Neurochemical experimentation (Romantic / IQ Gain)

On one rainy morning Brittany was going downtown as she often did to buy groceries. As she walked, she heard a faint cry from a nearby alley and turned to see a little black cat mewling in it. She approached it and caressed its face and scratched its head. The cat nuzzled her hand and purred, rolling onto its side and inviting her to scratch its belly, to which she happily obliged.

She heard footsteps from further in the alley and looked up to see a peculiarly awkward young man with messy hair and an averted gaze.

"Hi," she spoke a little nervously.

"Greetings, how's the feline?" they asked, the cat looking up at her curiously as if wondering itself how she would respond.

"W-..uh, good I guess?"

He nodded and next thing she knew, she was waking up while strapped down to a gurney in what looked like a basement. "W-wha-?" She managed, looking around and trying to figure out what had happened.

The man sat at a workbench and, hearing her moving, turned around. "Sorry about that, but I think you'll come to appreciate the changes I've made to your brain."

"W-what?!" her breathing quickened and she thought about what all it could mean. He must have knocked her out and brought her here. From what she understood usually there wasn't much that could be done to enhance a brain's abilities, so in all likelihood he reduced one or several of her mental faculties and subjectively considered it an "improvement", given the low likelihood that he would lie about that in this situation. But...

Her thoughts paused. Usually her thoughts were nowhere near as clear or quick. But then she could be overestimating her own abilities due to the reduction of some faculty responsible for self-awareness. Though she had to assume that she was able to think rationally to some degree, right? At least, she realized for the first time, she always had before.

She took a deep breath and the man sensed that there was a moment where he could interject in her thoughts. "I don't understand quite how it works, but I've devised a series of chemicals that, in the right quantities and injected in the right places, encourage the brain to develop more general intelligence, greater thoughtfulness and better epistemic habits. Crazy, isn't it?"

"Crazy." She agreed, deciding to assume that her facilities were essentially in tact and that he was the crazy. "Will you release me now?"

"Not yet I'm afraid, past subjects have been uh...-y..." He scratched his head.

"What?!?" She struggled against the straps but to no avail.

He raised his hands, "Nothing horrendous, I promise! They just often maintain some of their previous illogical beliefs for a little while and if you mix those with a boost in calculative abilities, they often think I deserve...less than amiable things for strapping them to a gurney and modifying their brain. Understandably. Plus they want out of here before the reorientation process is over! And I keep the way out a secret. Nina tries to comfort them but it often doesn't work so well, isn't that right Nina?"

A familiar black cat jumped up on the gurney and laid down on her abdomen, watching Brittany curiously. After a moment, it looked at the experimenter and meowed as if to answer "I'm not the one strapping them to gurneys and cutting open their brains now am I?"

"Oh yeah, a modified serum appears to work on cats, she seems to have the intelligence of an average young teen human, so uh...what's your name?" He asked.

"Brittany, what's yours?" No point in hiding that information, she figured.

"Daniel. Brittany meet Nina the genius housecat, Nina meet the genius random girl I found in an alley."

Nina meowed.

"...Hi." Brittany was very tempted to undo her assumption that her mental faculties were intact.

He looked around the room a little nervously. "Uh..I kinda forget what to do next."

Nina rolled her eyes and Brittany tried to think of any way to escape.

"I hate to leave you alone so soon but my notes are...kind of a mess..and I need to find the reorientation plans. I'll be back soon with some food as well, Nina can help with whatever you need until then. Enjoy!" He hurried upstairs before Brittany could object and Nina licked Brittany's abdomen a little.

When Brittany heard the door close, she took a deep breath. "I don't suppose you can get us out of here, huh?"

Brittany didn't expect the cat to do anything but meow or continue to stare at her, but Nina shook her head. "...great. Now I have to assume you really did roll your eyes earlier which means you probably really are a really intelligent cat..I seriously might be going crazy."

Nina resumed licking her comfortingly.

Brittany thought for a moment. "If you can get scissors or a knife or something into one of my hands, I think I can cut my way out of these straps. Can you do that for me? I can free you too if you do."

Nina got up and walked through the messy room to the workbench, jumping up on it. Brittany watched and listened anxiously, hoping Daniel didn't come down any time soon.

Nina sat down by what looked like an oversized keyboard and pressed one of the keys. A loud "I!!!" noise filled the room. Brittany tensed up "What are you doing? Don't touch that! He'll known what we're up to!"

Nina licked her lips and shook her head a little, then continued slowly pawing at the keys. "NO!!! WANT!!! LEAVE!!!"

Brittany mentally facepalmed. "Why don't you want to leave? Judging by the looks of this place, we can definitely find you a more caring owner."

"IT!!! CARES!!! FOR!!! ME!!!"

"He cares for you?"

Nina nodded.

"I guess you don't have a 'he' button, do you?" Brittany mused and chuckled a little. "You are an awesome little creature, I only wish the circumstances of our meeting were a little more...autonomous..."

Nina nodded understandingly and jumped down to her food bowl to eat. Brittany noticed that it was oversized and full.

"I guess that extra intelligence means a bigger diet, huh?"

Nina turned and nodded before resuming her feast. Brittany felt her own stomach grumble and sighed. "I guess I'll only get to eat after the 'reorientation', whatever that is."