Catnip (7 page)

He smiled, but somehow Harry failed to find
the humor in it. In fact, he found this whole experience a massive
fail, with the exception of the girl. Curiosity bit, though, and he
asked Farrell what information he’d found. Perhaps it would help
him in his tests, he reasoned.

The agent opened the file and read out,
“Subject, name and place of origin unknown, seems to be a recipient
of transgenic experimentation, a cross between a cat and a human.
Height, five-seven, weight approximately one-ten, has yellow eyes
and feminine features. Also has breasts and female genital organs,
the development of which indicates someone approximately twenty
years of age.”

He shut the file and tossed it on the table.
“Not much of an examination, I’ll agree, but there it is. The blood
sample shows mainly human blood, but the rest? The lab figured it
was cat’s blood. There were also traces of drugs in her system,
sodium pentothal for one.”

Harry knew what that drug was. “So who’s
giving her truth serum?” he asked.

“I have my suspicions,” the agent
answered.

“Do you feel like sharing, or do I have to
guess?”

Farrell stared at him and his voice got hard.
“Well, aren’t you the sarcastic nerd? Kid, I’m doing you a favor by
keeping your butt out of max lockup. You’re the hotshot researcher,
so you should be able to whip up an answer in no time.”

He really loves playing the hardass, Harry
thought
.
He wanted to respond, but his head still hurt, and
although the ache was fading, the agent started in on a rant about
his long years of service to his country and how he had to play
nursemaid to a cat-lady and a chemistry geek.

Rant over, Farrell rubbed his temples and
calmed down. “Look, we need your help. Can you do an analysis
first?”

Slowly and painfully getting off the cot,
Harry walked over to the machine, and a slow thrill spread through
his body. Farrell watched him examine the machine with interest.
“What does this thing do exactly?” he wanted to know.

Now Harry was in his element, and he put the
pain on the back burner. He’d always felt more at home in a lab and
was anxious to try out this faster-acting device. All the others
he’d used took up to a day. This one took considerably shorter time
and was just about as accurate.

“Well?” Farrell inquired with an impatient
tone in his voice.

Harry ran his fingers over the control panel
of the machine, getting the feel of it. “It analyzes STR’s, which
means
Short Tandem Repeats.”
He could barely keep the
excitement out of his voice.

Farrell gave him a blank look, which made
Harry feel somewhat superior in spite of his surroundings so he did
his best to explain. “Okay, in simple terms, STR’s are part of
everyone’s DNA structure. The variations in DNA are called
polymorphisms.
Everyone’s STR’s are different, and that’s
how the forensic guys figure out murder cases and paternity suits
and so on. This machine should tell us what her biometric profile
is. Do you have a swab from inside her mouth?”

Farrell shook his head no. He ran out of the
room and came back ten seconds later, entered the cell, Taser in
one hand and Q-tip in the other. He needn’t have bothered with the
weapon, though—the girl was still out cold.

After getting the sample, Harry put it on a
bio-chip cassette and inserted it into the machine. The onboard
computer started blinking which meant it was analyzing the data.
“How long is this going to take?” Farrell asked.

“About ninety minutes,” Harry answered. “We
have to wait.”

They sat down and the agent went out twice to
get coffee. When he returned the second time, he drummed his
fingers restlessly and then the results flashed on the screen which
made the teen gasp in amazement. “What is it?” Farrell wanted to
know.

Harry pointed at the screen. Three separate
matrices had appeared. “The DNA on the left is from a person,” he
said, and indicated the helix with his index finger. “The one on
the right is the DNA of a cat. The one in the center is her DNA.
They’ve been combined.” He stopped talking, and realized his own
ideas had been brought to reality by someone else.

Farrell looked at the screen more closely.
“So she’s a product of genetic engineering, a transgenic?”

A soft moan disturbed the proceedings before
Harry could answer. The girl had woken up and was sitting with her
back against the wall, shaking her head. She muttered something
that sounded like
nstasia.
She turned her eyes on him and
regarded him with an air of curiosity.

The agent moved in to get a closer look, only
to be greeted by a yowl of rage. A fine spray of spit sifted
between the metal bars followed by another vicious yowl and a swipe
of her arm. He barely evaded her claws. Wiping the spit off his
suit, Farrell went to the door. “She seems to like you better,” he
remarked amiably.

Harry recalled the Taser incident and
couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “Gee, I wonder
why.”

Farrell’s expression turned to stone. “Stick
to doing what you do best, kid. I’m going to get some more coffee
and check on our sources.” He disappeared out the door before Harry
could say anything.

Harry turned back to face the cat-girl. He
tried to separate the human from the animal. She had a cat’s ears,
whiskers and eyes, but the mouth was human, as was the body. The
prisoner stared at him and he figured since she wasn’t going to
volunteer information, he might as well get in some DNA research
time. He quickly downloaded the information to his computer and
began working. The way to translocate cells had always been done by
use of a protein compound. He’d managed to synthesize one, and
maybe that would be…

“I’m sorry I hit you.”

The voice—feminine—came from behind him. He
spun around on his chair, amazed beyond amazed. His own curiosity
aroused, he got up and went over to the cage. “You can
talk
?”

“Yeah, I can talk,” she answered. She leaned
over briefly to sniff him as if getting his scent, and drew back.
Her voice sounded high, girlish, and also flat, without emotion or
inflection. “I just didn’t feel like it around that FBI agent. He’s
not my kind of person.” She paused for a moment, and when she spoke
again, her voice came out in a low, guttural growl. “I
hate
being called
Miss Kitty.
”

Harry’s mouth opened and closed spasmodically
for a few seconds. Okay, she could talk…and maybe she knew a lot
more than she let on. “Um, my name’s—”

“You told me,” she interrupted. “Your name’s
Harry Goldman. I’m…”

Her face twisted in a sudden spasm. It seemed
as if she wanted to say something and something else was blocking
it. Had she been hypnotized? He’d always thought hypnosis was total
crap, but this seemed real enough…and then he remembered she’d had
traces of truth serum in her blood. It seemed someone didn’t want
her to talk about anything. It didn’t make sense, though. Truth
serum was designed to make a person spill their secrets, not hide
them.

The cat-girl closed her eyes and her body
shook. “My name’s Anastasia,” she said with difficulty. After a
series of rapid breaths, her body relaxed. “I’m Anastasia.” She
smiled as if she’d surmounted some formerly and heretofore
unreachable obstacle.

Anastasia—she had to be Russian, he thought.
Yet she spoke perfect English with no trace of an accent. Well, she
could have been born in the States and someone could have given her
that name. “Do you know where you’re from?”

Her smile disappeared and she slowly shook
her head. “No.” She bit her lip as she struggled to get the details
out. “All I remember is wooden walls, bright lights, and something
in the room.”

Her answer confused him. “You mean
someone
,
don’t you?”

“No,” she answered sharply. “I mean
some
thing
.”

Anastasia fell silent and he edged in a
little closer to the bars. She came over and slowly reached out to
touch him on his arm. It was a curious gesture on her part, her
fingers surprisingly soft with a hint of iron under the skin and
fur. Once again, he felt a tiny thrill run up and down his
spine.

“I
am
sorry I hit you, okay?” Her
voice sounded contrite. “I got scared when I didn’t know who you
were and then I saw the equipment. It…reminded me of…”

She blinked as if trying to retrieve the
information, and then shook her head. “I can’t remember.” She
withdrew her arm, groomed her face and shoulders, and then flipped
her hair back.

“Did you say before that you were a
scientist? You’re sort of young.” A quick laugh followed and her
tone became a little warmer. “I guess I’m pretty young, too.”

Her touch flustered him. This was about the
longest he’d ever spoken with a girl without either sweating
buckets or saying something stupid. “I, uh, I’m studying
transgenes. I’m not a scientist, but my father was…”

Anastasia stiffened and her gaze went to the
door. Harry turned around and saw Farrell standing there, his
eyebrows arched in a gesture of mild surprise. He wondered how long
the agent had been watching. “I see she can talk,” Farrell said in
a slightly condescending manner. “Maybe having you around here is a
good thing, kid.”

I’m not a kid, Harry thought angrily, but
held it all in. “Did you find out anything?”

The agent shook his head. “No, we don’t have
any leads. This is our only lead.” He regarded Anastasia with a
certain amount of wariness. “If I let you out, are you going to be
nice?” He tapped the Taser on his belt with one hand, and with the
other he indicated his pistol.

“That depends,” she answered in a cool
voice.

“It depends on what?”

She stared hard at the agent, and for a
change he blinked first. “On whether you tell me what
you
know. Oh, and my name is Anastasia, not Miss Kitty. Do we have that
straight?”

Farrell nodded. “We do.”

It all seemed fair enough.

Anastasia came out of the cell slowly,
sniffed the air cautiously as if testing it for contaminants or
other dangers, and after finding none, settled down and took a seat
on the cot. “So, your name is Anastasia?” Farrell asked.

“It seems like it is. I can’t remember my
last name.”

She offered nothing else. Farrell took a deep
breath and told her how the authorities had found her two days ago.
He related all the facts as he knew them, and after he’d finished,
she shook her head and said, “I don’t remember how I got here. I
remember the homeless guys in the alley, I remember the police
jumping me and holding me down, and when I woke up, the first thing
I saw was the cell.”

He eyed her curiously. “Do you think like a
cat?”

Anastasia glared at him and her voice rose in
anger. “That’s a pretty dumb question. I may have fur, but just
because I look like this doesn’t mean I have the overwhelming
desire to climb a tree or chase mice. I also can’t communicate with
other cats, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she added.

“Well, it had crossed my mind,” Farrell said
in a mild tone.

“Let it cross out,” she snapped back. “I’m a
girl…just a furry one.”

She fell silent after her outburst and
withdrew into a tiny ball on the cot, her legs tucked up under her.
The agent cleared his throat and looked at Harry. Harry had no idea
of what to say, but he did feel sorry for the girl. Whatever she’d
done, clearly it wasn’t her fault. Of that, he was sure. He took a
seat beside her and placed his hands in his lap, not knowing what
else to do with them.

As a peace offering, Farrell asked her if she
wanted something to eat. “You got any hamburgers?” she asked.
“Cooked ones, okay?” Then she nudged Harry with her elbow. “What do
you want?”

He couldn’t think of a thing for a few
seconds. Fumbling for a response, he pulled the words “hot
chocolate” out of his head.

Anastasia nodded her head. “You have good
taste.”

Harry felt his face turn hot and focused his
gaze on his hands. Farrell observed them both with wry look on his
face and said, “Well, since we have no more orders and our waiters
at
Chez FBI
are ready, I’ll make the call,” and he whipped
out his cellphone to place the order.

Soon the food arrived and everyone ate their
dinner quietly. Anastasia sat in her chair, legs crossed like any
woman would…fur and all, and partial cat features aside, she exuded
a kind of warmth and more troubling, a scent that Harry found
disturbingly attractive.

Farrell didn’t seem to find her attractive.
He waited patiently and at the end of the meal the questions
started. Outside of her name, though, she didn’t volunteer any
information…or couldn’t. The more questions he asked, the more
agitated she became, saying she didn’t remember a thing and
eventually she started to shake all over, quite violently.

Finally, he stopped the twenty-questions bit
in order to let her calm down and shook his head in frustration.
“You know, I don’t know what to think anymore. The only thing I’m
pretty sure of is that you’re some kind of spy,” he said, staring
at her. “You have no memory, you’ve got super strength and
reflexes, and you’re a transgenic…whatever…it all adds up to
someone sending you here, and it wasn’t for vacation purposes.”

Anastasia suddenly got off the cot and he
backed up, his hand hovering around his belt where he’d put the
Taser. Harry remained where he was, watching the action go
down.

“How can I be a spy when I don’t remember
anything?” she asked, her voice rising in anger. “What am I
supposed to remember?”

Farrell smiled grimly. “You remember
details.”

The agent went over to the computer, typed
something in, and then called the girl over. Harry went with her
and saw a picture of the interior of an office building. “Look at
it for five seconds,” he ordered.