Well let's give part two a try here. Who knows, it could be fun.

Chapter Two

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“What’s new, Puddy-Tat?” Gregg asked the room as he launched himself feet first into lying down on the couch. He’d taken a liking to the Tweety Bird imitation as an easy way to diffuse his own awkwardness about the situation.

I didn’t mind. It wasn’t funny but I expected his usage of what amounted to a social shortcut to die off rather quickly once everyone got over how fun it was to throw things at my tail. Not to mention that we were going on day six of me living in his house without paying rent.

Gregg had been one of my best friends, and an early corrupting influence, since the day I’d stepped foot on campus. Not only had he been possessed of an almost unsettling ability to conjure weed and booze seemingly out of thin air, but he was a genuinely nice dude. Not for the first time I wondered how much care had gone into choosing him as my host.

In a past life I had been a head taller than the strapping young Jew, but now he absolutely towered over me at his generously listed six-foot height. I gave him an exaggerated wagging of my eyebrows by way of greeting from where I was fighting to save the universe, gently compressed by the tired leather of the ‘old man chair.’

Exceedingly plain looking and completely unable to sport a tan with his dreadfully pale features, Gregg was something of an absolute babe magnet. I’d always felt the need to display my ‘chill’ as I’d called it around the ladies, but Gregg had the ability to wander into any social group with his giant curly mop of hair perched atop his head like a poorly constructed bird’s nest and instantly be the gold standard for interactive conduct.

It helped that he was the most relentlessly positive person I’d ever meant.

Orphaned at three when his biological father murdered his mother and her husband in a double murder-suicide he’d bounced around boys’ homes until he was adopted by a failed actress who was attempting to score a reality TV show. After that had gone south, barely three months into shooting, one of his school teachers had made an emergency bid for temporary custody of the young boy. Two years and a supreme court ruling later, Gregg was a straight-A student and the top of his class when his ‘new’ father (the aforementioned teacher) was granted full guardianship.

After that it had been good grades and football scholarships all the way to being drafted late by Seattle, then cut, signed by Los Angeles, cut again, signed by the other Los Angeles team, traded to Minnesota after a good preseason game, cut, signed by Miami in time to start three games at the end of the season, then signing a modest multi-year deal with Seattle to be the backup quarterback.

And all of that in the two years since he’d graduated when I was a sophomore.

Needless to say, Gregg was the guy to go to if you had any kind of problem. Most things were easy to put into perspective with the generous product of a mind bendingly awful childhood lending a hand.

After days of reflection there was little doubt in my mind that it was Miranda who had decided to stow me here. It smacked of her social brilliance. I’d been irrationally nervous and emotional since waking in the hospital and had actually cried when Peters had made an attempt to give me a hug after my nerve wracking escape from the Shadow Men. The poor muscle monster had broken down himself after I’d involuntarily shied away and had a full blown panic attack.

It was awful. I knew why I was being so odd, it was literally my new perspective of the world, but that hadn’t done my lizard brain (Kitty brain?) a bit of good when a man I’d once been able to hold my own with physically now loomed over me like a building. So I’d cried and dry-heaved for the entire trip to Coach’s house while Peters tried to drive through a lake of his own tears as he piloted his shitty van.

Then it was a night of people talking over me as I tried to unfuck my brain before brunch with Gregg at Letennies’ near campus (my favorite place to grab an early bite) where Miranda and Trey had handed me off to the positivity generator himself.

“Any progress?” He asked from around his phone.

I shook my head carefully to keep the precariously balanced microphone headset from tumbling to the floor. I was still on live chat and didn’t want to give the types I was gaming with any insight into my machinations. A few seconds later the digitally scrambled voice of Xchange101 was saying into my ear “I’m done, kids. Hit me up tomorrow.”

A bit of chattering came from the rest of his crew, a din to which I added my own voice that my microphone had been programed to alter into an approximation of Kermit the Frog, as the sycophants wished their Nazi leader a good night. I waited a few seconds as the activity icons winked out before turning off the game and removing the batteries from the headset I had been using.

“I swear, they spend more time talking about that game lady than they do world domination.” I lamented.

“Which one?” Gregg asked carelessly.

“I don’t know. That’s the thing. Every day it’s a new one, I think, and I just can’t handle going to the websites.” I rubbed my arms as the damn fur stood on end.

“Well, you know what they say about Nazi’s.” The unconcerned son of Abraham said.
A long pause followed before I gave in. “What? What do they say?”

Gregg lowered his phone and made eye contact, his face filled with dramatic tension. “The worst Nazi is the one you can not-see!” He said with a truly awful German impersonation.

I shook my head, unable to keep a smile off my face. “He who would pun.” I began.

“Zey vill have all ze fun!” Gregg interjected.

I fixed him with as steely a gaze as I could muster under the circumstances “You disgust me. And I just spent an hour talking to actual Nazis.”

“Always” he fired back, returning to the endless delights of his phone.

No longer able to stay sitting I clambered out of the delicious comforts of the ‘Old Man Chair’, as it was commonly known, and made my way to the kitchen where my precious Mexican Cokes were being kept at a perfect thirty-four degrees in Gregg’s smart fridge.

As I considered the materialistic trappings Gregg had seen fit to surround himself with, none of which was more disturbingly technological than the smart fridge, I tried not to get too worked up by the last hour I’d spent with those disgusting insults to the human spirit that called themselves ‘Racial Preservationists’.

“Hey, can you grab me an ‘aide?” Gregg called from his back.

“Sure” I answered, wincing at the exceptionally girlish sound that made its way back to the proprietor of the house. That had been happening since I’d first torn the feeding tube out of my throat, it didn’t take a genius (jury’s still out) to know that my voice box or whatever had changed and I was compensating somewhat during normal conversation.

“Hello!” The robot fridge broke into my thoughts from where it lurked next to the dishwasher, a more traditional appliance that had the good grace to stay silent when I was walking by. “What can I get for you?” The monolithic water cooler asked.

The insidious machine had taken a disliking to me from the start. First it had shouted at me when I tried to get a glass of water my first day as Gregg’s ward, leading to a fit of crying in the bathroom that Gregg and Wilks pretended not to have seen or heard, and then the mechanical monstrosity had refused to categorize the sodas Wilks went out of his way to acquire for me. Nevermind that Wilks’ accounting of both events described a polite refrigeration servant attempting to assist a guest with the procurement of a beverage and proper storing of sugary sodas, I just wasn’t having it.

It leered at me, the small touch screen that served as the control pad on the left door blinking calmly. “I am taking a soda and a sports drink.” I told it, enunciating every word as if speaking to a foreign gunman whose english skills I found wanting.

“Ok!” It said cheerfully, the opaque window that covered most of the right hand door cleared up as the internal camera highlighted the shelf where the two drinks could be found. “I will send a note to Gregg.” The thing told me as I extracted the chilled bottles. “We need more sports drinks, Wednesday is going to be unusually warm.”

Swinging the door shut I scowled at the camera, unwilling to accept its conspicuous concern for human needs. Almost as if in response, the crafty thing displayed the view of the external camera on the right hand monitor.

I still wasn’t comfortable with how I looked now, and the fucking thing must have known it. It showed me, offset to the side of the camera, in all my deviated splendor.

That insane bastard had done it alright, whatever ungodly chemicals that had been introduced to my bloodstream had immediately started a chain reaction of biological shifts within my body that had left me in a drastically altered physical condition.

The diminutive creature that was delivering a nasty look to the self-important icebox was an unfortunately adorable catlike female, the smoky white fur that covered her entire body standing on end. And she was me. The new me.

The amount of gratitude I had for having deviated into a new form that was relatively aesthetically pleasing could not have been overstated. I was a furry cat girl now. It sucked, sure. But in the big picture? At least there were a shitload of weird white kids I could always have a shot at dating.

I mean really, even Gregg had thought I was trying too hard to be positive when I’d first tried to explain to my rescuers and friends. But I needed no imagination to be grateful for having kept a relatively socially conforming figure, I’d seen what happened to Mike.

Maybe it was all of the trauma, but my attitude had taken an incredible turn after waking up in the hospital. I’d always prided myself (secretly) on being smart and adaptive, but all things considered it didn’t take a whole lot of introspection to see that I was handling the entire ordeal remarkably well. Mike was dead, and I was now a pervert’s wet dream, but I was alive. And I was going to find that sadistic asshole and get even.

Turning around, I took a swipe at the technological terror with my tail on the way out of the kitchen.

“Did the scary refwidgidator try to get you?” Gregg prodded as I walked back into the sitting room.

The sloshing thud that could only be a bottle of electrolyte infused sugar water impacting flesh was my response.

As the chortels followed me towards the back porch I made the executive decision to skip past the noodle haired millionaire so that the impotence of his verbal antics could be appreciated.

And why not? I was having a pretty good day, on the whole. The immersion into Nazi culture that had taken up a part of my afternoon had been concluded by Gregg’s dopey company, and what more could a pussy ask for?

Coming to rest in front of the french doors I looked out at the drizzling rain that was so common in this part of the country. A lot of people didn’t care for the lack of sunlight, but as one who has always loved inclement weather I found the reliable rains of Washington calming. Gregg had a hell of a view, too. This house was a rental from one of his far wealthier teammates, a cornerback I think, and it perched on the edge of a hill that provided a beautiful landscape of wooded mountains stretching into the distance and on a clear day a glimpse at the Pacific ocean.

Seattle was kind-of northish, hidden behind a couple of mountains, so Gregg enjoyed impressively light-pollution free nights when it was clear enough to see the stars. There won’t be any tonight, I thought to myself as I looked out at the darkening trees. It took an effort not to shiver as I thought of the Shadowy Men. Could they be out there in those trees? Watching?

“You ok, girly?”

Gregg was standing next to me with a concerned look on his face. “Huh?” I muttered, blinking furiously.

“I said you’re freaking me out.” He put a hand on my shoulder, I was proud that I barely flinched, and gently pulled me away from the window.

“Just lookin’ out the window.” I said dismissively, rolling my eyes at the friendly giant.

My friend smiled at me through his arched eyebrow. “You’ve been looking out the window for a while there, champ.”

Scoffing I brushed his hand away and shoved my unopened soda at his face. Another side effect from the mad doctor, inability to operate most precision based finger functions. Between the tiny hands and soft fur it was mostly impossible to do things like twist bottle caps or season my food. Crippling cuteness, Coach Taylor’s daughter had named my new condition when she saw me having trouble with the salt shaker. The same damn kid who had once looked at me with eyes the size of dollar coins and asked if Mikey and I were going to win a national championship.

Gregg took the soda and casually twisted the cap off before handing it back. “You’re going to be ok.” He told me. “We’re gonna figure it out.”

I plopped down on the vacated couch, claiming it for future catpeople, and tried to look disinterested.

“Wilks and Peters are coming by. I’ve got somewhere to be.” Gregg said.

“Hot date?” I asked, hating the lame question.

Gregg waved a hand as if to ward off the stupid I’d just thrown in his direction. “I think Miranda is going to be here.” He casually said, walking towards the stairs.

Not even trying to feign an aloof disposition, I bolted upright. “When!?!” I cried.

Miranda hadn’t said more than a word to me all week, despite having been obviously crucial to my escape from the shadowy ‘government’ forces. I was as desperate to sit down with her as I was terrified of being in the same room with her.

Hurrying past Gregg to race up the stairs I heard him say something about “five minutes” as I slammed the door of the room he’d given me.

Turning into a catgirl hadn’t been in my list of short term life plans, but luckily I had a bunch of friends (and girlfriends and boyfriends and whatever friends) of friends who had leapt at the chance to clothe the newfound feminine feline so certain logistical concerns had been eased shortly after my arrival at what we were now referring to as Fort Greggarious.

Digging into a pile of clothes that had been deposited on the floor of the closet I managed to get a tube top over my head and a preselected pair of capri’s on that I’d cut a tail hole into already.

I did some quick preening in the mirror, just making sure my fur was all in the right place, as I thought about what I could do to make the upcoming conversation as easy as possible. It was such a fucking nuisance, the fur. Why did it have to be all over the place?

Extracting strands of what seemed to be my more traditional ‘hair’ out of my freaky ears I tried to mash the pure white strands into something resembling sanity while the doorbell began to cry out for attention.

I was doing a weird shuffle towards the door while trying to keep my face in the mirror. Why did it look so weird? I’d thought I was getting used to the damn thing but in a moment of crisis it looked even weirder than normal. My mouth and nose had a bit of a Cat thing going on at the time, and just take my word for it that when everyone is telling you how cute your face hole is you start getting self conscious about that shit.

The stupid bell stopped ringing.

Something that sounded like The Fonz was in the house. Setting anxiety aside I threw myself out the door and quite literally down the stairs. When I tumbled to the ground floor in what was now a cramped foyer the regrets started.

Lying on my back with one leg sticking in the air I was the focus of what looked like a dozen upside-down faces. “Hey…” I started.

Gregg started laughing from somewhere that might have been my left. It was hard to tell, upside down or whatever.

As I tried to regain my feet, stubbornly ignoring the chuckles, a plump Asian guy who looked like he belonged on a sitcom took a step forward and asked me with no preamble “You’re the one.” Wait, was that a question?

Before I could work out a response Miranda was standing next to this new character with a cold look on her usually kind Haitian features. “Kay Tee” She said.

Everyone was looking at me.

You know that awful moment when someone is waving in your direction and you start to wave back before realizing that the friendly hand signal was never meant for such a low creature as yourself? Yeah, that’s what I felt like. It’s a pretty distinct feeling. I actually looked behind me to see if the wall had an opinion.

“Is that me?” I finally asked.

Miranda stepped forward, her expression softening immediately as she wrapped me in a hug that was horrifically comforting. “This is JassTannor.” She told me.

My eyes, already weirdly big compared to ‘normies’ must have turned the size of dinner plates.

“Oh, shit’s gonna get real.”