No Romance Chapter 12

Chapter 12. “A God Among Beasts”

            Vanasmas put his hands on the shoulders of two of his soldiers, Colonel Bucket and Egil Trivile. (“Colonel” was Bucket’s real first name, which can tell you a lot about his parents.)

“My friends, my brothers, you are convinced of his wickedness, are you not?” Vanasmas said to them. “And you know that I truly commune with Golbez in his comatose state by spiritual means, and that through that communion I divine his will and enact it. You believe all of this, do you not?”

“I do,” said Bucket with a nod.

“We believe enough of it,” said Trivile.

“And you, Roget?” Vanasmas said, turning to him.

Roget, a little more unsure than his allies (he had volunteered to be the one with the paintball gun), gave a little nod, less pronounced than Bucket’s, and said, “Y-yes. I do. I do believe you.”

Vanasmas narrowed his eyes on Roget. Calmly, demurely, he said, “Then if you believe, you must go out first.”

“Go out? Go out where?”

“To the end of the river road,” said Vanasmas. “You must follow the precious springwater in its courageous journey towards the Enemy’s gate.”

“What?”

Bucket pointed his thumb behind him at the waterfall. “Down there.”

Roget’s eyes widened and he looked to Bucket and Trivile, but said nothing.

“Colonel Bucket. Egil Trivile. You must also prove your faith in me by descending the waterfall. I speak for Golbez, remember. And as you are all brothers, he is your father. I give you my promise that you will be safe, as long as you believe. Remember the spirit of Swiftfast, and may he guide you in your downward flight.”

Instantly Roget’s mind acquiesced, and he came up with a very basic plan.

“I will,” all three said at the same time.

“Excellent, my brothers. The hero Jack McDowell will be down there. If you find him before we do”---at this point he motioned to the other three men of their company, who all had similar noses and the same skin color---“then shoot him in the leg and hold on to him until we arrive. He may be hiding with the natives down there. They live near the river, near the waterfall.”

“And you’ll be headed there too?”

“Yes, but we’ll take a little longer. We’re going the long way, around and then down. If you fellows are quick here, you might be able to catch him before we do. If he tries to run the other way, we’ll get him that way. He is the Enemy, and must be stopped from destroying our family.”

“You can depend on us!” said Colonel Bucket over the roar of the waterfall.

“My brothers, I thank you. We will meet again at the Cardaccians, those awful, despicable rightfully-enslaved people. Now go!”

“Charge, men!” shouted Colonel Bucket, and he threw himself into the water.

Trivile followed, crying “Courage!” and they let themselves be taken over the edge.

Roget heard the faint sound of screaming as he stepped into the river, then it quickly dropped away. Knowing the danger, he made his way more slowly, carrying his paintball gun above his head, secretly aiming for the opposite bank. The water was shallow enough that he could walk his way there, but he still had to push himself upstream against the current to make sure he didn’t get swept away. He turned back to check on Vanasmas, and found that he and his three others had already turned back into the jungle. He breathed a sigh of relief, and turned back. He was halfway across the river when he realized he could never return to that life in Golbez Industries, at least as long as Vanasmas was around and in charge. If it was discovered that he had disobeyed an order because of cowardice...well, he wasn’t sure what would happen, but his life might not be worth that much afterwards.

So in forging his way across the river, he was also forging a new life for himself.

            And with that marvelous motive in mind he made it all the way to the other side. He sat on the bank catching his breath. His whole body tingled with the thrill of renewal and the promise of adventure into the unknown.
            When he was dry again he took up his firearm and ventured into the trees, ready to face anything.
            He met “anything” soon enough. It silently came out from behind a thick tree, long, lithe, orange with black stripes, calmly whipping its tail back and forth, and sitting back down on its haunches in the middle of Roget’s path.
            Roget’s eyes bugged out and he raised his gun on the huge tiger. Hands shaking violently, he pulled the trigger three or four times. One of them hit the tiger square in its white chest, making a splotch of red. The offended tiger looked down and started licking at it, but realized how disgusting paint tastes and shook its head, its long red tongue flapping back and forth.
            Roget, seeing the paint and knowing it wasn’t blood, remembered that the gun he held in his hands wasn’t a real gun. He stared in horror at the various evidences of this fact, the redness on the tiger that wasn’t actually blood, and the paintball gun itself.
            And though the tiger did not pursue, Roget fled, and without thinking it through all the way, dove headfirst into the river. His head struck a rock and he lost consciousness. The river swept him away, and down the waterfall. Roget never woke up, never again felt pain or fear. He had indeed left his old life. Whether he successfully forged a new one is up to the other gods.

---

It was late and dark, but for the fire and the light of the moon. Jack and Annie had set up camp in the middle of an area free from trees, where lunar light poured down from the heavens onto the grass. They were eating food, having been given a few supplies by the Cardaccians. Annie was asking Jack about the final dealings he had made with Djetta, as she hadn’t been around for them. Madje had taken her on a basic tour of their village, gathering up foodstuffs and a couple of sleeping mats and blankets, as well as giving her a chance to bathe properly. Also, for a reason Annie didn’t comprehend at that time, Madje showed her the route to an underground mine that the Cardaccians had once worked in, but was now abandoned. Apparently the mine was quite extensive, with a long system of tracks that led to a place no one had ever been.

            Jack and Annie were eating fried rice out of cartons, Jack with chopsticks, Annie with a spoon. The variety of foods the Cardaccians received from Golbez Industries was somewhat eclectic, and that was what they subsisted on.
            Jack swallowed and answered Annie’s question.

“Djetta told us to follow all the electrical wires to the generator they have sitting out in the open, then find the thickest group of cables coming out from one of the nearby tents and follow it.”

            “Follow it all the way across the island?”
            “It’s an isle. But yes.”
            “And why are we doing this again?”
            “Because Djetta knows the guys who run the train station over at the facility. Because those guys can put us on the train when the time comes. Because I have to get out of here, and that train is my only hope. By the way, will you be wanting off this isle too? Or do you have something with Paula going on?”
            “Wait, why can’t you just go there now? Why this trip to the other side of the island?”
            “Isle.”
            “Whatever.”
            “I want to find out what the Johnsons are all about. I think Vanasmas is one of them. And we have time until the train gets here. Three days, Djetta said. The next train that comes through this jungle will be here in three days. So we’ve obviously been given those three days to do something important.”
            “Given? Given by who?”
            “Whom.” Jack jerked his head up at the sky. “Given by them.”
            Annie started to smile. “Do you believe in God, then, Jack McDowell?”
            “I believe in several.”
            “Curious.”
            “You know why I believe? Because somehow we just climbed up 200 feet of dangerous slippery rocks to the top of a waterfall that we plunged down, and in both of those instances we found ourselves perfectly whole and perfectly safe. Unlike the other three blokes that we saw down there, no doubt sent down after us by the ridiculous Vanasmas. Also one has to wonder why and how such a high waterfall could exist on such a small island. But whatever.”
            “Jack McDowell, I’ve never met anyone like you.”
            “Really? I’ve met plenty of people like you. How old are you?”
            “Twenty-four.”
            “That’s young enough to be your first time, then. Let’s hope you survive.”
            “Let’s hope we both survive,” she said with a smile, looking down at her food.
            Jack stopped in the middle of chewing and stared at her contemplatively. “I don’t think you get it,” he said. “But here’s a question for you.”
            She looked up. “Yes?”
            “I should say, here’s a whole avalanche of questions. First, what’s your game?”
            “My game?”
            “What have you been doing? What are you all about? I really don’t understand what you’ve been doing, how you’re surviving other than by the grace of the gods, damb them.”
            “Oh...yes, well, I kind of blacked out and scurried around in the shadows, trying to lay low...”
            “That doesn’t explain much, but then again, maybe it does. How much contact have you had with Paula?”
            “You saw my twin? You saw Paul? I mean, Paula?”
            “Yes, a few times.”
            “She’s dangerous. Very dangerous.”
            Jack just chewed, staring expectantly at her.
            “Look, I can’t explain everything because some things are really, really personal. And I don’t know how you’re going to react to it. I tried to tell you some things that first night here, but you just...”
            Annie trailed off, and Jack let the silence hang.
            “I could tell you I’m sorry about that, but I should tell you something else,” he finally said. “Dames like you...tend to end up getting killed in these kinds of stories. I’ve had five female sidekicks die in my arms. But that’s only when we’ve shared some romance or when I desperately wanted to. And that’s one of the reasons for my policy.”
            Annie’s eyes suddenly brightened and she locked her gaze on Jack.
            “Really?”
            “Yes...” he said, frowning and wondering if completely the wrong thing was communicated. When she brought out a small, waterlogged notebook and pen and started writing, he determined that it was. His brain processed this miscommunication quickly: no doubt all she heard was that in not wanting her to be his sidekick, he was showing how much he cared about her life and welfare. After coming to this conclusion, he sat up straight and said, “Hey!”
            She wasn’t listening, just continued to write. Jack stared on and sighed helplessly. When she was still writing a minute later, he echoed his cry of “Hey!” and this time she looked up.
            “Hm? Oh, I’m sorry! Okay, it’s nothing, just an idea I had, the thought that is sometimes we writers tend to get or no, I don’t know, I’m sorry, never mind, forget I said anything. Okay, I’ll put it away now.” And of course she was blushing the whole time. After stuffing the notebook into a bag donated by Madje, she bowed her head, eyes on the fire, away from Jack’s.
            Jack sighed again.

She raised her eyes just a fraction. Damb it, she was rather cute. And if he wanted her, he could have her. And he kind of wanted her. Maybe it was just that he was tired. Tired of running, tired of surviving, tired of resisting. The firelight wasn’t helping.

He got up, muscles aching, and sat down next to her. A quiet thrill entered his heart and shot through his nervous system. He could hear music, a group of soft woodwinds, with strings moving tenderly in and out, then progressively upwards to a hanging note.... Only he could hear it, of course, but that made it no less real. And it told him what to do in that moment...a moment he had heard and felt and lived so many times before...but not in so, so long....

Her bright blue eyes tricked a stunt on him in that moment, but she didn’t know it, and that made all the difference.

            Impossibly well-timed, and ever so mercifully, a twig snapped just then, and so did the reverie. Annie didn’t react, but Jack whirled around in the direction of the sound.
            Thank the gods, he thought, whatever this turns out to be.

It came from the trees across the clearing. Since the sound was so far away and yet so audible, it must have been a rather large twig, enough to make a sound so loud Jack could hear it over that distance. And given that it was such a large twig, it must have needed a large presence to snap it.

            That large presence stepped out from the thick, dark, and foreboding trees: it was the massive tiger, coat striped orange and black, a strange red splotch on its chest just like Jack, eyes glowing yellow, lit by both the fire and the moon.
            And of course, Jack wasn’t sure where he had put his gun.
            So he chose not to look for it but to confront the tiger in hand-to-hand combat. A Super Tiger, Dr. Aperture had called it. Well, bring it the heck on.
            The Super Tiger stepped slowly, gracefully forward, each paw placed purposefully after the one before it. Its tail swayed to and fro behind it, adding both balance and poetry to the fiery creature.
            “Come on!” Jack said, putting himself in a stable combat stance. He spread his arms out, ready to receive an attack.
            And so the Super Tiger did. Annie screamed as it darted forward and leapt at Jack, both its powerful jaws and front arms wide open. Jack caught the Super Tiger with his whole body and the two fell to the ground. The Super Tiger pressed down on Jack, squeezing the air out of him, and opened its mouth. With a tiger’s roar lunged down at him, about to bite his face off.
            But Jack was nimbler, and Jack was quicker. In slow motion he cocked his arm back, and with a fist full of rage punched the Super Tiger square in the side of the face.
            This shocked the Super Tiger so much that when it got its rolling yellow eyes facing the right direction, it scuttled backwards, off of Jack, looking like a cat confronted with a bucket of water. It gave Jack a look of utter astonishment before stretching out its front arms and bowing his head down between them. It stayed in that position as Jack got up.
            “Jack the Wrangler,” Jack murmured to himself.
            “Jack, what’s happening?” Annie said fearfully from the fire.
            “He’s either stretching, showing me his humility and respect, or worshipping me.”
            The Super Tiger raised its head briefly, but upon seeing Jack approaching it, went down again. Jack had noticed something around its neck. A collar of some kind.
            Once at it, he patted its flank and checked a tag on the collar. It read:

Carl Sagan

A god among beasts

            And the words he saw Dr. Aperture mouthing were suddenly crystal clear.
            “You’re Carl Sagan?” Jack asked the Super Tiger.
            It---he---looked up.
            “You can rise,” Jack said.
            And he did. Then he rubbed his head against Jack’s elbow.
            “Jack, is he safe?”
            “I think so. To me, anyway.”
            Annie crossed around the fire and cautiously approached the huge beast.
            “So you were sent to kill us, huh?” Jack said, looking down sternly at Carl Sagan. “Or...just me. I don’t think anyone even knows Annie exists.”
            “Hey!” Annie said offendedly.
            Jack ignored her and continued to speak to Carl Sagan. “And you recognize me as the dominant male. A certain, well-directed quantity of violence can do wonders, can’t it? But you know that, being a tiger. Tell me, can you understand English?”
            Carl Sagan sat back on his haunches and thumped his tail on the ground once.
            “I’ll take that as a yes.”
            Annie, face changing from fear to delight, started scratching behind his ears and under his chin.

“Aw, look at you!” she gushed. “You’re so smart! And so cute and fuzzy!”

“Annie, I believe he was sent to kill us. He’s an assassin. Is that right, Carl Sagan?”

Another single thump of the tail.

“But look at his chin! And his whiskers!”

Carl Sagan’s yellow eyes, connecting with Jack’s brown ones, appealed to him and gave the impression of utmost humiliation.

“Annie,” Jack said, embarrassed at her behavior. “Carl Sagan wants you to know that he’s a vicious animal, a noble beast, a Big Cat with Dignity. Not something to fawn over and play with.”

Carl Sagan gave a little huff as he turned away from Annie.

“Oh, I don’t think so at all,” she said. “He’s just a big kitty.”

She started trying to scratch his nose and he snapped at her. Just one snap, but enough to make Annie yelp and move behind Jack.

“A big kitty with a lot of utility,” Jack said. “Carl Sagan, given that I am the dominant male, will you help protect us as we go through this jungle?”

Carl Sagan again rubbed his face against Jack’s arm and turned in a circle before once more sitting back on his haunches.

“Excellent. I’m glad we understand each other.”

Jack then patted him on the head, and Carl Sagan closed his eyes, even purring in pleasure.

            “I didn’t know big cats could purr?” Annie wondered out loud.
            “This isn’t just a big cat,” Jack said. “This is a Super Tiger. Super Tigers can pretty much do anything, except fly. No doubt that will be an added feature in the next generation.”
            “How do you know that?”
            “I heard him called a Super Tiger in a scientific laboratory and heard him purr and have seen that he cannot fly. From there I just connected the dots.”
            The Super Tiger watched both of them with mildly interested eyes, tail flapping on the ground.
            “You don’t have much to say, do you Carl Sagan?” Jack remarked. “A god among beasts. I’ve seen it all. Well, but I thought pretty much the same thing when I met Spyder, too. Hm...Anyway, Carl Sagan, you can be about your business now. Go hunt or whatever it is tigers do at night. Just be sure to maintain watch on the perimeter.”
            “I imagine he’ll sleep,” Annie said as Carl Sagan walked over to a nearby tree and started sharpening his claws. “Look at him! Just like a real cat...”
            Carl Sagan stopped sharpening his claws and glared at her. But then he struggled to withdraw his claws from the bark.
            “He’s stuck!” Annie said in a high-pitched voice.
            Carl Sagan let forth a low growl.
            “Uh, Annie, could you turn away, please?” Jack said, again embarrassed at her lack of manners and striding over to the tree. Both Jack and Carl Sagan stared at Annie until she finally consented with a sigh and turned her back on them.
            Jack helped Carl Sagan get his claws unstuck, one paw at a time.

“Sorry about her, buddy,” Jack whispered to the Super Tiger. “She can be insufferable sometimes, I know.”

Finished, Jack went over to Annie, who was near the fire, and rubbed her back gently for a moment. She turned to him as Carl Sagan disappeared into the jungle.

“But yes, I believe we were in the middle of something,” he said.

            “Oh...yes,” said Annie, blushing a little but looking very pleased. In fact, the redness in her cheeks shone, even radiated.
            “A conversation,” Jack said, and Annie’s radiance grayed. “But I think we should continue it in the morning, and forget all about tonight. All except Carl Sagan, I mean. He was a good find, no? A result of Dr. Aperture’s hard work. A tiger assassin who has both the capabilities and sensibilities of a human with just a few wild instincts left over but kept to certain contexts. Dr. Aperture did a fine job on that one.”
            “He’s a good genetic enhancer,” Annie said absently, her eyes staring vacantly into the fire.
            “Yeah,” said Jack, watching her. “He sure is.”

Annie’s feelings had been seriously hurt, Jack knew that. But he couldn’t let what had almost happened come even close to happening again. As he lay on the ground and pulled up a thin Cardaccian blanket around him, his brain was berating itself for coming so close to ruining everything. Years of hard work, almost crashing down around him.

“Is there anything more overdone than adventure and romance?” he whispered to himself in disgust as he curled up. Thank the gods for Carl Sagan, he thought.

---

In the morning Jack found his gun, took it apart, cleaned it, and put it back together again before finally reloading it. Then he wondered where Carl Sagan was, and if he’d be back. He was just thinking this when Annie woke up.

            Blurry-eyed, she also wondered where Carl Sagan was, and did so out loud.
            “I wonder where Carl Sagan is,” she said.
            “I was wondering the same,” Jack said.
            Just then a large orange and black thing fell out of a nearby tree and crashed onto the jungle floor.
            “Ho, Carl Sagan,” said Jack.
            The Super Tiger hadn’t quite righted himself before he hit the ground. After getting back on all fours he calmly started licking and cleaning his coat as a polite tiger should. From his demeanor he was clearly trying to act as if he hadn’t just fallen out of the tree he was sleeping in.
            “Can tigers climb trees?” Annie asked.
            “I’m not sure,” Jack replied. “But Super Tigers can. What I want to know is why he wasn’t patrolling the perimeter and protecting us while we were sleeping.” Jack shot a glare at Carl Sagan, who just continued licking his fur.
            “Oh, don’t take him for granted like that, Jack!” Annie said in protest. “He could just up and leave us whenever he wanted. He could even up and eat us if he wanted, too! Be kind.”
            “Females just don’t understand how the alpha male system works,” Jack said quietly as he crossed over to Carl Sagan and scratched behind the big cat’s ears. “Annie,” he said more loudly, “are you ready to go?”
            “Ready to go? I just woke up!”
            “It’s not as if you have makeup to put on, is it?” Jack said.
            “There are a lot more things to do in the morning routine than just makeup!”
            “Well, hurry it up, whatever it is. We leave in five minutes and eat breakfast on the way.”
            Jack left Annie to do as she would and crouched down over by the copper cables Djetta had told him to follow to get to the Johnson territories. Each of the three cables were comprised of several smaller cables, which no doubt had even smaller ones inside of them. These could be electric, video, telephone...but the Cardaccians didn’t seem to have any of that technology available to them. Just the wires that hooked up to the generators, nothing more.
            Jack turned to Carl Sagan. “Carl Sagan, can you run ahead of us a ways and maybe see what these cables lead to? And if there’s ever any danger ahead, come back and warn us. There’s a good Cat.”
            Carl Sagan followed Jack’s words until the last, at which his ears went back and he narrowed his yellow gaze on Jack.
            “What? I capitalized it,” defended Jack.
            Carl Sagan seemed to shake his head but trotted dutifully into the brush where the cables led. Jack stood up and noticed Annie was not present.
            “Annie, are you ready?” he called out to the jungle at large.
            Seconds later she came out of the trees looking harried and irritable.
            “Yes, Jack McDowell, I’m ready,” she said shortly and with a look that could have doubled as Goldfinger’s laser beam.
            “Great!” Jack said. “Except I’m not. Forgot to pack up my things before I called for you. It’ll only be a minute. I sent Carl Sagan ahead to forge the path.”
            A minute later, everything was packed up, except for the cartons of Chinese food they had not finished the night before, and which they finished as they trooped through the thick, dark, and foreboding jungle.
            “It’s rather nice here in the morning,” Annie commented, gazing at the jungle around her. “The golden light of the dawn shining through the branches of the trees, the birds flying everywhere with their beautiful, haunting calls, the monkeys chattering...”
            She continued to comment in this way for quite a while, until Jack utilized an old trick and let a fern he just passed through swing back and hit Annie in the face.
            “Well excuse me if I like to practice my observational prose!” she said after pushing the leaf out of her face. “I am a writer, you know!”
            “I’m just waiting to hear what your prose sounds like when you meet your first giant green centipede,” Jack said. “There’ll be a lot more vowels, I bet.”
            Annie opened her mouth to retort, then turned her head in horror as she thought she saw exactly what Jack had just described: a giant green centipede crawling over a tree branch with its hundred scuttling legs. Surprisingly, she didn’t use any extra vowels, but no consonants either. Instead she said nothing.
            And she somehow found herself in Jack McDowell’s arms, pointing and gasping.
            Jack gave her his “I am not amused” face, eyes half-closed, mouth a straight line, and addressed her geographic error first. “No,” he said with some finality, and deposited her out of his arms. Then he turned to look at what had caused so much terror. It was green and long, all right, but it wasn’t actually moving. “You’re afraid of moss?” he said.
            Annie blinked and tried to say something, but remained tongue-tied. Finally she got something out. Just one vowel: “Oh.”
            “Yeah,” said Jack and continued on his way through some large-leaf colocasias. Then he smiled to himself for having successfully suggested the notion of that centipede at the perfect time, which of course was right after he saw the moss first.
            After following the cables for another good twenty minutes, Jack pausing periodically to find them amid the flora, they discovered something very useful: a road. Just like the one that connected the Butterknife Bay facility to the Cliffs of High Depth, and presumably to Boxcutter Bay. Dirt path about twenty feet across with straight, clearly marked boundaries, one of which happened to be the cables.
            “Well, huh!” Jack said. “That was a freebie.”
            And so they walked down the road, practically a tunnel through the jungle. Or just a road.
            As they walked, something was boiling in Jack’s subconscious mind, and starting to steam up in the conscious part. It was something about last night, about the way it ended, the words that were said, Annie’s words, Aperture, Carl Sagan, genetic enhancement, genetics, Annie, Paula...
            Dr. Aperture tells us we share the same genetic code.
            Paula’s words. About Annie and herself.
            Jack stopped walking.
            “Annie, have you ever met Dr. Aperture?”
            She stopped too.
            “And don’t give me that crap about ‘No, why do you ask?’ and all that. I won’t stand for it.”
            “Then I’ll just say yes,” she said after a long pause. “In a way.”
            “So you admit you’ve been to Rainswept Isle before.”
            “Well, you remember how I said Paula had told me about the corruption in this place? I learned about some of it firsthand. Paula invited me to take a joint psychiatric session with Dr. Aperture. We have some...complex issues, and we both wanted to solve them. So I came out here last year...”
            “Wait, psychiatry? Dr. Aperture isn’t a psychiatrist. Is he?”
            “...and he helped us a lot. We resolved our differences, and I went home, and---”
            “You came all the way out here for a psych appointment.”
            “Is that less believable than ‘No, why do you ask?’”
            “Weird. And then you came back for the corruption story?”
            “Um...yeah. Golbez said he wouldn’t mind being interviewed about it. So I went home and...and I, um, yes, I pitched the story to my editor, and he said to go for it.”
            “Quick, what magazine do you write for?”
            “Golbez Industries!” she burst out. “No, I mean, Time. Times. The Times Magazine.”
            “Uh-huh.”
            “I see Carl Sagan up ahead just sitting there!” she said, a note of desperation in her voice.
            “I don’t care if he is. Though now that you mention it, he should be moving.” Jack frowned. “That’s what I ordered him to do.”
            “But we stopped, so he stopped,” Annie said, obviously wanting to just continue on the way they were going. “So let’s go up and meet him.”
            Jack said nothing, but did continue walking. Annie’s distractions were working; Jack’s train of thought went all wonky.
            “I hear something,” Annie said. “A motorcycle.”
            “Could be a car. They sound the same.”
            Whatever it was, Carl Sagan hadn’t moved. He was sitting there, back to Jack and Annie, facing the direction of the sound.
            Jack and Annie gave each other a single look then ran forward to Carl Sagan.
            “Carl Sagan! Come on, into the jungle!” Annie said as the Super Tiger glanced at them.
            “No, Carl Sagan! Don’t listen to her! Stay here and guard the road. Get the person in that oncoming vehicle out of the vehicle so we can take it from them!”
            “Jack!” Annie said.
            “What? This is a road! We need a vehicle! Come on, let’s hide.”
            Jack grabbed Annie’s hand (she didn’t complain) and pulled her off the road, into a thicket of elephant ears. They watched as Carl Sagan sat there quietly, tail flopping around.
            The vehicle came into view. It was a motorcycle. And someone on it.
            “Told you,” Annie whispered, still holding onto Jack’s hand. When he realized he hadn’t let go yet he shook her off.
            “Who is that?” he said.
            The rider, about fifty feet off and fully comprehending the beast that sat in his way, drew a gun and aimed.
            “No!” Annie cried, standing up in the foliage.
            Jack stood too.
            The rider fired. Three times. Each bullet, however, bounced off Carl Sagan’s skull, or just his fur coat. Jack and Annie weren’t really sure of what they were seeing, but Jack cheered anyway.
            “Good Cat, Carl Sagan!” he cried.
            The rider, meanwhile, dressed all in khaki, tried to swerve around Carl Sagan, but was just frightened and off-balance enough that all the Super Tiger had to do was reach out a paw and swipe at him to knock him and the motorcycle to the ground.
            Immediately Jack jumped out of the elephant ears and saw who it was moaning on the ground.
            Hilti Holden Higgins.