by Adam Skye
He let go of Rott’s lead to keep his balance.
Schaeffer leapt out from behind the car, and barked, “This way, Rott!” and the two dogs tore away down the street.
Me and Sam moved quick an’ quiet on opposite edges of the roof: me on the plaza side, him on the far side, keepin’ away from the edges. Slinkin’ low an’ silent with the breeze in our faces, eyes half shut so the fire didn’t give us away — you can see it for miles if you’ve got good eyes an’ rats do.
We approached the terrace from the furthest point, expectin’ guards, silent but in touch. Signals: paw turned up — What? Tail flicks — Go! Ears up — Wait! Ears down — Ready! Ears back + tailflick — Do it !
Low concrete walls separated the roofs from each other. We jumped them at the same time, landed ready to fight, crossed the roof, did it again. When the roof did a dogleg around the corner of the plaza, we slipped over quiet, hugged the low walls an’ waited.
Sam an’ me smelled them: rats on the roof up ahead.
I looked over at Sam, paw up. What?
Tailflick + shrug: Go?
Ears back.
Ears back.
Ears back + tailflick, an’ we jumped, scoped the roof in mid-air, saw two rats, one lookin’ the wrong way, the other’s mouth droppin’ to scream danger, an’ we hit the ground runnin’. Sam went right, pounced, was on his guy before he could squeak. Sam did him without a sound as the other rat was turnin’ round. I was on him, stepped on his back an’ bit through his neck, fired up.
We waited at the next wall, counted one two three, jumped, landed, surprised more rat guards: same routine, different blood.
The plaza — six blocks by nine. Eighteen rats. Minimum.
Then the terrace.
Sam flashed three claws, flicked his tail.
One two three.
We jumped.
Making for the plaza, tongue flapping, head nodding in steady rhythm, energy burning off running, head CLEAR.
Maybes: the plaza under surveillance.
On stakeout — two-legs: Fatso, Dog-pound crew and van.
APB out on the city air, cops trawling through known haunts of Schaeffer, PD 647, alsatian. Fur: brown and black/grey, last seen app. 06:00 in the plaza, barking down drains... Two-legs whistling “Here, boy!” with a fake smile and a net ready if Schaeffer lay doggo.
Schaeffer sprinted.
A few paces behind him Rott loped back-up. The dog was a ground-shaker, rumbling like a truck. Round the edges of his mouth white froth gleamed. Who needed a siren? Two-legs jumped out of their way, cars hauled up screeching when they dived across busy roads, pigeons launched, panicked at their approach, cats ducked under parked cars.
Schaeffer tore on, heading for the plaza, his new temporary partner coping with following — so far. Running, Schaeffer looked up at the moon, thought, Now, now, now, it’s NOW!
He’d been planning on the paw since he’d picked up Rott. The quickest route to the plaza was coming in not from the entrance that gave onto the big open street, but through the alleys: poor light, stink-rich — enough to go by.
Schaeffer skittered into a turn as the sidewalk veered off before a line of champing cars fuming at the lights and switched gear, changing down. Bone, behind him, crashed straight into a car, denting a panel. Figure the rottweiler was nicknamed after the contents of his skull. The driver took one look and stayed put. Rott shook, pointed his nose in Schaeffer’s direction, and followed it.
Schaeffer slowed for Rott, watched him lumbering towards him, then ducked into an alley leading off. Straight away he caught the smell of the plaza. That smell, unique: hundreds of people, booze, cigarettes, perfume, dogs, birds, bins, cats, rats, piss, shit, trash. Schaeffer sniffed and went with it, nose down, watching the ground.
Alley walls closed in; the buildings seemed to grow higher. The light down on the street was spread thin. Schaeffer slowed. On the floor were dog turds — lots: cones, tubes, curls, twists, a rainbow of browns, some intact, others squelched into footprints. Glass-slivers glinted, Schaeffer trod careful. Dark turf-marker piss-stains bled down walls. Rott followed orders and didn’t stop to sniff.
On the air, the plaza smelled less like a single thing now. They came snuffling through the alley, getting nearer, and then the smell started breaking down into its parts, information exploding outwards. The smell in the alley was a tiny yelp against the gigantic howl from the plaza. The smell of the plaza was a din and it was its own language, one that Schaeffer understood. He came round the corner and saw the plaza ahead through the archway.
He stopped dead, hackles up.
Security was tight. The number of sentries and bodyguards had doubled or trebled since the Preliminary Convocation. Max had ordered rooftop sentries to be posted, and on the terrace, where the Convocation and final vote would take place, a pack of guard rats lined the walls, black eyes darting, noses twitching, alert for the slightest sign of danger.
Sai waddled to the centre, where the others had gathered, wondering if there was anything in the order of arrival that should worry him. Was Domus intentionally keeping him isolated from the other MOONrats until the very last moment?
The Convocation was gathered, and the usual ritual was observed: each MOONrat had his or her rump turned to the centre so that none might speak before the whole was gathered. The overlapping tails still said, We are One, but when Sai manoeuvred his bulk into place in the centre and laid his tail on the pile, all the tails were whipped back as if in revulsion. Sai smiled inwardly and took a little hope: great division within the group. The stresses were palpable.
As the rats wheeled round clumsily — there was not one of them who did not share Sai’s weight problem — and faced each other, Sai scanned faces. Domus’s was unreadable, Libo’s screwed into a scowl, Luxor’s vapid, and Athena’s a study in composed fury. Alvix’s was dour, death in his eyes as ever. Mir’s was impassive, his eyes half-closed, and Kaver’s impatient: ever the first to argue MOON’s superiority. Marcus’s face was a leering wet-mouthed grin, awaiting coronation as King of the City.
Domus cleared his throat. Heads turned to him, the Convocation’s convener. Sai waited to see if he had correctly guessed the worst.
“Greetings, friends. We are all conversant with the protocols that govern our gatherings. You are aware that the matter in hand must be resolved tonight, one way or the other. There can be no equivocation. The matter is black and white: are we to be masters of this world, or remain as we are — marginalised, reviled, pariahs?”
Sai listened to the grating voice, felt the stresses within MOON and the opposing tugs which threatened to tear them apart. What should MOON be? Masters of the world, or simply another animal — giving, taking, part of the whole...? The first impulse fed on pride and was almost irresistible, the second on humility, such thin nourishment...
“In turn, then, each to speak.”
To Domus’ left, Kaver took a few lumbering steps forward.
“I’ve always argued that ratkind is equal in strength to mankind, and that MOON is its equal in intelligence. Yet we, the rats, have always settled for the meanest existence wherever we go: in the cities or the wild, we are less than we can be. Wherever we go, we live the same lives: sewers, tunnels, rubbish-tips, charnel yards. I would have change. Why can we not walk about freely in the sunlight? Change comes about gradually, yes, but it can also come about cataclysmically. To all species. Nature’s rules. And I believe it is time for that change.”
He paused, then struck his sole note of doubt.
“I would like to know more exactly how Domus would... affect this change. Domus? Explain.”
Yes, thought Sai. Explain. Let’s see exactly what you have created with your randomly bestowed, fabulous human intelligence. I think you must have received more of the formula than I. Because I don’t understand how you can set yourself apart from the planet, wipe out its warm life and call it ‘evolution’.
Domus spoke. Neutral, rational, cold.
“And what of the rats?”
Domus flinched, turned his head to meet the seething contempt gleaming in Athena’s eyes.
“Athena?”
“What of the rats that will die too?”
Domus rallied, affected a righteous calm.
“There will be... losses. But the survivors will quickly reproduce. And as masters of the city, there will be no predation upon us, and no check to our growth.”
“That,” hissed Athena, “is precisely the problem.”
“My dear Athena...” began Domus silkily.
“Don’t you dare call me...”
“... I propose that we take control not only of this city, but of all of them... the whole world. Rats will die, yes. But rats would die anyway. I am thinking of the future. The prize is worth the price. Luxor?”
Luxor, thought Sai, the weakest of us.
She half-looked at the floor. Her voice trembled a little, and she gave the answer Sai expected. She was in love with Domus — loving without the slightest hope of any coming back to her. Domus, Sai now realised, had no love to give.
“I agree with you, Domus,” said Luxor, with a kind of enthusiasm but still avoiding all eye-contact.
“Libo?”
Her answer was flat, her voice even.
“No.”
“Your reasoning?” Domus enquired.
"Rat and man is not a symbiotic relationship: we don’t give, we take. If we kill them, we can’t feed off them.”
“The planet is vast...”
“... but finite. Eventually our numbers will become too great. We will consume every last living thing, the planet will become a desert and we will eat each other. Perhaps I should remind you of our origins, Domus: we came out of the deserts. You seem to want to return to them. No.”
Domus turned for support, but Libo was not finished.
“Another thing, Domus.”
“Yes, Libo?”
“You’re insane.”
Domus’ face was momentarily a mask of surprise. He regained his composure quickly, and there was no room for doubt in his voice.
“Not at all, Libo. I am acting very much according to my rat and human nature. I am putting MOON — all of us — first. That’s all. And if the planet must become a desert, as you insist, Libo, I would rather it was because of rat than because of man. Alvix?”
Sai knew before Alvix spoke what he would say. Of all the MOONrats, he had suffered most in the laboratories and still could not speak of it. He hated and resented what had been done to him. His life had been cursed since the first injection: an ordinary rat become a freakish miracle and a danger to his creators. His love, Nestor, had been killed by men. Perhaps he was remembering this when he croaked, “Kill them all. Give me peace.”
He closed his eyes, as if in pain.
“Mir?”
Sai knew already.
“Never, Domus. The bacillus is too powerful. It cannot be controlled: it must not be loosed again. That’s all.”
“Don’t you think I...?” began Domus.
“Never again!”
Mir looked hard at Sai.
“Sai?” said Domus.
Sai stood up, the speech he had rehearsed now jumbled and useless, all his reading an irrelevance, important only to himself. The others knew their own minds. For Sai, the choice was between the slaughter of a species he admired as much as despaired of, or not.
“No,” he said.
“Very well,” announced Domus. “A formal and final vote. Raise a claw: ‘Yes’ to the proposition,” his own claw rising as he spoke.
Kaver, Alvix and Luxor joined him.
“‘No’ to the proposition.”
Sai, Athena, Libo and Mir.
“Equivocation, then.”
Domus showed no surprise and turned to the last member of the Convocation — the holder of the host’s vote.
“Marcus?”
All eyes turned to the rat king.
The cop car was doing a slow once-over of the plaza, and Schaeffer knew from the splashes up its side it was his partner’s unit. He recognised the three-day-old filth acquired splashing around a trailer park on the Narco sniff-out, and Fatso, natch, hadn’t washed the car. Or himself, probably.
The car crawled Schaeffer’s way coughing fumes.
Get lost, asshole! Schaeffer told it in his head.
He ducked back when the car turned the top corner. His two-legs partner now faced him side-on, rolling slow, arm out the window.
Schaeffer hugged the wall. Rott grunted, “Der... shall I bite his tyres?”
The least intelligent suggestion Schaeffer’d ever heard. He nixed it, politely.
The cop car rolled. Schaeffer figured the angles out: next turn, Fatso is parallel, right outside where we want to be, moving away... moving towards us... meet in the middle, then he’s blind...
“Rott!”
“Duh?”
“Ready...”
“Duh.”
“... to run... NOW!”
Schaeffer tore off, keeping low, low, belly fur to the deck, inside the arches behind lines of tables full of people, the view of the prowling cop car and its view of him all jungled up with legs and furniture.
Rott shook.
“Duh. Yeah.”
And ran after Schaeffer, lolloping unquestioningly onwards in a straight line. He saw Schaeffer ahead stop at the corner and figured he should too.
He skidded up and sat down, breathing heavily.
“Rott!”
“Duh?”
“Ready?”
“...”
“ROTT!”
“Duh! Run?”
“NOW!”
Rott fixed his gaze on the bushy tail ahead, and ran.
Schaeffer sprinted, saw the door ahead, rushed past the spot where the canary had been dumped and hauled up at the door. Rott bounded up.
They looked at the door.
“Duh... it’s...”
“Not open. Thanks.”
Schaeffer looked up at the bank of buttons by the door, knowing what happened when you pushed them.
“Push against the door, Rott.”
Rott complied. The door creaked.
Schaeffer jumped up the wall and pushed buttons, came back down. He braced his back legs and stretched up again, got his balance better this time: paws pressing more buttons, the slitty mouth in the metal squawking angry noises... then, Buuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and Rott crashed forward as the door flew inwards.
Schaeffer leapt YES! and darted into the building, heading for the stairs. He took the first flight in two jumps and powered upwards, claws ticking in the stairwell. Behind him Rott pumped uphill, crashing into the wall on every corner. Schaeffer, all senses alert... There! Smell it! Thin, but there in the still stairwell air: rat stink sinking down the steps...
Schaeffer tore upstairs, his only thought to get to the terrace and STOP them.
The smell got stronger with every step. Schaeffer tried to calculate how many rats made a smell like that. He arrived at the top in a breathless clatter and stopped dead in front of a large, locked door. Finally Rott thundered up the last flight of stairs, stopping running only when his head hit the wall with a building-jarring thud. He made surprised noises and shook his head, but slow, like there wasn’t too much to shake awake. When his head stopped moving he noticed Schaeffer, helpless in front of the door, growling.
Down on the ground you got a feel for the size of the plaza. Real big, real busy. Up on the roofs it was not
hin’, too small to even think about. Me an’ Sam were makin’ our way to the terrace, killin’ as we went, not needin’ to think much about it.
My nerves were stretched tight: movin’ in silence was easy but it was slow, slooow, an’ the terrace had a pull on me, somethin’ irresistible, nothin’ would stop me. The guards in the way were just in the wrong place at the right time — nothin personal. Personal I was savin’ for the terrace. The tiny part of me that was thinkin’ was thinkin’ about a canary, but everythin’ else was pointed at the moment: at Sam, at signals, at the next low wall that separated the blocks. One two three leap, checkin’ the next patch of roof mid-air, always, always with the drop on the rats, either not lookin’ the right way, or else freezin’ up when it mattered. Doing them so quick we hadn’t had to fight yet, then dump the dyin’ rodent, drop low, slink to the next wall, listen to the twitches weaken behind, sniff, signal... And then there’d be another jump, blind. I took the left, Sam the right. Gettin’ the throat’s the surest way of stoppin’ any warnin’ cries.
Stealth, frenzy, stealth, frenzy; everything stored up, then exploded.
My chops were wet and I could see the black splashes on my whiskers.
The taste of rat blood filled my mouth. I’d swallowed lots, could feel the taste tricklin’ down into my stomach. I looked at Sam, his face wet-darkened with blood, his eyes and teeth gleamin’ bright and white.
He signalled, Wait.
Paw turned up: What?
Paw pointed back, flashed: four claws then three. Pointed forward, paw up: How many more roofs?
Flash two claws.
Old hands at roof warfare now, one two three go!
Three rats this time, one in the middle of the roof actually actin’ like a sentry and two more in the corner. I rushed the alert one, pounced, pinned him and bit through his neck, making sure with a tearin’ headshake. I looked up for Sam, saw one rat gaspin’, trailing black, claws to his throat. Beyond him Sam had the third pinned, head and back: couldn’t get at its throat, couldn’t let go its head in case it squealed. I bent down, Sam took his paw off the rat’s head. He made to squeal and I bit — crelch! — through his skull.