Catnip (4 page)

“The FBI,” the older man replied, and took a
seat across from him. He had to be in his mid-fifties, although the
lines on his face made him look like someone well into retirement
age. “We want to know what you’ve been working on. We have the
disc, your computer, and we’ve already taken the computer from your
university laboratory. We have the evidence. Your lawyer will be
coming soon.”

Harry wasn’t sure he should say anything, but
what had he done wrong? He’d only worked on the formula, so was it
a crime to think? Obviously, the cops thought so, and so did the
FBI. The older man sat there and stared at him through mild looking
blue eyes. Harry figured the granddad look was just for effect…but
decided to open up.

“Uh, Agent Farrell, if I tell you what I did,
can I go?”

The older man’s eyes widened with surprise at
the naiveté exhibited. “Kid, I don’t think you understand the
seriousness of the charge. What you’ve done is a federal crime.
That’s why the police called me in.”

“I’m not working for any foreign agency, and
I don’t know anyone on the black market,” Harry hotly protested. He
surprised himself by finding his backbone, but these charges were
total crap.

Farrell received the outburst with an air of
equanimity. “We’re aware of that,” he said smoothly. “We just did
it to rattle you. The real charge is the breach in ethics. We spoke
to Professor Nixon and he said—and I quote—“the usage of transgenic
gene therapy is illegal and highly dangerous, not to mention
unethical”, end quote.”

The little weasel squealed on me, Harry
thought, and his mouth dropped open, ready to yell in outrage. Then
he thought better of it and muttered, “It was just a theory. That
was all.”

Farrell gave him a look which meant
uh-huh, I think you’re full of it,
and nodded. Someone
knocked on the door and a middle-aged man with a harried look on
his pasty face came in and gave his name as Dylan Cuthbert, the
court-appointed lawyer. Harry had asked that his family lawyer
represent him, but his plea fell on deaf ears.

“Don’t worry,” Cuthbert said in a confident
tone after Mr. FBI-man had given them their time together and Harry
had recounted his story. “We’ll just chalk this up to youthful
exuberance.”

The court didn’t see it the same way. After
hearing both sides argue it out, the judge called him, his lawyer,
and the District Attorney into his private chambers. Seating
himself at his desk, he began. “I see that the apple hasn’t fallen
far from the tree. Your father was also a transgenic researcher,
wasn’t he?”

“He worked only for an American firm,” Harry
responded and shrugged off his lawyer’s tap on his shoulder as a
signal to keep quiet. He rarely got angry, but now he was
four-square, balls-to-the-wall pissed, and shaking from anger and
fear. “My lawyer already told you, I haven’t contacted any foreign
governments or people. Can’t you guys understand?”

This whole thing had turned into a nightmare
and he was caught up right in the middle of it. He thought he’d
done the right thing in telling the truth and now Uncle Sam wanted
to toast his butt for it.

“We have been apprised of that already,” the
judge said. “It is this court’s judgment that you have not been in
contact with any foreign entities or enemies of our
government.”

He then leaned across the desk and his voice
grew stern. “However, what you have done, unwittingly or not, was
break the law. That is what this trial has determined.”

Yeah, some trial, more like a kangaroo court,
Harry thought. It had all gone down two weeks after he’d been held
in a juvenile detention facility, and he’d passed each day more
nervous about what could happen. He’d already gotten the crap
knocked out of him twice. In regular prison, guys like him did not
survive.

The judge continued speaking. “Still, due to
your age, and the fact that you have never broken the law before,
and also because of your late father’s efforts as well as your own
efforts in pursuit of a noble goal, we are prepared to grant
leniency.”

Leniency
turned out to be a three-year
sentence in a minimal correctional facility. The first couple of
weeks hadn’t been so bad. The authorities assigned him to a
teacher’s spot in the prison library. “Word came down from up on
high you got this,” one of the guards whispered to him one day.

Harry breathed a little easier, and when the
authorities placed him with a cellmate who posed no threat, he
figured something had to be up, but didn’t know what. Each day
passed and he taught whoever came in without incident and went back
to his cell at night to work on his research. They’d allowed him
paper and pencils, and he passed his free time studying. What else
could he do? The authorities had confiscated his computer and he
knew he’d never get it back.

Now they’d called him to the warden’s office
and he wondered just what was going to happen. Had the higher-ups
changed their minds? Would he be sent to a maximum security prison?
If so, then he could kiss his chances of freedom goodbye forever,
not to mention his life.

The guard showed him into the warden’s
office. Warden Dill, a massive man in his forties with a
clean-shaven head and the hard-eyed stare of someone used to
dealing with the worst society had to offer, sat behind his desk.
Harry recognized a familiar face standing beside him—Farrell. What
in the hell was
he
doing here?

Harry raged internally at this man who’d
screwed him out of his freedom. Still, he stood at attention and
the warden waved him over to a chair. He sat and waited.

After glancing at the file on his desk, Dill
heaved a small sigh. “Goldman, we’re letting you go.”

“Thanks,” Harry started to say, “I—”

“We’re releasing you into the custody of the
FBI,” the warden interrupted. “Go back to your cell, pick up
whatever you need, and get out.” The expression on his face
indicated he didn’t like the idea of his authority being overridden
by another agency.

Call this a way cool moment, Harry thought.
While he was pleased at the idea of getting out, he also wondered
why the man who’d taken away his freedom had suddenly shown up.
Farrell stood rigidly beside the warden as if he were almost part
of the office’s furnishings and wore a faint smile. Oh, hell, the
fix was in. It had to be.

Back at his cell, he packed up his notes,
changed into the same clothes he’d worn on the day of his arrest—a
long sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans—said goodbye to Tim, and
then a guard took him outside the main gates. There, Farrell waited
beside a beat-up old Buick. “Get in,” he ordered.

The agent drove quickly to Portland Airport
and didn’t even bother going through the usual check-in procedures,
just breezed through the gate after the agent flashed his badge.
Harry wondered why the man didn’t use handcuffs, but felt grateful
in a small way for his freedom. They boarded a small private plane
and Farrell directed the pilot to take off when ready.

In the cabin, the agent seated himself. “Get
comfortable,” he said.

Harry took another seat, wondered what was
going on, and asked, “Where are we going?”

“New York,” Farrell answered. “We need
someone on the outside who’s also on the inside.”

This answer made zero sense, and shaking his
head, he decided to try and find out more. “Why do you need me? You
threw me in jail on a BS charge and…”

“Be quiet, kid,” Farrell answered in a voice
colder than ice. “Just be grateful we didn’t leave you in there for
the duration of your sentence. Who do you think got you your
lazy-ass position as tutor? Who do you think pulled the
strings?”

Harry glanced at the man, suddenly getting
wise, and then his eyes narrowed. There had to be a catch. There
always was. “So you want to tell me why?”

Farrell’s glare practically tore his face
off. Harry got the impression the man was looking right through
him, right down to his core. “It’s a pretty straightforward deal.
We’re going to let you go on the condition that you help us. You’ll
have your notes, get your research back, a lab to work in, and
anything else you need…but your butt belongs to us.” He said
nothing more, settled back, and closed his eyes.

Harry couldn’t relax, though, and stared out
the window as the plane taxied down the runway and took to the
skies. For the duration of the trip he kept thinking why him and
why now? He’d been tossed in jail for an idea, let free by the same
person who’d arrested him, and for what? If his research was that
important, couldn’t they have gotten someone else? All his
questions remained in the back of his mind, and he watched in
silence as the vast land below him passed by in a blur of brown and
green.

After they landed in the Big Apple an hour
later, Farrell took him through the gates at LaGuardia Airport and
they got into another car. He drove off, and as Harry watched, the
outskirts of the countryside gradually faded behind them and in
time turned into the concrete jungle known as Manhattan.

“We’re here.”

The agent’s voice stirred Harry from his
sleep. He hadn’t even noticed he was nodding off, and now it was
early afternoon, the June weather hot and humid. He yawned and
wiped off the thick sheen of sweat from his forehead and rubbed his
eyes.

FBI Headquarters stared him in the face. A
massive building of concrete, steel and glass, it stood out from
the other monoliths surrounding it, mainly because of the power it
held. Other businesses had money or fame, but this place had the
power of life and death, freedom and imprisonment, and Harry knew
only too well about being imprisoned.

Farrell escorted him inside the building.
Wide awake now, Harry asked, “What’s all this about?”

“Be quiet, kid, we’re almost there.”

Harry twisted his head to stare at the older
man. “I’m not a kid,” he answered in a sullen voice. Yes, he was
eighteen, short and skinny and weak, but since they’d tried him as
an adult—he
was
an adult—they could use his real name. “Call
me by my first name, okay? I don’t like being called a kid.”

Farrell glanced at him briefly. “Fine, I’ll
do that.”

Their footsteps echoed off the walls as they
walked down the hallway and descended a winding series of steps. No
one else spoke to them although a number of the men in black moved
around, their faces expressionless and movements stiff and precise,
almost robotic in nature. Harry had the impression they’d move and
move quickly if something demanded their attention.

At the bottom of the stairs, a door lay dead
ahead and a screech sounded from inside, followed by the sounds of
swearing and the sound of something else making a snapping sound.
The door opened and another agent came out, his hands over his
face. “You okay, Marlon?” Farrell asked.

Agent Marlon whatever-his-last-name-was shook
his head. Tentatively, he took one hand away to reveal a deep gash
in his nose. Eyes filled with agony, he whipped out a tissue to try
and stem the flow of his life’s fluids. “That…thing…has got the
fastest hands around,” he said, and swore viciously. “She scratched
me up pretty good.”

Farrell sighed. “Get that wound looked at.
I’ll handle this from here on in.”

The man immediately shot up the stairs and
Harry wondered what kind of animal they were keeping here. His
keeper didn’t say a word. Farrell simply grabbed his arm, steered
him inside, and then pointed to the far corner.

Harry followed the gesture and his gaze came
to rest on the figure crouched behind the steel bars. A gasp
involuntarily escaped his lips as the captive—through the gray fur
he saw that it had a woman’s body—jumped up to touch the ceiling,
twist in the air, and then land lightly on her feet. The ceiling in
this room had to be at least twenty feet high. “What’s going on
here?” he asked, his voice hushed.

Ms. Prisoner arose and came over to the steel
bars. Her yellow eyes curiously regarded him, her whiskers
twitched, and her ears pointed straight up. It was a cat-lady.

“Meet your test subject,” Farrell said.

Harry couldn’t speak for a moment and whirled
to face the agent. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said.

“Just think of it as broadening your
education.”

Harry stared at the cat-lady. The unreality
of the situation hit him right between his eyes like a punch, only
harder. Brain fart time, as the idea of this happening made him
think he’d just entered some kind of game show or netherworld where
nothing was what it seemed to be. He briefly looked around for the
television cameras. All he saw were the usual array of security
cameras which recorded his image with their unwinking eyes, but
nothing else.

And while he stared at her, in turn, the
figure behind bars watched
him
through yellow eyes and
sniffed the air as if getting his scent. She remained motionless,
but cocked her head to one side and gave him a slightly crooked
smile, as if welcoming a new face to the party.

“So what do you think?” Farrell asked.

What did he think? She was good looking in
her own way. Even with the gray fur and black spots, she had a nice
body, pretty hot in fact. He noticed her clothes, a short matching
gray blouse and shorts which showed off her curves. Her tail, long
and flexible, twirled behind her in a circular, graceful motion. A
head of long, flowing gray hair completed the picture.

She reminded him of some of the comic book
characters he’d seen and then…what was he
thinking
? He’d
only seen a few cartoons as a kid, and as for the idea of being
with a girl, no, not, never, end stop. He was a shut-in nerd, the
same as his gamer friend. Jason was the only person who’d bothered
to tell him about the hotties he’d seen online and had tipped him
off to some of the more interesting websites on the Internet. “It’s
all for the experience,” he said at the time.