You know that old cartoon where a cat gets scared, and it jumps up and gets its claws stuck in the ceiling? Well, it's a good thing I wasn't in felinthro form when I heard that, or I probably would have done the same thing[m/] and the ceiling probably wasn't strong enough to support my weight.
"W- why does the sergeant want to talk to me?" I asked, trying to keep the panic from showing in my voice.
"I don't know," his secretary answered curtly. "All I know is that he told me to come fetch you personally. Come with me, I'll show you the way to his office."
Her tone of voice told me she wasn't happy about being forced to leave her desk to run errands when a page over the intercom would have sufficed, but frankly that was the least of my worries. What were the odds Sergeant Chase would want to speak to me right after I got done having a hot 69 with Nina, and he
didn't
know about it? Not likely, I could figure that much out on my own. Right then, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was follow that lady. Something told me that doing so would lead me straight to the Divider.
Then again, I told myself, running away and hiding is
another
way to get sent to the Divider, isn't it?
Steeling my nerves, I forced my feet to move and went after her. We made our way through the academy with me almost having to jog to keep up with the secretary's brisk pace. Damn, how could a woman with such scrawny legs walk so fast without having, like, rockets stapled to her heels? The hallways were deserted, all the other recruits in training, but the school was so big that it still took us almost ten minutes to get from the dorms to the staff offices.
"Have a seat," she told me when we got to Sergeant Chase's waiting room. She picked up her phone while I headed for one of the chairs set against the wall. "Sir? Michael Arghen is here to see you. Okay, I'll send him in." I sat down, and the secretary hung up the phone. "He says you can go right in."
I stood back up.
"Okay," I said, trying to stay as calm and professional as I could. "Thank you."
With hands that seemed to be moving on their own, I opened the door and stepped into the office. Sergeant Chase was standing behind his desk with his hands folded behind his back and a serious expression on his face.
"Thank you for coming, Michael," he said. "Shut the door behind you, please."
"Yes, sir, Sergeant Chase," I said, doing as he said and trying to sound as respectful as humanly possible.
"Have a seat," he told me, nodding towards one of the chairs in front of his desk. He sat down himself as I approached, and I joined him.
"May I ask why I'm here, sir?" I asked when he didn't say anything right away.
"Oh, I think you know good and well why you're here, son," Chase said, clasping his hands in front of him and leaning towards me.
I tried not to gasp, but I couldn't do anything to stop the sweat from coming from my brow. Shit, he knew. He knew, he knew,
heknewheknewheknewheknewheknew.
"Um..." I stammered, struggling to think of what to say. What
could
I say? "C- could you be a little more specific, sir?"
Damn, I was an idiot.
Sergeant Chase's frown deepened. "I'm your commanding officer, boy. Don't play dumb with me!"
There was nothing for it, then. I hung my head in shame. "Sorry, sir."
Chase nodded. "That's more like it. This is a military base for training superhuman warriors, after all. There's not a single damn room here without at least three security cameras."
I cringed. Of course he was going to find out! What had I been thinking? What had
Nina
been thinking?
"It seems like you're getting rather close to your personal trainer, Michael."
"Yes, sir," I said in a hoarse whisper. This was it. It was all over. "I'm sorry, sir."
"Relationships with your superior officers are normally forbidden, you know that, right?"
I nodded. "If I can, sir, I'd like to take full..." My voice trailed off.
Did he just say
normally?
"Normally," Chase said again, "this would be grounds for dishonorable discharge for both of you, and a trip to the Divider." I tensed up. "However..."
I unconsciously leaned forward in my seat, my heart trying to jump up through my throat and out my mouth. Fuck this bastard, was he
enjoying
building up the suspense? However fucking
what?
"However," he said again, "in this one, singular case, I am willing to make an exception."
I blinked in surprise. Had he really just said...
"Yes, you heard me right. Nina Stukson is one of the greatest C.A.T. agents to ever live, one we can't afford to lose. Lately, though, I've noticing that she's been, eh, off her game, you might say. Her spirits have been lowering, the quality of her work degrading. We think," he paused and gave me a meaningful look, "that it might have something to do with your brother."
I think I must have been in shock, because the only thing that I could think to say was, "Travis? What about him?" A more suitable remark would have been,
"Holy shit, sir, you mean you're
not
going to crucify me?"
"Travis and Nina were very close," Chase explained. "I don't make a habit of listening to rumors, but even I couldn't ignore how many there were floating around that the two were... seeing each other."
I sat up straighter at this. So, I wasn't the first Arghen Nina had dated? Well, not so much dating as randomly hooking up for wild sex, I suppose... but still! What did that mean for me? Was she just doing this because I reminded her of my brother? Was I just her rebound guy?
"Regardless," Chase said, waving his hand, "what's important is how she's taken to you. It's been more than half a year since your brother passed away, but during the time she's spent with you her spirits have been higher than they've been in months."
I leaned forward a little. "What are you getting at, sir?"
Instead of answering right away, Sergeant Chase got up from his desk and walked around to the other side of his office, where he retrieved a file from the cabinet and set it down in front of me.
"That," he said, "is what I'm getting at. Tomorrow, I'm sending Nina on a search and retrieval mission. Something we need has been lost, and she's going to go get it for us. It should be completely safe."
Hesitantly, I reached out and opened the file. It was filled with papers covered with tiny print, which I didn't bother trying to read, and a picture of some kind of machine. It was small enough to fit in my hand, and nondescript enough that I had no idea what it was for.
"That's what we're telling her, anyway," Chase continued when I looked back up at him. "In truth, the device is just an old cell phone wrapped up in a bunch of junk metal. The real reason we're sending her on this mission is so that you can get closer to her."
"Get closer to her?" I echoed as comprehension slowly dawned on me. "Are you telling me..."
Chase gave me a wry nod. "Yes, I'm saying exactly what you think I'm saying. I'm sending Nina on a fake mission, and I'm sending you with her for the purpose of having sex with her the whole time."
Wow. Talk about words you'd never think you'd hear.
"It might not be as easy as I'm making it sound, though," the sergeant said, sitting back down. "Nina knows what her job is and what's expected of her. She's resisting the impulses. She's had her moments of weakness, which you've, ah, experienced..."
My face turned a shade redder.
"... but for the most part she's doing her best to stay professional." Chase sighed. "I can hardly believe I'm saying this, Michael, but your job is to lower her defenses, make her grow even more attached to you, and raise her spirits the way you brother did in the past. C.A.T. needs the old Nina Stukson back, you hear me?"
My head still reeling, I nodded my understanding.
"Good. Any questions."
Did I have any fucking questions? A better question would be, could I please keep my number of questions limited so that we could get out of here by Christmas?
"Do you know why she's acting like this in the first place?" I asked. I'd been wondering that this whole time. "She told me the urges are uncontrollable, and she doesn't know where they're coming from."
Sergeant Chase grimaced a little and leaned back in his chair. "The truth is, Michael, that the procedure doesn't always go completely according to plan. You know this firsthand. Nina... she knew this years before you even arrived."
"Did she break free too?"
Chase shook his head. "No, for her things went wrong a different way. One of the chemicals we inject you with during the procedure actually counteracts the ones that make your body more receptive, just a little bit. It's to keep the feline DNA from taking over too much. Essentially, it keeps you from losing your humanity entirely."
He closed his eyes, as if reminiscing. "Nina's body ended up rejecting that chemical. The damage was minimal, but it gradually became clear that certain parts of her had been transformed more than was usual. Her senses were all a little bit sharper than the other recruits, which helped her climb the ranks as quickly as she did. But there were other things. She began displaying more feline tendencies. We would sometimes catch her licking her fur or skin, and there were a couple of incidents involving, uh," Chase hesitated and glanced away awkwardly, "marking territory."
Oh, shit
, I thought.