Separation

Acceptance has never been an easy thing. Harry and
Anastasia, newly married, find out love may not be enough. Monsters
are out there... and they’re waiting.

Harry and Anastasia are back, this time married and
attempting to fit into society. When another transgenic emerges—a
mole-man named Leonardo—he tells them an old friend, Istvan, a
pig-man, long thought dead, is still alive.

Doing the right thing, Harry and Anastasia go
to investigate and find out other transgenics are alive, well, and
led by yet another madman, bent on destruction. The trail begins in
Italy, and continues on to France, Spain, and finally back to the
United States.

As if that
wasn’t enough, Anastasia is pregnant and Harry has to worry about
her, the baby, and the plans of the madman who hates all
transgenics and wants to see them eliminated. Anastasia’s life is
threatened as is the life of her baby, and with the outcome far
from certain, the quest continues.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents either are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

Separation

Copyright © 2016 J.S. Frankel

ISBN: 978-1-4874-0710-0

Cover art by Carmen Waters

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Smashwords Edition

Separation

Catnip Book Four

By

J.S. Frankel

For my wife, Akiko, and my children, Kai and Ray, as
you are all my greatest adventure.

Catskill Mountains, New York State, the present

Harry Goldman awoke early in the morning and watched
as the sunbeams poked their way through the window of the cabin. He
wondered what kind of research he’d be doing later on. The place
was the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. The clock on the
night table next to the bed read six-thirty. As for the date, it
was June fourteenth. Finally, he assessed his current situation...
perfect. With that assessment, a smile broke across his face.

Summertime now, warm and lazy days past and
upcoming, he sat up and stretched, his furry limbs extending and
twisting lazily in the cool air. Everything had been peaceful for
the last few months. No interruptions, no battles, and best of all,
his wife, Anastasia, lay sleeping beside him.

For anyone at his age—nineteen—it might have
seemed a little young to get married. Too early, opined the
experts. Too unusual, said the scientists. What would happen if
they procreated? Too unlawful, said the courts.

Concerning point number one, it was a matter
of opinion. As for point number two, who cared? However, with
number three, it happened to be the biggest bone of contention.

At first, the authorities didn’t know whether
it was legal to marry them. “This is a case that will set a
precedent,” said their lawyer. “You have to admit, this is somewhat
out of the ordinary.”

Somewhat out of the ordinary
was just
an expression, but it encompassed so many possibilities. Harry and
Anastasia were anything but ordinary. As hybrids—or transgenic
creations, a mixture of feline and human created by science—they
could not be considered anything other than extraordinary.

Arguments for and against the legalization of
their marriage took place in the US Supreme Court. The media had a
field day with it, and Harry and Anastasia became celebrities, but
not by choice.

In a statement to the press, Harry said, “I
was born in Portland. I am an American citizen. Anastasia was born
in Russia, but she has attained American citizenship, and we are
both legal residents of this great state of New York. I see no
reason why our marriage should not be allowed.”

Simple words, but they were most persuasive.
Pundits and pseudo-experts argued for and against their marriage,
but in the end, wiser heads prevailed. The judges took into account
Harry and Anastasia’s former human status, the fact of their
citizenry, and the fact that it was an election year. A couple of
months after they’d filed their claim, Harry received a phone call
from his lawyer. “Go ahead,” he said.

Harry and Anastasia got married the same day
at City Hall, and the justice of the peace was only too happy to
perform the ceremony, complete with pictures and a wedding cake
she’d purchased out of pocket.

Carefully slipping out of bed so as not to
wake his wife, Harry pulled on a pair of boxer shorts and padded
over to the window to gaze out upon the greenery of the forest
surrounding their cabin. A single dirt road led up to the place,
and the nearest residence lay about a mile to the east.

Call this the ultimate getaway. They had
privacy. They had food delivered every week by their handler at the
FBI, although some of the other permanent residents of the
Catskills dropped by from time to time. It made for good
conversation. Drop in on the cat people, talk to them, and maybe
even get a picture.

Then there were the true friends. Harry’s
best friend, Jason Parham, a computer expert and all-around nerd
he’d known since junior high school, lived in the city. His
girlfriend Tina, another code-cracker, lived near him. They worked
for the FBI as experts in computer surveillance and tracking,
although Tina did most of the practical work. Jason was into gaming
and anything anime, and he came along strictly as backup to his
more Internet-savvy girlfriend.

In his last email, he’d written
we have
got to link up, man. It’s been too long!

When we have the time,
Harry had
written back.
I’m still on my honeymoon.

Never mind he and Anastasia hadn’t gone
anywhere. They’d decided to stay in the Catskills, walk around the
forest and creeks by day and run by night, savoring their freedom.
At times, Harry wondered if his animal genes were beginning to
override his human ones. It was possible, but he had something
going for him that others did not.

He had genius. His father had been a DNA
researcher in the field of transgenics, and Harry had inherited his
father’s intelligence and then some. As one of the foremost experts
in transgenic research, even at his young age, he’d completed his
own work and gone beyond most everyone else in the field. That was
how the FBI had found out about him over a year before. They’d
arrested him for allegedly doing illegal research.

“I was doing computer tests,” he’d objected
at the time.

They came straight to the point. “Too
bad.”

Long story short, the law did not take kindly
to having a seventeen-year-old nerd-slash-genius turn evolution on
its head. Harry got tossed in jail for his efforts. But during his
stay, Anastasia had been arrested in New York that same year by the
police, who’d subsequently turned her over to the FBI. She’d
suffered from amnesia, but gradually remembered who and where she
was from.

Who she happened to be was a young woman
roughly nineteen years of age, dying of AIDS, who’d been kidnapped
by a crazed scientist. Where she’d come from—Russia. The scientist
had used a combination of drugs as well as something called a
Genesis Chamber to transform her into a hybrid with the express
purpose of using her talents as a spy.

Harry had been taken out of jail by the same
organization that had caged him in the first place. “You’re working
for us now, kid,” said Miles Farrell, a hard-bitten, taciturn man
in his fifties who’d been put in charge of the case.

In short order, once he and Anastasia had
gotten to know each other, they’d also fallen for each other. After
numerous adventures, she’d devolved into a cat, he’d brought her
back to her half-human state, and they’d found out her roots and
who was behind it all.

Thinking about changes, he’d been this way
for almost a year. A jumble of random images raced through his
mind, most of which involved DNA research, mixing and matching
genes, and the complications related to such genetic
manipulation.

Honeymoons had a tendency to take a person’s
mind in different directions, but he’d been running some tests on
his computer as of late, checking his DNA.

Recalling his latest results, they’d shown
his condition as well as Anastasia’s to be stable. Stable meant
they wouldn’t devolve. That was the good part. The bad part was his
initial calculations on reversing the process to alter his
condition to that of being wholly human had been incorrect.

“What do you mean, incorrect?” Anastasia
posed the question as he hunched over his computer.

With a sigh, he leaned back and cracked his
knuckles. “It means the animal cells have permanently bonded with
our human ones. There’s no way I can separate them, not with the
technology we have now.”

His wife didn’t seem to be overly dismayed at
the news. “Well, I got used to myself a long time ago. If we’re
together, that’s enough for me.” She’d come over to run her hands
over his shoulders and then hugged him. “And you feel the same
way.”

“I do.”

It came as a revelation to accept his changed
condition. He was young and strong, with an immune system and
regenerative capacities practically off the charts. Additionally,
he and Anastasia were more than capable of doing anything a human
could and perhaps even better...

“You’re up early.”

He spun around at the sound of her voice.
Anastasia lounged in bed, the bed sheet covering her body from the
top of her chest down. Like him, she was furry all over, gray fur
with black spots, a young woman with catlike yet human features. To
him, she was perfect.

While he took in the beauty of her body
outlined under the sheet, her eyes, yellow, like his, captured his
attention and they asked the question why are you up and away from
me? “You couldn’t sleep?”

Shaking his head, he returned to bed and
slipped under the covers with her. Their hands joined. “No, I
decided to get an early start. You know we’re going to be on
television today.”

A sour look formed on her face and she
abruptly disengaged her hand from his. “That man—Baskins—he’s going
to do a hatchet job on us. You know that.”

Harry did, but at the same time, if they were
going to change the hearts and minds of any potential friends out
there, they had to make themselves known, available, and open.
However, the question of whether anyone else would make themselves
open to friendship remained.

Anastasia lost her scowl and nuzzled his face
in a gentle, loving gesture. He thought it would lead to something
else. Unfortunately it was not to be, as she pulled back and
gracefully slipped out of bed to go to the dresser. There, she
withdrew some clothes. Her tail, long and flexible, lashed the air
as she padded her way to the shower room with the parting line of,
“I’m going to get clean.”

“Can I join you?”

She tossed him an indulgent smile. “We’ll
have time for that later. We have to think about what we’re going
to say.”

With a snap of her narrow hips, she sauntered
off, and Harry lay back, wondering about her question. They had
answered most questions before.

“Do you eat?”

“Are you human under all that fur?”

“Are there more of you out there?”

Mundanity ruled with the first two questions,
but as for the last, he’d never been able to come up with a
satisfactory answer, not without scaring someone. In the past year,
he, along with Anastasia, had met up with and battled various
hybrids, combinations of dog, pig, boar, cat, bear, and other
denizens of the forests and open fields, along with mutations
involving sharks, goats, insects and more.