Chapter 156 4-8: Catch A Flight

Right. So some of the cats were preoccupied, but others were still ready to jump into the fight and really fuck my shit up.

Talk about sentences I never thought I’d be uttering before I got into this ridiculous fight. I could kill Dr. Lana for allowing these parasites to come to earth.

I mean I could’ve killed her if I hadn’t accidentally already killed her. Oops.

Whatever. Cats coming at me. More important. They looked like they were pissed off. Their claws were out.

“Got anything for me, CORVAC?” I asked.

“Affirmative, Mistress,” he said.

I held out my hand hoping that whatever he had for me could be teleported into my hand. A moment later sure enough one of those little fishing pole things with a cat toy at the end of it appeared.

The cat right in front of me went wide-eyed. Like we’re talking you’d think the thing just took a hit of some really good catnip.

I guess to cats a flailing toy like this that simulated the prey they often didn’t get to take out in their captive existence was the good stuff. Either way, it stopped scampering across the floor and stared at me.

And I had a moment of distraction. I thought of Fialux doing something similar with the cats in the lab. She loved those furry little fuckers, and it sent a pang of something running through me.

Guilt? Regret? Nostalgia for the good old days? All of the above? Above all I missed her, and thinking of her wasn’t a distraction I needed in this fight.

“CORVAC?” I said.

“Yes, Mistress?” he asked.

“That drone swarm you were mentioning?” I asked.

“Yes, Mistress?”

“I have no idea what the hell you thought you were doing working on something like that without telling me…”

“I could have sworn that I mentioned it to you at some point and…”

“Cut the bullshit and get them in here now. I’m not mad at you. I just need your help,” I said.

“Affirmative, Mistress.”

Drones materialized all around me. All of them had some sort of cat toy attached to them. Think the sort of expensive thing you see at a pet store that breaks within the first five minutes of using it, only in this case CORVAC was breaking out multimillion dollar drone technology to deliver the cat toys.

It was difficult staying mad at him for going behind my back to make these drones considering how useful they always ended up being in a fight. Even if they were useful in a fight right now delivering cat toys instead of death from above.

And the cats were going fucking nuts. A few that’d been coming at me scampered after the drones instead. Some drones had laser pointers attached. Some had fishing poles. All of them had something that was good for distracting cats.

“Ingenious, Mistress,” CORVAC said.

“Of course it is,” I replied. “You’re the one who came up with the idea, after all.”

“Why thank you, Mistress,” CORVAC said.

“Don’t mention it,” I said. “Now the only problem is…”

No, as I looked down at my cat tracker it turns out I didn’t have a problem after all. I’d been worried that all these cats being preoccupied would mean I wasn’t going to figure out what plane they were going for, but as I stared down at the readout I saw that at least one feline fucker had been taken over by a parasite that must’ve had a particularly strong will.

One dot was making its way away from me as fast as its four furry paws could take it.

“Never mind on that count,” I said. “Get a lock and teleport all these occupied cats to our holding cells. I need to get to work.”

I wish I could use the teleporter to nab all of them, but getting a lock on something could be tricky. Especially something as small and fast as one of these cats. I could teleport myself while in motion because I had trackers on myself at all times. Not so with these furry assholes.

I took off after the thing. It was made somewhat more difficult by the fact that there were conveyer belts all around covered in luggage, which meant constantly dodging and diving and moving a hell of a lot slower than I needed to.

It didn’t help that the fucker I was chasing was a lot smaller than me and had evolved to get into tight spaces like this to go after prey. Which meant I was already at a disadvantage compared to the four legged furry fucker I was trying to chase.

“We need to get some drones outside this building to track where this idiot is going,” I said.

“Yes, but that would mean putting drones in restricted airspace and you know the FAA…”

“Do you think I give a fuck what the FAA thinks about what I’m doing?” I asked. “I’m already flying with a touch of ADD on the daily. Get the drones out where they put the bags on the planes and get them out there now. And make sure they stay out of the way of any planes taking off.”

“Affirmative, Mistress,” CORVAC said.

“Honestly. You’d think an AI as intelligent as you would realize there’s a difference between some of our drones flying around out there versus Cletus flying one of his drones from the other side of the chain link fence.”

I dove under another conveyer belt and saw light up ahead. I also saw the distinctive shape of a tiny mammal making its way towards that light as fast as its paws could carry it.

Which was pretty fucking fast. Like I know a lot of people think cats aren’t that fast because the little fuckers are semi-domesticated. Well I can tell you that’s just a false sense of security the cats have been trying to lull us into, because those fuckers can book it when they want to.

“Almost there,” I said. “Stay on target. Stay on target…”

“Honestly, Mistress,” CORVAC said. “I never understood how quoting old movies from the ‘70s helped you concentrate on the job at hand.”

“You don’t have to understand it,” I said. “You just have to listen and put up with it.”

I burst into the open air and caught a couple of surprised looks from baggage handlers who’d been standing around the exit looking confused about the lack of bags coming out.

This little incident was going to cause a hell of a delay. I figured it was still even money that even with baggage shut down the delay still wouldn’t be half as bad as what travelers regularly had to put up with in Atlanta.

“Lost the fucker,” I said.

“Follow this drone, Mistress,” CORVAC said.

A beeping pinged in my ears. When I turned towards it I saw a red dot highlighted on my heads up display. I smiled at the irony of it. It looked like those cats weren’t going to be the only creatures chasing the red dot today.

I dove after the drone.

“Any idea what plane they’re going for?” I asked.

“Difficult to tell, Mistress,” CORVAC said. “I just lost the signal.”

I swore a couple of times and dove for the ground where the dot had disappeared. There were several planes pulling away from their gates, and that cat could’ve jumped into any of them. Even as I watched, the baggage handlers were pushing the cargo bays shut on a couple of them.

Obviously these flights were lucky enough to get out before the delays caused by my antics really started to cause trouble. Fuck.

I held out my detector, but I was looking for one small dot. With all these planes around there were suddenly a lot of things in the way causing interference.

Obviously they hadn’t noticed me out here either. At least no one official had noticed me out here. Looking up at the terminal there were plenty of people staring out the windows. Obvious tourists who were excited about seeing one of the infamous super beings who regularly put Starlight City in the news.

They were obvious tourists because anyone who lived here would’ve long since vacated once they heard Night Terror had been spotted at the airport.

“Motherfucker,” I said. “This is why I wanted to use stealth. The moment they knew I was after them, one of the little fuckers got away.”

“Are you certain about that, Mistress?”

“Of course I’m certain about that,” I said. “Do you see any cats hanging around out here on the tarmac conveniently revealing their location to me?”

“Actually yes, Mistress, I do,” CORVAC said.

One of the many drones swarming over the airport, no doubt giving ATC and the FAA even more of a case of heartburn than they had on a normal day, flew in front of me and then up to a plane that had pulled away from the terminal and was heading out to fly the friendly skies.

Only it was looking like those skies weren’t going to be as friendly as usual today. My eyes narrowed as I saw a huge short-haired white cat scrambling along the bottom of the plane. It reached the cargo hold and pulled something out, and a moment later the door popped open.

Damn. These things were operating with some level of advanced technology. That meant they were probably more than a bunch of asshole primitive worms that somehow gained sapience when they came in contact with some of the local flora.

“I wish I knew where those assholes were getting those wonderful toys,” I muttered.

“Their ability to use advanced tools does point to potential trouble should they be able to spread beyond Starlight City.”

“Yeah, but that’s the story every time something hits Starlight City as the first stop on their world domination tour.”

And part of the reason why I hadn’t dominated the world yet, thank you very much. I was so busy fighting off other villains and heroes that it was hard to move ahead with my own damn plans.

This wild cat chase was Exhibit A for today.

I was already running across the tarmac as CORVAC brought up a close up video he’d taken of the furry son-of-a-bitch climbing into the cargo hold. The thing it’d pulled out was definitely technological in nature.

It looked like the thing was just a little too big for the cat’s paw, but it was able to operate it no problem. Which made me wonder if there was some creature that was similar to the common house cat on the world these things came from.

I picked up the pace. I was going to catch that feline fucker if it killed me.

“Mistress…” CORVAC said.

“No time, CORVAC,” I said. “I’m going to get this feline asshole!”

I managed to catch up to the gear just as the plane started picking up speed. A damn good thing, too. There was no way I would’ve been able to catch this thing on foot even with some of my suit enhancements.

At least I was giving Ma and Pa from the flyover a good show to tell their friends about when they got back to tornado alley.

“Got it!” I said as I wrapped my arm around the gear.

“Mistress, if I might have a moment to…”

“Stuff it, CORVAC,” I said. “I have a cat to catch.”

The only problem was the plane really started picking up the speed. It was a good thing I had my strength enhancement. Otherwise I would’ve been knocked onto the tarmac.

“Looks like I’m going to take a flight,” I said as I held on for dear life and watched the pavement disappear beneath me while the plane was thrust into the sky using nothing but sheer raw engine power and man’s hubris to use his mind to upset the natural order of things.

So basically business as usual for me. Plus once I was out of visual range of the airport I could stop trying to be impressive and start being practical about taking this alien invader out.