If Only We Had Nine Lives

Before Apollo’s body hit the ground, Ares had already turned and lunged at Oliver. In slow motion, it was obvious that Ares was moving faster, but he’d been delayed by dealing with Apollo first. Even so, if Oliver had hesitated for even the slightest moment, he would have met the same fate. Instead, with a practiced motion, he struck Ares’s solar plexus.

Time snapped back to normal. The larger man stumbled backward, his eyes wide. Between short, wheezing breaths, he forced out words. “That’s not how cats fight.”

Oliver wasn’t listening, however. He opened the door to Ares’s car and hopped in. Ares tried to grab him, but Lea had taken advantage of the time Oliver bought and was leaning out the window, holding the Federation rifle.

Ares’s ear twitched as the gun’s coils emitted their high-pitched whine, and he leaned back. Once again in slow motion, I saw the beam pass just in front of his chest.

He really could dodge gunfire.

He couldn’t, however, prevent Oliver from peeling out, leaving Ares in his dust. I quickly followed suit, thrusting my hand into the holographic controls and barely avoiding a parked car as I sped away. We followed Oliver to the interdome checkpoint where, after he presumably exchanged money with the guards, we were waved through.

Unlike the short tunnels we had passed through earlier, the tunnel between the Eastern Futarchy and the Western Futarchy was a motorway over five hundred kilometers long. With little traffic and no speed limits, we pushed our cars to the limit, desperate to get as far ahead of Ares as we could.

After putting the car back into autopilot, Lea slammed her fists on the dashboard. “Damn it, damn it, damn it! That idiot. How could he say something like that?”

Slowly, carefully, I reached out a reassuring hand to Lea and placed it on her shoulder. “He was just trying to fool Ares. He never really betray—”

“Not that.” Lea slapped my hand away so hard it stung. “How could he say he doesn’t hate humans, after everything they did to us?”

“You hate humans, Lea?”

“Obviously!” She slammed her hands on the dashboard again. “You wanna know the real reason I’m opposed to you callin’ yourself one of them? Because I don’t wanna hate you too, Sprout.”

“I… I’m sorry, Lea.” I wanted to say more, but I couldn’t find the words. Nothing I could say would make the situation any better. Was it better to lie and cheer her up? Would she buy it if I tried, or would she accuse me of being deceptive like a human?

Ultimately, I decided to tell her the truth. Apollo’s death had been a grim reminder of how dangerous our mission was. If we were going to die, I wanted to die without any regrets or misunderstandings between us.

“I’m not going to change who I really am to make you happy. Couldn’t do it even if I wanted to.”

Lea’s wail of anguish was long and soul-rending. By the time she finished, we were both sobbing. Everything sucked. The village was gone, Apollo was dead, and Lea and I might never see eye to eye again.

She recovered first, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “I know it’s unfair, but it’s the reason I took you under my wing. After me an’ Apollo found the village, it was like our prayers had been answered. A paradise just for cats. Then you came along, and you acted just like a human. Felt like an invasion, ya know? Figured you just needed a role model to show you how to be a cat. If I could just fix you, I’d have my perfect paradise back.”

“That’s the only reason you approached me? Damn, cats are so selfish.” It wasn’t funny, not in the slightest, but the two of us couldn’t help but giggle. “He was right, you know. They’re not all bastards. I promise I won’t ever do the kinds of things that were done to you.”

Lea let out a long sigh. “I know you won’t. I still wish things had turned out different, though.”

“You and me both.”

On the other side of the tunnel, there was no checkpoint into the dome, so we entered without being stopped. The car navigated its way to the diplomatic district. The embassy buildings themselves were small brick buildings on urban lots, a few stories tall. They didn’t even have much of a setback from the sidewalk. Futarchy policy was to keep them small and close together to limit other nations’ abilities to spy on Futarchy soil.

Oliver ditched his car at a stoplight near the Federation embassy and walked the rest of the way as the car continued on autopilot. As soon as we parked, Lea walked right up to Oliver and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a kiss. It was so passionate that I thought they might start mating right there on the sidewalk, and imagining it made me blush so hard I feared I’d go into heat.

Oliver tried to push her away without hurting her, but managed only to separate their lips. “Wait, not right now.”

“No, I’m not going to wait. Not anymore. An hour from now, you might be dead.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t want to leave my kid without a father. Besides, even if we survive, I don’t know the first thing about being a dad.”

“That’s what you’ve been worryin’ ‘bout all this time? Ain’t like Apollo ever lifted a finger to…” Her words faded, replaced once more by tears, causing Oliver to pull her close so she could cry into his shoulder.

The touching scene was interrupted when the front door to the embassy opened and a well-dressed man stepped out. He was short and slim with white hair and prominent creases beneath his bespeckled eyes. After taking one look at the two of them, he waved his walking cane in their direction.

“What are you cats doing on my doorstep? Shoo! Shoo!”

Oliver turned his head toward the man while keeping a firm hold on Lea. “Ambassador Iguchi! We’re Federation citizens and we need emergency help.”

“It appears to me as if the only help you need is finding a love hotel. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m late to a very important meeting. Out of the way.”

“At this time of night?” Oliver asked.

The ambassador clicked his tongue and placed his cane on Oliver’s back, nudging him aside. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve been summoned for consultation by the Grand Futarch. My secretary can handle your case during normal working hours.”

I stepped forward to block his path again. “This is a real emergency. It can’t wait for tomorrow.”

Clicking his tongue a second time, the ambassador rolled his eyes. “I’m sure whatever it is that constitutes an emergency for cats won’t be the end of the world. Now—”

“I’m a human.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not a cat: I’m a human.”

He adjusted his glasses with one hand and looked me up and down, his eyes lingering on my ears and my swinging tail. “In that case, you really do have an emergency on your hands, albeit one that requires the services of a psychiatrist.”

As much as I wanted to argue, every second we spent in front of the embassy was another second spent exposed to danger, so I took a deep breath to calm myself. “This is serious. If—”

“We can pay,” Oliver interrupted. “How does a million Euros sound?”

The ambassador stopped in his tracks. “You should have said that to begin with, though you also should have quoted a more believable sum.”

“I’m not lying. I control the finances of the reclamation farming village.”

The ambassador turned on his heels and opened the door to the embassy. “Rosalie,” he shouted, “we have guests. Get them some food and prepare the guest room.” As a maid appeared in the doorway, the ambassador turned to Oliver. “Rosalie here will look after you until I return. She’s local, so if she gives you any trouble, just bribe her. I’ll be back as soon as I can, but don’t wait up for me. The Futarch sounded supremely pissed. It may take all night to placate her.”

“Hey, we can’t wait that long,” I said, but Oliver held up a hand to stop me.

“It’s OK, Sprout. Thank you for your hospitality, ambassador.”

“Welcome.” Rosalie curseyed as the ambassador walked away. “Please forgive my discourteous question, but what kinds of foods do you… cat people eat?”

“They can eat anything humans can,” the ambassador called back, “and then some.”

As we stepped into the embassy, I grabbed Oliver by the shoulder. “Why did you stop me from telling him about the mission?”

“Did he seem trustworthy to you? There are rumors he used his position to amass a great personal fortune. No guarantee he wouldn’t sell us out.”

“And what if Ares catches up to us?”

“It probably didn’t take him long to get another car. We can’t run all the way to the Federation with him on our tails. Hopefully, he’ll follow his car west; we’ll hide out here and leave the dome from the south.”

“Hopefully?!”

“You got a better idea?” he asked. I didn’t, so I shook my head. “Then this is a risk we’ll have to take.”