Maddie's Curse

Vera sits at her white desk in her private quarters, scrolling down the Town's structured newsletter for the week on her vertical monitor. Vera's adjusted report concerning her last assignment is at the top and has been provided by Town's editorial group the headline "Maddie's Curse."

She bites again into her cold cut sandwich. Her doorbell rings multiple times in quick succession, and Vera is quick to open the door before it proceeds any longer.

"Hey, Maddie. Have you been still enjoying your stay? Do you have any more questions for me than last time?"

"You're transforming people willingly?"

Vera sighs. She steps outside into the long, pearly corridor, and the door auto-locks.

"I hope our Culinary Department was approved for an additional order of frog legs. I unfortunately can believe that the residents here are bored enough that they would prefer to alter their physiology for their own quick amusement... Have they been treating you appropriately in Scientific Research?"

She pinches the bridge of her nose.

"Maddie, you're intended to press the power button. Does your microwave not function correctly?"

"Nothing. Nothing happens to the batteries, Maddie. You should consider applying for some of the freely available courses offered through Town's Education Department."

She steps beside Maddie and rubs her eyes.

"Thank you for volunteering. I've just been awaiting my next assignment, meanwhile. Unfortunately, however, my clinician ordered to my department that I be held here at least another week."

"How do I 'act crazy?' And clinician is a word. I'm certainly more rational than you. I was already eating something in my room, but thank you."

She takes her tablet from her sash and taps on it for several seconds like a metronome. She stares at a page she made earlier today, and she tilts her head.

"Am I behaving strangely? Is there an example you would point to? It's possible that I'm not aware of what you're speaking on and it may be a lingering effect of having been a cat and human hybrid for weeks..."

"Truthfully, I don't enjoy sitting at my desk. That's one reason I want to attend to my next assignment already. I just feel stifled otherwise."

She types something small and shakes her head.

"No, I have nothing scheduled. I also confirmed with Town AI that it's unlikely I will be placed for an emergency assignment these next few days. Perhaps I'll skim through some old notes for revision. Maybe I'll just sleep."

"No—it's a groundbreaking supercomputer that also demonstrates some characteristics of human-like thinking. You can speak with it on any monitor here. I'm not sure it likes me... Have you attended the Entertainment District yet? You may enjoy the Virtual Reality Pavilion or the dance club. You could join a recreational club, perhaps. I understand you wouldn't enjoy our library yet."

She hardly can mention this branch of Town's layout without yawning.

"Additionally, you could volunteer for a job."

Vera's tablet beeps with a two-tone notification. She sighs.

"It says that it's up to your discretion but that many have claimed it is. It also says the district is up the elevator and then 'where the tallest buildings of Town are located.' I suppose it knows you wouldn't read the sidewalk signs. Enjoy yourself, Maddie."

"I never go there, Maddie—okay, could you please let go of me? Maddie?"

She groans and pulls back on the excited catgirl, but she fails to hold her ground despite her training. Eventually, she concedes and walks with her. She was leaning towards sleeping otherwise, anyway.

"I was in an altered state when I promised to watch a movie with you; however, I suppose I could maintain my promise anyway. Especially if it means you will stop grabbing me like that. We can also get you a Town-issued phone on the way to the theater..."

They take the elevator and then walk toward Town's perimeter of services.

Some of Town's passing pedestrians take notice of the vandalism and refer on their personal devices for security services, although it's only met with one electrician being scheduled for the machine in thirty minutes. Others wave at Maddie excitedly, including one of the scientists she transformed into a catgirl. Vera, of course, presses her fingers into her forehead.

"I suspect your skills would be better used elsewhere. Please don't get yourself in trouble with our authorities, okay? The theater is this building."

She takes one of the bags from the vending machine open compartment and then walks toward a particularly boxy building with white flare lights lining the entrance stairway. The lobby is dim and with a deep red carpet, a surprisingly familiar appearance in this futuristic society, and Vera pans down a monitor's page on the wall.

"A private showing would allow us to choose almost any film we want."

"You're ridiculous. Okay, this feature titled 'Steel Vendetta' is rated highly by oversea critics and our own critics. Perhaps you like swords."

She chooses it without further prompt from Maddie, though, and leads her into one of the several rooms further inside with a green indicator light over the entrance. When the door closes behind them, it locks, of course. She confirms the movie to begin on a small panel and then sits with Maddie in the second-to-front row. And Vera reclines the back of her seat.

"I'm surprised you wanted to do this activity with me," She admits suddenly.

Vera takes from Maddie's offering of chips and nods. The ambient light of the room dims to twilight, and the film then frames a thundering rainstorm over an Eastern village.

"I think I understand. I wanted something to do today too, potentially. Hopefully this is entertaining, then?"

She places three fingers and her thumb on her cheek, and her focus narrows onto the sword in the center of the next shot. Its wielder is a bruised silhouette in the dark, some stoic man.

"What would you wish to learn about me?"

"I was born here, yes. My mother and father, however, originated from the United Kingdom. They also moved away from here a long time ago."

She pauses, allowing a bystander in the movie to cry out from fear and awe. She touches her own shoulder and grimaces, watching the blood ooze from the corpse.

"I like it too."

Vera often considers movies as a form of cheap escapism. Instead of tackling the real world, someone could instead lounge in a lonely room and drain two hours on something they wouldn't remember next year.

Rather than explaining that, though, she says, "I also haven't witnessed anyone die in front of me, Maddie. I'm ordered to conceal carry a pistol on some assignments, however, for my self-defense. Town AI seems to believe I will need it sometime."

"I didn't."

She wouldn't have taken the shot, anyway. The swordsman is impossible to approach, even in these close quarters. The bodies slip off the bridge with the fluency of each swipe.

"Please, however, don't be concerned. My training to be a field researcher was designed to keep everyone safe. I will be fine."

The lights dial back on. Vera picks up their discarded bags of chips.

"I suppose we could watch movies again later. I would imagine more days like this will arrive after my next assignments."

She walks with Maddie out of the building. Sunlight still reaches through the glass dome, and the vending machine Maddie tampered earlier dispenses a nougat bar for a child with yellow hair.

--------------------

A banner reaches from one corner of the ceiling to another with the pastel-colored proclamation, "All Catboys, Catgirls, etc Welcome!"

Vera rubs the ridge of her forehead and scoffs.

"Who made this, Maddie? It's not particularly politically correct."

Fifteen Town residents consisting of primarily young adults chat and purr around the room. Lunda from the Education Department is toying with a ball of yarn. Vera Hanley is the only one who isn't a cat person. She drinks from a complementary glass of seltzer water.

"Congratulations on securing public interest for your recreational club."

"Sen, your circadian rhythm may be suffering with that sleep schedule."

She rolls her eyes.

"No, no round two. Maddie simply insisted that I make an appearance for the first meeting, and I do suppose I'm a component of why this club even exists at all. Maybe I'll have interesting notes to make from today. Oh—Lucy, not you too."

The comment startles Vera from her encroaching boredom. She finishes her cup, and some of the fizzy water drizzles from her lip.

"What?—Of course I have a heart. For what reasoning did you believe I chose to work in the Field Research Department?"

She covers her face with her hand and groans.

"She's absurd, isn't she? No, Maddie, I did not permit you to do anything. You essentially ambushed me!"

A smile sneaks past her fingers, however, that catgirl's limitless absurdity chipping away at her day-to-day composure after all.

"The Scientific Research Department has been discovering odd psychological results on some of the participants to your curse. I had no control over my own symptoms... Anyway, you'd need a much better reason than it being funny to expect me to agree to that on my own accord."

Vera yelps on impact and then swears. Not again.