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In the early hours of the night after the party Wednesday lay on her mattress, trying to sleep. Her head hurt. It felt like someone'd left a window open inside her skull, flushing a cold steppe wind through it to clear away the drug-induced cobwebs.
She'd bubbled home in silence and gone straight into the bathroom: stripped off the ragged black dress -- soiled in places, stripped of romance, just a tatter of black fabric -- dropped it in the recycling bin. Facing the mirror she deprogrammed the smart pigments in her face with a light pen; swollen red lips faded to pale pink, small blood vessels opened and flooded her cheeks with warmth. Finally the ink-black membranes around her eyes turned hangover red and began to itch furiously. She still felt dirty, greasy from the heat and stink and idiocy of the party: but she'd shower in the morning. The important thing was to sleep behind her own face, not the vamping giggling party-stranger who'd made a fool of her imaginary self, even though she hadn't managed to fuck like the bunny Alice had invited her to be.
She yawned and stared at herself in the mirror. How did people cope with the embarrassment thing before they could change faces? She asked herself. Frustration, mortification, and sex. She yawned again. Morris and Indica had taken Jeremy on a weekend trip to Carter B, to gawp at the sights there: she had the apartment to herself for a day or two now. Go to sleep, Wednesday.
It was still darkside shift-time and she was lying awake, frustrated and annoyed with herself for not making a move on Vinnie or one of the other shutdown cases, for not wanting to make a move on one of them, when she heard a quiet clattering noise. If she'd been asleep she probably wouldn't have woken up: but she was on her own, and a sudden nervous thrill of fear ran through her. Herman? She thought, but as usual there was no reply. (It was almost a personal prayer, this constant appeal to an absent deity. Or maybe a phantom itch, like the irritation from an amputated limb. Sometimes she wondered if she'd ever learn to do without the memory of him.) Clattering in the next room: someone was in there, someone noisy.
She was on her feet before she quite realised what was happening. There was a wooden baseball club thing she made in a crafts class, learning to use a lathe on real synthetic wood -- she took it, silently but sure in the darkness of her own room. Who's there? Her chest felt tight and her guts bubbled loose. Someone was in the kitchen.
She quietly pulled her bedroom door open and tip-toed out into the passage. The kitchen was next door, opening off the same curving corridor as the rest of the apartment. No light. The door was shut: tensing, she glanced over her shoulder. A fright-memory of those dreadful dogs sent a shiver of fear right through her, but she steeled herself to deal with it: she was been trained not to lie huddled under the covers by a subtle and ingenious teacher, trained without even realising it. She yanked the door open with one hand and palmed the light switch, bringing the club up --
-- And a very large tabby cat looked guiltily at her from the food preparation surface. The cat had a long, well-groomed coat, large paws, and a slightly bulbous forehead; he wore a waistcoat, pockets bulging with small power-tools. In one remarkably humanoid hand, he held a can opener. In the other hand, he clutched a brightly coloured tin with a cartoon picture of a grinning fish on the label.
"Who the fuck are you and what are you doing here?" she demanded, glaring.
"Through hole in roof. I'm a cat, me." He clutched the tin protectively. "Food? Eat!"
The ceiling air duct gaped open: the contents of a drawer lay scattered on the floor below. Wednesday took it all in with a glance. The cat burglars had been getting dangerously smart, stealing survival tools and blinding surveillance cameras -- but they were still cats. The beast was probably frightened half out of his mind: she outmassed him ten to one. "You won't get far with that tin," she warned.
The cat put it down between his hind legs and clutched the can opener in both hands. "Food! Mine! Escape-fear-pounce-jump!" When he became agitated his stream of consciousness sprayed everywhere: his ears folded flat and his tail began to puff up. Then he glanced up at the hole in the ceiling. Morris and Indica couldn't afford a good neighbourhood; the cubic they lived in was under point eight gees and it was nearly two metres straight up to the roof.
His expression was so worried that Wednesday couldn't hold it in any longer: she laughed aloud. When she stopped the cat was glaring at her aggrievedly. "What you've got there is a tin of spaghetti shapes. Want to tell me what you're doing here?"
"Food -- " He glanced away and licked at the back of one furry hand. "Not me. Was some other cat." Lick lick lick. "Didn't do it. Not see me. Jump-escape."
While the cat was in denial, a thought occurred to Wednesday. "Someone sent you, didn't they? Who was it? Tell me and I'll get you some real food. Good food, not like that."
"Me hungry." The cat glanced down at the tin between its feet. She could almost see the gear wheels whirring busily between its ears. "Food?"
"First tell me who sent you," she repeated.
"Boy," said the cat reluctantly. He held up the tin opener. "Feed me!"
"What did the boy tell you to do?" demanded Wednesday.
The cat reached into its harness, produced a small black bead: an eyebug of some description. "Put in shower," he said. His voice was throaty but not deep, like a human child with laryngitis. "Go back, jump-escape, boy feed me. I'm a good cat!" He paused, then picked up the tin. "Food now?"
"Not that tin." She put down the baseball bat, opened a cupboard door. More tins. Jeremy had discovered the kitchen's ice-cream making attachment the other week, and busily explored its potential in conjunction with the grocery tube service: tofu and aniseed, banana and spinach, haggis and chocolate. Indica noticed and stopped him before he got to the threatened coup dé grace -- cranberry and tuna-flavoured lemon sorbet. As punishment she'd forced him to read aloud the traditional recipe for haggis. (First take a sheep's stomach and lungs ...) "Here." Wednesday found what she was looking for.
"Meat?" the cat asked suspiciously.
"Give me the can opener," she said. For a wonder, the cat passed it to her. You could never tell with a cat: they were just smart enough to think everyone else was dumber than them. Wordlessly she wrapped the can opener around the lid and gave it a brief squeeze. The lid lifted free and she passed the container to the cat, who emitted a deep grumbling noise and took it in both hands. "Fork's in the draw below you," she said before he could dig his face in. "This boy. Was he fat?"
"Eating. Go 'way." The cat chewed as he talked, dripping fragments of fake fish flakes all over the worktop. Wednesday's stomach grumbled. The cat burped and stopped eating for a moment. "Fat boy," he said. "Me smart cat." With a can of ersatz tuna in his hands and an electric screwdriver in his belt he was a lord of infinite space. "Rrrrr. Pig boy. Eat pig?" One ear twitched.
"I don't think so," Wednesday said drily. She picked up the bug and scrutinized it. "Hmm. Remember to put the duct cover back before you leave," she said and, closing and locking the kitchen door, went back to bed.
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