[It's finally done! The humble beginnings of this op... check it 
out! kat]

vrdet op: Origins, Part 2
Who Knows What Evil...

"Once I rose above the noise and confusion
 Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion"
		--Kansas, "Carry On My Wayward Son"

	Katze chewed on a pen. She was trying to get her fleeting
thoughts and impressions of the past month or so down on paper 
before they faded into the haze of memory. [Wonder what Josh 
thinks,] she thought to herself. [Here I am, spending all my 
weekends in Colorado... I'm glad he thinks I'm in Vail. Remember 
to thank Mal for rerouting that number here.]
	She stared at the blank piece of paper sitting in front 
of her, mocking her. She turned her attention away from it and 
back to the problems at hand. [It'd be so much easier for 
everybody if I didn't have to fly back and forth. But I can't 
give up Berkeley, it'd be really suspicious if I did. I've got to 
work out a solution.]
	Katze chewed on the pen a bit more, thoughts bouncing in 
her head, until a shadow fell over the blank page. "Hey Ari," she 
said without looking up. "What's up?"
	"Nothing." Ari replied with a quick shrug. "Was wondering 
what had you so pre-occupated that you didn't notice you was 
eating your pen." Katze took the pen out of her mouth and grinned 
sheepishly. "Just thinking about stuff. Mainly how much of a pain 
it is for me to fly back and forth between Colorado and the Bay 
Area. And don't you mean pre-occupied?"
	Ari shrugged again. "I'm sure Mal could work something 
out for you... or there's always teleportation."
	"How would that work?"
	"That's what you got to figure out. But I know you could 
if you tried." 
	Katze concentrated on the other corner of the room and 
tried to will her body over there. Nothing happened. "Hmm... I'm 
afraid I can't do it."
	"Course not, you tried it wrong but s'no big meal... I 
mean deal. Anyways, I need you to go reach something for me. It's 
on the top shelf of the closet over there."
	Katze sighed, got up from the table and wandered over to 
the closet. [The burden of being tall, you get to "reach" things 
for the short people.] Katze sighed again, stepping through the 
door, and was just about to ask Ari what she needed when the door 
closed behind her. "What the...?" she exclaimed. What are you 
doing!?" Katze asked, hearing Ari giggle on the other side. "Open 
the door!!" she yelled.
	"No I'm not! Not 'til you come out first!" came the 
muffled voice from the other side. Katze thought about this. 
Deciding she didn't have the slightest clue as to what Ari's 
logic was in that statement, did the first truly logical thing. 
She began pounding on the door.
	Mal, who was on his way to the lab, heard the commotion 
from the hallway and walked in to find Ari sitting in front of a 
closet door with the muffled sound of banging coming from the 
otherside. "Where's Katze?" he asked nonchalantly, already having 
guessed the answer and trying not to give it away. 
	Ari smiled and pointed to the closet door. "In there. And
I'm not opening the closet door until she comes out."
	"But doesn't the door need to be open for Katze to get 
out?" he asked calmly.
	"She's the one who complained she didn't wanna fly 
between Colorado and the Bay Area. I'm just helping her."
	Mal sighed and shook his head. "There are easier ways 
around this problem than locking Katze in a closet. I mean, I 
could have the techs install a transporter at her place."
	The banging grew louder. "C'mon Ari, let me out!" 
	Ari yelled through the closet door. "Concentrate, will 
you? And stop banging on the door, it takes energy. Energy you 
could use for more better things."
	The banging stopped. Mal shook his head then looked at 
Ari. "Have you ever considered that Katze can't do what you want 
her to?"
	"She can!" Ari exclaimed. "I know she..."
        "But what if she can't?" Mal asked again.
        Ari shook her head vigorously, "Kat's just being 
stubborn. I know she can do it." 
	Mal shrugged. "Okay, okay. But if she's not out in half 
an hour open the door. I don't want to listen to her all night."
	Suddenly a figure went tumbling across the carpet. Mal 
stepped out of the way as the blur crashed into the far wall.  
	"Ow." Katze grumbled. "I heard that Mal!"
	Ari opened the closet door. "Hey, you got out!" she said, 
obviously surprised and puzzled that Katze has escaped.
	Katze picked herself off the floor and dusted herself 
off. Glasses askew, she reached up and straightened them out. "No 
thanks to you."
	"Well, you got out, didn't you? Next time, you should try 
concentrating instead of fighting the door. Like this." 	
	Ari pulled a chair out from the conference table. She 
stuck it in the center of the room, and then proceeded to glide 
through it as if the chair wasn't there.
	Katze's jaw dropped. "How....how...how did you do that?"
	Ari shrugged. "I'd tell you, but you probably don't do it 
the same way."
	Katze sat down on the chair, her brain trying fervently 
to process things she had previously deemed impossible.  
	"There's another way I can do it," said Ari. She faded 
into mist and wandered through the chair and Katze.
	"Cut it out," said Katze, unable to decide if she was 
creeped out or just still trying to process all that she'd seen.  
In any case, she didn't appreciate Ari screwing with her head. 
Ari shrugged and went to slack in a nearby chair, quietly 
shifting into cat form before curling up with a satisfied flick 
of her tail. Katze sat for a few more minutes and then got up and 
looked at the closet. "It isn't necessary to use the closet to 
prove a point."
	"No, it isn't but I couldn't lock you in the chair, 
so..." she broke off, flicking her tail contentedly.
	Katze looked at the chair and concentrated. "The chair is 
not there, there is no chair there," she whispered to herself. 
She took one deep breath and walked right through the chair, not 
feeling a thing. On the other side, she cheered for herself and 
started to sit down on the chair.
	"Katze, remember the...," Ari called out, but it was too 
late and Katze fell through the chair onto the floor. "...chair."
	Katze looked up at Ari and saw the chair surrounding her, 
but she couldn't feel it. "It looks like me and Friend Chair are 
getting to know each other really well," she observed.
	Ari stretched, flicked her tail once more and jumped off 
the chair into human form to help Katze up. "Silly, you've gots 
to remember the chair is there if you want to sit on it."  
	"Heh." Katze eyed the chair and sat down on it. "I guess 
I can honestly say I've sat *IN* a chair now." She looked around 
the room until her eyes lit on the couch. She started to get up 
and walk over there, but something in her head suggested that it 
might be easier to hop on over. She concentrated on the couch and 
willed herself there, and the next thing she knew, she was 
sitting on the couch.
	[This teleportation stuff is rather easy,] Katze thought 
to herself. [But I've never been so tired in my life.] She curled 
up on the couch and decided just to go to sleep. But as she lay 
there on the couch, in the half awake state between dream and 
reality, something rather strange began to happen.

	The pictures in the dream were rather hazy at first. She 
could only pull rough concepts, and it was clear these pictures 
had been buried for a very long time. There was a tall man, and a 
lady... but why were the words Father and Mother coming to mind? 
No matter, these pictures must be from a long time ago... when 
she was a baby? Could be.
	War, death, fighting. Happy song that isn't so happy, 
enslaver of worlds. The tall man is making a deal with the 
enslaver... the Master... "you are not my master, beast!" 
Waiting, waiting, when will he come?  He tumbles through the 
secret passageway. He screams something, but I do not understand, 
I do not remember.  Or do I not want to? It does not matter.
	"A country, a city unspoiled... and then a demon," she 
said to herself, and the world that she knew from living every 
day in it suddenly completely faded away, leaving only mind and 
memory to construct the truth.
	Watching a plaza, watching the children dance. They all 
seemed to be so happy! But it was a false happy. The purple thing 
was a strange and weird thing. It was the perfect strategy, to 
trick the innocents into loving him with all their hearts, so he 
could sneak in and steal their souls and their minds. How 
horrible, yet it was a simple and elegant plan. However, it 
filled her soul not with a happy rational of simplistic elegance, 
but of horror and revulsion. The demon was stealing souls.
	It was... she had to stop this. But it was impossible. 
Theminds were being destroyed, and there was absolutely nothing 
she could do about it. As she watched, she shed a tear for the 
ruins that such a pretty place were going to be in. "The 
innocents were the first to go," she whispered to herself. "They 
fell for the demon first."

	Ari watched Katze retreat to the couch. She shook her 
head, then turned to looked at Mal but he had left sometime 
during all the excitement. "I guess she's tired." she said to no 
one in particular, and shifted back to cat form so she could curl 
up in her chair. Katze mumbled something that was unintelligible 
and Ari grinned, making a mental note to tease Kat about talking 
in her sleep.
        Several minutes later, as she lay curled up in her 
favorite chair, Ari felt the distinct tingling sensation of 
someone watching the room. Being the curious type, she perked her 
ears to take a good listen. Katze made a sudden sound out loud 
and as she turned to see if her friend had woken up, spotted the 
'watcher' out of the corner of her eye. "Elf." she meowed 
quietly, deciding to turn hunter into hunted.  
        Ari played at being asleep while the elf worked his way 
towards her, watergun at the ready. Just as he was about to pull 
the trigger Ari willed herself under the chair. Realizing he was 
caught, the elf attempted to escape by running. Ari took this 
opportunity to get some exercise and chased after him. "You can't 
outrun me keeb! I have more feet!" she shouted down the hall.

        Katze spoke aloud, her voice in a far away tone, "The 
innocents were the first to go, they fell for the demon first." 
but Ari didn't hear her, nobody heard her. Or did they?
	Katze explored the dream world further. It was totally 
different from anyplace she had ever been before, but yet, it was 
familiar, as if this odd sense of deja vu was sweeping over her.  
	There was a king, a good king. He knew his country well, 
and he knew what it needed. But one day, he was conned into 
believing he knew not what was best for his country and chose a 
strange man for his chief of staff. And from that point on, the 
golden aura around the king was tainted with the evil overtones 
of a strange color. They corrupted the king.
	And after they corrupted the king, they tried to corrupt 
the court. But one man stood alone, resisting. Suddenly, it 
dawned on Katze that the one tall man appearing over and over in 
her dreams was somehow connected to her. He had done something to 
help her, but it was all so muddled. And the word "Father" 
somehow connected to this man in some strange way.
	Suddenly the whole dream became clear. This strange place 
she was seeing in her dreams was the place she was from. This was 
her home. Earth was not home, this place was. But why? Why was 
she taken from this place? Why?
	An incredible sense of grief overcame her mind. She felt 
so incredibly horrible. A traitor in every sense of the word, 
bailing out of the place before she could fight, could win. The 
only words that came to her were a cry for forgiveness from her 
people. "Oh my people, what have I done unto thee? Oh my father, 
why hath I betrayed thee?"
	Suddenly, the world in which she lived in now swarmed 
back into her thoughts. Katze cringed, and looked for the dream. 
Oh, it was still there... something important must be going on in 
the room to draw her attention to it. And the word "Rhye" 
wandered through her memory looking for something to connect to.

	Meanwhile, Ari chased elf and elf chased Ari. All through 
HQ, they chased and counter-chased, shouting insults and leaving 
chaos along their haphazard path. It all came to an anti-climatic 
end when Calculus swooped Ari up by the scruff of her neck just 
as she was about to pounce on the elf's head. As Ari screeched 
"Let me GO!!!!!" the elf made a hasty retreat through the door of 
his room, stopping to stick his tongue out before slamming the 
door and locking it.
	Cal dropped Ari onto the floor and she shifted herself 
back to human form. "Grrr, I almost had that little..." she 
trailed off, fixing her more than messy hair and scowling at the 
Comms officer. "What'd ya have to do that for, we was only having 
a bit of fun."
	"Erm, you knocked over 6 plants, caused 3 people to spill 
liquid on their keyboards, there-by ruining them, knocked out 
power to the dining facilities and ruined at least one lab 
project." Cal stated as he counted off the list of complaints. 
"Do I need to continue?"
	"No." Ari replied. "How come you know all this?"
	"Because no one seems to know where Kat has gotten off 
to. I guess Mal's locked away in his lab and can't be reached." 
	"Bah, she's sleepin' in the situation room, on her couch. 
I was layin' in me chair, watching her, when the elf tried to 
amtrak me."
	"You mean 'ambush'?" Cal corrected. "I need to talk to 
her about a couple of changes to the computer system, so her 
nap's going to have to be cut short."
	"I guess it's ambush. I'll walk down there with you." 
She shrugged, heading down the hall with Cal. A few moments later 
they walked through the doors to the situation room. "She talks 
in her sleep." Ari pointed out.
	"She's still doing it too." Cal noted.

	Katze sat up on the couch and looked straight at Ari and 
Cal, yet right through them. She said in that rather strange 
voice, "Oh my people, what have I done unto thee? Oh my father, 
why hath I betrayed thee?"
	Cal pondered those words. "What's she talking about? 
Something she saw on TV?"
	Ari said, "That's possible, but I know when I first 
started teleporting and wore out, I usually recalled things from 
when I was little. Sometimes even things from before I could 
talk. She was teleporting before she fell asleep."	
	Katze blinked and focused on Ari and Cal, as if she was 
noticing they were in the room for the first time. "Huh? What are 
you guys talking about?"
	Cal thought. "Do you think she knows, remembers?."
	"I dunno," Ari shrugged. "Doesn't look like it."
	"Maybe it was a bad dream," asked Cal. "She *has* been 
under a lot of stress lately."
	"You know, Rhye is a nice name," interjected Katze, in 
some hopes of getting back in the conversation.
	"I can remember things said to me at about..." Ari broke 
off suddenly. "Rhye? Katze, who is Rhye?"
	"Rhye is a town. Everybody knows that." said Katze.
	Cal looked at Katze. "I didn't know that," he said.
	Ari lied. "Neither did I. What country is it in?" [That 
name is way too familiar. She thought to herself. But where have 
I heard it?] 
	Katze shrugged. "I don't remember."
	Cal opened up the Library database and issued a few 
commands.
	"Sounds Scottish... there's one way to find out if it 
existed between now and the Roman Empire though, it'll be in 
here." 
	Katze scrunched up her face in thought. "There's a very 
big castle in Rhye," she offered. "It's where the king lived."
	Ari started going through place names in her head. [Chi-
Lin, Mertent, Starenko... they all have castles... but... then 
again...]
	Cal looked at the library database results. "Well that's
interesting, there are no matches Rhye, nor for any alternate 
spelling that may be used."
	Katze gained the faraway look in her eyes again. "The 
demon, the demon... no, no you brutal beast... no... you killed 
my mother and you changed my father!"

	Katze fell back into the dream as she suddenly realized 
that Rhye was the place where the king lived. It all became so 
horribly clear. Her father had cut a deal with the beast, and had 
taken her out of the green land to save her. But something went 
wrong, and he and her mother were sent back to face the wrath of 
the demon.
	When they first appeared back in her father's lab, the 
demon and the chief of staff had been waiting for them. Her 
mother had been separated from her father, and sent to be 
executed. Her father had a more ominous fate.
	The demon had stuck him in a cell and fed him only 
carrots in an effort to soften him up. He kept a journal every 
day in order to keep his mind working, but it was always an 
uphill struggle to keep it working. Finally, one day, he was 
brought to the demon and... the thought was rather horrifying. 
She watched as his strength and rationality was drained from him. 
And with the last ounce of strength he had, he called out 
mentally. He called out, "Katze Brenner, you must help me!"
	She struggled to save him from the pull of the demon, but 
it was too late. It was too late. No! Then she felt a presence 
feeling her way around her mind, and realized that the demon had 
caught the telepathic cry for help, and was assessing the risks. 
Katze slapped the presence away, screaming the whole time, "No, 
no, no you damned demon! You're not taking over this world too!"
	She thought of what the demon had done to her real 
father, and connected suddenly to her father here. She started 
screaming some more at the presence. "No, I'll stop you! You will 
not take my father here as you took my father there!"

	Ari shuddered, she could have sworn she felt someone, or 
something, else in the room a moment ago. For a minute, she 
almost thought it came from Katze. "Hmm..." she pondered. "It's 
got to be a really funky dream or something... or a past life?" 
She decided to say nothing about the feeling and familiarity of 
the name 'Rhye'.
	Cal pulled out a chair and sat down. "It can't be a past 
life," he said in bewilderment. "We don't have proof of those 
existing. It's probably just a dream."
	Ari thought about it for a second. "Maybe she's crossing 
channels and mixing a past life with a present life." she 
hypothesized before adding tentatively, "Or maybe she's not from 
here and having memories of where she's from."
	Cal shrugged. "I still think she's just having a bad 
dream. Then again, that's the best historical database in the 
universe, and if Rhye's not there, it's not from around here, 
assuming Rhye is actually a place. And as far-fetched as it 
sounds, I have to agree there are other places out there. After 
all, you're here, aren't you?"
	Ari pulled her laptop out of the air. "I'll run it though 
mine and see what happens."

	Katze looked. The city sparkled cleanly in the morning 
air. She thought of the tall man, and she thought of David 
Brenner. David had given her the support she needed, but now it 
was time. Time to return to the beautiful green land. Time to 
fight the demon that had taken over her world.
	"God bless you, David Brenner, for taking me in and 
raising me as if I was your own," she whispered. "But it is now 
time for me to see who exactly came to your door that night."
	She turned towards the tall figure, the one that had 
crumpled under the weight of that horrible song, but vivid and 
real to her as a good man in a happier time. "Father," she 
addressed the man. "I will always remember the beauty of 
Marraketh, no matter how little I was. I will fight with every 
ounce of my being. And I do solemnly swear to kill that evil 
beast."
	Suddenly, as if someone had grabbed onto her foot and 
yanked, she was yanked hard back out of the world of dreams and 
back into the world of reality. Her head started to throb hard as 
she tried to gain focus and remember who the people were in the 
room with her--or even where that room was.

	Ari started pushing keys on her laptop, only half-
listening as Katze spoke up once again in that oft distant voice, 
"Father, I will always remember the beauty of Marraketh, no 
matter how little I was..." The rest of the speech trailed off 
into mumbles. But Ari had heard the magic word, "Marraketh". She 
jumped up in shock, sending her laptop tumbling to the floor. 
"No!"
	"'No' what? Did you find something?" asked Cal, looking 
at Ari's reaction.
	Ari nodded. "Marraketh is seventh dimension, just over a 
mountain range from Chi-Lin. Was overrun by the Hell Wyrm a while 
back. Rhye is located within Marraketh."
	Cal looked at Katze thoughtfully. "About how long ago? 20 
years or so?"
	Ari nodded. "Earth-time, Yeah. I wasn't very old at all."
	Katze sat up on the couch, blinking and looking around 
the room in confusion. "Where am I?"
	Ari looked at Katze. "On your couch."
	Cal nodded. "VR headquarters." 
	Katze nodded, looking a little less confused. "No... then 
it was all a dream."
	Ari decided to push things a little further. "Katze, does 
the name Marraketh mean anything to you?"
	Katze suddenly glanced around the room in sheer terror. 
"No. We're not going to talk about that."
	Ari shrugged. "Fine, don't talk. We have it on tape."
	Katze laughed at that remark. "Tape? I was dreaming. You 
can't tape dreams."
	Cal wandered over to the console and booted up the 
security camera archive, and after a brief moment, began playing 
back the tape. "Maybe not dreaming, but remembering," he said, as 
he showed Katze the tape. "And you talk in your sleep."
	Katze looked like she was about to go catatonic. "I 
wasn't saying nothing," she whispered to herself in way of 
justification.
	Ari quickly said, "Katze, let me see that medallion of 
yours." [I think I know, but I'm not sure, I think I know how to 
be sure. she thought to herself.]
	Katze pulled the medallion out from under her shirt and 
handed it to Ari. Ari pulled off hers and handed it to Katze. 
Cal, curious about the exchange, started examining Ari's 
medallion. Katze spoke up. "Be careful with that, please?"
	Ari grinned. "I will. You just be careful with mine... 
and wish me luck." She touched the medallion. "Return."
	Cal looked at Ari. "Ari, I don't think that's a real 
good... idea..." he trailed off as Ari blinked out of existence.
	Katze jumped up from the couch. "NOOOOO! She doesn't know 
what she's getting herself into! The Master is after me, not 
her!"
	Ari popped back into existence quite suddenly. She was 
holding a small twig. Cal blinked. "Where the fsck did you go!? 
Isn't that dangerous?!"
	Ari frowned. "Eh?, I'm experienced, it IS my dimensional 
home ya know." She handed the twig to Katze along with Katze's 
medallion, and took her own back.
	"What's this?" asked Katze, twirling the stick in her 
hands.
	"It's from your home."
	Katze turned white as a ghost. "No... he'll find me, I'm 
not ready, I'm not at all ready! I don't even know who I AM!"
	Ari looked at Katze. "Sure ya do, calm down. He knows 
where ya are, he's known for a long time, I'll bet. S'probably 
got someone watching you already. Cal, run the tape for Katze, 
please."
	Cal nodded and obliged. Katze listened to the tape with 
growing panic. "How did this come out?" she asked no one in 
particular. "I wasn't supposed to tell anyone."
	Cal shrugged. "You talk in your sleep?"
	Katze glanced around the room, as if she was about to be 
ambushed. "No... I never told anyone about that. I wasn't 
supposed to say anything. No..."
	Ari looked at Katze. "Stop it! The mind can only handle 
so much, when it gets tired, everything comes out."
	"But Marraketh exists only in my dreams!"
	"Then what's that in your hand?" asked Ari, pointing at 
the twig.
	"It cannot be."
	"That plant doesn't grow on Earth."
	Cal looked at the rather upset Katze, "Maybe this isn't 
such a good idea Ari, she's not taking it very well."
	Katze looked at the twig more. "Why would someone go to 
so much effort to convince me there really is such a place?"
	Ari looked at Cal. "She'll handle it. Anyone who can 
learn basic teleportation in an hour can handle it."
	Cal shrugged, "O.K. If you say so, but Mal isn't going to 
be happy if he hears about this."
	Katze spoke, almost to herself. "Then I really must be... 
but no, I have a life here! There cannot be such a place!"
	Ari sighed. "Katze, nobody said you don't have a life 
here." She looked at Cal. "Mal isn't here, and this is not 
anything like a destroyed lab or a system failure, this is Kat 
and her true homeland."
	Katze straightened up and smiled. "That decides it. There 
is no such place."
	Cal smacked his head. "Uh... Ari?"
	Ari looked at Katze and shrugged. "Deny it all you want. 
I can prove it to you the hard way if I has to, the dangerous 
way."
	There was a thump as Katze fell to the floor in a faint.
	Cal looked at Katze lying on the floor. "I don't think 
she likes that idea."
	Ari shrugged again. "I guess she'll learn to live with 
it."
	Cal grimaced. "Or she won't and she'll end up in a 
nuthouse."

	Katze blinked. Someone or something had yanked her rather
fiercely back into the dream world. That person was sitting on a
fencepost, with the green of Marraketh making a startling 
backdrop.
	The figure was the "old man" of her life. He sat there 
and just looked at her. "I'm sorry, alright? I didn't mean to let 
it out!" she yelled at him.
	The old man spoke. "It's okay, Katze. It is time. You 
must begin to remember now. Remember the things I had you forget, 
and remember always that you must fight."
	Katze nodded. "Okay. I guess now is a good time. But 
why?"
	The old man nodded. "It's a fair question. You can handle 
it now, and you have friends who will back you up. Be strong, 
Katze, and go back there knowing who you really are."
	Katze grinned. "Okay. I can do that."
	
	Ari looked at Katze lying on the floor and shook her 
head. "She won't go nuts."
	Cal sighed. "Maybe not permanently, but it looks like 
you've set off some sort of schizophrenic break."
	Ari scowled at Cal. "Well, a break is better than no 
break, 'specially when it comes to something like this! The 
Wyrm's involved."
	Meanwhile, Katze had stood up, and with a fierce glow in 
her eyes she stated, "I... my father is Tyrene Katze. My mother 
is Horetia Katze. I am... I am... I can't remember it, but I had 
a name."
	Ari whispered at Katze. "Fight it, Katze... make them 
release your name!"
	Katze screwed up her face in concentration. Cal looked 
positively worried. "I really don't think you should push 
this..."
	Ari scowled at Cal. "She started it. Besides, if she 
wasn't ready, it wouldn't have come out."
	Katze sighed. "Humans can't walk through chairs.... I 
am... I am..."
	Cal sighed, watched Kat carefully. "You're going to give 
her a nervous breakdown by rushing things. So what if she can't 
remember her name!?" 
	Ari scowled some more at Cal. "If I wanted to rush 
things, I'd go find out and tell her. I can't do that, she's got 
to remember her own name."
	Katze suddenly came out of the trance. The fierce glow 
had left her eyes and she smiled. "I'm Katze Brenner--that's one 
thing for sure--but I am also of the house of Katze, of 
Marraketh!" She looked around the room at the surprises on Ari's 
and Cal's face. "Can I borrow a stick?"
	Ari looked at Katze strangely. "A stick?"
	Cal handed Katze the walking stick Mal had left leaning 
in the corner.
	Katze took Mal's walking stick. "Yeah, a theory. Watch 
out Cal, I promise I won't swing too hard."
	Cal looked shocked. "Why are you hitting me? I didn't do 
anything!"
	Ari grinned, realizing what Katze was up to. Katze took 
aim and gently swung the walking stick at Cal. As soon as the 
stick hit him, there was a howl of pain and the sound of a stick 
hitting the ground. Katze was clutching her right hand close to 
her chest and clenching her teeth together. Cal blinked. "You 
missed?"
	Ari looked at Katze in concern. "You okay?"
	Katze nodded. "It ain't like that stupid rock."
	Ari grinned. "You can say that again, Katze. Well, looks 
like you can't fight yet."
	Cal pondered what he had just seen. "Wait a minute, she 
tried to hit me and ended up hitting herself?"
	Katze grinned. "Nope... I didn't miss, it came back at 
me. I've lived with this all my life... and there is more than 
one way to fight."
	Ari smiled. "Just stay away from guns, Kats."
	Katze started laughing. "Oh, I know."
	Ari blinked. "I don't want to know."
	Katze laughed some more. "You don't... luckily for me, 
the gun was aimed at Josh's foot."
	Ari smiled. "I can see it now, like the rock incident, 
only worse."
	Cal looked from Ari to Katze. "Someone want to explain to 
me what's going on? What rock incident?"
	Ari looked at Katze. "You might want to tell him the 
story."
	Katze smiled. "Okay... it was first grade, and me and my 
buddies were playing with matchbox cars. Big Tom Ahrens, the 
school bully, came over and swiped our cars. I demanded he give 
them back, he laughed and walked away. I threw a rock at him, but 
instead of hitting him, it arched back at me. I turned to run and 
it caught me in the back of my head. Reason I'm now totally 
deaf."
	Cal winced. Ari looked at him. "See I told you she could 
handle it."
	Katze added a postscript onto the story. "Unfortunately 
for Big Tom, the teacher on duty didn't see me throw the rock, 
and I doubt they would have believed it if they had seen it."
	Cal gave Ari an odd look and shook his head. "Never 
mind."
	Ari grinned. "Cal, Katze and I have gotten to know each 
other. I knew all this before pushing her into remembering."
	Cal chuckled and pulled the tape out of the recorder. "I 
think I'll save this. I'll be up in the Comms lab if anybody 
needs me."
	Katze nodded. "I think I'll go back to Berkeley. I have 
some things I want to think about. See you all later."  
	Ari waved as Katze faded into the backdrop and was gone. 
There was one thing that still bothered her. There's no way they 
couldn't know where Katze has been all this time, and they'd 
definitely have someone watching her, but who? And if they find 
out she's started to remember...

--

	Katze sat alone at the Big C above campus, looking over 
the Bay Area. She saw the lights of the City of San Francisco, 
and she pondered. There was still Josh to worry about. [He nearly 
threw a fit over my refusing to let him watch Barney a few times. 
He'd never understand the Jihad, and he'll definitely not 
understand the fact that I'm not human. *sigh* what do I do?]
	The breeze blew in off the Bay. But there were no answers 
in it. Maybe things would be better tomorrow. Was Josh a Sponge 
Minion? She didn't think so, but...
	"I think I'll go home now," she said to nobody in 
particular. "I need to get something to eat." She faded out from 
the Big C and appeared back in her little kitchen in the 
apartment on Haste Street.
	As she opened the freezer to get out the frozen egg 
rolls, she noticed what appeared to be a stack of glow-sticks in 
the fridge. She pulled one out, and noticed that they seemed to 
be like those safety ones. She noted this information and cooked 
her egg rolls for dinner.

tbc in "Friend or Foe?"