Before the next chapter—which has taken me forever, I know—I have Many things to tell you, Some of them important. I'll add in some humor to make it bearable:
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…ARGGGGHHH! I hate tests! I hate AP Tests! I hate final exams that are scheduled a month before school ends for no goddamned effin' reason! …Oh, and I loathe the ACT from the darkest depths of my soul!
…Actually, I did pretty well…except in the writing section, which sucked…wait a sec. Bad writing…me…something isn't right here… "Hey, bro! What in God's name did you do to my ACT Writing Test!"
Satan glances up from his personal torture session with the guy who invented Spam (not even the Prince of Darkness is immune to the damned stuff). His crimson, horned face is the picture of innocence: "...What?"
Bone White Butterfly advances on him, rolling up shirtsleeves and shaking out skull wings: "Don't give me that I-Am-Without-Sin crap! I know you did it!"
…yeah, my family's kinda…unique.
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Hmm, a reviewer brought up a very good point. It's difficult to tell exactly when each chapter happens. To help you out, if you rearrange all the chapters in this story with the italics placed first and the regular font after, it will be in chronological order. So:
Beginning— Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 7 (this one), ...unwritten chapters… Chapter 1 (the prologue), Chapter 5, Chapter 6, …unwritten chapters —End)
That's the way it works. Weird, I know, but if I did it any other way, the plot would be transparent. Hmm, to help readers out with the order thing, I'll be sticking dates in front of each chapter…in a while.
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Anyway, I love my reviewers. Hiya peoples! Knottaclue, and charpal, and Silver Scribes, and kim, and NSKitten, and Becca, and Ebona Nite and…oh, shoot. I named them all. Not that I'm bothered by that fact. I'm still just so happy because…I have reviewers! --manic happy dance--
Knottaclue:
You asked every question in your review that I wanted people to when they read that chapter! I feel horribly talented now. I should go find an editor to criticize my shortcomings before my ego gets over-inflated and goes—POP!—…oops, too late.
Silver Scribes:
I hug you through my computer…snapping the flimsy laptop screen…shit. Ah, who cares; you love the dark Batman too! Not the one who spends most of the show breaking/making/breaking up again with a Korean lap dancer poorly disguised as a high school student! (Seriously, what else could a dress that short be for?) Sigh…happy sigh…I have found my bosom companion.
Yeah, I was toying with the idea of using dates anyway, so there you go, hon. Did the order of chapters thing help you?
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…Okay, you can read the chapter now. But I will warn you; I went through a ton of rewrites for this thing, and I like none of them. I hate them!
Oh, and if there areany SP errors in this chapter...please realise that I'll slap myself silly when I find them and fix them in an attempt to stave off the embarrassment, but it's midnight on a Sunday night and I have the sinking suspicion I havea chemistry paper due. Night, y'all.
Tuesday, June 2 2042, 22:58:13
Two men sat in a windowless tramcar as it shuttled them to some unknown place. They didn't speak. They had nothing in common to talk about. One was midnight black, the other albino white. The dark man sported scraggly hair, a goatee, and a glinting gold nose ring. The pale one was meticulously groomed and sat in an upright posture that would kill an ordinary man. The first was completely dressed in black and acid green leather. The second didn't believe in clothes.
Actually, they did have one thing in common with each other. They were both incredibly hairy.
XXX
Pantharis spent the ride examining his clawed hands and their silky coat of black fur. He was searching for some trace of humanity in them. It was a hard thing to do, especially when his claws kept shooting out an extra two inches, then quickly retracting themselves back whence they came. He rubbed the strange pads of tough skin on his palm. It was one of the few places where he wasn't covered with fur, and his dark gray flesh looked entirely alien to him.
The bottoms of his feet were the same way. He had come to Kahn wearing boots, but the Splice had caused his shoe size to double. He had axed the footwear and now felt comfortable walking around on the balls of his feet. Kahn did the same, so he assumed it was a natural thing to do. He did not, however, go along with his host's no clothing stance. Kahn might have been fine with wearing nothing but the fur that playing God had given him, but Pantharis was a firm believer in pants.
The tram slowed to a stop and Kahn rose to his feet. He gestured to the door, which slid open, indicating that Pantharis should exit first. What lay outside the door was anyone's guess. Pantharis's guess wasn't even close.
He had entertained visions of a vast military complex with kitty people wearing Egyptian styled clothing bowing down to enormous cat statues, chanting about their great leader and his plans for world domination. The feline version of the Kobras. They called themselves Catz.
If he had stepped out of the tram and seen all that and more, he wouldn't have blinked. Abnormal was the status quo in Gotham. It was the normal things that shocked him.
Perhaps that was why he stood frozen, mouth agape at the scene before him. People sat at tables outside a café, drinking their lattes and chatting animatedly. A row of boutiques lined a street. The place had actual streets. People walked about, shopping, talking, working, laughing, kissing, living in a subterranean town. There were dozens of people that he could see, and they all had fur.
An underground city inhabited by nice cat people—well, that showed what he thought was normal.
"Not what you were expecting?" Kahn asked delicately as the tramcar closed its doors behind them.
He glanced at the albino tiger man. "And what was I supposed to expect?
"A Haven," was the tiger's answer. "That is what we told you, and that is what we are." He looked out at the small crowd. "A Haven, where you aren't punished for being who you are… Come. Have a drink with me."
Pantharis followed him to the café. Once seated, they began a conversation that reminded him of a schoolteacher laying down the rules the first day of class. Well, sort of.
"What you do Upside is your own business," Kahn shrugged. "Don't drag it down here. I don't tolerate crime in the Pride." There was just enough teeth baring in that sentence to make the threat painfully clear. Then his face smoothed, and he changed subjects. "Splice serum is, as I'm sure you understand, costly. If you waste it, don't be surprised if you are denied access into the Pride for a time. Or if an enormous bill for…cat food shows up on your credit card."
Pantharis chuckled, "I'll keep that in mind." Then he frowned and glanced at the occupants of a nearby table.
"I encourage a sense of community here," the tiger continued, drawing back his attention. "There are a number of social events, Upside and in the Pride. I suggest that you occasionally attend one that interests you. Also, your patronage in the Pride's shops would be appreciated." The man had the most amazing ability to make a mere suggestion sound like a do-or-die order.
Pantharis looked straight at the occupants of another table. They hurriedly turned away. So he wasn't just vain; people were staring at him. A lot of glowing eyed, furry cat people were staring at him. Even their waitress, it seemed. As she laid out coffee cups and a carafe on the table, she looked at him, her eyes narrowed to slits.
This was one of the more interesting moments in his life. You see, she wore an apron.
And that was it.
He studied Kahn's face very carefully as she walked away to avoid gazing stupidly at her bare, retreating ass. Though slightly narrower, Kahn's was a tiger's face. Everything about it was meticulous. He didn't have one hair out of place, white or black, and he somehow managed to look clean-shaven with fur on every inch of his body. His eyes seemed kind, but the longer Pantharis stared into them, the more he saw something else that he couldn't identify.
And she did have a great ass.
He resolutely looked away and concentrated on his coffee. Like most resolutions, that didn't last very long. At least he was trying.
"How did all this start?" he asked Kahn, tugging at the collar of his jacket.
The tiger glanced about at the people around him. Folding his arms, he shrugged, "It began in the latter half of the twentieth century. On a privately owned island in the Atlantic, a man named Dorian was making great advances in the field of genetics. He was ahead of his time. He was ahead of our time." Pantharis sensed that Kahn had some sort of hero worship for the man. Kahn smiled. "Dorian was a lover of cats." Ah, that explained it. The tiger man continued, "He felt the greatest gift was to possess feline DNA. Using his skills, he "gifted" many creatures on his island, including apes and birds, and one extraordinary being, whom he called Tygrus."
Kahn stared into space. "The mind of man, but a soul far nobler than any human's. The example that he set is one that we should all follow."
Pantharis got the feeling that Kahn said that last part for the benefit of the people around them. For a minute, everyone stared at him—him, not Kahn—before going back to what they were doing, their backs all a little bit straighter.
For his part, Pantharis looked at Kahn sharply. Perhaps his original idea about the man being the religious leader of a cat cult wasn't too far off from the truth. That didn't explain why people kept staring at him, though. It was disconcerting.
Almost as disconcerting as that waitress's ass.
His closed his eyes and drank his stupid coffee.
XXX
"Do you always give new blood the full tour?" he asked Kahn later, as the tiger led him slowly down the street. The crowd was thicker than before and the number of people only seemed to increase as the night grew longer. Apparently the Pride had quite the nightlife. Fortunately, though the attire ranged from dinner gowns to shredded leather cat suits, an overwhelming majority of the women wore clothes. The males were another story. One in ten seemed to get a kick out of baring it all, though the ladies brave enough to look were often amused. As one passerby femme put it: 'We have more down there.'
Yes, the Splicing did seem to shift around and cover things up a bit.
Frowning, Pantharis noticed Kahn hadn't answered his question. It wasn't like the man couldn't hear him. His own ears were twitching to the base of some pounding music that had to be playing at least three blocks away. So he was being ignored. There wasn't much he could do about that.
Instead, he glanced up at the cavern the odd town was built in. The light of the street lamps didn't penetrate the darkness much higher than the roofs of the buildings. The cave ceiling was swallowed up in the dark. It would take an extraordinary pair of eyes to see it.
Splicing was so convenient.
He spied concrete and steel support struts. To the side there was an elevator shaft that rose straight up through the ceiling, probably into a warehouse. Damn. He had been hoping to see stalactites. That would mean he was in a natural cave. Gotham had an extensive network of caves, all clustered tightly in the east along the cliffs that overlooked the bay. If this were a natural cave, he would have known exactly where he was in relation to upside Gotham. He would be directly under the east district, a mile north of the docks. Hell, the bat cave and the Pride's cavern would have been so close together, that they could have been connected somehow.
He blinked. In that light, maybe it was a good thing that the cavern was manmade. It was far better to have no idea where the Pride was than for a kitty cat to stumble into the bat cave. Better for his health. Bruce would skin him, in many different ways. Still, he sighed at the concrete ceiling. He could be anywhere under Gotham. The tram ride in had totally disoriented him. His trusty cell phone that got perfect reception in the bat cave had lost the carrier signal once he entered the tramcar with Kahn. The walls were blocking radio waves somehow, so GPS or a well-placed tracking device was useless.
The only way to discover the location would be to go straight up the elevator shaft and see where he surfaced. "That elevator," he began to ask Kahn.
"Not your concern," the tiger cut him short. It was the curtest thing Pantharis had ever heard him say. Then to make up for it, his next words were as smooth as silk. "Tell me, what do you think of our nightlife?"
Pantharis watched a trio of girls pass by. "I'm grateful the women love clothes."
"You're not bothered by the males, though?"
He made a point of not looking Kahn up and down. "Juvie is a good cure for locker room shyness," he said and left it at that. He cast another look around at the crowd. What did he really think of the nightlife? There was too damned much of it. Shutting down a place this big would be a nightmare. What was he supposed to do, track every single person home?
He walked, wracking his brain, trying to think of a way bring down the operation and lock up a majority of the people while he was at it. He came up with nothing and almost didn't notice when Kahn suddenly turned and entered a building.
He loped after the tiger but stopped short when he got inside. A large sign on the marble wall read Museum of Feline History.
'Ah, shit.'
He looked into his reflection in the shiny stone and saw a sad kitty staring back at him, pleading. He had barely escaped from History class with his life; why was he being tortured so? His long, dagger-shaped ears flattened themselves on his head. Gritting his teeth, he followed after Kahn in an insolent gait, much like the reluctant schoolboy shuffling along as the snails ran on ahead towards education.
Wordlessly, they walked past the rows of exhibits. At first it was the usual run of cave paintings, Egyptian statues, Mayan carvings, Chinese silk screens, and Impressionist period paintings. All cat themed, of course. Then, in the more modern sections, some odd things started popping up. A photograph of a live, forty-foot saber-toothed tiger, for example. That in itself was disturbing. The fact that the original Batman was being crushed in its enormous jaws only cinched the deal.
Pantharis paused in front of the exhibit. A small, secret part of him mused that he'd never seen that image when going through the old man's case files. He contemplated whether he could use it as blackmail. It had to be worth at least one uninterrupted date.
Somebody cleared his throat, and Pantharis moved on quickly. He passed by a shine for the Humane Society, a display about the Wisconsin 2005 Kill the Kitties scare, the inevitable Catz poster, and a leather cat suit with a cat-O'-nine-tails whip. It was authentic. He wondered how the kitty people had managed to get their hands on one of those. Actually, he often wondered the same thing about Wayne and the Catwoman suit he kept lovingly preserved in the bat cave.
He caught up with Kahn in an open area just plastered with photographs of cat-monkeys, cat-fish, cat-lizards, cat-birds, cat-etc. He found the cat-man standing before two enormous paintings.
"This one is Doctor Emile Dorian," Kahn said, gesturing to one painting. The subject was a smiling, redheaded gentleman absently petting one of the kitty creatures. "He was killed in a chemical fire on his island in 1998, only days after perfecting his transmutation formula—the precursor to human Splicing," he added for Pantharis's benefit. "The other, of course, is his son."
Pantharis glanced at the second painting, then became glued. Standing at the edge of exotic, day lit jungle was a lithe creature of darkness. His feet spread over the uneven ground and tree roots almost carelessly, but he was as firmly rooted as the trees at his back. His spine curled forward in his upper body, suggesting he might be more comfortable on all fours. Instead he leaned back, baring his collarbone and graceful neck to the sunlight. His sable fur gleamed there, the dark hairs shining a whitish blue. All that was interesting, but it was the creature's face that held Pantharis's attention.
He knew that face; he had seen it only a moment ago. He turned to Kahn, who smiled genially. The tiger mused, "The resemblance is remarkable. If not for that nose ring"—faint look of disgust there—"the two of you would be nearly identical. The most interesting part, though, is that you both have the genetic template of panthera tigris tigris, the Bengal tiger."
Pantharis raised one eyebrow and held up his furred hands, clearly black.
Kahn smiled. "Look closer."
He frowned and turned his hand about. The overhead lights struck the fur, and some of it shone like silver. Only some did, in striped patterns.
"It's called melanism," explained Kahn. "The opposite of albinism."
"So I just chose the right Splice."
"No. If anyone else used the same serum, they would have the normal orange color. Something in your own genetics interfered with the Splice." Kahn studied the painting of Tygrus. "The odds of it happening were almost impossible… What do you believe in, Pantharis? Coincidence or omens?"
Pantharis eyed him and asked, "Is there a right answer to this question?"
"Of course there isn't."
He smiled, knowing better. "Omens," he answered, matter-of-fact.
Kahn stared up at Tygrus's portrait. He smiled and chuckled, "Good answer."
A cell phone rang. Instinctively, Pantharis reached into his jacket for his, then stared perplexed as it gave him a No Signal message.
He turned to watch Kahn take a ringing phone from a calico cat-man who had appeared from nowhere. The tiger flipped it open and talked into it. Apparently he wasn't having any trouble with the lack of signal. "Yes?"
Pantharis's ears twitched, picking up the other speaker's voice.
"We've found the gas leak."
The tiger nodded his head, smiling. "Good. Which pipeline was it?"
"Two."
"And have you contained it?""Of Course. Block 14."
"I will be there momentarily."
Kahn folded the phone and handed it back to his aide. "Urgent business, I'm afraid," he shrugged. "This won't take long. Pantharis may wait for me in my office."
Pantharis looked at him sharply, but he was already walking away. The room was empty except for the calico and him. "Do I look like him?" he asked, gesturing to the painting of Tygrus."
The man didn't look. "Kahn thinks so."
"And you don't?"
He shrugged, digging his hands into the pockets of his gray business suit. "What Kahn thinks is all that matters."
XXX
(Kahn strolled into Block 14. "If you rub this in, I'll gut you," a female voice growled.
He turned towards the speaker and said genially, "To your credit, my dear, only one of the two you selected was a cop. Bast has made a fine addition to your list of charity cases."
"Too bad she isn't tax deductible," she snorted, and then sighed, "Let's plug this damned leak already."
Kahn bowed slightly and strolled through a door. As interrogation rooms went, it was well furnished, at least on the interrogator's side. The other half was a bare steel floor. The collection of manacles seemed better suited for restraining a beast than a man, but a man was what they held. Magnetism fixed the bonds on his wrists and ankles to the floor. He shifted occasionally, trying to find a comfortable position when there was none to be had.
The tiger took a more comfortable seat in an easy chair. He smiled at the man and threw up his hands. "You amuse me, Two. Did you think I wouldn't know what you were the moment I lay eyes on you?" When he received silence, he shrugged. "That is the last question you won't be answering. I'm sure you know how the police conduct interrogations. This will be a tad different. It works like this. If you don't answer my question, those cuffs on your wrist will pull each of your limbs in a different direction until either you give me the answer I want or there are four bloody pieces of you, one in each corner of this room. Are we clear?"
Two glared at him, saying nothing, but a bead of sweat ran down the dark skin of his face.
Kahn shook his head. He picked up a remote from a side table and sighed, "And it was such a simple question." He turned the dial on the remote around a few notches.
Two's limbs were pulled apart until taunt. Face down on the steel floor, he gasped but felt no pain. Kahn asked him again if they were clear, absently circling a clawed finger around the remote's dial. "Yes," he answered bitterly, craning his neck to glare up at the albino.
"Crystal?"
"Crystal."
Kahn smiled. "In that case, you won't mind telling me your full name."
Two's almond eyes flashed, but he complied. "Danny Maxwell." Then he grunted as he was stretched apart further.
"That's an interesting name," the tiger smiled. "Tell me, Detective Gupta, did you make that up off the top of your head?"
Only after the dial was turned another few notches did Gupta admit that Daniel had been his best friend in the third grade, but Kahn didn't dial him back to a more bearable setting when he answered. "I'm afraid you'll have to answer another question before I let you out of that fix you've gotten yourself into," he said lightly. "Here's the question. In my experience, there are two types of detectives: those who work with the Law gladly like overeager lapdogs, and those who won't hand over one scrap of information without first being paid several grand. Which are you?"
Gupta hesitated only moment. "Private sector."
There was a pause before the dial was turned back by a small fraction. "Explain."
He did. "I find my own cases. Some of my clients are rich, most are too poor to call it charity. I pay my taxes, tell the cops what I've been up to…most of the time, and we call it even." As he talked the pull on his limbs had lessened gradually until he was able to kneel—after a fashion—and look Kahn in the eye.
The tiger raised an eyebrow at that last part. "Most of the time? You aren't suggesting you would drop your case against the Pride?"
Gupta laughed. "Hell no. I only keep my mouth shut for those who deserve it."
"Hmm." Kahn tapped the dial thoughtfully. "A true answer. Not the right one, but true." His finger finally slid away from the dial after much silent debate. "Who have you told about the Pride?" he queried, changing topics.
"No one."
His hand went back to the dial. "Really?"
He was given a dirty look. "I'm private," the detective reminded him. "I tell anyone what I know before payday, I'm out of a check."
Kahn shrugged, accepting the logic. Or so it seemed. Smiling, he mused, "Then what have you been telling that person you phone every time you leave the Pride?" The dial made almost a full rotation.
Someone viewing the scene through the vid screens in the next room, the female most likely, yawned as Gupta screamed.)
Pantharis, watching from Kahn's computer in his office, closed his eyes. He had patched into Pride's surveillance network and found the camera labeled Block 14. He had watched, and he had seen enough. Now he only listened as Gupta bartered desperately with Kahn for any relief from the pain. Words spilled out about Daniel Maxwell, his best friend and trusted partner. Soon, he was repeating everything he had told Daniel, and then everything he knew about the Pride.
"That's enough, Kahn," the woman called eventually. "It's obvious he's told you everything he knows. He's just guessing now." The detective didn't appear to hear her, but the Kahn did. The tiger turned back the dial. Gupta lay collapsed on the floor, his limbs hanging limp. "Let's get that dislocated shoulder fixed before we move him," she said and then left the room.
Pantharis sighed. The angle of the camera had prevented him from catching a glimpse of Kahn's female partner. He watched Kahn walk out as well. Then his eyes fell on Gupta, who cried on the cold steel floor. He picked up the detective's one sobbed word before he exited the computer. "Danny."
As the computer shut down, he swiveled in the chair, and his eyes caught on a stack of files dumped on one corner of Kahn's desk. His eyes narrowed.
XXX
Kahn returned to find his guest sitting in his chair paging through a series of files labeled Pantharis. "You checked me out pretty thoroughly," he stated as the albino shut the door behind him.
Indeed, the stack was a foot high. Kahn strode forward and held out his hand. Pantharis obliged him and handed over the file he had been reading. His eyes skimmed over the multitude of information. "I didn't order this," he said at last. "My associate must have left these here for me. He waved the thick booklet in the air. "Is there anything in here you don't want me to know about?"
"Probably."
He opened the file. "Hmm, shocking. Your name is Sean Kim. You are twenty years old. You are a male."
Pantharis smiled and picked up another file at random. "I have three cats named after various Pokémon," he read.
Kahn looked at him sharply. "Pokémon?"
His gaze was level. "Pokémon."
"I would like to meet these cats."
He laughed. "Good luck. Charizard runs away in terror from everything, especially his own tail. I'm afraid Gyrados will kill me in my sleep. Butterfree will be asleep in some bizarre place. You wouldn't believe what kitchen appliances I've found him napping inside of—in the last 24 hours."
"My Dragonair isn't exactly sane either. There is a group that meets Upside every Thursday in the Hamlet; a support group, you could say."
Pantharis smiled. "God knows I need it."
"You can make it your first social event." Kahn frowned and pulled a photograph from the file. "Who is this?" The small girl was strolling down a street with a ratty backpack slung over one shoulder. A mess of baby pink curls fell about her head, reaching down to the nape of her neck.
"My new next door neighbor," Pantharis answered after studying the photograph for a minute. "I can't think of her name."
"Maxine Gibson," Kahn read off the file. "You had a long conversation with her this morning outside your apartment."
He rolled his eyes. "Don't remind me. Cute, but annoying and next to impossible to get rid of. She's like a pixie that someone Spliced with mosquito and cockroach."
The tiger chuckled. "I understand. I have this female business partner…" he trailed off, shaking his head. "I could gripe about that until the sun came up, but this isn't the place to do it. Come. I'll complain to you over dinner."
Pantharis tilted his head back. "Do you always do this with the new blood?"
"Only with the ones worth befriending."
"And what make you think I'm friend material?"
He grinned. "You aren't the only one who believes I good omens."
Pantharis smiled back, but behind his laughing eyes, a dark glare had settled on Kahn. He would play the friend game, but at the soonest chance he would end the farce. As the tiger gestured for him to precede him out the office, his gaze passed over the blackened computer screen where he had seen the smiling gentleman's monstrosity. He wondered how smiling Kahn would be if he learned his new friend had taken spy footage of him torturing another human being.
He absently tapped his golden nose ring. He really did wonder.
…Am I done? Yes! I finally finished it! Wahoo!
But shit, it was another torture chapter. …Why am I so fond of those? --Lies down on couch-- "Well, Dr. Freud, I think it goes all the way back to the second grade, when my brother Satan would torment me in my dreams. …Of course I blame him for everything. What are you trying to say?"