For the next week or so, there had been improvements in Dr. Death....for one, he seemed less quick to anger when dealing with abandoners and for another, Rose had noticed he was a lot more personable in the mornings before they had begun their shifts. The first time he had actually bid her good morning without being prodded into it, Rose had been speechless. On a few occasions, he had brought Snap to work with him as company, but when complaints had gotten back to the employment office that he hadn't been taking his job seriously, he had been called in for a conference with one of the lesser Light Faeries to discuss priorities and why bringing pets to work was unprofessional.
In the end he had agreed to leave Snap at home and business had gone on as usual as he had resumed the role of the sour-faced abandonment manager.
However, outside of work, and closed in the confines of his house, he had rekindled some of what he had been before taking his occupation in the pound, doting on Snap as he had with the petpets he had taken in when he had been younger and still with aspirations of being a real doctor. Surprisingly, the two had adjusted to one another's company rather well as the days wore on and the few people that had seen the dramatic change in the techo's mood around his petpet could hardly believe he was the same person...
But in public, it was business as always....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Death took the blue pteri's name down on the abandonment form and took the neopet from its former owner.
"....And don't sell him to any new people!" the boy insisted. "I love him and want to make sure he goes to a good home."
"If you love him so much, why are you abandoning him?" the doctor inquired. The boy, taken offguard, looked to Rose for help. The pink uni only shrugged and smiled faintly as if to say "You did it to yourself, friend..."
"Look, just do it, okay?" he snapped, fishing one hundred and fifty neopoints out of his pocket, slamming them on the counter and storming out.
"Hmph....what a temper." the techo remarked, shifting his hold on the pteri a little as it attempted to bite his fingers.
"You said as though you had room to talk." Rose teased with an impish smile, looking up from her paperwork.
"I've bettered myself, Rose." he told her matter-of-factly as he turned to take the pteri into the back.
"All right, if you say so." the uni surrendered amiably. "How's Snap doing?" she inquired, taking the conversation in another direction.
"Oh fine." the techo replied, brightening immediately at the mention of the doglefox. "I've.....actually given some thought to painting him." She nodded but said nothing. In all honesty, the topic of Snap had gotten a bit boring, but she still humored it, knowing that it was something that interested him and something she could more often than not, get him into a sociable mood over. He looked as though he had been about to say more, but the pteri he held, finally seeing a vantage point, squirmed in his arms and took ahold of his coatsleeve, shaking it violently. There was a sharp purring sound as a seam tore.
"Lemme go, ya old coot!!" the pteri insisted, flapping its wings violently. Try as he might, however, the doctor kept a firm hold on him.
"Calm yourself, pinfeathers." he told the bird. "I've had better men than you try and escape." The bird continued to struggle for a few moments more before finally resigning himself with a deep sigh.
"You're a jerk." the pteri snorted. "Just go ahead and sell me to Dr. Sloth for experiments then. See if I care. When he turns me into a mutant, I'm coming straight back here for you." he added threateningly. Dr. Death and Rose exchanged a mildly amused look before he carried the angered neopet into the back to deposit him in a cage for potential adopters to look at, returning after the avian had been dealt with.
"You know, I'd like to find who's been spreading those rumors that I'm Dr. Sloth's understudy and crush them..." he remarked. Rose shrugged.
"Snerts will be snerts." she sighed. "What can you do?"
"I'll tell you what I'd *like* to do..." he sneered, and then trailed off, not really in the mood to go into detail. It entailed pain though. Lots of it.
"Did Karma ever finalize that lunch she talked about going out with you on?" Rose inquired. He shrugged, his posture alone suggesting that she had struck a nerve.
"Never got back with me on it." he told her. "And I'm not so sure I would have accepted anyway."
"Ohhh, why not?" Rose chided.
"Can you imagine the controversy?" he asked, raising a brow. "An owner seen on a date with a neopet? The Neopian Times would have a field day."
"Oh come along now, you worry too much." she sighed, giving him a dismissive wave of her hand. "And you've said it time and time again yourself, you're not a pet." she added.
"Bah." he snorted. "Such as it is, I'd like to keep my reputation out of the mud any further than its already sunk." Rose nodded, deciding not to press it further.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karma examined herself in the mirror, wondering yet again if the dress was overkill. She had bought it on impulse from one of the stores catering to neopets owners rather than the pets themselves. She had been enamoured with how it had looked on her in the store but now it seemed all wrong...too tight and too baggy in all the wrong places. She still loved the beautiful lavender color of the crushed velvet and the way it felt against her skin...but maybe it just wasn't for her.
At length, she sighed and took it off, placing it back in the box and putting her T-shirt and jeans back on. As much as she wanted to turn Dr. Death's head, she didn't want to be brazen about it and she knew that flouncing into the pound wearing a dress such as that would look ridiculous and likely embarrass both her and the doctor.
Never the less, she DID have business at the pound today. After a talk with Yahoo last night, he had voiced an interest in a playmate and so she had promised him that today they would see what they could find. She looked at herself again and sighed....how boring she looked. Her brown mane of hair draped about her shoulders in small waves, a lock of it clinging in a stray comma to her cheek. In the dim light of the apartment's small bathroom, her orange hazed eyes glowed like a pair of live coals and her frame was slender...just a touch beyond skinny. Nothing terribly interesting about her, she thought to herself bitterly.
"Are we going??" Yahoo called excitedly from where he was posted by the front door.
"I'm coming." she called after him, pausing to pull a small bottle of fragrance out from beneath the sink as she showered herself in a single thin spritz of it, scenting her very lightly with its honeysuckle content.
"Yeah so's Christmas!" the cybunny shot back with a laugh. "Pyew...what stinks?" he asked, wrinkling his nose as she sauntered into the front hallway.
"Its not THAT bad." she insisted.
"Maybe not, but I've got a sensitive nose and it reeks from here." Yahoo replied, covering his nose with his paws. "Ugh...did you roll in it or something??"
"Stuff it." Karma told the rabbit, smirking a little. "Let's go find you a brother or sister."
"If you don't scare'em all away. They might think there's been a flower spill somewhere." Yahoo smiled and then galloped out the door as Karma chased after him playfully a short distance, slamming the door shut behind her.
"I'll give *you* a flower spill!" she grinned. Yahoo squealed with glee as she caught up to him, snatched him off of his feet and mercilessly tickled him for a few moments.
"Okay...okay, I give!" the cybunny cried amid laughter. Karma relented and set the animal down as they headed in the direction of Neopia Central. "Can we get a blumaroo?" Yahoo asked. "Ashley used to have one. They're fun."
"We'll see." Karma told him. "I'd really rather get one that looks like it needs help."
"How about a blumaroo that needs help? Best of both worlds." he suggested. Karma didn't answer as they passed through the square together and headed in the direction of the pound. The walkways weren't terribly crowded as most of Neopia's residents were still at school or out having a late lunch. As she neared the pound, she noted that it was active, at least, judging by the people going in and coming out...some with pets and some with none at all.
She brushed past a happy young lady who was carrying with her two aishas, one glowing and one split, as they perched on her shoulders and mewed happily. Pound rescues, Karma guessed as she trotted up the steps with Yahoo close behind her and entered the building.
"Hello?" she called, immediately catching the attention of Dr. Death from where he sat at his usual post, busily shifting through paperwork.
"Hello." he replied in a voice that was dully professional. She crossed the room, standing in front of him a moment until he looked up from his papers and stared flatly at her. "May I help you?" he asked patronizingly.
"Oh I don't know....maybe." she smirked. He continued to glare at her for a long moment.
"I don't have time for games. What do you want?" he asked her. Karma inwardly cringed. Well, so much for being friendly. She was glad she hadn't worn her dress now.
"I came to adopt again...or should I see Rose?" she asked.
"Eh, Rose is refereeing the herd that's already in there." he sighed. "I'm on checkout duty today."
"I can tell you're thrilled." she remarked.
"Riveted." he answered disinterestedly.
"Given any more thought to heading out to lunch sometime with me and Yahoo?" she asked. He flinched a bit.
"I don't make a habit of fraternizing with customers. I told you that." he shot back in a voice barely above a whisper, recalling the lie he had told Rose earlier about Karma not getting back with him about the lunch date she had proposed.
"Who's fraternizing? Anyway, whatever....I'll see you in a few." she sighed, shaking her head as she headed for the back of the pound. She wasn't offended per-sey, but found his high-handedness rather amusing. And, as much as she resented it, she still had her private feelings for him.
As she pushed open the door to the back, she was first aware of the large surge of noise battering against her from the pets crying out to passersby from their cages, the constant babble of the people filtering through the cages looking for adoptees, and the clatter of cage doors once in awhile as pets were let out to be with their new owners.
"Well, let's get started." she said aloud to no one in particular as she and Yahoo meandered toward the first aisle of cages. Almost instantly, the pets began to cry out and reach for her, all of them with hope in their eyes and some looking half-mad with desire to be taken out.
"Oh please! Oh please pick me!! I'm a great pet!! I'll do anything you want! Did I mention I know how to clean house??" a red lupe babbled, bouncing excitedly in the confines of its small metal kennel. Karma examined him, reaching through the bars to see how he'd react. The neopet happily didn't just lick her wrist, but rather tried to swallow it, he was so eagar. She grinned.
"Hey Yahoo, how about this guy?" she asked, picking up her cybunny and holding him in front of the cage to get a look at the lupe. With startling speed, the lupe's mood darkened as it growled, baring its teeth through curled lips. With a loud roar, it lunged at the bars, as though meaning to rip Yahoo to ribbons.
"....I think I'll pass." the cybunny said, sounding a little faint as the lupe continued to growl and dig at the door of his cage.
"Sorry." she whispered as she set her cybunny down. "He seemed to have better control than that."
"Can't take the hunter out of some lupes." the cybunny told her as they lopped along for a short distance. Out of the corner of her eye, Karma saw a rather attractive neopet huddled in the corner of its cage and looking dejected. She turned her head to see a starry-pelted zafara peering out at her with large eyes. No sooner had the notion crossed her mind to approach it than a young boy shoved past her and ran to the zafara with reckless abandon.
"I WANT HIM!! I WANT THIS ONE!!!" he all but screamed as he wrapped his hands around the bars holding the zafara in. Brightening instantly, the captive starry neopet lovingly washed its tongue over the boy's face and fingers. As Karma watched, Rose bustled out from between two of the aisles and hurriedly jingled through her keys to find the correct one to free the zafara. As the boy retreated back to the front of the pound, the pink uni cast an apologetic smile at Karma.
"Really got to move fast around here sometimes." she chuckled. "Anything in particular you're looking for this time?"
"Oh no...just looking." the frog shrugged with a grin. "Yahoo was getting lonely."
"Alrighty." Rose smiled. From across the pound, another shout rang up.
"MIZ UNICORN LADY!!! I FOUND ONE!!!" a little girl cried. Rose shook her head, rolling her eyes playfully.
"Duty calls." she smiled, trotting off in the direction of the voice. Karma watched her leave before resuming her hunt, her eyes scanning the cages. The pets inside all looked equally sad and hopeful, but none of them seemed to cry out to her as her special companion.
"Oooh pick me! I have a faerie snarhook you could sell!!" a faerie chia declared, holding up the confused-looking petpet. "But I'll only go with you if you're a millionare!" the chia added haughtily.
"Will you shut up??" a grumpy-looking blue flotsam roared at the chia. "We're ALL trying to get adopted and you're making us look bad!!" Karma walked past them, leaving them to their argument and rounded the corner of the first aisle. Her eyes fell upon a pair of human boys kneeling and peering into one of the kennels.
"I sat on my lunch once, and my sandwich looked like his face does." one of the boys declared.
"No way." his friend snickered.
"I'm serious...ugh, I think one of those things just moved."
"Gross!"
Karma cocked a brow, continuing to stand at a safe distance. Just what were they looking at? She fought the urge to walk up and see because she didn't want to feel like she was butting in, but intrigue was prickling her all over.
"C'mon, let's keep looking. I gotta find a wocky so I can join that guild I told you about." one of the boys said after a few more moments of ogling whatever it was they had been staring at.
"Just go to the pet stockhouse and get one, man." the other said. "What's the big deal?"
"The big deal is I don't want some kitten wocky pooping all over my house!" he replied. "I wanna get one that's already been broken in!" as they disappeared into another corner of the pound, Karma moved forward almost too quickly, kneeling to see what they had been looking at and gasped. Inside the cage, staring out at her with cow-like black eyes was a blue reptile of some sort, its body covered in pink fleshy lumps.
"Hi there." she said tentatively as it looked levelly at her. "What's your name?" The creature made no motion to reply, and cocked its head questioningly.
"UGH!!" Yahoo announced as he muscled in beside Karma to look at the pet. "That's the ugliest case of neowarts I've ever seen!"
"Is it curable?" she asked, reaching through the bars to gently pat the creature.
"Yeah but the fungus to cure it with costs a fortune." the cybunny lamented. She fell silent, debating with herself on whether or not she ought to adopt this one. "We could always take him to the healing springs." he added quickly. "The water faerie heals pets for free....but she's not very reliable with her spells. Sometimes she just gives you a potion if she doesn't feel up to wasting her magic."
"But that's good, right?" she asked.
"Its good, but it doesn't cure." he explained. "And this chomby's going to need her magic or a fungus or else he's going to look like that forever...." he shuddered a little. Karma bit her lip, feeling like shuddering herself. The sickness made the blue chomby look utterly grotesque.
"Me....sick." the chomby told Karma in a slow and even tone, radiating its dullness.
"....and might want to pick up some books for him too." Yahoo added. "Ugh, nothing's more annoying than a dim-witted pet."
"I'm sure he can't help that." Karma muttered.
"Me sick." the chomby repeated, curling its tail around its legs and looking pathetic.
"So what do you think?" she asked Yahoo.
"I'm not sharing my bed with him." the cybunny sighed as his owner broke into a grin. Following suit with the other adopters, she called out rather than going to find the pound attendant.
"Rose! I found one!!" she cried. There was a long pause before Rose scuttled around a corner and approached her.
"Oh dear, our little sick guy, huh?" she asked as she sought out the key that opened the chomby's cage. "Now you DO know those warts aren't going to go away unless you heal him, right?"
"Yes, Yahoo's already explained it." she smiled. Rose beamed as she knelt to unlock the cage and let the chomby out. Instead of leaping out as most of the pets did when they were adopted, he simply sat, looking dumbly at the open door as though wondering where the bars had gone.
"Come on out." Karma encouraged, holding out her hand in invitation. At length, realization dawning in the blue creature's eyes, the chomby lumbered out of the cage and stopped, blinking bewilderedly at Rose, Yahoo and Karma.
"Go home?" the chomby asked, looking hopeful.
"Yup, we're gonna take you home, Einstein!" Yahoo grinned, clapping the dinosaur on the back.
"Yahoo, be nice." Karma warned. The case of warts looked even worse now that she could see him fully. They didn't just cover his head, she saw, but protruded all over his body. It was enough to make her feel sick.
"His intelligance level is also rather low, so you might need to help him along for awhile until you can get that fixed." Rose told her. "And chombies can be high maintenance. Are you sure you can care for him?"
"Oh I'm sure." the frog assured her. "Its not like I have anything better to do than to watch after my pets, after all." Saying so, Karma worked her arms around the ill chomby and lifted him, grunting lightly. He weighed much more than Yahoo, but not enough that she wouldn't be able to carry him. "So do I talk to you about taking him home or the grouch up front?" she asked Rose, smiling a bit.
"He's been in much better spirits lately since he's had Snap to care for." Rose informed her. "Whether he wants to admit it or not, that doglefox has done him a world of good. Its about time he comes out of his shell and realizes the entire world's not out to bite him on the tail."
"Well, its not made him much more civil to ME, but that's good to hear, I guess." Karma answered.
"Anyway, to answer your question, yes. He's in charge of the adoptions today because I need to keep tabs on everyone back here." she smirked.
"Alright fair enough." the frog nodded.
"I FOUND ONE!!!" a voice rang out. As Rose turned to answer the cry, Karma headed back to the front of the agency with her new pet. The doctor glanced up at her as he finished the paperwork for someone who had found a striped grarrl they were taking home.
"We're busting somebody out." she informed him with a smile.
"A limited edition pet, I see." he muttered. "Let's not mind the other pets that need a home as long as there's rarities." Karma narrowed her eyes a bit.
"I had no idea he was a rarity and furthermore, he's sick." Karma replied, setting the chomby down and allowing him to walk on his own as she approached the desk. "On top of that, he's too dull to know his name." She took a deep breath and let it out again, calming herself. "Do you have it on record somewhere?" she asked. Dr. Death grumbled and pushed his seat backward toward a filing cabinet against the back wall. She waited as he pulled out a folder of "Yet To Be Adopteds" and filtered through it.
"Chomby..." he murmured, looking through the species. Finding the tab he was looking for, he pulled out the files. "Blue chomby, male, admitted with neowarts, correct?" he asked, looking distastefully at the numerous pink growths on the chomby's blue hide.
"That's him." Karma nodded.
"His name is Akachomby23154." he informed her. "VERY creative name." he added, shaking his head as he stuffed the files back into the cabinet and slammed the drawer closed. "Are you taking this one home or are you throwing him back now that he's not quite the prize you thought?"
"No!" Karma said, a little more loudly than she had meant to. Her patience was wearing achingly thin with the yellow techo who seemed to try and shoot her down at every turn. "What's your problem?" she asked, lowering her tone a bit when she saw a couple of heads turn to give her a quizzical look.
"Me. And in about two seconds, you're going to share that problem." he grumbled as he wheeled his chair back to the desk and slid a fresh adoption form in front of himself. He didn't know, really, why he was being so hostile toward her today...something within him seemed to get his defense up around her lately. It was likely because he had the feeling that she was trying to move in and be "more than friends" recently....not that they had been friends to begin with.
He filled out the form hastily, taking her information and confirming each line with a curt nod of his head, just wanting her out of the building and away from him as soon as humanly possible. He filled in the last few fields and hurriedly tucked the paper into the outgoing pile of applications. Karma gave him a single stiff nod of her head as she paid the fee before turning to leave.
"I wonder what crawled up HIS tailpipe and died today?" Yahoo asked when they were outside.
"I have no clue." Karma growled. "But I'm a little sick of it." She sighed heavily "I hope there's a cloud leaving for Faerieland soon....I don't want to be stuck at the Cirristation all day." she added, changing the subject.
"We won't be stuck there all day." Yahoo assured her. "A couple hours, maybe."
"That's still a wait." she replied glumly.
"Me go home. Me sick." Akachomby lamented, blinking in the sunlight.
"You'll go home in a bit." Karma assured him. "We need to get you fixed up first." As she said this, a fat raindrop plunked squarely onto her nose. ".....Lovely...." she growled icily as the more raindrops pelted to the ground around her. "Well guys, lets hurry and maybe we'll get there before there's lightning zapping our butts every two steps." The cybunny and chomby looked at one another and then followed after Karma hurriedly in the direction of the Cirristation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Death was more than relieved when his shift had finally ended and he had been allowed to go home as he sat in his living room, immersed in his latest book, Suffer The Children by an Earther named John Saul. He found that he was a lot more fond of books from Earth than of Neopia's books as they had a bad habit of vanishing in a puff of smoke that irritated his sinuses. Besides, he liked to come back to books later and read them again if the mood struck him and it irritated him, having to buy extras of the ones he especially enjoyed reading just to have them vanish again.
So far this one was shaping up to be a rather twisted horror novel and he wondered exactly what the author's fascination was with children murdering children. Behind him, Snap whimpered, scratching at the glass door leading outside. It had cost nearly eighty thousand neopoints to replace and coupled with the new furniture, had all but cleaned out his bank account. He silently thanked whatever powers there were that he didn't have to pay monthly rent or he'd be out on his tail.
"You want to go out in that?" he asked the doglefox skeptically. Snap looked forlornly over his shoulder at the doctor and scratched at the door once again, seeming to be heedless of the fact that it was pouring rain. "Alright, alright...." he sighed, pulling himself out of the armchair and approaching, He lifted the lock with a small snicking sound and drew open the door, watching as Snap bounded outside into the downpour. He waited a moment as he drew it closed again, expecting the doglefox to realize how bad the weather was and bark to be let in within a few minutes, but when Snap didn't return, he left the door and went back to his chair, deciding that the petpet had some energy to spend.
Five minutes passed....and then fifteen. By the time twenty minutes had gone, Dr. Death had begun to be irked by Snap's lack of asking to be let in. Had something happened to him? Likely he was out rolling in the mud and looking forward to putting brown pawprints all over his pants when he was allowed back inside. The techo sighed, getting up from where he was sitting when twenty minutes had passed and went back to the back door, pulling it open.
"Snap, get in here!" he called, snapping his fingers. There was no response...only the soft patter of the rain. "Snap!!" he called again, getting a bit more irritated as the shoulders of his shirt became damp. Again, nothing. Refusing to give in to the urge to worry, he walked a short distance into the middle of the patio and called again. "Snap, dammit, come on! Its cold out here!" he called again, expecting the doglefox to rocket at him at any moment and lunge at his pantleg with muddy paws, but nothing. A cold feeling of uncertainty stole over him as he abandoned his distaste for the rain and walked across the yard to the petpet house standing by the fence.
He decided he was no longer going to scold Snap...if his paws were muddy, he'd just rinse him down in the tub, towel him off and let that be the end of it. "Snap?" He bent over, peering into the darkness of the little house. There was nothing there. He set his jaw, thinking. Where else could he have gone? He turned, his eyes skating the yard for other hiding places. The only other place he could see was the spindly plurby bush in the corner of what had once been his garden. He had lost interest in it two years ago and the bush had taken over and choked out any of his remaining plants.
Hopeful, he hurried toward it and took hold of a branch, giving the bush a shake. "Come on, Snap, are you in there?" he asked. Nothing. Not even a faint rustle. A low panic stole over him as he cast another look around the yard to confirm that there was nowhere else that the doglefox could hide. Nothing. Feeling as though his stomach had dropped out of his body, he trotted around the perimeter of the yard, his eyes scanning the fence for any holes the petpet could have escaped through, all the while calling the Snap's name. The rain no longer bothered him as he searched and it occurred to him faintly, even now, just how high of a place the doglefox had in his life.
When he had confirmed that the yard was empty, he hurried back inside, immediately going to the phone and punching in the number to the pound. The receiver rang hollowly in his ear as rainwater ran from his hair and nose in tiny rivers. "Come on..." he growled through clenched teeth. He knew Rose sometimes worked late, but even if she wasn't there, the night watchman should be able to help him. On the fifth ring, someone picked up.
"Neopian Pound, we're closed, may I help you?" Rose's voice asked.
"Rose!" he said abruptly. She paused a moment.
"....doctor?" she asked, sounding confused. "Is something wrong?"
"Its Snap." he told her, his teeth chattering as he shivered in the chilly house. "He's g-gone."
"Gone? Did he run away?" the uni asked, sounding shocked.
"I don't know." he paused, sneezed, and continued. "I let him out about twenty minutes ago and he just disappeared."
"I'm sure he didn't just disappear." she said reasonably, trying to calm him with her voice. "Are there any holes he could have gotten out through?"
"No...and spaces in between the slats either." he told her. "I need the number for the Petpet Lost And Found line." There was a pause and then a shuffling of papers.
"Tell you what...you check around the neighborhood, I'll check mine when I get home and I'll place the call for you." she told him. "If he just got out, he might still be within calling range."
"Alright..." he nodded, moving to hang up but thinking better of it. "Rose?"
"I'm here." she told him.
"Thank you."
"I try, Doctor." she sounded as though she was smiling. "Good luck." There was a click as she hung up. He laid the phone back on its cradle, hurrying across the room to grab his black jacket off of the hook on the back of the door and pull it hastily on as he hurried out the door.
"Snap!!" he called, hearing his voice echo back at him off of the neighborhood block. Around him, the rain continued to fall.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND BABY, RIGHT ROUND, LIKE A RECORD BABY, RIGHT ROUND, ROUND ROUND" the rainbow boombox Yahoo had insisted on buying on the way home blared as Yahoo and Chomby danced to one of Karma's earth CD's that had arrived in the package of items she had shipped from home before moving to Neopia.
They had visited Faerieland that afternoon and waited in line for the Healing Springs for the better part of an hour, luckily above the rain in the clouds instead of below it, otherwise they would have been soaked. The water faerie had been surprisingly generous to Chomby and had not only cured his sickness but had sent them home with a healing potion as well in case he had an overnight relapse. Without the neowarts covering his body, Chomby was much more appealing to look at and Karma was pleased with her decision to adopt him.
They had stopped at the bookstore and picked out a selection of books to increase the blue chomby's intelligence and they had seemed to work rather well. For the first hour, Yahoo and Karma had read them to him one by one with aching slowness to get him to absorb what was in them, and by the time they were through, Chomby had eagerly been grabbing them up, reading them himself with startling speed, each one vanishing with a puff of colored smoke when he had finished them.
He seemed capable of actual speech now instead of the broken monotone he had spoken in when they had picked him up at the pound and Karma watched with amusement from the sofa as the two of them capered around the room like a pair of sugar-high ping pong balls.
"Crank it up, Yahoo!!" Chomby insisted, landing clumsily on the table and bouncing on all four paws.
"Better not." Karma warned, even as the cybunny's paw touched the dial on the boom box. "I don't want the neighbors complaining."
"Aww c'mon!" the cybunny protested. "When have they ever??" As Karma opened her mouth to answer, there was a timid knock at the door.
"Speak of the devil." she smirked. Chomby froze as Yahoo quickly twisted the volume down to nothing.
"Tell'em we're sorry!" Yahoo whispered.
"Shush." The frog told him as she got up and headed for the door. "Just let me talk to them." The chomby and cybunny exchanged a worried glance as she undid the latchbolt and opened the door. "Sorry, were we---" she trailed off when she saw who it was. Dr. Death, wet and bedraggled stood in the threshold of her doorway, panting slightly. "....what are you doing here?" she asked for lack of better things to ask. "Better yet, how did you find out where I lived??" she asked, her annoyance from earlier trailing back. "I mean, you've got a lot of nerve treating me the way you did earlier and then just showing up unannounced and---"
"Snap is missing." he interrupted her tirade. Karma stopped short, blinking at him. "I found your address in the Public Listings and you're the only other person I know of that's spent time with him." He drew in his breath, coughing briskly behind his cupped hand. "And I don't suppose he came here."
"No..." Karma replied. "Are you saying he ran away?"
"I don't know." the doctor replied. "That's what I'm trying to find out, isn't it?"
"You don't have to be that way." Karma growled defensively. They dueled with their eyes for a long moment.
"If he's not here, then I have no business here. Sorry to bother you." he spat, turning to leave.
"Wait!" Karma called after him, disappearing inside for a moment to grab her coat off of the back of the sofa. "Let me go with you." she offered.
"No." he replied firmly. "Leave me alone." he quickened his step toward the stairwell back outside, cringing as he heard her running up behind him.
"We'll cover more ground this way." she insisted.
"Look, I don't want your help!" Dr. Death snapped, whirling around to glare at her. "I'm tired of you riding me like you have been. What is it you want from me??" Karma blinked, bewildered by his sudden strike-out at her. "If its love, you're looking in the WRONG place. Do you understand me??"
"I just want to help you." Karma said in a voice that was dangerously calm.
"No, that's not all you want to do." he shot back. "And if you come with me, let's get something straight right now. You are nothing to me. You will never be anything to me. You gave me Snap to repay me for saving your cybunny. Fine. It was a debt, it was paid, we're through. If you tag along, you're just another pair of hands to find Snap. Nothing else. Get me, 'sweetheart'?" He turned to walk away, leaving Karma rooted where she stood.
"You know, you can be a real bastard sometimes." she called after him, not moving from where she was.
"Call it a hobby." he retorted as he reached the stairwell and went down, taking the stairs two at a time. He paused a moment as he reached the bottom, waiting to see if she had still followed him. Hearing silence, he continued. And then....much to his chagrin, he heard footsteps approaching. He told himself to walk faster, but found himself glued to the spot as he heard her coming down the stairs.
"I'm still going." Karma informed him icily. "YOU might be a bastard, but Snap isn't." He opened his mouth to argue further. "Just shut up." she growled before he had a chance to speak. Dr. Death's jaws closed as she pushed past him and out the front door of the apartment complex. Once outside, she looked over her shoulder. "Well?? Are you coming or not?" she asked. Letting out his breath in a resigned sigh, he followed after her, wondering just where he had lost the authority he had tried to exert over her moments ago.
As the two of them slipped outside into the darkness, there was a suffocating silence hanging between them, broken only by their footfall and the patter of the falling rain. Neither of them looked at one another as they moved until, at last, Karma broke the silence.
"So where are we going?"
"I don't know." he told her flatly. "I don't know where to look that I haven't already."
"Have you checked around your home?"
"Twice."
"Back at the pound?"
"Yes."
"Tried the central?"
"Most of it."
"Then let's try the rest of it." she said decisively. He flicked his tail, annoyed at her certainty. "What part haven't you looked in?" she asked, the shadowed hulk of Neopia Central coming into view up ahead.
"I don't know, from the toy shop on, I suppose." he grumbled. The streets were deserted except for the shopkeepers, standing on the stoops of their establishments and looking dejected at the bad weather that was bringing them lack of business.
"Blasted rain..." Kauvara scowled, stamping a hoof impatiently as she examined the downpour from beneath the rim of her floppy witch's hat. "Those potions will spoil if no one buys them soon..."
"Hey!" Karma called, getting her attention. The starry kau straightened up, smiling.
"Hello there, can I help you?" she asked hopefully.
"I was wondering if you've seen a doglefox around here." Karma replied. The kau's expression soured.
"The petpet store." she mumbled, leaning against the doorframe. "If you're not going to buy then go away."
"No, I don't want to buy one. This one got out and---" Karma trailed off as Kauvara turned around and retreated into her magic shop, the door banging closed behind her. ".....gee thanks a lot." the frog muttered.
"We'd be better off just looking. Everyone's a merchant here and all they're concerned with is making money." Dr. Death explained.
"It never hurts to ask." she replied sharply.
"No, but your nose might end up pretty flat by the time people are done slamming doors on it." he snorted. They established that Snap was nowhere near the magic shop nor anywhere around it and moved onward. "This is pointless." the doctor said after a few more moments of silence.
"Don't knock it just yet. What if he's here?" Karma asked.
"In the pouring rain with no one around?" he asked. "You don't know Snap like I do. He'd be going crazy without someone around him. Hell, he has a fit when I leave him alone while I shower in the mornings."
"I at least want to take a look around." Karma insisted, heading for the beauty parlor. Between it and Pizzaroo, there was a space of shadow. "Snap?" she called, taking a step into the darkness to investigate.
"He's not in there." Dr. Death insisted, knowing Karma wasn't going to listen.
"Shh! I just saw something move. Snap?? Here boy!" she called. The techo didn't want to say anything, but something felt extremely wrong about the situation. Something that made the hair on the back of his neck prickle. "Snap? C'mon, don't be afraid!" Karma called, venturing further into the alley.
"Karma..." He said, his warning senses flaring. If she heard him, she ignored him. Now it was stronger than ever...the same feeling he got when trying to approach a cornered and angry pet in the pound...the same sense of forboding and knowing he was going to get bitten. Something stirred in the alley and, all too quickly, started toward them. "Karma, get out of there!" he cried, seizing the back of her shirt and yanking her backward so hard that she fell. There was a purring sound as her shirt ripped at the seam and she gave an audible whuff as she landed on her rear.
In the same instant, a ragged and rather rabid-looking poogle emerged from the mouth of the alley, snapping its needle-like teeth closed on the empty space that Karma had occupied only moments before with a sharp clicking sound. It snarled, foam dripping from its lips as it shifted its rheumy eyes first to Dr. Death and then to Karma.
"Mine....." the poogle growled, leering at them. "My home....monsters, leave!!" The mad poogle snapped at the air once again before turning and shambling back into the darkness of the alley. Dr. Death waited for a moment to see if it would return before kneeling to check on the frog.
"Are you alright?" he asked. There was no concern in his voice as he did so, just mild curiousity.
"I'm fine." Karma agreed, standing up and brushing distastefully at the large damp spot on the back of her pants from sitting on the wet pavement. "Let's look somewhere else." she added, as though brushing off the past event as simply having not happened at all. The doctor nodded and said nothing, realizing that the two of them were likely in for a long and rather unpleasant evening.
TBC.......
In the end he had agreed to leave Snap at home and business had gone on as usual as he had resumed the role of the sour-faced abandonment manager.
However, outside of work, and closed in the confines of his house, he had rekindled some of what he had been before taking his occupation in the pound, doting on Snap as he had with the petpets he had taken in when he had been younger and still with aspirations of being a real doctor. Surprisingly, the two had adjusted to one another's company rather well as the days wore on and the few people that had seen the dramatic change in the techo's mood around his petpet could hardly believe he was the same person...
But in public, it was business as always....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Death took the blue pteri's name down on the abandonment form and took the neopet from its former owner.
"....And don't sell him to any new people!" the boy insisted. "I love him and want to make sure he goes to a good home."
"If you love him so much, why are you abandoning him?" the doctor inquired. The boy, taken offguard, looked to Rose for help. The pink uni only shrugged and smiled faintly as if to say "You did it to yourself, friend..."
"Look, just do it, okay?" he snapped, fishing one hundred and fifty neopoints out of his pocket, slamming them on the counter and storming out.
"Hmph....what a temper." the techo remarked, shifting his hold on the pteri a little as it attempted to bite his fingers.
"You said as though you had room to talk." Rose teased with an impish smile, looking up from her paperwork.
"I've bettered myself, Rose." he told her matter-of-factly as he turned to take the pteri into the back.
"All right, if you say so." the uni surrendered amiably. "How's Snap doing?" she inquired, taking the conversation in another direction.
"Oh fine." the techo replied, brightening immediately at the mention of the doglefox. "I've.....actually given some thought to painting him." She nodded but said nothing. In all honesty, the topic of Snap had gotten a bit boring, but she still humored it, knowing that it was something that interested him and something she could more often than not, get him into a sociable mood over. He looked as though he had been about to say more, but the pteri he held, finally seeing a vantage point, squirmed in his arms and took ahold of his coatsleeve, shaking it violently. There was a sharp purring sound as a seam tore.
"Lemme go, ya old coot!!" the pteri insisted, flapping its wings violently. Try as he might, however, the doctor kept a firm hold on him.
"Calm yourself, pinfeathers." he told the bird. "I've had better men than you try and escape." The bird continued to struggle for a few moments more before finally resigning himself with a deep sigh.
"You're a jerk." the pteri snorted. "Just go ahead and sell me to Dr. Sloth for experiments then. See if I care. When he turns me into a mutant, I'm coming straight back here for you." he added threateningly. Dr. Death and Rose exchanged a mildly amused look before he carried the angered neopet into the back to deposit him in a cage for potential adopters to look at, returning after the avian had been dealt with.
"You know, I'd like to find who's been spreading those rumors that I'm Dr. Sloth's understudy and crush them..." he remarked. Rose shrugged.
"Snerts will be snerts." she sighed. "What can you do?"
"I'll tell you what I'd *like* to do..." he sneered, and then trailed off, not really in the mood to go into detail. It entailed pain though. Lots of it.
"Did Karma ever finalize that lunch she talked about going out with you on?" Rose inquired. He shrugged, his posture alone suggesting that she had struck a nerve.
"Never got back with me on it." he told her. "And I'm not so sure I would have accepted anyway."
"Ohhh, why not?" Rose chided.
"Can you imagine the controversy?" he asked, raising a brow. "An owner seen on a date with a neopet? The Neopian Times would have a field day."
"Oh come along now, you worry too much." she sighed, giving him a dismissive wave of her hand. "And you've said it time and time again yourself, you're not a pet." she added.
"Bah." he snorted. "Such as it is, I'd like to keep my reputation out of the mud any further than its already sunk." Rose nodded, deciding not to press it further.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karma examined herself in the mirror, wondering yet again if the dress was overkill. She had bought it on impulse from one of the stores catering to neopets owners rather than the pets themselves. She had been enamoured with how it had looked on her in the store but now it seemed all wrong...too tight and too baggy in all the wrong places. She still loved the beautiful lavender color of the crushed velvet and the way it felt against her skin...but maybe it just wasn't for her.
At length, she sighed and took it off, placing it back in the box and putting her T-shirt and jeans back on. As much as she wanted to turn Dr. Death's head, she didn't want to be brazen about it and she knew that flouncing into the pound wearing a dress such as that would look ridiculous and likely embarrass both her and the doctor.
Never the less, she DID have business at the pound today. After a talk with Yahoo last night, he had voiced an interest in a playmate and so she had promised him that today they would see what they could find. She looked at herself again and sighed....how boring she looked. Her brown mane of hair draped about her shoulders in small waves, a lock of it clinging in a stray comma to her cheek. In the dim light of the apartment's small bathroom, her orange hazed eyes glowed like a pair of live coals and her frame was slender...just a touch beyond skinny. Nothing terribly interesting about her, she thought to herself bitterly.
"Are we going??" Yahoo called excitedly from where he was posted by the front door.
"I'm coming." she called after him, pausing to pull a small bottle of fragrance out from beneath the sink as she showered herself in a single thin spritz of it, scenting her very lightly with its honeysuckle content.
"Yeah so's Christmas!" the cybunny shot back with a laugh. "Pyew...what stinks?" he asked, wrinkling his nose as she sauntered into the front hallway.
"Its not THAT bad." she insisted.
"Maybe not, but I've got a sensitive nose and it reeks from here." Yahoo replied, covering his nose with his paws. "Ugh...did you roll in it or something??"
"Stuff it." Karma told the rabbit, smirking a little. "Let's go find you a brother or sister."
"If you don't scare'em all away. They might think there's been a flower spill somewhere." Yahoo smiled and then galloped out the door as Karma chased after him playfully a short distance, slamming the door shut behind her.
"I'll give *you* a flower spill!" she grinned. Yahoo squealed with glee as she caught up to him, snatched him off of his feet and mercilessly tickled him for a few moments.
"Okay...okay, I give!" the cybunny cried amid laughter. Karma relented and set the animal down as they headed in the direction of Neopia Central. "Can we get a blumaroo?" Yahoo asked. "Ashley used to have one. They're fun."
"We'll see." Karma told him. "I'd really rather get one that looks like it needs help."
"How about a blumaroo that needs help? Best of both worlds." he suggested. Karma didn't answer as they passed through the square together and headed in the direction of the pound. The walkways weren't terribly crowded as most of Neopia's residents were still at school or out having a late lunch. As she neared the pound, she noted that it was active, at least, judging by the people going in and coming out...some with pets and some with none at all.
She brushed past a happy young lady who was carrying with her two aishas, one glowing and one split, as they perched on her shoulders and mewed happily. Pound rescues, Karma guessed as she trotted up the steps with Yahoo close behind her and entered the building.
"Hello?" she called, immediately catching the attention of Dr. Death from where he sat at his usual post, busily shifting through paperwork.
"Hello." he replied in a voice that was dully professional. She crossed the room, standing in front of him a moment until he looked up from his papers and stared flatly at her. "May I help you?" he asked patronizingly.
"Oh I don't know....maybe." she smirked. He continued to glare at her for a long moment.
"I don't have time for games. What do you want?" he asked her. Karma inwardly cringed. Well, so much for being friendly. She was glad she hadn't worn her dress now.
"I came to adopt again...or should I see Rose?" she asked.
"Eh, Rose is refereeing the herd that's already in there." he sighed. "I'm on checkout duty today."
"I can tell you're thrilled." she remarked.
"Riveted." he answered disinterestedly.
"Given any more thought to heading out to lunch sometime with me and Yahoo?" she asked. He flinched a bit.
"I don't make a habit of fraternizing with customers. I told you that." he shot back in a voice barely above a whisper, recalling the lie he had told Rose earlier about Karma not getting back with him about the lunch date she had proposed.
"Who's fraternizing? Anyway, whatever....I'll see you in a few." she sighed, shaking her head as she headed for the back of the pound. She wasn't offended per-sey, but found his high-handedness rather amusing. And, as much as she resented it, she still had her private feelings for him.
As she pushed open the door to the back, she was first aware of the large surge of noise battering against her from the pets crying out to passersby from their cages, the constant babble of the people filtering through the cages looking for adoptees, and the clatter of cage doors once in awhile as pets were let out to be with their new owners.
"Well, let's get started." she said aloud to no one in particular as she and Yahoo meandered toward the first aisle of cages. Almost instantly, the pets began to cry out and reach for her, all of them with hope in their eyes and some looking half-mad with desire to be taken out.
"Oh please! Oh please pick me!! I'm a great pet!! I'll do anything you want! Did I mention I know how to clean house??" a red lupe babbled, bouncing excitedly in the confines of its small metal kennel. Karma examined him, reaching through the bars to see how he'd react. The neopet happily didn't just lick her wrist, but rather tried to swallow it, he was so eagar. She grinned.
"Hey Yahoo, how about this guy?" she asked, picking up her cybunny and holding him in front of the cage to get a look at the lupe. With startling speed, the lupe's mood darkened as it growled, baring its teeth through curled lips. With a loud roar, it lunged at the bars, as though meaning to rip Yahoo to ribbons.
"....I think I'll pass." the cybunny said, sounding a little faint as the lupe continued to growl and dig at the door of his cage.
"Sorry." she whispered as she set her cybunny down. "He seemed to have better control than that."
"Can't take the hunter out of some lupes." the cybunny told her as they lopped along for a short distance. Out of the corner of her eye, Karma saw a rather attractive neopet huddled in the corner of its cage and looking dejected. She turned her head to see a starry-pelted zafara peering out at her with large eyes. No sooner had the notion crossed her mind to approach it than a young boy shoved past her and ran to the zafara with reckless abandon.
"I WANT HIM!! I WANT THIS ONE!!!" he all but screamed as he wrapped his hands around the bars holding the zafara in. Brightening instantly, the captive starry neopet lovingly washed its tongue over the boy's face and fingers. As Karma watched, Rose bustled out from between two of the aisles and hurriedly jingled through her keys to find the correct one to free the zafara. As the boy retreated back to the front of the pound, the pink uni cast an apologetic smile at Karma.
"Really got to move fast around here sometimes." she chuckled. "Anything in particular you're looking for this time?"
"Oh no...just looking." the frog shrugged with a grin. "Yahoo was getting lonely."
"Alrighty." Rose smiled. From across the pound, another shout rang up.
"MIZ UNICORN LADY!!! I FOUND ONE!!!" a little girl cried. Rose shook her head, rolling her eyes playfully.
"Duty calls." she smiled, trotting off in the direction of the voice. Karma watched her leave before resuming her hunt, her eyes scanning the cages. The pets inside all looked equally sad and hopeful, but none of them seemed to cry out to her as her special companion.
"Oooh pick me! I have a faerie snarhook you could sell!!" a faerie chia declared, holding up the confused-looking petpet. "But I'll only go with you if you're a millionare!" the chia added haughtily.
"Will you shut up??" a grumpy-looking blue flotsam roared at the chia. "We're ALL trying to get adopted and you're making us look bad!!" Karma walked past them, leaving them to their argument and rounded the corner of the first aisle. Her eyes fell upon a pair of human boys kneeling and peering into one of the kennels.
"I sat on my lunch once, and my sandwich looked like his face does." one of the boys declared.
"No way." his friend snickered.
"I'm serious...ugh, I think one of those things just moved."
"Gross!"
Karma cocked a brow, continuing to stand at a safe distance. Just what were they looking at? She fought the urge to walk up and see because she didn't want to feel like she was butting in, but intrigue was prickling her all over.
"C'mon, let's keep looking. I gotta find a wocky so I can join that guild I told you about." one of the boys said after a few more moments of ogling whatever it was they had been staring at.
"Just go to the pet stockhouse and get one, man." the other said. "What's the big deal?"
"The big deal is I don't want some kitten wocky pooping all over my house!" he replied. "I wanna get one that's already been broken in!" as they disappeared into another corner of the pound, Karma moved forward almost too quickly, kneeling to see what they had been looking at and gasped. Inside the cage, staring out at her with cow-like black eyes was a blue reptile of some sort, its body covered in pink fleshy lumps.
"Hi there." she said tentatively as it looked levelly at her. "What's your name?" The creature made no motion to reply, and cocked its head questioningly.
"UGH!!" Yahoo announced as he muscled in beside Karma to look at the pet. "That's the ugliest case of neowarts I've ever seen!"
"Is it curable?" she asked, reaching through the bars to gently pat the creature.
"Yeah but the fungus to cure it with costs a fortune." the cybunny lamented. She fell silent, debating with herself on whether or not she ought to adopt this one. "We could always take him to the healing springs." he added quickly. "The water faerie heals pets for free....but she's not very reliable with her spells. Sometimes she just gives you a potion if she doesn't feel up to wasting her magic."
"But that's good, right?" she asked.
"Its good, but it doesn't cure." he explained. "And this chomby's going to need her magic or a fungus or else he's going to look like that forever...." he shuddered a little. Karma bit her lip, feeling like shuddering herself. The sickness made the blue chomby look utterly grotesque.
"Me....sick." the chomby told Karma in a slow and even tone, radiating its dullness.
"....and might want to pick up some books for him too." Yahoo added. "Ugh, nothing's more annoying than a dim-witted pet."
"I'm sure he can't help that." Karma muttered.
"Me sick." the chomby repeated, curling its tail around its legs and looking pathetic.
"So what do you think?" she asked Yahoo.
"I'm not sharing my bed with him." the cybunny sighed as his owner broke into a grin. Following suit with the other adopters, she called out rather than going to find the pound attendant.
"Rose! I found one!!" she cried. There was a long pause before Rose scuttled around a corner and approached her.
"Oh dear, our little sick guy, huh?" she asked as she sought out the key that opened the chomby's cage. "Now you DO know those warts aren't going to go away unless you heal him, right?"
"Yes, Yahoo's already explained it." she smiled. Rose beamed as she knelt to unlock the cage and let the chomby out. Instead of leaping out as most of the pets did when they were adopted, he simply sat, looking dumbly at the open door as though wondering where the bars had gone.
"Come on out." Karma encouraged, holding out her hand in invitation. At length, realization dawning in the blue creature's eyes, the chomby lumbered out of the cage and stopped, blinking bewilderedly at Rose, Yahoo and Karma.
"Go home?" the chomby asked, looking hopeful.
"Yup, we're gonna take you home, Einstein!" Yahoo grinned, clapping the dinosaur on the back.
"Yahoo, be nice." Karma warned. The case of warts looked even worse now that she could see him fully. They didn't just cover his head, she saw, but protruded all over his body. It was enough to make her feel sick.
"His intelligance level is also rather low, so you might need to help him along for awhile until you can get that fixed." Rose told her. "And chombies can be high maintenance. Are you sure you can care for him?"
"Oh I'm sure." the frog assured her. "Its not like I have anything better to do than to watch after my pets, after all." Saying so, Karma worked her arms around the ill chomby and lifted him, grunting lightly. He weighed much more than Yahoo, but not enough that she wouldn't be able to carry him. "So do I talk to you about taking him home or the grouch up front?" she asked Rose, smiling a bit.
"He's been in much better spirits lately since he's had Snap to care for." Rose informed her. "Whether he wants to admit it or not, that doglefox has done him a world of good. Its about time he comes out of his shell and realizes the entire world's not out to bite him on the tail."
"Well, its not made him much more civil to ME, but that's good to hear, I guess." Karma answered.
"Anyway, to answer your question, yes. He's in charge of the adoptions today because I need to keep tabs on everyone back here." she smirked.
"Alright fair enough." the frog nodded.
"I FOUND ONE!!!" a voice rang out. As Rose turned to answer the cry, Karma headed back to the front of the agency with her new pet. The doctor glanced up at her as he finished the paperwork for someone who had found a striped grarrl they were taking home.
"We're busting somebody out." she informed him with a smile.
"A limited edition pet, I see." he muttered. "Let's not mind the other pets that need a home as long as there's rarities." Karma narrowed her eyes a bit.
"I had no idea he was a rarity and furthermore, he's sick." Karma replied, setting the chomby down and allowing him to walk on his own as she approached the desk. "On top of that, he's too dull to know his name." She took a deep breath and let it out again, calming herself. "Do you have it on record somewhere?" she asked. Dr. Death grumbled and pushed his seat backward toward a filing cabinet against the back wall. She waited as he pulled out a folder of "Yet To Be Adopteds" and filtered through it.
"Chomby..." he murmured, looking through the species. Finding the tab he was looking for, he pulled out the files. "Blue chomby, male, admitted with neowarts, correct?" he asked, looking distastefully at the numerous pink growths on the chomby's blue hide.
"That's him." Karma nodded.
"His name is Akachomby23154." he informed her. "VERY creative name." he added, shaking his head as he stuffed the files back into the cabinet and slammed the drawer closed. "Are you taking this one home or are you throwing him back now that he's not quite the prize you thought?"
"No!" Karma said, a little more loudly than she had meant to. Her patience was wearing achingly thin with the yellow techo who seemed to try and shoot her down at every turn. "What's your problem?" she asked, lowering her tone a bit when she saw a couple of heads turn to give her a quizzical look.
"Me. And in about two seconds, you're going to share that problem." he grumbled as he wheeled his chair back to the desk and slid a fresh adoption form in front of himself. He didn't know, really, why he was being so hostile toward her today...something within him seemed to get his defense up around her lately. It was likely because he had the feeling that she was trying to move in and be "more than friends" recently....not that they had been friends to begin with.
He filled out the form hastily, taking her information and confirming each line with a curt nod of his head, just wanting her out of the building and away from him as soon as humanly possible. He filled in the last few fields and hurriedly tucked the paper into the outgoing pile of applications. Karma gave him a single stiff nod of her head as she paid the fee before turning to leave.
"I wonder what crawled up HIS tailpipe and died today?" Yahoo asked when they were outside.
"I have no clue." Karma growled. "But I'm a little sick of it." She sighed heavily "I hope there's a cloud leaving for Faerieland soon....I don't want to be stuck at the Cirristation all day." she added, changing the subject.
"We won't be stuck there all day." Yahoo assured her. "A couple hours, maybe."
"That's still a wait." she replied glumly.
"Me go home. Me sick." Akachomby lamented, blinking in the sunlight.
"You'll go home in a bit." Karma assured him. "We need to get you fixed up first." As she said this, a fat raindrop plunked squarely onto her nose. ".....Lovely...." she growled icily as the more raindrops pelted to the ground around her. "Well guys, lets hurry and maybe we'll get there before there's lightning zapping our butts every two steps." The cybunny and chomby looked at one another and then followed after Karma hurriedly in the direction of the Cirristation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Death was more than relieved when his shift had finally ended and he had been allowed to go home as he sat in his living room, immersed in his latest book, Suffer The Children by an Earther named John Saul. He found that he was a lot more fond of books from Earth than of Neopia's books as they had a bad habit of vanishing in a puff of smoke that irritated his sinuses. Besides, he liked to come back to books later and read them again if the mood struck him and it irritated him, having to buy extras of the ones he especially enjoyed reading just to have them vanish again.
So far this one was shaping up to be a rather twisted horror novel and he wondered exactly what the author's fascination was with children murdering children. Behind him, Snap whimpered, scratching at the glass door leading outside. It had cost nearly eighty thousand neopoints to replace and coupled with the new furniture, had all but cleaned out his bank account. He silently thanked whatever powers there were that he didn't have to pay monthly rent or he'd be out on his tail.
"You want to go out in that?" he asked the doglefox skeptically. Snap looked forlornly over his shoulder at the doctor and scratched at the door once again, seeming to be heedless of the fact that it was pouring rain. "Alright, alright...." he sighed, pulling himself out of the armchair and approaching, He lifted the lock with a small snicking sound and drew open the door, watching as Snap bounded outside into the downpour. He waited a moment as he drew it closed again, expecting the doglefox to realize how bad the weather was and bark to be let in within a few minutes, but when Snap didn't return, he left the door and went back to his chair, deciding that the petpet had some energy to spend.
Five minutes passed....and then fifteen. By the time twenty minutes had gone, Dr. Death had begun to be irked by Snap's lack of asking to be let in. Had something happened to him? Likely he was out rolling in the mud and looking forward to putting brown pawprints all over his pants when he was allowed back inside. The techo sighed, getting up from where he was sitting when twenty minutes had passed and went back to the back door, pulling it open.
"Snap, get in here!" he called, snapping his fingers. There was no response...only the soft patter of the rain. "Snap!!" he called again, getting a bit more irritated as the shoulders of his shirt became damp. Again, nothing. Refusing to give in to the urge to worry, he walked a short distance into the middle of the patio and called again. "Snap, dammit, come on! Its cold out here!" he called again, expecting the doglefox to rocket at him at any moment and lunge at his pantleg with muddy paws, but nothing. A cold feeling of uncertainty stole over him as he abandoned his distaste for the rain and walked across the yard to the petpet house standing by the fence.
He decided he was no longer going to scold Snap...if his paws were muddy, he'd just rinse him down in the tub, towel him off and let that be the end of it. "Snap?" He bent over, peering into the darkness of the little house. There was nothing there. He set his jaw, thinking. Where else could he have gone? He turned, his eyes skating the yard for other hiding places. The only other place he could see was the spindly plurby bush in the corner of what had once been his garden. He had lost interest in it two years ago and the bush had taken over and choked out any of his remaining plants.
Hopeful, he hurried toward it and took hold of a branch, giving the bush a shake. "Come on, Snap, are you in there?" he asked. Nothing. Not even a faint rustle. A low panic stole over him as he cast another look around the yard to confirm that there was nowhere else that the doglefox could hide. Nothing. Feeling as though his stomach had dropped out of his body, he trotted around the perimeter of the yard, his eyes scanning the fence for any holes the petpet could have escaped through, all the while calling the Snap's name. The rain no longer bothered him as he searched and it occurred to him faintly, even now, just how high of a place the doglefox had in his life.
When he had confirmed that the yard was empty, he hurried back inside, immediately going to the phone and punching in the number to the pound. The receiver rang hollowly in his ear as rainwater ran from his hair and nose in tiny rivers. "Come on..." he growled through clenched teeth. He knew Rose sometimes worked late, but even if she wasn't there, the night watchman should be able to help him. On the fifth ring, someone picked up.
"Neopian Pound, we're closed, may I help you?" Rose's voice asked.
"Rose!" he said abruptly. She paused a moment.
"....doctor?" she asked, sounding confused. "Is something wrong?"
"Its Snap." he told her, his teeth chattering as he shivered in the chilly house. "He's g-gone."
"Gone? Did he run away?" the uni asked, sounding shocked.
"I don't know." he paused, sneezed, and continued. "I let him out about twenty minutes ago and he just disappeared."
"I'm sure he didn't just disappear." she said reasonably, trying to calm him with her voice. "Are there any holes he could have gotten out through?"
"No...and spaces in between the slats either." he told her. "I need the number for the Petpet Lost And Found line." There was a pause and then a shuffling of papers.
"Tell you what...you check around the neighborhood, I'll check mine when I get home and I'll place the call for you." she told him. "If he just got out, he might still be within calling range."
"Alright..." he nodded, moving to hang up but thinking better of it. "Rose?"
"I'm here." she told him.
"Thank you."
"I try, Doctor." she sounded as though she was smiling. "Good luck." There was a click as she hung up. He laid the phone back on its cradle, hurrying across the room to grab his black jacket off of the hook on the back of the door and pull it hastily on as he hurried out the door.
"Snap!!" he called, hearing his voice echo back at him off of the neighborhood block. Around him, the rain continued to fall.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND BABY, RIGHT ROUND, LIKE A RECORD BABY, RIGHT ROUND, ROUND ROUND" the rainbow boombox Yahoo had insisted on buying on the way home blared as Yahoo and Chomby danced to one of Karma's earth CD's that had arrived in the package of items she had shipped from home before moving to Neopia.
They had visited Faerieland that afternoon and waited in line for the Healing Springs for the better part of an hour, luckily above the rain in the clouds instead of below it, otherwise they would have been soaked. The water faerie had been surprisingly generous to Chomby and had not only cured his sickness but had sent them home with a healing potion as well in case he had an overnight relapse. Without the neowarts covering his body, Chomby was much more appealing to look at and Karma was pleased with her decision to adopt him.
They had stopped at the bookstore and picked out a selection of books to increase the blue chomby's intelligence and they had seemed to work rather well. For the first hour, Yahoo and Karma had read them to him one by one with aching slowness to get him to absorb what was in them, and by the time they were through, Chomby had eagerly been grabbing them up, reading them himself with startling speed, each one vanishing with a puff of colored smoke when he had finished them.
He seemed capable of actual speech now instead of the broken monotone he had spoken in when they had picked him up at the pound and Karma watched with amusement from the sofa as the two of them capered around the room like a pair of sugar-high ping pong balls.
"Crank it up, Yahoo!!" Chomby insisted, landing clumsily on the table and bouncing on all four paws.
"Better not." Karma warned, even as the cybunny's paw touched the dial on the boom box. "I don't want the neighbors complaining."
"Aww c'mon!" the cybunny protested. "When have they ever??" As Karma opened her mouth to answer, there was a timid knock at the door.
"Speak of the devil." she smirked. Chomby froze as Yahoo quickly twisted the volume down to nothing.
"Tell'em we're sorry!" Yahoo whispered.
"Shush." The frog told him as she got up and headed for the door. "Just let me talk to them." The chomby and cybunny exchanged a worried glance as she undid the latchbolt and opened the door. "Sorry, were we---" she trailed off when she saw who it was. Dr. Death, wet and bedraggled stood in the threshold of her doorway, panting slightly. "....what are you doing here?" she asked for lack of better things to ask. "Better yet, how did you find out where I lived??" she asked, her annoyance from earlier trailing back. "I mean, you've got a lot of nerve treating me the way you did earlier and then just showing up unannounced and---"
"Snap is missing." he interrupted her tirade. Karma stopped short, blinking at him. "I found your address in the Public Listings and you're the only other person I know of that's spent time with him." He drew in his breath, coughing briskly behind his cupped hand. "And I don't suppose he came here."
"No..." Karma replied. "Are you saying he ran away?"
"I don't know." the doctor replied. "That's what I'm trying to find out, isn't it?"
"You don't have to be that way." Karma growled defensively. They dueled with their eyes for a long moment.
"If he's not here, then I have no business here. Sorry to bother you." he spat, turning to leave.
"Wait!" Karma called after him, disappearing inside for a moment to grab her coat off of the back of the sofa. "Let me go with you." she offered.
"No." he replied firmly. "Leave me alone." he quickened his step toward the stairwell back outside, cringing as he heard her running up behind him.
"We'll cover more ground this way." she insisted.
"Look, I don't want your help!" Dr. Death snapped, whirling around to glare at her. "I'm tired of you riding me like you have been. What is it you want from me??" Karma blinked, bewildered by his sudden strike-out at her. "If its love, you're looking in the WRONG place. Do you understand me??"
"I just want to help you." Karma said in a voice that was dangerously calm.
"No, that's not all you want to do." he shot back. "And if you come with me, let's get something straight right now. You are nothing to me. You will never be anything to me. You gave me Snap to repay me for saving your cybunny. Fine. It was a debt, it was paid, we're through. If you tag along, you're just another pair of hands to find Snap. Nothing else. Get me, 'sweetheart'?" He turned to walk away, leaving Karma rooted where she stood.
"You know, you can be a real bastard sometimes." she called after him, not moving from where she was.
"Call it a hobby." he retorted as he reached the stairwell and went down, taking the stairs two at a time. He paused a moment as he reached the bottom, waiting to see if she had still followed him. Hearing silence, he continued. And then....much to his chagrin, he heard footsteps approaching. He told himself to walk faster, but found himself glued to the spot as he heard her coming down the stairs.
"I'm still going." Karma informed him icily. "YOU might be a bastard, but Snap isn't." He opened his mouth to argue further. "Just shut up." she growled before he had a chance to speak. Dr. Death's jaws closed as she pushed past him and out the front door of the apartment complex. Once outside, she looked over her shoulder. "Well?? Are you coming or not?" she asked. Letting out his breath in a resigned sigh, he followed after her, wondering just where he had lost the authority he had tried to exert over her moments ago.
As the two of them slipped outside into the darkness, there was a suffocating silence hanging between them, broken only by their footfall and the patter of the falling rain. Neither of them looked at one another as they moved until, at last, Karma broke the silence.
"So where are we going?"
"I don't know." he told her flatly. "I don't know where to look that I haven't already."
"Have you checked around your home?"
"Twice."
"Back at the pound?"
"Yes."
"Tried the central?"
"Most of it."
"Then let's try the rest of it." she said decisively. He flicked his tail, annoyed at her certainty. "What part haven't you looked in?" she asked, the shadowed hulk of Neopia Central coming into view up ahead.
"I don't know, from the toy shop on, I suppose." he grumbled. The streets were deserted except for the shopkeepers, standing on the stoops of their establishments and looking dejected at the bad weather that was bringing them lack of business.
"Blasted rain..." Kauvara scowled, stamping a hoof impatiently as she examined the downpour from beneath the rim of her floppy witch's hat. "Those potions will spoil if no one buys them soon..."
"Hey!" Karma called, getting her attention. The starry kau straightened up, smiling.
"Hello there, can I help you?" she asked hopefully.
"I was wondering if you've seen a doglefox around here." Karma replied. The kau's expression soured.
"The petpet store." she mumbled, leaning against the doorframe. "If you're not going to buy then go away."
"No, I don't want to buy one. This one got out and---" Karma trailed off as Kauvara turned around and retreated into her magic shop, the door banging closed behind her. ".....gee thanks a lot." the frog muttered.
"We'd be better off just looking. Everyone's a merchant here and all they're concerned with is making money." Dr. Death explained.
"It never hurts to ask." she replied sharply.
"No, but your nose might end up pretty flat by the time people are done slamming doors on it." he snorted. They established that Snap was nowhere near the magic shop nor anywhere around it and moved onward. "This is pointless." the doctor said after a few more moments of silence.
"Don't knock it just yet. What if he's here?" Karma asked.
"In the pouring rain with no one around?" he asked. "You don't know Snap like I do. He'd be going crazy without someone around him. Hell, he has a fit when I leave him alone while I shower in the mornings."
"I at least want to take a look around." Karma insisted, heading for the beauty parlor. Between it and Pizzaroo, there was a space of shadow. "Snap?" she called, taking a step into the darkness to investigate.
"He's not in there." Dr. Death insisted, knowing Karma wasn't going to listen.
"Shh! I just saw something move. Snap?? Here boy!" she called. The techo didn't want to say anything, but something felt extremely wrong about the situation. Something that made the hair on the back of his neck prickle. "Snap? C'mon, don't be afraid!" Karma called, venturing further into the alley.
"Karma..." He said, his warning senses flaring. If she heard him, she ignored him. Now it was stronger than ever...the same feeling he got when trying to approach a cornered and angry pet in the pound...the same sense of forboding and knowing he was going to get bitten. Something stirred in the alley and, all too quickly, started toward them. "Karma, get out of there!" he cried, seizing the back of her shirt and yanking her backward so hard that she fell. There was a purring sound as her shirt ripped at the seam and she gave an audible whuff as she landed on her rear.
In the same instant, a ragged and rather rabid-looking poogle emerged from the mouth of the alley, snapping its needle-like teeth closed on the empty space that Karma had occupied only moments before with a sharp clicking sound. It snarled, foam dripping from its lips as it shifted its rheumy eyes first to Dr. Death and then to Karma.
"Mine....." the poogle growled, leering at them. "My home....monsters, leave!!" The mad poogle snapped at the air once again before turning and shambling back into the darkness of the alley. Dr. Death waited for a moment to see if it would return before kneeling to check on the frog.
"Are you alright?" he asked. There was no concern in his voice as he did so, just mild curiousity.
"I'm fine." Karma agreed, standing up and brushing distastefully at the large damp spot on the back of her pants from sitting on the wet pavement. "Let's look somewhere else." she added, as though brushing off the past event as simply having not happened at all. The doctor nodded and said nothing, realizing that the two of them were likely in for a long and rather unpleasant evening.
TBC.......