"A near Cat-astrophy" ~ for PicFic Tuesday 8/9

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

The prompt:


It was like nothing Illya had ever seen before, Napoleon as well.  They’d seen dozens of experiments on animals committed by THRUSH, including using cats as their guinea pigs while testing a machine that would make a human being younger again. Like many of their schemes it was a failure as the subjects eventually returned to their true age, but this latest adventure in experimentation left the UNCLE agents at a loss for words.

The cat they found among many in the laboratory of an abandoned THRUSH satrapy in an old brownstone in Brooklyn, looked as if it were two completely different animals that had been spliced together.

This creature bearing a name tag ‘Venus’ was anything but a goddess. One side of her face was an orange stripe tabby with a blue eye…yet there were only eight breeds of cat in the world who had blue eyes and an orange tabby wasn’t one of them. The other half of her face was completely black, with a normal looking green eye. The nose was half pink on the tabby side, and black on the other side.The body was that of a calico cat...so maybe there was a third kind of cat in the mix as well.

As they explored further, they found more of the bizarre looking felines.

“Why would they do such a thing? To what purpose?” Illya asked. He picked up one of the cats, snuggling it next to his face as it began to purr.

“Well, I’m afraid they’re going to have to be checked out, and most likely destroyed,” Napoleon said. He knew his partner wasn’t happy to hear that, since he was a cat enthusiast.

“It is all right Napoleon, I understand. We do what we must.”

Suddenly the cat lashed out, scratching the Russian on the face.

“Ow, you little…” Illya quickly put it back with the others and pulled his handkerchief, holding it to his cheek.

“Let me see,” Napoleon said.”

Illya moved the cloth, revealing four bloody raised claw marks across his cheek.

Solo whistled as he looked. “Better get that checked back at Medical. It's pretty nasty.”

“I have been scratched by a cat before, it is nothing,” Illya dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

Five minutes later Kuryakin was in anaphylactic shock and being rushed to the hospital.

When Napoleon hurried into his partner’s room at Mount Sinai, he found the Russian on a respirator.

Apparently these hybrid cats had a strange substance secreted through their claws. It was somewhat similar to the venom of a rattlesnake, but not quite. Venom generally did not cause anaphylaxis, as that was a condition more associated with an allergic reaction.

The hospital in conjunction with UNCLE Research and Development came up with a course of treatment just in the nick of time as Kuryakin was becoming weaker, his breathing more ragged.

Forty eight hours later Illya was off the respirator, and sitting up in bed asking for something to eat, much to the relief of his American partner.

“That’ll teach you to snuggle up to a strange cat tovarisch,” Napoleon chided.

“You are right. I should not have held her that close to me. Cats can lash out when frightened, and being unfamiliar with me caused it to react the way it did.”

“So you’re saying it was your fault that it ripped into you?”

“Most definitely. May I ask what is being done with the cats?”

“R&D has been studying them. They seem to have some sort of gland that secretes what's being called a venom, which is released through the claws. Removing the gland and declawing them will render them harmless or so that’s what they say. They’re calling in Dr. Dubowy from the the veterinary clinic on East 52nd Street. If the procedure is successful the cats will be neutered so they can’t reproduce, just to be on the safe side.”

Illya nodded as he listened. “So they are not going to be destroyed?”

“Nope, Mr. Waverly decided they should be spared.”

“Well he is rather fond of cats himself,” Illya said.

“But killer cats tovarisch, I don’t know about that.”

“If removing the gland and their claws renders them harmless, then they will no longer be classified as such, will they?”

“True. Now please tell me you don’t want to adopt one of them?” Solo asked.

“Do not fear Napoleon, I will not. I am not home enough to give a cat a nice homelife which is why I gave away my cat Nina, as you recall.”*

Napoleon absentmindedly began to rub his hands as he recalled the night Illya’s black cat Nina attacked his hands while he was sleeping on his partner’s lumpy green sofa.

“How could I forget?”

* ref to my Snapshot chapters: “Wild Kingdom”- chapter 4 and “Nina”- chapter 57 and “Miss Nina”- chapter 190, as well as “Cats and Dogs” on Fanfiction.net

Comments

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

No worries. So no Venus Cat Trap?