“ALL MUST ANSWER!” said the robot, charging up to Vicki and Andromeda. It craned up to its full height and pressed near the baby. Vicki gave a sharp cry and tried to hold her out of its reach.
“POSSIBLE CAT!” screeched the robot. “INVESTIGATING!”
“It’s not a cat!” I said. “It’s a human! A human infant!”
The cat hunter eased away and relaxed its posture again.
“CORRECT. MESSAGE CONTINUES. ALL CATS MUST BE SURRENDERED TO A GORG OR GORG REPRESENTATIVE BY SUNDOWN TONIGHT! ANY HUMAN FOUND TO BE HARBORING A CAT AFTER THIS TIME WILL BE DISASSEMBLED! HIS CLOSEST NEIGHBORS WILL BE SEVERELY PUNCHED! MESSAGE STOPS.”
With that, the crab scurried away, its joints and feet making chewing and ticking noises across the pavement. I felt like I had an all-over sunburn.
“Thanks,” I told Vicki. “For not…”
She didn’t really look at me when she answered. She would have been looking at my hat if I had been wearing one.
“You’d better let your cat go,” she said flatly, “or turn it over before tonight. You can’t fight things.”
She turned to leave.
“Maybe I’ll pop in and check up on you later,” she added, and zipped off home.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We jogged alongside Slushious for a while, pushing it as fast as we could manage. Then we jumped in and rode until it ran out of momentum, and we had to jog again.
“What does she keep having to ‘check’?” I said. “You’d think we needed watering or something.”
We coasted along in silence for a minute. A big ball of burgundy ponytails and black braids rolled across the road ahead of us.
“Look,” I said halfheartedly. “Another one of those tumbleweeds made out of old hair weaves.”
“Tumbleweave,” said J.Lo.
I frowned at the rearview mirror as we slowed. “Were people this crazy before you guys invaded?”
“I was not around beforeto us guys invaded.”
“It was a rhetorical question.”
“Ah. Then the answer is yes.”
We opened our doors and propelled the car forward again. More cat hunters moved through the town, down at the ends of streets where the air shimmered.
“J.Lo?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not trying to be bossy all the time. It just comes out that way. You know?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe that’s what makes me crazy. Always having to have it my way. Maybe that’s what makes both me and Vicki crazy.”
“Chief Shouty Bear is perhaps crazy,” said J.Lo after we’d hopped inside again.
“Yeah,” I said. “Or he wants people to think so.”
The tall fence appeared in our windshield, and Lincoln the Great Dane sprang from it and turned circles around the car as we pulled up. The Chief’s place was on a small hill, just a bump, really, but it made it difficult to keep Slushious in one place.
“Here,” said the Chief as he emerged from the yard and propped open big double doors. Then he grabbed our front bumper and helped us move the car inside.
J.Lo and I were panting, and we sat down against Slushious in a thin slip of shade. The Chief disappeared into the house and came back with water.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Should’ve offered yesterday. Not hospitable of me.”
I gulped down the water.
“Well…not to be rude, but you don’t really have a reputation for hospitality around here. I mean, I guess it’s a part of your…of who you—”
He stood staring down at me for a moment, his face dark with the sun behind his straw hair.
“The shouting, you mean.”
“Right,” I said. “What’s the deal with that?”
“Hobby,” said the Chief. “I’m retired.”
“You didn’t raise your voice once when it was just the three of us. Well, you did a bit during your whole carnival spiel. Which could use some work, if you ask me.”
He huffed.
“But then Vicki and Kat show up and you’re all, ‘GO AWAY, TREATY-BREAKER! DON’T…UM…DON’T—”
“I never said ‘treaty-breaker.’”
“Yeah, well, that was the basic theme, anyway.”
“I only usually shout at the white people,” he said. “Tradition. I’ve got no beef with you.”
“I’m half white,” I said, folding my arms.
“Hrrm. Which half?”
I blinked. “Uh…dunno. Let’s say it’s from the waist down.”
Chief Shouting Bear nodded. “Deal. I only hate your legs.”
We looked at each other for a moment, during which I could hear him breathe like an old house.
“I’m Gratuity,” I said. “People call me Tip. And that’s Pig in the car.”
“Frank,” he answered, and offered his hand. I shook it.
“Oh,” I said. “I thought…I heard…”
“You heard my name was Chief Shouting Bear,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. You can call me whatever you want, Stupidlegs.”
“Deal.”
J.Lo approached and tapped the Chief’s elbow.
“Hey, Spook,” said the Chief. J.Lo handed him a small card I’d helped him write. With the way the Roswell BOOBs looked at him every time he opened his mouth, we agreed he shouldn’t push his luck with the Chief.
“My name is JayJay,” read the Chief in a monotone. “I am ten years old. I have taken a vow of silence and wear this costume in solidarity with our Boovish cousins in their fight against the wicked Gorg.”
The Chief gave the card back. “Nothing wrong with that,” he said. “Hell, I wore a feather headdress for a while in the sixties.”
I popped the hood on Slushious, careful not to make all the tires fall off, while the Chief closed and latched the gates again.
“You say a Boov modified this for you?” he asked as he stepped up.
“Yeah. In Pennsylvania.”
“An’ it’s broken.”
“Right. Still floats, but doesn’t drive anymore.”
“An’ it was broken yesterday, when you tried to sell it to me?”
“Um…yeah.”
“Hrm.”
He poked at hoses and unfastened gaskets. I sincerely hoped he wasn’t doing anything dangerous, because J.Lo was suddenly nowhere to be seen. I expected he’d slipped off to examine the teleclone booth again.