not try to leave the jeep, as there are some things running loose in this island I wouldn\'t want to bump into...even in broad daylight. Have a good night\'s sleep, and I\'ll rejoin you tomorrow.”

“Wait,” Annette said, a worried look on her face. “You\'ve brought us here, and you\'re not staying?”

Cortez turned and boarded the boat again. “Hell, no! I hate this place!” The boat left the dock without an escort, as Annette and Naya stared at the darkness that awaited them.

“I would have loved to take you to a nice little island for our honeymoon,” Naya said with a half-smile, “but this wasn\'t exactly what I had in mind.”

Annette gave her new girlfriend a hug. “At least we\'re together...that\'s what matters.”

“You keep saying that, and it\'s gonna end up on our tombstones.”

“This way please, ladies.” The driver of the jeep was a gruff older man who didn\'t seem to have much patience. “What Cortez said is right; this isn\'t the place for lolly-gagging.”

The women piled into the back of the jeep, strapping themselves in. “Annette, when was the last time you lolly-gagged?”

“Me? I\'ve never gagged a loli in my life!”

The comment got a weird look from the driver, and more than a few giggles from Naya.

After driving through some surprisingly dense forest, the jeep reached a clearing and stopped at a short building surrounded by a tall fence. “You\'ll be staying here for the night,” the driver said. “Sign in, and go to the first room on your right. There\'s a shower if you like, and there\'ll be breakfast in the morning. Otherwise, don\'t leave the building...seriously. Don\'t do it.” The driver waited until both women left the jeep, then left without another word.

Annette couldn\'t resist mimicking a famous line from one of her favorite movies. “Gosh, people come and go so quickly around here!”

Naya was not amused. “Let\'s just go inside, Dorothy, before we get attacked by flying monkeys or something.”

“Don\'t laugh,” the blonde replied. “They probably have them here!”

=====

End of Chapter 10

=====

Disclaimer: Nothing to worry about here...just go read!

Ikimashou!

=====

Chapter 11: Comings and Goings

=====

Captain Ed Armbrister had his first good night\'s sleep in quite awhile. For the first time in months, the vision of a smirking Naya didn\'t haunt his dreams; rather, it was the smiles of his daughters and wife, standing against the breathtaking backdrop of a beautiful Alaskan landscape. Unfortunately for him, that happy dream didn\'t last long.

A loud scream woke the captain from his pleasant dream, followed by the sound of his wife bursting their bedroom door open. “Ed!! Wake up!! The girls are missing!!”

“What?” the man said, still groggy.

“I just came from their room,” Elena said, her heart racing. “Their beds are a mess, but they\'re nowhere to be found. I\'ve checked everywhere!”

Had this been any other day, Ed would just chalk this up to Jenna getting her sister to join her on some fit of rebellion, or Jane getting her sister to school early for once. But as they were scheduled for a trip today, and it was a Saturday to boot, things didn\'t exactly add up.

The captain was about to call the police when he remembered something that sent a chill up his spine. It was the conversation he had with Cortez, right after he assigned the man to catch Naya:

“By the way, sir...your daughters are quite beautiful. I wonder how they\'d look with cat\'s eyes...or worse...”

“He couldn\'t have...” Ed hurriedly got dressed and set off to check the security alarm. When he saw that it hadn\'t been activated he cringed. “Of course not, they\'re know what they\'re doing.” He then went to Jane\'s room and checked her windows. When he didn\'t find anything, he stood and stared at the ceiling...and wanted to smack himself silly for not thinking about that first.

“Elena...call the security company. Tell them we need an upgrade.”

The captain\'s wife stared at her husband, dumbfounded. “But what about the girls, Ed?”

“I know where they are...I\'ll take care of it.” The captain grabbed his cellphone and his keys, and was out of the driveway in a hurry.

Elena knew better not to ask questions when her husband set out to take matters in his own hands. That meant things were out of the realm of local law enforcement, and that meant she should stay out of his way.

- - - - -

Annette had just come out of the shower when she heard a knock at the door. “Can you get that, Naya?”

When she got no response from her girlfriend, she huffed and answered the door herself. “Who is it?”

“Breakfast, Ma\'am,” came the muffled reply, a female voice.

“Whoa...we even get maid service here?” She opened the door and was startled by what she saw.

“Good morning, Ma\'am. I hope you enjoy today\'s breakfast. It was especially designed for yourself and Miss Attaturk. My name is Lupe...short for Guadalupe. Please feel free to call for me if you need anything.”

The fact that the woman was extremely polite was nearly lost on Annette. The fact that the woman had fox ears behind her bright red hair, and was swishing a thick red, white-tipped tail behind her maid outfit wasn\'t lost on the blonde whatsoever.

“Um, Naya...” the reporter drawled, her eyes never leaving those of the newcomer. “...could you come out here for a moment, please?”

The taller woman stormed out of the bedroom of the suite, tying the sash on a robe she hastily put on. “My goodness...can\'t a woman groom herself without someone calling for her at all hours of the...” Her entire expression changed when she saw the maid. “Lupe!!”

“Miss Naya? Is that really you?? You haven\'t changed a bit!”

“The benefit of having nine lives...you get to age much slower than everyone else!” The two women shared a laugh, much to the dismay of the third party in the room.

Annette sidled up to her partner. “Is there something I should know about you two...better yet, is there something I shouldn\'t know?”

The maid blushed, leaving Naya to handle the explanation. “This is Guadalupe...as you can see, she\'s a kitsuneko—a fox-girl. I took care of her in my previous life...she was just a cub back then. Unlike myself, she was a kitsuneko from the beginning...genetically engineered in vitro. She\'s the first of her generation.”

“And one of the few who has progressed enough to be gainfully employed!” Lupe said proudly. She then addressed Annette, not wanting the blonde to feel left out of the conversation. “That is thanks to Miss Naya. She taught me a lot when I was little...including the idea of always doing my best and exceeding expectations!”

A proud Naya blushed furiously. “You\'ve grown up to be so beautiful! Look at you!”

Lupe did a twirl and bowed when she faced Naya again. “Thank you, Ma\'am!”

“And such a proper lady, too! Do you run this place by yourself?”

“Oh, yes. It\'s quite easy, since I don\'t usually have customers. You two are the first people I\'ve had here in about six months...not counting Sgt. Cortez.”

Annette\'s smile soured at the mention of his name. “So you\'ve had the pleasure of his acquaintance as well, huh.”

“Yes. I do not wish to speak ill of any of my guests, but...I\'ll just say he isn\'t my favorite.”

“Yeah...I can understand why.” The reporter then thought about something the redhead has said earlier. “You said you were the first of your generation...are there others on this island?”

“Of course,” Lupe answered. “Not all are as progressed as I am, though. Some haven\'t turned out so well, and roam the island. That\'s why we have the fence—to keep them out. On the other hand, some have become quite adept at working with and alongside humans. Even now, they are assistants in the humane centers.”

Annette turned to Naya for an explanation.

“Ah...the so-called \'animal humane centers\'...where we were supposed to care for injured and endangered animals, and do testing to find ways to make life easier not only for wildlife, but for common household pets as well.” Naya stuck out her tongue and brushed it with her upper lip, as if to wipe the taste of the words off. “I don\'t need to tell you what a load of bull that is, do I?”

Annette looked at both Naya and Lupe, and shook her head. “No...the evidence to the contrary is standing right before me...not to mention my own little problem.”

“You too?” Lupe jumped in. “What did they do to you?”

“That\'s what we\'re trying to find out, Lupe.” Naya took her girlfriend\'s hand in hers. “All we know is that she\'s insanely strong, and that her body had the ability to regenerate itself.”

The maid thought for a moment. “I don\'t know any animal that can do that, but there were some humans they tried to do that with. They all went mad after awhile, though. Something about some hormone that drove them to be exceedingly violent or something like that.”

Naya had a hunch. “Were they all male?” When Lupe nodded affirmatively, Naya held Annette\'s hand a bit tighter. “Now I know why they want to watch you so closely. It seems testosterone doesn\'t mix well with the serum.”

“I\'m just glad they didn\'t use it on another woman,” the reporter said. “Could you imagine what a room full of super-strong, pissed off women having their period at the same time would be like?”

Lupe blanched, then giggled. Naya just rolled her eyes. “It would take you to think of something like that!”

“Naya...I know I should not be asking this of you, as it is probably well out of the realm of possibility...but I have a request of you and Miss Stanhope.”

“Please, call me Annette! You\'re not our maid, you\'re our friend!”

Naya nodded in agreement. “And we love to help our friends. What can we do for you?”

The maid fidgeted as she tried to word her requests carefully. “Well, there\'s two things, if I may be so bold to ask two favors instead of one. Firsr, I hope you can find some way to close this place. The suffering that goes on here is interminable, and the ones lucky enough to survive are nothing more than animals to be hunted, or slaves made to work long hours for nothing.”

Naya smiled. “Oddly enough, we\'re working on that as we speak. However, I\'m worried about the ones who are not feral; if they are left to their own devices, can they fend for themselves?”

“Yes, we can! We have been using what we\'ve learned to plan for the day when we can care for ourselves. Our hope is to take over this island and live here; as no one else ever comes here, I doubt we\'ll be bothered by anyone.”

“Makes perfect sense to me, especially since I\'m sure the government won\'t want anyone digging up anything here.” Annette beamed a confident smile. “We\'ll do it, Lupe...and if we don\'t, I\'m sure we know someone who will, right Naya?”

The other woman nodded. “In fact, if my message got through, she should be on her way to the Courier in a day or two.”

The reporter\'s eyes widened. “Really? That\'s wonderful! See Lupe? We\'re already on the case!”

Lupe\'s amber eyes were already tearing up before she got the answer she had hoped for, so it was a logical next step for the dam to burst. She rushed to Naya and wrapped her arms around the tall woman, practially knocking Annette out of the way in the process.

“You\'re welcome...?” the blonde said, a hint of sarcasm and a dash of jealousy added for good measure.

Naya waved off her partner\'s look of protest. Once the maid composed herself, Naya asked, “So...what was the second request?”

“When you leave...when you both leave...can you take me with you?” Before either one could protest, Lupe was already listing the pros and cons of such a request. “Now, I know someone like me would be very hard to hide in public, so I\'d work for you, Naya, as your maid! I\'ll clean your house, cook your meals, and take care of you in any way possible!”

Annette cut her off. “Hold on a minute! Have you seen her place? Dust is afraid to go there! You\'d have nothing to clean...she eats mostly fast food, too! As for the \'taking care of her part\', well...” She roughly grabbed Naya by the waist and kissed her forcibly on the lips, as if to burn her seal on them. “I think I\'ve got that covered!”

Lupe\'s fox-ears drooped as her face folded into a frown. “Oh...” Then she took another look at Annette\'s position with Naya—and remembered the kiss. “Oh!! I\'m so sorry, Miss Annette! I did not mean to come between you two!”

“Don\'t mind her, Lupe,” Naya said with a chuckle. “We\'re new at this, so she hasn\'t had a chance to mark her territory yet...right, dear?”

Annette relaxed her hold on her girlfriend, but just enough to keep one hand gently on her waist.

“But I do have a better idea...since my place is empty, and I\'ll be staying with Annette, you can stay there. And since it\'s in the Village, I\'d doubt anyone would give you a hard time.” Naya looked at Annette with a smirk. “I think she\'d be better off working at our apartment, seeing as it really does need professional maintenance.”

“Well, that is a good idea...hey! What are you trying to infer, here?”

Lupe took the reporter\'s free hand. “Please, Miss Annette...let me work for you? I won\'t cause a problem, and I\'ll keep your place spotless and make wonderful meals for you both! Please!”

The blonde fought hard not to, but there was just no turning down an offer like that. “Fine, you can come!” Lupe was about to throw herself at Naya again, but Annette stepped in the way. “Hey! Hands off! That\'s the first rule, okay?”

“Yes, Ma\'am—I mean, yes, Miss Annette!!” The redhead bowed and stepped backwards towards the door. “Thank you both, and enjoy your breakfast!” She closed the door behind her, but the squeal of happiness she let out was still loud enough be heard across the island.

“She\'s a nice girl, Naya...she must have been fun to train back in the day...Naya?”

The white-haired woman was staring at her with an odd expression, and two fingers pressed to her lips.

“What is it, Naya?”

“You kissed me.”

Annette looked at the other woman in shock. “I did?? When did I do that?”

“Oh, about ten lines of dialogue ago. Think back a couple minutes.”

The shorter woman did as she was told, and came to a startling revelation. “I...I did, didn\'t I?”

Naya\'s lips curled into a pout. “It\'s bad enough you don\'t remember our first kiss...it\'s even worse that you didn\'t even do it right.”

“I\'m...I\'m so sorry, Naya! Please, let me make it up to you!”

“You\'d better...\'cause you have a lot of making up to do!” She let Annette kiss her again, much more tenderly this time. Soon she began to laugh into the kiss, and the blonde slapped her upside the back of the head.

“Knock it off...I\'m trying to make this memorable!”

“Oh yeah,” Naya said with a wide grin. “I\'ll definitely remember this!”

- - - - -

Capt. Armbrister pulled into the parking lot of the Water Street Power Plant which doubled as a sattelite base of operations for The Zoo. Upon entering his office, he was met by Cortez, who had been chatting with the receptionist. “What is the meaning of this?” he barked.

“That depends,” the tall man answered, excusing himself from the woman as the front desk. “Let\'s go into your office and discuss the matter. I doubt it would be fit for some ears to hear.”

Armbrister bit his tongue, then stared at his secretary. “No calls, no anything until I come out, you hear me?”

“Y-y-yes sir!”

The two men went into the room, and the captain slammed the door shut, nearly jarring his nameplate right out of its bindings.

“I\'ll only ask you this once again,” the captain said with a scowl. “Where are my daughters?”

Cortez was unfazed by Armbrister\'s bluster. “I\'m sure you don\'t really need me to tell you where, do you?”

“If you think I\'m gonna sit here and let my girls be guinea pigs for those experiments, you\'ve got another thought coming!”

“So, it\'s fine when it\'s someone else\'s kids or pets, but it\'s suddenly a horrible thing when your own daughters are involved, isn\'t it?”

“Get them out of there right now, Cortez...or so help me I\'ll--”

“You\'ll what?” the other man interrupted. “Send me to Camp Hero? I\'ve already been there, remember? Me and my sister...only I came out alive, which is more than I can say for her...thanks to you!”

Armbrister just stared at the man, dumbfounded. “What the hell are you talking about, Cortez? You were never a subject at Camp Hero!”

“No, but I\'ve been there many times, gathering the garbage your people couldn\'t keep to yourselves. Doing your dirty work...until I found some information that pissed me off. You didn\'t know I had a sister, did you?”

“No, and why should I care?”

The captain\'s flippant atitude only served to enrage Cortez. “For the same damn reason you should care about your daughters, you heartless bastard!” He was an inch from tearing the other man\'s head off, but he wanted him to know the hell that awaited him first. “My sister died at the hands of your researchers, Armbrister...at the hands of Naya Attaturk!”

“Then why aren\'t you out to kill her? Why are you taking your revenge on me?”

“Because she isn\'t at fault...YOU ARE!” Without warning, Cortez moved across the room and landed a punch squarely on Armbrister\'s jaw, sending the man crashing into a library cabinet. “She was trying to HELP her, but you and your cronies rushed her, and your impatience killed my sister!”

“You\'re mad, Cortez!! Completely insane! I have no idea of what you\'re talking about!”

“That\'s because you always thought of those horrendous experiments in terms of military successes and failures; you never thought of the people—the children—involved!”

Armbrister found his footing and stood, leaning against his desk and staring right back at Cortez. “That\'s all that mattered...you know better than anyone else that we\'re in the results business. Failure is never an option, and neither is attachment! As far as your so-called sister goes, we have no record of her being here at all, much less her being killed by us!”

“Ah, but you do, dear captain!” Cortez reached under his black military jacket and pulled out a folder marked “CONFIDENTIAL”, with “1985” written on a tab. “Does this look familiar to you at all? Or is denial and debunk the rule at The Zoo?”

Armbrister took a casual glance at the top of the folder. “I\'ve never seen that before in my life. We in the upper ranks never see any of the paperwork. We have other people who handle that. So even if you show me a moutain of evidence, I can\'t confirm having anything to do with any of it.”

“That\'s a nice little system you have there,” Cortez said coldly. “Makes all of you inexcusable and irresponsible for anything that goes on...legally. But I\'m holding you responsible, because I know for certain that you had something to do with it! I know you were there, Armbrister, and I know you gave the order for the kitten and her team to rush the serum. You want to know how I know all of this?”

The captain stood and smiled smugly. “Being that you can\'t prove a word of it, why not? How do you think you know about all this, Cortez?”

“Because you sent me to get rid of the kitten yourself. That\'s why!” Cortez opened the folder and pulled out a sheet of information which had a picture of a little girl with black hair and shining black eyes on it. “This was my sister Diana. She was only five years old when she was abducted from our family. We agonized for years as the police searched for her, only to come up with nothing. They gave up after three years, but I never did. I swore I would find her, and I did everything in my power to do so; getting good grades, joining the military out of college, excelling enough to join the SEALs...even getting my own special team. All this, and I still couldn\'t find her...until you sent me after Naya Attaturk. The more I looked her up, the more I connected to her partner, Annette Stanhope.”

“Who the hell is that? Never heard of her...”

Cortez scoffed at the captain\'s ignorance. “Of course you haven\'t...she was yet another experiment. Another abducted child thought long missing, only to end up on someone else\'s front door years later. I did some checking into her background, trying to find out what connection she had with the kitten. Imagine my surprise when I found out she was involved in the same experiment...only she lived!”

“What?? That\'s impossible! None of the children from that experiment lived!”

Cortez smiled. “And you know this...how, captain?”

Armbrister flushed then banged his fist on the desk. “That\'s none of your damn business! You still can\'t pin any of this on me!”

“Actually, I can. You see, I spoke to the kitten myself, in person.”

“What? You caught her? Why didn\'t you tell me sooner?”

“As you can see,” Cortez said with a smirk, “I have my reasons. There were some loose ends I needed to have tied, so with a little help from the son of an old friend of yours, I watched as she and her friend found the information for me. Once Attaturk told Stanhope what she had done, and when she had done it, I just put two and two together. And if you\'re still wondering how this all ties directly to you, look at the bottom of the page with my sister\'s picture...the name next to the line marked \'Project Director\'...look familiar?”

The captain looked at the page incredulously. “I didn\'t write this! Yes, it\'s my handwriting, but...I...I didn\'t write this!!”

“Tell it to the judge, captain. Oh, and don\'t bother destroying the file. I\'m sure that\'s one of the things Naya gave to who ever it was she had to get the story out to. I also took the liberty to make copies of everything. One way or another, Camp Hero and Plum Island will be shut down for good...but before that happens, I suggest you get a couple of matching litter boxes for your home...provided your daughters survive what the younger Tesla has in mind for them.”

Armbrister gripped the desk so hard, it threatened to buckle underneath him. “Tesla...he\'s nothing like his father! I\'ll kill him myself if I have to!”

“You might want to hurry,” Cortez said as he left the room. “I hear he gets pretty excited when he gets new toys to play with!”

As the sergeant closed the door behind him, Armbrister grabbed the folder and tossed it across the room, then he overturned his desk, caring not about any damage it caused.

“Sir...I know you said you didn\'t want to accept any calls, but the Overseer\'s on the line...and he\'s quite upset about--”

The sound in the speaker cut out, and the large screen in the room descended, seemingly on its own. Soon the image of a very annoyed man stared menacingly at the captain. “I hope you didn\'t have me on hold so you could redecorate your room, Armbrister...I want a status report on the target, and I want it now!”

“Sir, the target is in custody. As far as I know, she is either at Camp Hero, or Plum Island. Either way we have her, sir.”

The man on the screen was about to pop a nerve. “Let me get this straight—you have her, but you don\'t know where? Try again, Armbrister, and this time make some damn sense!”

If the truth did indeed set one free, Armbrister was going to see if he could pull a \'get out of hell free\' card out of the deck. “Sir...I sent the Control Squad to retrieve her, which they did...but it seems they\'ve collaborated and gone rogue. They are attempting to compromise the security of The Zoo. For the sake of all concerned, sir, I suggest we scrap the site altogether and relocate.”

“Damn it, so much for using her now,” the man on the screen sighed. “Tesla predicted this would happen...it\'s a good thing we already have a backup plan in place. Inform all parties concerned that, effective immediately, we\'re moving to Kansas. Details will follow. Camp Hero is to be converted into a secured national park, and Plum Island is to remain off limits due to...whatever. Think of some biological disaster that would keep people away from there. All operations are to cease immediately—and tell that little pipsqueak of Tesla\'s to report to my office ASAP.”

“What about the...subjects...that are still roaming free on Plum Island, Sir?”

“Without food, they\'ll kill each other off. Less work for us...less attention for the rest of the world. Get moving!”

The screen darkened in seconds, and returned to its customary roost in the ceiling.

Armbrister heaved a huge sigh of relief, then left the office and headed to Camp Hero.

“Sir,” his secretary said as he went by. “What\'s going on?”

“We\'re moving. Have everything sent to Manhattan, Kansas...including yourself.” With that, Armbrister was gone.

- - - - -

Disclaimer: (Ties up legal department).  Don\'t mind them...just go read!

Ikimashou!

=====

Chapter 12: Payback

=====

A taxi pulled up to the jade-green building that housed the Courier. A middle-aged woman with long black hair stepped out of from the cab and stared at the building. “How beautiful!”

“Megumi Morisato, I presume?”

“Hai,” the woman replied with a polite bow. “How do you know my name?”

“Please allow me to introduce myself,” the man bowed, offering his business card.

Megumi read the card aloud. “William Choi...you are the editor of this newspaper!”

“That I am...I\'m pleased to meet you.” He had the doorman retrieve Megumi\'s luggage from the taxi. “Please, follow me. I\'m sure we have quite a bit to talk about.”

“I do not wish to be rude, Choi-san, but can you tell me where Naya-chan...Attaturk-san is right now?”

“I\'m sorry, I wish I knew...wherever she is, my reporter\'s with her.”

This brought a wide grin to Megumi\'s face. “Your reporter...is it a woman?”

The question made the editor pause. “Yes it is...why did you ask?”

“Oh..I was just curious. I assume they are good friends by now, yes?”

“I\'d think so. They\'ve been through a lot together, so yeah, you tend to bond from things like that. Plus, Annette\'s pretty friendly, so it\'s not hard to like her.”

Megumi wondered which translation of the word “like” Choi meant. Either way, it made her already wide smile even wider.

As they went into the building, the whirr of a camera went off in the distance.

- - - - -

Naya was just finishing the last of the chicken she was eating. “Yes, Lupe is an excellent cook! I don\'t know how, but she must\'ve known I love breasts.”

“I know...I have the bite marks to prove it!” Annette couldn\'t resist the set up, and the shocked look on her usually-reserved lover sent her into a fit of hysterics.

Their mirth and merriment were disturbed by a panicked knocking on the door. “Miss Naya!! Miss Annette!! Please let me in! Something\'s happened!!”

Before Naya could say a word, Annette was already up and one step out of the bedroom. She turned and pointed to her girlfriend. “STAY!”

An obvious miffed Naya shot back, “I\'m a CAT, not a DOG!!”

As the reporter opened the door, Lupe rushed in, panting. “I don\'t know how you managed to do it so quickly, Miss Annette, but they\'re shutting--” She finally caught sight of the fact that Annette was dressed only in a sheet. “Oh!! I\'m so sorry, Miss Annette!” the maid said, blushing furiously and quickly turning away.

“Never mind that, Lupe...what are they shutting down?”

“The humane center...and Camp Hero—they\'re closing them right now! A message came over the PA systems in both places, and people are scurrying about. It\'s crazy! I don\'t know how you both did it so quickly, but thank you!!” She bowed, even though she was facing in the wrong direction.

Naya poked her head out, hearing what Lupe said. “But...we didn\'t do anything.”

“Which means someone else did,” the blonde said, completing the though. “My question is, who?”

“We don\'t have time for guessing games, Annette...we have to find a way out of here.” She noticed the still-blushing Lupe and snickered to herself. “Lupe, can you get us some clothes?”

“Y-yes! I\'ll be right back!” Lupe rushed out the door, only to come right back. “Oh, before I forget, we\'re all meeting in front of the building so we can figure out what to do next. Please join us!”

“We will,” Annette said reassuringly. “Now hurry up!” She watch the fox-maid run off, then turned her attention back to Naya. “We have to help them out of here too, you know. We promised!”

The other woman frowned. “I know that. I\'m sure we\'ll have a better handle on the situation once we talk to everyone else. As for what happened...”

“...there must\'ve been a leak or a breach of security so bad they couldn\'t just eliminate it.” Annette said mindlessly.

“Stop finishing my sentences! You\'re starting to creep me out!” Naya shook her head, then continued. “I doubt it was Megumi...if my guess is right, she\'d have just gotten into New York, so she didn\'t have time to do anything yet.”

Annette thought for a moment. “Do you think those twins have anything to do with it?”

“Maybe...maybe not. One thing\'s for sure; they\'re not going to just let their test subjects just walk out of here...they\'re evidence that will need to be covered up or eliminated.”

The reporter didn\'t like the sound of that. “Can we save them?”

“I...I don\'t know.” Naya\'s uncertainty gave Annette serious pause. It was a rare moment indeed to see her partner at a loss.

- - - - -

Peter Tesla was not happy...not one bit. He had just been given the scientific equivalent of a Christmas gift, and now he had to get rid of it before he got a chance to play with it.

He screamed at the computer montior, which displayed a live feed of Capt. Armbrister en route to Camp Hero. “I demand an explanation!!”

“Tell it to the Overseer, Tesla! How are my daughters? If you lay as much as a latex glove on them, I\'ll be the next one performing experiments...on you!”

“Well, well...so they\'re your girls? That makes this all the more frustrating...I\'d love to see how the people who run this place react when one—or in this case, two—of their own are the subjects! I guess that\'ll have to wait until next time.”

“What do you mean by that, Tesla?”

“I\'ll be taking them with me to Kansas,” the scientist smirked. “It\'s not every day you get an opportunity like this, and I\'m not about to simply give them up because someone else screwed up!”

“I\'m coming for you, Tesla...and believe me, even if your father came back from the grave—or whatever time period he\'s in right now—he won\'t be able to save your ass!”

The screen went dark, and Tesla pounded the counter. “Damn you, Cortez! I don\'t know how, but I know you\'re behind this!” He took out a USB cord and began to download information through his laptop to portable drives. “I\'d better save this before those military idiots blow everything up.” He then turned his attention to the two redheads who were still asleep on gurneys. “Somebody! Get in here and move them to the van...Hey! Where is everybody!!” Before he realized it, Tesla was the only person standing in the lab. Everyone else had been gone nearly a half-hour ago.

“I guess my father was right...\'when you need to get a job done, it\'s best to do it yourself.\' So I will!” Tesla took out a set of keys and unlocked a file cabinet. In the bottom of the cabinet was a box, containing three spherical objects connected by a series of wires. “I guess I\'ll have to be my own guinea pig!”

- - - - -

Naya and Annette stood at the outside doorway of the little building, and were awed at the collection of people who had assembled there. It wasn\'t so much the number, which was appoximately fifty or so, but the...diversity.

Annette stared in awe. “It\'s like an anthropomorphized Noah\'s Ark...execpt there\'s only one of each!”

Naya gave her lover an odd look. “\'Anthropomorphized\'? Did you just say that? Does your brain hurt?”

“I guess you\'re rubbing off on me,” the blonde answered sheepishly.

The crowd came to a hush when they noticed the two women standing at the doorway.

“Hey...aren\'t they the ones who beat up the Chimera?”

“Yeah, they kicked it\'s ass!”

“The blonde one...she just walked up and smacked the crap out of it! It was awesome!”

“Yeah, and they broke out of the holding cell! Coolest thing I ever saw!”

Annette whispered to her partner. “Kinda feels like being a superhero, doesn\'t it?”

Naya rolled her eyes, choosing to address the crowd instead. “Does anybody know how we can get off the island before any action\'s taken?”

“Yes,” a small young man said. “My friends and I found a dock on the north side of the island where two large ships are waiting. If we can get there before anyone else, we can use them.”

“But how will we get there?” a woman asked. “The woods aren\'t safe, even in broad daylight.”

“Leave that to me,” Annette said with a smile. “I doubt there\'s anything out there worse than the Chimera; otherwise, they\'d have used it on us!”

“No, Annette...we have to go back to Camp Hero.” Naya didn\'t like stealing her girlfriend\'s moment, but other things had priority right now. “In the meantime...Lupe, you will lead everyone else to the northern dock. Those of you who can transform, please do so in order to protect the others, and stay in a large group. I\'m sure our more feral brethren won\'t dare attack a herd out of fear. Stay together, and you\'ll be fine.” She then turned to the maid. “Are you okay with that, Lupe?”

“You have given me an order, Miss Naya...I will obey it to the best of my ability!” She bowed to Naya and Annette, then turned to the crowd. “Let\'s go, everyone!” The crowd cheered and ran off into the woods.

Annette simply stared at her lover in wonder. “You\'ve done this before, haven\'t you?”

“What would make you think that,” Naya said, wearing an \'I-don\'t-know-what-you\'re-talking-about\' grin. “If we\'re going to save those twins, we better hurry!” The two women then headed for the southern dock...and hopefully a ride back to Camp Hero.

- - - - -

“Owl Unit reporting.”

Cortez was just exiting the town of Montauk when the call came in. “Check, Owl Unit. What is it, Constanza?”

“Sir, we have picked up a transmission stating Camp Hero and The Zoo are to be terminated. Can you confirm this?”

“Of course I can,” Cortez said with a smile. “I caused it.”

A pause on the other end, followed by Constanza\'s surprised voice. “But...why, sir?”

“Let\'s just say I\'m repaying a debt. Avenging a loss. I know I won\'t be able to shut the project down completely, but at least it\'ll be someone else\'s problem, and I\'d have been able to slow it down and save a few people in the process.”

“Yes...yes sir. Also, we have surveillance photos of the editor of the Courier. He is meeting with the Morisato woman as we speak. I\'m guessing we should not intervene, correct?”

“As usual, Constanza. There\'s no need to bother him anymore. He was right; by the time the story gets out, the place will be empty and the things that went on there will be the stuff of rumor. Let\'s call off the dogs.”

“As you wish, sir.”

“Oh, and Constanza?”

“Yes sir?”

Cortez allowed himself a relaxed smile. “I wish to discuss something with you in person. We will meet at the following location in 10 hours.” Pulling out his cellphone, he sent her a text message. “Due to the sensitive nature of the matter, I suggest you come alone...and dress appropriately. Understood?”

“Understood, sir. See you then. Owl Unit, out!”

Cortez shut off his radio, and continued to drive down the Southern Highway, en route to Camp Hero.

- - - - -

“I\'m sorry, sir, but this area is restriced!”

Capt. Armbrister glared at the young MP. “Try that again, and the next thing you\'ll be working security for will be the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Do I make myself clear?”

“Y-Yes sir!!”

The captain drove his SUV through the security gate and headed for the operations building.

Reaching the edifice, he was again stopped by guards. “Don\'t even bother,” he barked. “Just tell me where Tesla is...NOW!”

One of the men went into the guard station, returning less than a minute later. “He\'s in sub-level two, sir. You can get there by--”

“I know damn well how to get there!” Armbrister took off down into the tunnel.

“That about settles it,” one of the men said. “We\'d best get outta here before they blow something up!”

- - - - -

“You sure you\'re up to this, Annette?”

“Never felt better,” the blonde answered. “No, actually I felt better this morning, but that was completely different! Let\'s go!” She bounded off of the small motorboat and headed back to the comissary.

“That\'s not it, that\'s...” Naya thought for a moment. “Maybe you have a point...I\'m gonna need more energy!”

Soon the two women ran out of the comissary, snacks in hand. Annette gave her little bundle to Naya, then took an unattended jeep. “Eat up—I have a feeling this isn\'t going to be easy!”

- - - - -

Capt. Armbrister reached Tesla\'s lab in time to see the man disconnect the USB from the lab\'s main server. “Going someplace, Tesla?”

“As a matter of fact I am...and it won\'t be Kansas!”

“You can go to hell, as far as I\'m concerned...I\'m here for my girls!”

Tesla laughed. “I already told you, Armbrister, they\'re coming with me!”

The captain turned to see Jane and Jenna, back-to-back and slumped over, sitting on a mat. Surrounding them were three cantaloupe-sized spheres laid out in a triangle pattern, connected to each other by a series of wires. They in turn were connected back to the main console, while one of the spheres was attached to the power outlet. Armbrister made a move towards them, but was halted by a sharp pain in his chest, caused by a taser.

“I don\'t mean you any harm, Captain...so just be a good boy and stay where you are. I\'m sure at least one of your daughters will be around to see you. Whether you\'ll recognize her or not, well, that\'s up to you.” He tossed the taser to the floor, grabbed his laptop and portable drive and moved towards the girls, keeping an eye on Armbrister the whole time.

“You won\'t get away with this, Tesla!”

Peter raised an eyebrow. “Tell me you didn\'t just say that? It\'s probably the second-most cliched line in science-fiction history!” He stepped over the wires and put the laptop and portable drive down next to the girls. “The sad part for you is, I will \'get away with it\' because you won\'t be able to stop me!”

“Then we will!”

A surprised Tesla looked around the room, “Who said that?”

“A writer of the truth...a champion of justice...a shining hope! Annette Stanhope has arrived!”

Naya pushed her girlfriend standing at the doorway. “Really...must you make such a grandiose entry?”

“That\'s what heroes do!” She checked her stance. “I really need to get myself a cool heroine name. Haven\'t you ever watchec anime?”

“No...and that\'s probably why I haven\'t!”. She contined into the room, walking straight at Capt. Armbrister.

“YOU!!” the captain screamed upon seeing Naya. “This is all your fault!”

“Don\'t be an ass, Armbrister...I\'m here to save those girls, not you!”

“Save your breath instead, Attaturk!" Tesla\'s interruption took Naya\'s attention away from the seething captain. "Soon I\'ll be gone, and I\'ll be taking the captain\'s daughters with me. Even you can\'t do anything about it.!”

“I\'ll get the girls, Naya...” Annette sprinted across the room and towards Tesla.

“Annette, wait!” Naya called out. “You don\'t wanna--”

As Tesla watched the on-rushing blonde, he opened his laptop, typed something, and then hit the “enter” key. Waves of electricity surged through the spherical nodes on the floor, and then up to a central node embedded in the ceiling, forming an electrical tetrahedron. Annette took one step into the space and was harshly thrown backwards across the room.

“--mess with electricity...I get it now,” the reporter said through clenched teeth, still feeling the tingling throughout the length of her spine. “Damn, should\'ve expected that.”

Armbrister regained his footing, resisting the help Naya offered him. “Leave the girls out of this, Tesla! They\'ve got nothing to do with it!”

“No, they don\'t...but they belong to me now! I traded those two for them, so they\'re mine!”

The captain stared at Naya. “Is that true?”

“Every word of it...except for the \'they\'re all mine\' part,” the tall woman replied.

“I don\'t care who you traded them for...they\'re MY daughters, Tesla! And I\'m going to get them back!”

Tesla laughed. “If she couldn\'t get through my electromagnetic sheild,” he said, pointing to Annette, “What makes you think you could?”

“Because I\'m going to help him do it!” Naya stared at the captain. “This isn\'t about you; it about them. So whatever problems you have with me, just deal with them, okay?”

Armbrister snarled, then nodded. “Fine. For the girls.”

“Good...now, how do we stop that thing?”

The captain pulled the taser nodes from his chest, then went to the console. “We have to shut down the power...if he gets enough, that little contraption he\'s got will open up a door to temporal space and swallow him and the girls!”

“Glad to see you were paying attention while working with my father, Armbrister. I see why he promoted you to Project Director so quickly.”

“Wow...the apple really doesn\'t fall far from the tree.”

Annette joined Naya and the captain at the console. “We could just pull the plug on him...literally!” She pointed to the wall socket, which was now arcing from the overload of electricity. “Okay...maybe I could do it...”

“Not a chance!” Naya said, cutting the other woman off. “That much electricity might kill you!”

“Maybe, but it definitely will kill you,” Annette shot back. “I don\'t know how many lives you have left...and I don\'t want to lose you.”

“But I always come back, Annette. Always...”

“This time, you won\'t have to...” The blonde kissed her girlfriend, then jumped at the socket before Naya could grab hold of her.

“ANNETTE!!!”

The blonde grabbed the head of the plug, and pulled hard on it. The electricity ran completely through every nerve of ber body, sending her muscles into continuous spasms and frying her brain. She finally collapsed in a smoking, charred heap.

Naya rushed over to her lover\'s side, but didn\'t know what to do next. “You idiot!! You knew this would kill you! What were you thinking!! Annette!!!” She tried to cradle the woman\'s head, but her skin crumbled to ash, exposing raw burnt flesh. Naya let out a horrible scream, then glared at Tesla.

“Don\'t look at me that way,” the scientist said coldly. “She chose to do that. I can\'t be blamed for her stupidity.”

“No,” the white-haired woman snarled, “but I can kill you for it!” She lunged at Tesla, but the smaller man dodged her.

“That\'s the downside of blind rage, Miss Attaturk...it makes you blind.”

Naya turned and jumped at Tesla once more, this time her fingertips had extended themselves into sharp claws. Again Tesla dodged her, but not before having his face scarred by Naya\'s claws.

“You\'ll pay for that, you stupid cat!!” Tesla reached for his taser, but couldn\'t find it.

It found him instead, the nodes embedding themselves in the back of the scientist\'s neck and sending electricity straight to his brain and spinal column, rendering the man motionless in seconds. Armbrister fired another charge from the gun for good measure.

“Good,” Naya said darkly. “Now I can rip out his heart!!” She pounced on his chest and was about to force her hand through his ribcage when she felt something hit her in the neck. She reached for it, but never saw what it was; her vision faded, and she hit the ground hard.

“I guess that means it safe to enter.” Cortez strode in the room, followed by a group of his men. He looked over at Tesla\'s prone body and smiled. “How ironic...Tesla taken down by electricity.” He then waved to a couple of his men. “Take Tesla and put him in the secured van. We\'ll deal with him later.”

One of the men moved Naya off of Tesla, “What about her, sir?”

“Lay her next to her crispy friend, there. I\'m sure they\'ll have quite the lover\'s quarrel when they wake up.”

Armbrister was still holding the taser, even as the men of Raptor Unit removed the nodes from Tesla\'s neck. “What do you want now, Cortez? Come to offer my daughters to someone else?”

“Actually, I came to offer you this...consider it payback for taking your daughters from you.” He gave the captain two syringes. “This will wake the girls up. I\'d suggest you take them home and put each one in her bed first, so you won\'t have to explain anything. Your wife, however, will need all the \'denial and debunk\' skills you can muster.”

“I\'d say \'thank you\', but since you brought them here in the first place, excuse me if I don\'t show my gratitude.”

“You\'re welcome, anyway.” Cortez motioned for two men to gather the Armbrister twins. “Be gentle with them...they have no idea what happened.” He then turned back to the other man. “Have an nice trip, Captain. I hope to never see you again.”

“The feeling\'s mutual.” Armbrister left the room, followed by the two men carrying his daughters.

Cortez took stock of the room. “Take anything that isn\'t nailed down, then gut everything else. As for them,” he pointed to the two women on the floor, “Take them to this address. They\'ll need some time alone.” He walked over and knelt beside Naya. “I know you can hear me, kitten, so I\'ll say this now. Thank you...I know you meant well, but what happened to Diana was not your fault. Learn to forgive yourself, as I have forgiven you.” He looked over to the body laying next to the white-haired woman, which had already began to regenerate itself. “And keep an eye on her...otherwise she\'s going to cause a lot of trouble. Good luck to you both.”

Cortez patted Naya gently on the cheek. “It would\'ve been great to work with you two...” He then left the room to the workers, who scoured the place.

=====

End of Chapter 12

=====

Disclaimer: None.  Time to say goodbye...

Ikimashou!

=====

Epilogue: Life Goes On

=====

Megumi couldn\'t believe her eyes. She knew Naya had been mixed up in all manner of weirdness, but this was a lot more than she had expected.

“Greetings, Morisato-san. Welcome to my home. Please, come in!” Lupe opened the door wide to give the older woman access.

Megumi stared at the other woman for a bit, then smiled. “You really are a kitsuneko, aren\'t you? Please ignore my astonishment, Guadalupe-san, but I am amazed. I never thought I would live to see such a one as yourself.” She itched to touch the other woman\'s ears. “May I?”

“As much as that may please me, Morisato-san, I must refuse. I reserve such an act for two people and two people alone.”

“I can guess who those two people are,” Megumi said with a grin that made the fox-girl blush. “Speaking of which, I thought this was her apartment.”

“It was, but since she now lives with Miss Annette, she allowed me to live here. It\'s quite convenient, as I can travel to their apartment and back rather quickly, and the people here are quite kind to me.”

“Where are they living, then?”

“In Jackson Heights. I could take you there. In fact, I believe they are expecting you.” Lupe grabbed a coat and an odd-shaped hat. “We can go right now, if you so desire.”

Megumi had to laugh. “You\'re covering your fox ears with a hat that has fox ears?”

“Believe me, I was also surprised when Naya said that the costume shop a block away had them. I could not resist!”

“Well, I must say...it looks adorable on you! Shall we go, Guadalupe-san?”

“Please, Morisato-san...call me Lupe!”

“If you insist, Lupe-chan...but then you must call me Megumi.”

“Yes!” Lupe took her new-found friend by the hand. “Let\'s go, Megumi-san!”

As they reached the last landing of the walk-up, a small monkey sat waiting for them.

“Do not worry, Miss Gina,” Lupe said to the little capuchin. “The rent will be paid on time. Please let your master know.”

The monkey screeched once and then scampered off. Megumi looked on in wonder.

“She works for the new landlady. It\'s an odd arrangement, but it works very well for all of us.”

Megumi simply nodded. “I guess New York will take some getting used to.”

- - - - -

“Wow!! This is so completely awesome!!!” Jane\'s voice echoed into the Alaskan wilderness.

Jenna wanted to smack her twin sister in the head. “Why don\'t you try screaming that a little louder...I\'m sure the folks all the way up in Barrow want to hear how happy you are.”

“Come on, Jenna,” Jane replied. “You have to admit, this is the most unbelievable trip ever! Being able to ski down Mount Denali, the tallest mountain in America! How many people can say that?”

“The ones that lived to tell about it...which might not include you if you keep that up. And for your imformation, it\'s Mount McKinley!”

“Denali!”

“McKinley!”

“You\'re both right,” their father said, putting an arm around each of the twins. “Regardless of what it\'s called, we\'re gonna kick its butt, right?”

“Right!” Jane answered emphatically.

“Whatever...I\'m going inside. It\'s cold.” Jenna dislodged herself from her father\'s arm and went into the chalet. When she got far enough away from him, she let out a small squeak of joy and pumped her fists.

“Don\'t mind her...we\'re gonna have a good time, Dad! Thanks for taking us...and for really taking us.”

That last part stung the former captain, but he knew he deserved it. “From now on, I\'ll never let you girls down. I promise.”

“I know,” Jane said with a smile. “Mom will make sure you keep that promise!”

Elena stood on the porch of the little chalet, watching her husband...and waiting for the day he even thinks about running off to \'protect the world from terror.\' If that day ever comes, she swore to him, it\'ll be the last time he\'ll see her or their daughters ever again.

- - - - -

A black SUV pulled up to the corner of Water and Old Fulton Streets in Brooklyn, and out stepped a man in a black tuxedo, his hair slicked back. He checked his watch and smiled; he was early by a minute, which was more than enough to prepare him for her entrance.

The man watched as a black sedan parked behind his SUV. When the door opened, it seemed to the man like a black form poured itself onto the sidewalk, rising into quite a feminine-shaped column, topped with a sternly beautiful face which itself was crowned by a stack of perfectly placed dark brown hair.

“Punctual as usual, Constanza,” the man said, “and more beautiful than ever.”

The woman blushed furiously. “Thank you very much, sir...though, if I may speak freely, I feel quite uncomfortable.”

“Permission granted, but there\'s no need for you to feel uncomfortable.” Cortez reached out a hand to assist Constanza. “And please, we\'re off the clock, so enough with the \'sir\' business. Just call me Guillermo.”

“Yes sir—er, I mean...yes, Guillermo.” The brunette had her head down the whole time, trying desperately to hide the rush of blood that was threatening to turn her head into shrapnel.

“See? That didn\'t hurt a bit. Now come along. Dinner\'s waiting.”

“Dinner?”

Cortez led his date through the entrance of Brooklyn Bridge Park, and to the corner of Pier One, where an elegant table had been set up. He pulled out a chair for the lady, and nudged her into place.

Constanza took in her surroundings; the beautiful rolling lawn of the park, the view of New York Bay, the city skyline outlined by the nightime sky, and the graceful arc of the Brooklyn Bridge, itself dressed in pearl-like lights. “Oh, Guillermo!! This is the most beautiful sight in the world!”

“I beg to differ,” the tuxedo-clad man said, staring straight into Constanza\'s eyes.

Before she passed out, the woman thought it best to change the subject. “Was this park always here? Why did we not know about it before?”

“Believe it or not, it\'s only a couple years old. And we have the reporter to thank for being able to be here.”

Constanza\'s face darkened a bit. “Stanhope? What has she to do with this?”

“Not now, dinner\'s about to be served. I\'ll tell you all about it when we get home.”

“Alright then.” The woman seethed for a moment, until her brain locked. “Wait—did you just say \'when we get home\'?”

“I did,” Cortez said confidently. “You didn\'t think I dragged you all the way out here just for dinner, did you?”

Whatever Annette Stanhope had to do with Brooklyn Bridge Park had suddenly become the least important piece of information in Constanza\'s world.

- - - - -

The ping of the elevator echoed through the hall of the fourth floor, alerting all who listened that Lupe and Megumi had arrived. The maid allowed the newcomer to exit first, then led her to the apartment. “Miss Naya! I\'m home!”

“In here, Lupe. Is Megumi with you?”

“Yes she is, Miss Naya...we\'ll be right in!” Lupe took Megumi\'s coat and her own and placed them in the foyer closet.

The black-haired woman whispered to the maid. “Would it be alright if...”

“Oh, sure! Please, place them with the others.”

Megumi smiled, then took off her shoes, putting them neatly beside Annette\'s sneakers. She looked around the apartment, admiring the ordered chaos. “It is a nice place,” she said politely.

“I did the best I could with it...you should have seen it before I came! This place is nothing like Naya\'s, but it\'s where Annette is, so it\'s where they both are.”

Lupe then led Megumi to the small bedroom, where they found Naya sitting upright in the bed, cradling Annette\'s head in her hands.

“Welcome to our humble abode, Megumi-chan!” The white-haired woman bowed as much as she could, her head nearly coming to rest on Annette\'s. “I\'m sorry you had to come all this way, especially since we really didn\'t need your help after all.”

“Please, Naya-hime...one should never apologize when seeing a friend.” Megumi returned the bow, then walked over to the bed and gave her friend a hug.

“I\'d hug you back, but as you can see, my hands are full.” She leaned into the hug instead, savoring the nostalgic smell of jasmine. “You\'re still as beautiful as ever, and you still smell wonderful.”

The older woman blushed. “But you, Naya-hime...you haven\'t aged a day! Is that a result of...”

“In a way. I\'ve already been gone and back a few times...I only age when I\'m dead, so I try to keep that to a minimum.” The two women shared a warm smile.

“So, how are things between you and Stanhope-san here?” Megumi asked.

“Straight to the point, as usual...that\'s what made you one of my best co-workers...and my best friend.”

“I seem to recall it being a little more than...friends...”

Naya fought back a few tears. “And that leads me to the answer to your question...I\'m involved with this little troublemaker here. We\'ve had quite the adventure.”

“So I\'ve heard from Choi-san. Are you happy with her, Naya-hime?”

“Oh yes...I am. I\'d be happier if she stayed conscious for more than a few seconds, but yes, I am.”

Megumi\'s face became a road map of worry. “Did something happen to her at Camp Hero?”

“She died saving a set of twins, but she\'s been regenerating since then. It\'s been more than 10 hours, and her body\'s practically back to normal. Her mind, however...” Naya massaged her girlfriend\'s temples a bit. “She mumbles things, bits and pieces of memories, but they\'re getting more and more recent, so I\'m assuming the pathways in her brain are getting stronger and stronger. She had some motor skills problems the first time she died, but her brain was intact then. This time, I don\'t know...”

Megumi\'s eyes flew open. “The first time? Is she like you, then? Can she change into an animal as well?”

“No,” Naya answered. “She can\'t change form, but she\'s strong as hell...I wonder if she still is.”

Just then Annette opened her eyes slowly, seeing Megumi and Lupe put a smile on her face. “Wow...I\'ve died and went to Japan! Sugoi!”

Naya just rolled her eyes. “You see what I have to put up with?”

“But I would bet it is a job you would be willing to do for the rest of your life, ne?”

“Correction, Megumi-chan,” Naya said, giving Annette a warm smile. “...for the rest of all of our lives.”

= = = = =

OWARI

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