Anna helped me to my room. The effects of the Up! were not helping either. I laid down hit my head on Anna’s plasma gun, again.

“Sorry,” She said pushing it to the floor, “I’m gonna take it to Rhodes tomorrow, ok? I dink da plasma coils keep over heatin’ or something.”

I pulled the covers over my and adjusted myself on the bed. I’m not sure if I told Anna about Dad being knighted or not as I differed off to sleep.

I briefly remembered by dreams, one of them consisted of being a puppet on strings. Although, it didn’t really upset me too much, it was nice to finally have a purpose in life, whatever it was.

The next dream that came to me was about me father again. He further explained to me that the book Anna had found used to belong to him. It was his notebook while he was working in the Inquisition. Only those who directly shared his DNA, in the case of Anna and I, could directly see what was written in his book. He further explained that all the pictures were animated and when you slide your finger across them, they would move or react in some way.

***

Eventually, I woke up, staring at the holes in my ceiling. I lay in bed, on top of my stained covered mattress. I pulled the torn sheets away and tossed them on the floor. The dark room denied me the knowledge of what time it was. I pulled the heavy curtains back to expose the truth to my eyes. One of the twin suns was peaking over the building from across the street, Akuma’s building.

It was smaller sun, we call Fast Freddy. This was because Freddy was on a 10-hour cycle. Our larger sun, Big Betty the big sister, is on a 48-hour cycle.

Slowly I oozed towards the kitchen, my body still sore from the training and OBE experience.

Anna was asleep on the couch, cuddled up with Dad’s journal. I glanced up and saw the TV-crystal playing some news broadcast, and they were complain about middle-class problems. I wasn’t exactly, sure what their problem-of-the-day was because Anna had turned the sound off.

I dragged myself into the kitchen. I briefly contemplated turning on the oven fan so the smell of bacon and eggs wouldn’t summon the demons that dwelled deep inside of the bellies of my neighbors. Nothing is more troublesome than hungry cats; especially those were smelled by the sirens smell of cooking bacon.

I starred at the clock, it was 13:03 Galactic Standard Time, GTC, and 07:03 Palace Standard Time, PST, yet another addition by Rhodes.

Hunting through my cool-box for the eggs and bacon. That’s when I spied the last bottle of Angel Feather-7 and quickly snatched it up.

I discovered it the other day when I was coming down from the latest Up! adventure. The Apothecary said it was based on an old dwarf ale and Celestial Choir recipe. She said it was good at cleaning and ridding the body of toxins. Although it was bitter, it was a good after an intense sparing session, or in my case jumping out of your body and meeting your family.

I chugged it down and noticed something odd. I had fur on my forearms! While it wasn’t as thick as fur from a lower cousin, it was still there. The blue-grey patch of fur was about as thick as peach fuzz.

The stories that I have heard before were about felines who were born with 30% cat blood or more would develop their primal features in times of stress, onset of puberty or randomly. Before I could consider what I would do next some asshole was in the street screaming at the top of his lungs, “Get out of my city you ghetto trogs!”

I, along with half the block, was sticking their heads out of the window to see what the hell was going on.

Some barrel-chested guy with a with a blonde crew cut hair style was holding a sign that read, “Get out of my city you ghetto trogs!”

Without thinking I ran out of the apartment and down the stairs. I was greeted by Lee who was asking what the heck was going on.

“Some laser brain is trying to git himself merced on our turf!” I shouted back as I ran past.

“Ah bloody abyss”, he snarled as he grabbed his jacked and ran out with me.

Luckily, Lee and I got to him first. As we got closer he tensed up. If it wasn’t for the training I was doing with Anna, I wouldn’t have even noticed he was in a defensive stance.

I threw my hands up, palms out, as a sign of peace, “What the abyss is wrong with you old man?”

He let out a sigh, his voice had a slight hesitation in it as he spoke, “Didn’t you hear me you ghetto trog?”

Lee clenched his fists; the yelling guy put his foot back, as if expecting to be hit from the oncoming furry in Lee’s fists. I held up my hand in-between them. This smelled of some kind of set up or guy who lost a bet.

“Didn’t you hear what this old groozer said?” Lee hissed back.

I casually looked around; Anna, Henna and Abby were running out of our building. Red and Akuma emerged from theirs and Angel Eyes had a bat in his hands. Behind him was Goldie and Blondie (the twins), followed by Tuco and his little brother Pakito (who was almost old enough to be jumped in).

My eyes turned back to Mr. Yelling Guy. I quickly gave him the once over. His manicured nails, patent leather shoes and 5-Stern (a fashion label) tailor pants suggested he had money. This was probably some kind of set up and we didn’t need the Commissars’ attention if we merced some rich guy.

I turned my head towards Lee, “Yeah, I heard what dis old groozer schnitzel said, but dis guy must be blind or sometin’.”

I paused for effect and the guy cocked his head to the side in curiosity.

“Cause, I don’t see any ghetto-trogs ‘round here, do you?” I said with a warm smile.

The guy returned the smile.

“Last time I checked were not lower-cousins who went feral or sometin’, are we?” I continued.

Lee shrugged, knowing there was no point continuing this. The guy smiled at me.

“You’re all right kid,” in his gravelly voice.

The rest of the gang surrounded him. Akuma had his butterfly knife out and held it towards the guy’s face.

“You’re in North-Central Posse turf old man,” Akuma blurted out.

“I say we gut this guy like a fish,” Red followed up.

Quickly looking to defuse this situation and get back to my breakfast I thought of a solution, “This space cadet lost a bet. Why else some rich guy even stepped foot here?”

“Den’ wus up with this crap ‘bout him shoutin’ ghetto T’s?” Akuma asked, trying to stir the gang up.

Before anyone could reaction a phone rang. The gang checked their pockets. It was the crazy laser brain who pulled out his flip phone. It was a Nostalgia 7000 model.

“Hello?” he asked.

I leaned closer to listen in, and so was everyone else. The voice on the other end was some kind of scrambled machine voice, “Good work, now the package is at FTP-High School.”

“That’s over 20 minutes away!” he snapped back.

“Then you better hurry,” it said *click*

The guy looked up and down the streets. Anna spoke up, “Hey old man, was that machine asshole da one who made you yell that crap on our turf?”

The guy nodded yes.

“Well, if you cut down that alley (pointing towards our building), you can shave 5 minutes off your travel time.”

I had to add my 2 cents, “Uhh, yeah, an’ if you take the roof tops, can can shave ‘nother 10 minutes. Who ever dat shitbird was, give’em abyss from da North-Central Posse .”

He gave me a salute, “Will do. Thank you kid, I owe you big time!” and he took off running.

With two leaps he was in top of the buildings.

Henna leaned closer to me and whispered, “what ah fickle young man.”