Cat's in the cradle (Melia and Taliesin)

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Matt sighed again and scratched his head, but inside, his heart warmed a bit. He reached out and pet her head. Well... maybe having a cat around wouldn't be such a bad thing. He did live a rather lonely life, after all. And this wouldn't be the first time this had happened, though the last dog that had made Matt's home it's own had been long since gone.

"Alright. You can stay there. But I'm widing a weally long way, cat, and if your home is around here somewhere, your family is going to miss you..." Not that she had a collar or anything. Maybe she was a stray. "And it's gonna be a bit of a bumpy ride for you. But... you can hop off at any time you want to, I suppose... I-I better check maybe if anyone knows who you belong to..." He hurried back to the building and pounded on the door ruthlessly. It opened and the man that Matt had been talking to earlier looked slightly exasperated, but after listening to Matt's exaggerated, arm waving spiel, he walked out with Matt to look at the cat.

The other man was blond, and wore his hair a bit longer than Matt did. This was Mr. Howard, the owner of the company Matt visited almost every day. He was an animal lover and smiled brightly, showing perfectly straight white teeth, the instant he laid eyes on Kristie. "Hey little kitty!" He said brightly, petting her, then looked towards Matt and shook his head. "No, I've never seen her around here before. Looks like she likes you." In Mr. Howard's mind, Matt definitely needed a pet or something and was more than willing to encourage this new bond. "Take her with you. If she's still there when you get home, you've got a new pet."

"Right..." Matt mumbled, looking at Kristie again, then shrugged. Mr. Howard went back inside and left Matt alone with Kristie again. He looked at the sky again, then removed his jacket and laid it over her back, tucking the ends under the box so it wouldn't fly away. "In case it rains again," he explained to her, as if a cat could understand him. Not that that had ever stopped him from talking to completely inanimate objects most of the time. At least this one had ears.

He got back on his bike and made the long trek home, stopping at a small convenience store to pick up some cat food and litter. "What a good cat..." he murmured when he still found her sitting there when he returned back outside. He finished the ride home and debated whether he should let her come inside or not, but decided to let her make that choice. He left the door open to the house as he brought his box inside, along with the cat litter and food.
 
Kristie never ceased to marvel at the fact that no one ever thought her more than an oddly colored cat. She couldn't complain though, it certainly served her purposes. She was actually kind of touched that he not just tried to see if she had any other owners but actually covered her up. She had a feeling this was going to be one of her more pleasant stints as a cat. She happily curled up and took another nap, appreciating the return trip a great deal more than her trip out.

Kristie stretched and leaped down when they stopped, looking around his house again just in case she had missed something before and because it was to be expected. As he headed inside though she quickly darted after him, not wanting to be left outside, it would defeat the whole purpose of the trip.

Once inside she took a much more leisurely stroll around the place after taking a moment to twine around Matt's legs in that death defying action cat's couldn't seem to resist. She then worked her way around the room, sniffing in all the corners and finding spots on the carpet to roll around on and spread her scent like any normal cat would. The entire time she was purring up a storm and was already leaving hair spotted around as she brushed up against everything.
 
Matt wore a lot of black. It was generally a color that suited him. However now he was beginning to regret the color choice as the cat's red hair showed up starkly against it. He moaned. Oh yes. He remembered one of the reasons he didn't like animals. And it was so red... The color reminded him of something but he couldn't quite remember what. He brushed some of the hair off his pants and went to find a box to pour the litter in. He couldn't find anything that quite resembled a litter box and finally settled for an old cake pan. It wasn't like he really made cake anyway. Then he set out a bowl of water and a bowl of food next to it in the kitchen. Once finished he set about making himself a quick dinner of rice and beans and finally with an exhausted sigh sat down on the couch. "Too much bike riding for the day," he said to the cat. "Should probably name you... Since it seems like you're sticking around. What about Ginger? Cos of the red hair. Sorry I'm not very creative with these sorts of things... Hmm."

He stood up, "Anyway... I gotta check my stocks and proxies and stuff." He moved toward the computer room and unlocked the door. "You'll probably like this room cos it's warm. And I think cats usually like warm spots. Just don't you dare mess with the computers. You can only be in here when I'm in here, okay? So I can keep an eye on you..."

He sat down at what he considered his 'main terminal' and started typing away. On one monitor he had his bank accounts pulled up to watch the way the numbers changed. Each account had extremely massive amounts of money in them. More money than some countries. On the desk beside the keyboard there was a checklist which he went through multiple times a day.

He had set up numerous proxies an proxies of proxies and even had some computers set up in other parts of the world that he remoted in to to keep his technological footprints entirely masked and random. Each bank account had it's own path and it's own purpose. No account pulled money from the same source unless he had meticulously researched the ability to make everything appear random. Everything he had set up was meticulous, in fact. And he monitored those that monitored these things.

That was where the hacking came in. Sometimes someone would get suspicious on something that he was doing. Or someone would notice it and suddenly he would see one of his IP addresses on a government monitor site. He would watch it for awhile and if it didn't disappear for a few days he would dig in and reroute to tangle everything up.

He knew they were watching for people like him but there wasn't any reason he couldn't watch those that were watching him. At least in his mind. Despite that being slightly illegal. He was a conspiracy theorist through and through so he took these things into his own hands.

He didn't bother talking to the cat as he became engrossed in his work. That little stint with the laptop had certainly caused a little blip in the radar but in the end it was well enough under control. There were much much worse situations he had dealt with.

He set the computer to back up and then stretched, padding sleepily to his bedroom across the hall after shutting up the computer room and making sure it was cat free. His bedroom was a very simple room with nothing more than a bed and a small dresser. The ceiling was slanted from the low roof at this part of the house, but it was never a problem for him because he was so short. The walls were covered with an old floral wallpaper that was probably as old as the house itself. The paper was yellowed and peeling in some places. He changed into pajamas and crawled under the sheets falling asleep almost immediately.
 
Kristie did not stop marking up the house until Matt was done eating and sitting down. She settled contently next to him, though her ears kept twitching back and forth as he spoke and she didn't seem too impressed by his name. Of course she already had one so it didn't matter much anyway. She had to force herself not to dart immediately into the computer room and go crazy. She made herself wait a good couple of minutes before entering the room and starting to wander around it, not overtly paying attention to anything in particular but just checking all the corners as she had been doing in all the previous rooms.

Once she was satisfied she had a decent grasp of all there was in the room she settled near him and just watched. She almost tried to stay in there but reluctantly moved out when she saw him double checking to make sure she left. It wasn't like it was locked up in any way that could actually deter her. She wandered into the bedroom and flicked her ears in a very unimpressed fashion, feeling a strong urge to just dig her claws into what she considered some of the more horrid wallpaper she had ever seen.

For a while she just silently padded around the house, double checking her observations and letting him fall more deeply asleep. Then she strode over to the computer room and with a practice motion opened the door with her paws. She sauntered up to the main terminal unblinkingly for several moments before slightly awkwardly starting to study his system more thoroughly. She could have changed into her human or neko form to make it easier but that was a bit more risk than she felt like taking at the moment.

She was somewhat bemused to realize that she had finally encountered someone who was more paranoid than her, though she hadn't the faintest idea why. Sure he was doing quite a few questionably legal stuff that the government probably would be too happy with but…she let out a soft wuff, the cat equivalent of a laugh as she had to admit herself a bit impressed. Just as well he was definitely anti-government, she really didn't need them getting the help of this sort of person.

She set everything back the way it had been when she let herself in then and pushed her way out the door, slowly nosing it until it closed with a soft click. At that point she decided she was quite hungry and wandered over to the food bowel, which she sniffed delicately and then just as delicately backed away. She had not been desperate enough to eat dry cat food since her very early life on the streets. She had no intention of starting again now. It wasn't like the man would be put to hardship by feeding her something a bit nicer.

She took care of nature's business then and decided she would deal with the food issue in the morning. She returned to the room of horrid wallpaper and leapt lightly onto his bed, walking right onto his chest and kneading through the blankets until she was content. She then curled up into a ball once more and dozed off quickly.
 
Long ago, Matt had done away with an alarm clock. He had trained his body since a very early age to go to bed late and wake up early, even on the weekends. Though weekends didn't generally mean a whole lot to him anyway, since he didn't work any kind of job, though he would argue that he worked very hard, which he did. When he woke he found Kristie curled up on his chest. For a moment it surprised him and he wondered how this cat had gotten here, but soon he remembered she had come home with him last night. He pet her a few times before very carefully maneuvering out from under her to go take a quick shower.

The bathroom, like the rest of the house was old and dingy. Though he kept it relatively clean (or typical bachelor clean, anyhow) the tub and shower were rusting, the toilet bowl had lost most of it's ceramic glaze and had permanent rings and stains. The sink dripped and had even formed a sort of stalactite on the faucet, which he never bothered to break off and the paint was almost completely chipped off the window sill. The mirror was tinged green, had tarnished spots all over it, and was possibly a valued antique, if he ever bothered to check.

Breakfast was eggs, toast, and a glass of milk.

Once he was done with that he went out into his backyard to check the functioning of the windmill and solar panels. Everything there was working just fine. He went to the small shed he had in the back corner and pulled out a piece of plywood which he carried around to the front and nailed over the hole in the porch. It was shoddy work, at best, but he didn't much care about appearances. Nobody else in the neighborhood did, and he was fine with that. He kept a stock of wood in the shed, for repairs such as this one, which needed to happen more frequently than he liked. At least his roof was in good shape. That he had made sure of when he installed the solar panels. And that was the most important part anyway.

Today he'd stay at home, get to know the new cat, and get a little bit of reading out of the way.
 
Kristie barely even stirred when he got up, even when he moved her. She was still recovering from chasing him all over town and then 20 freaking miles out yesterday. The smell of somewhat more appetizing food convinced her that it was time to get up and move around then. She meandered out of his room and made another loop of the house. All of the open areas anyway. Once satisfied she wandered outside to watch him and wait for the right moment to deal with her pressing hunger issue. She could just wander off and get something before coming back but why do that when she could just train him up and have good food with much less effort.

So, when he went back inside to settle down for the day she followed him in, making a point to almost trip him with her winding around his feet. At that point she then sat down in front of his feet, and if he moved around her she sat in front of his feet again, tapping his foot pointedly with her paw. Once she had his attention she started walking towards her food bowl, looking back at him with a 'come along' expression.

In front of her food bowl she sat down once again, staring up at him as if that would magically transfer what she wanted him to know into his mind. Which somehow tended to actually work. It was easy to read cats if you knew them and with a 'cat' as smart as her she could take nonverbal communication to a whole new level. She had had a lot of practice with it over the years and as a cat she could get away with being pretty demanding as well, because that was expected of cats.
 
Matt looked down at Kristie. She was looking at him so very expectantly. "You've got food there, though..." he mumbled, confused. Wolfie had always just eaten whatever he'd put in front of him. Were cats really that particular? He stooped down, holding out a piece of food for her. "Are you hungry?" When she still wouldn't eat it he stood up and rubbed a hand through his hair, which made it stand on end. When all else fails, consult google. He pulled out his iPhone and punched in 'why won't my cat eat?'

Of course this yielded terrifying results first. The cat is sick. It's having kidney problems. Or liver failure. The sure result was: Death. But finally he stumbled on a forum that was specifically for new cat owners and found his answer. Cat's can be picky eaters. Ah ha.

"Do you not like the food? Is that it?" He popped the piece of food he'd held out for her into his mouth and crunched down on it, making a face. "Ew, no I wouldn't like eating that either. Do you want some of my eggs?" He held out his plate letting her sniff at it. If she didn't want to eat the good food then he would worry about taking her to the veterinarian. But if she ate this, then he figured it must be the food.
 
Kristie watched him with a mixture of annoyance and bafflement. Obviously he had not been around cats much before; they were only notoriously picky eaters. On the bright side he was competent enough to find the answer in a semi-timely manner via google. Her ears perked up when he offered her the eggs and she rewarded him with a rumbling purr. She would have settled for getting normal wet cat food but if he was going to share normal food with her then she was hardly going to complain.

She wolfed down the offering in a few large bites and licked the plate for good measure before twining around his legs once again. The bottoms of his pants were starting to look decidedly red tinted. What she really wanted to do was cheekily pat him on the head and say 'good boy' but that wasn't really possible in her situation and would probably not be appreciated either way.

She did however then hop up on the couch and look at him with her tail twitching invitingly, kneading the arm of the chair while she waited for him.
 
Well, it seemed she liked the eggs. Matt shrugged and put the plate in the sink and went back over to sit on the saggy couch. He knew enough that feeding dogs human food was generally not so great for their digestion so he googled more on cats. He truly did not understand their behavior at all. But he did appreciate Kristie's mellowness as compared to Wolfie's.

"Why do you do that? What are you doing?" He asked of her watching her knead the arm of the couch. "What even is that is there a purpose?" He consulted his google search. "Apparently it means you're content. Well alright. That's good."

"Mm.." He felt restless already, sitting at home so wandered into the computer room where he went through his checklist again, then sat down to do some serious research.

Mr. Howard had designed a human sized centrifuge that it was not ideal for the circumstances was better than nothing. The only problem was the bigger it was, the better, but that also caused problems. Matt could feel Mr. Howard's frustration when when he wasn't around.

"Well I'm not sorry," he told Kristie. He flipped to a web page displaying a blurry picture of a star called Tau Ceti and procrastinated his actual research to read up on the discoveries surrounding the star and it's planets, then glanced at Kristie.

"I'm gonna go there, y'know. Be the first human to accomplish interstellar travel. There's two planets there that are habitable, apparently. I wanna go there. Don't tell anyone though. Do you know how fast people would be all over me if they knew what I was planning? Not that you can talk who am I kidding. A pet is actually weally nice. I can talk at you and not worry about you saying anything to anyone."

He flipped back to the centrifuge research. "Except see this centrifuge is really big and heavy. The more energy it takes to launch something the less energy can go towards acceleration, which I need... A lot of." He chewed on his lip. "Ideally the centrifuge should be at least four times my height in diameter cos it's supposed to be my source of gravity for the trip. But that's... Weally really big." He started to chew on the sleeve of his jumper and sighed, staring intently at the screen. "I know it seems really impossible. But I don't care. He government is way too preoccupied with military junk to focus on this. Not enough research. But I know with enough funding someone can figure it out. And that's what... All this is for..." He gestured toward the terminals and the bank accounts all pulled up.
 
Kristie followed him into the computer room, settling with two legs over either side of the back of his chair and occasionally nosing his hair while she dozed, keeping half an eye on what he was looking at. She blinked to full consciousness as he spoke to her, wondering what the heck he was not sorry about.

Whatever it was, she stopped caring very shortly as he continued to speak. She was again somewhat surprised and impressed with his audacity though there were definitely a few holes in his plan that she could see, aside from the obvious one he was having issues with. Of course she couldn't say anything right now and his comments about how nice it was to have her as a pet both almost made her feel guilty but mostly she felt amused. If only he knew what he was talking about.

Not that she had any intention of bruiting about what he was up to. She was here purely to satisfy her curiosity and perhaps amuse herself for a while. It was limiting in some ways to act purely as a cat, but in other ways there was a lot of freedom in it. Speaking of, she decided it had been too long since she had been spoiled and proceeded to climb over his shoulder and into his lap, purring and kneading just a bit on his lap. She was already planning the best way to sneak out of the house so she could go about her usual business as he slept. Working from a different base of operations for a while to throw off the police wouldn't be terrible as well.
 
Kristie climbed into his lap and he took a break to pet her, cooing her 'name' as he stroked her glossy fur. "You're a pretty girl aren't you, Ginger?" He said as he scratched her under her chin. The kneading in his lap felt like a massage and her warmth in his lap made him feel sleepy. When he finished the petting session he got up to make himself some tea and then settled on the couch to read one of the research papers.

At this point he'd gotten enough of the basic ideas of the more complicated aspects of physics so he could understand about 80 percent of the papers. The math still boggled him but that was why he had enlisted the help of mr. Howard, who still thought his project impossible but would help him to satiate his own curiosities and conduct research in areas he would have otherwise never been able to afford.

Matt wasn't particularly exciting on his research days. However he did finally take a break to fix himself dinner, making sure to prepare enough extra for Kristie. Then he called it an early night.
 
Kristie had a feeling she was going to get really tired of being called 'Ginger' very quickly but she could hardly complain when she was getting spoiled at the moment. She mostly napped through the rest of the day, saving her energy for her nightly escapades. She stirred only to gobble up her share of dinner before apparently curling up next to him on the bed.

As soon as he was asleep however she uncurled and slipped off the bed, moving silently through the house to one of the windows. She could just let herself out the door but that would be conspicuous not to mention a little dangerous towards Matt and as she had no malicious intents towards him that was definitely not on the menu.

She leapt up onto the windowsill, examining the window to see if she could maneuver it as a cat but despite several tries it was just too stuck to manage with this small body. She then reluctantly turned into her human form crouching low so no one saw her through the window and determinedly worked the window open. She quickly changed back into her cat form then and wriggled through the tiny space, having to dig her claws in a bit to manage.

Then she was off like a flash into the night. She was not gone more than 3, maybe 4 hours but by the time she got back she kind of felt a bit high from the perfume that now seemed to radiate from her. She made a mental note to not steal from old ladies with bad taste anymore. She spent a good hour cleaning herself once she snuck back into the house and felt like it had done absolutely nothing. She did make a point to close the window before lying in a miserable heap in the middle of the living room floor. She could only hope Matt was brave enough to try and give her a bath she supposed, or she would have to sneak out tomorrow night just to take one.
 
Matt woke up sneezing, nonstop, one after the other. He staggered half blind into the bathroom where he grabbed at some toilet paper to dab at his nose and eyes to try and stop the sneezing.

"Why...?" he mumbled, feeling horribly betrayed by something in the air, just before another sneeze attack came on. Was he allergic to cats? He'd been fine the night before...

He wandered watery-eyed around the house, looking for Kristie to see if she really was the culprit of this allergy attack. He found her curled up on the floor and smelling horribly of some pungent old lady perfume. "Why?" he asked again, sneezing so hard he stumbled backward. Regretfully, he picked her up and hauled her out to the front porch where he left her while he dug around his medicine cabinet looking for some kind of allergy medicine. All he could find was some old Benedryl. Perfume. The bane of his existence. He could handle it in small doses. And even sometimes wore a bit of cologne himself. But some old ladies doused themselves so completely in it's strength that they had entirely fried their own sense of smell. That was the kind of perfume that bothered him. And that was the kind of perfume that seemed to be emanating from Kristie.

He swallowed two tablets of the Benedryl and sat down on the lid of the toilet, pinching the bridge of his nose to prevent himself from getting a nose bleed from all the harsh sneezing. Finally, when he could feel the medication taking effect he went back outside with some shampoo. It was still dark as it was quite early morning. But he picked up Kristie and took her round back to where he kept a garden hose.

"I amb sindcerely sorry, Kiddy, bud you need a badth. I dnow catd's hate badths..."

He turned the hose on to a trickle. The water was cold, but he refused to bring her back into the house until she was clean. He ran the water over his cupped hand before slowly dumping it over her and then working the shampoo in.

"Whad you even ged indo? I dom't eben hab stuff like thad in by house." He coughed a bit and began the rinsing process. "Oh. I forgod a towel. Stay here I'll be rightd bacgk."

He hurried inside and grabbed a clean, dry towel from the cabinet in the bathroom and hurried back out to wrap Kristie up in it's fluffy dryness. He carried her back inside and started a fire in the fireplace for her to warm up and dry herself off by. "I brobably should'ntd do this. That's stuff's so strong it will probably blow by house up..." But he knew flame also helped burn up scents. It was a known odor reducer. That's why candles were so effective. He also cracked all the windows open except for his front windows, which he never ever felt safe to have open, ever. The adjacent neighbors all left him alone because of the windmill so he didn't really have to worry about them. He did worry what the kids down the street would ever do if they saw his windows open though, despite the bars over them.

Speaking of windows...

"Did you go out the window?" he wondered, noticing the perfume scent stronger by one particular window. There were faint claw marks in the chipped paint and the telltale red fur. "How--?" he eyed Kristie suspiciously.
 
Kristie hardly even twitched when he picked her up, she may or may not actually have been a bit high from the fumes and she really just wanted it all to go away. She was in fact probably the best behaved cat ever while getting hosed off, aside from shivering and letting out a few sneezes herself. It was all worth the indignity to not smell like old woman anymore.

She was so focused in her mix of misery and release that she wasn't even really listening to him or else she would have been clued to the fact that he might be getting a bit suspicious in time to distract him. As it was she was determinedly licking herself dry when she felt a stronger gaze than usual on her and paused in her licking to look up at him. It was about that moment that her mind caught up with the background noise of his chatter.

Shit… was her only though for several moments, followed by don't put your ears back, don't put your ears back! It was incredibly hard to resist. That was the problem being caught off guard in her animal form, animals did not know secrecy. They showed everything they felt if not thought in their body signals. She was focusing so hard on her ears she couldn't stop the thrashing of her tail until it was too late.

She decided to play it off as being annoyed with being wet and after her best innocent 'why are you looking at me like that?' pose went back to cleaning herself as if nothing had ever happened. She was however prepared to bolt at any time. He had conveniently left the windows open though they were tighter than what she had gone through last night. They would be easier to open that way however and that was going to be her best bet to get out of here before things escalated.
 
The Benadryl was starting to take strong effect now. It helped the sneezing but it also had bad side effects, making him very drowsy and making his head feel a bit like it was filling with helium. He probably shouldn't have take two Benadryl since he was such a small person. He sat on the couch, still watching Kristie and blinking drowsily. He would be absolutely worthless for the entire day tomorrow because of the dumb Benadryl now.

He lay down tugging an old blanket he had hanging over the back of the couch over him. He didn't understand cat body language at all. Her ears had twitched a few times and she had wagged her tail. Which on a dog meant he was happy. He assumed it was the same for cats.

It still baffled him how she could have either gotten that smell from inside his house or gone out the window. Though he supposed it was possible she had just been sitting in the window sill. Still. He didn't keep perfume in the house and wasn't like he'd had a girlfriend who had ever left anything like that laying around. He'd never had a girlfriend, in fact...

He pondered this as he drifted asleep, his concern for it waning as the drowsiness overcame him.

When he finally awoke later it was well into the late morning. The fire had died out and he groggily got up to get some food. He'd meant to take a ride to the post office today and perhaps go visit Mr. Howard but now he wasn't sure if he could physically function enough to do those things. He greatly disliked feeling physically held back as he was usually very energetic.

This is why drugs are bad, Matt. Still, it was better than going to the doctor...who were probably keen to prescribe even worse drugs than the Benadryl.

At least the perfume smell was mostly gone now.
 
Kristie watched him until he fell asleep before flopping down on the towel and sighing softly in relief. That had been a little too close. Obviously she didn't think her best when high on bad perfume. She probably would not stay too much longer if he seemed too suspicious but she still wanted to monitor him so she pondered her options while he slept. The most obvious was to take advantage of her being here to set up some sort of bug so she could monitor his progress via his computers. He was rather paranoid but since no one other than her ever got into this house she doubted he would be on the lookout for that sort of thing.

She dozed about as long as he did, letting the nasty perfume high work its way out of her system before she even considered doing anything again. She had gotten far too sloppy while under its influence. Once he was up she uncurled herself and followed him into the kitchen like nothing had happened, jumping up onto the counter and otherwise just making sure his groggy self remembered she was there and thus made enough for her as well.

While Matt was feeling not so great she was feeling much more energetic now. She twitched her tail in what was actually a friendly manner and strolled up to rub at his arm, her ears perked and all the way forward. This was also a good way to test his suspicion level and how quickly she needed to get things set up.
 
"Hey, Ginger," he said, scratching at the base of Kristie's tail, having forgotten all about the earlier incident now. "What should we have for lunch, hmm? I've got some rice and um..." He dug through the freezer. "An old package of sausage... That I don't think is any good anymore." He tossed it in the trash. "Potatoes are always good with a bit of butter." He got a bowl out and poured her a bit of milk, unaware how hard milk was on a cat's digestive system.

In the end he threw some potatoes in the oven and fried up some eggs with cheese because it was easy and he didn't feel like cooking anything more complicated than that.

Once he was done eating he decided to try and get to the post office. It was only a twenty minute bike ride for him one way so he thought he might be able to handle that despite the still lingering side effects of the Benadryl. He left out enough food for Kristie and then went outside.

"I'll be back soon, so be good Ginger," he called as he was closing and locking the door.
 
Kristie purred contently, relieved that everything seemed to have gone back to normal. She sniffed at the milk but only seemed mildly interested in it at best. It wouldn't bother as much being not a normal cat but she just wasn't much of a fan of milk anyway. She lapped up a few gulps before sitting back and leaving it be to watch him cook.

She took her time eating the remains of his food wanting to make sure he wasn't going to suddenly reappear before standing up and stretching with a sigh. Today had been a tiring day for her as well. She wandered over to the compute room door, staring at the doorknob consideringly. Finally she decided that she would hear him coming in time to get back out into the main room. So she once again reached up and expertly twisted the knob, letting herself in to peruse the screens once more. She was as impressed this time as the time before.

This time though she was on a bit of a mission. She opened up a browser and started an email to Tessa to get some parts she needed to make a bug. It took forever it seemed as a cat and she heard the familiar sound of his bike coming down the street just as she had finished. She hissed softly and quickly logged out of the email, dashing out the door and hurriedly closing in behind her, yelping as a couple hairs from her tail got stuck in the door. By the time he got past the 9 locks though she was sitting innocently on the back of the couch, cleaning herself as if nothing had happened. She hoped he would just go to bed without checking his computers. She'd closed the window but she was all too aware that browsers tended to open up whatever was running last rather than the home page if set that way.
 
Matt was exhausted when he got home. There hadn't been much at the post office to have really made the trip worthwhile but oh well. He was just upset at how worthless the Benadryl had made him.

However it was absolutely necessary he still go through his daily routine with the computers. Missing days was too risky for him.

He sat down at the computer with a tired sigh, wishing more than anything he could just go to bed. But it was like growing up on the farm. Someone had to feed the animals. Someone had to take care of the encryption.

It was strange that the monitor was already awake. He squinted at it in suspicion, clicking on the browser window. Immediately his internal alarms were going off. Someone had been in his house! He immediately checked the browser history and was practically on his feet in panic. Whoever it was had done a sloppy cover up job- he'd only been gone for an hour! And he'd locked all the doors so how?

Furiously he began typing, tracing the routes the site had followed. All unsecured. Completely unencrypted. How careless. "Ohhh what damage have you done?"

He immediately started going through all his sites, changing passwords and scrambling his proxies around. It may not have been necessary but it was better to be safe than sorry. Once he'd done all that he went back and tried to trace what he could but it was nearly impossible.

"Damnit, what did you do?" Nothing was missing. Nothing was otherwise changed. Then his eyes widened and he scrambled down on his hands and knees to examine the physical hardware of the computer to check if there were any bugs. He stayed up most of the night going through everything. Checking his phone lines for being tapped, going back and rescrambling his knot of proxies and remote access. Finally he reset the whole computer password and made sure it was locked. He shouldn't have left the computer unlocked in the first place. That had been stupid. He locked the door to the computer room after that, mumbling about having to get multiple deadlocks for that room now too. Once done with that he began working around the edges of the house, looking for evidence of someone getting in. There wasn't any which further increased his paranoia. Finally he sat himself down in the middle of the living room, guzzling the blackest of teas to keep himself awake, afraid to fall asleep or leave in case someone got in.
 
Kristie's ears flattened to the back of her head as he went towards the computer room. She knew this was going to be bad. There was little to link it to her but there were too many obvious clues as to the fact that his computer had been tampered with. She was afraid even to go in but made herself slip in through the door watching warily as he started to panic. She hadn't done anything that endangered him, her email code had not been cracked yet, there was nothing to gain suspicion of anyone important.

He didn't know that of course and there was no way she was going to tell him at the moment so she supposed it was inevitable. She lay next to the door and watched him in bemused silence. She was starting to feel kinda bad for the scare she gave him but her secret was more important than his security of mind. Even among her own crew only Tessa knew her secret and even that had been a complete accident. Tessa had walked in while Kristie was transforming for her nightly run and every day Kristie thanked that the sweet child had taken in all in stride and never told anyone.

She did decide however that she was going to do her best to cover this up. Which may backfire a bit but…honestly the idea of what might happen actually appealed to her. She wondered if Matt would be good enough to find her where the government had failed. Then he could find her in her human form and explain things so he would calm down. And in the meantime giving him some direction would hopefully at least let him sleep.

First though, she had to figure out how to leave her mark while he was awake like this. There was only so much she could do as a cat. She did her best though. Once he was done running about and otherwise freaking out she jumped up next to him on the couch and nuzzled his hand reassuringly, purring loudly the whole time and trying to crawl into his lap once again. She seemed to remember him getting drowsy the last time she had done this and it was her best bet for the moment.
 
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