Memoirs of Kitty Siam Ch. 31

Next I fumbled with the wardrobe collar but it seemed that it was no longer accepting my manual commands. I realized soon enough that the collar was now wirelessly connected to the data port on the back of my neck and I was able to visually browse the items that had been stored in its memory. I selected my old favorite jeans and a black tank top and attempted to deploy the combination, and after a few milliseconds the top deployed properly but the jeans did not. Instead I received a size error warning followed by a prompt to update the collar's table of sizes. I just chalked this up to a conversion issue between the old and new programs installed in the collar.

I entered into the Setup tab in the application and requested a new body scan. The collar activated the billions of tiny micro balls deployed to circle and cover my body for a second or two. As quick as my body was covered, it was uncovered and the tiny balls were electronically sucked back up into the collar. My sizes were displayed in the internal heads up display and as I went down the list there appeared to be a data error so I requested a second scan.

The second scan came back with the same data as the first and confirmed that I had grown two full inches and gained one full cup size while my other measurements remained the same. Taking this information into consideration I requested the collar make adjustments to my entire wardrobe collection and within a few seconds the task was complete. I reselected my wardrobe choices and this time was rewarded with perfectly fitting jeans and a tank top. Next I selected a comfortable pair of brown hiking boots that I knew that I could run well in should the situation require that I make a break for an exit.

Shortly after I was dressed there was a chime at the door, and from the other side came a male voice asking for permission to enter. I thought it odd that after all that had happened that permission was being sought to enter. I figured that the request was just a politeness or just a formality and I assumed that whomever was on the other side of the door probably had the key to enter anyway. I gave my permission for the man to enter and the door opened immediately as if the door its self understood my voice and acted on my words.

He entered and greeted me with a slight bow, which I returned out of politeness. He introduced himself as Prelate Ving and I introduced myself as just little old Kitty. No titles, no formalities, just Kitty.

I had a thousand questions to ask but I held my tongue and remained quiet. I did my best to make him uncomfortable with my body language and disinterested facial expression. If there were to be a dialog between us, it was up to him to start talking first.

My tactic seemed to work as he spoke first and the first sentence out of his mouth was an apology for what had happened to me back on Galora Six.

I nodded and let him continue without interruption.

He started off by informing me that we were on a planet called Galora Six, and that we were currently having this conversation in an underground facility beneath the temple on the island of Rontara. I felt like I was about to get the fifty-cent tour when he outlined how the island had been used as a transfer point for ore and rare minerals that were acquired from the natives of the planet.

I began to wonder how much force was used to acquire these resources and I was tempted to be a bitch and ask but thought it unwise to honk this guy off right away.

I thought also that Ressa and I had seen no evidence of such an operation on the island but then there was still a lot that we had not explored.

So Ressa and I were assaulted to hide this operation, I asked.

No, the island has not been unused for that purpose for many centuries he said.

I was just about to speak when he cut me off with an apology then went on to explain that the agent that had been responsible for the equipment on this island had suffered a sort of mental breakdown and had reprogrammed the medical equipment to create the living statues that had assaulted Ressa and me.

I interrupted his prepared and rehearsed explanation and asked him rudely to get to the point.

He sighed then he cut to the chase. He confessed that the agent assigned to care for this facility used it to provide sexual entertainment for himself, and to provide sex slaves to tend to his needs.

I knew that there was more to this than he was telling me so I went back to giving him to silent treatment and just stood there staring at him.

He shifted nervously for a minute or so then started up his continuing explanation. He said that the equipment that he had altered was a scanning device used to identify humanoids with a specific genetic sequence. Once a candidate was identified a qualified medical team would be dispatched by Central Command to conduct a more intense screening. While the equipment was stored on Galora, it was never intended to be used in the manner that it had been used on Ressa and me. The equipment was never intended to be used by the local agent but due to severe personnel shortages, off the grid sites like this one go unmonitored until something spectacular happens.

I was still doing my best to make him uncomfortable and I could see my tactic was working when he hesitated slightly. He took several steps toward a monitor built into the wall. He activated the device then brought up a display of my DNA. He pointed out the DNA sequence that the scanner was searching for and explained that it had been found in me and that this genetic sequence had supposedly disappeared from the inter galactic gene pool a thousand or so years ago.

While he had my attention he identified several sequences in my genetic display and informed me that when I was created, the DNA splicing was not done properly several areas of my DNA were damaged. He pointed out the damaged areas and one severe mutation caused by the anti-agapic conversion that I had endured.

This got me to thinking about what sort of DNA the good folks at Osaka Eugenics had used to construct me. I knew about the feline DNA, and I knew of the so-called gift that Meda the Kamaloid had given me, but now I knew there was much more to my genetic makeup than I was told about, or that I could imagine.

I broke my silence and asked if the problem areas could be mended in any way.

They already have been repaired he responded.

He brought up my current DNA and pointed out the areas that had been repaired, then explained that this is why I am a bit taller now than when I first came to Galora. He mentioned several changes that were made to my DNA that corrected the problems that were identified, but he did not go into detail as to how my body was changed. The mention of changes concerned me and while Ving had his back to me, I turned away from him and used my body as a shield as I attempted to deploy my claws and I was relieved to see that I was able to do more than just change my eyes and that my feline counterpart was still there when needed.

I spent several hours with Ving and learned a lot about what had happened, but there were still a lot of gaps that I needed filled in. I learned that the interface that probed my mind could not establish a connection while there was a positive charge in the subject's cerebral cortex and that the liquid that was pumped into me by the statues was designed to inhibit that electrical activity. To make a long story short, the compound was never meant to be injected during a sexual act but due to the tampering of the perverted former caretaker of this site, many things were changed and not for the better.

Ressa had gone through the same process as me but since she did not have the same genetic makeup that I had, the connection with the temple's computer was not established. Her electrical output went to zero and remained there and that caused her death when the transformation did not begin. The effects of the slurry and the later injection of nano bots turned those that failed into the living statues that could be called upon to do the bidding of the former caretaker. It turned out that the statues we observed had been the residents of Rontara, and those that had been unfortunate enough to visit here after the caretaker went mad.

This is fascinating I thought to myself but I just had to ask why this behavior had not been noticed and stopped before so many people were turned into statues.

Ving explained that there are millions of these installations across many galaxies and that the caretakers of these installations are few in number and responsible for many such sites. Ving confessed that central monitoring had not noticed any activity on Galora for centuries, that is until the obelisk's initial scan alerted the Central Command of my DNA structure.

My next question was about the statues and if there was any chance of reviving them. The answer was a disappointing, "no."

The statues could be controlled by the nano bots to do the most menial tasks, but could not be relied upon to perform complex assignments that required extensive thought. They were nothing more than puppets following the instructions of a caretaker's program that was still running centuries after he had passed on.

Our conversation had gone on for a few hours and I was beginning to warm up to Ving, but I was also beginning to tire and I believe he sensed my fatigue and used that as an excuse to make his exit from my quarters. Before he left he touched two of his fingers to the back of my neck where my barcode tattoo used to be and I felt a gentle jolt.

I have unlocked your data port and have given you access to our historical records containing information about this facility and others like it. I was told that I could make use of the terminal on the wall or I could begin exploring what I could accomplish with the data and sensory implants that I had been given. With that said he smiled, bowed then left my quarters.

My body was still not back to 100% from the medical procedures that had been performed, and I knew that the invasion of my body had to have been extensive for my advanced healing properties to have taken so long to get my body back to normal. I was hoping though that the height change and breast enlargement would be part of my new normal, and I pondered the possibilities as I stretched myself out on my bed for a short catnap.

It was getting to the point where I was afraid to go to sleep because every time I was put to sleep, or went to sleep on my own something had happened to me here, and this time was no different. This time when I awoke once again I was laying naked on the bed in my quarters with a thin white sheet over my body that covered from my shoulders to my feet.

I pushed back the sheet and activated my wardrobe collar to dress myself in the simple white dress that the Kreetin women were so fond of, but when my wardrobe selection began to take shape, the tiny nano balls were not coming from my familiar collar. The balls were coming from a new location, and as my eyes followed the trail of coalescing balls, the trail led to a new tattoo on my right wrist that would look like a tribal design to most observers, but I quickly recognized the script to be my name in the language of the Annu.

I played with the new wardrobe device and went through several clothing changes and for once I was really happy with something that had been done to me. This was much less cumbersome than that clunky old collar that I had been wearing. The test was going to be when I transferred to feline form. The old collar would stay around my neck and appear to be a piece of jewelry that a pet would wear, this would be different. I was just about to change to my other form when I was interrupted by a new player to the game that had become my life.

She he was perhaps in her late twenties and wore a dark blue uniform with insignia that designated her rank as Major. The rank was pronounced at Datak when she introduced herself as Datak Sima Kashen.

I did not bother to introduce myself as I knew well that these people have been inside my mind and had accessed the data devices that Osaka Eugenics had placed inside my head. I did however stand and behave in a respectful manner as I figured that there was no use getting another army mad at me on this planet.

She was rather polite towards me and started off by apologizing for the way that I was assaulted by the automated systems in the temple. She asked me to walk with her and I felt at ease with her and joined her as we exited my quarters.

She took me on a tour of the facility and explained that I have basic access to everything here except that I was not permitted to operate the transportation devices nor did I have access to the assembly facility. I would have access to these and other more vital areas should I agree to join her and her organization.

My curiosity had been piqued and I questioned the Major as to what her, "organization" was exactly.

By this time we had reached a small control room and the Major activated a display that brought up a wall sized galactic map with many points illuminated across its expanse.

She went into a detailed explanation about the significance of the points on the map, and from her explanation and the schematics implanted in my brain I knew that these were transfer points for a system of portals that uses an Einstein-Rosen bridge to connect two points and allows cargo and living beings to transport between both points.

Ok, now I was really interested in what she had to tell me. In my time here on Galora I had gone from basically stone knives and bearskins to advanced wormhole travel.

The Major continued seeing that I was becoming interested in her words, then she went into her recruitment speech. She was from a para military organization known as the Ksatria Cahaya but was assigned to the Potaru Tansa Bushi, which are also known as the KC and the PTB. The KC she explained was a newly formed alliance and that the PTB was a technical and explorative organization tasked with mapping the galactic portal system and working to get non functioning nodes back on the grid.

I knew that there was a military component to all this and when I pressed to find out what this alliance was formed to oppose, she suddenly changed the subject and began to talk about the technical aspects of the restoration project. She went on about how the portals provided instantaneous transit between points in space that would take weeks or months of hyperspace travel in ships.

I could immediately see the benefit in this sort of project and started to wonder how the location of the portals were lost and how they fallen into disrepair. I formed my question and interrupted her by politely addressing her by her rank.

The Major stopped in mid sentence and requested that I call her Sima as there was no need for formal titles at this point as I was not a formal member yet.

I nodded in agreement then posed my question about the status of the lost and unresponsive portals.

The portals she said were well over 15,000 years old and many of them were on planets that no longer existed, or no longer were capable of sustaining carbon-based life forms.

Of course this made sense to me given the courses I had taken in stellar dynamics back at the academy, and the information that was implanted in my brain by the good folks at the PTB. Sima then presented me with a data pad and instructed me to read the information that she had stored on there for me. The tablet contained the duties that I would be expected to perform and detailed information on the PTB and the regulations that I would be required to follow.

I accepted the tablet and before I was able to activate it, Sima informed me that at the end of the documents on the tablet I would be afforded the opportunity to accept or decline a position with the PTB. Should I decline the position, the island of Rontara would be mine to do with as I please but I would not be permitted to leave the island by transport, or by the portal system, which had been fully restored and connected, to the galactic system. I would be allowed to live out my normal life here which given the anti-agapic conversion that I had underwent would mean that I would be here for a very long time.

The other option was to accept the position and I would become a galactic explorer of sorts that was tasked with finding non responding portals and returning them to a functional state and reconnecting them to the galactic network. It was an easy choice to make but I thought that before making a decision that I should at least read the information on the tablet.

Sima could see that my facial reaction was toward the positive when she informed me that she had to be returning to Central Command. She left me with the tablet then together we walked to the console that controlled the portal. Her fingers danced over the symbols on the control pad. As she hit the last symbol two heavy stone doors parted behind us as a crystal pylon pushed up from the center of the floor. Once the doors were fully opened an amber colored beam shot out of the pylon into the open dark space that was previously concealed by the thick doors. After several seconds the space beyond the doors was transformed into a black and grey spinning whirlpool that transitioned into an open tunnel.

Sima waved to me as she walked the steps to the platform that led to the open doors, then she turned away from me then stepped into the tunnel and was gone. The tunnel remained open for several minutes and then as quickly as it opened, it was gone in a brilliant flash of purple light. I walked the steps to the opening between the doors but before I could see what was there the doors slid closed once again. I immediately sat on the steps and activated the tablet. I had to know more about this technology and the opportunity that was just presented to me.