Chapter 32: Living Arrangements

"This place is incredible" Jade said as she ran from room to room. "The kitchen comes with a sacrificial altar in the middle which doubles as a cooking preparation surface. The blood of innocents adds a lot to the flavor of a good meatloaf."

Nikki followed her into the kitchen. "Its what we've always dreamed for" she said pretty sarcastically.

Jade frowned. "That's why I do most of the cooking isn't it, you don't share the same enthusiasm for culinary preparation."

"Perhaps so, I do think the crystallized chunks of hope in the corners is a nice little something extra on this stone slab though."

Ethan stumbled over to the fridge. "Look, an ice dispenser."

Nikki rolled her eyes. "Leave it to him to get caught up on frozen water distribution from our fridge."

"Hey now" he interjected "its important to cover the basics first. If you can't have ice, the whole rest of the pyramid will fall."

Nikki countered "Actually I don't think pyramids can fall over, it's a pretty stable structure. I'm also not aware of any pyramids that have ice cubes as their base because that seems like the kind of pyramid that would not hold up in your average pyramid environment."

"You know what I meant, don't get caught up on semantics."

Jade smirked. "But you're so cute when you get flustered like that. And you do get flustered a lot don't you."

"I don't know what you're talking about" he said innocently. Ethan smirked before stepping into the living room. "Hey check it out, a new big screen TV, that's pretty neat."

Nikki picked a receipt up from the floor, looked at it and then handed it to Ethan. "I don't think you'll like this too much, its a receipt for the TV payed for with our credit card and with your forged signature."

Ethan examined the receipt for a moment and then shouted "You'll pay for this Tigerlily!" He thought for a second and added "Apparently I'll pay for this but you know what I meant." Tigerlily sauntered in and gave him a mean look before turning around and sauntering away.

Nikki continued on to the next room as Jade followed close behind. They entered one of the bathrooms and were surprised to find the room was huge with just a single toilet in the middle and a whole lot of empty space everywhere else. Nikki commented "Oh yeah, that's efficient use of space. Maybe we can put like a dunking booth in here or something for people to play while they're on the toilet. Maybe a water slide or something."

Ethan pointed to the ceiling near the entrance to the bathroom. "Look its a set of spinning blades."

Jade shook her head. "I think that's a house vent. I'm suddenly inspired not to confirm my theory though, just in case. This place is unique, I'll say that."

"Hey did you guys see, it comes with a dungeon too over on the other side of the house, complete with shackles and stuff." Nikki was pointing excitedly down the hallway towards the far end of the house.

"Down girl" Jade said in response to Nikki's excitement. "This place is pretty neat, though I'm a little concerned with the door outside by the cars with all that nonsense about 'Abandon all hope ye who enter here'."

Ethan shrugged. "I wouldn't worry about it too much, we'll stick Ralph in there since I hear he's looking for a place to live all of a sudden."

"What happened to his place again, it has something to do with the phone call you got on the way home right?" Nikki asked.

"Yeah apparently the new kitten he got recently wasn't very adept at not burning apartments down. When Ralph got home, he found he was homeless all of a sudden. I hear the only things that made it out of the fire undamaged were the litter box and some cat food."

Nikki laughed. "I hate to say I told him so but that kitten had a very suspicious sounding name like Dr. Evilmeow or Chairman Annihilate. He probably just brought this upon himself for picking that particular kitten from the animal mastermind shelter and containment center or AMSCC for short."

Ethan said "Why can't he have normal cats like ours." Nikki and Jade looked at each other for a moment and then back at Ethan. He added "And did anyone else see an orange cat just lumber by?"

Chapter 31: Witless Protection

Ethan looked over at Jade as they were driving home. "Seems like we've been driving forever, I don't remember our house being that far away from the restaurant."

Jade looked back at Ethan briefly before beginning to swerve wildly. She quickly looked back at the road in front of them. "Maybe I should keep watching the road. But yes I agree, this trip is taking forever. Oh but here's our exit finally."

They pulled off the highway onto a side road into the town of Witlessier. Witlessier was a tiny little town with a population of like 50 people tops. It was a little strange that the state highway patrol liked to place one of their full blown license checkpoints right off the exit ramp at least once a month. Jade pulled the vehicle to a stop at the checkpoint. "Yes Officer?"

"Can I see your license please?"

"Sure, one moment" Jade responded and dug through her purse. "Here you go officer" she said as she handed him a hundred dollar bill.

"This looks nothing like you ma'am"

"Yeah I had my hair down that day" she responded without a moments thought.

The officer handed the hundred back to Jade and said "Thank you, have a nice evening and drive safe." Ethan and Nikki both shrugged as Jade continued through the checkpoint and turned onto another side road.

Ethan poked Jade. "I don't think that guy understood the point of a bribe, though admittedly you do bear a striking resemblance to Ben Franklin."

Jade said "Hey remember that one time you hit your head on the dashboard?"

"No I don't.." Jade slammed on the breaks sending Ethan's head into the dashboard. "OK I remember now. Isn't that Tigerlily running towards the vehicle?" Ethan pointed at a mean old gray cat darting towards them.

Tigerlily came up to the driver's side door and tapped on it with her paw. Nikki said "I think you should let her in." Jade opened the door and let the cat in. Tigerlily jumped into the chair and started to push on Jade with her paw. "Move over, I think she wants to drive."

As soon as Jade made enough room, Tigerlily put her front paws on the steering wheel. After a couple moments of the car not going anywhere, Tigerlily started to honk the horn. Suki came running out to the car and climbed in near the gas and break petals. Soon the vehicle was rolling again. Jade leaned over and closed the door as the car sped down the road.

Ethan said "Tigerlily, that was the turn for our house." She just growled in response and kept driving. After a few minutes, she turned off at an unmarked dirt road and sped up a hill stopping at a large estate.

Suki and Tigerlily started scratching at the door to be let out, so Jade reached over, turned the vehicle off and let them out. "I guess we're here" she said as she shrugged to Ethan and Nikki.

"I would tend to agree" Ethan added. "My car is parked right next to us already." Next to the two parked cars was a brightly colored door that had painted on it in big letters "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." Ethan pointed at the door and said "Let's not use that door shall we, that glass door over looks a little more inviting." They all moved towards a glass pane door near the center of the building.

There was a note stuck to the door that read "You've been moved for your protection, welcome home." The bottom of the note was signed with a paw print.

Jade grinned. "This place is awesome, and its all mine." She looked over at Ethan and Nikki. "I mean its all ours!" and then ran inside to check the place out.

Nikki frowned. "What happened to the old place?" Suki came up to Nikki with a piece of note paper sticking out of her fur. Nikki picked it out and read it. "We sold it to the lawyer." "What about that contraption you were building on the roof?" Suki flipped over revealing another note in her fur which read "What contraption? Were such a device real, we've also moved and reinstalled it here." Nikki looked confused. "But what about..." Suki batted a third note out of her fur with her tail.

The third note read "The answers to the rest of your questions:"
"Security"
"Russians"
"Laser tracking"
"Scrambler"
"Nuclear Reactor"
"Salt Mine"
"Mole People"
"Ninja Hunting Season"
"3-4-2-1"
"Classified"
"Meow"

Nikki nodded. "Good enough for me, I call dibs on this side of the estate" she said as she ran inside too. Ethan groaned and followed her in.