Chapter Thirty-Seven - Nine Lives

I got my Nine Lives before we made it to my place. Mostly, that came about because we had to switch from riding the train to taking a bus, and the bus was not going to show up for a solid half hour, and only if it was on time... which it wasn't going to be.

We were out of Boston Two, however, some smaller city to the north, mostly run by a triumvirate of corporations that kept the peace in this area and ensured a certain level of homogeneity. A middle-class city, with few opportunities and a massive 'burg all around. It was hardly worth notice.

Sharp and I found an alley behind a gas station, one with access to a rather dodgy washroom, and we slipped inside.

It wasn't the most glamorous place, but that didn't matter too much to me. I cared more about being out of the way and unnoticed.

"Alright," I said. "Let's see how this works out."

I focused, and the list of available perks popped back into being before me. I scrolled through it with my eyes until I picked out Nine Lives and selected it.

Nine Lives

You have nine lives. Regain one every month.

Select this perk?

I nodded while thinking 'yes.' Previously dismissing the prompt would have it fade away. This time the prompt shuddered and it almost felt like it was asking me if I was certain.

I wasn't liking this whole system thing. It was far too wishy-washy. Who had even designed this? It sure wasn't natural.

A more serious confirmation had the prompt disappear, and then I glowed.

It started at my paws, all four of them sparking with small motes of rainbowish light, and then the prismatic particulate swept upwards like a magician pulling a cloth off of a tricky device. The swelling lights grew stronger for a moment, then faded away, the last of the motes winking out soundlessly.

"Whoa," Sharp said.

I looked around. "Is that it?"

"I mean, it's magical light," Sharp said.

"It looked like mid 2000s particle effects," I said. I shifted around, then looked down at my paws and finally I turned over on myself to look at the rest of my body. "I can't see any noticeable differences."

"Maybe think about it real hard?" Sharp asked.

I frowned and did just that.

Anima 2

Body 2

Cat 5

> Nine Lives

Lives: 9/9

Combat 3

Cool 1

Magic 2

Reflex 2

Tech 2

Well, that was something. It wasn't terribly specific, but it was present. "I feel like I ought to experiment to see how powerful this perk is, but seeing as how it should only activate on my death, I feel like the risks there are perhaps too elevated for that to be worth the trouble."

"Yeah, I don't want to kill you just to see if you come back," Sharp said with a serious nod.

We left the washroom, and I felt rather... anticlimactic about the perk. Perhaps if I'd chosen something more immediately powerful I wouldn't feel this way, but then I wouldn't allow myself to regret this choice.

I was looking forward to bringing my other skills up to five as well, however. If every skill gave perks as potent as Cat's had been, then... I'd be a fool not to work to raise them.

We arrived at the bus stop in time to sit around for twenty more minutes. I did allow Sharp to spend some of her hard-earned money on vending machine snacks, though I insisted that she buy something that at least pretended to be healthy.

We got on the bus when it decided to show up, and then it was another half hour's ride across the city and out into the countryside before finally, we made it to my hometown.

It wasn't anything to write home about. A small rural town that had continued to expand until now it was almost a city in its own right, though one without much of an identity.

There weren't any mega buildings here. A few large apartment blocks on the edges, but that was all.

We stepped off the bus and I pointed Sharp in the right direction. It wasn't a very long walk. My home was on a quieter street, behind an old clinic and only a block away from a smaller grocery store. Two miles out and we'd be at the town's main road where a dozen franchises had settled in over the years.

"Is that it?" Sharp asked as she paused on the sidewalk. We were across the street from my place.

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"See those three quadruplexes that all look the same?" I asked.

"Uh-huh," she said.

"Those are mine. That's twelve homes, each one just over five thousand square feet. I could go on the usual spiel, how we're close to a decently well-graded elementary school, and how we're only an hour's commute from Boston Two, but I think I can spare you."

I was a little proud of my home here. This was a lifetime's worth of work taking away other's lives, all culminating in three... rather cookie-cutter buildings, but they were mine.

They were all three covered in dull grey siding, with some faux-wood panelling on the fronts. A couple of yards of grass out front and some pavement leading to a row of single-car garages built into the front. A few cars were sitting on the sides of the road as well.

My place was in the middlemost house of the middlemost building. Sharp walked up to the door, one right out in the open, and then she stared at my security panel. I muttered the numbers for her to punch in, then she stared into the little eye scanner.

The door unlocked. "Is that... safe?" she asked.

"No, of course not. That was the guest code, which also primes the home's self-destruct mechanism and the turrets."

Sharp blinked. "The what?"

"Just step in and head over to the closet on your left, there's a panel behind some coats, I'll instruct you from there."

I hardly needed my house going up in flames right after making it back. In any case, there were things in place to allow maintenance people to step in. I had access to some very good security, the best money could buy which didn't seem too suspicious for a house out in this area.

There was a nice middle ground between seeming like a single lady who was very security conscious and seeming like someone who had something valuable to hide. I endeavoured to make my place too annoying to rob and to make myself too frustrating a target to assassinate discreetly.

We stepped in. My house had a small corridor as its entrance, with the stairs to the second floor to our right.

Sharp eyed the space, no doubt looking for those turrets. She wasn't going to find them, of course, the ceiling was actually a solid two feet taller than they looked, and the guns were hidden up there. They'd just shoot through the ceiling.

She rushed to the closet, even though she had plenty of time, and I instructed her through adding herself as a guest. More than that would need more permissions and a bit of finagling on my part.

Finagling that would have to wait, because we had been noticed, and three curious people had come out to greet us.

I swallowed as I looked down from Sharp's shoulder.

"Oh, kitties!" Sharp said. She knelt down and moved a hand towards the nearest cat.

"Do not presume to touch my most majestic form, strange-smelling servant," he said.

I blinked. Wait, I could understand cats? I supposed that it wasn't too strange but... well, I never expected to actually comprehend them.

"Mercury, Cyanide, Arsenic," I said as I greeted the three.

All of the cats looked up and eyed me, but it was Arsenic, my oldest and most vocal cat, who spoke first. "How do you know our lesser names, small one?" he demanded.

Cyanide, my beautiful siamese, stepped closer and sniffed. "Its voice is that of Mother," she said.

"Nonsense!" Arsenic said. "That little thing looks nothing like greater servant Mother. It smells nothing like her either."

I considered what to do for a moment before deciding to just jump down. I landed before the cats and suddenly felt rather small. Strange, I didn't feel small before Sharp and other humans, but maybe that was expectation. "Hello," I said. "It's me. Caroline. Mommy? I'm back?"

Arsenic's eyes narrowed. "Trickery... unless. What is my favourite food?"

"Tricky Whiskers brand wet food, chicken specifically," I said.

"And why can I not have that delicacy every night?"

I blinked. Did... did Arsenic understand that it would make him fat, or that the chicken type wasn't always available?

"Move aside, Lord Arsenic," Cyanide said as she came closer. She sniffed, then walked over to me and booped my nose with her own. "I have questions of my own!"

I felt like this might take a while.

***