Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Seventy-Four - Mom's Spaghetti

"A golden statue of the President of the New United State of Georgia went up today in central park, and that has come with a fair bit of controversy. The statue, coming in at an impressive fifteen feet, has an attached 'anti-pisser beam' device designed to target any vandals attempting to deface the art piece.

Unfortunately, two children were melted by the anti-vandal device just hours after its unveiling. The President has yet to comment on this, though the head of the NCIA has gone on record to say 'they were probably immigrant children anyway'

In other news--"

Snippet of a news report, 2039

***

I figured I was pretty much done for the day.

That meant three big things checked off the list that Gomorrah had given me, one after the other. Basically, I'd girlbossed my way out of my girlproblems and it was time for a girlbreak.

I drove back home, parked my bike, then headed up the elevator. The Bastion was in the garage already, so there was a good chance that Lucy was home, and she was.

"I'm home!" I called out when I walked in.

"Shut up, I'm listening to something," Nose said from where he was sitting on the couch, face almost pressed into a tablet which was playing something that looked like a let's play.

I walked over, stole the tablet, tossed it onto the couch across the room, then flipped him over and shoved his head under a cushion.

"I'm home!" I called out again while holding the ungrateful little brat down. He was squealing and kicking, but his aim was weak.

"Hi Cat!" Bargain said as he poked his head into the living room. He saw that I was holding Nose down, then glanced up to me. "What did he do?"

"Talked shit," I said.

"For five credits I'll fold him down for you," Bargain said.

"That's cheap," I said.

"When you love what you do, the money you make from it is just a cherry on top," he said, almost sounding wise.

I shook my head, let Nose go, where he made a big show of being freed, then flung the cushion at Bargain for not helping, and I left the room while the two of them fought. As long as they didn't break anything too expensive I didn't care.

The particular sort of chaos that reined at home was really comforting.

I found Lucy in the kitchen, apron on, eyes glazed over as she stared at something on her augs, and one hand idly spinning a spoon in a large pot of boiling something. She blinked, then brightened as she saw me.

That did it for me.

Fuck all those hypersex ads with the tiddies and the thighs and the nice asses (not to say that I disliked any of the above), seeing Lucy's face go from bored to happy just because she saw me really did it for me. Nothing sexier.

Well... no, actually, I could think of a few sexier things, but it was definitely up there.

"Hey," I said.

"Hi," she replied.

I snuggled in next to her, placing my head in its place right in the middle of her bushy hair. "Long day," I said.

"Aww," Lucy cooed. She wrapped her arms around me. "Did you have a hard day at work?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "It was complicated and hard. I need a home cooked meal to fix it, and two to three hours of strenuous fucking for relaxation."

Lucy snorted. "Let me work on that homecooked meal thing first," she said before giving my cheek a peck. "We can see about the rest later. I'm making pasta!"

"Something something... straight until wet?" I asked. Lucy turned around to continue stirring the pot, but I didn't let go of her, so she was awkwardly stuck in my grasp. It probably made working hard, but that didn't matter, I was being a comfort vampire at the moment, taking whatever energy I could from her.

"Cat, we both know that you were never straight," Lucy said. "Go get the butter out of the fridge, please. And the garlic too. I'm making a white sauce."

I snorted. "Alright, fine."

Lucy did most of the cooking, and I think she also enjoyed bossing me around as her sous-chef. Mostly that meant chopping things into tiny slivers. A few cloves of garlic got chopped into bits, then an entire leak, then she had me grate some cheese into a bowl.

"I'm noticing that I'm doing a lot of work here and you're doing a lot of staring," I said.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"I like seeing you," Lucy said.

"Flirting doesn't absolve you of your sins," I warned, pointing the cheesy grater at her and spilling some on the floor. Catkiller showed up.

Lucy stuck her tongue out at me. "But how can I be a sinner if I'm this cute?"

That was a fair point.

She picked up all the things I chopped up, added them to a pot, and then added some cream and butter and some olive oil and then at the end a fat spoonful of flour.

It started to smell so good that I was forcefully reminded that I hadn't eaten in a while. "God, you are gonna fatten me up," I said.

"Mhm, your thighs could use a bit of meat," Lucy said. "Try not to let any of it go to your ass though, it's perfect as it is."

"I don't think I get to choose that," I said.

Why did garlic stink so bad when just around and yet smell so good when it was in fresh food? Lucy didn't even need to call the brats over, they were peeking into the room (never entering, because they knew that if they did they'd be volunteered into helping) and generally lingering nearby.

Lucy drained the noodles, then made up two plates for us. She even did that fancy thing, with a sprig of basil or oregano or whatever little green thing on top.

"Et voila!" she said.

We ate in our room, where we could avoid the chaos of the kittens for a while. "So, how'd things go with your army of fanatically loyal servants?" I asked.

"Eh, not that bad," Lucy said as she twirled her fork around. "I sent some out to scout the casino. Security there didn't let them in until we confirmed everything, which is actually a good sign, I think."

"Better than them being lazy," I said.

She nodded. "Exactly. So, one of my Kittens has experience running conventions. Mostly smaller ones, but it's still good, and another has worked in admin for like... business conventions as well, which is different but also good. I spent a solid hour today talking to the two of them, and we've come up with something."

"Oh?" I asked. Damn, this sauce was good. I was making a mess as I ate it, and I didn't care.

"Mhm! So, we're going to use a badge system. Do you think you can arrange to send something to every gang?"

"Yeah, I guess. Depends on what it is you want to send. Like something digital?"

"I was thinking a literal badge," Lucy said. "With an RFID chip in it and like, the person's name or gang name on it? We can hang them off lanyards. Anyone that shows up without will be refused. It'll make it a ton easier to tell who's who, and keep tabs on people. The casino already has an IFF system to tell where their customers are within the hotel and casino sections, so it'll be easy to piggy-back off that and keep track of everyone."

"Some gangs might not like that," I said.

She shrugged. "Fuck 'em?"

That was a fair and measured point. "Alright. I guess we can also limit the number of people that show up that way. Some bigger gangs might want to send in a whole army, but if they only have... how many badges per group were you thinking?"

"No more than five," Lucy said. "There's only so much room in the halls and whatnot. Like, I don't care if it's standing-room-only in some places, but like... there's a limited number of bathrooms. And the more people there are, the messier it'll be for security."

"Yeah, five per seems good." It would be a large number for like, tiny street gangs, and a hard limit on the bigger ones. "We'll probably only see like, what, fifty gangs?"

Lucy gave me a hard stare. "I think you're underestimating that by a lot," she said.

"Oh... well, shit, that's no good. Anyway, I'm sure I can bully one of the others into shipping out the badges to everyone. Someone's got to have a catalogue with something that can help with that."

"Exactly! Plus it'll be a show of force, getting them stuff even when they're a bit hidden," Lucy said. "And it'll serve as an invitation at the same time."

"Right, right," I said.

I looked down, disappointed to see that the plate was empty.

So I lifted it up and licked the remaining sauce off, only to look up and see Lucy shaking her head, a small smile on her lips. "That's awful, Cat," she said. "Come on, I think I can put that tongue to much better use."

Oh! Yes, this was proving to be a good evening.

***