“Please, Dene, be calm, vraonse!” said Rai.
“It should work!” barked the frustrated Runge. “I did the damn nose-pad thing, I typed the stuff, what’s the matter with it?”
“Maybe it’s some policeman thing- please, first, calm yourself!”
Rai’s ears were back, and he was trembling slightly, leaning as far away from Dene as the passenger seat would let him. They’d got in the car all right- but then, once in, things deteriorated, as the computer would not let Dene drive.
Rai wasn’t concerned that Dene would hurt him- though she was larger than him, he was Hse-Nerre, feline ninja and practitioner of vritere, the martial arts form dedicated to fighting with enhanced claws. It was rather like being armed with retractile scalpels on each finger, and there was no question that he could kill Dene more or less instantly.
The trouble was, she was sort of like a friend, he didn’t wish to kill her, she would not calm down and he could not get out of the car by himself. The doors had closed and he didn’t know how to work them. So, the small but deadly feline made faint keening noises as Dene banged the dashboard with her paws, and he tried again to soothe her- as much for her sake as his own, because she was triggering him dreadfully and his claws kept trying to come out.
“Please, ‘aons. What were the steps we were to follow?”
“I did that! I’ve done it twice!”
“Please! You use the nose pad scanner…”
Dene did so, looking very cranky.
“Type the pass phrase…” said Rai, hopefully.
Dene typed, reciting “Once… you… go… cat… you… never… go… back, bang one one one bang. Wanker.”
“And now there’s a prompt, and type clear passengers for transport.”
“No no- he said, inside passengers. Inside passengers, for uhhh…”
“For transport?” said Rai.
“No wait, for multistage transport! That’s it.” She typed.
They waited, staring at the input screen.
“What the hell more does it want?” said Dene.
“I’m not sure. I think he said he didn’t want to reset it.”
“I’m beginning to warm to the idea.”
Rai looked worried. “We don’t know much about this vehicle. We should do what he suggested.”
“But what? I don’t remember it all exactly, and it’s sitting there saying ‘status?’ and I swear he didn’t say anything about status. I tried ‘drive’ and nothing happened. And now we can’t open any of the doors.”
“Believe me, I am aware of that.” said Rai, wincing.
“I think we gotta risk the reset. At least we might be able to get out, and go back and ask him again.”
Rai thought about this, and it appealed more and more. It would be much better to simply return and get the right instructions. He’d feel a lot better. Rai said, “I believe that is a very good idea, Dene. Please do so. How do we do that?”
“Beats me!” said Dene and cuffed the steering wheel with the back of her paw.
Rai’s ears went back again. “Can you guess, ‘aons?”
“I’ll type reset. We can be status, reset. Let’s give it a shot, can’t do any worse.”
Dene typed the word, hit enter, and the whole dashboard lit up with screens, readouts, indicators… controls whirred out from concealed positions, the steering wheel turned left, then right, then centered, and her seat and Rai’s seat whirred, shifted, and moved to position them accurately relative to the controls. For Rai, it moved so his paws rested comfortably at floor level, and for Dene, she found herself sitting at the controls of a blinking, whirring assault vehicle, with everything turned on up to and including small joysticks for aiming little gun turrets that had popped up out of the fenders.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about…” breathed Dene.
Rai blinked. “That seems to have worked. Shall we open the doors, and go ask what part we were forgetting?”
Dene didn’t answer right away. She took the wheel. She touched the throttle pedal, and a small turbine in front of them ramped up, a shrill whine shrieking up rapidly beyond even Rai’s hearing limits, making him lick his lips fretfully at the sudden strange noise.
“I think it’s ready to go, Rai. I think we should go.”
“But we haven’t done it correctly. There was something else.”
Dene nudged the pedal, and quickly hit the brake afterwards. The car had lunged forward at a very small touch of the pedal. Dene panted, her eyes going wide. Rai noticed, disconcerted, that under her shirt, her lupine nipples had stood up boldly.
“I think we should go.” repeated Dene, her eyes shining and a bit wild.
Rai’s whiskers drooped. It was maddening how he constantly was presented with no right actions- he knew he needed to do things correctly, but when it was other people needing to act correctly and showing no interest in doing so, it was beyond distressing.
But… this Dene Tieschtet was very kind and patient when he was in distress, and she had been very upset and now seemed, for lack of blunter words, much happier. And she clearly wanted to go right now- and the car seemed to be working.
“I suppose we can go, yes.” said Rai.
Dene practically quivered with eagerness. Carefully, her paw pressed the accelerator pedal, and the police cruiser crept out of the back alley, along a street, towards a feeder road to the main high-speed conduit. It was clear, and pretty straight.
“Are you sitting okay?” asked Dene, more than a little breathlessly.
“I beg your pardon, are you inquiring if I am aroused?” asked Rai in some alarm.
“What? No! Why?”
“Er, the tone of your voice, mostly. Though if you were a male lover you might be asking if I was able to sit comfortably. But I am not sure why you’d be asking as a female… you smell and feel very, um, female right now…”
Dene gave Rai a sidelong glance. “I should smack you or something.”
“Oh, please not! I don’t wish to fight you!”
“No, I’m not going to. I promise. But I’d rather you didn’t talk like that, okay? It brings up stuff I don’t like to think about.”
“I’m sorry? What could possibly be wrong about you sounding like you’re wanting sex? You’re a female, you’re allowed to sound like that any time you want. Um, I sound like that too at the proper time…” said Rai.
“I’ll bet. Boy, you’re really different. I guess I’ll admit it- I get a lot more excited about these things like fast cars because I haven’t… put it this way. I get to pretend to drive fast cars. Now I’m driving one. I also pretend I’m being with fast guys- and I haven’t driven any of those yet. I just work with computers and play my video games. It was really weird hanging out with all those naked cat ladies, Rai. I was like ‘damn it, share!’ but that’s not how they make their living.”
They drove down the feeder road for a time, in silence.
“I don’t understand.” said Rai. “It sounds like you are wanting to have sex, and haven’t asked for any. Why haven’t you?”
“Oh, right, like it’s that easy!”
“Isn’t it? Surely if you have a clear path to one male, it’s not exactly difficult.”
“This must be a cultural difference. We Runge aren’t exactly like that- there’s a lot of other stuff to consider. Rai, if I went up to a guy and said, ‘Sex me up’, he’d probably figure there was something wrong with me. I’m supposed to look cute and all, but you just can’t be that direct.”
“It’s a strange thing to say. You sound like a male. For us, the burden is on the male to behave correctly and move in or stay back based on the situation. You are chosen based on whim, or reputation, or rejected, but you cannot simply jump to a conclusion and go. It’s a beautiful dance, but the stress of it is very high.”
Dene considered this. “Yeah, that’s kind of how I feel. I never get picked, somehow. I decided it was my looks or something, and then it just got worse. And now I sort of mentally hump stick-shifts.”
Rai looked deeply startled, which made Dene laugh. “Settle down! I’m not going to do that. Sometimes you just act so gay…”
“Pardon?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t have that word in your language!”
“I think I understand. Yes- I am shy of female parts, for a long time I have become female-role myself when I’m not working. I don’t know how to explain it- it’s just so much more direct. I don’t really have to wonder- I can flirt as hard as I like, especially with Runge, and there’s always a clear path.” Rai suddenly winced. “Or I thought there was, and now I’m not sure. It can’t be right that I didn’t know that male’s name. I was totally within protocol, and yet it still feels totally wrong.”
“Yeah, that would freak me out a lot.” said Dene. “Though I can understand why you’d do it. I get really frustrated.”
“There was nothing wrong. I responded to every advance in the simplest possible way. He couldn’t have acted wrongly, I would have matched him whatever he did. There’s such huge flexibility in the female role.”
“Of course.” consoled Dene.
“I did nothing wrong, but it’s so upsetting that I didn’t know his name.”
“I still need to ask you if you’re sitting comfortably.”
Rai blinked. “Now I’m confused. Why?”
Dene pulled onto the main high-speed conduit, the featureless expanse of blacktop stretching out before them.
“Because of this.”
Her paw slammed down onto the accelerator.
Rai thumped against the seat-back and remained pressed there, his eyes wide at the sudden onslaught of power.
All the interior lights in the car dimmed slightly, as unthinkable energies flooded into the car’s wheel motors. Every tire began an eerie, soft howl as traction control kicked in and each contact patch went instantly to the desperate edge of maximum acceleration, and the eerie sound continued while the world telescoped into a target and a surrounding blur, and wind noise grew to become a fierce shriek.
Dene firmly reminded herself to keep both hands on the steering wheel, and neither in her lap, no matter how enthusiastic she felt- but she swore silently to herself that she would remember this feeling very lovingly- later.
The police cruiser became a dot on the horizon, bound on its rescue mission, and was lost to sight.
