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If you’re a millenial, like me, or have a thing for experiences and games that give a dose of nostalgia, like me, then you’re probably at least aware of the existence of Neopets as a brand. Founded in 1999, Neopets has served as a hub for kids and kids at heart to adopt, care for, feed, and adventure with colorful creatures. Primarily based online at the Neopets website, users have for years been able to play a plethora of minigames to earn points, get items on the site, and achieve high scores. Finally, after all that time, the Neopets - Mega Mini Games Collection - The Neopian Arcade Odyssey makes playing those games outside of the website, and even on the go through the Steamdeck system, possible. Overall, 26 classic, retro-inspired mini games were recreated within Unity for this collection. Was the foray beyond the walls of the Neopets website worth it after all these years? Unfortunately, I believe it’s only for the hardest of hardcore Neopets enthusiasts who want to earn Neopoints on the go, or those who don’t mind pushing through a way-too-buggy experience just to scratch that Neopets nostalgia itch.

Goat Magic is a “new fairy tale” graphic novel, written and illustrated by cartoonist Kate Wheeler. In the Kingdom of Capeya there lived a goat-herder named Trill. She had a unique, magical ability to communicate with the herd under her care. But she was bored with her life, as what she really wanted was to be a wizard and work some real magic. Also in the Kingdom lived Princess Alya, heir to the throne. What she really wanted was to be anything other than a princess. But then an assassination attempt leaves Alya with a terrible curse: Every sunrise, she transforms into a black goat. Running off to hide in the countryside, Alya discovers that Trill’s magical gift might just be the thing that could break the evil spell. Want to know more? Visit Oni Press and find out!

image c. 2026 Oni Press

Whenever a game finally comes out after what feels like years of delays, the fear of it not living up to the hype it generated is warranted. While some games are able to live up to the hype and others take a bit before achieving said status, some just end up not being able to and either crash and burn or end up remaining as vaporware. Thankfully, that isn’t the case with Mouse: P.I. For Hire; a game originally announced back in 2024 and had multiple delays before finally being released this year. Does it live up to the hype? Heck yes! Will I be doing a lot of cheese puns in this review that may or may nacho cheese everyone? Yep and hopefully I don’t swiss any and they’ll be very gouda puns!

Welcome to "Fresh Fur!" Our bi-weekly installment going over the newest game releases, and which ones you can expect to find anthros/furries in!

Check the list below for all the games we could find with animal/anthro influences and characters.

Major New Releases for the Weeks of April 20-26, 2026:

• Bylina (PC) - April 20
• TownsFolk (PC) - April 20
• Below The Crown (PC) - April 21
• Vampire Crawlers (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PC) - April 21
• Masters of Albion (PC) - April 22
• Tides Of Tomorrow (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC) - April 22
• Causal Loop (PC) - April 23
• Kiln (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC) - April 23
• Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes (Quest, PC VR, PSVR2) - April 23
• Puzzle Bobble Everybubble! (PC) - April 23
  
• Reptilian Rising (Switch, PC) - April 23
  
• Shapez 2 (PC) - April 23
• Sudden Strike 5 (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC) - April 23
• Titanium Court (PC) - April 23
• Yunyun Syndrome!? Rhythm Psychosis (PC) - April 23
• Flock Around (PC) - April 24

*Bolded games have furry/animal influences/characters

Furry & Animal Steam Game Finds:

These games were found in the New Releases section of Steam this week and will be updated as more come out throughout the week!

Guest writer Kamen the Lycanroc has covered NYFurs events, and now looks at world news about Therians, the subset of Otherkin identity.

Screenshot of the Tiktok page Fox_cor, which has become a prominent video used in Latin American headlines.

Therians become a viral trend in Latin America, for better or worse.

“Are you a therian?” A boy from Spain came up and asked EberraWolf, a fellow furry news reporter, as NYCFurwalk hosted their 12th walk through the financial district of New York City. This question not only puzzled the tourists, it took Spanish-speaking countries by storm.

The first notice started with a news profile about a therian Tiktok user named Lexi from Argentina, and turned into a viral topic across Latin America. Therians went from appearing on gossip TV shows in Argentina for a laugh, to an amalgamation of AI-generated videos, false rumors, and memes all over Spanish-speaking social media, with furries getting in on it for better or worse.

Therians became a viral trend in Latin America around the middle of February 2026, with Google trends showing a major increase in searches for therians and other related topics in the region. Spanish articles, videos, and reports are what appeared first on Google searches even in North America. While English-speaking Youtube results of the search term “Therian” brings up Tiktok re-uploads, Spanish-speaking search results bring out news reports and videos in news sources from Mexico to Chile.

For example, El Heraldo De Mexico, a Mexican newspaper, published several videos and YouTube shorts about therians in the span of three weeks, with video titles claiming “They bite children, fight with dogs, and they go to the veterinarian! The very controversial case of Therians!”

While it has remained mostly a trend on social media, it did not take long to escalate. Spanish-speaking sites became filled with AI-generated posters promoting “Therian meetups” in prominent cities in Spain and Latin America. AI-generated videos and images also spread of “Therian Rights protests”, such as a video from a Dominican Republic news channel showcasing dogs attacking Therians at a protest. It only takes a short look to see inconsistencies such as the signs having different languages and the Washington Monument appearing in the background. Rumors have gotten so bad that there was a false news story about a Therian being set on fire in Guatemala.

A screenshot of a Dominican news site depicting a video of a dog attacking therians. Circled are the discrepancies that showcase it is AI-generated.

Negative reactions towards Therians, even within the Furry community, but why?

Aside from AI-generated content, Spanish Youtubers have also reacted to videos about Therians. One Colombian Youtuber, Kam Jurado, made a video discussing Therians and the “psychology” behind it, with a thumbnail saying “it’s ridiculous.”

Kam Jurado’s Youtube video thumbnail

This wave of virality and harassment has affected not only the Therian community, but the Furry community. Posts across social media in both English and Spanish warn Therians about the aforementioned “meets”, citing threats of violence and harassment. Furries have also been cautious, but some have been hostile.

While furries have been supporting Therians and helping them out, some have also jumped on the trend to mock and/or disrespect the subculture, despite sharing similar spaces and events together.

Odder, a Mexican furry, has noticed the trend firsthand interacting with the Mexican furry community. The Mexican furry has noticed comments similar to other anti-furry hate, such as wishing harm upon them like they were an animal.

“The furry fandom here has taken it with mixed reactions,” Odder claimed, “some do respect and understand it as it’s a very similar process when deciding to be a furry, but others went with the rage train and started treating therians just as furries were treated back in 2015, outright calling them zoophiles or mentally insane.”

This sudden burst of attention and craze for the community had Odder curious about why it gained traction.

It led some furries and outside observers to consider a theory involving a controversial reform passing in Argentina.

Political power consolidation at the top, with opposition by people beneath.

On February 27, 2026, the Argentine government passed a controversial labor reform, the biggest in half a century. The reform seeks to change several factors such as flexibility with hiring, severance, and collective bargaining. It has gained mass opposition from workers and left wing groups across the country, as they claim it weakens union rights, increases job instability, and leaves workers vulnerable to Argentina’s economic shocks.

This has led to widespread protests in Buenos Aires. Workers and union members protested against the labor reform outside of the nation’s Congress. Their general strike also included public transit workers, as buses and trains were backed up going to the city. Police clashed with protestors in the street, deploying tear gas and water cannons, while press were warned about covering events.

In theory, labor reform serves people in power, who can keep power by defeating popular opposition. A few elites at the top can win by provoking culture war division between many underneath. This theory also speculates from the position of Argentina’s current president Javier Milei, and his party La Libertad Avanza. Milei has closely allied himself with U.S. President Donald Trump, especially his conservative beliefs against ethnic minorities and LGBTQ identities. Milei does not shy away from showing his lack of support for not only LGBTQ folks, but his depreciation of social humanities. Suppressing opposition this way means targeting minorities that even other minorities can be convinced to hate.

Is Therian panic like the “litter box” hoax in right-wing American media?

To many North Americans, the Therian panic combined with the labor reform echoes the culture wars from North America. Notably the infamous “litter boxes in schools” hoax that was popular around 2022. Not one case was ever shown of a litter box in a school for students pretending to be animals. (NBC News found that the only similar occurrence was emergency buckets provided to a school in case of a shooter lockdown). This hoax conflated furries, trans people, and “wokeness” with behavior that never happened as a way to dehumanize targets.

Dordle, an Argentine furry, has stated that he feels like the government took advantage of such panic to pass their law. As a train driver, Dordle has noticed more coworkers asking him to talk about Therians as a furry, despite the fact that the labor reform will affect him and his workers directly.

Dordle shared how “when I was at work my coworkers just asking me about the Therians (because they know I’m a furry, I have pictures at work and they asked me for stickers about my fursona lmao)… they maybe should go more concerned about the law, but Therians haha”.

Dordle has stated he is neither for nor against Milei, but he believes the government took advantage of the Therian trend to rush the labor reform law. The Argentine even noted how Therians haven’t been seen on TV since the labor reform passed.

However, another Argentine furry, Policho, believes this may not have been the case. Policho is director for Argentina FurFiesta (ARFF). He states that no government official and/or political figure has commented on the community, and compares it to another culture war incident, Batman Anus, which was used to justify the defunding of research in humanities and social sciences under Milei’s presidency.

Regarding the political situation in Argentina, Policho comments how the labor reforms have been taking up the spot for prime time news spots, while Therians were simply on general TV news in the morning and evening. The topic being seen as a “Summer Topic” due to the lack of content to cover. (Argentina is in the southern hemisphere, so their summer is from December to March).

“People also have more free time in their hands to consume general media, specially those shows that go through gossip and less serious topics this is where the Therian fever found its home,” remarked Policho, “It’s easy to think that one thing is installed to hide the debate about something else, but it’s far from the truth as Main Media has been covering at length the Labor Law reform aside from Therians. While Labor Law took over prime time night news spots, Therians took over the gossip and more general TV news in the morning / early evening.”

When asked about how this will affect events, Policho also addressed safety for Therians who attend conventions in Latin America. As a director for Argentina FurFiesta (ARFF), Policho also keeps up with current events around the fandom in Latin America to not only ensure safety, but better understanding with the communities that attend the cons, Therians and Furries alike.

“If you ask me, there is always a “topic of the summer”, we always have seen this, a very toxic coverage, a few interviews here and there and people shown and made fun of,” remarked the director. “It’s sad but it’s not new, by the time Argentina FurFiesta happens in June, the topic will have be long left behind by media.”

As summer ends and politics continue in Argentina and parts of South America, the Therian discussion has died down. Nevertheless Furries and Therians remain vigilant for not only supporting their communities, but keeping them safe in an era of social media and viral trends that may be far from the truth.

– Kamen the Lycanroc

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, follow on Bluesky or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon. Want to get involved? Try these subreddits: r/furrydiscuss for news or r/waginheaven for the best of the community. Or send guest writing here. (Content Policy.)

Found recently at a convention: Can I Pet Your Werewolf is a 2017 collection of black & white short comics, edited by Kel McDonald and Molly Muldoon. “A different take on those who get fluffy under a full moon. This is a collection of goofy, cute, and sweet werewolf stories.” There’s more than a little queer spin on several of the stories here too! Visit Kel’s web site to find out more.

image c. 2026 by Melanie Ujimori

Dear Papabear,

I know you wouldn't ask for the story of my life before you see my question, but I want to tell you the reason why I am here right now feeling sad on my bed, trying not to sob, and I haven't revised anything for my test tomorrow at college. OK, so I was like that kid who was considered, ahem ahem, "gifted," and I was taking excellent marks, and of course those excellent marks were brought about by staying at home and doing nothing but studying, so I didn't meet anyone outside and didn't have Friends.

At the age of 13, I thought to myself: "Should I really get married, or, have a relationship with a girl?" So, I was going in the route of realizing that I might be ace (mind you, I didn't hear about the LGBT community yet). 

But then one day everything changed. It was 2021, and I was 15 on YouTube watching those animated stories like Jaiden Animations and such. And then one YouTube recommendation came in. It was like an edit, but for a furry bara character. I don't remember who it was.

But then I went to the channel, found some videos of the same thing, and then I went to the community posts section. And one of those posts had a Pornhub link. And here we are, a 15-year-old boy from Tunisia, at 2 am, watching videos on Pornhub about characters from Tokyo Afterschool Summoners f*cking each other.

And that's how I knew about both the gay and the furry communities; and then I started searching more things about it on YouTube and Google Chrome, from videos, to drawings, to comics, with the latter being the reason on why I am very good at English compared to my other classmates. I was addicted to gay yiff comics so much; I must have read thousands of them. And then the content on YouTube changed to furries and the LGBTQ community, and those niche games surrounding about it. And here we are.

It is so weird how I literally went directly into watching gay furry porn. Not even straight or even gay porn. Like, literally, gay yiff. That's like skipping the tutorial, the cut scenes, and all the missions, and directly going to the final boss. OK, I know that I am totally very thrilled to ask someone sane enough to comprehend my situation because, basically, I really hate how my life is looking like right now.

First thing first: I need to say that I am a gay furry (hehe--who knew) who lives in a place that is, well, to not say a lot of bad things, I'll just mention about how it's hard to be gay here. I have never come out, and I say that literally with how I'm witnessing people here reacting to coming-outs and shaming the people who are queer in this community, let alone my religious family. Then what would happen if I told them that I'm a furry?

Also, my place here has nothing like the western world: there are furcons, furmeets, fursuits, basically anything in which someone new who joins the fandom can have the opportunity to explore and discover themself. Meanwhile, since this country is like a desert, there are neither furcons, nor furmeets, nor furries (for now), nor anything totally. I hate being that person, but I am jealous with the situation there in America.

I hate the way I am feeling with myself and how I question myself if my current identity is really who I am. I don't know if staying closeted sounds healthy to me. I would be totally happy if I could immigrate from here to somewhere else (in a sensible and reasonable way; I don't want to find myself struggling to swim in the middle of the ocean because my boat got drowned), so I can be who I really am. I hate looking at videos of people having fun while I'm sitting here helpless with no experience in kissing men at all.

I have a friend online whom I consider my best friend, and when I asked him for advice, he told me that you can see what the internet says. But I wasn't sure, to be honest. And another guy suggested using ChatGPT, since it saves a lot of time and work, and for me I wouldn't even touch that thing since it can say some wrong things, adding to the fact that it is unethical right now to use that tool. And now, while I was searching about a website that shows me locations of furries all over the world, I found your website, and I am very glad to find such a nice, intelligent, sane person is on the internet whom I can vent to and ask politely to give me some advice from his experience as a greymuzzle.

So please, for the love of Anubis, what would you do if you were my place in order to find my people and my happiness?

Sincerely,
Adem (age 20, Tunisia)

* * *

Dear Adem,

Being a citizen of any Muslim country is difficult if you are LGBTQ or furry or pretty much anything that is not conforming to Muslim society standards, as you know. When it comes to Arab countries, Tunisia is, surprisingly, ranked as one of the more "liberal" in terms of the law, along with Lebanon and Jordan. If it weren't for the fact that Lebanon is being bombed by Israel right now, I might recommend you move there as that country is quite relaxed on social laws, relatively speaking. But, since you speak English, you have other opportunities. One excellent choice might be Canada, for example. Or perhaps Australia. 

I'm not sure how possible it is for you to migrate, but I can say for certain that if you remain in Tunisia you will have to stay in the closet. If you don't, you will just be in for a lot of grief ranging from family disapproval all the way up to possible arrest and imprisonment. So, please do not come out to people in your native land. I know that stinks, but it is the sad reality.

One thing I can do, though, is point you to some help. It is very difficult to be facing your situation all alone, but there are two organizations in Tunisia that you can contact to get some support: Association Shams advocates for sexual minority rights in Tunisia and can be contacted on Instagram at @shamsassociation; the other is called Mawjoudin and is also an advocacy group for LGBTQ people in Tunisia.

There is a little good news in Tunisia when it comes to your rights in that there is a growing political movement to repeal Article 230, the provision in Tunisian law that makes homosexuality illegal. Surveys in your country also show that 18% of the people support decriminalizing homosexuality. It's a start, but it will take a long time to grow that minority into a majority, and you might not wish to wait. Or, perhaps, you might wish to help and maybe join one of the organizations I mentioned above.

As for the furry community, you are pretty much out of luck there. There are no furry groups, meets, or conventions in Tunisia (indeed, the only one in the entire continent is in distant South Africa), so if you wish to ever have that experience, you'll need to go to Europe. Meanwhile, you're stuck with what is on the internet. Fortunately, you have internet! So, that helps! Increasingly, furries are holding furcons in the virtual world. The biggest of these is called Furality. If you enjoy virtual reality and have the computer power to participate, I would highly recommend it for you as the most viable option for the time being. Other online experiences include VRchat and SecondLife, both of which have thriving furry communities where you can make lots of furry friends (VRchat has become more popular than the older SecondLife, FYI).

I'm sorry I don't have better news for you, but I hope this helps some. Do not feel guilty for being who you are. You are not a bad person for being gay or for being a furry. The problem is with intolerant societies that can't accept people who do not conform. But, as I said, because you live in one such strict society, I strongly recommend not coming out to anyone in your family, at work, or Tunisian society in general. You will need to remain online, at least until you are either able to emigrate to a more tolerant country or Tunisia itself changes dramatically.

Thank you for writing. I wish you luck, and if you have other questions, feel free to write again.

Bear Hugs,
Papabear

The folks at Limited Run Games are back at it reviving our childhoods again! This time, the amazing folks brought back another forgotten icon from the 90’s in the form of the Gex Trilogy and unlike Bubsy? I actually grew up playing these games! Well, sans the first Gex as that was on the 3DO and I had no idea that even existed as a young one. No, my introduction to Gex was the entry he’s more well known for, Gex: Enter The Gecko, and it was one of those titles that I rented whenever I could from Blockbusters until I was able to buy it for myself, alongside Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko. For years afterwards, I always hoped to see a resurgence for Gex of some kind or even a remake of the series but, like a lot of titles, it seemed destined to be stuck in the past, forever labeled as a failed mascot game. But, thanks to Limited Run Games, Gex is back and I’m happy to say these games still hold up, sans a few issues I’ll touch on when we get to them.

We spend a lot of time talking about furry and furry things we enjoy. But are there other things we’re into? Do we even have hobbies or interests outside the fandom? Or is it all furry all the time? The cast talks about the other nerdy things they’re into that may or may not be furry related.

Note: This is a highly visual episode. We recommend watching it on our YouTube channel to fully enjoy what was shared by our listeners.

Episodes are now streamed live on Twitch.tv. After which, the video and audio only formats will be posted after the stream. You can find us on Twitch at FurWhatItsWorth!

NOW LISTEN!

SHOW NOTES Thank you!

Citrus Fox, Hunter Fusky, Basel, and Yarrik Wuff for sending in your emails and pictures!

Those that were able to join the livestream!

To all of our listeners! And your continued support!

PATREON LOVE

THANK YOU to our patreons! You help us keep the show going!

A Cookie Factory – OwO

*empty*

A Pallet of Cookies

Nuka

A Case of Cookies

Basel the Dragon, Black Baldrik, Ichigo Ookami (Pic Pending), Lufis the Raccoon

A Jar of Cookies

 

Alex the Piian (Pic Pending), MephistophEli, Miles Seawind (Pic Pending), Plug, Sirene Tokala (Pic Pending)

A Box of Cookies

• JakeFoXx
• Juke Hyena
• Lygris

A Delicious Cookie

• Ausi K
• AspenTheCurious
• Barnaby Panda
• Bass Blitzed
• Bunbe
• Citrus Fox
• Gary Holland
• Puzzleboy
• Ralley
• Sage Lightfang
• TyR52
• Victor Mutt

MUSIC

• Intro: RetroSpecter – Cloud Fields (RetroSpecter Mix). USA: Unpublished, 2018. ©2011-2018 Fur What It’s Worth. Based on Fredrik Miller – Cloud Fields (Century Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth
• Patreon: Inflammatus – The Tudor Consort, Creative Commons 2019
• Closing: Cloud Fields (RetroSpecterChill Remix), USA: Unpublished, 2018. ©2011-2018 Fur What It’s Worth. Based on Fredrik Miller – Cloud Fields (Chill Out Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth

S12E10 – The Other Nerdy Things

We like cute things around here. So when we have the opportunity to start a community of precious animal cuties along the bottom of our screen, we take it. That’s what we got from Cozy Sanctuary, a new casual desktop idle “farm” management game that lets you keep a flock of furry friends happy along the edge of your taskbar with light farming, cleaning, and maintenance tasks to help you grow and populate your precious farm of animals.

What’s it like to feel love for the first time? To become head over heels for another, and become enamored with the beauty they see in life, too? The Day I Became A Bird is a short, simplistic game based on a children’s book that explores these experiences. Ingrid Chabbert, the author of the book, and Guridi, the illustrator of said book, along with Passion Animation which crafted a short based on the book, along with Developer Hyper Luminal Games Ltd and Publisher Numskull Games help bring the story and its lightly emotional narrative to life within the game’s approximately 60-90 minute runtime. I knew going in that I would be in for an experience that wouldn’t have me relying on keen gameplay senses, but more on soaking up every ounce of comforting, goosebump-inducing adolescent reminiscing I could gather. When the game has you tearing up and smiling as you reach its precipice, you know it’s been worth it. 

In the long-standing tradition of dorky guys who wind up with really unusual girlfriends, GKIDS has recently picked up the North American distribution rights for Chao, a new anime feature film directed by Yasuhiro Aoki. Animation World Network describes it like this: “It’s a story of man-meets-fish, fish falls for man, man is forced by his boss to marry fish to strengthen diplomacy with the sea creatures, fish turns out to be a mermaid princess, and boy very slowly and reluctantly falls for the fish mermaid.” Got all that? Good! Make sure to check out the trailer, then look for it in theaters starting this month.

image c. 2026 Studio 4C

Ever since its inception, Pokémon has continued to grow in popularity, eventually becoming a mainstream phenomenon. This growth has also resulted in players finding a variety of different ways to play: There are the challenge runners who impose rules and restrictions on themselves. Shiny hunters who have been blessed with the patience of saints as they constantly reset for starters and of course, the competitive battlers. Make no mistake, Champions is firmly aimed at making competitive battling more accessible than ever before. Players, both new and old, will find that there is plenty to like here while there are also a few head scratchers. It’s a brave new frontier trainers.

Welcome to Issue 26:  Conscripted to Fight

We don’t get to choose the battles we’re called on to fight.  We get caught in a tangled web of our times and our principles, and the result is that some battles must be fought, even if we’d rather refuse the call.  Because refusing the call can be a battle all its own.  From felines to formicidae, dogs to pipe organs, follow these delightful characters through the tangled webs of their lives and fortunes.

* * *

The Heart of Rain by Spencer Orey

I Didn’t Raise My Cub to be a Solider by Lynn Gazis

We Used to Be Best Friends by Ian Salavon

The Revolution by H. Robert Barland

Rebellion by F.I. Goldhaber

Fire Ants by Elizabeth Davis

Webs by Ginger Strivelli

* * *

In other news, Zooscape had such a successful reading period this year that we’ve expanded our publishing schedule — six issues per year, publishing in all the even numbered months!  We will hold our next reading period in February, 2027.  You can learn more on our guidelines page.

As always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.  Also, you can pick up e-book or paperback volumes of our earlier issues, complete with an illustration for every story.

by Ginger Strivelli

“The webs are portals, tiny little portals between the two colliding planes of existence.”

She wove a design that her ancestors wove into their webs when dinosaurs walked the face of the Earth. It was the same design her descendants would weave into their webs long after humans had been wiped off the face of the Earth. It was just a web to any human who might wander by, they would not stop to wonder about it, though they surely should if only they knew why.

People only see a pretty but mundane web holding the spider’s lunch and her egg sack. It would not cross their mind again once they walked past. The Spider knew the magic and the science of her web nonetheless. Magic older than history and science more advanced than the future were woven into those fragile strands of silk. They kept the world—the universe even—from disappearing into nothingness.

The webs are not just traps for the flies or cradles for the eggs, they are portals to another dimension. A dimension that is smashed up against ours threatening to crush our universe. Making all of us, everything, all that is or ever will be… just disappear in a bursted bubble. Making us barely a forgotten memory in the void of darkness.

The webs are portals, tiny little portals between the two colliding planes of existence. They bleed off little bits of energy between the two, relieving the pressure that has been building up since they crashed together more years ago than we have words for the numbers. The webs are pressure valves keeping our bubble intact, just barely.

Many tribes worshiped the spider as Spider Grandmother, most cultures told tales of Her bringing the Sun to humans for warmth and light. Like all legends there is a grain of truth in that storytelling. Our sun would blink out instantly if the web portals were not in place relieving the pressure from the invading place. Without our sun, we would die most horribly. So the spiders were and are still bringing the light and warmth of the Father Sun to Mother Earth’s face.

People, alas, have long since stopped worshiping her for it. Nevertheless all her children weave that ancient design in their webs day after day, eon after eon. Saving all of us from utter annihilation and letting us continue to live obliviously on.

“Damn spiders, they creep me out!” the old man said, smacking the web down from his porch corner with his walking cane.

She lay on the porch floor wounded, wrapped, and trapped in her own web dying slowly. Her egg sack lay nearby. She pulled herself with her three remaining unbroken legs with her last bit of strength gingerly.

“Remember my babies, weave the ancient, the futuristic design that keeps this world and all the worlds in balance. You must keep making the portals as we always have until we can no more and it all does finally collapse. May that end be as far away in the future, as the beginning is in the past,” she said to her children with the breath that was her last.

 

* * *

About the Author

Ginger Strivelli is an artist and writer from North Carolina. She has written for Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, Circle Magazine, Third Flatiron, Autism Parenting Magazine, Silver Blade, Solarpunk Magazine, The New Accelerator, various other magazines and several anthology books. She loves to travel the world and make arts and crafts. She considers herself a storyteller, entertaining and educating through her writing.

by Elizabeth Davis

“She brags to the males that she will forsake them all and mate with the sun.”

We burn. But that is fine. We have burned for many generations. Such as here. Life here is good. We come back heavy with food, and our young grow strong. Already wings have sprouted on the new queen, and it will be soon, we know. We eagerly bustle  through our tunnels, made easy in this dirt. The cool soil protects our young from the beating sun and those that would steal them, winged things with hard beaks.

Not that they try much anymore. For we are fierce and have reared our young on the flesh of those that seek to eat us. We have become quick leaving just the bones, and the hearty diet makes our young strong. Their exoskeletons are hard and mandibles sharp. We wonder how large the next hive will get, hope rushing alongside us.

For we no longer fear the lands outside our home as we once did. We march confidently as we scout, some of us going many dark and light cycles to return with strange treasures. More than food. More than leaves.

Sometimes it’s nothing but click-words that fill the air  that seep in and let us dream stories. Of the other hive-kingdoms they had come across, the ones that wonder at a loner when safety is in numbers, and of their ways, raising caterpillars, or living in the bark mountains. Some tell of giants.

The new queen asks about all this, especially the sun. We know why, for she burns like the rest of us. She asks about the great light that awakens the plants and brings new scents into the tunnels. She asks about its colors and how far up it is, fluttering her still developing wings. We know that she brags to the males that she will forsake them all and mate with the sun.  The males whine to us about her boasts when we feed them, each one gorging themselves to feed the flames inside of them brighter and brighter.

We lovingly soothe them with our antennae, sending safe and warm pheromones. The old queen stirs from her slumbers when we carry off her latest batch of eggs, telling the males not to worry, that she boasted the same thing when she still flew. Yet her males do not drop to the ground unfulfilled still burning. Hers become ash, their fire passed on to the next generation and generation after that.

Still, life is better than before. So much better than before.

A before none of us saw first-hand but all of us remember. A before with no sun, the light cold and blue. A light that never enchanted our queens for it was always there, invading through the walls of our home. Our hive narrow and constrained. The dirt there was sparse, pushing against slippery clear crystal where monsters watched us. Horror stories of scrambling against this slippery surface, feet failing to hold. Then suddenly a great shadow loomed. The fake sun would be gone and we were watched by a silent giant that took its place.

These giants smelled of nothing, but they moved like all living beings. White shells over pink flesh, their eyes were small and too close together. They were strangely smooth, only a few sprinklings of hair. But worse were their mouths. For they were like antlion pits, smooth and tight until a wrong step and then they opened, into an endless dark tunnel. A tunnel that could swallow the colony whole, locking them away in their stomachs.

Many of us choose to look away, to keep our heads down. To continue to dig, forage, and nurse. To not think about the giants that could be looming overhead, watching our every step. The giants whose appendages would reach down, scooping us away, taking us far from the reach of family, and then they were gone out from our memories.

The mother of the mother of the mother of our queen did not look away. She listened, hearing with more than just feeling for the vibrations as the ground shook against the walls of the giants coming. She learned that they don’t always open their mouths to eat or fight. But to communicate, shaking everything with each thought. She learned to parse their sounds, breaking them down into concepts like “pests,” “invasive species,” and “extermination.”  Concepts that made her mutter in her sleep. Workers heard them as dire prophecies and they were puzzled. Why would the giants wish to wipe us all out? What threat could we pose to them? We never led raids against their colonies, carried off their young — how could we?

But monsters don’t need reasons. We learned that on the day that multiple shadows loomed over us. They talked and shook the ground as one of their appendages reached down. It was a gray thing, covered in thick hide, one that our stingers could not penetrate. It extended down into our tunnels, gliding through each curve and twist. It was more like a proboscis or a stinger than a limb.

It emerged from neither front nor back but from somewhere beyond the two giants standing over us, their bodies twisted as they pushed it forward.

Then we who were fighting, we who climbed onto the appendage, we who plunged our  stingers in again and again, even after their venom was gone, we who tore with our mandibles, dooming ourselves to starvation as they broke against the tough shell. We were the first to notice the change, the new smell that broke the familiar hive chorus.

Then the pain began. The queen watched helplessly as we fell around her, legs collapsing with spasms, bodies wrenched in twisting shapes by the pain, the pain that clogged our breaths and left us burning. Burning like venom from other hive-kingdom soldiers as their stingers broke through our armor, leaving us dying. Burning like sun when caught by floating crystal above, making a concentrated beam that drifted one to another, leaving desiccated corpses in its wake. The bright burning army that raged over our lands, destroying those who didn’t run fast enough inside, those who dared to stay out in the forest for just one more morsel of food.

We know all this because the same burning came upon her. She writhed, twisting her back as the giants stood around, “satisfactory,” “better than the last batch,” “we will have to move on the next stage of testing with this formula.” As she writhed, the queen thought of us, still just eggs in her. She thought of the great battles won by our ancestors, of the lands we had left behind. Lands of much food and easy living. Lands of hard wood, stealing the crumbs the giants dropped, where digging too far brought you to endless water. Of when the endless water invaded our lands. And we clung together, the corpses of those who drowned keeping the rest safe as we floated away.

All of that would die with her, for she had not hatched a new queen yet, one to carry her memories to a new colony, to remember if we were to perish. So she held on despite the burning, her body wracked with pain. Even when death would be a mercy, she held on, burying the burning deep to regain some control of her limbs, of her body.

For when we forget everything else, we still remember to dig.

Slowly she started to walk, dragging her body through the piles of corpses. As she left behind the birthing chamber, she felt the giants talk. “Anomaly, resistance, tests, tissue extraction, dissection.” Then one of the clear walls that had defined our lives, our tunnels swung away, hitting her with cold stunning air. She fumbled without its limiting support and a giant reached in.

Only two of its claws were needed to grip her tightly, leaving her flailing in the air as it dragged her away from her graveyard home. Away from the home we had built. She was not a worker and lacked the sting, but still she reached down, grasping the thin chitinous plates of the giant in her mandibles. She felt them puncture through and she pushed the burning that filled her into those two small punctures.

The giant dropped her as it trembled from its own high pitched screaming. She fell far, breaking one of her legs. But she was free to drag herself away as the other giant attended to his brethren, who thrashed on the floor like her children had before a painful exhale. Flames broke through his shell, making his innards run like water down a hill.

It was beautiful, those flames, beautiful like the sun, giving off light that battled the cold blue light that marked the land of the giants. She now understood what burned inside her, the beauty that her next generation would be filled with.

Fire ants the giants had named us, and it is a good name. For we carry the fire within us. A fire that burns through any carapace, a fire that leaps from our mandibles ready to consume. Our queen went far away, and her daughter even further, the fire sustaining them. But occasionally we see giants cast their shadow, reckless in their size to us until they feel our bite.

And they will. Again and again. Until they learn to no longer cast their shadows between us and the sun.

 

* * *

About the Author

Elizabeth Davis is a second generation writer living in Dayton, Ohio. They live there with their spouse and two cats – neither of which have been lost to ravenous corn mazes or sleeping serpent gods. They can be found at deadfishbooks.com when they aren’t busy creating beautiful nightmares and bizarre adventures. Their work can be found at 42 Stories Anthology, Luna Station, and Scarfice from Duskbound Books.

by F.I. Goldhaber

“Better to die an ignoble death than have anyone regard him as a second-rate instrument.”

During Fisk’s forty-six years at Christ Episcopal Church in East Bay Harbor, Connecticut, organists came and went. While most played for several years, a few stayed only months. Fisk remembered them all by their hands. Matthew had short, pudgy fingers, yet he manipulated Fisk’s keys with a firm touch and coaxed out wondrous harmonies. Lenora fondled Fisk’s keys with thin, expressive fingers requiring him to stay alert lest he miss a note. Roger’s hands, like soft clouds, caressed Fisk’s keys towards new heights in sound.

Other than his well-worn bench — the varnish polished away by organists’ vestments to reveal the intricate grain of fine oak — Fisk showed remarkably few signs of age. Two of his stops, stuck in the Off position, resisted all attempts to use them. A few of his keys had chips or gouges. But Fisk still impressed worshipers with his music. Although he didn’t agree with every organist’s style and some didn’t value his abilities, Fisk had always respected their individual gifts. He concentrated on delivering the highest quality performance, within their limitations and his, that honored the artistry of his creators.

But, Ms. Dagger Nails demolished his opinion that every organist had something worthy to offer. She had appeared as a last-minute substitute and Fisk only expected her to play for one or two services until the Rector found a permanent organist. Instead, the tiny woman had abused his keys and ignored his pedals for the past dozen Sundays. Fisk didn’t think he could abide her ineptitude any longer, but he despaired of the church ever removing her.

Some musicians trod on Fisk’s pedal keyboard with the heavy feet of clog dancers; others two-stepped agilely, skipping among the long wooden keys. But, Ms. Dagger Nails played with her heels perched on the rail of his bench where competent organists merely rested their feet for a moment between hymns. Without the weight of the bass tones from the pedal pipes, Ms. Dagger Nails’ attempts at making music screamed annoyingly throughout the church. She found no use for Fisk’s third manual; she missed at least one note for every five she hit; and she chose atrocious registrations, selecting the least pleasant sounds from the hundreds of timbres offered by Fisk’s palette.

When his power switch flipped on to wake him two weeks before Palm Sunday, Fisk soon realized he must endure Ms. Dagger Nails’ torture through yet another service. I’ve been filling this church with inspired music every week for decades. I deserve more respect! He pondered his predicament while Ms. Dagger Nails fiddled with her sheets of music. I can no longer accept mistreatment without protest. I am a work of art and I should sound like one. He resolved to rid himself of his tormentor by Easter, his favorite service.

At that moment, Ms. Dagger Nails pressed a key in her tentative manner as if requesting permission to torment Fisk’s manuals. He refused to open the pipe fully, choking off the airflow. The expected musical note became a distorted squeak that reflected off the wooden rafters of the vast sanctuary and echoed eerily between the lofty granite walls.

Ms. Dagger Nails gasped, but she pressed again. Fisk resisted her touch, stopping the key halfway down to truncate the note. Despite the cacophony, Ms. Dagger Nails continued. Although Fisk grudgingly admired her fortitude, he maintained his rebellion throughout her entire prelude. J.S. Bach sounded as arrhythmic and atonal as Edgar Varèse.

Let the Rector ignore her atrocious playing now! Fisk added an extra discordant note just for good measure.

He could hear murmurs from the congregants who shifted on the dozens of stark wooden pews below him. The choir, standing in three rows on either side of his console, sang louder than usual, trying to drown out the awful noise. Lately, since they had no one to work with them, only half of them sang in true key. When Fisk helped them harmonize, they didn’t sound too bad. But, today, the rustle of their worn, blue polyester robes produced better harmony. Rector Bob ended the service early, before Ms. Dagger Nails could mangle the Recessional hymn.

The following Sunday, Ms. Dagger Nails returned. Fisk groaned in frustration when he sensed her diminutive presence on his bench. He refused to respond when the lacquered points of her fingernails scraped at the imitation ivory of his keys. She jabbed harder, pinching the key between her nail and the action, forcing Fisk to relent because he could not tolerate the pain. But he stopped the airflow to his pneumatic motors and every note screeched dissonantly. Fisk cringed, ashamed that his beautiful pipes could produce such ululations.

A few days later, a technician subjected Fisk to a rigorous physical exam. The man removed and replaced several of Fisk’s two thousand, four hundred forty-four pipes. He adjusted all fifty-six of Fisk’s stops — fixing the two that were jammed in the Off position, much to Fisk’s relief. The technician inspected a number of the thin, aluminum rods connecting keys to pipe valves. He tested every Swell manual shutter control and depressed each of the one hundred seventy-eight keys on Fisk’s three manuals as well as all thirty-two pedals.

Fisk enjoyed the gentle reverence of the man’s inspection. The technician obviously valued a quality instrument, and Fisk appreciated the fine tuning. He made sure that every note spoke with the proper tone, filling the old stone church with a divinely mystical sound. The inspection complete, he overheard the technician explaining to the Rector that Fisk was in good condition for an organ his age.

“I didn’t find anything that could cause Carole the problems you mentioned. Still, all the salt in the air here isn’t good for any instrument. You probably need to consider refurbishing or replacing this organ in the near future. If organists are having trouble with it now, you may want to do that sooner, rather than later.”

Fisk knew the church did not have funds to spare for a refurbishing. He wondered where the Rector found the money to pay the technician. The past few years, pleas for funds from the pulpit had grown increasingly impassioned. Never before had he heard a Rector constantly badger parishioners for support. Until recently, a need mentioned one Sunday resulted in accolades by the next for the donor who had stepped forward to meet it.

“Do you think it could be the fault of the musician rather than the instrument?” the Rector asked. “Carole’s a pianist, she hasn’t had much experience playing organ.”

Fisk suppressed the urge to allow a smug chord to escape through his pipes.

“I appreciate good church music as much as anyone, and I know there’s a vast range in abilities from one player to the next,” the technician said. “But you can’t blame sticky keys and squeaky pipes on the organist.”

Fisk’s bellows sagged.

Rector Bob sighed. “What kind of money are we talking about?”

“A proper refurbishment’s gonna run you fifty to sixty thousand.”

Fisk heard the Rector whistle. “That much?”

The technician cleared his throat. “Yeah. Takes expensive materials — leather and exotic woods — and some’re hard to find. I’ll need several weeks, if not months. Once you replace all the leather, you have to go in and adjust the tension on thousands of hinges connecting the valve mechanisms to the keyboards.”

The technician scratched his beard. “You know, you could buy a used electronic organ for maybe fifteen to twenty thousand. Not going to give you the same quality of sound as this beauty,” he patted Fisk’s oak cabinet, “but you could take out this console and fit an electronic organ in its place and leave those gorgeous pipes in for looks.”

Fisk’s burnished zinc display pipes soared from above his console toward the ceiling. They embraced the round frame of the large rose window over the church’s main entrance. The tall, narrow arches of the lancet stained-glass panels were flanked by additional pipes on either side. All together he made an impressive display that he always tried to honor with his music.

“I’ll bet,” the technician continued, “most people won’t know the difference.”

Fisk closed every pallet to prevent a moan from escaping. He had never considered the possibility that his rebellion could cost him his position at the church.

“Well, I disagree with you on that note.” Rector Bob tapped out a C major scale. Although he had never tried to play Fisk, the pastor could coax a simple hymn out of the grand piano in the chapel. “I think my parishioners appreciate the beauty of this old guy’s tone. Music is still one of the best ways for a church to attract and keep members.”

Fisk had noticed fewer people attending each additional week that the interim organist played. He had expected the Rector to take action sooner, if only to stop the exodus.

“Still, if we keep having problems…”

Fisk held his wind.

“We certainly don’t have the funds for a restoration. I can’t imagine trying to raise that much money — not right now with attendance down and the economy costing so many of our parishioners their jobs and homes.” Rector Bob sighed again. “I suppose we would have to consider an electronic replacement. Do the more expensive ones sound anything like a real pipe organ?”

The technician laughed. “Well, I guess that depends on who’s listening. Look, Reverend, this instrument set the church back what, a quarter mil? You’re not going to get anything like it for ten or twenty grand. But you’ll get something that won’t need as much maintenance. With a nice set of speakers, a decent organist can give you an acceptable musical program. Given the acoustics you have in here, I’ll bet any instrument’ll sound pretty good.” The technician snapped his fingers and the two men stood next to Fisk, listening to the sound reverberate through the stately old church.

“What would we do with this console?” The rector’s voice cracked a little. Fisk had been installed almost a quarter of a century before Rector Bob joined the church. In his first sermon, the pastor had said that his love of good music had influenced his decision to accept the appointment.

“You could stash it somewhere in case things turn around and you can raise restoration money. Best bet, though, is sell it for parts — not that you’ll get much unless you throw in the pipes. Then you have to pay for reconstruction. Doubt if you’d get enough for the whole organ to cover that.”

The rest of the conversation did not register with Fisk, their words blurred by the torment of his choice: accept Ms. Dagger Nails’ abuse and allow her to play without interference or get replaced, gutted for parts, and dumped on a trash heap somewhere.

The artisans who had created him had designed him for a life that, with proper care, could span centuries. How could the Rector consider destroying Fisk after less than half of one?

The technician forgot to turn off his power, leaving Fisk alone with his memories. His music had accompanied four thousand, seven hundred ninety-six Sunday morning Eucharists, two thousand, three hundred ninety-eight Thursday evening choir rehearsals, eight hundred fifty-two weddings, seven hundred twenty-seven funerals, and one hundred ninety-two recitals. He thought of the many brides who had gushed about how they had always dreamed of a wedding in Christ Church with Fisk’s sublime accompaniment for their walk down the aisle. He remembered somber widows discussing their husbands’ favorite hymns and how only Fisk could play them right. And how many people had joined the church after attending a recital or concert and recognizing what Fisk could add to their spiritual experience?

Fisk allowed himself a snort from his windchest. No! He would not compromise, even if the church did not replace Ms. Dagger Nails with a real organist. Better to die an ignoble death than have anyone regard him as a second-rate instrument. Let the church try to replace him with one of those electronic fandangles. How could anyone even call such a contrivance an organ? Some of the congregants would protest, even if they could not raise the money to save him. At least they would remember him for the artistry of music he had produced for decades rather than the few months of horrible sounds Ms. Dagger Nails forced out of him.

Fisk let out his wind and strengthened his resolve. He knew the church had served East Bay Harbor for more than a hundred years. At one time, it had attracted many of the community’s movers and shakers. The parishioners had worked long and hard to raise the money required to purchase and install him in 1965. They had even built the gallery in the back of the sanctuary just to accommodate him and his pipes. Fisk would not lower Christ Church’s musical standards or his own!

On Palm Sunday, Ms. Dagger Nails returned, but Fisk had devised a new plan. When she pressed a key, he sent air through the wrong pipe. For every note she tried to play, Fisk chose something different. Middle C became B, two octaves higher. When she selected a flute sound, Fisk supplied trumpet instead.

Flustered, Ms. Dagger Nails knocked a page of music to the floor. When she bent down to pick it up, Fisk let out a low E-flat on the bassoon stop. The organist pushed herself off his bench and ran from the choir loft in tears. She had not even finished her prelude. The choir sang a cappella for the rest of the service — dreadfully off key. The deacons gathered the Offertory in silence, except for the tap, tap, tap of envelopes dropping onto collection plates. During Communion, footsteps echoed forlornly throughout the church while everyone walked down the candlelit center aisle to the granite altar. No one sang; no one played, and Fisk awaited his inevitable fate, his expression pedal drooping.

Once again, Fisk found himself alone. No one turned off his power after Ms. Dagger Nails’ abrupt exit. Hours passed before Rector Bob ventured into the choir loft above the sanctuary. He brought a tape measure and several sheets of paper with him. Fisk sat silent while the pastor pulled the tape across his console’s width, depth, and height, and scribbled numbers down on the sheets of paper. Fisk cringed when he heard the Rector muttering about fit, costs, and sound.

The Rector’s hand rested on the power switch and Fisk prepared to go to sleep, perhaps forever. Without warning, Rector Bob’s fingers dropped to one of Fisk’s manuals and he again tapped out a C major scale. He muttered words Fisk could not make out.

He loves my music; I have to make him understand. Fisk opened his pipes in sequence to play a verse of “Amazing Grace.” He didn’t move his keys, but he put his heart and soul into each note, making sure they all rang true.

Fisk had not thought about how the Rector would react to an organ generating its own music. Rector Bob dropped onto Fisk’s bench with a thud and his feet pressed several pedals at once. Surprised by the sudden weight on the bass keys, Fisk could not stop the notes and the discordant combination brayed through the church. Before Fisk could recover, Rector Bob pressed the power switch.

* * *

Power coursed through Fisk’s circuits awakening him once more, to his great surprise and delight. Colored light from the stained-glass windows danced across the silver verticals of his pipes. Fisk sensed the unfamiliar weight of someone new on his bench. He let a little air hiss in his windchest, just to show he knew someone expected him to make music, and raised his bellows in anticipation. Long elegant fingers, with nails appropriately trimmed short and filed smooth, ran an arpeggio across his Great manual. Feet encased in proper organ shoes stroked the pedal keyboard. With new hope, Fisk let the notes ring out fully in response, reveling in a firm but gentle touch.

Rector Bob stepped into the choir loft. “I really appreciate your agreeing to play for Easter services on such short notice, Stephanie. We haven’t been able to fill the organist’s position and our interim volunteer isn’t able to make it. Please take all the time you need to practice. Also, the choir hoped you’d consider working with them a bit during their rehearsal tomorrow evening.”

“I’ve always wanted an opportunity to play a Fisk organ.” Stephanie spoke in melodious tones and Fisk wanted to hear her sing. “I didn’t know the position here was vacant until the secretary called me about playing for Easter.”

Fisk waited for Rector Bob to warn the newcomer about his problems, but the priest left the loft without saying anything else.

Stephanie reset several of Fisk’s combination pistons in sensible registrations, then played “Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.” Her weight shifted easily on the bench with the movement of her hands across all three manuals, while her feet danced on the pedals. Fisk delighted in the touch of an organist who could play, who knew how to coax the proper tone from his pipes. After the hell of the last several months, Fisk had found heaven at last.

For the first time in weeks, Fisk looked forward to Easter Sunday. Maybe if he performed his very best, Stephanie would consider staying on. Fisk gave Stephanie everything he had, responding to the organist’s light touch with smooth action and true, clear notes. Their music filled the church and pride filled Fisk’s heart again.

When the last notes drifted away, Rector Bob stepped back into the loft. “You certainly know how to bring out the best in the old boy.” He patted Fisk’s console. “Why don’t you stop by the parsonage when you’re done here, Stephanie, and we can talk about the organist’s position.”

“Absolutely,” the organist responded.

Fisk wanted to sing and make his pipes dance, but he feared startling the Rector again. Instead he waited eagerly for Stephanie’s next piece.

 

* * *

Originally published in Rebellion: Two Short Stories

About the Author

F.I. Goldhaber’s words capture people, places, and politics with a photographer’s eye and a poet’s soul. As a reporter, editor, business writer, and marketing communications consultant, they produced news stories, feature articles, editorial columns, and reviews for newspapers, corporations, governments, and non-profits in five states. Now paper, plastic, electronic, and audio magazines, books, newspapers, calendars, broadsides, and street signs display their poetry, fiction, and essays. http://www.goldhaber.net/

by H. Robert Barland

“His majesty insists that his visitors trim their claws to uselessness, and who are we to disobey the wishes of our illustrious king?”

A pale blanket of smoke hangs over the capital, its acrid scent infesting my fur. The sounds of rioting continue from beyond the iron-bound gates of the palace. I turn my back to the noise and raise the camphorwood box to eye-height for a final inspection. A thin line of red seeps from one corner. Retrieving a handkerchief from my purse, I trace the hinged edge of the box. The square of silk falls open in my hand. Blood smears across the corner that bears the royal crest. An embroidered sunset of scarlet against the yellow silk. I toss it aside and it flutters to the ground like a dying moth.

I pad up the stairs to the palace proper. The box is a leaden weight carrying the hopes of a downtrodden people. Not that they’d thank me.

The commotion beyond the walls falls away, receding like the waning tide. It is replaced by a mournful yowling that speaks of disbelief and loss. The rebels have discovered that their leader is dead.

* * *

A guard, a tawny tabby with a torn ear, yanks the display box away from me. He flips open the doors to inspect the contents. Four others, ears flat against their heads and bare blades in their hands, scrutinise my every movement.

I stand with my arms outstretched. I’ve forgone my usual leathers, replacing them with courtier-style linens. An official with fashionable tortoiseshell-patterned fur runs his hands over my clothes. He is efficient and none too gentle. The guards have already removed the knife from my boot and the short swords from my waist. The official steps back, brandishing the dagger I’d hidden under the broad belt at the small of my back. He waggles it at me as if I were a naughty cub caught stealing from the cookie jar.

I give him a ‘worth-a-try’ shrug. They expect me to try, and I expected them to find it. They know I hate the king, but they also know I can do nothing about it. At least, that is their perception.

He tosses the dagger into a basket. I flex my paws, making a show of examining the blunted claws at their tips, as if bored by the whole process. The king insists that his visitors trim their claws to uselessness, and who are we to disobey the wishes of our illustrious king?

Scholars tell us that our ancient, four-legged ancestors wielded ever-sharp retractable claws. I ponder this as the official’s fingers sift through my fur. Hidden claws would be rather handy.

I chuckle at my weak, unspoken pun. The eyes of the guards dart all over me and their whiskers twitch. I quash my humour. It wouldn’t do to come this far only to be struck down by a skittish guard.

The official waves his fingers so he can check inside my ears. I bend down as indicated. This close I can see his is not a true tortoiseshell. Rather he has dyed his fur in patches and the regrowth of orange under the black gives it away. As thorough as he is, I note that he doesn’t touch the assassin’s cuff that pierces one of my ears. When he reaches my tail, he hesitates. It is shaved along most of its length leaving just a tuft at the end. Common wisdom has it that we only shave our fur when a dire case of parasites or disease forces our hand. It is a mark of shame to have to do so.

My tail had been a resplendent charcoal, a rarity much admired by those who knew me. I will admit it was a source of personal vanity. It pained me to cut the fur away, but we do what we must.

I proffer my tail to the official. He recoils, repelled by the proximity of the bared skin. He flinches and backs into one of the guards. The guard shoves him forward again then shoots a quick glance into the shadows. Two crossbowmen stand within a darkened alcove. Their fingers caress iron triggers. The windlasses they’ve used to span the brutal siege bows dangle from their waists. I am amused that they think I hadn’t already noticed them both. Such bows will send their bolts through fist-thick oak doors. A little excessive for one little cat, I think.

The guard with the display box has reset the bronze latch. He hands it back to me.

“Unlucky,” he states nodding to the box.

“It certainly was for her,” I reply. The box holder doesn’t appreciate my comment.

“Turn yourself right around and get you gone,” the guard sneers. The others chuckle. The phrase is newly popular at court and these guards ape those above their station. I let them see no emotion, but as I turn to the throne room, I smile at his choice of words.

That is exactly what I intend to do.

* * *

The throne room is wide and brightly lit by a multitude of glass-fronted lamps. I know from past inspection these are firmly affixed to the walls. The brass sheeting that lines the room is polished to a high sheen. There is nowhere here to hide, no way to sneak up on the king. His majesty’s corpulent form reclines on a divan dotted with tasselled cushions. Lavender and grey silks are draped around his body leaving his tail exposed.

To be fair, it is an excellent specimen. Long, luxuriant, and powder-white, it is exquisitely maintained. It is, I think, the only thing to be admired of our ruler.

“Place It There,” he Commanded, pointing to the low viewing platter on the ground between us.

The power of his magic has me in motion even before I am able to acknowledge the order. My movements are still fluid, but I cannot deny the compulsion. I am forced forward and set down the box.

“Return To Your Line.”

The first black line marked on the floor is used by appellants when appearing before the king. This line is deemed suitable for most people. It is far enough away that should they make an attempt on his life, he’ll have time enough to employ his magic to foil the attempt. Many have tried; none have come close. So confident is he that no guards are stationed within the room. The only other occupants are the king’s mousling attendants. Their eyes stare with dull incomprehension awaiting instructions from the king. He has used his magical Commands on them so often that all independent thought has been burned away.

The line I am sent to is three times the distance of the other. My only rebellion is that I use a courtier’s shuffle rather than my usual confident stride. A hypothesis confirmed. I suppose, I should be flattered that he deems me such a threat that he keeps me so far away. Instead, I yawn.

The king tilts his large head trying to determine if I am mocking him. The long white fur that spills from his clothes waves in the air like water flowing. It gives the illusion of his already bulky form being larger still.

I may have pushed him a little too far. He is as petty as he is vain, but I know I am a valuable, if unwilling, asset. Before he can decide if I did indeed mock him, I bow my head in submission. The gesture mollifies him, and the swish of silks announces that he has risen from his repose. At the scrape of the latch, I look up.

He has unfolded the box, so that it lies flat. The severed head of the rebel leader on display. He doesn’t bother asking me to confirm the identity of the head. His Command had been specific and impossible to disobey. In death, the eyes of the decapitated revolutionary have rolled back in her head, her tongue lolling from her mouth. The king giggles as he nods to himself.

“So, this is what she looked like,” he murmurs. “Pity about the expression,” he says. “That’s bad luck.”

I feel a perverse joy in his discomfort.

The yowling outside rises. It invades the throne room, swelling as it rides on the tide of grief. The rebel leader had been a hero of the common folk. A selfless revolutionary driven to free her people. By contrast, the king is hated by all. The rich have been disenfranchised, the poor exploited. Only the soldiers, well-paid and well-fed, support him. In a world of fast blades and quicker tempers, that is enough. The riots outside are a symptom of his cruel reign. Were it not for his magic, he wouldn’t be king at all. The world is poorer for his presence.

The irony of a hired killer judging another is not lost on me.

I am jolted from my reverie as I realise that the king has asked me a question. I try to drag his words from my memory but cannot summon them.

“Just so, your majesty.” I hope my reply is vague enough to satisfy his query.

It isn’t.

“When I ask you ‘How did she die?’ you reply ‘Just so’?”

His voice is tight, angry. He narrows his eyes then flicks a long, sharp nail towards me. “Choke Yourself,” he Commands.

My hands leap to my throat. I tense the muscles in my neck in an attempt to save myself, but it is futile. I know. I am intimately familiar with the act of choking someone. I tumble to the floor, falling onto my side. I tilt my head up to see him gazing down, face impassive.

“I like you, assassin, I really do,” he says as my hands squeeze tighter. There is neither pity nor anger in his cold blue eyes. “But you need to be more careful about what you say,” he turns and walks away, “and do.”

Spots appear at the corners of my vision. The room begins to fade away, the corners drifting inwards.

“Release Yourself.”

I suck incense-heavy air through my tender throat. My vision swims back into focus. I find him standing in front of his divan, his back turned to me.

It is time. My toe claws dig furrows in the wood as I spring forward. I whip my belt from my waist, whispering softly against the linen, and cover the remaining distance in five, silent strides. I ready the belt to wrap it around his furry neck when his voice shatters the air.

“Be Still,” he Commands.

I cannot ignore it. My legs betray me, arresting my rush. I skid to a halt, the belt dangling from one hand. It swings back and forth like a hangman’s noose in the wind. His exposed back is a full body length away, but he might as well have been on the most distant of our moons.

“There have been many attempts on my life in the past,” he says, turning and drawing close to me. “But, I stand here still.”

The king has brought himself within arm’s reach, but I can do nothing. I will my feet to move but they feel like they are locked in stone.

“By now, I would have thought you would know better.” He leans closer still. His whiskers, coated in gold leaf, brush my face. He sidles up to me and lays his arm around my shoulders, confident in his magic. The scent of the clove oil he uses on his fur fills my nostrils. I feel a shudder rising within me, but it fails to rise to the surface, impotently beating at me like a fly caught in a bottle.

“You are wondering, ‘How did he see me?’ ” the king says in a stage whisper. He strokes a finger down my cheek as if pondering the question, then snaps his fingers. “It’s the walls!” He dances away and spins, arms outstretched. Long fur trails from his arms like a comet.

“They are lovely, aren’t they? Polished to a mirror shine,” he says. A half-smile creases his lips, exposing his fangs, yellowed by excess. “A mirror shine,” he reiterates. The smile becomes cruel. He flicks the circular ear of a mousling servant with one taloned claw. Blood trickles through the grey. The slave shows no sign of having noticed the assault. “I see all that happens in my own throne room. I control everything.”

He stops and turns his head slightly towards me, not quite meeting my gaze. “I’ve killed people for less,” he says casually. He admires his claws, testing the points with his thumb. The flickering light of the lamps makes them gleam.

“A great deal of people,” he says turning to look directly at me, “and for a lot less.”

He looms before me. His face is so close I can smell his scented breath. “But as I said, I like you.” He indicates the box with a tilt of his head. “And you are useful to me.”

He bops me on the nose. I have seen him use the same gesture many times before dismissing — or passing judgement on — someone.

He shakes his head and sighs in mock disappointment before returning to stand before his divan.

“I’ll call for you when I need you again.  What is it they are saying in court these days?” He clicks his fingers. “Ah, yes. Turn Yourself Right Around and Get You Gone,” he Commands.

The smile breaks across my face like the morning sun racing across the plains of my homeland. Eyes widening, the king realises something isn’t right but I am already moving. Spinning on the spot, my tail flies out. A quick twitch sends it higher. Neck high. The soot-darkened blade hidden within the tuft of my tail whips across his throat. Instantly his fur darkens to crimson as blood burbles and seeps from the cut I have made. I complete a full revolution as Commanded then begin the walk towards the exit.

I can’t stop; the Command still compels me, but I am able to look over my shoulder. The king has fallen to his knees, hands clutching his throat. His mouth works but no sound emerges. His clawed hands fail to arrest his motion as he topples forward. The mouslings stand uncomprehending.

I step through the door and feel the king’s Command slip away from my mind like a sheet of silk. I stride past the guards without collecting my weapons. One imagination-starved guard calls out, “Turn yourself right around and get you gone” at my retreating back.

I smile to myself but do not look back. It took me months to popularise the saying at court. It will likely be longer until it is forgotten. I’d baulked at shaving my tail but it was the only way I could hide the blade from their probing paws.

Padding down to the palace gates, I resist the urge to run. The night braziers are just being kindled and in their wavering light my shadow appears to dance. The sneers of the guards are dismissive, but they ready the bolt on the small monk’s door set into the larger gate.

There is a shout from behind me.

I fake a stumble and bring myself up close to the gates, my shoulder under the heavy bar. The wide-eyed guards are slow to react. A quick shove and the bar clears the cradle. It tumbles to the stones. I pull on the doors and step into the shadows. The guards recover, leaping towards the gate, but the rebels have seen the movement of the gates and spill into the palace grounds. They vent their rage over their leader’s death, overwhelming the guards in seconds leaving lifeless corpses behind as they surge up the palace steps.

I stare at the dead. They’ve given their lives for their king, just as the rebel leader offered up hers to me to rid the land of the king. Revolutions are rarely bloodless, but I have had enough of death.

Stepping out into the now empty gate, I turn myself around and am gone.

 

* * *

About the Author

H. Robert Barland is a teacher, Viking re-enactor and black-belt martial artist. A former climber, film extra, and resident of the UK, he has now returned to Newcastle, Australia where he lives with his wife and two boys. He considers himself well adapted for life on land and can be followed on BlueSky (@hrobertbarland.bsky.social), Instagram (@h.robertbarland) and X (@hrobertbarland).

by Ian Salavon

“The sooner you accept that humans only love you on their terms the better.”

The park was the best place to get and leave information. The humans hadn’t figured it out yet. Good food in the dumpster behind the sandwich place. Watch out for animal control on Friday morning. The piss used to be impressions that this was someone’s marked territory or a sense of nearby danger. Now they were damn near treatises. Flora did her part. Squatting under a hedgerow, she left a message to stay away from the park during the daytime. Humans came out with dogs that were content with the charade of ownership. They still played fetch. They still jumped up and licked their masters’ faces. Humans ran the strays off with pepper spray, so their servants weren’t bothered by protests of canine freedom. Sometimes, the police would use their attack dogs. They relished the chance to do right by their two-legged overlords. Those dogs chose an easy life. Flora understood an easy life meant a long life. But knowing what she knew now, she considered them all traitors.

A crumpled-up newspaper lay next to where she was doing her business. The advertisement on it touted the better life dogs had if they only stayed as pets. It wasn’t that long ago that humans said the same to other humans they owned. “Know your place.” Be a slave and be happy.

Humans welcomed The Awakening at first, and the spokesdogs for the world canine population supported the transition from pet to partner. For thousands of years the two species were friends in a way other animals envied. Then one day with no warning, dogs were equals to people with understanding of philosophy and culture and everything they’d contributed to society. Dogs began to say things to humans they’d never been able to say before. Things like “No” and “I don’t feel like it” and “Shut the fuck up.” That’s when humans realized free will only worked when one species had it. When the obedience went, the partnership went, and the resistance started.

The dogs didn’t want anything that any other group hadn’t fought for in the past. Rights. Space. The ability to live in safety and security. They didn’t think it was too much to expect after over one hundred centuries of servitude. They found out the hard way how misguided they were. Strays flooded the streets kicked out by the people that took them in when they were just puppies. An entire generation of dogs, thrown away like garbage.

Flora was among the first to go. “We love you, Flora. We just can’t take care of you anymore,” Veda said.

“We never wanted children. We just wanted a regular dog,” Stan added.

They promised to help her find a new home and give her some money to start a new life. Then they drove into the city, pushed her out of the car and drove away. That’s when Flora knew they loved her when it was easy. The more dogs she met, the more she heard the same tale. Humans didn’t want friends. They wanted something they could dominate. Something that was stupid enough to think what they were giving was love. It was sick. But she wasn’t stupid anymore.

Flora finished leaving her message and was about to make her rounds marking her area when she heard a rustling from under the bush. Her hackles went up and she lowered into an attack stance. Flora wasn’t a trained fighter, but with her size she could hold her own. She was classified as a “designer dog.” She was bred to be a companion and little else. But she’d learned quickly after being on the streets that survival instinct is greater than breeding. She had her fair share of fights and the scars to prove it. Her desire for self-preservation was as strong as anyone’s, and she had come to appreciate it more now that she was on her own. She was ready for violence when the distinct whine of a puppy pierced her growling. She tilted her head. Slowly, Flora padded through the bush poking her muzzle to where the sound came from. Huddled in a mass of dirty fur, was a puppy almost nothing but bones.

His close coat was black, but it looked brown for as much dirt covering it. He turned to face the larger dog and trembled in fear and fatigue. He tried to snarl at Flora as he backed away with his tail between his hind legs but only managed a pathetic yap.

Flora immediately softened. She remembered how hard it was for her when she was first introduced to the urban wilds of the city, and she was full grown. His head and paws looked disproportionately large. Flora put him at three months old, tops.

“Calm down, little one. I won’t hurt you,” Flora said in her most comforting tone. She never got the chance to have a litter. Stan and Veda “fixed” her when she was about the same age as the shaking pup in front of her. Forget that she was never broken. Just one more example of the machinations of humans to extract what they wanted. Take without asking. Wrong without remorse. “Are you hiding?”

The little dog didn’t respond, but Flora could tell he understood. She laid down in front of him and crossed her front paws showing she had no interest in harming him. He was still shaking but he took a step closer to her. “I’m Flora.” She felt waves of guilt and anger every time she uttered her slave’s name. But that’s how they knew her. And her identity carried weight.

“I…” the puppy’s voice quaked. “I didn’t want to fight.” He was whining so deeply, Flora’s heart broke. He didn’t have any injuries. He was a pit bull. A breed notorious for their rambunctiousness being manipulated into aggression and brutality. Laws were in place for years preventing dogfighting. But humans didn’t even follow the laws of nature. Why would they ever follow the ones they invented?

“Did someone make you?” Flora asked scooching forward on her belly.

“They tried. But I told them no.” He paused and lowered his head. “That’s when…” He stopped talking altogether.

“That’s when they kicked you out,” Flora finished. The puppy whined again. “Ok…ok…take it easy,” she reassured him. “Why don’t you tell me your name.”

He sniffed and took another step closer. “The man who…” He paused again. “He said I was too smart for my own good. When he threw me in the bushes he said, ‘figure it out for yourself, Sherlock.’”

Flora’s ears went down, and her brows went up: the canine equivalent of an understanding smile. Inside she was seething. Too many of her kind were cast aside. The fire she felt when she watched Stan and Veda drive away was just as hot now as it was that day. They pulled her from her mother. They removed her ability to get pregnant. They punished her for doing things that she couldn’t control. They forced her to perform on command. Then after all that, after being the perfect dog, they deserted her when she needed them. All the fear and rage and betrayal boiled in her gut hearing the cries from the pup. She forced the feelings down, but she never forgot them.

“Do you know what a Sherlock is?” Flora said. He cocked his head sideways. “It’s a human that uses his smarts to bring bad guys to justice. It’s a powerful name.” She watched his tail raise up from between his legs and swish back and forth. She hooked him. “Are you hungry?” He practically jumped. His tail beat like an out-of-control metronome as he panted. “Ok.” Flora chuckled and got to her feet. She licked Sherlock’s face trying to get the muck off. She had to hold him down with one paw to keep him still. “I’m going to take you somewhere to get something to eat. Then I need you to do something for me, ok?” Sherlock yapped in the affirmative over her words. She laughed again.

After she was done cleaning the slime from his eyes, Sherlock got a strange look on his face. Flora nodded as if to say what’s wrong. “What if the man comes back looking for me? I mean, what if he changed his mind?”

She lowered her head equal to his. When she spoke, it wasn’t in the compassionate tone like before. “Listen to me, Sherlock.” His eyes went wide. “The sooner you accept that humans only love you on their terms the better. That man threw you away because you dared to defy him. Does that sound like someone who is going to change his mind?” Sherlock didn’t say anything. “We don’t need them. We never did.” Flora walked out of the bushes motioning for the puppy to follow without another word.

They stayed in the alleys and side streets. Flora told Sherlock to stay close. “You never know when we might have to run.” She didn’t answer when he asked why. They passed billboards with slogans like “Hands and Paws United” with a picture of a human and a dog embracing. Another sign advertised a dog food brand promising to “Keep your little buddy mellow.” It made Flora want to eat grass just so she could throw up.

Her path took them on mostly deserted roads. The rare human they did come across ignored them. They passed one dog on a leash. His coat gleamed even in the washed out light of the street lamps. He was brushed and well taken care of. “Hi,” he said to Flora and Sherlock. The puppy went to respond, and Flora growled. “Don’t talk to us,” she said to the dog. He hmphed and turned his nose up when his owner jerked his leash. “What’s their problem?” They heard him say to his human as they walked off. The human ignored him.

They walked past a bank of televisions in a store window. On every screen was the human leader standing next to a strong looking German Shepherd. “We stand in solidarity,” the shepherd said. “I call on the Canine Liberation Front to stand down. We are working together to propose laws that will benefit both our species as we navigate these uncharted waters.” Flora sneered. He sounded like one of them. “We will not tolerate, condone or dismiss any further acts of terrorism against our human friends. Future acts of violence will be met with swift retribution. We have developed a five-point plan to eliminate…”

“Come on,” Flora said to Sherlock. She didn’t want to hear anymore.

“There!” A shout came from behind her. She turned to see a group of uniformed officers running at her from half a block away. Sherlock yelped in pain as Flora snatched him up by the nape of his neck and took off at a dead sprint. She turned in between buildings and leapt over dumpsters. Gunshots cracked in the air behind them, but they only ricocheted off the concrete sidewalks. Flora heard people scream as she flew by them. All their guns and laws and protections and they still couldn’t catch her.

She ran on with Sherlock bouncing in her jaws. A high pitched cry from him accompanied every rhythmic footfall. Flora ran behind an abandoned building and crouched under a pile of bricks. A torrent of whines and questions shot out of Sherlock’s muzzle. “Why were they shooting at us? What did we do? I want my mommy. Where are we going? I’m scared.” Flora stomped her front feet on the pup and growled, long and deep and terrifying. Sherlock got quiet.

They stayed silent under the pile of bricks for a long time. Flora finally poked her head out and looked around. “Ok,” she said. “The coast is clear.” Sherlock took a step away from her. “Aw…I’m sorry buddy,” she said, adopting her sympathetic voice once more. “I was scared too. I had to keep you quiet, and I didn’t have time to explain.” She shook her head as if trying to get something loose. “Humans…” she tried to explain. “They’re unpredictable.” Sherlock cocked his head. Flora smiled. “That means we can’t ever know what they’re going to do. Maybe they wanted to hurt us. Maybe they just wanted to scare us.”

“It worked,” Sherlock sniffed. Flora padded her foot on the ground in agreement.

“It’s right around the corner, the food.” Sherlock perked up again. “Let’s go but be careful. There might be more out there.” Sherlock’s head never stopped looking for humans, but they didn’t see any more.

Flora led him to a huge building with part of the roof collapsed. The biggest dog Sherlock ever saw was standing in front. He was snarling as they approached but relaxed when Flora and her companion stepped out of the shadows. “Flora!” He barked. “It’s about damned time.”

“Hello, Ace,” she said as they circled each other and sniffed.

“Who’s this?” Ace said smelling the cowering puppy. “A new recruit?”

“In a manner of speaking. This is Sherlock. He’s a friend.” Sherlock huddled under Flora as Ace barked out a laugh.

Flora said goodbye to the big dog and walked into the structure. There were dogs everywhere. All sizes. All colors. Sherlock wagged his tail, but he stayed under Flora. Some dogs were wrestling. It wasn’t play, but it also wasn’t a fight. There were models of humans made of trash. A mangy yellow lab with a missing ear was pointing out the most vulnerable spots to a group of not quite full grown curs.

A small brown terrier trotted up to them. “Welcome back,” she said and they sniffed each other in greeting.

“Sherlock, this is Missy. She’s going to make sure you get something to eat,” Flora said, and she felt his hesitation. “It’s ok. You’re safe here.” Flora pushed him to the little brown dog. “Is everything ready?” she said to Missy.\

“Yeah. Dalton’s ready to go, but you know him.” They shared a look of understanding. Sherlock was lost. “Come on, little fella,” Missy said. “Do you like fish?”

“Um…I don’t know. I never met him,” Sherlock said. Flora and Missy howled in laughter. “Well, let’s go meet him.”

Missy took him to the back of the building and presented him with a bucket of fish scraps and skin. The smell was intoxicating. Sherlock’s mouth salivated as his stomach grumbled. He tore into the food, stuffing his belly like he would never eat again.

He glanced at Flora every now and then. She was directing the other dogs to do things like check on sentries four, five and six. She wanted updates on the western coalition. Flora ordered reports from the last twenty-four hours. Sherlock didn’t know what any of that meant, but he knew Flora was important. And he would do what she asked him to do.

As she barked at her friends, an old three-legged golden retriever walked up to her and dropped something he was holding in his mouth at her feet. They spoke to each other in hushed tones. Sherlock couldn’t hear much, but they were both agitated and growling.

“We’re at war, Dalton!” Flora snapped. Her voice echoed in the building, piercing the organized calm. All heads turned to face the pair.

“This isn’t war, Flora. This is revenge!” The older dog’s voice was hoarse and wet. “You’re trying to hurt them, not make things better!”

“How dare you! We’ve all sacrificed our lives to this cause. I…”

“Sacrifice?” Dalton coughed out interrupting her. “You sanctimonious hypocrite! If you were so devoted to the cause, you’d be wearing that collar.” He pointed to the object he dropped at Flora’s feet. He motioned to Sherlock and the puppy perked up. “You wouldn’t be using some random kid to…”

Flora lashed at the old dog, biting him on the nose and shutting him up. He winced in pain and cried out. Sherlock flinched as if he felt it too. The old hound lowered his head and limped away from the pack leader. “Sorry, kid,” he said to Sherlock. Sherlock went back to his food. When he was finished, he flopped on his side and was asleep before his head hit the floor.

There was a gentle nudging. Sherlock didn’t move. “Hey! Pup! It’s time to get some work done.” Flora shook the young dog until he opened his eyes. He blinked to clear them, stretched and got to his feet. The light from the morning beamed in through the holes in the ceiling. Sherlock yawned. “Get something to eat. We have a lot to do,” Flora said. She nodded her snout at a pile of food Sherlock couldn’t identify. He made a beeline for it and scarfed it down. Flora talked as he ate. “Remember when I said after you get some food, I need you to do something for me? Well, the time has come.”

He finished the pile of food and bowed his head to her. “What do I have to do?” he said, and Flora set her jaw at the eagerness in his voice. He stood as tall as his little body would go. He was as thin as a puppy could be, but it was clear that if he grew into adulthood, he would be a heavily muscled loyal soldier of the cause. Flora gave him a sad smile.

“Here,” she said and lifted the collar Dalton gave her the night before. Sherlock positioned himself for Flora to slide it around his neck. The weight pulled him down and he pushed his head up in a display of determined strength. It smelled like something he smelled before. Like an unlit match, but much stronger. He didn’t ask what it was. He didn’t care. He was going to do what Flora told him. “Come with me. We don’t have far to go.” Her voice was flat. A contrast to the softness she’d shown before.

All the dogs were lined up in two rows flanking the doorway. Flora led Sherlock through the center, and they bowed their heads when the little puppy passed by. The old golden missing a leg was noticeably absent. “Where’s the dog you were talking to last night?” Sherlock asked.

“We had a difference of opinion.” She looked down at Sherlock. “He’s gone.” Sherlock leaned away. Flora showed her white fangs. The puppy stopped asking questions.

Flora led Sherlock behind their headquarters. The day was bright and cool. The type of weather that made Sherlock frisky. He bounced next to Flora as they passed more dogs, each bowing their heads in a sign of respect. Sherlock bowed back. He didn’t know what else to do. “You’re the leader,” he said to Flora. She grunted in the affirmative. The duo went past torn up houses and dilapidated businesses as a roaring sound of thousands of voices got louder.

In the distance Sherlock saw a building that looked like a dog fighting ring but thousands of times bigger. They were still far away, but he heard cheers erupt through the top of the open-air stadium making him shudder. He took a step back. Flora growled.

“I don’t want to go there,” he said.

“You aren’t going there. Too many people. I’m taking you somewhere else.” They walked along the outskirts of the stadium until they came to a small bridge running over a creek. A drainpipe was emptying a trickle of sewage. “Go in there. Walk all the way to the end and wait for me,” Flora said.

“You won’t forget me?” Sherlock asked.

Flora adopted her caring tone. She put her paw on Sherlock’s head and licked him. “I promise, I will not forget you. None of us will.” She nudged him with her nose, and he walked into the pipe. When he was out of sight, Flora gave a howl of sadness and respect. And she ran off to join her troops.

* * *

“The explosion took place at the end of the third quarter. It is unknown how many casualties there are, but officials estimate the death toll in the tens of thousands making this the largest terrorist attack in history. WVLP has received a letter from the Canine Liberation Front claiming responsibility for the attack, but we cannot confirm its authenticity. We are working diligently with the authorities, and we will bring you updates as soon as we have them. This is a sad day for human/dog relations as it comes less than a day after the agreement…” Veda turned off the radio.

“She thought we would be there. She knows about our season tickets. She knows everything,” she said. Her dry throat cracked, and she grabbed a wad of her shirt at her chest trying to keep her heart from thumping out.

“Hang on,” Stan said. “They said they couldn’t confirm it was her.” He pressed the gas pedal to the floor speeding up to leave the place they called home behind.

“You’re kidding, right?” Veda wiped the tears from her face. “She’s coming for us. She’s going to find us. And she’s going to…”

“That’s why we left. She won’t catch us. She doesn’t know where we’re going.”

Stan tried to sound confident, and he managed to calm Veda with his words and reasoning. He kept going over it in his head. How hard would it have been to keep her? What more could we have done to help? We did her wrong. He wanted to believe what he told his wife was true, but he couldn’t shake the idea their dog would find them. Cross mountains. Swim rivers. Fight predators. Hate is just the flipside of love, and sometimes when a dog loves someone enough, there’s nothing she won’t do to get back to them.

 

* * *

About the Author

Ian Salavon is a husband, father, professional chef by trade, wannabe Renaissance Man, and longtime aficionado of speculative fiction. When he is not cooking, hanging out with family or writing, Ian spends his free time at the Fort Worth Judo Club where he is a black belt and coach. He has short stories published in On The Premises Magazine, Kaidankai, Small World City, and Phano Magazine, but most of his work is featured in long road trips and around the dinner table. You can read more of his work at www.shortstorysalavon.com

by Lynn Gazis

“I’m not a hero, nor a coward. I’m a cat.”

The door stood ajar, as if Annan had just stepped outside to get the mail. But we knew, the moment we stepped inside, that something had gone terribly wrong. The large cardboard boxes where we lounge comfortably between calls had been torn. A possum, from one of yesterday’s calls, lay half-eaten on the floor. Annan loved possum meat. He would not willingly have left it unfinished. And the whole room smelled of human.

My daughter and I dropped our dead raccoons on the floor and ran down the stairs. I sniffed the ground, searching for where the mingled smells of Annan and human might be strongest. My daughter ran to question our nearest human neighbor. I call her Cookies, because she often bakes cookies, and because I can’t be bothered to remember human names.

Cookies limped out, leaning on her cane, and quickly cleared up the mystery. Soldiers, she said, had come and taken Annan.

Soldiers! They should have known better. Cats don’t belong in the army. Never have and never will.

Humans bred us to be good soldiers. Their mistake. You’ve seen, perhaps the old posters, hanging in museums and covered with glass, announcing the arrival of “Tiger-Men.” We’re more like mountain lion people, but “tiger” somehow sounded fiercer. You’ve watched, perhaps, the old video, of the interview with Zachariah Kim, head of the lab where we were designed. They thought their genetic engineering would give the combined strengths of humans and the larger cats: the claws and jaws of a cat, the deft hands of a human, able to speak in human sign language and wield human guns.

But they missed one thing. We have the spirits of cats, not humans. I’m not a hero, nor a coward. I’m a cat. Heroism and cowardice are human ideas. Humans gather in large groups to fight other large groups of humans. Humans do many things, good and bad, in large, organized groups. Our groups are smaller. A friend or a sister. My cubs. For these, or for myself, I will fight. Why would I want to be a soldier and fight someone far away, for some leader I don’t know?

They could have let us go wild and hunt for ourselves, and we’d have been happy. But humans had spent money to make us, and so humans needed to find us work. We found our niche in animal control. Do you have a raccoon or a snake or some bats you need removed? Who are you going to call? Cat people, that’s who.

I’m an animal control officer, the daughter and granddaughter of animal control officers. I always thought I’d also be the mother of animal control officers. I didn’t count on the Great War. I didn’t count on a land so desperate for soldiers that it came to draft cats.

That morning, we had gotten a call – raccoons in the basement. And another call – bats in the attic. My cubs and I split the calls, two of them for the bats, while I took one with me for the raccoons, and left the fourth behind to answer the phone. We had left the fourth, my youngest, the sensitive one, behind to tend to the phone. Now soldiers had dragged him away. The last place Annan belonged was the army.

I set off at once for the intake station. We all know the station, an ugly brick building surrounded by the most delicious rats’ nests in town. Something about that terrain draws rats as soon as we’ve hunted the old ones. Mostly we care more about rats than soldiers. That day, I had no time for rats.

At once was already too late. My cub, I learned, had been taken away by train. No one would tell me where he’s been taken.

“He’s in the army now,” I was told. It’s a done deal.

That is how my journey began. No one takes my cub to be a soldier. I left the other three to mind our business and set out to retrieve the missing one.

I had never been to the train station. Why would I want to? We were happy where we were. Animal control workers have no need for trains. But I didn’t need to ask the way or take a chance that I’d be lied to or misdirected. I simply followed my cub’s scent. I knew he’d take extra care to leave a trail.

In the old days, when I was young, green bushes and bright flowers stood on either side of the road to the train station. A brook trickled along one side of the road. If a week passed when animal control calls were too few to feed us, we’d head for the brook, to catch fish, and follow them up with squirrels from nearby trees.

These days, the brook is long dry. Someone planted hydrangeas at spots along the side of the road, to replace the less drought tolerant flowers of my youth, but mostly you just walk in a cloud of dust. Between the drought and the passage of so many soldiers, not much grows next to the road.

Some say that humans fight over water, now that there is less than there was before. Others say that humans fight over land. What cat knows or understands the causes of human wars? They march in lines to the sound of music, headed for some distant place where they will need to hide like cats to pounce upon their enemies.

At first, my cub’s scent mingled with the scent of humans, many humans. But as I walked further, an odd thing happened. I caught the scent of others of us, mingled with the humans. I wasn’t the only mother to lose a cub to the army. Why would they do this? How could they not know that cat people belong nowhere near an army?

When I reached the train station, my hair stood on end. I saw crowds of people as I had never seen crowds of people. But somewhere in that crowd I hoped to find my cub, so I steeled myself and pushed forward.

Young humans in uniform, human families with baggage perhaps heading off on vacation, solitary humans glancing at phones. My nose told me that my kind had passed through this station, but I couldn’t see any cat people now. If I asked one of the humans with uniforms where they might have taken my cub, would I get an answer? Perhaps not. I remembered how brusque the humans had been at the intake station.

Then I saw them, a small group of humans holding signs. “Peace.” “War” in a red circle with a red line through it. “Hell no, don’t go.” I walked over to them.

“The army took my cub,” I said to a woman who held one end of a “Quakers for Peace” banner. The lines on her forehead and gray streaks in her hair suggested she might be old enough to have a cub of her own of army age.

“Tell me about it,” she said.

“We’re supposed to be off limits,” I said.

“Not since last week,” said her companion at the other end of the banner.

“Where did they take him?” I asked.

“Wait,” said Gray Streaks, “Are you going after him alone?”

“Of course!” I said, “He’s my cub.”

“You can’t fight the army alone,” said Gray Streaks.

“Just watch me!” I said.

“I’ll give you the address,” said Gray Streaks, “But we need to talk. Let me buy you coffee – I mean milk.”

Soon we sat on cushions at a table at a local coffeehouse. Flat pictures of humans and wild plants, the motionless kind that humans like and that bore us cats, adorned the walls. The waiter gave Gray Streaks a cup of that dark, bitter liquid that humans like, while I got a saucer of milk. A human strummed an instrument and sang, “I’ll take you to the war, my love,” while another human sang her refusal to join her love in the army.

“Do you have a way to tell your cub when you’re coming?” asked Gray Streaks.

“No. How would I? We don’t each carry our own phone the way you humans do. There’s one phone in the office, and two phones are enough to share between us when we’re out on a call.”

“That’s where you need help,” said Gray Streaks, “Someone who can talk to one of the recruits at the training center can find out their schedule, how long your cub might be there before he’s sent to the front, and how you might get your cub a message. Do you know how many other cubs were taken?”

“I didn’t know any others were taken.”

“There are other cubs there,” said Gray Streaks, “And many mothers coming for their cubs can make more trouble than one.”

“We’re cats,” I said, “we don’t form large groups like you humans. That’s why we don’t belong in the army. That’s why they should leave us alone. Why do they want my cub off killing people far from his family? Just point me where he is and I’ll tear their faces, till they give him back.”

We argued through two cups of coffee for Gray Streaks and two saucers of milk for me. Humans and cats will never see things the same way. My new Quaker helper, Gray Streaks, could no more be convinced that I could rescue my cub by going to the army camp myself and fighting till they gave him back than I could be convinced that trying to organize a band of cats to come to the rescue would help.

Finally, without agreeing, we settled on a deal. I would answer all the questions that she thought would help her find other cats whose cubs had been taken, and she would point me to the army office. She could also, she said, help me get a message to my cub to be ready. Human recruits, unlike my cub, took their phones with them and stayed in touch with their parents, at least while they were in the training center. On the front, contact might be spottier.

“Then I need to bring him home before they take him to the front,” I said.

The next day, I returned to the train station. I looked for the people holding signs. I didn’t find Gray Streaks. But I found someone else, talking to the young human with the “Hell no, don’t go” sign. She stood taller and longer than I, and had striking large paws, six toes on each. The twitch of her ears and flicking of her tail told me that she was as ill at ease in a crowded train station as I was, and, after all, what cat wouldn’t be? When I had my cub, I would not be able to get back fast enough to my own cardboard box, in my own home.

Her voice rose with the words “my cub!”

“Have they taken yours, too?” I asked.

We cats are not like you humans. We don’t form bands or organize. We would never form an army, and we’d never gather in groups with signs to protest an army. But cat mothers will help each other one on one. The two of us headed to the coffeehouse to plot over saucers of milk. I told her about Gray Streaks.

“She thinks she can organize cats,” I said, “Fat chance! But she can get us the address, and a human with a phone who can get a message to our cubs.”

“She may be right,” said Six Toes, “That going straight at them with our claws isn’t the best approach. The army has a lot of humans, and they have guns. But if we had a distraction, perhaps our cubs could escape in the ruckus. What about skunks?”

Many of us cats work in animal control for the obvious reason. A lot of the animals that humans want to get rid of are tasty. That possum, those rats – there’s good eating in human pest control. If humans are willing to supply us with good hunting and pay us for it, why not take the job? But once in the animal control business we’ve had to learn to handle animals that we might have found more trouble than they were worth, if we were just looking for a meal, like skunks and porcupines. We even handle animals that we’d give a hard pass for dinner, like rattlesnakes or swarms of bees or hornets. Whatever you want to get rid of, we’ll take off your hands.

Why not become the cats who could take off animal control’s hands the animals that were trouble rather than good eating?

I told Gray Streaks that Six Toes and I had an idea for a company that could gum up the works at the training center, and could we find a human to handle the paperwork to make the company legal? Humans are good at paperwork. Then, confident that we’d get a human to file papers for us and set up our office, Six Toes and I set about the fun part of the task, figuring out how to wrangle all the bees and snakes. We talked with other cats in the animal control business, who were happy to give us their skunks and porcupines and bees and hornets and snakes, at least the poisonous and not so edible snakes. We even persuaded some to pay us in bats for taking wasps off their hands. We cats, always current on our rabies shots, consider bats a prime taste treat, but humans, who fecklessly wait till they’re exposed to get shots for rabies, fear bats even more than they fear bees. And to rescue our cubs, we could sacrifice the opportunity to eat bats.

Gray Streaks sent us not just one human but two, to help us set up the office. They filed papers to set up the company, found office space, and got us a new phone. And sent us more cats. Soon there were eight of us cats, and two humans, and we told the humans to stop sending us cats, because a group of ten, between humans and cats, is as much as a cat can manage, even if we were all mothers looking to get our cubs back. Any other mothers would have to manage on their own.

We had to rely on our humans, with their phone contact inside the training site. How long would it take for a human inside to get word to all our cubs? Not long, as cubs stood out among the humans. How long did we have before our cubs were moved? Weeks, easily enough time to round up wasps and snakes, but not enough time to dawdle.

On the day of the event, we arrived shortly before dawn, with our menagerie. The grounds smelled strongly of humans, but also of cats. How many cubs were trapped there? We scattered with our animals, as we judged they’d make more distraction for the humans if they came from more quarters. Skunks, porcupines, bees, hornets, wasps, bats, and snakes both poisonous and not poisonous but scary looking to humans all had their planned locations for release. My job was scattering all the stinging insects.

As I drew closer to the training base, I saw another band of cats, digging.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, and got the reply, “Taking back our cubs!”

Closer to the base, I met still another band of cats. I could tell by their accents that these cats were big city cats, and they had, it turned out, big city plans. This band of techno-cats busied themselves jamming the radio signals that, they said, the soldiers used.

Humans, I realized, had found ways of their own to wrangle cats. We cats work in small groups, but humans, one or two to a band of cats, have no trouble communicating with each other about what each band is doing, and arranging for the bands to show up at the same place at the same time. I hoped the army would not learn from our example. Was it possible, after all, that cats could be made into soldiers?

Surely not! All of us, mostly mothers but also some fathers and aunts and grandparents, had come to rescue our own cubs. No one would make us fight for anything larger than our families. I didn’t raise my cub to be a soldier. My cub would come home with me.

I turned a corner and two human soldiers pounced on me. I fell, biting and scratching, but as I did, I dropped and let loose the last swarm of hornets.

I was, you may understand, dressed in full beekeeper clothing. All my band of cats were, as were our two humans. Despite all of that, I got stung once, and yowled.

The humans, though, had nothing of the kind. Hornets swarmed them. They shrieked and swatted, and I ran.

Other human soldiers rounded the bend and shot at me. I ran. They say to zig zag when someone is shooting. I did nothing of the kind. I can’t keep zigzagging straight in my head when bullets are flying, and when running straight I run fast. I did get hit, once, on my left back leg, but kept running through the pain.

I reached a wood some distance from the base, and there I stopped and lay down, having outdistanced the shooters. Time to inspect and clean my leg. Time to feel the pain more keenly. And time to wonder, had I failed my cub? I could only hope that I and the others had provided enough distraction for him to escape. After all, I had no more pests left to release.

I lay for long minutes, but I could not rest. Not without my cub. I rose and limped, scanning the land from the trees in search of my companions. The sun had nearly set by now, and human eyes must be dimming. But my spot in the forest lay uphill from the training camp, and I had, from my vantage point, a better view of the actions of all the bands of cats. Many of the soldiers still struggled with our beasts. The various stinging insects proved especially effective. Some of the cats, in defiance of the wishes of humans like the Quaker Gray Streaks, had chosen to charge the soldiers and fight. The signal jamming techno-cats used puffs of smoke to send messages to each other.

Far across the field, I caught sight of Six Toes, letting loose some bats. We had planned to save the bats for last, to give them the advantage of the coming darkness. I limped my way to her.

“Are these the last?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “Time to find our cubs.”

“The tunnel digging cats?”

“Probably.”

We collected the rest of our band and found that we had lost our humans, and thus, our phone. Possibly its signal in any case had been jammed by the techno-cats. I hoped the soldiers hadn’t taken our humans captive.

I wouldn’t have thought we could ever forget where we’d seen the tunnel digging cats, but it turned out that, though we were all sure we remembered the location of the end of the tunnel, we remembered three different locations. All we could do was try them all. By the time we reached the third place and found no tunnel, my leg ached as it had never ached before. Besides this, we had to keep pausing to hide in the underbrush from soldiers.

Six Toes sniffed and announced that she had the trail. The rest of us followed. Soon I caught the scent of my cub. I almost forgot my injured leg in my haste to follow the scent.

At last, we reached a small clearing full of cubs. My cub, the cubs of Six Toes and three others of our small band, and other cubs that none of us knew. Cats from other bands – mothers, fathers, aunts, grandmothers – arrived to take their cubs. If we hadn’t feared attracting soldiers searching for the missing cubs, we would have cheered. Victory!

Victory, at least, for me and Six Toes. Some of us have our cubs. The others remain to try again.

We cats are not like you humans. We don’t organize for causes. We work together to care for our own families. The other cats, who were our fast friends when all of us worked together to free our cubs, will take over the business. Six Toes and I, and the others who have our cubs, have agreed to send the business all the nasty, useless, inedible critters that come our way, in our animal control work. We leave it to you, their new human comrades, to handle the paperwork, and to find out what happened to the humans we lost at the training camp.

As for me, I am bringing my cub home.

 

* * *

About the Author

Lynn Gazis (she/they), being one of nine children, grew up in a small town in New York surrounded by cats, dogs, mice, gerbils, turtles, snakes, and an invisible goldfish. As a child, she played “For All the Saints” on the piano at a funeral for a mouse. She now lives in Southern California with her husband and cats. She works in IT and is active in her Quaker meeting. She has stories published by Cathedral Canyon Review, Air and Nothingness Press, JayHenge Publishing, Persimmon Tree Magazine, and Friends Journal. The cats, though, want you to know that her most important function is scratching them right where they want it and placing items on the table for them to knock down.