Paint the Toon Red

by A. J. Mayall

  Scratch nodded. “That’s at least one thing we have in common. We can start there. Put ’er there, partner,” he said, offering me a gloved hand to shake.

  I grinned and grabbed it, which sent several thousand volts of electricity through my body.

  I seized up and fell over. Scratch leaned over and laughed, dusting my face with his tail before heading out.

  “I’ll talk to you later, buddy-o.”

  I lay on the ground in pain for five minutes before Kyle came in and checked in on me. He ran to me, my fur was still standing on end.

  “Hon, what happened?”

  “Joy buzzer. Scratch. He’s still not fully on board yet.”

  Kyle tried to lift me up and got a static shock of his own. In the kitchen, he found a pair of oven mitts with a rubber grip on them and carried me over to Barry’s place.

  He was out doing errands, but Betty invited us both in and she patched me up fairly quickly. Electroshock probably would’ve worn off soon enough anyway, but I didn’t want to risk having a cardiac issue.

  I was weak, and when Barry came home, we had a fun little dinner, just the four of us. Betty had called him and had him bring some human food for Kyle. We made a double date out of it.

  “You’re trying to get to know your foil?” Betty said, smiling.

  “Yeah, he’s pretty insistent. It’s not fair to him for me to keep ghosting him like I have been.”

  Barry slapped my shoulder. “You’re a lucky man to have a foil. Few toons get them nowadays; they’re really an icon of a bygone era. Trust me, there is nothing greater than a foil.”

  “Why? It’s like his entire purpose is to basically be some sort of anti-me and make my life a living hell.”

  “He’ll make your life interesting, but he’ll still have your back at the end of the day. When you’re up against the wall, that’ll be when he turns face and takes a bullet for you.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “As sure as I am of anything else in life, which, let’s be honest, is pretty chaotic.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  We were having a good time when my phone rang. Kyle had taken it upon himself to carry our phones in his pockets, since he was able to.

  “I don’t recognize the number, but it’s for you.”

  I checked it. It wasn’t Chance’s new burner.

  “Hello, this is Fairfax Fawkes.”

  “Hey, buddy-o.”

  “Oh, hey, Scratch. We were just talking about you.”

  “Really? What about?”

  “The nature of foils and how we really need to kind of connect more.”

  “Oh, good! I thought of the perfect way for us to connect. You see, you want to have human companions, so I’ll have a human companion too! Sending you a text.”

  “He’s making human friends,” I said, honestly happy for him.

  Betty churred. “That sounds wonderful.”

  “He’s sending me a text right now.” My phone beeped and buzzed. “It just came in, give me a second.”

  “We just took a selfie together,” Scratch said with a mischievous chuckle in his voice.

  I flipped open the text messages and went wide-eyed. Scratch was giving me the slyest, cockiest shit-eating grin I’d ever seen, posing with his arm slung around Pamela Blake’s shoulder.

  “Like I said, I’m here to foil your plans. Talk to you later, best friend.”

  And with that, he hung up. I put the phone down and shivered. Barry patted one shoulder while Kyle patted the other.

  “It’ll be okay, man. Just give him time; he’ll come around.”

  “He’s teamed up with the woman who did this to me. He’s betrayed me and I’ve been trying to reach out and be friends with him.”

  My phone buzzed again, and I saw a picture of Scratch hanging out with Snappy, taking a selfie with my copyright page. Scratch pointed at the portion that mandated I would have a foil, his name now signed in the space.

  He then sent me one last message: “Together Forever. Whether you like it or not. Love, Scratch T. Skunk.”

  CHAPTER 16

  It had been about a week since the double date dinner and I hadn’t heard from Scratch since. He was making a point of spending time with his new human bestie, I guess.

  I didn’t mind. Honestly, I had reached out a few times over text, but he had decided to be pettier than I was believed he would be.

  I still didn’t know how the whole toon foil thing worked, but Barry wasn’t concerned. He said relationships like that were generally more antagonistic, especially in the early days. Frankly, I didn’t want to have a full toon enemy whose sole purpose was trying cause me as much harm as possible.

  Doing the data entry for Snappy was going well, and I’d settled into a good routine. I didn’t need Kyle’s help that much, but it was nice having him around. He needed to finish moving his stuff in and he’d taken to the neighborhood well.

  Our landlord, Max, stopped by to finalize signing the lease. He found it odd for Kyle to move in and share my single bedroom, but he’d been probably hesitant to have me move in back when I was human.

  It was good to just stare into his eyes every night, though…Kyle, not Max. Max was a brown mouse, much shorter than me, pretty broad with a pudgy tummy. He put forth a grumpy exterior, but he was a good guy when he thought no one was paying attention.

  After a while, being bound to working for Snappy instead of it being something I agreed to grated on me. As nice a job as it was, I wanted out. I wanted to make my own choices.

  I didn’t have a choice in being bound to a copyright, but I should have a choice in who holds that copyright. I’d gone through a good chunk of the paperwork he wanted, and I still didn’t mind doing it on the side or in general, but I wanted to be in charge of my own destiny.

  One dreary Wednesday, Kyle drove me down to Snappy’s place. I’d expected Scratch to answer when I knocked on the door but, thankfully, my employer did instead.

  “Ah, Fairfax! Do you need more paperwork? I thought we were still set up for a good couple of weeks.”

  I shook my head and responded, “Actually, I wanted to talk about my copyright with you.”

  “Oh? What about it? I’ve got it filed away and things are going good so far.”

  “Yeah, about that. How much would it cost to buy it out from you?”

  Snappy looked perplexed. “What do you mean? Aren’t you happy with the job?”

  “I’m fine with the job. I actually kind of enjoy it still. But I didn’t really get a say in you having it. It was done to me. I thought it was pretty much toon custom that a toon himself gives his copyright to an employer, and it’s even more generally accepted custom that they can request it back. I know that you’re old-school and that’s an old-school copyright. I’ve been doing some good work for you; I’d honestly like to be in control my own destiny and not have you order me around like that. Nothing personal. And I’d still be more than happy to do the data entry jobs.”

  He scowled. Obviously, something was bothering him about this.

  “This has nothing to do with Miss Blake, does it?”

  I shook my head. “No, I mean, I’m not gonna lie, that does irritate me and I understand that if I hold my own copyright, all of your commands involving that go away. At this point, I’m just trying to adapt and acclimate to being a toon. There’s really not much I can do at this point. I’d kind of have the agreement that we had when I was human, and I’m willing to come in and do work for you. I will leave her alone if need be. Although, I do wish there was a way to have some form of recompense for it.”

  Snappy shook his head. “I can’t risk that. The stuff that you did back there? I need to keep an eye on you. I’ll tell you what. I’d be more than happy to sell it to you for, say, $500,000?”

  I stepped back. “Are you serious? I didn’t give you my copyright, she did. She took it from me.”

  Snappy shook his head. “No, she made it for you, and that is a deb
t that very few toons can ever pay off.”

  I crossed my arms and looked at him, seeing him in a slightly different light. “But you’ve helped all of these toons. I’ve been filing paperwork for you and getting everything all nice and digitized for you for weeks now. Are you telling me that you hold the fact that you got them all set up over their heads? For all I know, my neighbor, who’s one of the nicest guys I know, might owe you that level of debt, and you don’t own his copyright!”

  Snappy rocked back and forth on his feet, holding his arms behind his back and whistling. “Well, you’re not them. The others probably do owe me a significant amount, considering I helped lay the groundwork for us. But I can’t have you getting your copyright back and then raising hell on my property because you have a problem with Miss Blake.”

  “Why do you think I have that much of a problem with Miss Blake? I mean, I absolutely hate Pamela, and, you know, if given the opportunity, I’d totally return all the favors that she did to me, but—”

  “Well, her new assistant has been coming in and helping me out quite a bit. My goodness, does he enjoy talking about how much you dislike Miss Blake!”

  “Oh, really? Scratch?”

  Snappy nodded. “Indeed! He’s a good and proper toon, takes his pies like a gentleman and a scholar, while you just complain all the time.”

  “He was naturally born a toon!” I exclaimed.

  “You’ve had a couple of months to get used to things.”

  “That’s not enough time to completely erase an entire human life!” I hung my head and threw my hands up in frustration. “$500,000? Really?”

  Snappy shrugged. “Them’s the breaks, kid.”

  I grumbled, turned on my heels, and stormed back to the car. “Fine. When will you have more paperwork for me to handle? The current queue is getting a little low.”

  “I’ll see about getting you another load here soon. You’ve been doing a good job. Paychecks been looking okay?”

  “Yeah, they’re fine, but this is still the Bay Area. While rent’s a little bit cheaper for me, and I don’t have to worry about food expenses, I’ve got Kyle living with me now.”

  Snappy saw Kyle sitting in the driver seat of the car. They waved to each other. “A good guy you’ve got there. He helping you out?”

  “Yeah, but Snappy…I’m really unhappy about this whole situation.”

  He looked at me forlornly. “If you want, I could just command you to be happy about it.”

  I looked at him in a panic. “No, please…anything but that. I don’t want someone else controlling me anymore. Like I said, I’m not looking to quit my job. I just want to be able to have my own copyright.”

  “Well, I’ve never known a copyright to be bought back this quickly. Normally, there’s usually at least a few years of contractual service.”

  “Okay, fine. How long do I have to wait until my copyright expires?”

  Snappy paused for a moment. “Well, I know you want Miss Blake to have some harm come to her, so I’ll make you a deal: when this whole situation is over with and there’s nothing you can do, I will give you back your copyright or you can buy it off of me earlier.”

  “I have to wait decades for her to die of old age before you give me my own paperwork back?!”

  Snappy nodded.

  “So, my options are Miss Blake dies, and I’m not allowed to hurt her, or I pay you half a million dollars, which you don’t need and I can’t quickly save toward on my salary?”

  Snappy grinned. “You got it.”

  I growled and stomped back to the car, yanked open the door, and plopped in the passenger seat.

  Kyle looked over at me. “It didn’t go well, did it?”

  I shook my head and explained our conversation.

  “Jesus! With everything she’s done to you, it’s a shame you can’t hurt her. Heck, I’d go back there and shoot her myself considering what she did. I’d risk going to jail for you.”

  I looked at him. “Don’t you dare. Let’s just go home.”

  Kyle nodded and pulled out. On the way back, we stopped at Burger Circus. I didn’t get as many odd looks this time, considering I was sitting with a human. Any time I stole a fry or took a bite of out of my own cheeseburger, it was assumed I was eating human food to make my dining companion more comfortable. In a way, I was, but Burger Circus was such a guilty pleasure.

  I waved to Lou and he smiled back at me. While he’d been a little disturbed the first time I’d come in, I’d stopped in often enough, picking up milkshakes and takeout for Kyle (and myself), that I’d become a regular. What can I say? My life had taken such a weird turn of late that I felt like I was always ending up at Burger Circus.

  “What are your options?”

  “Snappy said half a million or Pamela Blake dies. I’d do both if it’d secure shit.”

  I cursed under my breath. I’d been making a point of keeping my otherwise filthy fucking mouth G-rated while out in the general populace. Still, a girl in the next booth over did do a double-take when she heard me swear.

  Kyle held my hand. “What happened? You’re generally pretty quiet about stuff, especially when you’re keeping a secret from me, and I thought we weren’t doing that anymore.”

  I sighed. “If I tell you this, do you promise not to leave me? Do you promise that you’ll try to understand this as best as you can?”

  He nodded.

  “That friend of mine, Chance? He kinda does contract work.”

  “You said he was a private investigator.”

  “Think more ex-Special Forces or something mercenary.

  “Oh…”

  “I don’t know if I’m supposed to be telling you this, hon, so I hope I’m not putting you in any danger, but I don’t think so. Chance is a good guy.”

  He nodded.

  “We went to, shall we say, aggressively check on Pamela, try to convince her through force, if need be, to tell us if there was a way to reverse the process.”

  “Okay, and?”

  “We brought weapons with us.”

  Kyle went wide-eyed. “You didn’t—”

  “When we got there, we found out her latest clients who wanted to do the conversion process were some crime syndicate Chance had prior knowledge of. I’m not gonna tell you much about them because, again, I don’t want to put you at any risk. All you need to know is they were involved in human trafficking, primarily sex trafficking.”

  Kyle went pale. “I’m glad you’re okay!”

  “It’s not like they could hurt me. Well, they could, but it’s not like they could kill me.”

  He nodded.

  “I had to defend myself.”

  Kyle paused. “You’re trying to beat around the bush with something.”

  “Hon, these are very bad people. Chance is used to this sort of warfare; I’m not. I had to shoot some of them. I didn’t want to, but they were going to hurt kids. They were going to kidnap teens and adults, and God knows who else, and force them into becoming toons. They’d go through the process I went through, and hon, it’s horrifying.”

  Kyle put his burger down, giving me a look of unease. I felt cornered.

  Gripping his hands, I looked him in the eyes, “I mean, think about how bad sex trafficking is. Now, imagine if you’re put into a body and the person who you’re sold to literally owns your soul, not just the flesh. They could make you happy about it. Your family would never see you again because they’d never recognize you, and you’d never recognize them because you’d been tortured to where your mind broke.”

  Kyle shuddered. “God…”

  “I’m not proud of what I did…but I think I’d do it again.”

  He put down his sandwich and re-bagged everything. “This is a lot to take in. I know you got into some fights in the past, but this is big.”

  “I know. This stuff keeps happening to me, and I’m not allowed to tell anyone about it! I can’t go to the cops because…well, I killed people,” I whispered, making sure the gi
rl didn’t hear me this time, “and she still won!”

  “Because of Scratch,” Kyle whispered.

  I nodded. “Because of Scratch. Now, he wants to help her out because I’m not being as good a friend to him as he’d like.”

  “Scratch is a bit of an asshole, isn’t he?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what he is. He’s tied to me and, I don’t know, I feel bad for him. But there comes a limit to my pity. He made these choices and he’s going to do his own thing, regardless. What I really wish is that I had someone like Chance, who was like me.”

  “A toon who’s good with guns?”

  “Yeah, but really good. Someone who can go in guns blazing—”

  That light bulb went off in my head again, metaphorically. Who knows what that sight gag would cost me? “Oh my goodness. Boost!”

  “What?”

  “Boost Beaver. He’s the guy who got converted before me. His copyright was sold to some—I don’t know, what was it? A game network or an eSports league. Yeah, a rival team!”

  “What about him?”

  “What if we can get him down here? Maybe he could, you know, help Chance take out everyone.”

  “Didn’t you say he went through the full conversion process?”

  “Maybe could give me some pointers. I mean, I did some training with Chance, but this guy—”

  Kyle shook his head. “There’s a difference between playing a few FPS games and legitimately being a commando.”

  I shrugged. “It was worth a shot. Listen, I got some things to think about and I-I kinda want to visit Chance and see what’s going on with him.”

  “I can drive you over to his place.”

  I shook my head and waved my hands emphatically. “Not right now. The stuff that he gets into, the stuff that I was starting to get into, I don’t want you touching that world. I’ll have to call him up when we get home.”

  “Well, I’ve got your phone in my pocket.”

  I’d forgotten about that; I’d grown used to leaving it back at the apartment, “Okay. Could you dial him up and give me the phone?”

  He found the call log, pressed an entry, and passed me the phone.