“Sure they do. More or less. Look at the stuff they build-”
“Scat, Drags, termites build. Humans just have more complex instincts, that’s all. Everybody knows they don’t really think.”
“Yeah, the Coon’s right,” Hacky chimed in. “That’s just-what’s the word, Drags? You know, the one where you think regular animals are almost like cats?”
“Ailuromorphism. But it’s not. I didn’t say humans are smart as cats-they’re no smarter than dogs, if that. If they were smart, we’d be working for them instead of the other way around. Look, I know humans. I used to have some of my own.”
Hacky’s eyes went wide. “You useta be a house cat? What happened?”
I tilted an ear toward Knifewall. “I had a house on Knifewall’s Inside. Got hit by a flying exploder. Just an accident-houses get hit by flying exploders every day, especially Inside, because of all the Same Clothes People. You know how Calico People and Same Clothes fight all the time? Well, some of the Calicoes’ exploders can actually throw stuff through the air. You’ve seen ’em. They can throw stuff a long way-and sometimes what they throw is another exploder, and they’re usually throwing them at the Same Clothes. That’s what hit my house. Killed both my people. Their whole litter, too.”
“Aww,” Hacky sniffled.
“It was a long time ago.”
“I hate it when animals get hurt. Even though I got none of my own.”
“Well, y’know, everything’s a trade-off. A properly trained human is a great pet, but they’re a lot of work. Too many house cats just let their people go feral-I mean, look at the Zone, right? You think humans would kill each other all the time if they’d been properly socialized?”
The Coon was getting bored. “How should I know?”
“Here’s the thing about humans. In a lot of ways, they are dogs. They run in packs, right? They associate by breed-Same Clothes go with Same Clothes, Calicoes with Calicoes, Cleans with Cleans, Musties with Musties, you know what I mean-they share food with each other, the whole thing. But, best of all, they’re creatures of habit.”
“Habit?”
“It means they do predictable things at predictable times, Hacky. You must have noticed. Same as a dog will take his perimeter tour mostly the same times every day, and usually in the same direction.”
“Seems like a pretty stupid way to live.”
“Sure, to us. But you have to remember, they’re not cats. It’s a lot of work for a human to think things over and decide what to do. So they just do over whatever they’ve done before. Each human has his own pattern, wake up now, crap here, eat then, y’know, whatever… but once they join a pack, they take on the pack’s habits.”
“You’re talking about wheelers,” the Coon said. “That’s how you know the humans are about to open the swing-fence.”
“Every time there’s a gun fight between here and Leaper’s Bridge,” I said. “Any time now.”
Hacky looked around. Half-light had taken over the sky, and he was getting twitchy. “How do you know they’ll be here before Bullets?”
“Easy. Hear the guns?”
He listened. So did the Coon. “No.”
“That’s how I know. In fact-” Being too dignified for any display of triumph, I only sighed like I was irretrievably bored. “-I hope you’re ready, because here they come.”
Getting Inside turned out to be the easiest thing I did all day. The mob of toms scattered when the first wheeler rolled up. It’s a natural instinct-wheelers are loud, their face-lights are brighter than street lamps, they stink, and they’ll crush you flat without even noticing you-but if you’re just gonna follow your natural instincts, you might as well be a dog. Or a human.
I went first, but the Coon and Hacky, to their credit, were right behind me. Just as the swing-fence started to open we streaked through, which took some timing because the wheelers didn’t even slow down. And when the humans started to push the swing-fence shut, the few toms brave enough to make a run at following us found the narrowing gap full of Coon.
He was puffed out double his already gigantic size, and his tail stood straight up, and he didn’t even have to unleash that bobcat snarl of his because the other toms took one look at him and decided they had more important business on the Outside.
Which was more or less the reason I invited him along.
Knifewall’s Inside was mostly how I remembered: a big cement meadow where the wheelers screeched to a halt, high stone-faced houses, that kind of stuff. But there had been some changes, which looked to be mostly the result of catastrophic remodeling courtesy of the Calicoes’ flying exploders. The Bleach & Ammonia House-the one where feral humans took their hurt and dying packmates-had some major chunks of its front face missing, leaving ragged dark gaps like the eye sockets of a cat three days dead.
The face-lights of the wheelers cast so much glare that I couldn’t see into the shadows, and the wheelers were still growling and the humans were shouting and carrying each other and generally creating so much confusion and commotion that I got separated from the Coon and Hacky, and I couldn’t hear the Persian anymore. There was some blood on the ground, here and there, which reminded me how hungry I was, but I stayed away from it. Humans are funny about blood, and if they see you lapping at it sometimes they just snap and come at you with their boots. Sometimes they even shoot their guns at you, which is a lot scarier than you think it’s going to be, up until it happens to you the first time.
So I mostly tried to stay out of their way and waited for the wheelers to settle down and shut off their lights, which left me hanging in a shadow at the corner of the sweep-fence. I passed the time getting myself cleaned up, which is how I happed to be just sitting there when the first dog hit the fence.
He was big and he came fast and he hit hard enough to rattle the whole fence. “I can see you!” he shouted, jumping up and raking the metal with his forepaws. “
I can see you in there!”
“Yeah? Can you smell me, too?” To help him out with the smelling part, I stood up and showed him my butt. If my tail had worked better, I would have given him a good close look at my anal glands and maybe a marking squirt in the eye, but I guess he got the point anyway.
“Gonna kill you! Gonna kill you and eat you!”
“Maybe in your next life, pooch.” I sat down again and bit at a flea on my haunch, which made him even crazier, of course, and his shouts devolved into wordless yaps of fury, which brought more dogs at the gallop. I stayed where I was and didn’t even bother to look as they threw themselves at the shivering fence; the more dogs hanging around out there, the less I had to worry about any more toms sneaking in to cramp my action.
I was making a pretty good show of nonchalance, right up until the barking stopped as though the whole mob’d had their throats slashed at once.
The silence brought up my scruff, and the voice that broke the silence brought up the rest of my back.
”That you in there, Drags?”
I didn’t need to look around. I hear that deep, calm, bone-evil voice every day. In bad dreams.
“Drags, look at me when I’m talking to you.”
With as much composure as I could summon, I turned toward him. I wanted to stalk carelessly away, but I knew that taking the first step would break my nerve and I’d be scuttling for the nearest storm drain like a sewer rat caught out in daylight. “Bullets,” I said. “Been a while.”
“Yes.” He had the side of his vast dirty tan face pressed against the fence, his good eye gleaming black like fresh blood by moonlight. Even my nightmares had forgotten the sheer size of him-that great box-head of his alone was bigger than my whole body. He had a long, slow, quiet way of talking, almost like a giant cat. “How’s the tail, Drags? That is what they call you now, isn’t it? Because of what I did to your tail?”