by R E McLean
“Will do. What about the cardboard boxes?” Alex said.
Monique waved a hand. “Whatever it is, try it. Anything to get Mike back before people notice he’s missing. Before he gets hurt, I mean.”
Alex stood up. Madonna had approached the glass partition now and was grinning at them, teapot held aloft. Alex shook her head.
“Right,” she said. “Monique, I won’t let you down.”
“Hmm.”
6
Fluffy
The Spinner
1 April, 1:32pm
“I know you’re out there.”
Mike stepped out of the Spinner. He wasn’t going to let a bunch of cats scare him. Even if he was in a universe that seemed to be entirely populated by them.
“You, under that hedge. And you,” he pointed to a black and white cat with half its whiskers missing. “Hiding behind a blade of grass doesn’t mean I can’t see you.”
The cat slunk out from its paltry hiding place, sporting a sulky expression familiar to anyone who’s ignored a cat sitting next to its bowl with that feed me look on its face.
“So,” said Mike. “Where are all the humans? Someone has to feed you.”
“That’s extremely arrogant of you.”
Picking its way through the growing crowd of cats that was emerging from under bushes, behind trees and beneath butterflies, was a handsome ginger cat. His fur shimmered in the low sunshine and his ears were perfectly symmetrical, as were the markings on his face. Mike imagined that if he stroked this creature’s stomach, it would have just the right degree of softness, the kind of fluffiness that made you miss work because you were too busy fussing your cat.
A human, at last. Mike looked past the cat for signs of its owner.
“What are you looking at? I spoke to you.”
Mike’s gaze snapped back to the cat. “Shut the fridge.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I mean, holy felines.”
“You humans have a very limited vocabulary.”
“Are you for real?”
The cat stopped in front of him. Mike had an urge to pick it up and bring it to eye level, but suspected that picking up a cat with which you were having a conversation might be considered rude.
“Of course I am,” the cat said. “More to the point, are you? I mean, I know you’re real. You’re Mike Long, SFPD detective and multiverse investigator, after a fashion, but how did you get here?”
Mike gestured toward the Spinner. “I came in that. Did you have something to do with it?”
The cat ran a paw across its whiskers. “Welcome, Sergeant Long.”
“Call me Mike. But how do you know my name?”
The cat lifted itself on its back legs and placed its paws on its hips. Great. He’d landed in an alternate universe populated by versions of Puss in Boots.
“We’ve met,” said the cat. The other cats were advancing now, eyes on him as if they expected him to lunge at them, limbs moving slowly across the grass. Every time he blinked there were more of them; what had seemed like dozens, had turned into hundreds and now thousands. Were they breeding?
He eyed the ginger cat’s neck, more visible now it was standing up. He tried to ignore the fact that it was standing up.
The cat wore a tartan collar. He swept his gaze across the other cats; not one, as far as he could tell, was wearing a collar.
“You’re Schrödinger,” he said.
“Bingo,” replied Schrödinger.
7
Cheeky
Berkeley
1 April, 2:04pm
Alex pushed back her unruly ginger hair and slid into the cardboard box. She was alone. Last time she’d done this, Sarita had been watching from the other side of the room. Schrödinger had been in her arms.
She hoped it would work without them. She hoped it was safe.
She closed her eyes and pulled the lid down above her head. She started singing under her breath: Hooray, hooray, it’s a cheeky holiday. It had worked last time.
She leaned her head forward, trying to achieve a state of relaxation that would lead to sleep.
She waited.
Nothing.
She leaned forward a bit more.
She waited some more.
She sniffed and opened her eyes. It was dark in here.
“Come on,” she muttered under her breath. “Take me to Mike.”
She closed her eyes. “It’s cheeky time,” she chanted.
Nothing.
She opened the lid and poked her head out.
“Shrew?”
Her cat was nowhere to be seen. He hadn’t been home when she’d arrived, he hadn’t appeared while she was putting the box together, and he wasn’t here now.
This wouldn’t work, without a quantum cat.
She climbed out of the box. She sat on a chair, staring at it.
It stared back at her: motionless, and brown, and smug.
She went back to it and gave it a kick. Her weight carried on through and she slid on the floor, sending herself crashing into the box. Now she was back inside it. Or, more accurately, under it.
“This is never going to work,” she said.
She aimed a thump at the box. It collapsed.
She went to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. She needed to wait for Schrödinger to get home.
8
Garfield
A Shrubbery
1 April, 1:46pm
“Schrödinger. Nice to see you again.”
Mike had spent the last six years jumping between worlds and solving inter-dimensional crime. He’d battled villains who wanted to kill the same individual in infinite universes. He’d done surveillance from rooms that seemed to move and sway whenever you blinked. He’d solved one crime with the help of a quantum rabbit called Peter.
He wasn’t about to be freaked out by a talking cat. Even if it was the same cat he’d last seen in Alex’s condo on his own Earth.
“Mike,” Schrödinger replied.
“So did you bring me here? I hear you travel between universes on a pretty regular basis.”
“I’m not always skipping across the multiverse, you know.”
“Sorry?”
“When I die in my box. Sometimes I really am dead. It’s to do with the probability of a quantum event that occurs when Alex closes the lid—”
“Schrödinger, I have to admit I don’t really care. My job isn’t to do the nerd stuff. It’s to follow the clues. Why are you here? And why have you brought me here?”
“Who says I brought you here?”
“It’s quite a coincidence, if you didn’t.”
Schrödinger shrugged. He slid down to standing on all four paws again. Mike had to admit, it did make him feel a little less confused.
“The cats have a job for you,” Schrödinger told him.
“A job?”
“A crime that needs to be solved.”
“Catnapping?”
“Very funny. No, this is a murder. Of a VIC.”
“A VIC?”
Schrödinger gave Mike a you humans really are stupid look. “A Very Important Cat.”
“Ah. Of course. And who might this Very Important Cat be? Garfield?”
“Come with me, and you’ll find out.”
Mike looked back at the Spinner. Being where he could see it, where he could touch it if he wanted to, made him feel grounded. It made him feel as if the rest of the team might burst out at any moment and take him home.
“How do I know my Spinner will be safe?”
“Mike. We are cats. We are small. We do not have opposable thumbs. How would we possibly steal your Spinner?”
“Hmm.”
“And besides. We don’t need your silly high-tech gadgets to travel between universes. You already know I can travel in a cardboard box.”
Mike licked his lips. He knew from childhood experience with the gigantic Maine Coon that had lived next door to his parents’ house that cats couldn’t be trusted.
<
br /> “Trust me, Mike. If I misbehave, you can tell Alex. She can withhold my biccies for a week.”
Mike leaned towards the Spinner and gave it a stroke. It felt as if the object was responding to his touch, as if it was alive. He was imagining things.
The team wasn’t coming. They’d abandoned him. Maybe if he helped Alex’s quantum kitty, it would help him get home. Even if that meant traveling in a box that had once housed a wide-screen TV.
“Alright.”
“Marvelous. Come with me.”
9
Rabbit
A Shrubbery
1 April, 2:21pm
“So where are you taking me?”
“You’ll find out,” said Schrödinger. For a cat, he walked very fast. He was on all fours, ahead of Mike most of the time. Mike tried his best to say level with the cat, not liking the idea of trailing behind a moggy. From time to time, he looked back through the shrubbery where the Spinner had landed. It was still there, blank and white against the greenery. A solitary black cat stood on its roof, whether keeping guard or simply using it as a convenient place to catch the sun he didn’t know. He looked back again to see the cat washing its private parts, legs splayed out on the roof of his precious machine. Typical.
They left the shrubbery and emerged onto an expanse of recently trimmed grass. On either edge was a neat-looking wood; more of a copse than a forest, the trees looked as if they’d been arranged just so. The landscape was perfect, like something out of Wizard of Oz.
“What is this place?”
Schrödinger stopped walking. “We’re now on the edge of the imperial gardens.”
“So this is an empire?”
“It is.”
“What’s the name of the empire?”
“Catopia.”
“Figures. Does this cover the whole planet, or just this part?”
“Catopia covers the Western seaboard of what you would think of as the United States. It also has outposts in Asia, Southern Europe and Australasia.”
“Nice. So part of the planet is ruled by cats.”
“The whole planet is ruled by cats, just as in your world. It’s just in these territories that we have banished human beings.”
“Cats don’t rule in my world.”
Schrödinger gave Mike another of those looks. Mike glared back at him, refusing to be cowed by a small fluffy creature wearing a neck adornment that his colleague would have forced over the cat’s head.
“That’s what we have you believe. Ah, here we are.”
Schrödinger lifted himself up to his hind legs. Mike followed the cat’s gaze. Ahead of them was an oddly shaped structure. It consisted of cuboid blocks, spheres, cylinders and ropes, all connected by ladders and tubes. It looked like something you might see at Epcot, or like one of those things crazy cat ladies fill their houses with ‘to save the couch from being scratched’.
Mike laughed. “You do know those things are a trick.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Cat castles. Cat dens. Whatever you want to call them. We buy them so you don’t scratch the furniture. Look at the rope wound around it. That’s for your claws.”
He peered up, shielding his eyes from the sun. His sister had three cats, and one of those castle things in every room. The rope on them was about half an inch thick. The rope on this thing looked like it would be more at home on the Mayflower.
“It’s big,” Mike said.
“Of course it’s big. It’s where the Empress lives.”
“The Empress?”
Schrödinger’s whiskers twitched just a little. “Lived.”
“She isn’t there anymore?”
“I told you there was a murder case to solve.”
10
Silly Cat
Berkeley
1 April, 7:32pm
“Hey, boy. Where have you been?”
Alex gave Schrödinger a scratch under the chin. He responded by leaning into her hand and purring. Sometimes Schrödinger’s purrs were so loud she thought her dad might hear them in Gretna.
Except right now, her dad wasn’t in Gretna. He was out with her former lab partner Rik, enjoying the sights of San Francisco. She needed to find Mike so she could spend time with him.
“Come on, Shrew. Let’s get this done. You get in the box with me.”
She looked over at the cardboard box she had erected. It was wrecked.
“Wait a minute, boy.”
She had a pile of boxes, from the fortress she’d built to travel to Silicon City and save Claire. She could build another one.
Schrödinger went to the rug between her and the window. Where he stood staring at her.
“Meow.”
“I need your help, Shrew. What’s up?”
“Meow.”
“You want biccies?” She looked into the kitchen. “Your bowl’s half full. Don’t be so lazy.”
“Meow.”
“What? I don’t have the time for a puzzle.”
“Meow.”
She eyed him. Schrödinger only meowed at her when he was hungry, or when she’d disturbed his sleep.
Except recently. Recently, meowing had been associated with quantum events.
She stood up. “Something up, Shrew?”
He stood on his hind legs, mirroring her. She grinned. “Nice one. Who’s a clever boy?”
She bent down and put her hand out, fist clenched for him to rub his cheeks against her skin. He didn’t move, but stayed raised on his hind legs. Staring at her.
“What is it? What’s up?”
“Meow.”
11
Fancypants
Catopia
1 April, 7:58pm
Inside, the cat palace looked less like a series of scratching posts and more like a traditional palace.
Mike crept through the corridors, realizing that each of them corresponded to one of the tubes he had seen from outside. They were lined with velvet, with floors of woven coir. The faint smell of mint wafted from somewhere above him.
Schrödinger was nowhere to be seen. As they’d arrived at the palace and the doors had slid shut behind them, he’d turned to find himself alone.
Had Schrödinger stayed outside? Or was he in another dimension? Mike hoped he’d gone back to his own Earth to tell Alex where he was.
The doors were locked and there was a mystery to solve. So Mike had decided to work his way to the top of the castle. If he knew anything about cats, that was where the seat of power would be. Even if the Empress was no longer alive, there would be Generals maybe, or a ruling committee. Only one way to find out.
The tunnel opened out into a vast room. The ceiling was made of glass, allowing him to see the stars shining down from above. He wondered if they were the same stars as in his own dimension. Alex would know, he muttered with a pang.
The walls were covered in richly textured paper adorned with images of cats marching on their hind legs, pouncing on mice, and fighting each other. It was like the images in the Egyptian pyramids but with a feline flavor.
He was interrupted by a high-pitched cough next to him, like someone was trying to expel a lung. He turned.
A gray cat stood next to him wearing a gaudily plumed helmet. The cat stood very straight, its eyes ahead. In its paw was a shield.
He cocked his head, looking down at the cat. A soldier?
“Hello,” he said.
“Meow.”
So this one didn’t talk. How was he going to find out about this mystery if all he had to communicate by was meowing?
“Storm, bring the prisoner here.”
Mike turned to see a snowy white cat reclining on the largest and plumpest cushion he had ever seem. The cat waved a paw in his direction, beckoning him closer. He advanced, once again not liking the fact that he was being pushed around by a bunch of moggies. He hadn’t missed the prisoner.
“Mike Long,” the cat said. Its voice was high-pitched and grating.
“What happened to Schrödi
nger?”
“Oh, he comes and goes as he pleases.”
“So he isn’t a prisoner.”
“No.”
“Am I?”
“No.”
“So why did you describe me as one?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Try me.”
“We don’t have time. I promise you, once you have solved the tragic killing of my beloved Tabitha Fancypants Montague the Third, you will be allowed to leave.”
“Tabitha Fancypants Montague the Third.”
“Shush. No one but myself is allowed to utter her full name. To you, she is the Empress.”
“And you are the Emperor?”
A hiss. “Don’t be so stupid. I am, or I was, her consort. Her son Lucius Cuteypie Montague the Fifteenth is now Emperor.”
“And where is your son now?”
“He’s not my son. He is her son. Was. Keep up, for heaven’s sake.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“And enough of the sarcasm.”
The snowy cat looked up and meowed. There was scurrying behind Mike and a phalanx of guards shuffled in, all wearing those plumed helmets. Instead of holding shields, they carried a litter. And not the kind that cats did their business in. When they arrived next to Mike, they placed it on the floor. Each of them in turn took a step forward, bowed its head to Mr Fancypants, and withdrew.
“Take a look,” said Mr Fancypants. He gestured towards the litter.
Mike lifted the blue velvet cloth that was draped over it. Inside was the blackest cat he had ever seen. Not a hint of white blemished its fur; not a touch of it under the chin, not a speck on its back, not a blob on its paw. The cat lay on a pure white fur cushion, not breathing.
Mr Fancypants made a sound like a cross between a sob and the noise Mike’s sister’s cat made when it had been eating her begonia. Mike looked up to see its eyes were wet.