Catnip by J.S. Frankel

was in control of his own life and his
own destiny, but now, he sensed a total lack of control, and he
sure as hell didn’t have the heart to do any research.
    The elder Goldman walked in and sat down on
the bed. He was smart enough to know by the expression on his son’s
face—one of worry and fear—that something bad had happened. “You
had yourself a bit of a problem, didn’t you?”
    Reluctantly, Harry nodded and related the
incident. His father sighed. “I went through the same thing when I
was younger. Fighting back isn’t the best way, but sometimes you
have to.”
    Yeah , Harry thought, fight back and
get my ass kicked . “You once told me I could fight back in
different ways.”
    “You’re not thinking of using itching powder,
are you?” The look on his father’s face could only be described as
horrified and Harry recalled the incident that got him suspended in
junior high.
    “No.” Shame washed over him. “But what am I
supposed to do?”
    His father shrugged and patted him on the
shoulder. “Hit back. You did once before in junior high,
remember?”
    Anguish boiled to the surface and a hot gush
of tears tickled his eyelids. With a massive effort, he fought back
the urge to bawl. “I got my ass kicked, Dad. I’ve always gotten my
ass kicked!”
    A nod came his way…but this time his father
didn’t offer any sympathy. “Yes, you did, but you did what you
thought was right. No one really likes fighting except the
terminally stupid, but sometimes you have to. You may lose, but
there’s no shame in losing. There is shame in not doing
anything about it if it means losing your self-respect.” He got up
and left the room, and Harry sat there thinking about his father’s
words.
    Soon after, boxing videos became his
exercise. It was just him and his shadow and time to beat up on it.
Too shy to join a gym and feeling too weak, he searched the
Internet and found a few instructional videos, and after his
parents had gone to work and he’d completed his studies for regular
school, which took all of ten minutes, he jogged on the spot,
practiced murdering his sun-cast image for thirty minutes with
jabs, crosses, and uppercuts, and did pushups and sit-ups and
bodyweight squats ad infinitum in an attempt to carve a reasonably
buff bod.
    Try as he might, though, while he gained
endurance and a little strength, he didn’t develop the muscles
capable of intimidating anyone from punking him. Bad genes and all
that, he mused after another sweaty, all-out training session.
Still, he hoped that if a problem arose in the future he’d be
ballsy enough to hit back…
     
    “Hey, are you okay?”
    The voice came like an insistent mosquito
whining in his ear, and the question was repeated. “No, I want to
sleep in,” he mumbled.
    “Wake up!”
    The pain in his temples forced him into
consciousness and he sat up groggily and inspected his
surroundings, a splitting headache temporarily obscuring his
vision. He was still in the lab, sitting on a cot. Farrell stood
three feet away, his face impassive as usual. “Are you okay?” he
repeated. “I brought a cot down from the storage room.”
    Harry rubbed his jaw. “What happened?”
    The agent started to laugh. “We had a rerun
of Wild Kingdom , that’s what,” and then he cut his mirth
short and got serious. “The technician got carved up pretty good
and you’ve been out for a few hours. It’s night time, around
eight-thirty. She’s a hell of a fighter, I’ll give her that. I had
to tase her three times before she went down, but we got the blood
sample.”
    He pointed to the table where the computer
was. Talk about an upgrade! An electron microscope had been brought
in, a centrifuge, and a whole host of other equipment including a
DNA analyzer, all of which piqued Harry’s interest. “You feel well
enough to run some tests?” Farrell asked.
    “What did the technician say?”
    “Wait a second.” He walked out of the room
and Harry swiveled his head