Once Upon a Star

by Anthea Sharp

  He’d made a lot of people in the nine systems happy, and he’d pissed off a lot.

  Dante sighed as he looked at her. He was going need time after the mess of the next month, and he wanted to spend it with Mercedes. So, why not in some hokey fantasy?

  “Oh, live a little. You’ll need it after the Bast meeting.” Fernand bared his teeth and hooked the hand not holding a drink into a claw, mocking the half feline, half humanoid race.

  He nodded. And when he did… he felt a slight weight pressing on his shoulders.

  TWO

  Dante woke shivering—not just cold—but damn cold. It was the kind of uncontrollable shivering he remembered as a kid when he had a fever.

  Drops of water spattered his face, his shoulders, his arms… He could feel each of them, little explosions of ice against his skin.

  He opened his eyes to see the tops of buildings above him, then blinked furiously to clear the water out of his eyes and groaned as he turned over on his side.

  As his eyes adjusted, he realized with a sinking feeling he was in an alley. And a pretty damned nasty one.

  How did I get in an alley? Did something happen with the vacation? Is it over with and I’m done and I was jumped and dumped?

  With mounting panic, Dante reached out and searched for broken bones. And as he reached with his left hand to touch his right—he nearly yelled out.

  The arms—weren’t his. Or at least not arms he recognized. They were thinner than his own. Even his hands looked more defined—and on these hands were dark, inked marks.

  As he stretched his arms out, he saw both his forearms were covered in tattoos. A further look revealed tattoos on his upper arms as well, and when he sat up and looked down at his bare chest, he realized the tattoo covered a toned and lean chest, nearly devoid of hair.

  Dante had been a hairy man. And not in the best of shape.

  His legs were muscled as well, covered in small, reddish, hairs.

  And then he flicked his tongue over his teeth and sliced it on something sharp. With a groan, he tasted blood as he reached up. His canines felt like man-sized cat fangs.

  Uh, oh… did that mean…

  He turned, moving his hip to the side to reveal—splayed out on the dirtied and muddy ground beneath him—a long, red tail.

  Dante also realized something else… he was bare-ass naked.

  “…hasn’t seen him. Check that way!”

  The sound of the voice triggered an alarm in Dante’s hard wiring. He moved on all fours, crouching low and watching the entrance to the alley.

  His senses kicked into over-drive, and he could not only hear them… but smell them.

  Body odors, synthetics colognes, cigarette smoke, booze, urine, it was all there. All around him. Something twitched over his left ear, then over his right. He sat back on his haunches, reached up and touched—

  “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me…” he said in a soft voice. “I’ve got… cat ears!”

  “Did you hear that?”

  Dante was on all fours again. He looked all around him, realizing the entrance was the only way out. He moved fast to his right, leapt up and grabbed at the fire-escape rungs. Normally he’d pull the ladder down—but that would make too much noise.

  With a grunt, he pulled himself up and then climbed all the way to the top of the escape until he could pitch himself onto the roof. Once there he crouched again and looked over the edge. He saw them coming down the alley—two men in Coats.

  Chimera Operations Attaché To Sciences.

  How did he know that? And how did he know they were bad news for him?

  Especially him.

  He felt his new set of ears pitch forward as they tuned in the voices below.

  “He was here,” the taller one said as he crouched on the debris-littered ground like a monkey. “I can smell him. Feline.”

  “Well, he’s not here now. And Fernand’s gonna be pretty damned pissed off that he got out.”

  The one on the ground spoke as he continued to sniff. “How did he do that? WC didn’t give a lot of info.”

  “No, and they’re not going to,” the standing one said. “Basts—specially male—are rare if they survive the transformation. Dabi said this was one took to it like he was born that way.”

  “Good bounty then.”

  “You betchyer ass. This one’ll sell for over a billion nuyen. I hear he’s already got a buyer waiting on him—even got the collar engraved.” He laughed loudly. “And I hear she’s not really nice on her toys.”

  Dante felt his heart thundering in his chest so hard he was afraid they’d hear it below. He sat back, wiping his face in the drizzling rain.

  What…. what happened? Had he awoken in the wrong city? Was this part of the tour?

  And where was Mercedes?

  Wasn’t she supposed to be with him? Dante put his hands to his wet head and pressed as if he could push his thoughts into making sense. He and Mercedes were supposed to wake up in their hotel rooms with their itinerary. Only—

  Something had gone wrong. And now he was being chased by two sick bastard bounty hunters who wanted him for some woman’s pet.

  This was ridiculous. He needed to get back to the Welcome Center and find out what happened because something went wrong.

  He shivered

  Clothes first.

  Keeping low, he found it was easy to move on all fours, his tail serving as a ballast. The movement felt… right. And as he neared the other side of the building, he jumped before he realized what he was doing and landed on his feet on the roof of the building below.

  Remaining still he felt his ears twitch as they moved independently, listening around him, seeking out the movements of enemies. He could hear so much…a couple in the apartment below him arguing, another making love. Small talk. Conversation. A diner nearby.

  And the city…he looked around at it under the cloak of night. It looked like an industrial nightmare. A forgotten place.

  “Wowsah….a tomcat. Dis be rare.”

  Dante’s entire body whirled, crouching low. Standing in the shadows was a Bast. Female. Her own dark tail twitched behind her, and her ears decorated her semi-silhouette. “Who are you?”

  “Better question dis—” she took a step closer, making herself more visible in the subdued illumination of the streetlights below. He saw the gleam of a gun in her right hand. “Who be you?”

  “Are you with them?” he nodded in the direction of the alley. “You here to take me?”

  “Wif who—dem’s hunters? No, tomcat. I hunts dem.”

  He felt his tail twitch as thunder echoed in the distance. “So you’re not going to shoot me?”

  She laughed—and it had a purring sound to it. “No, tomcat. I take youse in—rare be you to be out here. Bad nights for all.” She lowered her gun and shoved it into a holster on her thigh. “They call Jacopo, me. You?”

  He relaxed, a little, but stayed crouched. And he was surprised that he felt no embarrassment about being naked in front of a stranger. “Dante.”

  “That prolly be old name.” And she moved quickly beside him, her slitted eyes now visible in the darkness. “You gonna need new name to hide.” The side of her mouth pulled up. “Welcome to Shadow Down, tomcat.”

  THREE

  Jacopo’s place was the storage loft of a nearby warehouse. Three other Bast shared the space, along with an elder human. All the Bast were females. And all different. Jacopo introduced them. The red-head was Tara, the cheetah marked girl who was much smaller than the others was Aki, and the tallest one with the snow-white tail, hair and ears was Zebbie.

  As different as they were—they all had one thing in common.

  They all came for a vacation and never left Chimera Adventures.

  The human was Abbē Faria. He had been a reporter looking into the mysterious vacation resort and stumbled on the resort’s secret. That it wasn’t a resort at all, and that Shadow Down had never really been destroyed. And that was all he would
say until Dante was properly dressed and fed.

  After showering under a taped water pipe, Dante dried his hair with a towel. The girls had scrounged around to find him some clothing. Ripped soft jeans, a discarded canvas belt, sneakers and a gray tank-top. The clothes felt odd on his skin—and he was amazed at how expertly they’d cut a hole for his tail to stick through.

  After a small dinner of what Zebbie called ‘burger and fries,’ they lounged on a few discarded and tattered couches to talk. Tara was actually purring on the tattered couch beside him as Aki brushed his hair.

  The only two that seemed really alert were Zebbie and Jacopo.

  Something stung his left ear, and he reached up to grab it. But Aki batted at his hand. “No no. You be still. You need markings—so’s they won’t knows youse new.”

  “Markings?”

  Jacopo laughed. She sat across from him, smoking a hand-rolled brown cigarette. Her eyes had dilated from slits to full black, the green irises gone, and pointed to her own left ear. He’d noticed something there before, but hadn’t paid attention. Now he realized there were earrings dangling from the cat’s ear. “Mark’ns. Gives you legit cred. Newbies get punished in streets, Dante. See’n’s how youse the first tomcat we’ve seen in years,” she smiled, a small delicate fang sliding between her lips. “You need protect’n.”

  The ear continued to sting, but it wasn’t a pain he couldn’t endure. Not if it got him information. “Years? You’ve been here for years? Did you all think this was a costume place, not being turned into the real thing?”

  All of them laughed. Even Tara, who then went back to purring softly.

  Abbē, who’d been sitting quietly in the corner, sharing the brown cigar with Jacopo, leaned forward. “Dante—you go first. You tell us how you got here. Who you were.”

  “Were?”

  The old man nodded. “Indulge me.”

  So he told them all about himself—though not his full name—and what he and his fiancé had signed on for. He was cautious though when it came to his position within Edmond Industries.

  Apparently, they all knew the name. Tara spit when she said it. But that was all the input she gave.

  “Edmond Industries keeps us here,” Aki said from above him. She was still doing something to his ear, and it was starting to burn. “They lied to you, Dante. Just like they lied to us.”

  “Dante,” Jacopo leaned forward. “Understand one thing. When youse signed that piece ‘o pulped wood, youse gave their Science perms on that body.”

  Dante wasn’t sure he understood, and not because of her accent. “I don’t—”

  “‘Course you don’t,” Zebbie spoke up. She stood, her tail twitching wildly, and grabbed up the paper and tobacco from the make-shift crate-coffee table. She then seemed to decide and set it back down, plopping on her rear and lay things out to roll. “You’re not meant to know. This place doesn’t exist, Dante. It’s not supposed to. But Edmond Industries uses it for research.”

  “What the fuck kind of research is this?” He said as he sat forward. Something jingled in his ear and he reached up to find several things now pierced through. “What the—”

  “Leave it be,” Zebbie said as she rolled. “They’ll see you’re legit. Won’t come at you. The trollies and orks, and most vampires. ‘Cause you see, there are humans here too. But they’re not like your regular humans like we used to be. These things—” she held up the tube of paper and ran her tongue over the edge before folding it down. “They ain’t what you remember. They’re strong and fast, and they see in the dark. They can hear a mouse under the house.” She grinned and placed the cigarette between her index and middle finger before looking at him. “They catch you and you’re all cured and ready? You go to the highest bidder.”

  Aki snickered. “Yeah, Dante. And believe me—you’re gonna bring in some serious nuyen.”

  He held up his hands, again noticing the tattoos. “I heard the Coats saying I already had a bidder.“

  “I’m sure you do.” Abbē held out his hand. “Dante, you need to listen carefully if you are going to survive here.”

  Dante stared at him. Sniffed. “You weren’t changed.”

  “No. I am as I was born. I registered as a guest, ready to experience this phenomenon myself, and awoke naked in the streets, just as you did, freed by Jacopo.”

  “Abbē’s sequence didn’t take to the therapy,” Zebbie said. “He couldn’t change.”

  “Not everyone changes,” Jacopo said. “Not everyone wants to.”

  Dante slowly shook his head. “I don’t understand. How is this place getting away with genetically altering people? That was stopped with the Ruby War!”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Abbē said. “The practice went underground, and this facade was born. Please understand, there is an amusement park here. A very lucrative one. But,” and he held up a finger. “Not as lucrative as the business of getting rid of one’s enemies by selling them for experiments.” He lowered his finger and shrugged. “And if they survive, and are sold to a high bidder, then the dog who betrayed them profits even more.”

  “But why transform them…us…into Bast and no other race in the universe?”

  Abbē gestured to Jacopo. “There are other forms of transformation here on Shadow Down, young Dante. There are creatures of myth from old Terran legends, such as orks, trolls, a few elves and there are vampires—but their change ultimately spells their deaths. They rot from within. There have been a few others, but if they survived, they were sold.

  “But the Bast… ah. Their beauty is one reason. You must realize how enticing the Bast form is. They look like humans, have a very similar physiology. The alterations are simple, for those whose genetic sequence can adapt to the change. You are…exotic, to behold, Dante. From what you were to what you have become is a miraculous change.”

  There was a pause as Jacopo and Abbē looked at one another.

  “What else?”

  “The Bast Empire is nearly as large as the Nine Worlds. You know this. But where we exhausting our resources, theirs flourish. They have never petitioned to join the Worlds, and we have asked them. Often. The company that sponsors the Chimera experiments has tried for nearly two years to negotiate mining rights on one or two of their worlds. The Nine Worlds needs Carboni Crystals, which they have in abundance.”

  “But…” Dante rubbed at his ear, which was a little different now they sat up higher on his head. “Edmond Industries were close to negotiating such a deal.”

  “Was,” Jacopo said.

  “Was?” He looked at her. “Did the deal not happen?”

  “No.” Abbē leaned forward. “Chancellor Vrill refused to sign it without Edmond Industries’ CEO present. But he had already died in that shuttle accident. So they refused to attend. Stocks went into a slump and the new CEO was the laughingstock of the Nine Worlds. Boasted he was the one behind the deal, not the dead young man.”

  Died?

  “Heys you,” Jacopo nudged his arm. “You looks like sick.”

  Dante wasn’t sure. He wasn’t prepared to hear he was dead. He stood and looked around. “I put everything into that meeting. We were going to—” He stopped. He’d never told them who he was, nor given his last name.

  “Bring the Bast into the Nine Worlds so they can be exploited like all the others,” Abbē interjected.

  The Bast all smiled, except for Jacopo. She had stopped taking hits off the cigar and was watching him. There was something very different about her. Different than the rest of the females.

  “We already know who you are, Dante Edmond. Jacopo was waiting for you to emerge. She arranged your escape.”

  He held out his hands. “This is an escape? I’m still on Shadow Down.”

  “You are no longer on their side of the planet. We live in the ruins of what was once a thriving city, their capital before the Ruby War. We are the escapees. The ones they wish to recapture, but don’t dare. Because you have lived free now.”

  “I
don’t—”

  “You are no longer in danger of being sold off.” Abbē leaned back. “Before you can be sold, you have to be re-educated. You have to forget your life as a human and be reborn a Bast. You have to be taught. And that can only happen after the transformation is finished. It’s a very small window where you still retain your memories of who and what you were. If you’d remained in the Welcome Center any longer…you wouldn’t even recognize your own name.”

  The truth dawned on him. In order for anyone to be able to arrange his escape, they would have to know about the inner workings of Chimera Industries. They would have to be on the inside, working for the company itself. He looked at Jacopo. “You’re a real Bast.”

  She nodded. “They broughts me here to teach youse how to be Bast. They takes brother here and forces, they makes me.”

  “Until she learned her brother had been killed by the Coats,” Abbē said.

  Dante paced a few times. No one stopped him. They only watched. Finally, he paused. “There was a woman with me…another human who was going to take the vacation with me.”

  Abbē shook his head. “She did not go through the Welcome Center.”

  “Then she’s looking for me—”

  “No,” Jacopo said as she knelt down and retrieved a small five by five vid player from under a shelf. She turned it on and handed it to him. “Wees are cuts off from everyones. But Abbē knows how to makes dis works.”

  Dante held the player in his hand and stared at the screen. It was an article, reported by the Nine Worlds Media Net, of the tragic death of Dante Edmond of Edmond Industries. He skimmed the article. “But I was never on this shuttle… and Mercedes isn’t mentioned.” He looked at the date and hesitated. “Wait… this can’t be right. It says here it’s October twenty-third…and the year. This is all wrong.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Abbē stood and took the vid player from him. “Remember, I said Edmond Industries has been trying to negotiate rights for two years. That started after they reported you dead. You have been dead for over two years, Dante Edmond. The genetic transformation isn’t instantaneous. In fact, it isn’t pleasant at all. You are cloned several times and each clone is transformed until one survives.” He pointed at Dante. “You.”