It was the best place ever.

It was so clearly, so irrefutably the best place ever that Panu did not know how he had lived his whole life up until now without knowing it existed. Everything in it was beautiful and good (and some of it would probably explode if he was not careful) and wonderful and true. Cameras covered every centimeter of every floor and ceiling and wall, as if the one who had put them in was afraid that if he did not catch a corner on film then something dark and terrible would come to live there and eat him while he slept.

Also there was a cat. It was bigger than Panu. Probably big enough to saddle and ride, though a quick internet search told him this was a good way to die. It was very pretty, and its eyes tracked a camera as Panu wiggled it on its stand. It had a look in its pupils like distilled murder. This, the internet told him, was normal for cats.

Panu had found this amazing place because he had ridden a bus. He had ridden a bus because he was bored and Jaager had gone to work and not left him with a mission and he was bored. And he was not locked in the man's mansion, he was free to come and go, which was a very strange feeling. So he had gone outside for a walk. But the only interesting network in the neighborhood was Xavier's Sister School, and he could feel in their cameras the dark blind hell spot where they kept their pet Adapted. He would wait for a day when he/she/it was absent to explore. They had many strange things, especially in their basement, and buried in their lawn. Probably they had more weapons than Jaager. This was probably because they were evil.

But in any case there had been a bus that had pulled up on the corner as he glared through the gates, and he had gotten on it. He had picked up an expired pass from the ground. Payment? The reader at the front had asked him in its polite binary, and he had slipped the expired pass into its waiting slot. It had swallowed it whole. Bad payment, it had started to decide, but he had changed its mind.

He did not have anywhere in particular he wanted to go. He simply went because he could. It was nice, and a little baffling, but he had his expired ticket so he knew he could ask any bus for a ride and it would agree, so he could return any time he wanted.

He had sensed the warehouse from the bus route. It was like fireworks going off in his head. He had turned to stare out the window, and even though his eyes could not see his mind could. A million million cameras and security systems and electronics all jammed into the same space. It was just on the edge of his range, just a brush against his consciousness, like walking past a bakery in the morning and not even knowing it until the smell tugged at you.

Panu got off at the next stop. Then he began to walk, his phone peeking out of his hoodie pocket to serve as his eye. Probably he could have been mugged three times while walking there and he would not have noticed or cared. That was how wonderful this place was.

It was brick on the bottom and concrete on top and everything electric all on its inside. No one was home except the cat, he could tell this because of its symphony of cameras, visible light and infrared and ultraviolet. It had a steel door and three Panu's could have sat on each other's shoulders and walked inside, it was so tall.

Owner? The card reader asked him, with a persistent red LED light.

Panu swiped his bus pass. Yes, he told it, and it winked green.

Owner? The hand reader asked.

Panu stood on his tip toes and placed his palm on it. Yes.

Owner? Its microphone asked.

"Kyllä," the Finnish boy said, and that was a yes as well.

Owner? The retinal scanner demanded, a bit more imperiously. It was too high for Panu, even when he stood as tall as he could. The blonde boy left for a moment, then returned pushing an old box. He was a little sweaty and out of breath now, but it was worth it to be taller. Owner? The scanner demanded again.

Panu looked it in the eye. Yes.

And then the door opened for him, like he had passed St. Peter's tests and the Christian Heaven was laid bare before him. It was beautiful. A little dusty, but beautiful.

He did not change anything as he walked through. He only told things yes if they asked if he was their owner, bypassing their verification with a quick flip through their if-else coding. Later he could fix that. Change the variables, so his yes was a permanent thing. But that would take time and thought. It would be like taking a picture of the Grand Canyon, instead of holding onto the railings and looking down. He was here and he was going to enjoy it, because it was perfect. Later he would change it to be more perfect.

This place was his. It was too perfectly made for him not to be. Whoever it belonged to on paper would just need to accept that, because Panu had done one other thing when he had entered:

No, he had told all the scanners at the door, and he had stuck them in that loop.

Owner? They could ask anyone who followed him.

No no no, they would be told, no matter what the person outside did.

So maybe it was a lie, that he had not changed anything. But who could complain? This place was Panu's now.

Someone was in the building, someone that shouldn't be there, someone who smelled strange.

Kalli had been lounging on the stone of the fireplace when someone exited the lift. It was beneath her to move and greet whoever it was, unless she felt like it, and she didn't. Ears twitching at the sounds the person made, she opened one eye as the sounds got closer. She smelled him before he came into view, and it was not right, it wasn't a scent she had encountered before. Kaz's scent was in the building, but it was old, and he wasn't with the new scent. Lifting herself to her feet she moved away from her spot to see who it was. The person was very small, it was definitely not her person. Her ears moved around trying to catch any sound of her person. He moved wrong, almost lumbering. Kalli hopped onto the nearest couch then onto it's back and stared at the boy who should not be there.

When the camera began moving, something it didn't normally do, Kalli's attention snapped to it, her eyes following it's side to side, up and down motions for some time before she lay down atop the couch to continue watching the boy. He hadn't done anything wrong, hadn't made any quick movements, or any sudden sounds that would startle her, but he hadn't offered her proper respect either. He was still over there...not petting her. If he offered her treats, she could forgive him, but he wasn't, so she stared and showed her displeasure, purring softly. She would wait for a little longer, if he didn't come to her, she would go to him, and swat at him, lightly, on the leg, without claws because she's a well behaved host. She would teach him, and she would be pet, even if she had to sit on his face to accomplish it.

~~~~~

Kaz had no idea what had happened to his Warehouse, he had no idea there was someone inside, had no idea that that someone had taken control of all of his security.

Having been out at the Corydon Estates checking with the Sentinels and their latest report on activity in the area, as well as going over the finances and background checks for the latest applicants to see who needed help buying a house. There were a number of mutants looking to buy a house who could not get loans or find sellers willing to sell to them even if they had been approved for the loan. It irritated him that his people were being denied those simple things just because they were mutants.

After dealing with all of that, which he really wasn't well suited for, all he wanted to do was go home, have a few drinks, and relax, maybe watch a movie in the theater. When he pulled up to the back door and tried to open it with his tablet, he looked at it stupidly for a few moments when it told him his access was invalid. ”What the hell?” Maybe he did something wrong, maybe it needed to be restarted. So he tried again. When it failed again, he restarted the tablet, and tried once more. When the third time failed, he got out of the Hummer and tried to open the back door manually. The jolt of electricity when he touched the handle launched him backwards and set his nerves on fire. Spikes rose from the ground under the Hummer, impaling the wheels before they were secured by clamps. Kaz was not happy at that, he had just had it fixed up.

He wasn't going to try opening the large door, knowing he'd get the same jolt as he had from the small one, instead he went around to the front and tried it. Kaz stared dumbfounded as all scanners denied him access. 'How..what...' Kaz couldn't even think of what happened. If someone had broken in, while the place had power, and it obviously did, he would have been alerted. If they had managed to survive and get into the security room, it would have been locked down and they would have been locked out of the system, and he would have been alerted. Even if someone had walked through the walls of his Warehouse, and taken it over, the encryption should have taken long enough for him to be notified, if nothing else.

Kaz stepped back from the building, to the other side of the street. He could see cameras places around the area, not nearly as many as inside his Warehouse, but enough to be able to track someone passing through the neighborhood. Seeing the fire escapes, or at least what was left of them, he thought for a moment about trying the doors at the top of them, but only for a moment, remembering they were false doors that didn't open. He could get to the roof and try the door up there, but even if it was only partially repaired, the security on it should still work. He did not want to get shocked again, he hated the numbness, the phantom-fire pain. He sighed as he looked at the walls, yes he could go through them, but that would take quite some time, and make a lot of noise.

Kaz realized then that he had never really given though of how to break into the place, hadn't entertained what it would be like if someone had control of his Warehouse and he wasn't already inside. ”This blows.” Kaz returned to the rear of the building, tore the Hummer free, losing the wheels in the process, and proceeded to use it as a battering ram against the large steel door. Once he had made a small hole, he tore the rubber from the rims, enlarged his arms and fists before wrapping them in the rubber, and proceeded to tear the hole wide enough to step through. He didn't know how much of his security was active, so he'd have to be ready to deal with whatever happened once he was through.

The cat was on the sixth floor, so that is where Panu told the elevator to take him. He did not need to explore the other floors. He already knew what was in them, every inch of every room. He did not need to... but he would. Especially the fifth floor. It had video games. And bowling, though Panu was not very good at bowling. But being good a bowling did not seem to be the point of bowling. Maybe he would bring Victor here, and they could play together.

But first the sixth floor, because cat.

No one in Tuonela had pets except for Pesää, and hers didn't count, they were creepy. Real pets, cats and dogs, he only saw on the streets and sitting in windows looking fat and happy. Once in Savonlinna they had robbed an art store, and there was a cat who sat on the counter. He had almost gotten to pet it before it ran off. Panu wasn't sure what  had scared it. Some kind of loud noise from the back. Panu had muted his audio when his teammates had started laughing, and he did not un-mute it for a cat.

This cat was much bigger. Belatedly, it occurred to Panu that it might be a guard cat. There were guard dogs, and this was bigger than many dogs. Everywhere in this building was weapons and traps, but almost all of them electronic. Any person paranoid enough to equip this place would have thought of technopaths, too. They would have left a trap that was not mechanical. Organic.

The cat was a trap.

And it was watching him. It was laying atop a couch like a grenade without a pin, waiting. Panu went very still. Cats were motion activated, he had heard. He tried to keep his full attention on it, but something else was pinging against his consciousness--

The warehouse's former owner was back. He triggered his own traps. Then got frustrated. Then ran an large car into the doors. Then violently tore through it with weird mutant change-y arms.

The cat began to purr. This alerted Panu to the fact that probably the crazy man had sent its activation signal. It was only a matter of time now before it struck.

Still, he had to try. He could not just give this place back. It was his. Made for him.

Very very slowly, Panu reached up and touched the intercom. His small voice came out on the first floor: "Please stop. You are breaking my house."

His please was emphasized by the collective electronic whirl of every single weapon on the first floor powering up. Target? They asked, and he told them were to point. He did not give the order. Yet.

He was too busy watching the cat approach. It reached out a paw and batted his leg, claws sheathed. A warning shot.

It seemed they had a stalemate.

Kaz stopped inside the warehouse when he heard a voice over the intercom. He realized five things at that moment: There was someone in his warehouse; They had control of it; It was a kid (at least it sounded like a kid); They had claimed his warehouse as their home; And they had just pointed his own weapons at him.

If Kaz was a teapot, he'd be steaming and whistling. Instead Kaz changed his hands back to their normal size, ”Kid. This is MY place, these are MY things.” Kaz made his skin thicker and denser, knowing the damage the weapons aimed at him could cause, ”I will break whatever I feel like, including you, if you don't stop right now.” He was going to need to be fast, ”And if you hurt my cat. I'll. Kill. You.”

~~~~~

Kalli was oblivious to what was going on between Kaz and this new person, or just didn't care. The boy didn't put his hand out to her when she swatted him. Kalli looked at him, a slight rumble in her chest, then she move past him trying to push her weight against his leg. Circling around, she did the same to his other leg. Back in front of him, he stared at him again. She felt a little itch on the top of her head near her ear, she wanted it scratched, and he was being a bad minion. At this rate she was going to have to stand on her hind paws, put her front paws on his shoulders and press her face into his chin to get that itch scratched. She purred some more in an attempt to get the young one to understand.

~~~~~

None of the weapons had gone off yet, so maybe the kid had listened. He would have normally gone to the lift shaft, but he did not feel comfortable with that idea. Kaz didn't move quickly, he didn't want to startle the kid into reacting, but he wasn't going to just stand there and let the kid dictate what he did or didn't do. So he began moving towards the spiral staircase, the Jacob’s Ladder had been disabled when he and Kalli had moved in. Even though he had fitted her with a tag that would disable any of the Warehouse's defenses if they were in or would aim in the area she was at, leaving the stairs to be electrified worried him.

The crazy man looked very angry. His eyes were red (a very literal red) and his hair was mad-white. Mad-white was the color of white hair after its owner had torn through a wall and now it was all messed up.

Panu scanned through local idioms and translations, trying to find the right words. He pressed the intercom again.

"I will have my people call your people. I will buy this place. It is already mine but I will give you money for it."

Jaager had to buy this place. He had to. Panu could pay him back, he only needed a few days to tunnel his way into a bank's servers, maybe a few days more to transfer the funds. The man was getting smaller on the screens, so maybe this was calming him. But in the infrared cameras, he was turning into a compact ball of red, so maybe not. He was nothing special in ultraviolet, except for his hair. It was pretty and glowed effeminately in a halo around his head.

>> "And if you hurt my cat. I'll. Kill. You.”

This did not translate right. Maybe the man was so angry he was not speaking correctly. These words meant that Panu might hurt the cat, but clearly the opposite was true. It was okay. He understood from context.

The context was that the cat was standing up. It was a very strange, very graceful thing, like watching a snake rise from a basket. Its eyes were large and they did not leave his face. Panu tried to back up, but it put its paws on his shoulders, and he knew better.

Yes. He knew better. From context, he knew the man's words meant If my cat doesn't kill you then I will.

The cat had circled his legs, pressed against him to test his strength and balance. He had stumbled a little, and its rumblings had increased as it gathered intelligence upon his weaknesses. Panu was very strong in the mind, but he did not think he could hold up under the physical assault the organic weapon was clearly planning.

But the warehouse was so, so, so...

It was his.

The crazy man started climbing the steps. Panu did not want to damage his house further, but the many many many weapons gave him good options for that. He flooded the first two floors with gas. Probably non-lethal, he was pretty sure he had read the labeling right.

The cat bumped her head against his chin, its mouth centimeters from his vulnerable neck. Panu fell over, his arms pinwheeling uselessly under a cat that weighed fully half what he did.

He saw now the beast's true purpose. Smothering.

Probably the crazy man had programmed it not to get blood on his floor.

Kaz looked up at the nearest camera as the child continued to speak. He wasn't exactly speaking like a kid and Kaz was beginning to wonder if he was wrong. Maybe the speaker wasn't a child at all, just someone with a very young voice. Kaz had a tendency to call everyone under 18 a kid, and technically by law, it was true, they weren't adults until they turned 18, but it still seemed somewhat condescending and insulting to refer to them as 'Kid'.

”Sure kid, that sounds like a great deal. Hand over 10 trillion dollars, and you can have this place. How does that sound? Good, yes. Let's shake on it.”

There was no way the warehouse was worth that much, nor did he ever expect the kid, or whoever the kid's 'people' were, to pay the price. Kaz would not hand over HIS warehouse, if the kid didn't relent and give up... Kaz didn't hurt kids, usually, but the kid would survive a few broken bones.

It wasn't until Kaz began blinking his eyes more than normal and felt a slight itch in his throat that he realized something was up. He was already partway up the stairs to the third/fourth floor when he felt his eyes really begin to water and he began coughing. Jumping over the railing onto the floor Kaz forced his senses down to a normal level trying to hold off what he knew was coming. Most people wouldn't have been affected by the concentration of tear gas in the air, but he was. If he didn't suppress his body's reaction, stop the gas, or get some protection on, by the time a human would be begin to show the symptoms he was showing, he'd be completely incapacitated.

Kaz headed towards the armory as fast as he could manage, which wasn't nearly as fast as he normally could, his eyes were too watery, he felt his skin burning a bit, coughs were racking his body and his nose was streaming. When he reached it, Kaz didn't even both with the access card for the outer door, he smashed his hand through the lock and opened it from inside the door. Slipping inside he slammed the door shut and crimped the steel together sealing it shut again before grabbing his key ring and unlocking the manual locks on the inner door. The armory had a completely separate ventilation system which was not hooked up to defenses, nor were there any automated offensive weapons inside it. There were too many things that could be harmed or damaged or exploded in there if they were exposed or punctured or anything else.

Leaning heavily against one of the steel tables he pulled out a bucket and vomited, violently. 'God I hate that stuff.' He thought to himself as he pulled out a first aid bag, swished some water around his mouth and spit it out. With a different bottle he forced his eyes open and poured water over them, rinsing them out as best he could. There wasn't anything he could do about his skin, it had progressed from a slight burn to feeling like he had been lightly roasted.

~~~~~

Kalli was pleased at the child's new position, it was much easier to have her way while he lay prone. Standing on his chest she proceeded to rub her face all over his, nuzzling his neck with her head while her mouth was slightly open and her teeth lightly touched his flesh. She even went so far as to lick his nose a few times. He hadn't seemed to get that he was suppose to pet her but she made due. The little one was surprisingly warm and she found herself laying down on his everything because he was so small. Warm and content having claimed something new for herself, she lay atop the boy, purring heavily, mouth slightly open, tongue poking out fractionally between her fangs.

~~~~~

Kaz felt like he had been in the room for quite some time, and it might have been. He realized that he might be stalling, hesitating. 'Why?' He asked his gassed brain. 'You weren't even sure if you wanted to come back here when you arrived. There's nothing holding you here, you can build another one, a better one probably.' Kaz looked at the nearest camera inside the armory, his face, while still a mess, looked on the edge of furious and resigned. 'Find out who finances the kid, make some money. Just give the place to him.' ”No.” And Kaz realized why he was so annoyed. If the kid had come in, played around, offered to buy the place, or even if he didn't do that and just wouldn't leave, Kaz could have, and probably would have, been fine with it, maybe even sold it to him. But he had taken it from Kaz, then denied him and was now using it against him.

Reaching for the gas-mask, reinforced riot shield, sawed off 10 gauge shot gun, a rapier, and a desert eagle, ”Kid there are three ways this ends: You give up peacefully and you don't get hurt; I take your head off in some brutal way; Or,” Kaz moved and set the timer, an analog timer, on the explosives inside the building, ”We all blow up and this place becomes a crater.” The explosives may or may not be a bluff. Kaz wasn't even sure if they still worked or if they were still hooked up after all the renovations that had happened. For all Kaz knew, rats had somehow gotten to the wires and eaten them and nothing would happen. They had been installed early on in case their place had been found and they needed to get rid of any evidence fast.

The cat was closing in on him. It had paws located at every pressure point, constantly finding new ones like a Chinese acupuncturist experimenting. Panu curled up into a little defensive ball, his hands over his head, but that just made it easier for the beast to encompass him with its lithe mass. He pulled his arms into the safety of his thick hoodie, but it resisted his efforts to pull his hood over his face, teeth and tongue intruding. His nose. It was going to eat his nose first--

And through it all the infernal purr, like cinders popping in the flames of hell.

Clearly it knew what was going on with its master. The way the crazy man was getting sicker and sicker even though he had left the gas, the redness of his eyes and skin, the puking. The cat knew and it had decided that for every moment its master was in agony, that was another moment Panu would stay alive. Not the good kind of alive.

This was all the crazy man's fault. Panu would pay a fair price, but a price bigger than the America budget defecit was not fair. For that much money Panu could build many many warehouses (why had he not thought to do that?) (it was too late, he was dying, the cat was tasting him for seasoning.)

Panu did not respond to the man's threats. He could turn on the intercom without reaching out to touch it, but he did not think he could make his voice loud enough to be heard. But he did not trigger anymore traps.

When the crazy man came out of his crazy armory, he would find the path unguarded, and the doors unlocked. Up on the sixth floor, he would find an eight year old boy curled up on the floor, trying to be as still as a dead mouse while the cat purred affectionately over her conquest.

"Please call off your guard cat." His voice was very small.

Kaz put the riot shield in place as he prepared to exit the armory. Untwisting the steel he braced himself behind the shield, threw the door open and rushed out, ready for an onslaught of...nothing. He moved to cover quickly before assessing the current state of things. The various guns and weapons had all been retracted and he couldn't see any lingering gas in the area. 'Did that....did that really work?' Kaz wasn't foolish enough to set his gear aside, but he did lift the gas-mask from his face a bit and inhale slightly through his nose. There were trace amounts in the air, but too dispersed to do anything. 'There's no way a line that corny and cliche actually worked right? Even if he is a kid, he has to know better than that..right? Maybe he does...'

Kaz moved towards the lift and put his hand near it. There was no sense or sound of obvious electricity running along the surface. If he was quick enough he could get up and out of the shaft onto the floor above without being hit by some trap, probably. So he did just that, stopping on each floor, assessing, and then moving on. When he got to the sixth floor, he had the riot shield in front of his body, the shotgun held up and ready in the other hand. And nothing happened.

”Please call off your guard cat.”

Kaz tilted his head at the voice. It was quiet but unmistakably belonged to the person who had commandeered his warehouse. ”Guard cat?” Kaz said to himself almost silently as he rose from his crouch and looked around. It didn't take long to see what was going on. When he did he began laughing. Kalli was on top of the boy, and he really was a boy, an actual kid, smothering him as she purred all over him. ”Kalli,” Kaz whistled as he leveled the shotgun at the boy. Kalli reluctantly got up after a few moments of squirming herself, stealing all the 'affection' she could get from the boy.

Moving to stand close, Kaz made sure the twin barrels of the gun were in line with the boy's head. ”Don't twitch, don't make me twitch, I might pull the trigger if you do.” He kneeled down, the guns barrels moving away from the boy's head so they weren't pointed directly at him. ”You're the one who took control of my warehouse? Who are you, and who else is with you? What're you doing here? Who are your 'people', did they send you here?” Kalli moved to Kaz's side and began pressing against him, nuzzling her head against his thigh. Kaz absently set the shield aside and began to pet and stroke the large feline where she liked it best.

The crazy man carried half his armory with him as he came. He moved very very slowly. Probably he was doing this on purpose (it did not make sense that he was doing it on purpose, Panu knew that, but--)

The cat was very heavy and probably his corpse would be cold when the man arrived. That was how slowly he moved. And when he did arrive, he was useless, only laughing and laughing and then whistling--

--which was worse than useless, it was the signal for the cat to burrow into him, any moment it would tear him to pieces--

When it finally left him, it felt like being in a space ship, that is how light his chest felt. Panu started to get up--

>> ”Don't twitch, don't make me twitch, I might pull the trigger if you do.”

Instead he curled into a little ball again. But this one was a sitting-up ball, so it was more dignified. His arms were still tucked inside of his hoodie. He drew his knees up to his chest and his back to the couch. Then he went very still, his blue eyes lowered demurely to the floor.

All around the cameras watched. After a moment, the crazy man moved the gun a little. Now it would only blow apart stuffing if he fired.

"No one else," the Finnish boy said, his voice soft and melodic. "I am Panu. This is wonderful place, so I came. No one sent me."

He did not say that he worked for Jaager, even though the attack cat was still in the room and probably he would be eaten for not answering. But he would be eaten without betraying his new family.

Kaz watched the boy move from one curled up position to another back against the couch. He seemed genuinely scared of Kalli which Kaz found quite amusing. The boy seemed intent on folding in on himself. Kaz had wanted to kid to cease and desist, and some fear was good, but he didn't like terrifying kids. Kids were kids, they were generally rather dumb, or at least ignorant, and didn't tend to really think things through or worry about the consequences. Which Kaz could relate to, he lived most of his life like that.

The boy's, Panu's, answers were in line with that train of thought. ”I'm glad you like my warehouse Panu, I'm Kaz.” Kaz's tone was gentle and softer than it had been. Before saying anything else, one of Kaz's fingers grew and changed into a long tentacle like digit. It moved to Panu's head and lifted his chin so the boy was facing Kaz directly, though he didn't seem to look Kaz in the eyes. ”I don't like hurting kids, I don't like scaring kids. But this is my home. If you're the only one here, and no one sent you, how've you been controlling this place and how did you even find it?”

Kaz stood up and stepped back from the boy, his finger returning to normal, ”Wait, don't answer yet, I'll be right back.” Looking to Kalli, who seemed miffed when Kaz stopped petting her, ”Stay.” Moving much faster this time, Kaz went back the armory and disabled the timer. When he came back up he found Kalli once again trying to get the boy to pet her. Sighing, ”If you promise me you'll behave, you can sit on the couch or something, it's more comfortable there, then you can answer my questions.”

After a moment he asked, ”Ya want something to drink?”

Tentacle finger. Panu had never seen someone do... that. He did not know what to prepare for, what it could do, and it was getting closer and closer so he googled--

Google search: tentacle+finger.

Most of the results were Japanese and none were reassuring. The finger touched his chin and that was okay (no not really it was not) but if it tried anything else than probably they would see how quickly the weapons on this floor could put holes in all the things. Was there a flamethrower on this floor? A video search for 'how to kill tentacle monsters' promised that flamethrowers were effective. Kill it with fire, many comments read.

The man's words did not sound like what his actions did. I don't like hurting kids, I don't like scaring kids. These were lies lies lies. The blonde boy squirmed, sitting up as far as he could without qualifying as twitching, trying to get the tentacle off his chin. He did not want to light the warehouse on fire, that would ruin it.

"I--"

>> ”Wait, don't answer yet, I'll be right back.”

And so Panu was left alone with the cat.

"<Okay,>" he said. "<I won't answer, then. I'll talk to the empty room and wait for your cat to kill me-->"

The Finnish felt good on his tongue. Like cracking open a violin case after weeks without practice. But the cat had good taste, and her ears perked up at the sound, and then--

--Then he was wearing a cat-shoulder-scarf when the man returned. He did not know what this creature wanted from him. The internet said that purring was happy or angry or sad or pain. It did not say how he could tell which was which.

>> ”If you promise me you'll behave, you can sit on the couch or something, it's more comfortable there, then you can answer my questions.”

The Fin nodded slightly, and very carefully moved himself up to the couch. He grabbed a pillow and tucked it against his chest: a first line of defense, if the cat returned to him. Then he reached up and pulled off his hood. His hair and his headphones, everything was messed up. He fussed things back into place.

"Ginger ale?" He asked quietly. Probably it would be poisoned. Or full of tentacles.

”Probably got some.” He said as he opened the 'pantry closet', which was in reality a large temperature and humidity controlled room. Moving to where the drinks were kept Kaz had to admit he enjoyed the boy's reaction, even if he didn't really get why Panu seemed freaked, or maybe weirded, by his finger. It might not be a bad idea to continue doing similar things, to keep the boy unbalanced. 'On the other hand,' He thought to himself, 'He is just a kid.' He didn't have any cold ginger ale, so he grabbed a couple frozen pizzas and few cans to put in the fridge and put one can into the Chiller. It would take only a few minutes to make the can cold, so Kaz opened the pizzas and threw them into the pizza ovens as soon as they preheated.

Kalli seemed torn between going over to the boy, laying down on the couch, or going over to Kaz when she saw him in the kitchen. Kaz ended her indecision by opening a can of food for her and upended it in a clean bowl for her. She was already running to him as soon as she heard the lid open, waiting patiently, tail twitching rapidly with impatience. As soon as Kaz's hand and the can were clear she went at it, eating as fast as her feline dignity would allow, which was just a little faster than she normally ate.

Looking to the kid, ”So?” He said as he pulled out a cold Coke for himself, popped the tab and took a swig before continuing, ”Answers.” The beep went off when the Chiller was done, Kaz grabbed the can and tossed it to the kid in a light, underhand lob aimed at the pillow Panu seemed to be trying to bond with.

The Finnish boy stayed tucked up on the couch with his pillow. He did not turn his head to try and watch the man. Every step the other mutant took was shown on the cameras. He scanned through the rest of the building, in the same way someone else might have taken a deep breath. The feeds from his eyes helped to center him. He looked very small on this couch, but he was not just the frail boy hiding in an over-sized hoodie. He was all the cameras that watched them, all the weapons still active.

The man was not so scary. He was making frozen pizzas and no one could be scared of a man making frozen pizzas. Also the devil cat had been satiated with canned meat, which was probably her deactivation sequence.

Panu settled a little more comfortably. He crossed his legs, or tried too--it was hard to do with shoes on. But shoes on a couch were rude, anyway. He wiggled out of them, and politely set them on the ground, lined up side-by-side. There. Now he could cross his sock-covered feet, and hold the pillow more as-a-comfy-thing-to-squeeze than as-a-shield.

Answers, the silver-haired mutant said. Panu took a moment to process this as a demand rather than a noun. He quickly replayed the audio of the man's questions. 

>> "...If you're the only one here, and no one sent you, how've you been controlling this place and how did you even find it?”

These were easy questions. "I found this place because it is very bright. Like a star. I am controlling it because I can."

There. Those were very clear answers. The man did not seem angry anymore, so all he had to do was keep from upsetting him, and probably everything would be--

The man was throwing a can at him why was the man throwing a can at him. Panu flinched, hurriedly drawing as much of himself behind the pillow as he could as he watched the metal projectile arc through the air from many different angles. It impacted the pillow with a soft thwmp, and bounced harmlessly off before rolling half-way back to the man. Panu assessed the situation very carefully: Kaz was drinking from his own can, so probably he was not going to throw it, and there were no more easy cans on hand. The pizzas were in the oven, so probably also not for throwing. Slowly he peeked back out, though he held the pillow more firmly in front of him. He kept his head tilted down demurely.

Now his ginger ale was several feet away, and very out of reach. It looked sad and alone in his cameras. "Can I pick it up? Or should I stay here?"

He hadn't even thought to try and catch it. The Fin knew his strengths, and depth perception was very very far from being one.

When Panu wasn't terrified he seemed almost like a normal child, though a bit more, polite. Kaz didn't have much to go off of for the thought, but seeing the child take his shoes off, set them neatly side-by-side, before putting his feet on the couch didn't really seem like something most kids would do, or even think about. More likely, if they even bothered to take their shoes off, they'd let them drop haphazardly on the floor, kick them off to land wherever, or just toss them away somewhere. Kaz had to admit the kid treated his couch better than he did, Kaz often didn't bother or care to take his shoes off, he could just clean it, unless his shoes were very dirty, then they'd come off, who wants to sit in mud, or worse?

Panu answered Kaz's questions readily enough, though the answers were somewhat vague. Even with the answers they told Kaz almost nothing. ”What do you mean by 'bright like a star'?” There were lights outside the building, mostly street lights and a few lights on his warehouse, but nothing that would light the place up so much that it would draw anyone's attention by itself. ”If I wanted to kick a dog I could, because I can, is that what you mean? You do something because you feel like it?” Kaz understood doing things just because you felt like it, it's how he lived much of his life, but that didn't explain how he was doing it.

Unless...”You're a mutant aren't you.” There was no question in his voice, all he needed was the boy's confirmation. If he controlled the warehouse because he quite literally could naturally do it, then what was he controlling? Matter and the physical world like a telekinetic, some sort of energy control? Kaz considered telepathy for a moment but dismissed it just as quickly, if he could do that there was no reason for him do what Kaz said at all. Kaz did not really like anyone being able to get into his head, telepaths could be very useful, but they were also dangerous.

Kaz watched the can hit the pillow as Panu cowered behind it, ”If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't throw a can at you. Go ahead and pick it up.” Kaz turned away to get some pizza rolls from the freezer and put them in the toaster oven, taking a sip from his can, he laughed a small laugh, ”Though that would be kinda funny, 'This just in, man found dead, a full coke can lodged in his skull,' heh. I should remember that for the future.”

The blonde boy carefully slipped his feet off the couch, and padded over to the ginger ale. Stationary objects were easy to pick up, with this many eyes around. Can in hand, he retreated back to the couch. The older mutant's words were very far from reassuring--he wanted to kick a dog? and he laughed at killing men in strange ways?--but Panu did not think the man was trying to scare him. He was just a scary man by nature (though not half as scary as his guard cat).

"I am not good with English, so maybe I do not understand?" The blonde boy tucked the pillow up under his chin, and held the pop can in both hands. Probably it would explode if he opened it. " 'Want' and 'feel' are different in my language. I control because I can. Like 'I can write,' 'I can talk.' Can." He ran a few variants through the translator. "Able? Physically capable?"

The man asked if he was a mutant, and he nodded happily. "Yes! So you understand? This place is bright like a star because I am a mutant."