Wildcat

by Rebecca Hutto

  Her tail twitched as she cast another glance around the room. It was an extension of the ‘living room’ which wrapped itself around a corner. The ground beneath her paws was still covered in soft, tan stuff they called ‘carpet.’ She’d explored the house the day before, and from what she could see, most of it seemed to be floored with the stuff.

  All around the living room extension were various machines, most of which she still didn’t know the functions of. A few smaller ones rested on a wooden corner desk. One of the objects on the desk was a flat rectangle, a computer, which she wasn’t allowed to sit on.

  The large, box-like contraption beside her whined to life. Ember jumped back, heart pounding. Her short, downy fur rose. She laughed at herself, then leaned forward to sniff the machine. “It’s doing a thing. What thing is it doing?”

  “Looks like Chell got your claws finished. They’re getting printed now,” Matthew said.

  “Oh! Can I see?” Ember asked.

  “Sure. Come here and I’ll pick you up.”

  He bent down and splayed his arms. Ember trotted over to him. He scooped her up and held her level with the top of the printer. White liquid filled a small tray. A clear panel lifted up out of the liquid. As it did, eighteen white lumps formed, attached to the panel. Ember watched in awe as her new claws appeared from the plate of goo.

  “Whoa,” she whispered. “So those weren’t there before? It looks like they were already attached and just got dipped in the white stuff. If you know what I’m trying to say. I know it didn’t, but tahg, that’s neat.”

  “Yes, I know what you’re trying to say. It looks even more funny when what she’s printing is big. The tray is only a few centimetres deep. When something that’s half a metre long gets pulled out of there, it looks like a goop monster rising up from a swamp. I could watch it all day. Okay, maybe not all day, but for a little while it’s as entertaining as a good stream series.”

  “Good, you did know what I was trying to say. ’Cause I’m not sure I did. Can you please put me down now?”

  “Yes, I can.” He lowered her back to the floor. “We’ll leave those there until she gets back. I’d hate to mess something up. She does the 3D printing stuff around here, not me. I’m just the local computer nerd.”

  He stood back up and paused for a moment, then chuckled again.

  “What?” Ember asked.

  ‘I haven’t known him for two full days yet, and he’s already laughed more than most Westerners do in a mooncycle. Huh. That’s kind of sad. Then again, they’ve got life a lot easier here.’

  She sighed and looked around the lifeless room. ‘I guess when the biggest problems you have are keeping litter off the carpet or oversleeping and being late for work, it’s a lot easier to find things to laugh about. Little things like war and death do tend to put a damper on humor. But of course, it also makes it more valuable. And memorable. So maybe not laughing so much isn’t sad.’

  “Hmm? Oh, no, I was just thinking about something,” Matthew replied.

  “Oh,” she said. She closed her eyes and yawned. Her mind had already moved on from the reason behind his half-baked chuckle.

  ‘What if I stopped laughing altogether and saved it all for when I get old and am about to die? Would that make it the most memorable, valuable laugh ever? Or would it even be genuine at that point? You’d probably forget how to laugh. Then it would be worthless. No, it’s best when saved for special times. Like after the next snowfall when you, and Mom, and Kivy, and—’

  “Ember? Hey, Ember, hello? You in there?” Matthew asked.

  Ember blinked the daze from her eyes and shook herself off. “Y-yeah, I’m here. Just thinking about how we should probably conserve our laughter to make it more special. Among other things.”

  “Is laughter something that needs to be conserved?”

  She hesitated. ‘But what if it just limits the nice colors and makes everything worse instead of better? That wouldn’t be good.’

  “I don’t know. It might be. So when is Michelle supposed to get back again?” she mewed.

  “She has to get finished with work, then pick up Lake. She’ll come back after that,” he said. “I know you’re excited. Trust me—I know what it’s like. But you’ve got to be patient, okay?”

  To help pass the time, Matthew offered a few additional suggestions for ‘coping mechanisms.’ Some of his tips were so obvious she hadn’t even given them much thought, like saying ‘no’ to something she knew she didn’t want to or couldn’t do. She’d said ‘no’ on occasion, but not often enough. Other tips weren’t so obvious, yet were so simple she wondered why she hadn’t thought of them before—like having others ask her questions about her interests anytime she felt overwhelmed.

  When Matthew ran out of suggestions, Ember walked aimlessly around the house. Every few minutes, she found herself in a window outlooking the road. When she reached her third window, she sat down and made her prosthetics change to the favorite colors of her kin. Light purple first, like the phlox flowers Whitehaze secretly loved. Then dark blue, the color of evening shadows, which Kivyress enjoyed. Soft pink for Songbird. She hesitated when she reached Hyrees. He loved all colors equally, but she didn’t like the idea of making herself rainbow; it would be too many colors in too small of a space. Then she remembered a time before he’d started going blind when he’d said his favorite color was pine green, so she went with that.

  ‘I wonder what Dad’s favorite color is. Does he even have a favorite color? Probably not. He probably thinks having a favorite color is fluffheaded, since there’s nothing a favorite color can be used for. I’ll just do yellow, like Mom’s eyes. He’ll never admit it, but that’s probably his favorite color. Thai, can you make them light yellow?’

  [Of course, Ember.]

  She smiled as her paws became the tone of buttercups. ‘What would he think of this? He’d probably just be confused and ask why I keep changing colors. Or why my legs can change colors in the first place. Oh well. Now for my color.’

  Once her paws turned reddish-orange, she found herself bored again. She set her colors back to default, got out the window, and kept wandering until Matthew found her again and asked what she was interested in. They talked about history and the various forms of water for a while, then Matthew tried to explain programming to her. When Michelle returned with Lake in tow, they were in his ‘office room’ examining his custom supercomputer.

  “My claws are ready!” Ember called.

  She raced into the living room. ‘Living room is still a really strange thing to call a room. It’s not alive, and none of you seem to spend much time in it. Come on, Ember. Focus. Claws and heated legs. That’s what’s important right now.’

  “Yes, they are,” Michelle replied as she entered the room. “And guess what else is ready.”

  “I don’t have to guess. I can see them sticking out from your thing. What do you call it?”

  “Oh, whoops,” Michelle said with a laugh. “Heh, oh well. But yes, your new prosthetic shells are ready. And it’s called a ‘bag,’ by the way.”

  Michelle set her things on the floor, then removed her outer layer of clothing—a thick, fluffy jacket—to reveal the light blue shirt beneath. Lake scampered toward her room, her green jacket still on.

  “Don’t think for a millisecond that we won’t be talking about those grades of yours, young lady,” Michelle called after her.

  “Test day?” Matthew asked. “I didn’t think it was test day. That’s usually on Friday.”

  ‘Test day? That doesn’t sound good. Poor Lake. I know you can’t hear me, but I hate tests too. I hope you did well.’

  “It was her homework grades, Matt.” Michelle put a hand against her head. “With everything going on with this project, I completely forgot to help her with it. Hopefully it didn’t account for too much.”

  “If you blame yourself, why did you yell at her?” Matthew asked.

  “It wasn’t a yell, it was raising my voice so she could
hear me as she ran. And I firmly believe she is more than capable of teaching herself if she needs to. Most other kids have to, given the quality of the teachers.” She pushed her glasses farther up her nose. “I should have been there for her, though.”

  “Most other kids aren’t two grades ahead. And most other kids don’t have parents who still know how to do algebra. If you told them to solve ex-squared plus one equals sixty-five, they’d implode,” Matthew said.

  “I know, I know, I know.” Michelle rubbed both hands against her face and sighed. “I don’t want to be overprotective of her again, but at the same time, are we going back to not being involved enough?”

  Matthew touched a finger to his bearded chin. “I don’t know, but let’s be honest with ourselves—we don’t know how to parent.”

  “Painfully true,” Michelle replied. “Let’s just . . . take one thing at a time, okay? Okay, since you’re not doing anything, how about you help her out while I fix the cat; then, when I’m done, I’ll help her with science and such.”

  “I can do that,” he replied. “Have fun fixing the cat.”

  She sighed again as Matthew strode after Lake. “Sorry about that, Ember. I’ll work on you for about an hour, then I have to go assist Lake with her schooling.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Ember said. “You shouldn’t be sorry. I’m just a random cat you decided to help, and she’s your daughter. I can wait.”

  “Glad you understand,” Michelle said. “With that said, let’s go get you tuned up. Your claws and updated casings aren’t the only things I’ve managed to assemble today.”

  Ember’s ears perked up. “What did you get? Or make. Did you make something else?”

  Michelle bent down and pulled her bag in front of her. She reached into it, then pulled out a blueish-green loop the exact shade of sleep. A black chip with the same torn-off clover leaf shape as Michelle’s bijou dangled from the loop. Supposedly the shape was meant to represent a heart, but having seen real hearts before, she couldn’t honestly say she saw the resemblance.

  “Oh! It’s a clayvine with an ETAg, isn’t it?” Ember asked.

  “A collar and an ETAg. I hope you like it. Look.” She touched the front of the tag and white symbols appeared. “It says your name in our language. If you ever find yourself with people again, they can use this to get in contact with me, Matt, or Dr. Sagong. You can also use it to communicate with other species, even if they don’t have a Felid language pack, or even an AI implant or external device. Just remember that it won’t work with most wildlife. But you probably weren’t planning on having conversations with chipmunks anyway, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Like your legs, it’s solar powered, so it should last you a lifetime. We will have to schedule maintenance checks if you want to live out a more or less full life, though.”

  Ember stared at her shiny new accessory until the symbols disappeared. “Thank you.”

  She tried to think of another way to express her gratitude, but no amount of words could compete with the stream of kindness Michelle, Hye, and the other humans had shown her, so she left it at ‘thank you.’

  “You’re very welcome.” She adjusted her glasses again. They seemed to like sliding down her face. The day before, she’d explained why she wore the funny frames, and how she could get her eyes fixed to not need them. Eye surgery terrified her, however, so she continued using glasses—which Ember found ironic, given her speech on facing one’s fears. “Now, let’s get going.”

  Michelle slipped the collar over Ember’s head. It automatically tightened itself. The material rubbed against her skin, but was soft enough to not hurt.

  After syncing the tag with Thai, she turned off all of Ember’s internal mechanics, paralyzing her legs, but making them painless to work on. Ember practiced using ETAg Thai as a translator while her internal system was down, but Michelle didn’t speak a lot while she worked, so she didn’t use it much.

  She pulled off the panels from each leg, leaving her prosthetics a mess of wires, synthetic muscles, and other mechanical bits. Once all the protective coverings were gone, she started sliding the new parts into place. Even when dull grey, the old and new panels looked different. The new pieces were still segmented but thinner and almost rubbery, with their edges rounded off. It made them more comfortable and flexible but also revealed portions of the internal mechanics at her joints.

  Small, rectangular holes were set in each of her shoulder and hip coverings. Each opening framed the tiny solar chips that provided her machine parts with power. Tiny lines of silver ran up and across each chip, dividing it up into six smaller chips. More silver lines crisscrossed in a grid beneath the surface of her new bionic skin. After putting on each piece, Michelle touched the holographic screen of her wrist phone, and the grid lit up with a fiery orange. This, she explained, would activate the mild adhesive in the covering and bind it to her legs.

  When everything except Ember’s toes were covered, she pulled the shiny white claws from the printer. The claws needed to be screwed in, so Michelle left to find a screwdriver she’d lost. She returned several minutes later, triumphantly holding up a red and silver stick. She’d also cut her hand on something since leaving. Tiny droplets of blood beaded up around a shallow scrape, barely visible against the darkness of her skin.

  “What happened to your hand?” Ember asked.

  “Banged it into a shel—wait.” She lifted her injured hand to examine the scratch. “How did you see that? I didn’t even realize it was bleeding.”

  “I saw it by looking.”

  ‘You’re supposed to say something else here, aren’t you? I mean, she’s obviously fine, but I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be polite to ask. And you never know for sure.’ Ember licked her lips and resisted the urge to bite her tongue. “Uhm, are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine, sweetie. Thanks for asking. Let’s get you finished up. I’m sure Matt is getting close to being finished, himself.”

  ‘Themselves. Matthew and Lake are working together, right? If he’s almost done with something, she’s almost done with it too. Even if that something is just being done with his part of the training.’

  She decided to keep the correction to herself. It didn’t matter, and explaining herself out loud would only waste time and energy she couldn’t afford to waste.

  Michelle fit each claw onto each toe, then used little black metal pieces, called ‘screws,’ to secure them into place. While Michelle worked on her hind legs, Ember picked one up with her teeth and sucked on it. The knob on one of its ends had a funny little dent in it. The rest tickled her tongue. She turned it over a few times in her mouth.

  ‘Oh, I like this. It feels all cold and weird. It even tastes funny. Almost like water. What if water was just tiny pieces of metal? Of course it isn’t, but it’s still funny how similar they taste.’

  “Ember, what are you chewing on?” Michelle asked.

  “A screw. They taste surprisingly good, all things considered. Almost like wa—”

  She pushed her glasses up again. “Spit it out.”

  Her voice took on the same tone she’d chided Lake in. Ember flattened her ears and obeyed. “Sorry.”

  Michelle picked up the screw and wiped it off on her shirt. “Ew. Do you know how gross that is? Not to mention dangerous.”

  “Er . . . no?”

  She rubbed a hand against her forehead. “Just don’t do it.”

  After fastening down all the claws, she set the final pieces into place, then turned everything back on. Ember’s stomach churned when feeling appeared were it didn’t exist a moment before. The sensation of suddenly gaining limbs felt like a dying leaf—sickly mold green and fascinating brown with a touch of alarming yellow.

  Michelle sighed. “Okay, good, that worked.”

  “There was doubt?” Ember asked.

  “Not much, though this is the first time I’ve done something like this, so there was no telling how your body might react. Now, how about you try unsheathing yo
ur claws?”

  Ember snorted. “No one told me this would be dangerous.”

  “Because it wasn’t. I know what I’m doing. If there was even a tiny chance of death or serious complications, I would’ve taken more precautions, and had the screwdriver ready. Now come on, let’s focus on making sure everything works.”

  Ember sighed. She stretched out her foreleg and splayed her toes. The newly installed claws poked out. Ember’s eyes lit up. She pulled her paw closer to get a better look. They almost looked like real claws, but without quicks.

  “How well can they cut through wood?” she asked.

  “Wood? Sorry, sweetie, you can’t use these to scratch anything hard. They won’t regrow. If they get dull, you’ll have to come to me to get new ones. Don’t sharpen them on anything, and definitely don’t try any wood carving. You’ll ruin them. What? What’s wrong?”

  Ember’s lower jaw trembled. ‘No clawmarking ever? I mean, he’s probably already got a new apprentice anyway, but now I don’t even have a chance. I just . . . wanted so badly . . .’

  “Hey, we’re done with algebra,” Matthew said as he entered the room. “And what did you tell her? She can’t carve anymore? Chell, is it possible to give her growing claws?”

  “No, I can’t,” Michelle replied. “There’s nothing strong enough that can be triggered to reconstruct itself. These will last a lifetime if she just uses them for hunting and the occasional climb up a tree. Why? Do you know something about this I’m not aware of?”

  “Yes. She can’t write without her claws, and she wants to become a historian. That is what you said, right?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Ember said quietly. “Wouldn’t have been any good at it anyway. I failed the test. Really, I shouldn’t have been the historian apprentice to begin with. There are cats who would be better at it than me. I can . . . admire history from a distance.”

  “Oh. Gosh, I’m sorry, Ember. I promise I’d make you something better if I could, but there’s just nothing better out there. Well, I mean, I guess could make you diamond claws, but that could take years and would be ridiculously expensive. I really am sorry,” Michelle said.