Scratching himself, he plunked down onto the chair in the center of Stonehenge and began scanning the hardline intel. The world was full of yellow and red icons, as always, but nothing acute. Certainly nothing to warrant an audible alert. Desjardins dumped everything into a single events list and sorted on time; whatever had happened, had just happened. He scrolled down the list: CAESAR meltdown in Louisville, static-field failure in Boulder, minor progress re-establishing his surveillance links down along the Panhandle. More chatter about mutant bugs and weeds spreading up from the Panama line…
Something touched him, lightly, on the leg. He looked down.
Mandelbrot stared up at him with one eye. The other was gone, a dark sticky hole in a face torn half away. Her flank was slick and black in the gloomy half-light. Viscera glistened through matted fur.
The cat swayed drunkenly, her forepaw still upraised. She opened her mouth. With a silent miaow, she toppled.
Oh God no. Oh please God no.
He made the call even before bringing up the lights. Mandelbrot lay bleeding into a puddle of her own insides.
Oh Jesus, please. She's dying. Don't let her die.
"Hi," the tac board chirped. "This is Trev Sawyer."
The fuck it was. It was an interactive, and Desjardins didn't have time to waste dicking around with dialog trees. He killed the call and accessed the local directory. "My vet. Home number. Kill any overrides."
Somewhere in Sudbury, Sawyer's watch started ringing.
You got into the kennel, again, didn't you? Mandelbrot lay on her side, chest heaving. Stupid cat, you never could resist taunting those monsters. You just figured—oh God, it's amazing you even made it back.
Don't die. Please don't die.
Sawyer wasn't answering. Answer your watch, you stumpfucking idiot! This is an emergency! Where the fuck can you be at four a.m.?
Mandelbrot's paws twitched and flexed as if dreaming, as if electrified. Desjardins wanted to reach out, to staunch the flow or straighten the spine or just pet her for Chrissakes, offer whatever pitiful comfort he could. But he was terrified that any inexpert touch might just make things worse.
It's my fault. It's my fault. I should have scaled back your clearance, you're just a catafter all, you don't know any better. And I never even bothered to learn what your alarm sounded like, it just never occurred to me that I wouldn't—
Not a dream. Not a Worldwatch alert. Just a veterinary implant talking to his wristwatch: a brief scream as Mandelbrot's vitals lurched into the red, then silence as teeth or claws or sheer shocking inertia reduced signal to noise.
"Hello?" muttered a sleepy voice in mid-air.
Desjardins's head snapped up. "This is Achilles Desjardins. My cat's been mauled by—"
"What?" Sawyer said thickly. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"
"I'm sorry, I know, but this is an emergency. My cat's—oh God, she's torn apart, she's barely alive, you've got to—"
"Your cat," Sawyer repeated. "And why are you telling me?"
"I—you're Mandelbrot's vet, you—"
The voice was icy: "I haven't been anyone's veterinarian in over three years."
Desjardins remembered: N'Am's vets had all been conscripted into human service when ßehemoth—and the thousand opportunistic bugs riding its coattails—had overwhelmed the health-care system. "But you're still, I mean, you still know what to—"
"Mr. Desjardins, forget the hour. Do you even know what year it is?"
Desjardins shook his head. "What are you talking about? My cat's lying on the floor with her—"
"It's five years after the dawn of the Firewitch Era," Sawyer continued in a cold voice. "People are dying, Mr. Desjardins. By the millions. Every day. To even waste food on a mere animal, under these circumstances, is scandalous. To expect me to spend time and resources saving an injured cat is nothing short of obscene."
Desjardins eyes stung. His vision blurred. "Please—I can help you. I can. I'll get your cycler ration doubled. I can get you unlimited water. I can get you into fucking geosynch if that's what you want, you and your family. Anything. Just name it."
"Very welclass="underline" stop wasting my time."
"Do you even know who I am?" Desjardins cried.
"I certainly do. And I'm astonished that any 'lawbreaker—let alone one of your evident stature—would have such completely misplaced priorities. Aren't you supposed to be immune to this sort of thing?"
"Please—"
"Good night, Mr. Desjardins."
Disconnect, added a little icon in a corner of one screen.
Blood bubbled at the corner of Mandelbrot's mouth. Her inner lid slid halfway across that one bloodied eyeball and retracted.
"Please," Desjardins whimpered. "I don't know what to…"
Yes you do.
He bent over her, reached out a hand, pushed tentatively at a bulging loop of intestine. A spasm shuddered through Mandelbrot like a passing spirit. She meowed faintly.
"I'm sorry…I'm sorry…"
You know what to do.
He remembered Mandelbrot latching on and bitinghis father's ankle when the old man had come by to visit back in 48. He remembered Ken Lubin, standing in Desjardins's bathroom in his underpants, scrubbing his trousers in the sink: "Your cat pissed on me," he'd said, a hint of grudging respect in his voice. He remembered a thousand nights pinned on his bed, bladder full to bursting but unwilling to disturb the furry sleeping lump on his chest.
You know.
He remembered Alice showing up at work, her lacerated hands struggling to hang on to a scrawny, hissing kitten that wasn't taking any shit from anybody: "Hey Killjoy, want a watch-cat? Chaos made flesh, she is. Reversible ears, needs no batteries, guaranteed not to let anyone past your front door with all their body parts…"
You know. Mandelbrot convulsed again.
He knew.
There was nothing nearby he could use—no injectables, no gas, no projectiles. All of that stuff was loaded into the booby traps and would take far too long to extract. The room was a stripped-down shell of bone-gray walls and fiberop vines. The neuroinduction field would…hurt…
Just a fucking brick, he thought, swallowing against the grief in his throat. Just a rock, they're all over the place outside…
No time. Mandelbrot wasn't even living any more, she hadn't been living since she'd started back from the kennels. All she was doing was suffering. And all Desjardins could do was end that.
He raised his foot over her head. "You and me, Brotwurst," he whispered. "We had higher clearance than anyone inside a thousand klicks…"
Mandelbrot purred once. Something sagged in her as she left. Whatever remained lolled bonelessly on the floor.
Desjardins kept his foot raised a moment, just in case. Finally he brought it back to the concrete floor. Mandelbrot had never been one to yield the initiative.
"Thank you," whispered Achilles Desjardins, and wept at her side.
Dr. Trevor Sawyer woke for the second time in as many hours. A dark shape hung over his head like a great fist. It hissed softly, a hovering reptile.