by R E McLean
“My beloved Empress,” the cat said. “Struck down in the prime of life.”
“How old was she?”
“One hundred and two.”
“That hardly sounds like the prime—”
“In your years, she was fifteen. With the pampered lives of the imperial cats, she would have lived to two hundred and eighty. Twenty-three in your language.”
“Hang on, that doesn’t—”
“The math isn’t as simple as you humans like to think. The important thing is, she had many years of rule ahead of her. Her heir is a young fool who I fear will ruin the kingdom. He believes in allowing dogs to cross our borders.”
“And you need me to work out who killed her.”
“I do. I believe it was a spy from our neighboring territory, Newhoundland.”
“Newfoundland?”
“Hewhoudland, stupid. I knew this was a bad idea.”
Mike looked at the Empress again. “You want me to solve her murder. And then you’ll let me go.”
“That is the deal.”
“Why?”
“Because if I can prove that Cuteypie was involved, then the next in line is my own daughter. Tiger Fancypants Jorius the Twelfth.”
“Right.” So this wasn’t just a murder case; it was political.
“Are you going to help, or not?”
Mike looked down at Empress Fancypants. She looked so calm, lying against the soft cushion. Cats didn’t die in mysterious and complicated circumstances. They were mown down by cars, or they drank rat poison, or they got themselves stuck behind the furniture. This would be easy.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
12
Box
Berkeley
1 April, 8:15pm
Schrödinger had stopped acting strangely. He’d joined Alex in the box for a few seconds, but quickly jumped out of her arms again. He wasn’t cooperating.
He hadn’t tried standing on his hind legs again. For this, Alex was relieved. Sure, some owners would be over the moon if their cat did this kind of thing. A phone would be pulled out from a pocket and the cat’s skills would go viral faster than you could say YouTube. But Alex didn’t want her cat getting any attention. He was a quantum cat, a miracle of science. He could die and come back to life again in his box. He could travel between worlds.
It was bad enough that the MIU knew about him. She didn’t want his abilities known to anyone else. If he tried that hind legs trick outside, it would be noticed.
And now, he’d disappeared. She’d heard the creak of her bedroom door about ten minutes earlier; his way of hinting that she should have an early night, with him curled up next to her. But it wasn’t even nine o’clock. Alex was tired; she’d had a long day trying to find traces of Mike’s disappearance in the records from their jump back from Silicon City. But she’d arranged to meet Rik and her dad in a half hour, at a bar near the University of Berkeley. She was running late.
She heaved her tired limbs up from her position in the box. She flattened it thoroughly—she didn’t want Schrödinger going inside without her knowledge—and went into the kitchen. The bedroom was in darkness, taunting her as she passed the door.
“Shrew?”
She opened the door and turned on the light.
“It’s early, boy. Come back into the living room.”
She approached the bed. “Shrew?”
He wasn’t there. Alex frowned. She went back into the living room. Piled up against a wall were half a dozen huge cardboard boxes, all flattened. Including the one she’d destroyed, and the one she’d just been sitting in. There wasn’t a single intact cardboard box in the apartment.
“Shrew, where are you?”
She bent down and peered under the couch. She opened drawers; when he was a kitten he’d liked to sleep in with her socks. She went into the bathroom. She lifted the toilet lid.
He wasn’t in the apartment. She hadn’t opened the door to anyone. She’d had no deliveries, no visitors.
Where was he?
She opened the door to the balcony. She didn’t remember opening it earlier, but she was tired. She fished her phone from her pocket and switched on the torch to scan the space.
A pigeon flapped its wings and took off from the railing ahead of her. She flinched, cursing it.
“Shrew?”
She took a step forward and her foot hit something. She flicked the torch on again and looked down.
It was a cardboard box.
“Oh, no.”
She opened the lid. There he was, as still as the Bay on a foggy day. Not breathing.
She put a hand on his back. He was cold. Her beloved pet was either dead, or in another universe.
She blinked as she spotted something next to him in the box. Something pale, and pink, and soft. Something that shouldn’t have been anywhere near a box that contained a cat.
“Shrew, no!” she cried.
13
Glass
Catopia
1 April, 9:03pm
Mike had been banished to a side room. This one wasn’t as grand as the previous room, but it was fairly impressive. The walls were adorned with oil paintings of cats. Some of the cats were chasing mice, some were lounging on cushions, others were staring straight at him. Some of them wore clothes, some didn’t. Blue knickers that made their butts look enormous, red jerkins that made them look like something out of a fairy tale, yellow hats that made them look frankly ridiculous.
In front of him, encased in a glass box, was Empress Tabitha Fancypants Montague the Third. Or at least, the cat formerly known as Empress Tabitha Fancypants Montague the Third. Now she was just another dead cat.
He looked over her unblemished fur as best he could through the glass, wishing they’d allowed him direct access to her body. But she was the deceased Empress, and he was a mere human. There would be a grand state funeral tomorrow afternoon, and the body was being taken away for it in the morning. He didn’t have long to solve this mystery.
He bent down, trying to see beneath Mrs Fancypants’s reclining form. The glass box sat on a gilded stand, which in turn sat on a carpet that looked exotic and expensive. He wondered if the cats had somehow learned the skills to weave rugs themselves, or if they traded with the human beings beyond the border. And who had built this palace.
He turned away to sneeze, not wanting to disturb the glass box. If it fell and shattered, he imagined he’d be watching the funeral procession from the safety of a dungeon. As he brushed against the box, it shifted a little.
He waited for the sneeze to come, frozen in anticipation. When it had subsided, and he was certain it didn’t have a friend coming along afterward, he turned back to the box. It had definitely moved.
He pushed it, tentatively. It budged again, just slightly. He looked up. The door between him and Mr Fancypants was still closed. The guard stationed outside hadn’t come running in. No alarm had sounded.
Maybe he could lift the box off the stand. Maybe that would give him a better view.
He sat on the floor and placed his palms on the bottom of the box, like a weightlifter preparing to raise a hundred pounds over his head. He had no idea how much it weighed.
He licked his lips, glanced at the door once again, and lifted. To his relief, the box rose easily; it was light.
He smiled to himself and raised the box above his head. He was in an awkward position now; if someone came in, he’d find it hard to explain why he was sitting on the floor with the former Mrs Fancypants above his head.
He needed to do this quickly.
Careful not to disturb the cat inside, he peered up at her reclining form through the bottom of the glass box. There was something underneath her, squashed beneath her fur. He brought the box closer to his face and turned it to one side and the other to get a better view.
The object was fragile, and pink. It was something he hadn’t seen anywhere else in this world. And for good reason.
He knew what had killed t
he empress.
14
Vet
MIU
1 April, 9:10pm
Alex pounded on the door to the MIU.
“Nemesis, Madge! Are you in there?”
The door opened.
“Oh.” Alex blushed. “Sorry.”
“It’s OK.” Sarita looked down at her from the top step, a smile hovering on her lips. “What brings you here this late?”
“You’re still working?”
“I work unusual hours. Come in. Stop drawing attention to yourself. Especially with that box.”
Sarita pulled back and Alex slid inside the van that housed the MIU, carrying Schrödinger’s box with her. Inside it, he was still dead.
The MIU was in darkness. Sarita closed the door and became a shadow behind Alex. Alex felt her pulse pick up.
“Come on,” said Sarita. “My office is warmer.”
She led Alex through to the space Sarita called home. Inside, light glowed from some indeterminable source and the temperature was about five degrees warmer than in the rest of the van.
“Where are Madge and Nemesis?”
“Nemesis went home. He sent Madge home, too. She hasn’t left here since Mike disappeared.”
“Poor Madge.” Alex remembered the way Madge and Mike had looked at each other as she’d been about to step into the Spinner with him. The way they’d arrived together on her second morning here. This would be affecting Madge more than anyone else.
“She’ll be here in the early hours,” said Sarita. “If you have any idea of how we can find him before she arrives, you’ll make an old lady very happy.”
Alex put Schrödinger’s box on the floor. She opened it to check on him but he was unchanged.
She delved into her back pocket and held out the object she’d found next to him. “I found this.”
Sarita took it and held it lightly between forefinger and thumb. She laid it on a surface and examined it.
“It’s just a petal.”
“A lily petal.”
“So?”
“I found it in Schrödinger’s box. He was dead.”
“But he does that.”
Alex shook her head. “This is different. Those things are highly poisonous to cats. If he ate that, then he really is dead.”
Sarita’s face dropped. She looked down at the box. “Oh. I’m so sorry, Alex.”
Alex swallowed. “I don’t know if he is dead yet. I mean properly dead. That’s why I’ve brought him with me. I’m hoping someone can help.”
“Me? I’m no vet.”
“I was hoping for Nemesis or Madge. Or to be put in touch with Madonna.”
“I’m sorry I’m not good enough.”
Alex put a hand on Sarita’s arm then withdrew it. “I didn’t mean it like that. Maybe you can help. Can you look at the lily? You’re a materials scientist. Maybe…?”
Sarita turned the petal over in her hand. “It doesn’t look as if it’s been chewed.”
“There might be more of it.” Alex took a breath. “In his stomach.”
“Like I said, I’m no vet.”
“Please, Sarita. I don’t know what to do.”
“I thought you’d come here because you had an idea about Mike.”
“Sorry.”
Sarita sighed. “All right, then. I’ll take a look at the flower. But while I do, I want you to analyze the data I’ve pulled off about the Spinner.”
“We already looked at the logs from the last jump.”
“It’s been activated again.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know. They told me…” Sarita looked away.
“Who? The MOO? What did they tell you?”
“I can’t talk about it.” Sarita eyed her. “Classified.”
Alex shook her head. “Give me the data. I’m good at crunching numbers. And it’ll distract me.”
Sarita smiled. “Thanks. I’ll let you know if there’s anything unusual about this petal.”
15
Run
Catopia
1 April, 9:23pm
Mike hammered on the tall wooden doors.
“Let me out! I know the answer!”
The door swung open and he almost fell out.
The guard cat gave him one of those looks he was tiring of. “Meow.”
He glared at it and headed towards the cushion that Mr Fancypants had been sitting on. He gestured wildly back to the room holding the ex-empress.
“She ate a lily! They’re highly poisonous to cats. I don’t know how it got in here, but—”
He drew to a halt. Standing in front of him, facing the Imperial consort, was a familiar ginger cat.
“Schrödinger, you’re back. Where did you go?”
Schrödinger widened his eyes at Mike. He was standing on his hind legs again. In front of them, the cushion that held Mr Fancypants was raised up in the air, being held aloft by four plumed guards.
“Mr Fancypants,” Mike said. “I mean, Your Highness. I know what it was that killed your wife.”
The cat looked over the edge of the cushion and hissed. “So do I, you fool.”
“So can I go then?”
The cat gave another hiss. “Of course not. The two of you are in it together.”
Mike looked at Schrödinger. “What are you talking about? This cat is—”
Schrödinger meowed at Mike and shook his head violently.
The imperial consort wagged his tail and the guards lowered his cushion to the floor. He padded off, his back arched. He turned to Mike.
“This suspicious feline is under arrest for the murder of her Imperial Majesty Tabitha Fancypants Montague the Third. And now, so are you.”
Mike looked at Schrödinger. He looked at Mr Fancypants. He looked again at the guards. Then he remembered his place.
He grabbed Schrödinger and bundled him under his arm. Schrödinger writhed and hissed.
“Stop it!” Mike snapped. He ran past the guards and barreled into the door to the tunnel that led outside.
Behind him he could hear yowling and hissing. “Come back! Come back now, I order it!”
“No, kitty!” Mike shouted over his shoulder.
“Put me down, now,” said Schrödinger. “This is undignified.”
Mike dropped Schrödinger, who went straight into a run. Mike picked up pace, the two of them hurtling down the long corridor and away from the guards.
“If they catch up with us, I’ll grab you again,’ Mike panted.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort. My claws are worth ten times what your fists are.”
Mike sighed. He was tired of being ordered around by creatures a tenth of his size. “Whatever.”
They carried on running.
16
Tetanus
Catopia
1 April, 9:23pm
Mike and Schrödinger ran across the manicured grass towards the shrubbery. Cats came at them from all sides, claws extended and teeth bared. Mike swiped them away, knowing he would be covered in scratches later and that he’d probably need a tetanus shot. Schrödinger did his best to leap over them and fight them off, but he didn’t have Mike’s size.
“Let me carry you,” Mike breathed as he flung another yowling cat into the shrubs ahead of them.
“I’m fine.”
“You really are stubborn creatures, aren’t you?” A tabby cat sank its teeth into his thigh. He reached down to grab it by the fur and tugged it off, trying to ignore the pain. He threw the cat behind him and heard screeching as it landed on one of its companions. He realized that the best way to defeat these cats was to get them to fight each other, and determined to aim for another cat next time he threw one off.
“You’re being dumb,” he said. He grabbed Schrödinger by his tartan collar. Schrödinger struggled in his grasp, swinging at Mike’s face.
“Hang on, boyo. I’m on your side, remember. Or do you want me to leave you here?”
“
Never.” Schrödinger glared at him then let Mike shove him under his arm like a football.
Mike picked up pace and ran through the cats, hearing hisses as he trod on the occasional tail.
“Sorry!” he called back, then remembered these creatures probably wanted to execute him.
They ran through the shrubbery. Mike leapt over bushes and dove between gaps in the undergrowth, leaving the cats farther behind. At last they were at the Spinner. It was making low-pitched rumbling noises. A stream of air came from it, bathing him in coolness. He thanked the stars it was still there.
“Right.” He pushed on the wall of the Spinner. “Open up!”
Schrödinger struggled under his arm. “Put me down.”
“They’ll kill you.”
“Put me down, or it won’t open.”
Mike frowned at the cat. He dropped him. The door to the Spinner slid open.
17
Spinner
MIU
1 April, 9:40pm
“What was that?” said Alex.
“The Spinner,” replied Sarita. “It’s starting up.”
Alex stared at Sarita, panicking. She had no idea how the thing could operate without Nemesis or Madge to get it going,. Unless there was someone at the other end. Or inside.
“Hurry!” cried Sarita.
“Already doing it,” said Alex, who had grabbed the box with Schrödinger in it and was shouldering the doors to Sarita’s office open. They dashed towards the central console, where lights were flickering on and off and a high-pitched wailing sound filled the space.
The central console was still in its dormant position; it hadn’t descended for a jump yet.