by Mia Archer
I turned on one of the other cats that was launching itself at me. This time I raised my wrist blaster and fired off an anti-Newtonian bubble more directly rather than waiting on the lab systems to put one between us. Which was enough to catch the thing and hold it in the air.
The cat didn't even have a chance to look surprised since all motion had slowed to a crawl from its perspective.
I turned and kicked one of the little fuckers away as it went for my feet, and then ran after the cat that was making its way towards one of the vents.
"Damn it you little furry asshole!" I shouted after it. "You're not getting away that easily!"
Only it was seriously starting to look like the cat was going to prove me to be a liar. It dove for the vent and slammed through the thing with enough force that there was a hole left in it. Then the little fucker turned around and had the audacity to salute me.
It was mocking me. I raised my wrist blaster and fired off a couple of shots. After waiting the half a second it took the furry little fucker to get out of the line of fire, that is.
When that was taken care of and the cat had made its escape I turned to look at all the other cats circling around me. They'd all clearly sacrificed themselves so their asshole compatriot could make his escape.
"Okay CORVAC," I said. "That was pretty good. Round up the mob."
The cats exchanged confused looks, but it was too late. I fired off a few quick blasts and they were all encased in anti-Newtonian bubbles of their own.
"Other areas of the lab have been secured," CORVAC said into my ear. No using the external speakers on this one.
One of these fuckers had mentioned something that sounded suspiciously close to a hive mind. If they were a hive mind then you bet your ass I didn't want to say anything in front of any of them that might give away what we were planning. Not when one of them could beam that info back to the rest of the hive.
Assuming they were close enough to be connected to that a hive mind. There was too much I didn't know about these fuckers, and I wasn't going to say anything until I had more information.
I was quick and methodical now that the dupe had been allowed to escape. I held out my hand and a pair of tweezers materialized in my fingers. Then I got to work. I started with the first cat in the anti-Newtonian field. Though I had a little bit of difficulty as my hand slowed as it entered the bubble.
"Damn it," I said. "Can you get a drone ready?"
"Affirmative mistress," CORVAC said.
From there it was simple enough. Drop the bubble, have the drone catch the cat by the scruff of its neck, and then hold the thing up while the parasite was powerless to fight the universal off setting of that cats had from the moment they were born.
I made quick work of the parasitic worms. No messing around this time. The messing around was when I let that one wormy asshole think he’d escaped. Sure the cats did their usual twitching and clawing and all that when the worms inside them realized what I was doing, but they were playing in my world now and there was no stopping me.
I pulled the worm out of the cat’s ear, held it up, and activated the welding setting on my wrist blaster which made quick work of them.
When it was all done I clapped my hands together and found myself looking down at a bunch of cats that were staring as though they had no idea what the hell had just happened to them.
I'm sure from their point of view it was a weird experience. One moment they felt something wriggling into their ears, and the next thing they knew they were waking up very confused in a strange lab.
"That was very efficient mistress," CORVAC said. “I am surprised you gave them that much mercy.”
"Thank you," I said. "I didn't have time for the good stuff. I don’t want any of them phoning home.”
"Probably a good precaution mistress," CORVAC said.
I looked up at a big screen that was inevitably set up in every room in my lab. There was nothing better for villainous productivity than a big board.
This one showed a map of the labyrinth that was the lab’s ventilation system. More importantly there was a bright dot showing something making its way through that labyrinth.
There’d be no David Bowie waiting for that kitty. With a little prodding from CORVAC and a few vents opened and closed at the right place along its path there might be an escape waiting for the fucker though.
I made sure all of my ventilation shafts were sufficiently small enough that no human could ever crawl through them. Any maintenance was done exclusively by robots so as to not invite or encourage any pesky heroes looking to sneak in on me.
But they were all large enough that the autonomous rodent hunter killers could make their way through the things and do their work. Which turned out to be an advantage this time around as that alien-possessed furry fucker made his escape.
"Make sure to herd him to a spot where he'll be able to make good on his escape," I said.
"Of course mistress," CORVAC said, sounding insulted that I would imply that he would do anything less.
I smiled. I didn't think he would do any less than that, but I found that it was good to keep him on his toes. And one of the many ways that I kept him on his toes was by subtly hinting that I didn't think he was up to the job from time to time.
Basically I was negging an artificial intelligence. Which would have made me feel bad if he was a nice artificial intelligence, but I still hadn't forgotten how he tried to kill me and take over the world. He was going to be paying for that one for a while.
“Make sure you keep the other cats out of his way as well," I said. “The last thing we need is the rodent disposal units getting infected with alien parasites.”
"Of course mistress," CORVAC replied.
"Do you think the fucker has any idea that he was just party to a Death Star escape?" I asked.
"I seriously doubt it mistress," CORVAC said. Apparently Star Wars was one bit of entertainment he was familiar with. “Though it does appear that the aliens have spent some small amount of time absorbing the pop culture of the local planet before trying to take it over. It is entirely possible they are aware of Star Wars."
"Whatever," I said. "If the worm is too stupid to realize his escape was to easy that’s his problem.”
"Affirmative mistress," CORVAC said.
The thing was moving fast. Way faster than I would have expected.
"Are you clocking the speed on that cat?” I asked.
"Yes mistress," CORVAC said. "It is moving remarkably fast. This might not take as long as we thought."
"Whatever," I said. "I'm going to go play some Skyrim. Let me know when that thing finally gets out of here.”
"Of course mistress," CORVAC said.
I sat down to play the game I'd started while I was in the middle of torturing Dr. Lana. The very short-lived torture session with Dr. Lana since it turned out her one vulnerability was inhaled liquid water. Talk about ridiculous having a vulnerability that involved inhaling the most abundant molecule on the planet’s surface.
Something told me she wouldn't have lasted very long as a villain even if she had managed to take over the world. Not with a weakness like that. Not that I ever seriously thought she had a chance at taking over the world. Not while I was there to stop her.
Still. I’d figured she’d come back from drowning like she'd come back from everything else, but nope. Brain scans were completely negative.
I’d subsequently scrambled all of her molecules and dispersed them throughout the solar system. I figured there wasn't much of a chance she was going to be healing from that before the heat death of the universe.
I was in the middle of rescuing a damsel in distress from a den of vampires, that expansion was interesting even if the quests were all a little samey, when I heard a ping overhead. I looked up and saw an Apple IIe green line vibrating in irritation on an overhead monitor.
CORVAC was trying to get my attention, and he was irritated that I wasn’t paying attention fast enough.
"Are
you at all well mistress?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I've been trying to get your attention for the past fifteen minutes and you have been ignoring me. I was starting to worry that something bad had happened to you."
I guess I’d gotten so preoccupied by the game that I’d completely lost track of time. Which was sort of part of the reason why Dr. Lana had met her end.
“Sorry CORVAC,” I said. “Just suffering from a bit of Elder Scrolls hypnosis.”
“I understand that can be fatal to people being experimented upon while the experimenter is playing the game,” CORVAC said.
“Can it,” I said. “How was I supposed to know drowning was her weakness?”
“By paying attention to the subject you were torturing to get information about where she transported your girlfriend?” CORVAC asked.
“I could do without the sarcasm,” I said. “Drowning is a stupid fucking weakness anyway. I did her a favor.”
And I did me a favor too, but that went without saying.
Ironically enough, I'd been chasing down a water breathing enchantment right around the time I’d inadvertently discovered that water breathing wasn't on Dr. Lana’s list of superpowers.
I'm sure she would have appreciated the joke if she was alive to get it.
"Okay CORVAC,” I said. "What do you have for me with our furry friend?”
"Are you sure you do not want to get to a point where you can safely suspend the game?" CORVAC asked, some hesitation in his tone.
It was a throwback to a time when I’d maybe gotten a little too into playing World of Warcraft. That was the kind of game where there definitely wasn't a pause button.
Starlight City had been given a good five months of peace a couple of years ago because I was busy trying to conquer Azeroth rather than conquering the real world. It took realizing that I was on a never-ending hedonistic treadmill to finally get me to pull my head out of my ass, uninstall the game, and vaporize the characters on my account.
Still, there'd been a time when I'd given CORVAC a couple of tongue lashings about interrupting me when I was in the middle of a persistent world game that couldn’t be paused. Obviously he was still a little gun shy because of those experiences.
"It's easy to pause this one CORVAC,” I said, hitting quicksave just to be sure. "Now what's going on?"
"The cat that we allowed to escape has reached its destination," he said.
I smiled and steepled my fingers together. "Excellent."
15
Inhumane
"The Humane Society?" I asked. "Are you fucking serious?"
"This is where the coordinates led us,” CORVAC said. "If you would like me to double check against GPS data I would be more than happy to."
"No need for any of that," I said. "I suppose if you're going to be a species of worms hell-bent on taking over the world then the Humane Society makes sense. As long as you go to a no kill shelter it's not like they have to worry about anything. All their meals provided for them. Yeah, it's actually kind of genius when you think about it."
"I believe you are giving these worms entirely too much credit mistress," CORVAC said.
"Maybe I am," I said. "But you still have to admit they're being smart about this."
"As you say mistress," CORVAC said. "So what is our plan of action?"
I shrugged. "I was thinking we walk in there and see what there is to see. What do you think of that?"
"I think it sounds like a terrible idea that is going to end in tears mistress," he said. "But if that is what you insist on doing…"
"It is," I said.
"Are you perhaps forgetting something mistress?" CORVAC asked.
"What could I possibly be forgetting?" I asked. "I'm dressed to kill and…"
"That is the issue mistress," he said. "You are dressed, quite literally, to kill. Is that really the image you want to project when you go in there?"
I looked down at my duds. Shook my head and sighed.
"You're right," I said. "I can't believe I almost went in there like this."
Because of course I was wearing my Night Terror suit. It would've been pretty awkward if I'd gone into the Humane Society dressed like the world’s greatest villain.
At best they might think I was doing a weird cosplay, and at worse they’d all go running in terror which would be counterproductive.
"Right," I said. "Take care of this. Make me look like a normal human my age."
"As you desire mistress," CORVAC said.
The familiar tingle that meant there was a teleporter working on my clothes ran all across my body. My suit disappeared to be replaced by something that’d look a little more normal for a girl who could be just out of grad school.
"Okay then," I said. "We're ready to go and…"
I looked down. Got a good look at what CORVAC had prepared for me. I let out a few choice curse words that would've gotten me some interesting looks were it not for the fact that the area around the Humane Society was mostly deserted.
"What the hell is the big idea doing something like this CORVAC?" I asked.
"What?" he asked, trying and failing to sound sweet and innocent. "You said you wanted to look like your age. I simply provided something from my memory banks."
"I didn't say dress me like I was about to go out to a club," I said.
I felt a draft as cold air made its way up the very short miniskirt he'd put on me. Up top I was in a halter top that plunged entirely to low down my back for comfort, and judging from the cold I felt on my backside I was pretty sure there wasn't much fabric covering me back there.
Also? As I moved I totally realized he hadn’t included a bra with the outfit either.
If this were anyone other than CORVAC who was a decidedly asexual computer, for all that he used a male voice, I might've thought that was on purpose. As it was I thought it might be on purpose, but for entirely different reasons.
"Okay," I said. "What's the big idea here?"
"No big idea mistress," CORVAC said. "I merely used entertainments for people around your age range to extrapolate what a typical outfit for going out on the town would be. From there it was simple enough to fabricate something based on that look and…"
"Can it CORVAC," I said. "I know you did this on purpose, and I don't appreciate it,"
"I apologize for any distress," he said. "I can assure you…"
"What part of ‘can it’ do you not understand?" I asked. Growled, is more like it.
"As you wish mistress," he said. "If you would like I would be more than happy to fabricate something new for you?"
"Don't bother," I said. "I tremble to think what you might come up with next."
"As you wish, mistress," he said.
"What I wish for is some clothes that will cover me,” I said. "It's not even that cold of a day and I'm shivering in my boots!"
I looked down and growled again. I wasn't wearing anything nearly as convenient as the boots I typically wore when I was working. No, he’d put me in…
"Stiletto heels?" I growled. "Did you seriously put me in heels that would be more suited for a strip club than taking on alien worms?”
"Again I extrapolated from…"
"Extrapolate this," I said, and then I flipped my face off.
I realized the whole flipping myself of thing would have been awkward if someone happened to walk by. Or maybe it would’ve just been confusing.
It was the quickest way I could think of to get his attention though. I had my heads up display in my contacts which included cameras that had a direct feed back to the lab that CORVAC would be able to see.
"Honestly mistress," he said. "That kind of rude body language is completely unnecessary."
"Take unnecessary and shove it up your circuits," I growled.
“I believe we have work to do mistress. Now if you are quite done being upset?"
"I'm not close to being done getting upset," I said. "But you’re right. We have work to
do, so let's get to it."
I got a very odd look from the little old lady sitting behind the counter at the Humane Society. She gave my outfit a quick up and down, and it wasn't the kind of up and down I got from a girl who was interested.
Not that I’d be particularly interested in this lady being interested. I was into ladies my own age, thank you very much. Maybe a few years older, but a gap of a few decades wasn’t my thing.
I had to fight the urge to flip her the bird. That wouldn't get me anywhere. This was one of those situations where I figured it would be a hell of a lot easier to kill with kindness than it would to kill with my wrist blaster.
Besides. She was just a little old lady. I might be a villain who was hell-bent on taking over the world, but that didn't mean I was completely heartless.
"Hello dearie,” she said, any disapproval she might have felt in her look disappearing in her tone. "How can I help you today?"
I frowned. Her voice was off. Like maybe she’d smoked too much once upon a time or something. The way she moved was also weird. In slow jerking motions. As though she didn’t move all that often.
Then again with someone her age it’s not like that’d be much of a surprise. Besides, I had work to do. I looked over her shoulder to a window that showed a room full of cats at play.
"I was thinking of picking up a new pet of some sort," I said. "I've always wanted a cat, and I finally have an apartment that will let me so…"
I figured I wanted a situation that would get me in to have a look at all the cats without sounding like I was committing. After all, I had about as many cats as I could stand right now running through the vents taking care of any rodents who thought they could make a home in my lab.
The last thing I needed was more. My relationship with felines had always been based more on mutualism than affection, but something told me this little old lady wearing a cat-themed cardigan was more on the affection side of the scale.
“That’s wonderful!” she said, her eyes beaming. “I love giving my little darlings a new home.”
As though on cue a cat hopped up on the counter and presented its head. The lady obliged by giving it a scratch under the chin and the cat returned the favor by purring so loudly that it sounded like an engine turning over.
