Lana hefted her bag of books and sheet music over her shoulder as she took another attempt at the door. By this point the neighbors knew to expect residents battling with the ancient lock for minutes at a time, but she couldn't help the twinge of anxiety she felt thinking of how suspicious she must look to passersby. A ponytailed mom in Lululemon jogged past, pushing a stroller, and Lana could've sworn the woman shot her a dirty look. 'It's my building!' she wanted to shout. 'The landlord's just too cheap to replace the locks!'
Lana yelped and took a step back when she felt a shooting pain travel up her arm. She looked down at her hand, but her vision was blurry, the colors not quite right. Surely, she was just seeing the orange fuzz on her fingers. Everything felt strange, not unlike the fever dreams from that illness she'd had two weeks ago. Her bag dropped to the stoop, and Lana leaned against the railing to brace herself. It was harder to grip than she expected, her hands not working quite right.
Around the corner, Agent Tate and her recruit-of-the-evening Eugene approached the apartment building, a briefcase slung under her arm and a case report folded under his. Somewhere on that sheet was a statement from registered atavist C. Abassi-Prado, aerokinesis to the tune of 'my roommate has some symptoms.' Whatever powers might be unfolding were not specified, so Bibi had forgone another agent for the evening. Aside from the logistical nightmare that was tens of (mis)leads on atavists a day, Eugene made a better 'face' for the Project than some of her more serious colleagues. And she could contain most escalating situations.
Hopefully.
"Thanks again for coming," she said, looking at the street numbers. Her mind lingered in his emotional psyche a moment or two, then turned outward to the building, lightly searching for something unusual. It didn't take long to find: a spike of confusion and distress just ahead. She touched her jacket out of habit, the gun holstered under her blazer a touchstone of a past life, but not much more.
"No problem," he replied cheerfully, turning his head to face her, "I'm just glad to be here, you know? Considering that I could be a liability and all that." He punctuated that sentence with a nervous laugh. This was Eugene's first time out on the street with an agent, and he was struggling to keep his emotions under control. His cheeks ached from smiling - he hadn't stopped since they'd left base - but inside, his stomach twisted and churned in nervous knots.
He was trying to be more than just a simple liability. Eugene had paid careful attention to their surroundings. If he could appear observant, vigilant, then maybe this wouldn't be his last recruitment. This was his opportunity to establish himself and his potential! He would stun them with his unexpected capability and maturity and dedication, not jetting off in unexpected directions but instead ensuring that the unregistered atavist was found in record time, with little damage to surrounding buildings. Senior agents would clap heavy hands on his shoulders when he got to base and beam at him, call him 'junior' and imply that maybe, serious and official agent-hood wasn't too far away…
He let his daydream trail off, giving an unnecessary gasp when he spotted an orange cat. "Aw man, I love cats," Eugene said emphatically, "I always wanted to get one, but I'm super allergic."
The cat yowled, and perhaps it could have been a noise of distress at being caught in a human pea coat, her claws snagging on the wool as she tried to free herself. In actuality, the noise was one of all-too-human panic and existential dread.
This had to be another dream, Lana thought. People didn't just turn into cats. She rolled around in the puddle of human clothes that she worried she'd never wear again. What if someone found all her things here like this? It would look like she'd been kidnapped, murdered. People would worry! Her students would have to find new teachers! Carey would need to find a new roommate; no way could she pay the New York rent all on her own. At least there wouldn't be any shortage of desperate musicians to take over all of her nightclub gigs.
Her ears perked up as she heard footsteps on the stoop, human voices she didn't recognize. That was different. The sounds had more color to them, like all her life she'd been listening to a static-filled radio broadcast, and suddenly the station had come into focus. She knew, instinctively, exactly where each footfall fell. There were four feet, she knew, without even looking. Lana blinked up at the two humans and meowed piteously, her cat eyes both plaintive and inscrutably animal.
"Hm."
Animals did not register like this on her radar. At best, they were abstractly present, soft blurs in her emotional periphery. She didn't have to imagine how frightening and confusing turning into one must be—once she realized that those feelings were not coming from the home beyond the doorstep but the step itself, the situation unfolded quite neatly.
This was her first like this. An acute body horror of being something else for the first time spilled over her like a wave of nausea. She pressed back against it with something simple: calm.
"You may not be allergic to this one." She hoped Eugene got her drift. With neighbors potentially watching, they should probably attempt to be discreet, no matter how comical talking to a cat in a puddle of human clothes might appear. Squatting down, Abilene extended a hand.
To the cat: "Hello."
Lana tried to respond. She batted at the extended hand with her paw. It was strange, how the joints felt so similar and yet so different at the same time. An ache persisted in her bones from where her human skeleton had compressed and twisted, in some places split and grown. She had more bones now, a feline 230, compared to the 206 of a human adult.
What she wanted to say: I'm not a cat. Who are you? This isn't real. Why did everything hurt when I changed? Dreams aren't supposed to hurt. I'm not a cat! Will I ever turn back? How could this happen? People don't turn into cats. They can't! This isn't real. Do you know I'm not a cat?
What she actually said: "Meow."
It took Eugene a moment to understand Bibi's sudden politeness and interest in the cat. For a second or two, he thought maybe she was just a secret cat lady and his imagination, per usual, had begun to spiral down a tangent until he was brought firmly back into his situation: an atavist, green and hopeful, assisting in the registration of new atavists. Which wasn't especially realistic, if he thought about it. Sometimes the truth was stranger than fiction.
When he bent down, his knees cracked awfully and the pop made him wince. "Oh shit," he exclaimed directly at Lana the cat. "Hey. I'm Eugene. You're…." his voice dropped into a hushed whisper. "You're not really a cat, right?"
The cat startled and backed away at the sound of popping joints, sharper with the added higher frequencies of feline hearing. She calmed down after only a moment and blinked up at this second human. She understood his question, and they both seemed to be allies. If this was a dream, maybe it wasn't as much of a nightmare as she'd anticipated. Slowly, with the care of adjusting to a different body and muscle structure, Lana shook her head.
Bibi set her briefcase down behind her on the step and let her arms fold across her bent knees. Diffuse calm radiated from her, just enough to keep the edge off—though she couldn't do much for the ache in Lana's bones, rippling under her curiosity like an afterthought.
"This must be very alarming. It's Lana isn't it? I work with a group of people who've had similar abilities manifest." Abilene gestured at Eugene. "Like Eugene. He's also able to do unusual things."
The cat cocked its head curiously at Eugene.
Eugene nodded his head vigorously, his head bobbing as if it were on a spring. "I know, I don't look like much," he shrugged, but the inevitable excitement took over. His rectangular little smile bubbled up on his face. "But it's not just me. It's…" he trailed off. "It's a lot of us. It sounds insane, but I swear, it's the truth. She's - we're - telling the truth. And it's kind of weird when everything starts happening, like fucking crazy, but it's easier when you know there's more people like us out there."
The vague explanation did little to reassure Lana, who mewled impatiently and scratched at Eugene's pant leg. She didn't know what he could do, or if other people were turning into cats, or if she would ever turn back. For all she knew, one of these strange people who somehow knew her name had done this to her. She still wasn't entirely sure she wasn't dreaming.
"Lana," Bibi said, shifting on her ankles. "I'm going to pick you up. I don't know how much you're able to understand in this form, but I don't want you to be hit by a car or fall." Her hand made light contact with the cat's fur, a focused feeling of ease moving between them before she scooped the feline right off the ground and into her arms.
"Eugene, could you collect her belongings? She'll probably want them later."
Eugene scrambled to gather the clothes, holding the disorganized heap in his arms. "Got everything," he said brusquely, checking behind himself to doublecheck one more time. He modestly tucked the cup of her bra deeper into the pile and fought the urge to make a cheeky comment. It would not be appropriate, and Eugene was determined to be as professional as possible.
"And right behind you, Agent," he called, "and Lana," he added to be polite.
Lana hadn't been prepared for the sensation of being bodily lifted into the air, something she hadn't experienced since the hazy memories of childhood. Instinctually, she suddenly understood why many cats struggled, but she didn't make any move to get away. If this was real, which a sinking feeling in the pit of her feline belly increasingly told her it might be, where else could she go where people would know she wasn't really a cat? She meowed as the two people carried her away.
As the Project agents exited the scene, another set of atavists were crossing the street, intent on the selfsame building Lana Lyon called home. Only, as Aidan Driscoll realised, they were minutes too late to a scene that was fraught with close-calls -- namely one Agent Tate, who knew him.
Fortunately the illusions which concealed his identity were strong (he was middle aged and sporting a receding hairline, a totally innocuous figure), but even so, Aidan found his pace slowing, especially when he saw what (or who) was being carried out. Tate didn't make house calls for house cats.
Too late.
Fuck. Although the fair-skinned, ginger-haired young woman didn’t swear it certainly wouldn’t take a genius to figure out her feelings on the matter. She’d stopped beside a figure that could potentially be her uncle, or perhaps she was merely a red-headed stepchild. Either way, Jayla Walker was cross. “Well that sucks,” she muttered, a low voice so that Aidan could hear without drawing attention as Tate carried (what Jayla presumed) was their assignment.
“They’ll be a while.” Or longer, if the new atavist couldn’t figure out how to shift back anytime soon.
"Yup." The middle-aged man bit into his cheek, watching the two Project agents get further away, the target safely in their arms. Then his gaze skipped up the street, and as he caught sight of a cab, he made a decision.
"Come on," he said with a glance at Jayla. He hailed the cab with a wave of his hand. Before Tate realises went unspoken.
Jayla’s eyes narrowed at the two agents as she contemplated her options. Snatching the ‘cat’ was assuredly out of the question, and so when the cab screeched to a halt in front of her and Aidan she opened the door and slid inside. She trusted his judgment.
A few feet from her car ("you drive", she'd said), Bibi paused. A particular wash of feelings had just clicked into place, and though her objective was indisputably to deliver Lana to safety, she couldn't help but turn—
—but in the bustling street, amidst a cacophony of emotions, there was only the receding flow of traffic and the fading brilliance of a familiar psyche.