Two wheeled cat

Posted on Thu Jun 1st, 2023 @ 6:22am by Caitlin Thompson PhD

968 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: 1.5 - Non Mission Posts
Location: Louisiana
Timeline: 1 day before 6. Rescued?

The road stretched out in front of her, like a long black ribbon. Underneath her, the motorcycle vibrated. She had recently tuned it up and it was running good. After all she had learned many other skills since getting her final degree. All around her were other bikers. Riding partners of her cousin. At the end of their procession was a truck, with a couple bags of her things. As much as she wanted all of her stuff, she wanted to wait. The rest of her stuff was still in Tennessee. She'd never done anything this crazy, not in all of her life. But after several years of sitting around the house of her cousin's friend with no job, and no one wishing to hire her, she got a paper from someone offering her a teaching job. And it wasn’t from any place she had ever sent an application to. She wouldn’t have gone with Louisiana on her own. But she had grown fond of eating, and she had been feeling like a drain on the farm’s owner for the past six years.

If this all worked out, this meant she would also need to find a place, and get certified to teach in the state. She was sure there was some kind of interview. So she hoped she wouldn’t blow that. Even with the help of her cousin and their friends, she wasn’t too good with interviews. She just had to ignore any digs about not being the youngest PhD holder. She was. The youngest had been some kid in the 1800’s. He got it at 13 years and some days. She got her first PhD as she was turning 12. As for a place to live, if they had no place, she did have a trailer that she had been living in the for past few years. Not that she wanted to be in the trailer. After all, no real apartment building would rent to her. At least not one she would want to be in. She was hoping this was a private school. Public schools in the south would be the wrong kind of parents. Too much hatred.

She had spent the last six years, and what was left of her money, making little gadgets, and on four motorcycles. She had a lot of clutter to show, plus one antique Indian motorcycle, plus a vintage WWII Harley, a touring bike and the low rider she was currently on. Her cousins friends had helped her fall in love with motorcycles.

As they passed another road sign, her mind went back to this trip. She had put in applications all over. But no one wanted her, they insisted it was a lack of knowledge or something else, but she knew the truth. Not many people wanted to hire a giant walking cat person. They would know that she was a mutant. Which was also why she didn't ride alone. She had somehow been taken in and adopted by the Motorcycle Club that currently surrounded her, the open road knights. Of course she had proven herself in a fight against five of them, when she had been 14.

Currently they rode with her because of a fear. What if the person that had sent this was just out to kill a high profile mutant. After all, she had made news when she entered college. And she made news when she graduated with a degree. And her doctorate. Although if you asked most news stations now, they would insist that somebody else had done it younger. Even though he was several years older, at the time of his passing with his degrees.

Her mind once more drifted to the letter her parents had taken to her. It was important for them to drive from Boston to the Smokey mountains. They were happy and she was, but she was a bit leery.
As the gang began to pass another sign for an upcoming town, this one the major city of Lafayette Louisiana, the man in the front pointed at a sign for the first off-ramp. As it came closer they pulled off. She looked at her gas gauge, and saw that she was at half a tank. And it would probably be best to fill up now. But she also knew that this motorcycle club had a chapter here in Lafayette. She just wasn't sure how well she would be taken in. And it was also running a little late that day. So they needed sleep.

As they started pulling into a gas station, she vowed to keep her helmet on. Less chance of people seeing her real ears. Even though her helmet was modified to wear her ears were sitting in two little spaces that look like cat ears on her helmet. One of the people that a cousin knew, had specially made her helmet to where it could house her ears safely. They had also found a way to keep her tail contained, when she rode. Her real tail was tied tight to her waist and under her leather coat.

The government knew about her outwards appearance. They had also caught her using her heightened senses, strength and agility in the past. But she played her other power close to the chest. Only three people knew she could also sling magic. She had been practicing since the power had first shown up. That had been more than eight years now. Though as a scientist, she hated to call it magic, so she would yell out command activate as she willed a spell into existence, as though she was rewriting the way the world worked.

Her paw-like hand touched the letter once more, as if it would disappear if she didn’t. She really needed this job.

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