Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Twenty-Six - So That Is How It Feels

"The problem with tiddy bars and clubs isn't that no one loves tiddies. Everyone loves tiddies. The problem is that they're a product of a repressed society. You go there to see something that's magical and spectacular and cool.

But what's the point when I can stream live 4K mommy milkers in every shape and colour and bounciness right into my retinas?"

--Economist Buck Downs on the collapse of the sports bar, 2038

***

I slipped out of the class, very aware of the samurai slinking along a step behind me. Nya was being quiet, which was an excellent time to look up what I was dealing with. A browser opened in my augs, and I typed in Nya... which wasn't helpful. 'Nya the Japanese Samurai' did bring up a lot more.

There was this one ancient site, built like, twenty years before I was born, called Samuwiki. It was one of those editable wiki-forums, partially online and partially embedded on the mesh. It was also a hot mess of old forum rivalries, stupid mod power plays, and the usual old-internet shitfuckery.

Nya had a page.

I opened a second tab, then looked at my own page. It was... surprisingly sparse? Like, there were a few pictures, and a rough time-line of the stuff I'd done as a samurai, but other than a subsection about shooting the mayor, and what I'd done in Burlington and with the Big Gun, there really wasn't much.

Those internet nerds needed to get their crap together and populate my page a little more.

Or... maybe not. It might be for the best that there wasn't too much stuff online about me.

Nya's page was way, way longer. There were sections with a small marker indicating that they'd been translated from their original Japanese, which made sense. Even ignoring those, she had a long track record. I looked for an estimated time since she became a samurai and didn't find anything exact, just a rough guess from the people on the forum that placed her debut at around 2051.

That was six years back.

Her record was pretty good past that. Lots of appearances in incursions around South-East Asia, not just Japan, and she had a bit of a cult following spreading the joy of... cat ownership. That being people that claimed that they were owned by their cats, which was weird but probably harmless?

"So, uh, you've been a samurai for a while?" I asked.

Nya's face lit up as I actually addressed her. That was kind of weird. She was in the business for way longer, and was probably at the 'orbital bombardment is easy' stage of shit. She didn't need to get excited on seeing me.

"N'yeah!" she said. "I've been one for a long, long time now! It's tough, but it's also a satisfying job."

I nodded. "And... why are you here? Yeah, I know, to make friends, but really? People don't fly around the globe to just poke in and chat. I'm sure there's a dozen newbie samurai around Japan that could use some help."

"Fewer than you might think, actually," she said. "But yeah, there's a number of them. But do you know how many have links to the Sunwatchers?"

"The... the Sunwatchers?" I asked. I glanced down at my arm, the metal-y one. It was from my Sunwatcher Technologies catalogue. One of the only Catalogues that I'd tiered-up. "The weird aliens?"

"Weird!" Nya exclaimed with a gasp so theatrical it had to be fake. "They are majestic beings! Big and strong, and very fuzzy-looking!"

"I can genuinely not tell if you're messing with me, or if this is going to eventually lead to something serious," I said.

Nya shook her head. "Nope! Nothing serious. I just like Sunwatcher stuff. Did you know that you can buy videos of their plays? Even with really good translations, they don't make any sense."

"They have plays?" I asked.

"They don't have TV!"

"Really?" I asked. It struck me as weird that an advanced alien race that could pop out massive warmechs and top-end prosthetics didn't have TV. "Not even movies? Do they have like, books?"

"Sorta!" she said. "They're like scrolls, and they come in little wooden boxes with a twisty handle on the side to scroll through."

"That sounds stupid," I said.

"It's cute!"

I blinked, then eyed Nya from the corner of my eye. "So... did you really come all the way here just to gush over aliens that we both happen to be tangentially connected to?"

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Nya grinned, and I knew then that she was full of shit. "Do you know how to play any instruments?" she asked. "Or sing?"

"No?" I said.

"Do you want to learn?" she asked.

"Also no. What's that about?" I asked.

Nya waved her arms around, then made motion as if... playing a guitar. "I play! And sing pretty nice too! There's a Columbian ronin called Panterra who has a panther theme. He's a drummer, and there's a ronin from East Timor called Kitty Civet who plays the babadok and the flute, at the same time!"

I shook my head. "What?"

"Cat!"

I turned, then smiled as I found Lucy sprinting my way. My arms opened of their own accord and Lucy crashed into me, only to laugh as I spun around and shifted the impact into a twirl. "Hi," I said.

"Hi!" she said back. Then she gave my cheek a peck, and I found that the mounting annoyance I felt with Nya wasn't so bad after all.

"Hiyo!" Nya said. "Are you Cat's friend?"

Lucy blinked, then smiled big and beautiful at Nya. "I'm Lucy! And you could say that! I'm her friend who's a girl. I like your body amour. Is that a tail? Cat, why does she have a tail and you don't?"

"I have one... sometimes," I muttered.

"I'm Nya!" Nya said. "If you're Cat's friend, then you should help me convince her to join my band! We're Nya and the Caterwaulers!"

Lucy gasped.

"No," I said.

"But Cat! The only thing hotter than a samurai is a musician. Think of all the hot bitches you could pull. I'd be one of them!"

"No, I'm not joining a band just to have you be a groupie," I said. "I don't even know any instruments."

"Oh!" Nya said. She clapped her hands, and a moment later a box appeared that she caught out of the air. It was also covered in chibi cats. I saw the light go off in Lucy's eyes as she made the obvious connection. Then Nya handed me the box. "Gift!"

"Uh," I said before slowly prying it open. What else was I supposed to do? Toss it? "What... is that?" I asked as I stared at a small, plastic thing. It was bright pink, with... whiskers sticking out of its sides?

"It's a recorder!"

I shook my head. "This is a lame instrument, and I don't even know much about music. Couldn't you have gotten something cool? Like... a guitar, or uh." I paused. I really didn't know jack about musical instruments.

Fortunately, Lucy did, at least a little. "If you learned the violin or the fiddle, you'd be way hotter," she said. "Oh, and the sax. That breathing control, and like, jazz is super cool."

"I can get you those," Nya said. "I have a tier three musical instruments catalogue!"

Why the hell did she have that? "No thanks," I said. "I don't want to join your band."

"But it's so cool! Nya!"

"It's so cool, nya!" Lucy agreed.

I poked her in the short ribs. Not hard, but enough to make her laugh and flinch in surprise. "Don't encourage her," I warned.

Lucy raised both hands over her head, cupping them to imitate cat ears. "Nyan? But n'you'd be so cutesy on stage with your widdle recorder, all puffy cheeks and trying too hard, nyan!"

I reached over and pulled Lucy into a hug, then started to muss her head. "I want a divorce," I said.

"No! Nya, save me! This is abuse! Abuse!" Lucy shouted dramatically.

"Oh nyo!" Nya said. She started to pull things out of her pockets, as if to distract me. Little jingly toys on a chain, a ball that fired little red lasers all over, a can of tuna. Did she really have all of that on her or was it some sort of stupid trick?

"Nope! There's no stopping me! I'm dating a cute girl, not a weird cat. I refuse," I said.

Nya gasped. "Miss Lucy, no! Leave her alone, Stray Cat! She was our number one New Montreal Fan!"

"What does that even mean?" I asked. "Wait... is your band even a real thing?"

"It is! The others haven't agreed yet, but it's only a matter of time!"

It hit me then. Nya really had come over to North America just to fuck around. Maybe there was some alternative motive hidden in there somewhere, but if it was, I suspected that it was buried pretty deep under a layer of wanting to mess around and just have fun.

"I'm not joining your band," I said, putting my foot down. "No matter what you say."

***