Ikimashou!
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CHAPTER 3 – Home Sweet Home
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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!”
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End of Chapter 3
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