I woke up to the sound of scratching. I smiled; I knew who it was. Sure enough, when I cracked an eye open, I found a pair of vertical pupils staring back at me. Pentium sure was cute when he wanted something...
When he noticed I was awake, he started purring and hopped up on the bed beside me, to nuzzle his head into mine. Apparently he was quite hungry, so I got into my chair and wheeled over to the cupboard I kept his food in. Pentium rode on my lap until I stopped, then hopped down and mewled expectantly as I prepared his food and set the dish down for him, whereupon he purred loudly as he tucked-in.
I yawned and stretched, then wheeled over to my bedside cabinet and retrieved my mobile-phone; Hmm, '1 new message'...
'K. wants to meet at her place, you up for it?'
I looked at the timestamp - "Damn!" I exclaimed, realizing how long ago it had been sent. I hastily tapped out a reply:
'I just woke up & saw the msg u sent ages ago; Did I miss the meeting? If not, shall I come by car or by air?'
As I hit 'Send' I remembered why I'd fallen asleep: I'd exhausted myself practising the morphs I'd acquired at The Gardens. As my eyes scanned the appartment, I saw various hints of the morphs that REALLY didn't like being cooped up in this enclosed space. Despite the damage, it made me glad I'd practised alone where I couldn't hurt anyone. My eyes also zeroed-in on tattered pieces of fabric that had once been underwear and swimming-trunks. I looked down and was pleased that the underwear I had on right now had made it through my last few morphs intact.
I got myself washed and dressed while I waited for Torrence's SMS-reply...
I smiled when Samantha petted Kasey-Lab's head. As she pulled back again, she asked my name. "It's Cherise, Cherise Ayre." I supplied, keeping the faux-name Torrence had given me and adding a surname of my own imagination.
Torrence's attempt to 'accidentally' get a feel of what might be in the clothes seemed to spook Samantha, as she made her excuse and tried walking away from us again.
Kasey suddenly informed us via private thought-speak that Samantha's passenger was a snake of some kind. Then she asked me if I thought these two could be Andalites. Well, she didn't actually say 'Andalites' but I knew that's what she meant.
I knew Samantha was no Andalite, of course: I could tell that much just by our conversation. But what of the snake? Yes, it could be a morph... That would usually mean Andalite, but then again they had taken the Escafil, so it could just as easily be a Human in morph. I scrutinized the clothing further - Menswear. Something an Andalite wouldn't necessarily pick to cloth a human morph... I wished I could thought-speak so I could answer Kasey privately, but although I had started working on it my thoughtspeech-upgrade wasn't ready for testing yet.
As Samantha pressed the clothes to her side, my sensors picked up a faint thought-speak signal from her general direction - The snake? - Samantha picked up speed, veering off to one side through someone's yard into some trees where I temporarily lost sight of her.
Kasey told Torrence to let go of her leash, which she did, then she went tearing off after Samantha like it was some kind of game. As Torrence let go, she disguised the move with an exclamation to 'Cherise' about it. I picked up my pace to remain halfway between Kasey and Torrence.
Out of the blue, I heard Torrence's Cell beep, probably to tell her she'd received an SMS. This gave me an idea how I could talk to Kasey: I made my Cell ring with a fake incoming-call, took it out and answered it, talking loudly:
"Hello? Oh, hi Kasey! I'm glad you called - You know that thing you asked me? I think you might be right, or half-right anyway. Why don't you try talking to it? I know you're scared of talking to answering-machines, but maybe they'll answer when they hear your voice?" I waited, as if listening to the person on the end of the phone, while I actually was waiting to see if Kasey responded via thought-speak. I hoped my code hadn't been too cryptic for her... 'answering machine' was code for the snake. I figured if it was someone in morph, they'd be more likely to answer if they heard thoughtspeak. On the other hand, if Samantha was a Controller, we didn't want to give ourselves away to her.
While I waited, I saw Samantha reappear, making a transparent excuse for why she'd dissapeared on us without a proper 'goodbye', then promptly supplying that proper farewell.
