"Neko´s Tail (Pt. 2)" by Travis W. Herring

However, nothing happened. She had timed it properly. She moved across the dark, silent garage, to the doorway that opened onto the alley. Another keycard lock waited and she entered the number with only slightly less shaking hands. The door swung open, and bright sunlight blinded her for a moment. An alley stretched to the right and left, ending at streets on either end. As she thought about which way to go, an alarm went off behind her, sending her jumping into the alley. A camera across from the entrance had caught her.

She shot off down the alley, randomly picking directions as she went. A right into another alley, a left across a quiet street, and another right into another alley saw her two blocks away before the security guard could even get to the first floor. Ducking back onto a street, she saw cross traffic and searched desperately for a cab. Seeing none, she ran across against the light, avoiding a near-fatal crash by leaping across the hood as the vehicle skidded to a stop. The vehicle’s horn blared her presence to anyone who listened.

She ducked into another alley and ran as hard as she could. She was already getting tired. Bouncing beneath sheets did not make for a body ready to run. Adrenaline was all she had, and there was plenty of that. To fail was to spend the rest of her days in the dark cellar, painfully pleasing some masochistic freak who masqueraded as a human being.

Scummy alley water splashed her legs as she ran and she felt her feet bruising and cutting as she crossed rocks, pebbles, and broken glass without looking down. She emerged into bright sunlight once more, looking around desperately for a yellow vehicle that would be a cab. None around. But the hiss of a bus pulling away from the curb attracted her attention and she began waving madly at it. She shot out into the street in front as it failed to stop, managing to place herself between it and the intersection it was heading for. The bus driver began shouting at her through the window, cursing her in a language she could barely understand.

"Stop!" she yelled, running around to the side of the bus. "Open!"

Instead, the bus began to accelerate away, leaving her standing dumbfounded in the middle of the intersection. Horns began going off around her, irate drivers yelling obscenities at her as they steered around the idiot in the middle of the intersection.

Confused and hurting now that she had stopped running, she waited for an opening in the traffic and limped across to another alley. Disappearing into it, she fell against a wall and held her aching sides. Lifting first one foot and then another, she inspected the damage. Blood trickled from a myriad of filthy cuts and she could feel bone bruises forming on her heels. If she didn’t get a ride soon, they would have her before she got six blocks away.

It was at that moment, that she saw an unoccupied cab stopped at the intersection she had just run through. Ignoring the pain from her complaining feet, she darted out to the curb and into the traffic, not hearing the recurring honks from the other drivers. Yanking the door open, she threw herself inside and collapsed in the back seat.

The driver, a young Hispanic man, looked over his shoulder at the sudden motion, beginning to shout something about the traffic when he noticed his passenger sprawled in the back. Horns went off around him, and he looked up, seeing a green light. Hitting the gas, the vehicle began moving and Neko let loose a terrific sigh.

"Hey, chica? Where to? Holy Mother! What are you? A cat?!"

"Horrywood," Neko gasped between breaths. "Horrywood."

"Horrywood?" the driver repeated, grinning. "You’re in Hollywood, gato. Where in Hollywood?"

"In Horrywood?" Neko asked, sitting up and looking at the passing traffic. She absently began plucking dirt and scum out of her tail, trying to clean the worst of the muck from her fur.

"Yeah, chica. Hey? You got money? Cab’s not free, ya’know."

"Money," Neko replied. She reached into her jacket and pulled out a small wad of bills, showing them to the driver. "You dlive. I no know where go."

"You don’t know where you’re going?!" The driver looked at the wad of cash she pulled out and grinned, shaking his head. "Okay, puta. But you gotta figure out where you’re going. I’m not an all-day kinda operation, ya’know." He was examining her in the mirror as he drove.

"Okay," Neko replied softly. Outside, the traffic was moving again. She could swear she heard sirens going off behind them, but that was just a trick of her imagination, wasn’t it?

"Hey," the driver said, "You’re not from around here, are you?"

"Yes," Neko replied instintively. "No!"

"Make up your mind," he said, smiling that smile that was beginning to wear on her nerves. He talked too much, she thought. "You have any idea where you want to go? I mean, I can just drive around in circles all day if you have the money, but that wasn’t enough for that."

"No," Neko answered. "No idea." She wished she could answer otherwise. She knew some of her customers lived in Hollywood, but she didn’t know where. And the few that had taken her home had told her never to mention that she knew where they lived. Telling the driver where they lived would be breaking her word.

"You a homeless girl?" the driver asked. The card on the shade above his seat said his name was "Javier." "You looking as fine as you do? Homeless?" He mumbled something to himself. Neko barely understood something about her being as filthy as she was, he would understand if that was the case, but her command of English did not allow her to comprehend what it meant.

"Homeress," she repeated, nodding. She had no home now. She had been homeless before.

Javier stopped the car at the next intersection and pulled over. "If you’re homeless, that’s stolen money. I don’t wanna be caught in no theft. You just get out and pay what you owe. That’s thirty-seven-fifty." At Neko’s wide-eyed stare, he just repeated himself. "You just get out," he said. "I got enough problems without getting the cops on my tail."

Neko handed him a pair of twenties, not knowing what else to do, and got out. She watched as he pulled away from the curb, back into traffic, still wondering where to go and what to do. Looking around, she found she was at a large intersection. Behind her was a warehouse-like building that had two pitbull dogs sitting atop pillars to either side of a staircase. Black armorglass covered an entrance and a marquee announced the place was called "The Pound." Across the street, a multi-story mall stood, an open courtyard holding devotees to the coffee shop that poured across its floor. On each of the other two corners, a club or restaurant held sway over the sidewalk, posters of music groups and tables and chairs filled with the well-heeled drawing the attention. Not knowing what to do, but knowing that staying on the street was inviting someone to recognize her, she turned and went into the "Pound."

"Hey! Coat check! Hey!"

Neko walked through the black glass doors into the thunder of high-energy rock ‘n roll music. The walls were dark, with a small closet-looking booth to the right as she walked in. A counter separated her from a woman screaming at her above the noise of the music. Across from the woman, a half-door opened onto a room filled with security cameras. She supposed they wanted you to know about the security before you entered the place. Between the two doors, a two-foot diameter plasma ball was the only source of light in the foyer.

She walked through the foyer, avoiding the ball (her fur was pulled uncomfortably when she got close to those things) and headed toward the interior. She stopped when a hand landed on her shoulder, turning to see who had grabbed her, afraid it was already over.

She jumped, startled at the resemblance as she turned. She immediately understood why this place was called "The Pound." The person wearing the Security jacket who was holding her had the face of a pitbull. His hand was covered in fur and ended in short claws. "Sorry, ma’am," he said, growling the R’s. "You’ve got to check your coat. Weapons search."

"Neko no have weapon," she replied, trying to pull away.

"Maybe not, but you can’t take the jacket inside. Give it to the coat check and get it when you leave."

"Neko no want to!"

"Then you can’t stay," the guard said. His friendly grin turned to a serious look. He began to turn her around forcibly.

"Neko no want to reave!" Neko yelled above the din of the music. "No want to!"

"Then leave the jacket," the guard replied. He stopped turning her and stepped around in front. "You’ve got to turn over the jacket. No jackets allowed." He pointed at a poster on the wall that showed a list of proscribed items. Neko couldn’t read it. Her English was only so good. "Just give the jacket to the lady and I’ll show you around, okay?"

"You herp Neko?"

"Neko? That your name? Yeah. I’ll help. Come on." He guided her back to the coat check, where the young woman who had been yelling at her sat with a self-righteous look on her face.

Neko removed her jacket and stared at the dog-faced man before her. "She give back?"

"Yeah," the guard said, chuckling. "She’ll give it back. Won’t you Lisa?"

"Yeah," the girl said. "Five dollars."

Neko looked from one to the other. "Five dorrars? Dooshite?"

"Eh?" the guard replied. "Five bucks. It’s the standard cost. You don’t get out much do you? Come to look at you," he said, looking her over and tsking at the filth on her legs, "I’d say you spend too much time outside."

Neko looked herself over, understanding his meaning if not his words. "Solly. Neko not dilty nolmarry. Vely crean, Neko is."

The guard grinned and looked across the half-table on the door. "She sounds like that old science fiction movie. That little puppet guy who moved stuff with his mind?"

"Star Wars?" the woman said. "You mean Yoda?"

"Yeah! That’s it. She talks just like him."

"She’s Japanese, Short Dawg. They never speak good English."

"Yeah, right." He turned and looked at the confused catwoman in front of him and smiled kindly. "Seems kinda lost, doesn’t she?"

"Yeah, right. Whatever. Just get her to give me the five bucks and let her go. Metal will kill you if she sees you just hanging out down here."

"Metar?" Neko said suddenly, getting their attention. "Metar from Riquid Metar?"

"Liquid Metal? Yeah. That’s the one. A real pain in the backside, I might add," Short Dawg replied, grinning at the girl behind the counter once more.

Neko pulled a five-dollar note from her pocket and handed it to the woman behind the counter, keeping the rest of her money balled up in her fist. There wasn’t much left. The jacket went next, Neko watching exactly where the woman hung it before moving on. "Metar own crub? This Metar crub?"

"Yeah," the dog-man said, moving into the main body of the club. "This is Metal’s place. Built it from the ruins of a warehouse with the money she got from her first release. Nice isn’t it?"

Looking around, Neko had to agree. The walls were lined in electronic panels that shifted color and texture as the music continued. A large stage took up the wall farthest from the entrance, with a lowered dance floor surrounded by tables and chairs spreading directly in front and to either side of it. A balcony protruded from the inside wall on the second floor, a stairwell coming down to floor level guarded by another dog’sculpted security officer.

A short wall separated the main body of the club from the bar area; booths lined up on the bar-side of the wall kept from the noise by the telltale prods of a soundwall. An old-fashioned bar took up the area just inside and to the left of the entrance. It was to here that Short Dawg was taking her.

"Metar stay on barcony, yes?"

Short Dawg looked up to where they could see low couches and a small table on the balcony above the floor of the club. "When she deigns to sit with us, yeah. That is, if she’s not on-stage or working a deal in the back."

Metal was the rock star who had started off as a drummer for a now-defunct all-girl band called "D.O.A." They had risen to fame at about the same time as a series of riots against a company called Lightning Enterprises. Lightning promised to clean out the combat zones of South Central Los Angeles and used full-cyborgs with automatic weapons to accomplish this. While their tactics worked, the loss of innocent life was tremendous. The gangs who controlled the "cleansed" zones were forewarned and moved out when the attacks happened, and then back in when it was done, while those innocents who had no warning were slaughtered wholesale. D.O.A. was the only voice for the innocents at the time, their music bringing awareness to those who listened. Lightning Enterprises was shut down, but not before D.O.A. mysteriously disappeared for six months.

By the time they got back, public opinion was so against Lightning that it was only a matter of time before the company was disbanded and its CEO arrested as an accomplice to multiple homicide. With the conclusion of the matter, D.O.A. broke up, it’s lead singer, Lynx, going to New York and forming her own band. She was now a full bio’sculpt, having taken on the image of a tiger and starting a band called "Tigress." She was one of the most famous singers in the country, while simultaneously being a spokeswoman for bio’sculpt rights.

Metal, who had been the drummer for the band, took singing lessons and started her own band after DOA fell apart. The rest of the band either joined one or the other of the two bands, or faded out of public knowledge. Metal’s band, Liquid Metal, had gone on to rival Tigress’ in fame. It was common knowledge that Metal used the income from the new band’s first (self-titled) release to found the club. She now used the place as a forum to introduce new bands. She had become a major powerbroker in the world of rock music. She was also the leader of Neko’s second favorite band (Tigress was first, for obvious reasons).

"If you stick around long enough," Short Dawg was saying, "you may see her. She comes down here sometimes, just to check how things are going. But that’s usually after dark. It’s only three now."

"Neko stay," the cat-girl said. "Neko have no prace to go."

"Nowhere?" Short Dawg asked, surprised. "That would explain your appearance. But you said you’re normally clean. I take it this is a new condition?"

"Neko no can terr. Peoper hunt Neko now. Neko bad."

The look on the young woman’s feline face was enough to make the security guard think twice about distancing himself from her (which was his first instinct). "What’d you do?" he asked quietly. Damn me for having a soft heart, he told himself.

Before she could start the story, he ordered them both a drink from the bar, pulling up a screen on the small table they sat at. The drinks arrived a few minutes later, appearing through an opening in the center, by the screen. A small message across the bottom of the menu screen told them that it would be deducted from his pay. Short Dawg nodded at the bartender before turning back to his charge.

"Go ahead," he said.

As the drama unfolded for him, Short Dawg watched the scared young woman go from a slightly frazzled, very confused visitor, into a bubbling, terrified wreck. The tale spun out for him, she had collapsed into tears on the edge of the table, her drink ignored for the time being. She had nowhere to go, no one to turn to, and no hope. Armed men would be searching for her, to take her back to a life of terror and pain. It was something that every chivalrous bone in his body told him to stop.

"I’ll take you to Metal," he said when she finally stopped crying. He handed her a napkin to wipe her dripping face off with. "She’s been known to take a part in things like this."

It was true. That much Neko already knew. Metal had a soft heart, despite the fact that her on-air personality was stone cold. There was a reason she called herself Metal, Neko knew. Metal is cold, hard, and unyielding. Metal feels nothing. The woman who had named herself after the stuff sang songs of heart-wrenching sorrow and fury at the ways and means of the world. But underneath, the songs said she was a human being with a very giving heart. Albeit one with an unusually hard way of showing it.

The very idea of meeting one of her idols had the effect Short Dawg was looking for. Neko straightened up, wiped the dripping fur of the worst of the tears, and smiled half-heartedly. "You can do that?" she asked.

"Yeah. I think we can arrange it. You wait here." He stood up, still watching her. "Don’t leave, okay? You leave and we can’t do anything for you."

"Neko not reave. Plomise."

Neko sat quietly, watching the big man go up the stairs along the wall. If he was telling the truth, she would be safe from the guard at the house. No one would mess with a star as big as Metal. Not for her, she thought. She wasn’t worth that much. And besides, she thought, rationalizing her escape, she’d brought in at least as much as it cost to have her made into what she was now. She should be allowed to go free and live her own life.

By the time the guard returned with a beautiful, curvaceous, brown-haired woman dressed in a skin-tight silver bodysuit, Neko had almost talked herself into believing it. When she looked up into the dark brown eyes of the rocker she had determined would be her savior, tears began to flow once more and she could only sit and stare in awe.

"She keeps doing that," Short Dawg said quietly. "She’s been through a lot, I’m afraid."

"Pretty one, isn’t she?" Metal asked, sitting down. "Can you understand English?"

Neko nodded, afraid to trust her voice by this time.

Metal nodded in reply, smiling softly. "I’m Metal. I’m here to help. I understand you don’t have anywhere to go?" Neko nodded again, looking from Short Dawg to Metal. "We can help. I have a room upstairs you can use in the mean time."

"Arigato," Neko whispered, bowing in her seat and forgetting her English in her relief. "Arigato gozaimashita."

"I think that’s a thank you," Short Dawg said quietly, grinning.

Metal smiled. The first time Neko had ever seen her do so. "You think?"