Apollo Cried

Public transportation had been stopped due to the lockdown, but the main dome had streets wide enough for cars. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper, and I marveled at them as we walked past. Compared to the floating transports I was used to, they had tires, which made them seem like antiques in my eyes.

With our pursuers stuck two domes behind us, we had some leeway to stop by another market and change up our outfits. Once word got out that a group of nekomimi in business suits caused the lockdown, our outfits would attract a lot of unwelcome attention. This time, we decided to cosplay as a family. To my dismay, this meant I was stuck in a school uniform with a tan blazer and plaid skirt, but I couldn’t stay mad once I saw Apollo stuffed into a gakuran.

“Does this mean you’re gonna call me big sis?” I asked between snickers. No matter how you looked at it, he was an adult man in a kid’s uniform. The only childlike thing about him was the vacuous expression that so often graced his face.

“Laugh all you want, but I like it. Makes me look tough.”

Oliver went full dad mode, wearing a blue polo shirt, loose cargo shorts, and comfortable sneakers. Lea rounded out the look with a long green skirt and a conservative cream-colored blouse that did its best to draw attention away from her chest, not that it helped much.

By the time the machines had finished synthesizing our clothes, night had set in and traffic had thinned, so we summoned a cab. When the car arrived, Lea slid into one of the front seats and pried a panel off the dashboard with her claws. She reached in and snapped off a component with a loud crack. The words “OUT OF ORDER” appeared on the car’s holo display, but after Lea fumbled with the internals some more, it changed to read, “TEST MODE.”

Lea leaned back, a smile on her face. “That oughta disconnect it from the network. Shouldn’t be able to track us now.”

“How’d you learn to do that?” I asked as I took the seat next to her.

“Learned it when I was a kitten,” she answered. In other words, it was something the militants pursuing us had taught her. “Don’t gotta be a human to be smart, ya know.”

I wasn’t going to let that not-so-subtle jab go unchallenged. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothin’. Just felt like showing off a little. Forget it.”

“Bullshit. You’ve been biting your tongue around me this whole time. Stop treating me with kitty gloves and say it: You don’t think I’ve got any right to claim to be human.”

“We can talk after we complete our mission. No use gettin’ at each other's throats before then.” She avoided looking at me as her fingers danced in and out of the holo display, inputting our coordinates.

“I’m not dumb. I know I’m not exactly the same as other humans, but why do we gotta separate ourselves from them? There’s lots of different kinds of humans. Some have blue eyes, and others brown. Some have dry earwax, and others wet. Why can’t it be the same with us? Some people have primate ears, and others have cat ears.”

“Like I said, Sprout—”

“Are you worried that if you offend me it’ll ruin our teamwork or something? I’m more upset that you won’t talk to me. Haven’t we already lost enough to this damn situation? I don’t want to lose our…” I couldn’t find the right word. What were we to each other? Friendship implied some kind of equality, but she had taken care of me when I was a kitten. Even so, we weren’t family. “I don’t want things to change between us. I’d be lost without your advice.”

“You’ve shown you don’t need me for that anymore.” Lea’s voice was quiet, as if she didn’t want the guys in the back to hear. “Besides, I’m not as great as you think I am. I’m just a meddler who couldn’t leave an abandoned runt well enough alone.”

“Doesn’t matter. You were the only person who would talk to me when the rest of the village was shunning me. If it weren’t for you, I woulda gone feral out there. We’re in for a long drive, and I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not spend it stewing in bitter silence. I promise I won’t get mad, so get it off your chest.”

“Why are you so obsessed with my chest? I swear, you’re worse than a teenage boy. Wish someone else would take an interest.”

“I’m jealous, OK? Stop trying to avoid the topic.”

Lea let out a deep sigh and leaned against the door. “I just can’t stand seeing you getting your hopes up. The humans will never accept you as one of their own. Remember that lady who wanted to touch your ears? Better get used to that if you want to live among humans. Most of ‘em won’t even ask first.”

Turning in my seat, I looked to Oliver for backup. “It’s not like that in the Federation, right?”

“Well,” Oliver said, “most people in the Federation are used to seeing nekomimi, so they won’t try to pet you. They’ll be respectful, but if you tell ‘em you’re human, they'll just laugh. Most of them anyway.”

“But not all of them?” I pressed.

He nodded. “Some of them are genuinely friendly.”

“Then I’ll just hang out with those people. Even if only a small percent accept me, that’s still gotta be more than the entire population of the village. More than a million people live in the Federation, you know.”

“That’s what a lot of city folk do,” Oliver mused. “But—”

“But if it were that easy, you never woulda left,” Lea finished for him. “Sprout, it’s not the good ones who’re the problem; it’s the rest of ‘em. You’ve got no idea what it’s like to live among people who don’t even try to hide their contempt when they look at you, who will never accept you for who you are, who tell you over and over that you should be just like them, knowing full well that’s impossible, when what they really want is for you to be convenient for them.”

“Yes I do!” Even though I promised not to get mad, my fists had clenched so hard listening to her that my claws had drawn blood from my palms. I couldn’t hold back my outburst any longer. “That’s exactly how the other villagers treated me, and you know it. You’re just biased because the only humans you ever met are the bastards who killed your parents. Not all humans—”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Apollo roared so loud that I thought my eardrums would shatter. My ears flattened reflexively against my head and I shrank down to appear as small as possible. “I ain’t gonna pretend to be the smartest person in this car. Honestly, I don’t understand most of what y’all’re talkin’ ‘bout, but I got eyes. Everyone can see you ain’t a human, Sprout. If you wanna pretend otherwise, that’s your business, but it ain’t worth hurtin’ Lea. She don’t deserve that, not after everything she’s done for you.”

In the rearview mirror, I saw Oliver put his hand on Apollo’s shoulder and pull him back to his seat. “Let’s just all calm down. You all made good points, but it’s a complicated question. We’re not going to solve anything by yelling at each other.”

“I just…” Apollo’s voice cracked. Was he… crying? The big lug that never backed down from anything was sobbing like a baby? “I never could understand why you doted on Sprout more than our kittens, Lea. We shoulda saved them instead of this ingrate.”

Lea tried to keep it together, and for a moment, it appeared she had succeeded, but then she let out a ragged breath and tears fell down her cheeks. “You know I love our kids more than anyone. They were my warm ray of sun on a lazy afternoon, but this mission is bigger—Hold that thought. We’re bein’ followed.”

Oliver was the first to react. “By who?”

“Black car, two cars back. They’re tryin’ to act natural, but they’ve been with us this whole way.”

“Maybe they’re going to the same place,” I said.

“One way to find out.” With a few swipes of her fingers through the holo display, Lea took manual control of the car, swerved off the thoroughfare onto a side street, and accelerated.

A moment later, the black car came hurtling around the corner after us.