Already Among Us

by Unknown

I wake to feel myself being lifted into the air again. Dr. Krantor puts me back in my cage, even more roughly than he took me out, and says, “All right, Rodney. Look, this has all been a terrible mess, and I'm very sorry, but if you aren't willing to work tomorrow, we're going to have a problem.”

  “Going to?” I say.

  Dr. Krantor rubs his eyes. “Rodney. Don't do this. You're expendable.”

  “I am? Even though I represent a tremendous investment of research dollars? Well then, you should have no problem letting me go.”

  He glares down at me. “Don't do this. Please don't do this. There are things I can do to make you compliant. Drugs. Electric shocks. I don't want to do any of that, and I know you don't want me to either. I want to keep a good working relationship here, all right, Rodney? Please?”

  “You're threatening to torture me?” Outrage makes my voice even squeakier than usual. “Great working relationship! Hey, Pippa, did you hear that? Did you hear what your father just said?”

  “Pippa isn't here, Rodney. Her mother came to pick her up while you were asleep. They were going to a birthday party. Rodney: Will you run the maze tomorrow, or will I have to resort to other methods?”

  I'm frightened now. Dr. Krantor's voice is calm, reasonable. He's very matter-of-fact about the prospect of torturing me, and Pippa isn't here as a witness. He's probably bluffing. Coercion would probably compromise his data. But I don't know that for sure.

  “Rodney?” he says.

  “I'll think about it,” I tell him. I have to buy myself time. Now I know why Stuart bowed and scraped. People are so much bigger than we are.

  “Good enough,” he says, his voice gentler, and reaches into the cage to give me another piece of the excellent cheddar. “Have a good night, Rodney.” And then he leaves.

  I stay awake all night, fretting. I try to find some way to escape from my cage, but I can't. I wonder if I could escape from the maze; I've never tried, but surely Dr. Krantor has made the mazes secure, also. I don't know what to do.

  I dread the morning.

  But in the morning, when Dr. Krantor usually arrives, I hear three sets of footsteps in the hallway outside, and two voices: Dr. Krantor's and a woman's.

  “Why do you have to take her on this trip in the middle of the school year?” Dr. Krantor says. “And why do you have to talk to me about it now?”

  “I already told you, Jack! Michael's family reunion in Ireland is in a month, so if we go we have to go then, and I need you to sign this letter saying that you know I'm not kidnapping her. I don't want any trouble.”

  Dr. Krantor grumbles something, and the lab door opens. Dr. Krantor and the woman – Pippa's mother! – come inside, still arguing. Pippa comes inside too. Pippa's mother walks to the computer; Pippa races to my cage.

  “How do I know you aren't kidnapping her?” Dr. Krantor says. “Pippa, there's more of the new cheese over here, if you want to give Rodney a nice breakfast.”

  “Pippa,” I whisper, “he threatened to torture me! Pippa – “

  “Shhhhh,” she whispers back, and opens my cage, and reaches into one of her pockets. “Don't make any noise, Rodney.”

  She's holding a mouse. A white mouse, just like me. Pippa puts the new mouse in the cage and we stare at each other in surprise, nose to nose, whiskers twitching, but then I feel Pippa grasp the base of my tail. She lifts me, and I watch the new mouse receding, and then she puts me in her pocket. I hear the cage close, and then we're walking across the room.

  “All right, Jack, here's the itinerary, see? Here on this map? Jack, look at this map, would you? I'll tell you every single place we're going; it's not like we're spiriting her away without telling you.”

  “But how do I know you'll really go there? You could take her to, to, Spain or the South Pole or – “

  “Michael doesn't have a family reunion in Spain or the South Pole. Jack, be reasonable.”

  “I'm bored,” Pippa says loudly. “I'm going outside.”

  “Stay right by the front door, sweetheart!” That's Dr. Krantor, of course.

  “I will,” she says, and then I hear the lab door open and we're out, we're in the hallway, and then we go through another door and I smell fresh air and Pippa lifts me out of her pocket. She sits down on a step and holds me up to her face. “Mommy and I went to the pet store last night, Rodney, and we got another mouse who looks just like you. He was in the cage of mice that people buy to feed to their snakes. Being here is better for him. Daddy won't feed him to a snake.”

  “But your father will torture the other mouse,” I say, “or worse. When he realizes it's just an ordinary mouse he'll be very angry. Pippa, he'll punish you.”

  “No, he won't,” she says cheerfully, “or Mommy and Michael will say he isn't taking good care of me.” She puts me down on the warm cement step. I feel wind and smell flowers and grass. “You're free, Rodney. You can have your very own adventures. You don't have to go back to that stupid maze.”

  “How will I find you?” As much as I yearned for freedom before, I'm terrified. There really are cats and snakes and mousetraps out here, and I've never had to face them. How will I know what to do? “Pippa, you have to meet me so I can tell you my stories, or no one will know what happens to me. I'll be just like all those other mice, the ones whose stories just stop when they stop being useful to the main characters. Pippa – “

  But there are footsteps now from inside, forceful footsteps coming closer, and Dr. Krantor's voice. His voice sounds dangerous. “Pippa? Pippa, what did you do to the rodent? It won't talk to me! I don't even think it's the same mouse! Pippa, did you put another mouse in that cage?”

  I find myself trembling as badly as I would if a cat were coming. Pippa stands up. The sole of her sneaker is the only thing I can see now. From very far above me I heard her saying, “Run, Rodney.”

  And I do.

  All The Pigs' Houses

  Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Starting around the early 1990s, original-fiction s-f and/or fantasy short story anthologies became popular. Many of these (usually edited by Martin H. Greenberg, alone or with a variety of co-editors) were themed around animals, or “updated” fairy tales. There were anthologies of bird fantasies, cat fantasies, dog fantasies, horse fantasies, and at least one general-animal anthology, Furry Fantastic (“…eighteen fantastical stories about cats, dogs, mice, and other furry creatures from realms beyond our world.”). But no pig fantasies. Fortunately for us, Mickey Zucker Reichert snuck “All the Pigs’ Houses” into Magic Tails, “14 original stories of felines and fables…”, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Janet Pack (DAW Books, September 2005). The other thirteen short fantasies did feature magical cats; in “All the Pigs’ Houses”, the cat is noticeably non-magical, non-intelligent, and only a supporting character.

  Elliot Pig briefly notices the wolf is wearing a top hat. This is undoubtedly a reference to Disney’s famous May 1933 Oscar-winning The Three Little Pigs, in which the Big Bad Wolf does wear a top hat. Interestingly, Disney itself, as Disney Television Animation, later made a second, “modern update” of The Three Little Pigs, directed by Darrell Rooney (26 minutes), which was given one theatrical screening on October 21, 1997 to qualify for an Academy Award nomination (it didn’t get one), and then shelved and never released. (Full disclosure: I have seen a bootleg print of it.) In it, the three little pigs are running a rooming house and the modern Barnabas the Wolf applies as a boarder. Due to anti-discrimination laws, they are forced to accept him after he swears that he has just become a vegan and no longer eats meat. Due to the plot complications, the pigs become increasingly paranoid that the wolf is really plotting against them, while the sincere vegan carnivore is slowly starving himself to death.

  “Nearly all of the carnivores had embraced vegetarianism, aside from the richest who could afford to buy their meat prepackaged from the human world where animals now bore only some physical resemblance to their fairy counterparts.” The question of what the carnivores would
eat in an intelligent multianimal society is an old one. It only works in a “pure fairy tale” setting where all animals, including the carnivores, can conveniently be vegetarians. Japanese cartoonist Osamu Tezuka, who was commissioned by Disney to produce a Bambi comic book (Tsuru Shobo, November 1951) for the Japanese release of the movie, said that it was a wonderful film but that he could not accept the plot in which all the forest animals were friends and “Man the Hunter” was the only predator. This led Tezuka to add to his 1950s/’60s comic book/TV cartoon series known in America as “Kimba the White Lion”, the subplot in which one of royal lion cub Kimba’s dilemmas is to find a way for the friendlier carnivores to live alongside the herbivores without starving to death. (Tezuka admitted that he “cheated” with a deus ex machina solution: a human scientist visiting the jungle invents a pseudoscientific “meat substitute” for the carnivores.) Disney solved this problem in its June 1994 The Lion King by having royal lion cub Simba become an insectivore.

  ELLIOT Pig curled up on the cloth-covered ticking of his padded divan, a tattered copy of The Tales of Tom Kitten clutched in his cloven hoof and a crock of fresh creek water on the table to his left. A gentle rain clicked softly against the roof, held at bay by finely woven sheaves of straw. Not a drop of leakage. Elliot smiled, a flush of warm satisfaction suffusing him. He had built the cottage with his own hooves, along with its sparse furnishings, and he reveled in the results. His two brothers had admonished him to use more enduring materials, to enlist the assistance of the town's carpenter and builders. Ezra's teaching job brought in enough money that he could afford such luxuries, as well as the wood to build his modest log cabin. Elijah had a similar home, temporarily, while he waited for the builders to finish the fancy brick mansion his doctor's income had bought him.

  Elliot hefted his water and took a mouthful. It tasted sweet and clean, and he savored its simple purity with the same joy as he had his house. He did not begrudge his brothers their luxuries or their successes, though he did sometimes wish his mother had had more experience with money. When the fairies had come to the human world, offering its animals the choice of remaining as they were or beginning a world of their own, his mother had leaped at the opportunity. Only three of her litter of nine had made the same choice: Elliot and his two brothers. His mother had divided the coins the fairies provided into three, intending to educate each of her sons in the human world. The smartest, Elijah, moved ahead; and his share took him all the way through medical school. By Ezra's turn, much of his money had gone for living expenses for which Mother had not thought to budget. By the time he finished, there was not enough left to educate Elliot past high school.

  As they made their livings, the older two had provided for Mother and Elliot until her natural death. Both had offered Elliot the money to build himself a finer home, but he had refused. He preferred the fulfillment that came with his achievement: materials purchased through his own efforts, a series of sweaty odd jobs, a project completed by his own callused hooves. He had even built every stick of furniture, and he celebrated his labors and achievements every time he looked at or used them. Had he not earned those things, they would not mean so very much to him. Now, as he sat in great contentment, he wondered idly how so many of his ilk could have chosen the cold comfort of a sameness that meant a short life of barely intelligent grunts and squeals, of wallowing in mud holes, and a trough filled with pig chow and table scraps. He, his brothers, and his mother had chosen a life of effort and uncertainty, of wonder and stress, yet it came with glorious moments such as this one that he would not trade for anything.

  A knock at the door interrupted Elliot's thoughts. Hoping one of his brothers had come to call, he set aside the creek water and the book, heaved himself from the comfort of the divan, and headed toward the door. "Who's there?" he called out in a happy singsong.

  A gruff voice wafted through the straw. "Little pig. Little pig, let me come in."

  Elliot froze at the lintel, hoof halfway to the latch and terror raised beads of sweat on his upper lip. It was a cold voice, a wolfy voice, and it sounded hungry. Most of the animals of the Fairy World had formed a camaraderie, but a few had espoused the worst characteristics of the humans whose societies they emulated. The dirtiest animals had embraced sanitation, even the shyest had learned their common language, and they all wore clothes to cover the parts that some had come to see as vulgar. Nearly all of the carnivores had embraced vegetarianism, aside from the richest who could afford to buy their meat prepackaged from the human world where animals now bore only some physical resemblance to their fairy counterparts. Yet, a few, mostly wolves, preyed on their neighbors.

  Apparently mistaking Elliot's silence for a problem hearing, the wolf shouted. "I said, 'Little pig, little pig, let me come in!' "

  All of the pink drained from Elliot, skin ashy white beneath bristles of hair. He managed to pry his rigid left hoof from his open mouth, and it sank down his face to pull at the stiff hairs sprouting from his chin. "No!" He spoke in a terrified squeak, before he could think. Shouldn't let him know I'm afraid. He shook his head, ears flapping, trying to clear it. Too late for a pretend dog. It was a long shot anyway. A pig rich enough to own a human-world pet would live in a finer home. If I sound brave, maybe he'll think I have some way of protecting myself. He looked at his hoof and tried to fill his tone with courage. "Not by my ... chin hair ..." It reminded him of a parlor game, and he switched to song to buoy his courage. "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin."

  A hushed moment followed, during which Elliot wondered if the wolf had simply left. Just as he considered a careful peek through a partially opened door, the wolf spoke again. "Then I'll huff."

  "Huff?"

  "And I'll puff ..."

  "What?"

  "And I'll blow your house down!" Despite his fear, Elliot could not hold back a chuckle. "You'll what? Are you mad?" It was a silly question. Wolves who chatted with pigs one day, then ate them another could hardly be considered of sound mind.

  The whoosh of rushing air filled the next several seconds, followed by a massive, howling exhale that rattled the house down to its timber frame. Straw shuddered, then peeled from walls and roof in sheets and braids that unraveled under the hurricane force. While Elliot stared in stunned amazement, his house collapsed around him, straw spewing in all directions, churning through the dying air currents. A moment later, he stood among the devastation. Bits of straw clung to his skin and clothing, swirled through his water and sprinkled down like rain. He looked up to a lanky, sharp-fanged wolf wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a battered top hat.

  Seized by a hot surge of panic, Elliot ran.

  The wolf pursued at a swift and wild gallop that ate up the gap between them. Screaming in terror, Elliot quickened his pace. His breath caught in his throat. He had never moved so fast in his life. His legs ached, and he knew he could not keep up the breakneck pace much longer.

  Where am I going? The thought managed to seep through the swirl of desperate alarm that usurped all logic. He forced himself to think past the grim certainty of death, the anticipated agony of knifelike teeth sinking into his flesh. Town! He wouldn't dare eat me in the streets. He made a sudden turn on the woodland path that left the wolf scrambling to follow. For an instant, they came nearly eye to eye. Desire glazed the wolf’s dark orbs, and saliva dribbled from his muzzle. His breath rasped, louder than the pig's own rapid panting. At first, that made little sense. Lean and long-legged, the wolf should endure the race far longer than any squat, fat pig. Apparently, the lung work required to blow down an entire house had tired him.

  Every minute dragged, and it seemed like hours before Elliot’s pudgy legs carried him, aching, to the line of cottages and shops that made up the town proper. A few looked up as Elliot trotted through the street, the wolf at his heels. Elliot dared not waste his breath on a scream. Already, their pace had slowed to little more than a fast walk, and no one seemed to recognize his distress. He skittered through a familiar alley, th
e abrupt turn gaining him another few inches. He threw himself against the door to his brother's wooden cottage, pounding wildly with his hooves. "Ezra!"

  Though the cry emerged hoarse, Ezra must have read the panic in it. The door wrenched open, and Elliot hurled himself inside. "Close it! Close it!" he managed to gasp, sprawled across the planked floor. "Close ... the ... damned ... door!"

  Ezra slammed the heavy panel in the wolf’s face and threw the bolt home. The slam of a body against wood thundered through the cottage, followed by a volley of fistfalls.

  Ezra turned to his panting brother. "Big bad wolf?" he guessed, using the slang for one of the animals who succumbs to the meat madness.

  Elliot nodded, saving his voice. After several moments, the pounding stopped, and the wolf growled a warning. "This isn't over yet, piggies."

  Elliot curled into a ball on the floor, moaning.

  Hours later, the brothers discussed the situation over plates of buttered potatoes and mugs of apple juice at a table purchased, with four matching chairs, at the furniture store in the market. Neat cupboards lined the walls, stocked with drying herbs, flour, and crockery. Pots lay stacked in the corner, though Ezra, like Elliot, confined his cooking to the outside: The log cabin had inner walls dividing it into four rooms: kitchen, meeting room, bedroom, and study. Slightly broader of face and longer in the tail, Ezra had the same pink-all-over coloring as his brother.

  "So," Ezra said, for at least the third time. "He just blew your house to pieces."

  "To pieces." Elliot made it grand gesture to simulate straw flying in all directions.