Friend or Foe?

by Katrina A. Templeton

"We really don't have any enemies. It's just that some of our best friends are trying to kill us."

- Random fortune

It was a sunny Monday morning. Katze had returned from Colorado the night before, and was surprised to find that Josh was not home. This was strange. And those glowsticks were awfully suspicious, too. Why would Josh be hording glowsticks? And if he was hoarding them for a reason, wouldn't they be better off in his room?

Katze shrugged and sat down to watch the morning news. About halfway through the news, Josh stumbled in the door drunker than the beggars on Telegraph. Katze took one look at Josh and wondered where he had been.

"Josh?" she asked.

Josh didn't even see her, he just wandered into his room and slammed the door. Katze pondered. Was he drunk, or was he just majorly upset about something? It was kinda hard to tell.

Katze turned back to the news. Darn it, he had been doing that more and more lately. Katze was beginning to worry about Josh; in high school, or even last year he'd never have done that. Sighing, Katze turned back to the news, when suddenly the door opened to Josh's room and he screamed, "He is your master, do you realize that? Quit fighting and join him!"

Katze spun back around to see Josh pointing an accusing finger at her. "Josh, are you okay?"

Josh looked straight through Katze. "You are either for him or against him. Quit fighting, you must give in. He is your master."

Katze stood up. "Josh, are you okay?" She started walking toward him.

Josh looked at Katze. He suddenly blinked. "Where am I?" he asked.

Katze shook her head. "You're in our apartment, on Haste Street. Where else would you be?"

Josh grinned. "I had the strangest dream. I was told you were the enemy because you belonged to this super-secret group or something. Hee hee, I guess the imagination does the silliest things!"

Katze blinked, and then grinned. "You do come up with the silliest things. Now, go to bed. I don't think you're feeling well."

Josh nodded. "I think I'll do that."

Josh headed off to his room, and Katze turned back to watching the news. But there was a slight whirring noise in the room that reminded Katze of when she was in the machine room at headquarters. But her computer was back in her room, so what could be making that noise?

She looked around the living room and found a simple explanation. The VCR was recording something. And it was set on the PBS station. This was strange.

Katze reached for the remote and pulled up the programming screen. The VCR was set to record PBS for three hours every morning, 7 AM to 10 AM. What was Josh doing? This was too weird.

Katze grabbed the TV Guide that came with the Sunday paper and referred to it. "Sesame Street, Puzzle Place, Big Comfy Couch, and two episodes of the fiend...but he's missing Reading Rainbow and Mr. Rogers, which are both pretty good shows..."

Something was not right with this picture. But what the missing piece was, Katze had no idea. Maybe a trip back to headquarters would clear everything up.

But not this week. Katze had classes to get through.

Linguistics, Friday afternoon lecture. You think it would be a heady subject, but Katze was doing well in it. She had grasped the concept right away that language provided a map to express your thoughts, and that sometimes your thoughts got caught up in this map.

And Professor Schmidt was an awesome professor. He knew exactly what he was talking about. Language pleased him, and he understood those thoughts perfectly.

But today, Katze could not concentrate on lecture. The VCR incident Monday had possessed her thoughts. Why was Josh taping three hours of PBS? And why was he doing it every morning? And why did it begin and end with the Wyrm's show? And if he was just taping kids programs, why didn't he tape Mr. Rogers, or Reading Rainbow?

Oh well...it didn't matter. It was soon time to go be a JAO head again. After class, she'd go down into the bowels of the BART station and find a semi-dark place to make the hop back.

Katze glanced at the back of the classroom to notice Josh slipping in. Josh was having a hard time with linguistics, she noted. She had tried to help him, but his violent temper flared up halfway through a tutoring session, and he had thrown the book violently at her. Since then, she had refused to help him.

[His temper has gotten wilder,] she thought. [That isn't the Josh I knew growing up. I wonder what is up with him.] She added a mental note to talk to Ari when she had the chance.

Katze patted down her pockets to make sure she had her keys. She had forgotten them once before and it had been a real pain to sneak back in and get them. If Josh had been home...but that was something not to think about.

She ran down her mental list of things to bring home. Feeling confident she had everything, she started walking down to the machine room to update Calculus on what needed to be done. But as she was coming down the last flight of stairs, she ran into Ari coming up them.

Seeing Ari reminded her of the past week. "Hey Ari," she called out. "I need to talk to you!"

Ari stopped on the stair she was on and waited for Katze to come down. "You be hopping most all over and now you be walking? What be wrong?"

Katze smiled. "Nothing. I'm going home here soon and Josh kinda has this image of me being normal - whatever that means." She frowned as her recollection of the past week swum up out of her memories. "I've got something to ask you about though. I was watching the news last week when I noticed a slight humming noise. After a little bit of searching, I discovered the VCR was recording PBS. I pulled up the display, and then checked the listings for that time period. Josh is recording a bunch of kids shows - including two episodes of B'harnee and Fiends. And he's got a strange fetish for glowsticks. He keeps a bunch of them in the freezer."

Ari thought about it for a second. Finally she said, "I think Josh is a sponge minion."

"Josh is NOT a sponge minion."

"Look at the evidence in front of your eyes! He is taping children's PBS shows, he is keeping strange things in the freezer, and he won't let you into his room. Don't be dense, Katze, he is seeking something from you."

"He is NOT hiding something. Josh is my friend...and we're honest with each other."

Ari scowled at Katze. "So I take it Josh knows all about the Jihad and where you are from!"

Katze suddenly faded out. Ari scowled some more at the space where Katze had been. "Fine, Katze, be stubborn. But if you refuse to see, I will show you."

Machines were beeping and chirping all over the room. Disk drives whirred, monitors hummed, and a computerized voice was singing the Free Software Song. In the center of the room, there was a computer in pieces. The mage with a screwdriver[tm] was happily ripping that computer into even more pieces.

Ari stepped into this room and blinked at all the chaos. She grinned as a local voice joined in with the .au the computer was playing. "Join us now and share the software..." She couldn't contain her laughter.

The mage looked up from the pieces of the computer he was tinkering with. "Oh, hey, Ari," he said. He reached around the piece for a keyboard, pressed a few keys, and the software song stopped playing. The mage spun around in his swivel chair. "Bovine Computing, Calculus speaking. How might I help you?"

Ari started laughing some more. "Oh, Calc, you have quite a way of making me laugh." She then sobered up a bit. "I need you to run a scan on somebody. Schneider, Josh."

Calculus reached for another keyboard. "Is that S-N-Y-D-E-R or S-N-I-D-E-R?" he asked.

"Neither," spoke up a third voice.

Ari and Calc both spun around. Leaning in the doorway was Katze. "It's S-C-H-N-E-I-D-E-R. German spelling. And he's from Minnesota."

Calculus grinned. "Thanks, that helps a lot." His fingers flew over the keyboard. "Okay, Schneider, Josh....no records found."

Katze blinked. "But he exists, he lives with me!"

Calculus shrugged. "He has a driver's license and things like that, but there's absolutely nothing on him before he met you."

Ari grinned and started to say something to Katze, but it was too late. Katze had disappeared again. Ari looked at Calculus and Calc shrugged his shoulders again.

Ari decided it would be a good idea to see what was up around headquarters. But part of her thoughts were on Josh and Katze and those rather strange glowsticks.

Katze reappeared in her room. The apartment was quiet. Katze poked her head out of the room and saw that it was dark, so Josh was either down at Wall Berlin playing chess with his buddies, or he was elsewhere. Either way, he was out.

Katze walked out of her room and into Josh's. The sign still hung on the door, but it was too important for her to obey it now. She pushed the door open and looked into Josh's room for the first time.

In one corner was Josh's unmade bed. Next to the bed was a table with a chess board set up with a particularly nasty chess problem. Scattered around the table was the San Francisco Chronicle chess problem of the day for various days. Katze remembered Josh's addiction to chess even in high school, and his habit of saying "Checkmate!" when something good happened to him.

Hanging over the bed was a picture of the two of them taken on graduation night. Josh had his chess tie on, and a Cal hat. Katze was wearing their high school seniors shirt with a Cal pin, and she had her arm around Josh's shoulder. It was obvious that the two of them had been best friends. [Had been? What am I thinking,] she thought to herself. But the picture brought a tear to her eyes.

She yanked her attention away from the picture to the rest of the room. In front of the closet set a video editing machine, and there were video tapes all over the room. Katze didn't even have to guess why. Next to the editing machine (with a lot of cords connecting the two) sat Josh's computer. Katze idly flicked it on to see if she could find anything interesting on it. She watched the computer go through the Win95 boot sequence and then pop up asking for a username.

Katze tried canceling it. That command didn't work. [Nice hack job,] she thought to herself and pondered usernames to enter. Katze tried "josh." It didn't respond. Katze tried "joshs." It still didn't respond. Katze tried "blacknite," which had been Josh's old BBS handle. That didn't work. Katze tried re-spelling it to the way Josh had done it for his email address. That didn't work. Giving up, she flipped the computer off and wandered over to his dresser.

Along with the scattered odd things you'd expect to see on a college student's dresser, there was a rather strange arm-band. It was the same pukey green and purple that the Hell Wyrm was, but it had some familiar lettering on it. Katze closed her eyes to prevent the memory from taking over, but it was impossible to control.

Katze remembered an old man coming to visit, who wore an arm-band with the exact same letters. The arm-band had been black, with silver lettering then. Katze was a little surprised that the man looked a lot like Professor Schmidt. [Katze, calm down, your memory is playing tricks on you. Now go back to your room and go tell Ari what you've found. She was right, and you had to be stubborn.]

Katze calmly walked out of Josh's room, not noticing she had left her 'linker sitting right in plain sight on Josh's dresser. She walked back into her room and made the jump back to headquarters, intent on hunting Ari down to tell her what she had seen.

Calculus was busy with another project now. He had left the PC in pieces on his table, and was now replacing a shorted card in another computer.

Phoenix walked in to find Calc looking at a melted card under a magnifying glass. "Whatcha up to, Calc?" he asked.

"Oh, trying to figure out why this card shorted out on me. I have a funny feeling somebody's been pushing this computer a bit too hard. It could be Mal with all his data (but it wasn't him). Probably keeb, trying to get the ultimate net.Quake game going...oh, I don't know. Just, whatever it was, it really messed up this card."

Phoenix nodded. "I just came down to see if there was anything you wanted me to do, since I can't seem to find Katze anywhere."

Calculus shrugged. "I haven't seen her since earlier this afternoon. But there's really not much to do around here. There are little tasks that can wait...but nothing really major."

"I just wish I could find Katze and make sure there was nothing important."

Calculus spun around in his swivel chair. "Actually, come to think of it...Katze usually gives me a list of things that need to get done while she's gone before she leaves. And she hasn't done that yet. I wonder what's up with her."

A spatial distortion weaved its way through the room. Calculus noted it and frowned. Something wasn't right here. Then he grinned as he realized what was up.

The space in front of the computers in the back of the room blurred a bit, much like those mirages that form in summer's heat and make the road all shimmery. Then a figure appeared. Calculus grinned some more. "Kat!"

Katze waved, but looked semi-preoccupied with something. "Where's Ari?" she asked.

Phoenix spoke up. "Last time I saw her, she was up in the situation room. You might check up there."

Katze nodded, and then faded out again. "It's a bit too important to take the stairs," she called out as she faded out again.

Phoenix looked at Calculus. Calculus shrugged. "Wonder what's going on," Phoenix said.

Calculus nodded. "I'm going upstairs."

"I'm coming with you."

Katze appeared in the situation room. The closet stood in one corner, open, but there was nobody in the room. Katze wandered over to the closet to see if somebody was hiding in there.

The second she stepped in the closet, the door slammed shut behind her. "Oh, not again," she sighed and hopped back out.

Ari was standing in front of the closet door grinning. "Gotcha," she said. Then noting the rather serious look on Katze's face, she inquired, "What's up?"

Katze sighed. "I went into Josh's room. I discovered some interesting things. Besides his fascination with chess, which I've known about since middle school at least, he had some rather interesting things in there. Like a video editing machine."

Ari raised an eyebrow. "He a phlem major?"

Katze shook her head. "No, German. And that's film."

The door to the situation room flew open. Calc and Phoenix fell into the room. Ari grinned as she saw the two Commies lying on the floor. "What gets you two up here so fast?"

Katze grinned. "It was probably me. I thought you might still be in the machine room. But these two were there and you weren't. Probably got a little excited."

Calc and Phoenix grinned sheepishly. Ari looked at Katze. "You're holding back one thing. Out with it."

"Welp, I found an arm-band that was our favorite shades of purple and green, with the letters MRFG on it..."

"Katze...Josh IS a sponge minion, and you know it."

"No, he's not a sponge minion! How many sponge minions do you know that play chess?" Katze patted down her pocket, and her expression turned to one of absolute horror. "Fsck it! Left my 'linker in his room!"

Katze quickly faded out. Ari looked at Phoenix and Calculus. "I'm gonna go get one of the glowsticks. I'll prove to Katze what's going on."

Ari faded out, leaving Phoenix and Calc to try and figure out what exactly was going on here.

Katze appeared back in her room. She heard the TV going, and sighed. Josh was home. This was not going to be good. She crept out of her room and out to the TV. For some reason, somebody had tuned it to the Home Shopping Network. Katze sighed and switched channels to PBS, where there was some boring nature show on.

Josh walked out of the kitchen. "Hey, Katze," he said. Then he scowled. "What the heck were you doing in my room?"

Katze sighed inwardly. "I was looking for the telephone bill. You have a habit of taking it into your room and not showing it to me. And the phone company called today and was threatening to turn off the phone."

Josh scowled some more. "That's not the real reason. You're getting too darn secretive, Katze. You who talks about honesty and trust."

"Who am I supposed to be honest to, somebody who hasn't let me into his room since day one? That's a laugh, Josh."

Josh scowled some more. "Yeah, and what do you do on your weekends? You sure as heck can't be a ski freak, all the damn snow has melted! It worked for a while, it isn't gonna work no more. Who are you, Katze, and where do you go on the weekends?"

"I could ask the same question of you."

Josh pulled the 'linker out from behind his back in triumph. "Then, what's this, Katze?"

Katze thought quickly. "You remember, Gary, my EECS[1] friend?"

Josh nodded. Katze continued. "Gary's trying to build a better pager, one that lets us check our e-mail and stuff from anywhere. That's one of his prototypes; he asked me to help him test it because he didn't want just EECS geeks[2] testing it."

Josh handed it back to Katze. "Okay. But from now on, stay out of my room!"

Katze scowled back. "And you stay out of mine." She got up from the couch and left the room. A few seconds later, the sound of a slammed door echoed throughout the apartment.

Josh said to himself. "We'll see who gets the last laugh, Katze. And I know exactly what you're hiding, but you have no idea what I am."

In the kitchen, Ari decided that she had heard enough. She pulled a glowstick-like thing out of the freezer and hopped back to headquarters.

Ari appeared back in the situation room. Calc and Phoenix were sitting down at the situation table and were working together against the computer in a game of Battleship. Ari placed the frozen glowsticks on the table. "Calc, Phoe?" she asked.

Calculus glanced back and saw Ari. He issued an order to the computer, and the Battleship game went away. Phoenix had already gotten up, and was examining the glowsticks. "What are these?" he asked.

Ari looked at them. "Don't know. Phoe, will you run these in the lab?"

Phoenix nodded, scooped them up and left the room. "Where be Katze?" asked Ari to Calculus.

Calculus shrugged. Ari looked rather upset. "It was a nasty fight, Calc. I'm worried about Katze."

Calculus nodded. He pulled up a chair and sat at the conference table, with his head in his hands. He still didn't say anything, though.

Ari began to wonder if she should go back to the apartment and see what was happening when a figure appeared out of nowhere juggling paperwork and clothing. The figure dropped everything on the Couch[tm], and then said, "Okay, Ari, you were right. You win."

Ari looked at the dejected Katze and decided not to rub it in. "We'll get Mal to get you an apartment here. It's not safe for you to go back to Berkeley."

"But I have to, I've got to finish my classes!"

"No, Katze, you will be killed if you do."

"Then let it be so."

"Katze, you be too stubborn for your own good. Just stay out of that place, okay? Somebody has a grudge, and your excuse, although good, didn't seem right."

Katze nodded. "Maybe it would just be easier if Katze Brenner left this world."

"Katze, that would be tough on you, and I don't want to see it happen."

Katze nodded. "Okay, I won't, but..." She shrugged dejectedly. "My best friend is trying to kill me. What am I supposed to do?"

Ari shrugged. "I don't know, Katze. We'll see."

To be continued in "Slip Slidin' Away."

[1] Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Pronounced "eeks."

[2] A semi-derogatory term to describe somebody majoring in EECS.