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Part 2 - Clones, Friends, Artworks, Sparks, and Nekomancers
If I’d been drinking something at the time, I would’ve instantly spat it out. I sputtered a bit and found enough words to ask her what she meant. She seemed puzzled on that herself as Arjuma curled up sleepily and rested her head on her lap and gave me loads of little flashes of delight in my heart.
When all that settled down, I repeated more clearly, “What do you mean?”
Leaning back, Gloria pointed a hand at Arjuma’s head as she said, “I figure you wouldn’t mind rubbing her head and she wouldn’t mind it either.”
Glancing between Gloria and Arjuma for some kind of catch, some sign that this was just a ruse, gave me only a settled smile from Gloria and a curious, watchful gaze from Arjuma. Taking a breath, I reached a hand out to touch Arjuma’s head. I paused when she bent her head up to sniff at my fingers. I was both grateful and a little disappointed she didn’t lick them. But she let me rest my hand on her head and gently rub it.
Her…hair…didn’t quite feel like hair…it was softer in some ways but also glossy and thick. Somewhere between hair and fur. Her eyes shut and the ears on her head turned a little before settling. I couldn’t keep from looking at her, but I was worried about how that appeared to Gloria.
“I could make a clone of her.”
I kept petting but I looked at Gloria with a frown as she made a futile attempt to tame her hair with a hand. I asked her again what she meant, to which she replied, “Well, I have a replica machine. Got it in a sale. So, I can make copies of her, copies of me, copies of you. Copies of anyone. I’ve put ads in the papers, but then all the papers asked me to stop doing that. Basically, I have several hundred blanks for replicas. Really thought there’d be more interest…”
Most everything Gloria said left me bewildered. I suppose I could’ve humored her, but I really just wanted to pet Arjuma before this adorable vision of a living catgirl somehow vanished like waking from a dream. I quietly declined her offer.
“No worries. I actually have something better. How would you like there to be more catgirls, Josh?”
I didn’t dispute the name or the notion. But I hid my feelings in a calm statement, “I have no problem with that.”
Clapping her hands together softly, Gloria announced, with Arjuma looking up, “Then I definitely have someone you should meet.” Hopping up from her couch to the dismay of Arjuma, who was deprived of a lap, Gloria hurried over to the far hallway and out of sight.
I had trouble keeping eye contact with Arjuma. She didn’t seem to notice as she took my lap for a sufficient substitute. I focused on brushing her hair and considering Gloria’s words as a sudden, storm-like tempest roared through the hallway and began to rattle the walls.
Papers and anything not tied down found new places to settle. Then, as quickly as the wind began, it was gone and all was still. Fixing my hair and brushing Arjuma’s too, I had to ask, “What was that?”
Gloria gave a far-off laugh and said, “A device designed to break wind. Only made it so I could joke about it. As for my friend, she’s seated beside you.” A look to my left nearly made me jump off the cushion. Despite not hearing a sound or feeling the couch settle with another presence, a young woman sat next to me.
I was alarmed, but I still took a moment to look her over. She didn’t seem the eccentric sort. She was too relaxed compared to someone like Gloria. She appeared small, though not too much smaller than me. Her black hair had a strange quality to it like a charcoal drawing or stark, obsidian paint twinkling with little lights. Her hair flowed to her shoulder in a way which seemed both intentionally-messy and intentionally-elegant. She wore a simple, indigo-toned shirt and blue jeans. Glasses with a red lower rim perched on her slim nose. The first thing she did was smile back at me with a warm, vibrant look which seemed to excite the air around us with her presence.
As I leaned back in surprise, she spoke first, “Hello there. I’m….well, let’s just say I’m a friend.”
I questioned this with eyebrows raised as she took out a small, unlined notepad and a pen. Returning to the room, Gloria clapped her hands and exchanged pleasantries I was only vaguely curious about. The new girl was interesting, but the catgirl on the other side of me was even more so.
It wasn’t long before the new girl asked what I never wanted to be asked, “You sure like catgirls, huh?”
Trying to be vague, I told her, “She’s different. Really interesting.”
Chuckling to herself, the new girl smirked and noted, “Bet you wish there were more like her.” I reflected on Gloria’s odd mention of a cloning project, but this wasn’t what she meant.
“I’m talking about more…different catgirls all over the place. Real ones.”
It was a nice thought, which I tried to not indulge too much as I coughed and told her, “I wouldn’t complain.”
She gave me a teasing but gentle nudge, saying, “That’s not an answer. Let’s say, hypothetically, you had the ability to turn someone…anyone into a cute catgirl like Arjuma here with just a small gesture, say a touch. What would you do with that?”
An odd question. Touch someone and turn them into a catgirl? I’d always been private about my feelings. Even expressing this much made me sweat all around the back of my neck. At the same time, looking into Arjuma’s slightly-strange but still comforting face tightened my resolve. More just like her…my heart almost seemed to flutter.
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Thinking of even the crusty old landlord with a cane, who ran this complex with expletives and scowls, so transformed as to become a being like Arjuma, I inquired, “Anyone? Anyone at all?”
Eerily, Gloria leaned closer and said, “Anyone! Even our landlord, Mister Russell. Who is, was…and will be much more forgiving of incidents of non-linear time than one would anticipate. One could imagine her with a tortoise-shell tail.”
The gender part was one aspect I’d tried to avoid, but Gloria poked it right in the stomach. I retreated a bit, noting, “I don’t have that kind of power. And it would be impossible…”
Gloria gave a sudden, high laugh. “Impossible? Why, I’ve already done three supposedly-impossible things tomorrow before noon. Impossible is only a label. Assume you have this power, the touch to make anyone this…gosh-darn cute and fuzzy.” She brushed Arjuma’s back for emphasis. Though she enjoyed the touch, she still seemed focused on me.
In any other, normal case I would’ve been so creeped out I’d just excuse myself with some polite words or tentative veneer to my feelings but all three of them were so weird and so unusual that if they were just teasing me then I didn’t give a crap because I’d gotten to experience a cute catgirl…or at least someone well made-up as one. Also, though I lacked a practiced sense for it, I didn’t detect malice from them. So, I took a breath and felt a flame of panic and stomach-dropping pain sink into me as I told them, “I would make catgirls with that power. A lot of them. As many as I wanted.”
Even as the words slid out, I wanted to suck them back up because they felt so naked. They asked me what I would do, but I felt embarrassed to give so simple an answer. I could’ve said that I would make it so people who wanted to be catgirls, and I knew some of them, would become them. But I said what I said and could only watch them look back at me.
The mystery girl’s hands stayed on her notepad with her pen dashing across it like she was drawing, but I couldn’t see what. Eventually, she stretched, tilted the paper towards me, and said, “By my hand, so be it.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what happened. Immediately, I felt a zap through the fabric of the couch like a concentrated electric spark. The image on the paper was incredibly-detailed for the time it took her to make it but, at the same time, it had the marks and feelings of her pen strokes. Also, the image had layers to it co-existing at the same time.
It was a drawing of someone like the landlord. Someone else approached and touched him. Then he changed, shrinking, getting younger, and getting smaller as his hair grew out and he sprouted ears, a tail, and breasts like Arjuma’s. All these details should’ve been a blur but, instead, they seemed to sit like a video hologram both frozen and moving when I blinked.
With a smirk, the artist girl declared, “You are now….the Nekomancer. By your hand, you can make anyone into a catgirl.” She gave a little laugh, though her gaze still seemed serious.
Feeling a little light-headed, I clung to the couch before getting up. It was like when the blackness behind your eyelids flashes with firings of an ocean of visual noise when you squeeze them too tight. Only my eyes were open and I could feel that noise flashing all over my head and down my body. Before I could worry about what was next, the feeling was gone…except for my hands, which felt like they were constantly being submerged in warm water. Looking at them, they didn’t seem any different.
Clearing her throat, the mystery girl announced, “As a Nekomancer, any other person you touch becomes a catgirl. Present company excluded in that respect for the case of this…well, Gloria would call it an experiment.”
I flexed my fingers and nervously tapped my head with a palm. With the faintest feeling of disappointment, I remained unchanged. I let my hands fall to my side and nodded. I told them simply, “Alright. I guess, I’ll…go see. Uh, thanks.”
Arjuma seemed sad to see me go but soon started grooming her head adorably while Gloria’s guest moved to take my spot. Gloria waved and declared, “Have fun with it!”
Only when I was clear of that apartment, the fallout of rubber bands from earlier, and around a corner did I start to breathe normally. Rationally, I was kicking myself for playing along. I figured that I’d show up in some online prank posting where people would make fun of me for what I said. Wouldn’t be the first time. But I still had Arjuma as my takeaway. I comforted myself with that as I returned to my apartment.
I paused with my doorknob in my hands and noticed Mister Russell creeping up the stairs on the side with his tattered jumpsuit, long ring of keys, and regular disposition. I gazed down at my hand. I still felt that same sense of warmth.
I felt like I was making a fool of myself as I approached him from behind as he bent over to sort through his tool bag. He didn’t see me coming. I didn’t have a good explanation for why I was about to tap him on the shoulder. I knew he would get upset at me for that.
But I still did it.