2020 Hindsight

Waking up in her apartment, Cat Kagami stared at the wall. She could hear heavy rainfall outside and unlike many people, it made her want to get out of bed and go outside rather than stay in bed.

She pulled back the sheets from her king-sized bed and looked at the clock. It was 7PM. She had barely an hour before she had to meet the traitor at Kuriyama's. She swung her legs out of the bed and stood, peeling off the oversized t-shirt she'd been wearing and discarding it on the floor beside her bed. Cat's loft apartment was not large, but she legally owned it and had been living there for the past year. Now she risked losing it all.

She crossed into the small bathroom and turned on the old shower, not waiting for the water to get warm before she stepped. The cold water jolted her system awake. The shower was short and afterward she chose a blue vinyl jacket from her closet, a black PVC tank top, black leather pants, and violet combat boots. When she'd strapped herself into the form-fitting clothing that she'd become accustomed to, she applied the minimal amount of makeup that would accentuate her bright blue eyes, pale skin, and rosy pink lips.

On her way out the door she picked up the camoflauge pink stun gun that looked silly and would have made most attackers laugh when they saw it. In truth, it was one of the few things that Cat had allowed herself to splurge on since moving to Euphyron City. It wasn't the My First Stun Gun that someone would have imagined it to be; she had painted it herself to cover up the brand. It had been recalled in most of the United States for it's power. Cat had never actually used it, but she had a distinct feeling that she was going to need it more than she ever had tonight.

Locking the apartment behind her, she ran down the long stairwell rather than taking the rickety elevator. The rain seemed to be letting up outside and her clothes would do an admirable job of repelling water. She hauled her motorcycle from the bike. Unlike many citizens in Euphyron, she hadn't yet upgraded to hovercycles. They were too costly and the bike she had now needed more work than she'd ever be able to afford; she was almost positive it would be cheaper just to be another one. Cat didn't have money to spend though. Most of her assets had been mysteriously frozen for the past week.

She hopped onto the gunmetal silver and black motorcycle and sped out of the garage door as it opened. The streetlights and digital billboards blurred past her in a flurry of rainbow-colored light. She rarely rode her motorcycle with her helmet and even now getting pulled over by a police officer didn't seem as big of a threat to her as it once had. She had bigger problems that needed solving and most of the solutions made a jail sentence or community service look preferable to her.

It took her less time than she thought it would to reach Kuriyama's. She had chosen the locale because it was the bottom of the barrel and the only place she could afford a shot of liquid courage at anymore. She walked in and bellied up to the bar, rain dripping from her long purple hair and jacket. Depositing her credits on the bar, she forced a smile to the bartender that she'd seen many times before. "Hello, James. A Screaming Redhead Slut, if you don't mind."

The black bartender chuckled at her. "I told you, girl, one of these days you need to switch to the hard stuff."

"And James, you should know by now that mixies are as hard as I get."

His deep voice rumbled in his chest again, another laugh on the rise. "I'll make it a little stronger then. You look like you need something strong tonight. Maybe even more than you look like a drowned rat."

"I bet that soon I'm not going to be the only rat in here."

James gave Cat her drink and winked at her. She slid over the credits necessary and a tip. It was almost the last money to her name. She needed to get paid soon but that wasn't going to happen.

Cat took the first few sips and didn't flinch, simply trying not to look as worried as she was. Her stomach's knotting loosened after the first few sips. Her nervous energy was so bountiful that she felt like a hummingbird. Her heart's pounding was nearly all she could hear in her mind's eye, paying little attention to the cheery pop song sung in Japanese over the loudspeakers. James eyed her for a moment or two, knowing something was wrong, and she forced another smile at him before turning her back against the bar and staring toward the door intensely.

It seemed like at that point that her whole life was leading up to that moment. Raymond walked in through the entrance and perked up once he saw Cat at the bar. He hadn't taken any great lengths to dress up for the evening, wearing his usual otaku t-shirt that accentuated his pudgy belly and a pair of khaki pants with sneakers. He had on a yellow rainslicker that Cat thought made him look a little ridiculous. He was drinking in her appearance and the woman fought to keep a smirk off of her face. Not now, not ever, she thought to her self. There was one point where he might have had a chance with her. She had been trusting of him for a short enough time to have made the mistake that got her into this mess.

"Kagami-chan! Always a pleasure," Ray said as he stepped over to her and took her hand, kissing the back of it. It took everything she had not to jerk away. She kept her expression as neutral as she could.

"Hello, Ray. How was the drive?" She asked.

"Fine, fine. Hey, I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry you got fired from the paper."

She felt her face go red at his condolences. Her stomach churned and she took a long drink of her cocktail, nodding to him as she tried to think of something to say that wouldn't sound how she desperately wanted it to sound. "Yeah, thanks." She paused momentarily. There was no reason she couldn't speed this up. "Do you happen to have that data chip I gave you, Ray?"

His face turned a little white before reddening up considerably. Cat didn't hold the smirk back that time. He moved to sit down next to her, his brown eyes flicking about the room nervously. "No. I lost it. I'm really sorry about that, I just... I got careless with it..."

Cat knew that James was now behind the bar watching. He'd back her up if things got ugly, but deep down she knew that Ray was too much of a coward to do anything. That didn't stop outside forces from intervening though. "Bullshit, Ray. I know what you did with it. Don't even try to play it like some brownbagger found it and sold it for hooch. You were playing me the whole time, you Goddamned choob."

The man whimpered audibly and looked stricken before his face turned purple. "Maybe you shouldn't have said those things about The Queen in the first place. I mean--"

"No, Ray. Shut your fucking mouth. You gave it to Dara, who is no more the Queen of anything than I am the Empress of China." Cat paused, watching him. He had nothing to say for himself. The other patrons were either watching with the shifty eyes that amphetamines produced or cargo'd, totally useless dead weight from drinking. "You were playing me this entire time. This whole time. Do you know what she's done to me? Do you know what you helped her to do? I'm being thrown of a home I legally own, I lost my job, my accounts are frozen, my deck is fried, all I have left in my apartment is dirty power, and I have no one thanks to you two."

Ray started laughing, his stomach jiggling underneath his orange noodle logo shirt. "It wasn't only my fault. You chose to trust someone else. Don't you know anything about living in Euphy yet? You're just a dumb little joygirl who I almost docked and now you're sore that I pledged my allegiance to someone else."

Cat had to laugh too. "In your wildest, Ray. You're nothing more than her toady and it's frankly pathetic considering that the only reason she's doing all of this is that I'm with her ex-boyfriend. She acts like she's still in high school but she plays on a big field. I've lost everything just because I'm with a man who no longer wants anything to do with her. And did I write those things about her? Yes. But they're all true. I want to expose for what she is; a contemptuous snake who uses and abuses people like you."

That seemed to strike a nerve with the chubby man. He reached out and grabbed Cat by the neck. James had been silent until now. He hopped over the bar and pulled Ray apart from the slender young woman, grabbing his wrist forcefully. "Don't you touch her, otaku yono. I will break your hands so badly that you'll never be able to deck again or jerk off without pulling a muscle. Looks like that might already be the case though..." James surveyed the other man's body and sneered.

Ray struggled against him as Cat rubbed her neck. "I hope that you realize that I'm not going to be sidewalk chalk so easily. I'm going to be here for a long time. Tell her that. And tell her that the more she does to hurt me, the more she upsets Ryo." Cat eyed Ray for a long moment before taking her stun gun out of her jacket pocket and pressing it to the man's testicles without turning it on. She wanted to watch him squirm. The bar patrons were all watching now with rapt attention; they loved a good show and it wasn't often that they were treated to one of such a caliber. "And if you ever so much as look at me again, I'll make sure that you're deep fried in a coma."

Cat hadn't intended on giving him a shock to the balls, but her life was already in the gutter. "Kuso shite shinezo!" She said as she turned the tase on just long enough to send him to his knees, James still holding on to his wrists. "Thanks, James." Cat said as she watched Ray convulse on the ground.

The tall, imposing man shook his head at her. "The next time you come in here, you'd better not bring this shit with you. Me and Rayban are going to have a talk here though... a nice up close talk."

She put the deactivated taser back into her coat pocket and rushed out of the bar. The smell of excrement hit her when she got to the doorframe. James was going to be cursing her for the rest of the night. She hopped back onto her motorcycle and started it up. It was time to go find Ryo, say her goodbyes, and leave him to a less complicated life that she wasn't a part of.