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     What happens when you watch ten episodes of SWAT Kats in a row while you paint and then listen to Loreena McKennitt's "The Visit" for a week?  You think of really strange "What ifs?" that's what happens.  This is based around a moment in the first season that I hope isn't too obscure.  It also includes fairly obvious references to "Cry, Turmoil" from the second season. If this sounds familiar you might have read my short fic "Rendezvous" - this is an expanded version of "Rendezvous"... a much expanded version.  Obviously, I have re-written the ending to "The Ci-Kat-A."  Thus, this is an Alternate Universe story departing from the mainstream series after "The Ci-Kat-A."  I'm assuming for the sake of the story that "Katastrophe" was the only first season episode to follow "Ci-Kat-A."  And, the only second season adventures to have transpired before this story are "When Strikes Mutilor" and "Cry, Turmoil," which has just happened the morning before this story opens.

Any and all Morse code contained herein is not intended to be genuine.

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     His claws clicked softly, arrhythmically on the polished tile as the burly kat hurried through the sterile corridors.  His pace was a limping trot, the fastest speed he could manage.  A patch of blackened fabric high on his left hip bore testimony to the blaster bolt he'd narrowly evaded.  Four, parallel slash marks ripped through the golden fur of his nose, stretching onto his right cheek.  Scabbed over slightly, they still oozed pussy ichor.

     But, pain was a minor irritation at the moment.  Something he must ignore.  He had a rendezvous to make. A promise to keep.

     Every other bank of flourescent lighting was off as he stumbled down the final long hallway.  A lone janitor shrank against the wall, clearing his path.  The broad-shouldered one was a familiar face.  Known to have a surly countenance when thus kept from the appointed hour.
 
     Only twice had the big tom failed to make the rendezvous.  Once had been a pitched battle with Dark Kat that left him too broken in body and spirit to do more than escape the Enforcers and well-meaning paramedics.  The second he'd been a prisoner aboard an alien ship.

     He still regretted both.  He had promised.  Every night.  Every night until It happened.

     "It would be a miracle," the eavesdropping researcher had hissed when he swore the oath that bound him.

     Then, every night until the miracle happened.

     Every night for a little over a year.

     Doors marked "Authorized Personnel Only" yielded beneath his great shoulder.  And, none dared question his presence.  He came every night.

     Then, the last door opened and his pace slowed.  Quietly, wincing as his seared hip sent tendrils of pain lancing down his thigh, he padded to the glass wall.

        The SWAT Kat T-Bone sighed heavily, leaning his broad back into the glass behind him. He slouched there for a minute, exhausted, before words came to him.  Thickly, they rolled off his tongue, his voice hoarse.

        "It's been one of those days, buddy," he muttered.  "I just barely escaped this crazy she-kat..."

        A soft murmur at his back encouraged him to continue.

        "See, she flew in over the city in this huge airship.  Shot down a commercial airliner with this ray of hers that caused the pilot to be so disoriented he couldn't control the plane...  A real piece of work."  His voice choked.  "I was there."  A single tear slid down his cheek.  "I tried, buddy.  I tried.  But, it plummeted so fast I couldn't stop it.  A hundred and seventy-five passengers."  His eyes closed tightly, shoulders heaved.  "No survivors."

        Choking down the flood of emotions, he turned to face his friend.

        The once kat was standing just behind where the big tabby had sat, his head cocked to one side.

        Many would have found the five foot tall insect frightening.  Body a dull orange-brown carapace covered in short, stiff hairs with huge insectoid green eyes dominating his face, Razor bore little resemblance to the kat T-Bone had known.  The big tabby never flinched.  He had seen this sight for the last year.

        Stepping forward, the insect tapped a claw on the glass separating them.

        T-Bone nodded to him sadly.

        "Hardly the first I've failed, huh?"

        The ci-kat-a shook its head back and forth slowly.

        T-Bone wasn't sure how to respond to that.  Was Razor denying that he'd failed him?  No.  Razor wasn't that cognizant.  He was putting kat gestures to a creature that no longer remembered them.  Like assuming your pet understood your words because it responded with a gesture that looked feline.

        Still, that was just the sort of thing Razor would have done.  He never let T-Bone blame himself.  The ghost of a smile played across T-Bone's lips.

        Razor had improved.  Even the scientists agreed.

        His behavior was a far cry from when this nightmare started.  A year ago.  A year ago when the alien bugs came.  A year ago when T-Bone landed outside the nuclear plant and went searching for his partner.  Then, Razor had howled and swore as T-Bone pinned him and later brought him to the research facility in hopes of a cure.

        But, T-Bone never blamed Razor.  It wasn't him talking.

        When his transformation into a ci-kat-a had ended, when his voice had become unintelligible, Razor had settled for ignoring his once partner.

        Again, it wasn't Razor.

        It was only in the last two months that the insect had started to pay attention.  Whether he understood a word was debatable.  But, it made no difference.   T-Bone would never give up.  Rename it and stubborn was a virtue.

        The ci-kat-a tapped the glass again, insistently.
 
        The big kat patted the glass where Razor's claw was with another sigh and turned to leave. He'd seen this a million times.  He didn't blame Razor for wanting out. But, it was always the insect that wanted to escape and then ignored him when he wouldn't open the door.  It was never his friend.

        It wasn't Razor.

        The tapping continued, steady, rhythmic.

        Tap-tap.  Taptaptap.  Tap.

        The big kat froze.

        Tap. Tap-tap.

        An ear flickered backward slowly, an old memory surfacing.

        Taptaptap.  Tap.

        A rhythm.  A code.  Morse code.

        "Morse code," T-Bone whispered.  He spun and flung himself at the glass, one hand pressing to it.  "Are... are you....?" he started, unsure.  He couldn't say it.  Couldn't hope again.

        The insect nodded.

        Taptaptap.  Pause.  Tap-tap.  Pause. Tap.  Tap-tap.

        "Here," T-Bone mouthed.

        Tap-tap. Pause.  Tap. Pause. Tap. Taptaptap.  Tap.  Pause. Tap.

        "Buddy."

        He looked into the multi-faceted eyes.

        I'm here, Buddy.

        It had happened.  His miracle.

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     He found his partner after twenty minutes of gut-wrenching fear and total radio silence.  The moan lead him, an infeline sound, but unmistakably Razor's voice.  It was the kind of sound that comes ripped from a raw throat, a half-sob, but T-Bone knew who it was.  And, it scared him.  Scared him to the depths of his soul.

     Heart racing, he plunged after the sound, rounding a corner of the nuclear power plant and coming into a narrow crevice between two buildings.  A kat's silhouette was outlined before him in the light pouring in from the opposite side of the dark interstice.

     "Razor?"

     As T-Bone approached, Razor kept his back to his friend, his body rigid, shoulders quaking slightly.

     "Razor, are you okay?" T-Bone called out, his steps slowing. Something was deathly wrong.  So wrong he knew not to run to his partner as he would have under any other circumstances.  Something held him back.

     "T-Bone...."  Razor's voice was strained, distorted.  "Stay there."

     "Razor!" T-Bone couldn't contain it any longer; he lunged forward.

     "Chance,... STOP!!!!" Razor snarled, turning slowly.

     T-Bone froze at the sound of his real name, his heart in his throat.

     Face veiled in shadow, Razor studied his friend.  Hesitantly, he took several steps forward, coming into the light from T-Bone's end of the aperture.  Gaze locked on the big tabby, he reached up to slowly, deliberately remove his helmet.

     "No," T-Bone whispered, realizing.

     The mask followed.

     T-Bone could only stare in horror at the multi-faceted green eyes that had replaced Jake's vibrant amber ones.  His jaw hung slack, moving soundlessly.

     The infected kat's lips moved.

     "....sorry..."

     It was the last word he ever uttered as Jake Clawson.  His last word as the kat T-Bone had known.

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     The furious thudding from the containment room brought Dr. Sandy Katleider at a run.  Not again.  Not another one attempting to suicide by throwing itself into the wall.

     A low key stun blaster in one hand, she rushed into the room, her other hand groping for the switch to bring up the dimmed lights.  She paused, catching sight of the movement in the familiar holding chamber.  No!  Not Razor!

     "Razor!" she blurted, forgetting the lights and running on.

     Razor's clawed foot stopped mid-kick and withdrew.  Urgently, he looked up at the doctor.

     Sandy slid to a halt as the insect met her eyes with his own.  What was...?  Then, she saw the large form slumped against the base of the glass wall.

     With a gasp, Sandy rushed to T-Bone's side.  He lay limp, head resting against the wall.  A dark stain was spreading along the side of his flight suit.

     "Oh my goodness..."  The slender she-kat pressed a hand to T-Bone's neck.  Yes, his heartbeat was steady, and the regular shudders rippling over his body accompanied each breath.  Sandy sighed in relief.  As she tugged her cell phone out of a coat pocket, the big SWAT Kat's eyelids fluttered.  The researcher paused.

     T-Bone's lips moved soundlessly before a word finally escaped.

     "Razor...."

     "He's fine.  He just saved your life," Sandy assured, eyes locked on the insect that had knelt by them on his side of the glass.

     It was the last thing the big kat heard before his world once more spiralled into darkness.

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     The ci-kat-a drone that called itself both Jake Clawson and Razor and was alone of its kind in naming itself - watched intently as paramedics strapped the burly form of his friend onto a collapsible gurney.  A soft murmur rumbled from deep in his throat where the ci-kat-a's voicebox lay.

     Dr. Sandy Katleider's ears twitched at the sound.  When they had wheeled T-Bone out of sight, she at last turned to study Razor.

     She was a short she-kat with uniformly beige fur that lightened to white at the tip of her tail.  Her mop of brown hair was perpetually tied in a ponytail.  It was easy to see how she could vanish into any crowd.  Until you saw her eyes.  They were a vibrant orange that seemed to shine behind her thin-rimmed glasses.  By turns they glowed with the intensity of thought, the thrill of diving into a new project, and an unbounded capacity for empathy.

     It was a mingling of each that now fell on Razor.  "You were trying to get someone's attention because he was hurt, weren't you?" Sandy asked, not certain if she expected an answer or that familiar, blank stare.

     Razor nodded.
 
     Sandy's eyes widened.  Was he that cognizant?

     "You were trying to kill yourself?" she asked, testing.

     Razor shook his head, his ears pinning back.

     Sandy's jaw dropped at the feline expression of distaste.  The ci-kat-as' feline ears and tails had earned them their common name, but they didn't use them as kats did.  A colleague and partner in the project had devoted considerable time to studying the mutated kats and the few live ci-kat-as that had been captured.  Their body language was identical.  In fact, save that the infected kats seemed to maintain a vestige of their original coloring and the ci-kat-as were all a uniform, and ghastly, shade of purple, there was no noticeable difference between the two.  The researcher had catalogued a  variety of body language, but not once had a kat-like gesture from either set even vaguely appeared to carry the same meaning for which kats employed it.

     Razor, however, was most assuredly responding with kat gestures in a kat-like way.  His ears were pricked forward attentively.  The tip of his tail was twitching in agitation.

     Sandy paused to correct herself.  She couldn't know it was agitation.  Similar incidents had already sparked far too many premature hopes.  But, as she stared into Razor's face, alien as it was, she knew.  Knew that this time the miracle was real.

     Her throat tightening, the young researcher started to ask upwards of three questions at once before realizing that Razor couldn't possible answer... at least not so that she could understand.  "Can you write?" Sandy managed at last.

     Razor looked down at his three-clawed hands.  After some minutes' study, he raised his head and nodded.  He would try at any rate.

     Sandy returned the nod and fled the room.  Was this really happening?  Her mind spun as she fumbled with the doorknob to her office.

     For the last six months the once-kats had been in her care.  She'd volunteered for the project, offering her skills and training as a biologist.  She'd stayed with it when others gave up.  She'd championed the project when funds were discussed.  She'd comforted family members uncertain whether to grieve or to despair or to hope.

     Rummaging in the disaster area that was her desk, Sandy ruefully admitted that she had been serving more like a caregiver than a researcher more often than not.  But, it called to her.  All of the internships she had looked into during her final year of college paled in comparison to this project.  Somehow none of them seemed as important.  How could those studies in genetic engineering back east, however fantastical as well as profitable, compare to the plight of these kats who had been forcibly transformed into a completely different species?  Their minds held captive in an insectoid hive mind?

     And, the families of the victims had touched her heart almost as much as the victims themselves.  T-Bone most of all.

     Sandy tugged a yellow legalpad from a stack of folders and started to rip away the two pages of notes on top.  The dark-haired she-kat paused.  She could still see T-Bone on that day a year ago.  Still see that tortured, hurting face.

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     The burly figure barred the doorway, an orange-furred kat half his size cradled in his arms.

     "Help me," the imposing kat whispered hoarsely, at once as lost and helpless as a kitten yet a tightening of his facial muscles hinting at far darker emotions roiling within.  He needed help desperately... and someone would help him or there would be Hell to pay.

     The big kat set one foot forward, eyes searching the room.  As he and his burden came into the light, someone gasped.

     The near arm of the limp form the burly tabby carried hung free, a three-clawed hand protruding from the baggy sleeve. The claw was unmistakable.

     "It's a ci-kat-a!"

     The big feline, now clearly visible as a SWAT Kat, looked protectively over his charge at the room full of researchers, eyes narrowing.  It was clear he could explode in a fury if any dared ask he leave.  It was clear that he wasn't thinking levelly.  It was equally clear that he was in pain beyond level thought.  Pupils veiled, the agony behind his mask couldn't be hidden.  His shrouded eyes were haunted.  His fury was the final stage before exhaustion and despair.

     "Help me," he whispered again.

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     Forcing herself back to the present, Sandy shivered.  Like an afterimage, T-Bone's haunted face still hung in the air before her.  She'd seen a replay of it more times than she dared ponder.  But, maybe it was over now.  Maybe.  Hopefully.

     Sandy tore the note pages free and clutched the legalpad to her chest.  With her other hand she pulled a pen from the overflowing holder on the corner of the desk.  Then, she was hurrying back to Razor.

     She found him pacing the containment chamber restlessly.  His head came up at her appearance, nodding as she smiled and held up the legalpad.  Then, she was darting around to the door on the back of his chamber.

     Sandy quickly keyed her access code so that the door to the transfer room slid away with a quiet swish of air.  The dark-haired doctor laid down the pad and pen, noting her trembling hands with a researcher's detachment beforestepping back.  The movement triggered the door to close, sliding back into place as quietly as it had opened.  Trying to force herself to calm, Sandy fingered the speaker by the door.

     "Alright, you can open your side," one finger found the inner door release, "now."

     Sandy waited as Razor collected the pad and pen and retreated once more into his confinement before returning to the glass-faced front of the chamber.  Razor was already struggling through a message.

     After some fumbling with the pen, he turned the pad to her.

     "Thank U."

     "You're welcome," the she-kat breathed.

     It was T-Bone's miracle.  The one he'd waited for so earnestly.  The one for which they'd all waited.

     Razor studied Sandy's face as the flash of emotions danced their way across her slightly rounded features and then looked beyond her.  To the doors through which they'd wheeled his partner.

     Sandy saw it.

     "He'll be alright," she assured.  "He has to be," she added softly.

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     A single drop of blood splashed against the metal deck of the airship.  T-Bone watched it listlessly, half his face numb with pain.

     "Answer me!"  Turmoil grabbed his chin, her claws curling across his cheek to dig into the wound she'd already inflicted, and forced his head up to meet her gaze.

     "What do I really think of you?" he hissed.  The green eyes behind his mask narrowed to slits.  "I think you're a murderer."

     Turmoil threw her head back and laughed shortly before fixing a sneer on T-Bone, who was again staring disinterestedly at the floor.  "You can't stop me, SWAT Kat."

     At the words, T-Bone's head jerked up.

     "You can't stop us, SWAT Kat," Turmoil repeated, her face contorting before him.  As he watched, her large eyes, perhaps her most attractive feature, grew to oversized proportions, becoming the multifaceted eyes of a ci-kat-a.  Her prominent cheekbones widened into a face so familiar, the hat atop her head flattening into a curving helmet.  He turned around in surprise as his arms were abruptly free.  The female troops at his back had disappeared, melding into expressionless gray concrete.  He was at MegaKat Nuclear Plant once more.  On that day.

     Resigned, T-Bone faced the figure before him, now Razor.  Razor as the ci-kat-a hive mind at last broke through his defenses and consumed him.

     Razor's face below the huge eyes was just twisting in a snarl.  "You can't stop us, SWAT Kat," he growled at his former partner, his voice hissing faintly.

     T-Bone shook off his shock, forced to join in the never-ending replay.  "I can save you," he shouted, snapping his right arm up and bringing his glovatrix into firing position.

     Razor had backflipped away from him before the motion was complete.  Landing lightly, the infected kat growled and fired his own glovatrix.  His aim was as true as ever.

     T-Bone leapt into the air to avoid the missile, twisting as he went.  But, he was seconds too slow.  The bolo snapped free of its metal housing instants before tightening around the big kat, the impact throwing him off-balance and down onto the hard concrete.

     Desperate, T-Bone thrashed around, trying to get his glovatrix in a position to free himself with the buzzsaw blade.  He had to free himself.  He couldn't let Razor get away!  He had to get him help!  Had to...

     The shriek of an alarm interrupted his thoughts.  T-Bone rolled onto his side to look up.  Patterns of light blared along the side of the nuclear plant's main building.  The wail of a siren joined the alarm not minutes later.  Fuzzy figures hurried from an exit several feet beyond his position, yelling, urgent.  Their screams becoming one with the general melee.

     T-Bone blinked.  He was suddenly unable to comprehend it all, his vision blurring.  "What...?" the tabby whispered, dazed.  The world seemed to be exploding around him and he felt uninterested.

     Razor was only a dark figure in T-Bone's vision by the time he bent to pluck the tranquilizer dart from the back of the big kat's neck.

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     T-Bone moaned softly as the dream faded, reality greeting him with a myriad of aches and pains.  He groaned louder at that realization and wondered what time it was.  Dr. Katleider would be scolding him again.  Falling asleep in the facility.

     "T-Bone?"

     The big kat's eyes slit open at the voice.  That wasn't Dr. Katleider.

     Deputy Mayor Callie Briggs leaned over to peer at the SWAT Kat in the hospital bed, a cascade of golden hair spilling over her shoulder.  "T-Bone?" she repeated.  As his green eyes widened, the longtime SWAT Kat friend and supporter met them with her own and smiled.  Anticipating his questions, she hardly gave him the chance to open his mouth before raising a hand to tick off the answers on her delicate fingers.  "Your identity's safe, the doctors say you'll be fine, and...," Callie's voice dropped to an excited whisper, "Razor's been asking about you.  He sent this note."

     T-Bone looked in stunned disbelief as Callie produced a manilla envelope, its bulge hinting at far more than a 'note.'  So, they hadn't all been dreams.  The miracle was real.

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     "It's very hard to write, so I'll stick to what I have to tell you," T-Bone read aloud from the veritable dissertation Razor had painfully scratched out for him.  "S'alot he had to tell me," the big kat muttered, reaching to snatch a roll from the movable table situated across his bed.  As the roll disappeared into his mouth, he took up Razor's missive yet again and resumed reading.

     "First, I am and will always be your friend..."

     T-Bone felt his eyes moisten slightly but had to chuckle softly at the next line.

     "Stop sniffling before you embarrass yourself, you big softie!"

     It was a bit surprising.  Hearing Razor speak so candidly of what they'd never spoken aloud, what had always been an unspoken understanding.  But, it might be his friend's last chance to voice it...

     T-Bone shoved the thought aside forcefully and focused on his reading.

     "It's hard to think of the last year...  My thoughts were so confused.  The ci-kat-as have a hive mind that suppresses most individual thought.  Though they do allow... hunreh - their name for those they infect - access to learned knowledge.  Thank goodness they've little interest in technology..."

     The alteration in the writing, an obvious darkening of the letters as Razor had clearly pressed harder, was the sole hint of his determination not to ponder how the ci-kat-as might have used his technical knowledge had they cared to.  But, T-Bone saw it and it made him grimace.   Thank goodness indeed.  For Razor's sake and that of everyone else in the city as well.  He ducked his head back to the darkened letters.

     "The hive mind disintegrated when you killed the Queen. She was the power behind all our actions. She died, and the driving force behind the ci-kat-a invasion died with her.  But, the idea remained in all of us.  Our last orders.  Infect the planet.  Conquer.

     I can't explain or remember much after that point.  I know only that, as time passed and the Queen's presence didn't return to my mind, I started to lose conscious thought.  Drones are supposed to die without her, their minds slowly disintegrating.

     But, I couldn't.  I couldn't give up and die.  I didn't want to.  I'd lost the majority of my memories.  Or rather they were locked away, repressed.  And, every night, you brought a part of them back.  Whether I found a way to show it or not, I was listening.  So are the others.  I can sense it.  Tell them.  Tell the doctors, the visitors.  We are listening.  It does help.  And, thank you.

     THANK YOU."

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To Be Continued.....