I'm Not A Hero!

by Mia Archer

  “I’ve entertained the notion,” I said. “But the evidence fits. You explain how Fluffy here is packing that same radiation signature. Something came through those portals other than the giant lizards.”

  “As you say, mistress,” CORVAC said.

  The cat had long fluffy white hair. It looked like it might be a purebred of some sort, which wasn’t exactly a surprise in this part of town.

  It would be just like some spoiled little rich girl whose parents robbed this neighborhood of its character by moving here because it was “so amazingly awesome raising a kid in the city” to lose her purebred cat that cost thousands of dollars up a tree.

  “Come on you asshole,” I said. “Tell me what the hell you’re doing on this world.”

  I moved in closer. The tree really was a big motherfucker. Big enough that its branches surrounded me. I felt like I was in a whole new world. It was like a little piece of jungle in the middle of the city.

  “Come on you bastard,” I whispered. “Just you and me. So let’s dance.”

  Remember all that talk about how big and fluffy that cat was? Yeah, it was one of those cats where most of its volume was taken up by its fur and not by actual body size. Which meant the fur was deep enough and luxurious enough that it could totally hide all sorts of small weaponry which came as something of a surprise.

  The cat growled. Hissed. Swiped at me, and then with the paw I wasn’t watching it pulled out what could only be a miniaturized raygun.

  The thing looked like an early variant of one of my disintegrators back when I made them look like real guns rather than packing them into a wrist blaster. I knew the ominous hum of a weapon that was ready for business and I dodged out of the tree as the cat started firing.

  Son of a bitch!

  “What were you saying about this cat not being a problem CORVAC?” I yelled as I put my forward shields up just in time to take a couple of blasts. That cat was fast!

  “I apologize mistress,” CORVAC said. “It would appear that once again you are correct and I was wrong in my assumptions.”

  “You’re damn right you were wrong in your assumptions,” I growled right back.

  The crowd gathered below screamed in surprise. The girl in particular let out an ear piercing shriek and started screaming something about how she didn’t want me to vaporize her kitty.

  I smiled. The little shit did know who she was dealing with.

  The only problem was the little shit was also totally being a little idiot. Anyone with half a brain could see the energy blasts were coming from the tree and not from me. I looked down at the girl and held up my wrist blaster then shrugged.

  She seemed to finally get what was going on. Everyone else seemed to finally get what was going on. The crowd all turned their attention back to the tree in time to see the cat running out to the edge of a branch and launching itself at me, firing its tiny weapon the entire time.

  I liked to think I’d seen it all in this line of work, but a cat jumping through the air firing off plasma blasts really was something you didn’t see every day.

  So far that energy weapon wasn’t doing much to drain my shields, but I knew the moment I got cocky would be the moment it pulled something out of its fur that could really give me a bad day. So I jerked around like it was actually doing some damage with that little pea shooter.

  “Come on you fluffy bastard!” I growled. “Hit me with your best shot!”

  The damn cat slammed into me, and it hit with a lot more force than I would’ve expected from a little ball of fluff. Like we’re talking I wasn’t play acting as I went flying through the air.

  “Fuck that hurts!” I growled.

  We went tumbling to the ground and rolled end over end on the pavement a couple of times. When we came up I felt a little scuffed, but my shields had absorbed most of the damage.

  That was the thing about fighting what amounted to a tiny cute little kitty cat. It might be stronger than your average cat, but it still wasn’t putting out the kind of energy that, say, Fialux or a giant irradiated lizard could put out.

  “Mistress, are you all right? I detected a spike in adrenaline, breathing, and pulse just now that goes beyond even what you would experience in a fight,” CORVAC said.

  “You bet your ass you just got a spike in adrenaline,” I said. “Happens every time I think about her.”

  A pause. “I am sorry mistress. I know you miss her greatly, and if this pursuit will help you find her then…”

  “Can the platitudes CORVAC,” I said.

  “Of course mistress,” CORVAC said. “Besides. With the surprising frequency that heroes and villains return to life in this city it would not be completely out of the realm of possibility for her to…”

  “I appreciate the sentiment, but could you stuff it? Trying to work here,” I said.

  I stared at the cat. All the people on the ground had made room around us. Somewhere in the fall the cat had also stuffed its weapon away.

  I didn’t think for a moment that the people surrounding us would be stupid enough to fall for an obvious ruse like that, but then I got a good look at the expressions on everyone’s faces and realized that yup, once again I’d completely underestimated the stupidity of your average Starlight Citizen.

  Damn it.

  “You can’t be serious,” I said to the crowd. “You all saw that cat firing at me! What the hell are you…”

  They all stared at me with daggers in their eyes. If looks could kill then they’d be hitting me with the kind of looks that would have my shields raising to prevent me from taking damage. They were nasty looks, is what I’m getting at.

  I didn’t understand it. It made no sense. They’d seen the thing firing at me and even your average idiot in Starlight City couldn’t…

  “Mistress,” CORVAC said. “Would you be willing to try a little experiment?”

  “That depends. How likely is this experiment to get me conveniently killed so I’m out of your hair for good?”

  “Not likely at all. I need you to allow me to have control of the mind control filters on your suit,” he said. “If I am correct in my assumption then you will not have the capacity to raise them on your own after lowering them.”

  I looked around at everyone again, really looked at them, and realized what CORVAC was getting at. I hadn’t had to think about that particular piece of my suit’s kit since I went up against Rex Roth, but as with all the safety features on my suit it was always there humming along in the background protecting me.

  And apparently it really had been protecting me and I didn’t realize it.

  The little girl who’d lost her cat let out a tortured sob. A couple of firemen came up behind her and put their hands on her shoulder, comforting her now that it was obvious Night Terror had come down from on high to personally euthanize the little brat’s fluffy kitty.

  I turned back to her. Glowered.

  “Fine,” I said. “Experiment away.”

  For the briefest of moments everything seemed wrong in the world even as everything seemed right in the world. I was staring at a fluffy little kitty cat and wasn’t it the cutest thing ever?

  At the same time I was horrified with myself. Why was I standing here pointing my wrist blaster at this cat? I wouldn’t dream of hurting a little ball of fluff like that. I wanted to cuddle it and take it home and feed it and voluntarily scoop its shit out of a smelly box of dust I put in my nice clean lab and…

  Reality hit me like a brick wall. I was Night Terror and I was hunting down an intelligent alien parasite that’d decided to take up residence inside cats for some reason. I was pointing my wrist blaster at the bastard because it’d just attacked me.

  Damn that was some powerful juju this thing was putting out into the world.

  “Seriously?” I asked. “You’re using mind control on these people?”

  The cat sat down on the pavement and started licking its paw. I growled and figured if all these people were going to accuse me of t
rying to euthanize this cat with super science then I was going to actually do the crime I was already doing the time for.

  A blast from my wrist blaster kicked up some of the pavement around the cat, and from the way it jumped that certainly got its fucking attention.

  “I said it before and I’ll say it again,” I said, my wrist blaster providing a pleasant ominous hum as a background to my threat. “I know what you are. Cut the bullshit and maybe I won’t kill you.”

  “But what about all the others that you’ve…”

  “Cool it CORVAC,” I muttered under my breath. I hoped it was low enough that even cat ears wouldn’t pick it up. “What this thing doesn’t know isn’t going to hurt it.”

  “But it is very much going to hurt it considering what you did with all the others,” CORVAC said.

  “Okay, so what it doesn’t know is going to hurt it, but it doesn’t know that so let’s go ahead and lie and see if it works.”

  “As you say mistress,” he replied.

  I turned back to the cat. Spoke up. “So what’s it gonna be Fluffy? Instant death, or are you going to tell me what I want to know?”

  3

  Symbiont

  “Nooooo,” the cat growled out in a weird voice that sounded like something straight out of a bad science fiction movie.

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “Nooooooo giiiive uuuuuup,” it hissed like it was coughing up a hairball.

  I looked around to everyone surrounding us just to make sure they were ignoring this shit. Sure enough they were busy glaring at me and not staring at the fucking cat that’d just started doing its best “Brent Spiner being strangled by an alien” impression.

  Also, I totally knew that impression was so much bullshit. The assholes probably cribbed it from that mid ‘90s classic because they figured that’s what everyone expected.

  A case of life imitating art. For certain definitions of “art.”

  I fired another shot. Again the cat’s natural instincts took over and it did a cartwheel in the air before the parasite controlling it got back behind the wheel.

  “Listen asshole,” I said. “I know exactly what you are and I know you can speak perfectly passable English.”

  Perfectly passable in the sense that these things seemed to rely on pop culture just a little too much. Like they’d learned about human culture from soaking up as many movies and TV shows as possible. Basically another one of the oldest alien invasion cliches in the book.

  The cat licked itself a couple more times. It’d moved from its paws down to its nether regions again.

  I wasn’t sure if that was because the cat’s innate instincts were taking over and taking the alien intelligence for a ride, or if it was simply that the alien running things in there thought that was a hilarious insult to have a cat licking its naughty bits at me.

  Either way I can’t say that I particularly cared for the gesture. I dialed up the hum on my wrist blaster and held it out, electricity arcing from the tip to let the alien bastard know he wasn’t far from his end.

  “Try me,” I growled.

  Finally the cat stopped its impromptu tongue bath. It stood and did a couple of twirls and then sat down. Glared at me.

  “Fine. What do you want from me?” it asked.

  This time it was in perfectly passable English. For a wonder it also didn’t seem to be a movie reference.

  “It would appear you have finally broken through whatever subterfuge these aliens have chosen to use,” CORVAC said.

  “You don’t have to sound so surprised,” I muttered.

  I focused on the cat. CORVAC’s sarcasm was something that was available to me any time I wanted it. This was the first time I’d managed to get one of these assholes to talk before capture, and I wasn’t going to waste this opportunity.

  “Where did you come from?” I asked. “What are you doing on this world?”

  The cat let out a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and trying to cough up a hairball. Which was a pretty freaky sound if you’ve never heard an alien intelligence trying to do an approximation of human emotions using a cat mouth.

  “Why should I tell you anything?” it asked.

  “Fine,” I said. “How about I tell you a few things? I think you and your buddies arrived on this world a couple of months ago on the backs of some giant irradiated lizards that went on a rampage through the city. I think you came through that portal from a world where you might’ve been the dominant form of life and you literally wanted new worlds to conquer, or maybe you were so put upon that you decided you were going to look for greener pastures on some other world. Either way you came here looking for trouble, and for some reason you decided to go with cats to try and take over this world which I can’t begin to understand.”

  The thing made that wheezing hairball laugh sound again. Damn that was creepy. Like we’re talking it was the kind of sound that was going to haunt my nightmares.

  “Very astute observation,” the thing said. “There’s just one problem.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You might have come up with this fantasy of an alien invasion, but I am merely a cat. A sweet little kitty that you don’t want to hurt.”

  It stared at me intensely and I thought I even heard something that sounded like purring on steroids. Purring that beat at my head with all the intensity of a kick drum being beat right next to my ears.

  Only it didn’t change my mind. Again, countermeasures. I was always prepared.

  A good thing too. The crowd around us swayed back and forth. They didn’t look like an angry mob. Clearly whatever mind control the thing was using was meant to soothe rather than to inflame passions which was good news for me since I wasn’t in the mood to take on a mob of innocents.

  “Um. You do know that I totally have countermeasures in place that render your little mind control routine moot, right?” I asked. “Like how else do you think I’m standing here pointing a weapon at you instead of petting you and taking pictures of you to post on the Internet?”

  The purr turned to a growl. Okay then. Clearly Fluffy here wasn’t happy about his little mind control routine not working.

  The cat launched itself at me again. Talk about things I didn’t think I’d be dealing with when I responded to the calls of a cat up in a tree acting suspicious.

  Then again responding to a call about a cat up in a tree acting suspicious was one of the last things I ever would’ve responded to back at the height of my power anyways.

  This whole thing was fucking weird, is what I’m getting at.

  “Mistress,” CORVAC said. “Might I suggest that…”

  “Hush it CORVAC,” I said.

  The cat had launched itself at me, but clearly it wasn’t counting on me having superhuman reflexes or strength. Maybe the aliens had spent a little too much time researching human pop culture and not enough time researching some of the real world abilities some super individuals had.

  I did a little twirl in midair. I didn’t even need the targeting computer to assist me with this one. No, one moment the cat was screaming through the air and the next I’d deftly grabbed the little furry fucker by the scruff of its neck. It hung in the air looking more than a little surprised that I’d taken it out so easily.

  Then it started hissing and spitting and clawing at me. Thankfully the carbon fiber weave on my suit was more than enough to deal with some cat scratches.

  “And that’s how it’s done,” I said. “So do you want to surrender now, or are we going to do this the hard way?”

  The cat yowled something that might’ve been pretty close to “fuck you,” but it was difficult to tell with all the hissing and spitting. Either way it was pretty clear that kitty wasn’t happy about the sudden change in its circumstances.

  Tough titty, little kitty.

  “Are you done now, or do I have to humiliate you even more?” I asked.

  I looked around. The people were still staring at me disappr
ovingly, but for some reason they weren’t moving in on me. That was very interesting. I held the cat up and grinned right in its hissing and spitting face.

  “So let me guess. Your localized mind control thingamajig you’re using on those people is only for calming people down and not pissing them off? Gonna bet you evolved in a nice dank radioactive swamp where you had a predator you needed to calm down but no bigger predators you could use to chomp on the assholes who were attacking you? Or is it just that the mind control doesn’t work on humans the way it does on whatever the fuck you were controlling back home?”

  More hissing and spitting from Fluffy. We’re talking a cat who really wasn’t happy about being captured, what cat ever was, but I’d grabbed him by the scruff of the neck so it’s not like he could do a damned thing as long as I held him just so.

  “You really are an excellent conversationalist. You know that, right? I’m getting tired of this though. Probably time to go ahead and get on with the questioning.”

  “A good idea mistress,” CORVAC said. “I tire of this too.”

  “I wasn’t asking you, CORVAC,” I said. “But this will make for an interesting scientific experiment.”

  “All of your experiments are interesting scientific experiments, mistress,” CORVAC replied.

  “Yeah, well tell that to the people I experiment on,” I growled.

  That growl matched the cat which went right on hissing and spitting and clawing at me. Actually now that I looked down at my wrist I realized that not only was it clawing at me, but the fucker had managed to fray the material.

  “You little son-of-a-bitch,” I said.

  “Technically it would have to be a canine to be a son-of-a-bitch mistress,” CORVAC said.

  “Turn of phrase, CORVAC,” I said. “Now pay attention. It’s science experiment time.”

  I held out my hand and a small pair of tongs appeared. Partially I used the tongs because they were the most efficient way I’d come up with so far to do this, but mostly I used them because it reminded me of Ricardo Montalban and an unconvincing puppet. I was nothing if not a sucker for the classics.