Chapter 1

A dark figure melded with the shadows on the partially moonlit backstreet of the warehouse district as it moved along it towards a wire gate at a narrow alley. A whispered hiss and a soft rattling of metal later, the figure passed through the unlocked gate and disappeared into the darkness of the alley.

At the end of the alley the figure stared at the front of a small storage building, the brick walls showing through cracked parts of the plastering, until another whispered hiss and growl sounded through the dark. The figure stepped out of the shadow while raising two kinetic handguns, and shot at the walls left and right of the door.

Sparks flew when the thin bullets pierced through the bricks and tore the torsos to bits of the men who sat on either side of the door. Inside, an armed man with pulse rifle slammed open the door leading further into the building and stared at the blood splattered in two streaks across a table and chairs. ‘Attack!’ he shouted and fired his gun at the outer door when its lock shattered to pieces by another shot from outside and barely missed him.

Outside, the figure had moved fast to the side of one of the windows, pointed one gun at the rifle man, and fired. The pulse rifle fired several rounds in an arc as the man holding it fell back with his chest a gaping hole.

The figure slipped smoothly inside and took a quick peek through the inner doorway before laser fire and conventional ammo filled the hole. He returned fire, then retreated back into a corner while dust and brick pieces flew filled the room when the wall around the door was shot to pieces.

The amount of fire became less until several panicked voices cried out and it ceased after a couple more bursts of gunfire.

The figure stepped through the doorway and watched the dead bodies lying around, most strangled, some their purple faces contorted into a silent scream of pain. He stepped silently to a storage room to the side of the small warehouse and unlocked the rusty steel door quickly. The young woman on the bunk bed inside looked at the grey faced young man in black overcoat. ‘Who’re you?’

The man took a cursory look at the girl in long casual shorts and long sweater with her short red-brown hair poking out from under a knitted cap. ‘I’ve been sent to bring you back.’ he said and used a shock device to fry the electronic lock of the handcuffs that tied her to the frame of the bed she sat on. ‘Follow me.’

She wrinkled her nose at the dead men while she followed him outside, then bumped into his back when he stopped suddenly. She peered over his shoulder at the armed man aiming his rifle straight at them. ‘Not another move or I’ll shoot!’

Her rescuer smiled grimly with his cold blue eyes staring straight at his opponent. ‘If you shoot, you’ll kill the girl behind me.’

The man shifted his stance, unsure what to do and feeling a shiver running down his spine at the stare, and shared the young woman’s shock when two snakes with grey front and black backs reared up to chest height on either side of his target. Their long hiss turned to growling while their sides expanded and formed a menacing elongated figure of eight.

‘You can either run away, or shoot at one of us three while the other two strike at you. What will you do?’

The snakes growled again while their stare pierced right through the increasingly nervous goon. ‘Fuck it!’ he cursed through his teeth and bolted back into the alley.

With a nod of his head at the snakes, their master sent them into the alley and the woman held her breath at the speed with which they went after the goon. ‘What are they!? And again who are you!?’

He turned his head towards her and smirked slightly. ‘If you really need to call me anything, call me the charmer.’

She gazed incredulously at him. ‘Alright, mister Charmer, you’re not some average Joe that came to rescue me. What are you?’

He started walking towards the alley. ‘I’m the unusual Joe that came to rescue you.’

She looked back at the display of carnage inside, figured she had no choice, then hurried after him.

At the quiet street the two snakes were waiting next to the dead body of the goon lying face down on the pavement, and their owner typed a command on a mobile. A pair of lights appeared at the end of the streets and in a moment the black hover car slid in front of them and opened its doors.

‘Get in.’ mister Charmer said and the woman took the front passenger seat of the sedan while the snakes slipped onto the back seat and he slipped behind the wheel. With a gentle rumble from the hover car’s drive they took off.

‘Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?’ she said as she looked back at the street behind them. ‘Those guys might not have been the best example but the organisation they belong to is no fish guts.’

‘They’re part of Succo Nagano’s group.’ mister Charmer said as he turned a corner and entered the first wide and dark alley at the industrial street. ‘He was paid well by another man to fetch you since you have a lot to offer.’

She snuffed and looked outside through the side window at backlots rushing by. ‘What would I have to offer besides my attractive looks?’

He pulled the cap from her head and she reached at once to her large and red-brown furred cat ears. ‘Your attractive genes to the biologic weapon industry, miss Kathy Sanura.’

She glared at him. ‘Did they tell you?’

‘I found out after a little digging while I was searching for you. The director said you were family but it didn’t add up when I found no evidence of you. But then there wouldn’t be since you’re an illegal genetic experiment that doesn’t exist.’

They left the alley and headed down another dark street. ‘Then you know they won’t let us go this easily.’

‘I thought about it.’ he said and looked at the headlights appearing in the rear-view mirror.

‘What are you going to do about that then?’

One of the snakes hissed low. ‘You’re going to find out.’ he said and turned the car sharply into another back road just as headlights flared up before them and laser fire lit up around them.

Kathy cried out and braced herself as the forward slanted nose of the hover car crashed through a stack of pallets and spread a cloud of broken wood and splinters around.

‘Don’t worry!’ Charmer said while he banked the hover car around containers. ‘This thing has a thick skin!’

‘But I don’t!’ Kathy said with a death grip on her seat harness.

Charmer banked again onto the next street and swerved around light traffic. The next moment his rear-view mirror showed two larger hover cars bursting through a fence behind them and smashing other cars aside.

They gained on to them and a man appeared from a roof hatch, pulled out a rifle, and started shooting at them. Kathy looked back fast again when laser flashes passed them and hit the ground close to them. ‘I hope I’m going to find out you’re going to do more than just drive wild and fast!’

‘Hang on!’ Charmer said and banked sharply again, but this time into the front side of an automated wheeled truck pulling a double trailer. The truck turned violently, pulling the first trailer along and balanced for a brief moment on the side of its tyres before crashing on its side with the first trailer while the second one sheared and blocked the road right in front of the first hover car, which crashed into it. The second car swerved onto the sidewalk, ran through several stalls with small goods and pedestrians, then continued the pursuit.

‘That wasn’t enough!’ Kathy said, watching the car together with the two snakes.

Charmer checked his mirror and turned into another street with medium sized office buildings. The second car followed and gained slowly again.

‘Ever experienced high G forces?’ Charmer asked.

Kathy looked quickly at him. ‘What!? No!’

‘Then sit tight!’ he said and glanced in the mirror again. ‘You too, Bella and Linda!’

The snakes crawled tight against the backseat while a barrage of laser fire sparked on the back of the car and around them.

‘If you’re going to take off into the air with this thing you could have done that sooner!’

The corners of Charmer’s mouth went up. ‘Flying in the air isn’t the only way you can experience G forces.’ he said and banked sharp into a small parking space enclosed in an office building.

Kathy cried out at the wall rushing towards her.

Charmer punched the drive into burst mode and the car pushed itself with all its power away from the walls in a hundred and eighty degree turn as if it went through a roller-coaster track and crashed into the front fender of their pursuers, throwing their car full force into the front of the building opposite of the parking lot.

The impact pushed Charmer and Kathy in the direction of the street and he swerved around the traffic before straightening out and accelerating away.

Kathy looked back with wide eyes and her heart racing. ‘You’re insane. There’s no other explanation for it. There’s not even a cuckoo’s nest you flew over.’

He shrugged a little. ‘You won’t hear me denying it.’

Frank Bailey watched his reflection in the windows in the evening while he listened on the phone. ‘I don’t care!’ he said. ‘She’s valuable enough to retrieve her at all costs, and I’m already paying handsomely enough as it is! If we don’t get her it’s not just my money that we’ll lose when the company goes broke, it’s yours as well since you can’t launder your black funds any longer!’ He listened for a while, then grumbled. ‘Fine! But get it done!’ He threw his phone aside and emptied his glass of bourbon and refilled it again for another drink.

‘Are you really worth that much?’

Frank pivoted at once at the voice and dropped his glass at the sight of the tall grey faced man in black coat and the cat girl he had kidnapped.

Kathy smirked at mister Charmer. ‘Of course I am. I’m young, very attractive, and do you have any idea how many guys get a kick out of a girl with cat ears and tail?’

‘I didn’t really notice.’

Frank stepped back. ‘Why are you here!? Are you here to get the money yourself!?’

‘Not really.’ Charmer said and glanced sideways at Kathy. ‘But to be sure, how much are we talking about?’

‘Hey!’ said Kathy and punched his shoulder. She flapped her hand. ‘Ouch, you’re tough.’

‘I trained a little.’ Charmer said and gestured at Frank’s phone with his gun. ‘Call your friend back and tell him the deal’s off.’

Frank looked at his phone, then back at Charmer. ‘It can’t be called off that easily.’

Charmer smiled at him and tossed him a file folder. ‘It can because if it can’t there’s a whole slew of documentation like this getting dropped on the desks of various law agencies and media outlets, detailing the links between you, your company, and the criminal organisation your friend runs. Unless you’re absolutely serious about the all costs part.’

Frank gritted his teeth at the pages detailing payments and goods shipped to illegal destinations and glared at Charmer and the smirking Kathy. He picked up his phone and called. ‘Yeah, me again. We have to call the whole thing off.’ The cursing from the other side was clear enough. ‘We have no choice! Trust me on this! If we don’t call it off it’s going to be worse than what we have to deal with next!’ More cursing sounded between more or less decent words. ‘Don’t you think I know that!? Do you think I have a very, very good reason to end this right now!? We have to do this or it’s the complete end for both of us!’ More cursing and a begrudged confirmation later Frank dropped his phone again. He glared at the two smirking at him. ‘You have what you want. I’m not going after you any longer.’

Kathy folded her arms. ‘Think we can trust him on that?’ she asked and looked at Charmer.

‘No, but he has no choice.’ he said and stepped backwards. ‘Except for suicide.’

The both of them left through the back of the house, stepped into his car while Bella and Linda slipped in the back, and left just before several police cars arrived with a detective who received incriminating documents earlier.

When Charmer and Kathy hit the streets of a large industrial site she looked back at Bella and Linda on the backseat once. ‘Now what?’

‘Finish my job and bring you back home.’

Kathy nodded and stared forward onto the street. ‘I think you’d better stop the car now though.’

Charmer scanned the street. ‘Why that?’

‘Because this side of the car will smell very funny for a long time if I don’t get out soon.’ she said and rubbed her thighs together.

‘Ah.’ he said and stopped at the nearest gap between buildings.

She stared into the dark passage. ‘This’ll do.’ she said and got out. Charmer stepped out but she frowned at him. ‘A little privacy, please.’

He looked up and down the mostly empty street. ‘Alright then, but hurry.’ he said and got back into the car. Kathy went into the shadows and he kept a watch on the few trucks moving along the street.

When he counted to ninety he stepped out of the car and peered into the passage way. ‘You done yet!?’ With only silence as an answer he ducked his head into the car. ‘Bella, would you be so kind to check up on her?’

The snake let out a short hiss and slithered out the car and into the shadows. It returned later growling short twice.

‘Shit!’ he said and ran after Bella into the passage, followed by Linda. The passage ended at a wired fence looking out over a rail yard. Charmer looked at his snakes. ‘We have to find her before we lose her scent.’ he said and climbed up the fence while the snakes slid through the gap underneath, and they led the way while tasting her trail in the air.

They hurried across the tracks and between trains while he scolded himself for not sending Bella or Linda with the girl in the first place.

Kathy panted and stopped at the end of a row of wagons and looked around for any sign of other people and an escape. She pondered jumping a random train when she pricked up her ears at faint sound of running behind her. She looked back and recognised the black shape heading her way, and ran towards rows of boxcars and tankers.

Charmer slipped between two wagons to not lose her out of his sight and ran in the same direction.

Kathy jumped up the ladder of one wagon and crawled low across the roof looking left and right for options. She stopped when a slender shape appeared on a roof ahead of her. ‘Crab legs!’ she hissed low and jumped from the car and rushed through a gap between two other wagons.

The horn of a locomotive grabbed her attention. She watched a train a few tracks farther speeding up, estimated her chances, and ran towards the row of container wagons standing on the tracks between her and the train.

She jumped between two wagons and froze in the headlights of another train speeding towards her from the opposite direction.

Her short life barely flashed before her eyes when a hand grabbed the back of her sweater and yanked her backwards. Her heart raced while the train rumbled past in front of her and two arms held her tight.

After the train had passed, her heart rate lowered slightly and she lay her hands on Charmer’s arms. ‘Should I thank you for saving me or blame you for forcing me into this situation in the first place?’

His warm voice whispering in her ear caused shivers along her spine. ‘How about thanking me for being willing to listen to you and find out why you ran away in the first place.’

‘Okay.’ she said softly and his embrace loosened around her.

Charmer offered her a can of whiskey-cola from a vending machine close by while she leaned back against the front fender of the car and gazed at the open field with graffiti covered utility boxes and a view of the lights of a chemical plant. ‘Charming place. You take all your dates here?’

‘I’ve only dated cheap girls.’ he said and leaned back against the car next to her, pulling open his own can.

Kathy chuckled. ‘Good thing I’m an expensive girl then.’

‘I noticed.’ he said and drank.

Kathy took a drink and shuddered at the bittersweet taste warming up her throat. ‘So this is what it’s like to drink.’ She gazed into the distance for a while before she took another sip and took a deep breath. ‘I’ve only known the lab during my life so far. I could go outside but it was only in an enclosed space with nothing more than grass. I received a thorough education and was subjected to all sorts of tests, mentally and physically. With time I learned why some of the men looked at me in a certain way and I used it to get some favours and gain access to outside information like documentaries and books. I’d already decided that I needed to escape after I learned what my purpose was, and it became urgent when I overheard one of the men testing me tell another how he wished he was the one to impregnate me now that I was mature. The other told him to forget about it since director McInnly himself had a fetish for cat girls like me and would to do it himself.’

Charmer crumpled up his empty can and tossed it towards the full garbage can next to the vending machine. ‘So when Frank’s friends showed up and took you from the lab you didn’t resist much.’

Kathy took another gulp and noticed how her body heated up from inside. ‘Yeah. I figured I’d get a better chance of escaping later.’ She sighed. ‘But then you showed up and ruined that by taking out the kidnappers.’

‘I’m pretty good at what I do.’

‘Rescuing unwilling women?’

‘Among other things.’

Kathy finished off the can and threw it at the garbage can as well. ‘Can I at least know your real name?’

He looked up at the light reflected from the overhead clouds. ‘Nagendra.’

She looked at him. ‘Nagendra.’ she said. ‘Too long. I’ll just call you Naga.’

He chucked once and pat her head. ‘Come, time to have a talk with the director.’

‘McInnly.’ Walter said after the phone rang at his house.

‘I have the girl.’ Nagendra said from an old public phone at an empty bar.

‘Good, good! How soon can you bring her here?’ Walter asked and imagined the moment he could finally fuck that sexy young creature. He’d had to restrain himself from taking her while she wasn’t mature because that might make others too queasy and ruin his plans with her.

‘I won’t.’

Walter’s jaw dropped. ‘What!? I paid you to bring her to me!’

‘You did, but I don’t deliver girls who’re getting raped.’

Walter steamed and nearly broke his phone in his tight grip. ‘That has nothing to do with you! You will do as I ordered you or I will find someone else to fetch both her and your head!’

‘I figured you’d say that, but you’ll have other things on your mind that need your attention.’

‘And what would that be!?’

‘You’ll see when you look out of your window ... I didn’t just check out the ones who kidnapped Kathy, I also looked into your business and forwarded some interesting bits to the right people.’

Walter heard a faint siren and the blood left his head while he slowly turned his it to see flashing blue lights at the gate to his house, together with several cars marked with media logos.

‘Next time, just ask a willing hooker to dress up for your fantasies.’ Nagendra said and hung up. He returned to the bar where Kathy finished her drink. ‘And another one of your fans will be spending some time in a concrete hotel.’

She smirked wide at him. ‘I think you’re just doing this to cut out the competition for my attention.’

‘I guess I’ve been found out.’ he said and put down money on the bar. ‘I have no choice but to lock you up in my tower now.’

She giggled and followed him outside. ‘So, are we going to your castle now?’

He took a deep breath of the fresher night air. ‘I suspect you have no other knight, or even a princess you can go to?’

She put her arm around his. ‘Right now you’re the only other character in this fairy tale.’

‘Then it’s to my castle we’ll go.’ he said and opened the passenger door of his hover car for her.

‘Your castle is a truck stop?’ Kathy asked when Nagendra pulled over at a highway stop outside the city.

‘Not even that.’ he said and drove between the rows of trucks.

Kathy watched one arrow shaped red truck with four trailers lift off and head upwards into the stratosphere, and stared at the grey and black boxy truck with two trailers when Nagendra stopped at its side. A low rolling door drew up in the lower middle of the truck and he moved the hover car sideways into a vehicle bay.

‘I’ve seen these!’ Kathy said as they stepped out of the car while the bay door rolled down. ‘You’re travelling through space too!?’

‘When a job requires it.’ Nagendra said and led her through a hatch at the other side of the bay into a corridor going to the front and back.

In the cockpit he gestured at the passenger’s seat and she sat down, gazing at the instrument panel on the pilot’s side excitedly ... He sat down behind the controls and began the preflight procedure. Kathy watched him work and call in confirmation of lift off, and gripped the arm rests of her seat when the truck shuddered from the lower engines at the intersections between the truck and trailers and the four nearer to the front and back coming alive and working against gravity. She looked down through the windows at the truck stop shrinking, then the city lights blending into one cluster, and finally the red sunlight over the horizon as they pierced the cloud cover.

‘This is a much better spot for our date.’ she said as she gazed at the streaks and shades of red, white, and blue shifting, the higher they went.

‘Glad to know you’re less expensive than I feared.’ Nagendra said and turned the nose of the truck upwards.

She leaned back in her seat and grinned at him. ‘Oh, but we’ve only just begun.’

Nagendra shook his head. ‘I’m beginning to regret not dropping you off as I was asked to.’

Kathy smirked and watched the view as they went into orbit and the light show of outer space unfolded before them like a million diamonds glittering on black velvet.

Nagendra piloted his truck to a nearby truck port and docked it at one of the many circular frames which were connected by three cylindrical passages towards the hub in the centre with places to eat, drink, sleep, play, and get laid among other entertainment and services. He shut down everything and gestured towards the back. ‘I’ll show you my bedroom.’

Kathy’s heart skipped a beat at the thought he might actually want to sleep with her. She didn’t think she’d been too playful with him but he had been playing along. She held her breath. What if he’d been serious? If he just fooled her?

Nagendra looked back at her. ‘Come on, it’s late.’

She followed him through the corridor running from the front to the rear, trying to shake the notion that he really believed her flirting. Even if he did, she could explain she didn’t mean it, could she? But what if he forced himself upon her? Could she defend herself with just her strong fingernails? Would her first time be taken by him, just like those other guys wished they could at the lab?

Nagendra opened a door behind the vehicle bay and her heart raced. ‘Bathroom’s here.’ he said and she sighed silently in relief as she took a peek at the simple but clean space with a comfortable large shower.

He moved on and she watched his back as she followed. His was so much different than that of the other men she’d seen, it radiated a strength the others didn’t posses. Her heart skipped a beat. Maybe it was less of a question if she could resist him than more a question of her wanting to resist him. He stopped again and opened another door. ‘My bedroom.’ he said and stepped inside.

She stood at the doorway and looked at the interior coloured in white and black and shades of grey, and was not much more than a clothing closet, a large mirror opposite a wide bed covered with black and white striped covers and pillows, and storage space underneath and above.

Nagendra stood to the side and gestured at the bed. ‘Come in.’

Her heart pounded harder. Her mind told her this was it. She would get her first time with a mysterious freelance fixer or whatever he was in his truck docked at a truck port in space. Her body hesitated but she stepped inside while her eyes went from his bed to the mirror and a new image of him taking her while watching her reflection added to the confusion in her head.

‘Sit down?’ he said and she sat down carefully on the edge of the soft bed. ‘Good?’ he asked and she nodded quickly. It did feel better than the bed she had used at the lab. He smiled a little at her and moved to the door. ‘If you need anything, you’ll find me on the couch at the back of the cockpit.’

Kathy watched him step out, close the door, and felt like turning into pudding. Her heart kept on pounding while she tried to straighten out all her thoughts and took a few deep breaths to calm down after a while. The tension running through her had been enough to cause her hands to tremble while she undressed and slipped into the bed.

She giggled when she realised she’d went in naked while she always wore something in bed at the lab, and certainly never undressed without a screen for privacy. She smelled Nagendra’s scent and wondered if he slept naked in the bed, and her face flushed red with the realisation the same sheets that covered his naked body were embracing her now.

She stared up at the board overhead. ‘I’m not getting any sleep, will I?’

Nagendra stripped down to his trousers and chuckled while he draped a blanket over the thick couch. He looked at Bella and Linda who crawled onto the couch. ‘She was so nervous I had trouble holding back my laugh.’ Linda hissed and he smiled at her. ‘I know, I shouldn’t tease her but after all her playful jabs I couldn’t resist.’ He slipped under the blanket and the snakes curled up to him. ‘Sleep tight. We’ll have some interesting times ahead of us.’ he said and switched off the spotlights above the couch.

When Kathy woke up she had to sort out the jumble of memories before it made sense to her why she lay in a big soft bed, clutching a big pillow. She buried her nose into the pillow while she recounted the events of the day before and what options she had left. She hadn’t thought about more than the escape from the moment she learned they wanted to breed her, and groaned at that omission in her plans. She took another deep whiff of the scent that calmed her when she realised that what occurred to her about the sheets would also be the same for the pillows. She groaned again but she didn’t pull her face from the pillow until her bladder told her she had to leave the bed.

She lifted her sweater and wrinkled her nose at it. It was covered in dirt and grime and torn in spots. She opened the clothing closet and hummed in disappointment but it didn’t surprise her completely there were only suits hanging in it. She did have a choice between grey and black shirts and went for a grey one. The pants she didn’t even try, so much longer they were than her legs ... After one approving look in the mirror she stepped into the corridor, glad it had a thick carpet on the floor that felt pleasant under her bare feet. She quickly went about her business in the bathroom, then went to the cockpit.

She found Nagendra sitting bare chested on the couch and reading from a pad, with Bella and Linda next to him. She’d read about colourations of the human skin but never imagined someone with a black back spread along the back of his upper arms and the top of his lower arms until it faded towards his wrists. She figured she’d have to look it up later. ‘First that wonderful dating spot, now a breakfast show. You surely know how to entertain a girl.’

Nagendra lifted up a corner of his mouth. ‘Says the girl with cat ears and tail that shows up wearing only my shirt. One might get an idea of what went on at night if they saw us.’

Kathy blushed and stuck out her tongue. ‘You wish.’

‘Who knows?’ he said and stood up. He moved beside her and whispered ‘Want to find out?’. She blushed and he chuckled while he stepped into the first door behind the cockpit. ‘What would you like for breakfast?’

After a simple breakfast and a refreshing shower, Nagendra dug up a pair of long black shorts for her to wear. She held them up. ‘You really have just the one taste in clothing.’

‘When it comes to the clothing I wear, yes.’ he said from the bathroom. ‘Feel free to use my underwear, but I doubt they’re to your taste as well.’

She sighed softly at the bottom shelf with black socks and black boxer shorts and put on the long shorts, but not without thinking how he wore them before. His scent wrapped her up and a doubt about not wearing his boxer shorts materialised in the back of her head until she forcefully dismissed it before it complicated her even more. At least her cap and flat shoes had colour, blue and a green-yellow.

After a check to make sure her ears and tail were hidden, she joined Nagendra as he went to the port section. ‘Bella and Linda not coming?’ she asked while they walked along one of the docking corridors.