“Are your soldiers going to start shooting if we don’t obey?” Nox asked.
She needed to look tough in front of her ladies. Culdesac sympathized, but he did not have time for it. “Put the gun down,” he said.
“You think you can just walk in here and—”
“Put! The gun! Down!” Culdesac did not enjoy raising his voice. But he liked seeing the people jump at the sound of it.
Nox slammed the shotgun on the bar, knocking over a few glasses. She folded her arms.
Culdesac turned to Mort(e). “Wait outside.” The cats filed out the door. Tension drained from the room. A few people sighed.
“You know the situation,” Culdesac announced. “The Colony has issued a direct order to evacuate this town.”
“You speak for the Queen?” someone shouted from the balcony.
“I speak to the Queen.” A few of them knew what he meant. “You can spend your last day here getting ready to leave. Or you can spend it drinking and fucking. That’s up to you. Either way, this bar will be empty before sunrise.”
He supposed that keeping the biggest troublemakers busy at the whorehouse was preferable to trying to detain them. No need for fighting when more peaceful methods produced the same results. If these people obeyed, then he would get his way without firing a shot. If they did not, then he would return in the morning and publicly execute one of them per minute until they complied. No matter the outcome, he would be proven right.
The music started up again, though at a lower volume. On his way out, Nox caught up with him. Mort(e) and his underlings turned, all of them pointing their rifles. Culdesac told them to keep walking. He would follow soon enough. Mort(e), ever the loyal Number One, was the last to obey.
“Thank you,” Nox whispered. Her fluffy tail curled over her shoulder.
“Clear out this evening, like I said.”
The tip of her tail hid behind her once again.
She waited for him to say something else. When he didn’t, she nodded and went inside. The noise leaked from the entrance for a few seconds. The door closed, muffling the music to a low growl, like an animal mumbling in its sleep.
Culdesac went about gathering his belongings at the sheriff’s office. First, he loaded his firearms onto his harness: a sniper rifle, a submachine gun to go along with the pistol he wore on his belt. Then, his toiletries: a swab to pull wax from his ears, a pick to pry debris from his fangs, a vial of salt that he added to water to rinse out his mouth. He cleared the desk of the papers on which he jotted notes and drew doodles, some of which depicted images from the translator sessions. He placed them in a metal trashcan by the window and set them on fire.
When he opened the window to let out the smoke, he noticed a pair of pointy dog’s ears poking above the windowsill. They glided across, making it appear that their owner floated rather than walked. Culdesac heard someone arguing in the lobby. This visitor tried to talk his way past Uzi, who guarded the main entrance.
Culdesac walked outside to find Uzi standing stiffly, her rifle held diagonally across her chest. A young alley cat, Uzi’s tortoiseshell coat included brown and black patches. Her unique beauty left her no choice but to give herself a scary name. In front of her sat a dog in a wheelchair who must have been Maynard, Nox’s brother.
“I’m sorry for the noise, Captain,” Uzi said. “This person is about to leave.”
“No I’m not!” Maynard said. “I’m from the town council. I’m here to talk to the bobcat.” The Chihuahua was smaller than his canine brethren, barely a dog at all, with a large head and a thin snout. He slouched in his chair, resting his paws on the handlebars as if sitting on a throne. A blanket covered his paralyzed legs. He had tan fur and bulging brown eyes, like a grotesque doll. His graying snout and gravelly voice suggested that his days were numbered. So many dog years spent as a slave, and now most likely to die during the evacuation. This civilized world they were building could protect weaker ones like Maynard, but perhaps it kept him alive for too long, prolonging the suffering that a quick kill from a predator would end in an instant.
“I let the Royal Inn stay open,” Culdesac said. “What else do you want?”
“Do I look like I care about the fucking whorehouse?” the dog asked. “I’m worse than a choker over here.”
Uzi snickered.
“Yeah, that’s funny, isn’t it?” the dog said. “You’re not exactly the brains of this operation, are ya, honey? They let you pretend to be a soldier while they think about shaggin’ ya.”
Uzi lifted the butt of her rifle, preparing to ram it straight through this loudmouth’s face. Culdesac stepped in between them. It had been a while since someone so small mouthed off to him like this. Culdesac almost missed it.
“Do you know who we are?” he asked, smiling with exposed fangs.
“It doesn’t matter who you are,” Maynard said. “You’re about to make a big mistake, leaving this town.”
“Is that so? Did you learn military tactics at the nursing home where you grew up?”
“I learned some common sense.”
“The decision is final.”
“The decision is final,” the dog repeated. “We took this town fair and square. It’s ours.”
Uzi rolled her eyes.
“I’ve already discussed this with your friend,” Culdesac said.
“My sister, right. She tried to sweet-talk you.”
“She tried.”
“I guess those testicles are wasted on a freak like you,” the dog said. “Well, if Nox couldn’t make it clear, let me try. Abandoning this town will be a disaster.”
“You know something the Queen doesn’t?”
“Maybe. We’ve got the bridge, the river, the police station. We’ve got high points to watch over the entire valley. The humans are going to lose this war. But if they take Milton, it’s going to create problems. That’s why they want it so bad. Can you get that through your feline skull?”
Under normal circumstances, Culdesac would have killed this dog by now. But Maynard made a few good points. And the Queen herself admitted that she needed more intelligence on this area.
“If you’re not going to leave us behind, then stay here and fight with us,” Maynard said. “Give us some guns.”
“Sure. Maybe we can let you use a bazooka.”
“Fuck you, you fucking feral! You fucking choke-dick.” The Chihuahua bared his fangs. “You think you’re so tough because you grew up in the wild. I’ll bet that’s not even true. You probably ate scraps from some old lady’s garbage.”
“That is true,” Culdesac said. Uzi turned to him, surprised. “But then I ate the old lady.”
“You know that we should stay and fight,” Maynard said. “I’ve heard that dumbass motto you use. ‘Aim true. Stay on the hunt.’ And here you are, hiding behind orders like some human. Remember that a dog in a wheelchair told you that.”
Maynard spun the chair and rolled away, the gravel grinding under the plastic wheels. When he reached the street, a cat spotted him and offered to help. Maynard waved her off. He stubbornly rolled the wheels, occasionally glancing at the police station and cursing.
Culdesac went inside before Uzi could say anything. He could not wait to leave this town. This was exactly why the Red Sphinx could not occupy a place like this. They were assassins, not administrators and diplomats. Best to leave that thankless work to the regular army. In another week, Culdesac would be on the hunt again, where he belonged.
That night, the sheriff’s office proved far too cold to serve as a bedroom. Culdesac curled into a corner and wrapped himself in blankets. When this failed to work, he decided to sleep with the rest of the unit in the main lobby, where their collective body heat warmed the room. When he arrived, the soldiers grew quiet, surprised that the captain would join them.
Quilted blankets lined the linoleum
floor, providing some comfort in this unnatural human space. Culdesac slept back-to-back with Bailarina. His paws rested on Brutal’s shoulder, his tail on Rao’s neck. Bentley’s hind legs twitched in front of Culdesac’s face. This was how his people were meant to end each day. If not for the Queen, he would never have the opportunity to do this ever again. The humans whittled his people down, scattering them, until they lived on their own, groping for warmth in caves or hollow logs. Simple acts such as this reclaimed their past, in defiance of the human juggernaut.
Culdesac dreamt of snow, as he often did. Whiteness in all directions, though without the cold. His brother Murmur growled nearby. Culdesac shouted in response, in the same way his mother did, but Murmur’s voice went silent. Only the wind made a sound, shaking wet clumps of snow from the tree branches. Culdesac licked a pile of it until his tongue grew numb.
He awoke in an awkward position, with his head tilted off of his blanket, his tongue dry and stiff, stuck to the floor. Feet padded around his head. Somewhere outside, a clicking sound rattled against the windows, like very loud crickets. The sound came from the sentries tapping two hollow sticks together—a warning that something, or someone, had breached the perimeter.
Culdesac pushed himself up. Within seconds, a groggy Uzi handed him his pistol and a bandolier. Mort(e) greeted him when he stepped outside. Only then did he estimate the time—definitely past midnight, judging by the chill and the position of the half-moon. Candles flickered in the windows of the houses as the civilians woke. Voices and light jazz music drifted from the brothel. Culdesac considered the possibility of rounding everyone up and marching west, now that no one would get any sleep.
“Found a raft anchored in the river,” Mort(e) said. “Near the bridge. The guards could smell humans.”
Culdesac nodded. He tried to calculate how far the intruders could have gone in two hours, in three, in four.
“Did you search the bridge for explosives?” Culdesac asked.
“Yes. It’s clean. But there are no tracks leading from the boat.”
“A decoy?”
“Could be. Or they swam downstream from the anchor point.”
“Too cold for that.”
Jomo sprinted toward them, leaping a row of bushes. “Sir! The brothel has been cleared out.”
“Headcount?” Mort(e) asked.
“Ninety of ninety-seven civilians accounted for.”
“Get everyone into the station.”
The police station could hold these people for a night, maybe into the next afternoon, before they started going crazy. In his initial recon of the town, Culdesac reluctantly concluded that the station would be better than the school, part of which collapsed following a battle in the early days of the Change. To be sure, the station also included jail cells—not exactly a welcoming environment, but safe enough.
Out of the corner of his eye, a white glow rose over the rooftops. At first, it resembled a pair of headlights cresting a hill. Then the light spread, like a sunrise, an unholy magic in the dead of night. The steeple of St. Michael’s gleamed so bright it hurt Culdesac’s eyes. Pitch-black shadows spilled onto the concrete like an oil slick. None of it made sense—a galaxy’s worth of light in such a small space. Desperate for an explanation, Culdesac wondered if his soldiers had pulled some kind of prank. Tiberius probably got his hands on a stash of firecrackers or something. That had to be it.
A mere second passed before the sound of the explosion roared in Culdesac’s ears. The shockwave hit him in his chest. He staggered but stayed on his feet. Everyone on the street craned their necks to watch the tower of flame rising into the sky. The white blast dimmed to an orange glow, casting everything before it in silhouette. As the warmth from the fire spread across his face, Culdesac realized that the explosion originated near the edge of the perimeter. At the Royal Inn.
Culdesac was running before he fully understood what was in front of him. The fire crackled, while shards of glass and debris clattered on sidewalks. When he arrived, the staff and patrons of the Royal Inn lay on the ground, moaning. The old cat with the fedora dusted the bits of glass from his fur. One of the feline prostitutes sat on the sidewalk with her arms wrapped around her knees, shivering, while two of her friends tried to comfort her by stroking her head. Several members of the Red Sphinx got to their feet. Culdesac recognized Rao from her gray coat and black armband. She managed to salute him, and to give a nod to show that she was okay.
The Inn had burst open to reveal the depths of hell inside. The wooden beams that supported the structure burned red in the fire, while the charred sign slumped against the splintered front door.
Behind him, Mort(e) asked Rao what happened.
“We got the civilians out,” she said. “We were about to do another sweep when the bomb went off.”
Mort(e) asked her if they left anyone inside. When she did not answer, Mort(e) grabbed her by the scruff of the neck. “Who was inside?”
“Seljuk,” Rao whispered over the crackling of the flames.
A buzzing sound approached from the hills beyond the town. Culdesac knew it well: a drone, circling in from the north, flying low, searching for another target. He once heard that the flying robot’s electronic eye could read a license plate from three miles away.
The buzzing dissolved into a low rumbling in his ears when Culdesac spotted Nox, the only person standing still amidst the movement. She stared at the flames as her beloved Royal Inn burned to the ground. Her home. Her dream, reduced to an ash so fine that it floated away in the breeze. She would breathe it in. It would seep into her blood. When she turned to him, the fire pooling in her eyes, he saw in her all the rage and sadness of his people, the sigh of defeat at the hands of an implacable enemy.
“Captain, the drone,” Mort(e) said.
“I hear it.”
The humans who operated this machine from afar intended to take out as many animals as possible. This drone had one, maybe two shots left before it would have to return to its landing site.
Nox stared at him, pleading for him to do something.
Culdesac turned and ran to the police station, where the jamming device waited in its padded crate. There, under his orders, the soldiers herded the civilians through the large double doors. But the people stopped to stare at the flames that engulfed the Royal Inn.
“Get away!” he screamed. “Get away from it!”
Only a few of the people actually tilted their heads from the fire to acknowledge him. Culdesac growled. Too many people were like this, content to stand around while their lives bled away. Even after the Change, these pets still needed to learn to fight death, to claw and bite at it, to find life in that ultimately pointless struggle.
Culdesac would save these people anyway. The Queen lifted him from the dirt for that very purpose.
“Incoming!” he said. “Incoming!”
The crowd split apart to give him space. He raced inside, down the corridor to the sheriff’s office. He found the crate, flipped the latches, and opened it. Made of white plastic, the device sat in a foam casing, resembling a rifle with its barrel, stock, and trigger. A metal cone was fastened at the end of the barrel, making it resemble an ancient blunderbuss. He removed the device, along with a battery pack. When he jammed the pack into a slot, a green light switched on. The device hummed in his hands.
Culdesac headed for the stairwell. On the way, Uzi stumbled into his path.
“Sir, we—”
“Get out of the way!” he said, shoving her.
Culdesac followed the stairs to the third level, where a metal door led to the rooftop. When he opened it, a cold wind blasted his face, making him squint. Soot filled the air; he could hear coughing on the street below. The people milling about resembled embers escaping the inferno, and the church steeple became like a column of flame. The brightness made it difficult for his eyes to pick out the drone. B
ut he could still hear it, flying low, probably targeting him at that very moment. He imagined himself appearing on a laptop screen miles away, a white cat-shaped blob standing in a gray field.
Culdesac aimed the device in the direction of the buzzing sound. His index finger found the awkwardly shaped trigger. This thing he held felt like a toy. Or perhaps it was some joke that the humans played on him. The drone operator probably saw Culdesac on his monitor and laughed.
Culdesac pulled the trigger.
It clicked.
That was it. He pulled it again and again. Not even a rumble or a blinking light, or any indication that the machine was doing its job. Culdesac knew he would die in battle some day, but he always pictured himself covered in gore, firing a pistol in one hand, wielding a blade or a club in the other. Dying with this malfunctioning prop from a science fiction movie did not seem fitting.
Then he saw it. His instincts were correct: the drone’s nose pointed right at the station. From his vantage point, the aircraft hovered like an insect. But in truth it traveled faster than any bird, and could fire again at any moment.
Culdesac walked over to the edge of the roof and planted his foot on the ledge, as if any of that would make a difference. He lined up the flying monster in his sights and clicked away until his finger stiffened into a single brittle bone.
A light blinked from the side of the drone, like a starburst. The flash illuminated the trees below it. The drone had fired. By the time the sound reached Culdesac, he would be vaporized. A calm oozed down his body. His jaw unclenched and hung loose in his mouth. His tail went limp, his shoulders slumped.
The world brightened. He was in the steeple again, enveloped in the smell of coffee so strong it made his whiskers flutter. Nox sat beside him, leaning her head on his shoulder as they reclined under a blue sky, with the green valley splitting open beneath it. Another life, a path he could not take. Nox mumbled to him in the language of his people, growling his name in the old tongue. She said, Find me here. Be here with me. He sank into her, their bodies fitting together, her tail wrapping around his waist, with the tip brushing his face. Perhaps the Queen led him this far to give him this brief feeling of joy, this forbidden escape that he could never contemplate in his waking moments.
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