C.A.T.

Cheryl was groggy. Her memory was like a picture rendered in magic marker that had been left out in the rain. The basic colors were there – excitement, merriment, a rush of erotic pleasure –  but no distinct memories. That just meant that it was Saturday morning. A glance at the judgey blue numbers on her alarm clock revised that summation to afternoon. The inside of her mouth felt like a dusty coin purse filled with lint. As she got up to obey the ever more strident commands of her bladder, she heard a squeaking noise. 

She lived in an apartment that hadn’t been updated since the 1970s, so squeaks, rattles, and bowel-like sounds from the plumbing were not unusual. She sat down on the toilet and as soon as she relaxed enough to open the stream, it almost clamped shut when she saw the door opening towards her.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, scanning the tubes and tubs and bottles that surrounded her sink like tourists around a lake for some sort of improvised weapon. She grabbed a can of hairspray and, for the first time, regretted that she no longer smoked because there was no lighter to turn it into an improvised flamethrower. She pulled her panties up with one hand, hairspray in the other. Improvised mace would have to suffice. The door swung open, revealing two green eyes staring up at her from a gray tabby face.

“How did you get in here? Who do you belong to?” she asked, spying a collar with a tag around her neck. The cat followed her into the living room and jumped up on the table. Cheryl bent down and looked at the tag it wore. On the front it read “C.A.T.” The back was blank. “That’s fucking useful,” she said, shaking her head. She sat and the cat climbed off the table into her lap. She was about to brush it off, but it began purring.

“I wish I could remember what happened last night,” she said as she stroked the cat’s soft fur. The rhythm of the purr shifted and images started forming in her mind, like the shapes of animals from clouds. There was a band. They wore shiny clothes. The music had been unusual, but the light show… That had been something else. It had made her feel high. Someone had told her something sweet. It was one of the guys in the band. He said that he wanted to protect her. He said that he was giving her a Consolidated Armaments Tool to keep her DNA safe to end the timeline he came from. What the fuck? Did I fall asleep watching The Terminator or something, she thought.

Just then, Harry showed up with donut holes and a cup of coffee. She could tell by the bulge in his jeans that he wanted to trade her, hole for hole. The C.A.T. blasted him with twin lasers.