Hellcats: Anthology

by Kate Pickford

  Benny allowed him to seal the pod.

  Craig got into his pod and ordered the computer to start the routine.

  He would not deny he was a genius, and he certainly would not tell Benny about the real mastermind behind this scheme, and all his other crimes.

  He was looking forward to seeing Mrs. Leander again and finding out what she’d been up to while he’d been in prison.

  The next job she’d planned was bound to be sweet.

  He was smiling as his heart stopped beating.

  The pod door hissed as it slid back. Craig’s eyes opened and his nose twitched. He jerked in surprise as whiskers danced before his eyes. His first thoughts were about food and safety, and he had the distinct urge to hide in a corner.

  It took several minutes for him to get a grip on reality. He was Craig Leander, and he’d just committed his most audacious crime yet. No-one had ever escaped from one of the Securimax prisons, but he, The Graphene Rat, had done it.

  Soon, he would be reunited with his beautiful wife.

  He’d done it. They’d done it. He lifted his head to look at himself in the mirror that was tucked in an elastic strap on the inside of the pod to let newly downloaded people check their new face. Download panic was a problem for some people. Craig was glad he’d never had it, or this particular download might have been rather trickier.

  Perhaps I should have suggested a rat, he thought, as he admired his reflection.

  A mouse seemed a bit more stylish and was easier to hide, but it lacked synergy with his nickname. If a mouse could be described as dashing, though, he was pulling it off.

  He smiled at his reflection, or at least, he tried. Judging by what he could see in the mirror, either mice didn’t have the muscles to smile or he didn’t have the knack of it yet.

  Craig tried to stand on two feet but fell backwards. He rolled up onto four feet and moved to the edge of the pod. It was pretty high, and there was a mouse already on the floor.

  His wife had thought of everything. She had made sure he read up on mice and they’d planned the route to suit the capabilities of a tiny rodent. The fact they could jump as high as a foot in the air, had solved a lot of the obstacles they’d faced. Craig looked at the edge of the pod, flexed his legs and jumped. It wasn’t even hard. If only he could do the equivalent as a human.

  Soon enough, the prison authorities would determine which pods he’d hacked and downloaded Benny and himself to, and the local police would be looking for him.

  With one flying leap, Craig made it to the top of a nearby stool and then one more jump got him to the ground. He found himself nose to nose with the other mouse. Appropriately, he was a good deal larger than Craig. That would be Benny, then.

  The other mouse screeched and ran in excited circles. Yeah, that was definitely Benny.

  The sound of someone typing a code on the panel to enter the room drew his attention. He scampered to Benny and dragged him out of sight.

  Benny tried to scramble away. “Benny, it’s me, Craig. Is your comm working?”

  Benny froze. “Boss?” he asked cautiously.

  “Yes, Benny, it’s me. Let’s get going, so we can get back to our bodies.” That was a relief. If the implants hadn’t worked properly, communicating with Benny would have been difficult at best. Craig was pretty sure Benny wouldn’t have a clue what sign language was, not that there was much he’d be able to do with his tiny little mouse paws anyway. Thank science for neural comm implants, he thought.

  They both looked up from their hiding place as the door slid aside and an impossibly large human entered.

  “Boss, he’s a giant.” That was disappointing. Benny was just as slow-witted as a mouse. In Craig’s more optimistic moments, he’d had a faint hope that the tiny brain of a mouse would be a better fit for Benny’s mind.

  “Now you know how people feel when you shake them down for protection credits.” Craig’s nose twitched, the sense of smell was amazing, and horrifying all at the same time. The janitor smelled of chlorine and too much deodorant. “Come on, we need to get out before the door closes.”

  The two of them scampered along the edge of the work benches and out the door, straight between the legs of one of the local cops.

  “See officer,” the janitor said, “there’s no-one here. Believe me, I wish he was here. Meeting The Graphene Rat would be a great story to tell my kids, right?”

  “Yeah. We’ll have a look around and check your security footage. He must have disguised his destination,” one of the officers said.

  Craig had another go at smiling as he scurried away. Sorry boys, not today, he thought, rather smugly.

  “Hey, even Interstellar agents get it wrong, eh?”

  “More than you want to know,” one of the cops chimed in.

  Craig and Benny were almost at the end of the corridor, following the signs to the exit, when they had a much nastier surprise than some dull-witted local law enforcement. The reception area was dimly lit, but perched on the keyboard behind the desk, was a large Sphynx cat.

  “Aww look boss, a little kitty,” Benny said.

  Craig bodily pushed the other mouse under the janitor’s cart. “Benny, we’re mice! That’s a cat.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s not good, right?”

  “Not really. It looks asleep though. Let’s sneak past it and get outside before it wakes up,” Craig said, making as if to move.

  And now it was Benny’s turn to push Craig around. “Boss, no! They do that. My aunt had one, and it used to wait for mice to think it was asleep then grab them,” Benny shouted through the mental comm link. Right. Bad idea, and Benny had been the one to point it out.

  “Really? I don’t know much about cats. Back door, then?” Craig replied.

  Benny nodded, and they fled back the way they’d come.

  Fortunately, the back door was not guarded by a gigantic and creepily hairless cat monster.

  They hunkered down and slipped through the tiny gap under the door, finding themselves in an alley.

  Craig took a moment to orient himself, according to the map he’d memorised.

  “Come on, Benny, the Loop Station is this way.”

  Craig had remembered the map perfectly, and they made it to the Loop station in excellent time. They’d arrived before the evening rush hour, thankfully. Hundreds of mouse-flattening feet stomped around the place, even now, and Craig couldn’t imagine how dangerous this would be during peak periods. They’d likely be squashed before they found their way aboard a capsule if it were any busier.

  But now he wished he’d found a transference pod located next to a better station. They were all pretty much identical designs, but Craig’s familiarity with their layout wasn’t as useful as he’d thought.

  Knowing them like the back of your hand when you’re going about your daily life, wasn’t the same as trying to navigate the public transport network in the body of a three-inch tall mouse. Every step required a jump, every sign was at the wrong height, and the endless shoes everywhere made just getting from one place to another an adrenaline rush.

  Craig peeked out from under a bench. Everything just looked so different. He had flashbacks to vague memories of getting lost as a child. “It’s not going to be easy to board a capsule without being seen,” he pointed out. Benny nodded and they spent a few quiet minutes together, pondering the problem.

  “We could jump on top of one, boss, from the sign.”

  He turned back to Benny, who was staring thoughtfully up at one of the arrival signs along the platform, trying to work out how to get up there.

  “Yes, I suppose we could, but I think we’d fall off, Benny. How about we just find the quietest carriage and nip on when no-one is looking?” Craig offered.

  “They have them signs for that.”

  “For what?”

  “To tell you which carriage is empty. So you know where to wait on the platform,” Benny pointed out.

  Remarkable, Craig thought, three years and he’s fi
nally said something useful.

  “Yes, of course they do. That’s where I’m planning to take us, so we can look at one,” Craig lied. He’d forgotten about the seating availability signs. With over a hundred million people in the sprawling city, a little seating advice was the smallest concession to transport planning the council could make.

  Craig led them in a quick scurry from under their current shelter to the safety of the next one along the platform. They stopped behind a big plastic box at the end of the bench, which smelled strongly of cats and obscured their view.

  The woman it belonged to, stood up, and Craig’s heart skipped a beat when he noticed her red kitten-heeled shoes. The light of his life came to mind immediately, and he had to take a few deep breaths to calm down. He didn’t want the memories of Mrs. Leander and her fondness for similar shoes distracting him from his goal. He would see her soon enough.

  Kitten-heels picked up the cage, and it turned this way and that as she left. Craig saw through the grille that it was empty, presumably after she’d dropped the animal off at the vet. The sound of her heels striking the platform was like tombstones being dropped to Craig’s tiny mouse ears and it was a relief when it faded into the distance.

  “Come on, let’s go,” he said, shaking himself from his reverie. With the cat box gone, they could see down the platform to another seating area, which had visibility of one of the signs. They made a dash for it and were soon checking out which upcoming train was the quietest, and specifically, which capsule on the train that they should go for.

  “Looks like it’s the one at the end of the platform, we’ll have to hurry,” Craig said. “It’ll be here soon.”

  They began scurrying as fast as they could, which turned out to be much faster than Craig would have imagined. Or maybe it just felt fast because they were so small.

  The automatic announcer proclaimed that another train of capsules was about to arrive, and Benny started to run out to wait on the platform.

  Craig clamped his jaw down onto Benny’s tail and dragged him back under the seat. “You go when I go.”

  They watched as the capsules pulled in. “Right, along to the next bench, it’s opposite our capsule,” Craig ordered, and they dashed for it.

  The cat landed in front of him, having leapt over his head. Craig wondered if mice had heart attacks all that often, but he jinked left and right between the beast’s legs as it turned around, hissing angrily.

  Craig skittered into the shadows under their final hiding place, just as the doors to the capsules slid open, turning to look for Benny as he came to a halt.

  He shouted through the comm implant, “Run, Benny!”

  But it was too late.

  “This train departs in one minute.”

  Benny was on his hind legs, looking like he was going to fight the cat.

  “I’ve got him, boss,” Benny sent. “You leave my friend alone!”

  Craig’s stomach heaved when the cat demonstrated that expert brawler or not, the cat was mightier than the mouse in all weight categories.

  Half of Benny was left under the paw that had pinned him to the platform, the other half dangled from the cat’s mouth.

  “This train departs in fifteen seconds.”

  Craig dashed into the capsule, and straight into the darkest corner of the luggage recess under the seats. The cat hadn’t followed him, but he couldn’t relax until the capsule train pulled away from the Loop station, and he knew he was safe.

  That beastly creature had eaten Benny, a man he’d cultivated and nurtured for three years, gone, just like that.

  What a waste of a good minion, Craig thought. He had planned to find a use for Benny in his new life. Get him out of the enforcement rackets, perhaps set him up with a restaurant or a bar to thank him for looking after him in prison.

  And now he was dead.

  But Craig was free, and he felt a wash of relief run over him.

  Benny had given his life for a cause he believed in. He was a good man. It was he supposed, sad.

  No use crying over spilt milk, though, Craig mused.

  Raindrops splashed heavily around him, each one like a whole bucket of water, as Craig scurried down the dark alley. He moved along the filthy corner where the paving met the wall. His hideout was in a grimy inner-city neighbourhood, not too violent because he wasn’t that kind of criminal, but not so expensive that he couldn’t blend in with the locals when he visited.

  Craig had a newfound respect for the scale of the city’s litter problem after spending the past few hours dashing around discarded coffee cups and burger packaging. Anyone would think he was living way back in the 23rd century with his savage ancestors.

  The thunder sounded like the apocalypse to him in his tiny body, and the noise was felt through his entire chest, like cheesy music in a nightclub. The storm lurked in the kind of ominous, inky darkness that lent it a far greater threat than it would have had in daylight. Even then, it would have made him flinch and snuggle up under the covers with his wife. Or at least, next to her. She wasn’t big on hugging anymore. The cacophony was enough to make any man anxious, let alone a tiny mouse.

  It was a shame he wouldn’t get to introduce Benny to her, the big lug had been really keen to meet his wife. He wouldn’t need to give the man any money, though, so that was a bonus, and he didn’t need his protection now that he was back home.

  Those thoughts fell into stark relief, when the momentary glare from a flash of lightning revealed a huge ginger tom, cowering under a discarded cardboard box.

  It was only a few metres away and looked horrified by the rain that was slowly eroding the packing around it. Craig was closer to the door than the cat was. Could he make it?

  He had no choice. He couldn’t—quite literally—play cat and mouse with the cat, which was already baring its giant maw of fangs at him as it weighed the cost-benefit of playing with a mouse against remaining dry. To the planet’s most infamous hacker, it seemed a foregone conclusion that snack time would win out.

  Craig had always preferred dogs. He distrusted cats, who he felt were constantly judging him. Blown up to the relative size of a dinosaur, they took on a whole new meaning. I mean, these were beasts from hell who ate modern dinosaurs and mice alike.

  Craig went for it. His tiny heart hummed as he put every tenth of an ounce into the sprint that he could. He hopped, scurried, dodged, and weaved around the litter between him and the door. Another flash of lightning provided the terrifying strobing image of a cat frozen in mid-leap.

  You’re too slow, you monster, he thought, too much leftover lasagne.

  Craig made his last hop, his head slipping easily under the ill-fitting door. He had made it.

  Then there was a burning flash of pain, and his tiny paws scrambled frantically on the concrete, trying to gain purchase as something dragged him back. He squeaked in terror, unable to give voice to the shock as he normally would if he stubbed his toe or cut himself shaving.

  Then he lost the tip of his tail. The pain was blinding, but he pulled forward, and the cat yowled its frustration from the other side of the door. Looking over his shoulder, he’d lost an inch of his tail, and tiny droplets of blood were staining the concrete.

  It was clear this city had a massive problem with stray cats. When the heat died down, Craig was going to donate to the cause. His wife might be angry if he gave money to the local cat sanctuary so that they could catch more of the filthy beasts, but she wouldn’t try and eat him, unlike every feline he’d seen on his way here. And he’d buy a dog. Maybe two. Big ones. Craig never wanted to see another cat in his life.

  He shook his body like a dog to throw off some of the water but it didn’t seem to work. Did mice even need to stay out of the rain? Craig didn’t know. If he’d been allowed a pet as a child, he’d have had a snake or a scorpion, not a mouse. However, it was fitting that the man the press believed to be The Graphene Rat had escaped in the body of a rodent.

  Laughing didn’t sound right w
ith his mouse vocal cords, but he did it regardless. He imagined that he sounded like the supervillains of old as he made his way down the thankfully pristine corridor, to the waiting cloning pod. He had to hand it to his wife, with one or two exceptions, she’d planned a brilliant prison escape.

  But then, since they’d met in college, her a business major with a minor in philosophy and economics, she’d always been good at planning. Craig would never have got where he had if he’d stuck to hacking for the sheer fun of it. Her ideas and his coding skills had given them a comfortable university life without any of the sordid part-time work his peers did for exploitative games companies.

  When he’d gone into the military for a tour in intelligence work, as required by the deal that funded his course, he’d learned more skills and kept doing side jobs. Slowly, his wife had built him a reputation that served them both so well, and when the press had given him his moniker it had been more a tribute to her planning, than to his skills.

  This was their most dangerous job yet, and soon they’d leave the planet and flee to some mid-stage colony, nice and safe, with better weather, and no felines, if she let him choose. Craig could play the role of The Graphene Rat anywhere, even if they didn’t have enough funds to retire on. Life was going to be good. Tropical weather, beaches, the occasional hack for the fun of it or when a cherry opportunity turned up. Maybe they’d have kids. He’d like that, and she might come around.

  Craig was slightly surprised there was no-one in the cloning pod room to greet him but he realised it had taken longer than even his meticulous wife had planned for. She’d probably gone to visit the little girl’s room. He sat on his haunches, twitched his nose and began to experiment with mouse laughter, doing his best to master the art of a good, “Muahahaha.” Craig Leander, master criminal, hacking savant, luckiest husband in the galaxy, and treated by the press almost as if he were a genius-hero, sat in the small property that his wife discreetly managed through several layers of shell corporations, and laughed maniacally as a supervillain should.