Split Second Solution

by Denny Taylor

  “Ma –”

  “Max!” the Old Crone almost crowed. “You’re story is a lie!”

  “It’s not a lie!” the boy replied, furiously, taking a step toward the Old Crone as she moved back before he could touch her. “It’s just not the truth you want.” He stared at her, surprised at how quickly she had moved away from him. Again they stood staring at each other.

  “I might be lying – but you’re a spy!” the boy suddenly said bent over and swaying as if he might fall.

  The Old Crone sighed. “You’d better come in,” she said. She stepped back and pushed the door open wide. The boy hesitated for a moment and then took a step but his legs buckled and he collapsed just inside the Old Crone’s front door.

  Four

  “Tell me I’m dreaming,” the boy said, sitting on a wooden chair opposite the Old Crone’s chair. He felt a little less lightheaded now he was sitting down.

  “A figment of your imagination?” the Old Crone laughed. “Is that what you think I am?”

  “I don’t know,” the boy said, not wanting to be rude but thinking the Old Crone was shriveled enough to be his great grandmother’s great grandmother. He was on guard and decided he would throw her in the fire if she were a spy.

  Hearing his thoughts Fire turned ash grey and cooled her embers, agreeing with the Four Corners that they should oust the boy. Working in unison they started redrawing the boundaries of the room so that the boy would find himself outside – banished to the stone step. It was a complicated process and the Four Corners were not very well coordinated so the boy saw the Walls wobble and the ceiling sag and the Four Corners renegotiate their angles but he was still in the room.

  “I think I’m delirious!” the boy said. “Maybe I have a fever.”

  “Possibly,” the Old Crone said smiling as one of the Four Corners affectionately pulled her Walls around her.

  “Drink some soup,” the Old Crone said handing the boy a bowl through the narrow gap left by the Four Corners and the wobbly Walls so she could see him. “Then you must exit – you don’t seem to be the person we were expecting.”

  “X-it!” The boy said lifting the bowl with both hands and drinking some soup. “How did you know that’s my name?”

  “Exit?” the Old Crone asked, “E-x-i-t?”

  “No!” the boy said, taking another gulp before spelling his name for her. “X-hyphen-i-t!”

  “Well X-it,” the Old Crone said taking the empty bowl from him, “It’s time for you to exit.”

  “There,” Death said, exchanging her feline form for a psychedelic David Bowie. “I told you. He’s not dying so he is not one of mine.”

  “He will be if you don’t leave,” the Old Crone said in a mock threat that the boy thought was for real. “You know as well as I do that he’s not supposed to see you.”

  “A rock star impersonator?” Death retorted, going out the door rather than just evaporating. “They’re ten a penny,” she shouted from far off, “I bet he’s seen many!”

  The boy stood up, planning his escape.

  “Sit,” the Old Crone said, as the boy looked around the empty room. There was nothing in it except for the two chairs and a stool. There were no windows and the only door was the one he had come through. The room had Four Corners, one of which he was sure he’d seen move. The Walls had no pictures on them. No shelves. It was difficult in the dim light of the Fire to tell if they were green or blue. They looked like a cloudy night sky. He looked for a light switch. There was none.

  “That’s because there’s no light,” the boy thought to himself, grinning as if he finally got it. He was no longer wet. His clothes were dry and his arms and legs were clean. “A lucid dream,” he said out loud. “The old hag’s not real!”

  The Old Crone ignored his comment as she bent over the iron pot hanging over the Fire. Gripping the ladle she gave the soup a good stir before filling a second wooden bowl, which had suddenly appeared.

  Taking this delusional act as confirmation of his lucid dream theory the boy thanked the Old Crone when she gave the bowl to him and he wrapped his hands around it feeling the warmth spread through his fingers. It felt so good he wanted to cry but he closed his eyes and kept them shut to hold back his tears.

  The Old Crone broke off some bread. “Eat!” she scolded, holding out the bread. She could see from his face that something terrible had happened to the boy. “Eat! Eat!” she told him, her voice hard and abrasive, as if offended at being called an old hag but not actually caring what he called her. She was much more concerned that he would start crying. She hated it when people cried.

  The boy took the bread and resting the bowl on his knees he dipped it in the soup. When he put the bread in his mouth the warmth spread up his arms, through his body, and down his legs. He couldn’t help himself, and despite all his efforts not to, he started to cry.

  The Old Crone sat down on her chair and watched him as he ate. She knew he was crying even though she could only see the top of his head as he bent low over the bowl of soup that he had balanced precariously on his knees. Finally, when all the soup was gone, he took the last piece of bread and wiped it around the inside of the bowl and ate it. By this time he had stopped crying and the Old Crone was visibly relieved.

  “Thanks,” he said, looking up and nodding at her.

  “Your friends might call you X-it,” the Old Crone said, “but that is not your given name.” She smiled. “X-it. What kind of name is that?”

  The boy shrugged.

  “It’s an outsider’s name,” the Old Crone said, “a rebel’s name, a name that hides the person but reveals the truth.” She was looking at him intently. She bent forward and picked up a stick from the woodpile by the Fire and she drew a large “X” in the ashes, followed by a hyphen, and then “it”.

  “X-it”, she said pondering the many meanings of the word. “I’m sure when you’ve rested you’ll tell me how you got the name and what it means.”

  “I will,” the boy said, not knowing why. “I’ll tell you the truth.”

  “And I,” the Old Crone replied with a faint smile “will tell you about being a spy.”

  Five

  X-it slept for a long time. The Old Crone had given him a pillow and a blanket that she’d taken from one of the Four Corners. “Sleep now,” she’d said, “I have things to do”. Too tired to argue X-it had placed the pillow on the rug in front of the Fire where the girl had lain and covered himself up with the blanket.

  The Old Crone had watched. “If a cat comes and lies with you, ignore her,” she’d said. “Whatever you do don’t follow her if she tries to get you to go with her.”

  “How would she do that?” X-it had asked, looking up at her wondering if the old hag was senile. He shouldn’t have thought that. She’d stood looking down at him, her eyes like the night sky penetrating his and he’d suddenly felt sick as if the world had tipped.

  The odd thing was that now he was awake he could remember what happened, but in that moment he’d known nothing. Without language he’d been nothing. Not who he was. Not who she was. Names escaped him. He could not name the things he could see. Without language he had no memory. Without memory he had no past. He felt nothing, not fear, not love.

  When he woke for a moment, he could hear sounds but he could not comprehend them. And then he remembered that the Old Crone had spoken to him without moving her lips. “Watch your thoughts or you will have none,” he’d heard her say.

  “I have things to do,” the Old Crone had said out loud as she’d walked into one of the Four Corners and disappeared. In his head X-it heard her say, “Don’t mess with Cat!”

  When X-it finally woke, he was flat on his back with a black cat sitting on his abdomen kneading his chest, rhythmically alternating paws, and as Cat pushed, out came her claws. Cat’s eyes were open wide, yellow rings with black holes at the center. Later X-it would say he was sure the black holes were electromagnetic filled with hot dark matter pulling him in. Not his body he wo
uld say, but his mind, everything he knew and felt, all his experiences were being hacked by Cat.

  Cat held his gaze even when he tried to look away but couldn’t. Cat started purring, still kneading rhythmically but without exposing her claws. Deep in his mind she played with him, rubbed up against his fears to comfort him but with the opposite effect, making connections between thoughts and ideas that he had never made.

  And then she stopped, curled up on his belly and went to sleep – or at least X-it thought she was sleeping. He lay still, not a muscle moving. Terrified he remembered what the Old Crone had said about not following Cat.

  “Did she say that?” he heard a velvet voice say, not sure if it was out loud or in his head. “She knows you can’t follow me unless you are dead.” Cat pushed with a paw and exposed a red claw, which she dug into X-it’s chest until he cried out. “And you are not dead,” the voice said, ending with a purr.

  Knowing he was under surveillance X-it tried to control what he was thinking. His thoughts were racing and muddled up when, without thinking, he started stroking the back of the sleeping Cat. Instantly he was asleep again, dreaming.

  In his dream Cat turned into Bat and was hanging from the mantle over the Fireplace, and he was sitting in the Old Crone’s chair telling Bat what had happened to him, blurting it all out, as the Four Corners moved closer to hear his tale.

  Bat said, “All the devils are here and they are listening to you” and he saw their vile faces in the Fire and their arms reached out and tried to grab him.

  “Stop them!” he yelled. “They’ve got Word!”

  It was at that moment that the Old Crone came back and found X-it with his arms wrapped tightly around Cat crying out in his sleep, “Assholes! They’ve killed Word!”

  The Old Crone caught hold of Cat by the scruff of the neck and X-it woke up with a start but powerless to move. The Old Crone held Cat at arm’s length as the Four Corners drew back. X-it watched transfixed. Cat went limp, hanging in mid-air, forlorn and pitiful, and the Old Crone, tired from her journey and filled with despair, lowered herself slowly into her chair.

  “I know the whole story,” Cat said, sitting on the Old Crone’s lap.

  “I know it too,” the Old Crone said.

  “Of course you do,” Cat said, jumping off the Old Crone’s lap and appearing once more in her psychedelic garb with her face painted white with black jagged lines around one eye, her tongue red and lapping, and with small black horns.

  “Like it?” Death asked the Old Crone. “The Kiss of Death!”

  “You’ll be the death of me!” the Old Crone said, smiling.

  “No,” Death said, feigning sadness. “You will never be my cadaver.”

  “Fool!” the Old Crone said, as Death returned to her feline self and jumped back on the Old Crone’s lap.

  X-it’s muscles twitched but he lay still and with a quick look from the Old Crone his mind fogged and he went back to sleep.

  “So what are we going to do?” Cat asked tucking her front paws underneath her body.

  “Break all the rules,” the Old Crone said. “Start by telling the boy why he was hacked by a Cat.”

  Six

  When X-it finally woke his first thought was to wonder why he didn’t have an erection, and his second thought was to wonder why he didn’t need a pee. Then he wondered if all his bodily functions had stopped, and was it possible he was dead?

  He looked across at the Old Crone who was asleep with Cat on her lap. Cat was staring into the Fire and turned and looked at him. “You’re body parts are all functioning,” Cat said, in X-it’s head. “Just not right now.”

  X-it’s next thought was how could he get Cat out of his head?

  “For many reasons I wouldn’t even think about getting rid of me,” Cat said. “I’ve mooched around. Fired a few synapses. You’re very intelligent but not very smart. Did you know you’re under surveillance by some other entity as well as by me?”

  Cat purred.

  “Let me revise that,” she said. “I’m not actually trying to keep tabs on you, so strictly speaking you are not under surveillance by me, but you are by the other entity – a bio-hacker or artificial intelligence.”

  “I am theoretically not a stupid person,” X-it said to Cat, smarting at not being considered smart. “So has it occurred to you that if I am under surveillance this conversation is being monitored?”

  “Silly boy!” Cat responded purring. “A-I is not capable of monitoring the thought communications of cats! Or, communications of animals across species. Not yet anyway. All the entity is picking up is you listening to a cat yowling and having a psychotic monolingual moment talking back to the cat as if it was human and understood what you are saying.”

  “Fucking stupid Cat!” X-it said.

  “Purrfect!” Cat said. “Keep saying that, and we will get rid of the entity very quickly. Would you mind saying it again?”

  “You are a fucking stupid Cat!” X-it said, totally incensed that his pejorative was not only acceptable but expressly requested by Cat.

  “Somewhere,” Cat continued, “A biological or artificial life form is monitoring this conversation, at least your utterances, and grumbling about having to analyze what you said. The A-I will be perturbed because it can hear you but not me. All it will pick up is a cat purring. If you concentrate harder you should be able to pick up what the hacker is thinking. Only you would have to train yourself not to react and that’s a lot harder. People have died talking back to that entity.”

  Cat was silent for a second and X-it tried to concentrate but heard nothing. Then Cat started yowling and upped the volume as she coughed up a fur ball that was mostly maggots. X-it started retching.

  The maggots had turned into bloody severed fingers that were beckoning to him. X-it’s stomach was heaving.

  “I’m going to be sick!” Retch! Retch! “Revolting! Fuck Cat! Fuck Cat!”

  The fingers turned back into maggots and the maggots waved goodbye and disappeared.

  “Did you hear him?” Cat asked X-it. “The entity?” she added, clarifying.

  X-it shook his head miserably.

  “He just said, ‘I’m not listening to this shit!’” Cat said. “‘The kid’s being sick!’ but he’s continuing to listen because earlier A-I picked up your ‘hacked by a Cat’ – all kinds of alarms must have gone off. A-I interpreted ‘hacked by a Cat’ to mean hacked by them. They think you know you’re being monitored.”

  “So tell me, why have I been hacked by a cat?” X-it asked without speaking, getting the hang of communicating with Cat.

  Now the maggots and severed fingers had gone he no longer felt sick. He got up and went over to the Fire. He put his forefinger on his left hand to his lips, while he repeated over and over in his head, “Stupid fucking Cat!”

  He picked up a stick with his right hand and wrote in the ashes in the hearth “chipped” and then he dropped his head and with his left hand he felt the back of his neck searching for the chip.

  “When I was in kindergarten all the little kids were –”

  “– chipped,” Death said in her role as Cat, caterwauling her response. “I understand,” she said, knowing that neither an A-I nor a bio-hacker would be able to decipher what she said. “The chip is similar to an old GPS tracking device. More sophisticated. But basically to make sure they can find you. We could remove it,” Cat said, “but if we do the A-I and bio-hackers will know and so will the Super-Recognizers.”

  “You figure it out,” X-it said sarcastically to Cat. “You’re smarter than me.”

  Cat nodded in agreement ignoring the sarcasm. “Getting the entity out of your head is much more complicated,” Cat said. “I don’t think we can.”

  “But you could change his designation,” the Old Crone said, “from EDM – Extremely Dangerous Male, to EDP – Extremely Dangerous Psychotic.”

  “And how are we going to do that?” Death asked, excited by the possibilities and appearing like Kiss but keep
ing her tail and swishing it.

  The Old Crone beckoned to her and Death bent over and the Old Crone whispered in her ear. Death nodded and immediately returned to being a Cat, and in that form she grew larger, her eyes became cadmium yellow slits, and she unsheathed her claws that were red and glittery.

  Cat looked at X-it and she gave him an unexpected Cheshire Cat smile and a wink before arching her back and with another swish of her tale she attacked him. Her claws dug deep in his face and he yelled out as the blood flow in his brain registered his excruciating pain. One of Cat’s claws caught the lid of his left eye and blood from the deep scratch blinded him.

  For one terrifying moment X-it thought he’d lost his sight and he screamed, “Fucking Cat!” Hysterical, he shouted, “Fuck Cat!” over and over. The hackers studying every galvanic response and every articulation documented what he felt and what he said. It was better than waterboarding. Any second now he would tell them what they wanted to hear. X-it was hysterical, insane with pain. His heart pumping, blood pressure off the scale, and sweating from every pore.

  “Fuck Cat!” he screamed in a total panic. “Fuck the fucking Cat!”

  He stood up and started walking around. The Four Corners drew back while the Old Crone sat with her hands in her lap and Cat, still slit eyed, waited on the rug pushing her front paws out to expose her claws, which she inspected in case she had damaged them.

  “Fucking Cat!” X-it yelled, his voice shrill as he screamed obscenities.

  “Apologies,” Cat said unperturbed and even dismissive inside his head. “Excuse me while I mooch.”

  Gradually X-it calmed down. Not shouting now, he used his sleeve to wipe away the blood on his face and he covered his right eye to make sure he could still see out of his left. He could see blurry images through the blood and tears and he was so relieved he wrapped his arms around his legs and dropped his head so it was resting on his knees.

  “They killed her,” he sobbed. “Word’s dead. They killed her. Now she’s dead and I’ve got a Cat in my head. Fucking Cat. I can’t live like this. I’d be better off dead.”