Wait, did she just-
Before Kumitada could even mentally register what had just happened, the former maid cafe waitress Masami rushed forward and placed a tight grip on Kumitada’s arm. Normally the detective’s assistant would be fairly confident he could break out of such an amateur hold, but with the surprising amount of force the bespectacled waitress was applying, he wasn’t quite so certain.
All eyes were on him now. The mood of the entire room had shifted, from jubilation to...curiosity? It was hard to tell, but the audience (those that weren’t spaced out men) definitely weren’t angry or afraid. Kumitada didn’t have to be a detective’s assistant to know that wasn’t a good sign.
The girl seated directly behind the strange pyramid device that had zapped Zoe stood up from the judges’ table. She was short and attractive with jet black hair, and the way she swayed as she approached the stage, like a model walking a runway, was nearly as hypnotic as the subliminals still being broadcast in the room. Her most captivating feature however, were undisputably her feline irises, which were fixated on Kumitada like a cat observing a wounded mouse.
“An intrrrruderrrr, you say...” The judge’s habit of purring through her Rs sounded more genuine (and more sultry) than any of the brainwashed girls had managed to pull off before now. “How much did you learn, I wonderrrrr?” She searched his face with an excited, almost fanatical grin, then without any warning balled up her fist and punched Kumitada hard in the stomach. The detective’s assistant would have doubled over completely had Masami not been holding him firmly on one side. Then just as unexpectedly as the sucker punch had come, the young man found himself being yanked away by the arm formerly held by Yukiko.
Kumitada now found a warm, very buxom form in a leotard pressing itself tightly against him. “Let me have him! I saw him firrrrst!” It was the waitress with the cat-like eyes; the one that just a minute prior had kissed him on the cheek and had nearly caused him to succumb to the subliminals.
After hissing at the other feline woman, the golden-haired beauty turned her attention to her prize. “Mmm… you must be incrrrredibly strong-willed to have rrrresisted this long. Let’s go to the back and rrrreally find out how long you can last...”
“Nyah! Stand down Girva.” Kumitada felt himself being tugged back towards the judge, but the waitress had no intention of letting go of her catch. “We need to find out what other prrrrimates on this prrrrimitive rock have learned about us. And he will tell us, even if we have to rrrrip the answers out of his throat.”
“B-But Commanderrrr, he’s hooooot…” Girva whined as she rubbed against his thigh. As distracting as that act was, the detective’s assistant’s attention was grabbed by more subtle motions: in particular, the flaring of the waitress’ nostrils and the slight dilation of her eyes. Her expression was beginning to look more than a little crazed, much like her blood-thirsty commander’s face when she first stepped onto the stage.
Only moments before he had chastised himself for not thinking to bring the one weakness they had discovered at the florist’s shop with them for the stakeout. But perhaps someone else had remembered…
Kumitada turned his head to speak to the commander. “A-Actually, if you’re curious, I think I wrote my orders down and put them in my shirt pocket so I wouldn’t forget them. I mean, you know how foolish we primates are, right?”
It was an unbelievably stupid gambit that the young man knew no sane human would have ever fallen for. “The pocket on your shirt, hmm?” Fortunately for him, he was not dealing with a human, nor did he have any concept of how deeply cruel this catgirl was. It was in short, her overriding personality trait, and in this instance the chance to inflict painful embarrassment upon this lesser creature overrode the basic level of common sense that any sentient being should possess.
With her exceptionally pointy fingernails, the judge slashed open the pocket of the cotton shirt as effortlessly as if it had been made of tissue paper. She also slashed open the small, sealed plastic bag that Kumitada had correctly inferred had been discreetly dropped within. Was it a coincidence a certain blonde-haired detective had attached herself to that side of his body earlier? The smell of the green herbs within the bag had started to seep through the seal at the top, but it became much more pronounced when the force of the tear caused the bag’s contents to explode outwards. The pulverized green particles doused both catgirls liberally, with a fair portion staining the young man’s no-longer white shirt as well.
Kumitada sneezed into his elbow as the pungent green cloud assailed his nose. The first thing he saw as his vision cleared was Masami, still standing just off to the side, but now looking at him like he was the last glass of water in the desert. Only then did he remember that catnip had also affected Zoe’s boss Mr. Satoaki even though he was only being controlled by a headband. Thus it was highly likely that those in the room currently wearing the strange cat ear devices were about to go crazy for the stuff he was covered in, which was… pretty much damn near everyone except him.
When the bright light filling Zoe Khatoran’s vision finally faded away, it became very, very clear she wasn’t in Japan anymore. Or Kansas for that matter. Instead of a stage in a busy karaoke bar filled with leotard-clad serving girls, she was now standing on a platform in what looked like a set from Stellar Journeys or some other crazy sci-fi show. Except, of course, all of the high-tech walls and monitors looked far too realistic to be fake. Even the flashing lights all looked like they had a function, rather than just being present for ambiance.
‘Okay, stay calm… I’ve just been kidnapped by what are probably aliens, but that’s no reason to panic. I just have to keep pretending I’m a mind-controlled zombie and then… something good will happen? I’m sure Ms. Yukiko and Mr. Kumitada have a plan.’
Despite her mental pep talk, the girl nearly jumped when a door slid open in a wall that looked like wall without a door. In walked a young woman with red hair wearing a jumpsuit that had been torn in multiple places, several of them quite revealing. Her breasts were going to grab attention even without the assistance of the holes, but as with the judge back on earth, her slitted eyes and moving ears and tail were the strangest part of her appearance.
“Oh, a twitchy one. And my, your skin is so much darker than the others that have come up.” The alien came close to examine the skin at the young woman’s neck, causing an involuntary shiver that nearly gave away the game. But Zoe’s new captor was apparently not that observant. “Well, come on, come on. Let’s get you settled in.”
The redhead walked up to another wall of monitors which parted to allow her passage. Without being told Zoe followed her as mechanically as she could manage. She couldn’t be certain if they were in a building, on a ship, or something else because the two women never passed any windows as they walked through a maze of corridors that only the catgirl knew how to navigate.
A few minutes later the pair had reached their destination. Through the last door they came into a somewhat large chamber that was several stories tall. Along the walls were a multitude round-shaped transparent pods roughly the size of a very small car. There were several floors of these devices, all of which were connected by a spiderweb of metal gangplanks. Most of the pods were empty. Only a small handful were manned by women wearing rather large headphones. They were all opening and closing their mouths as though talking or (as Zoe suspected) singing, but each of the compartments were soundproofed. Zoe couldn’t tell whether they were humans or catgirls, except for one.
“Suzume,” Zoe whispered, then nearly squeaked as she realized she spoke out loud.
“Oh, you know her?” her guide asked curiously.
Zoe remained silent for a moment, deathly afraid of saying something else that would give herself away. But as the catgirl stared at her with her head cocked to one side, she realized any loyal slave would try to answer any question she was asked. “Um, yes. She’s a friend of mine.”
“Oh, interesting!” the catgirl said, clasping her hands together in delight. “I wonder what affect that will have on the harmonics. Anyways, this one is for you. In you go,” she said, opening a small clear hatch on the side of one of the pods and gesturing for Zoe to enter. She then turned towards a raven haired girl in a leotard making adjustments to a panel next to a pod on the opposite wall. “Technician! Make certain the output for this new Unit and Unit EA00b are linked, and have a report of the results sent to me.
The technician turned around and bowed while adjusting her glasses. “Yes, of course Mistress Uriva,” Hanae replied.
Sat Feb 15 19:42:09 2014
Linking Enabled
2 comments Last updated: Sun Feb 16 02:58:01 2014