Wyre-rat (part 21)

What a life. "In other places, it's not like that." I glanced at the window, the first hints of dawn showing above the buildings beyond. "So if you could leave, would you?"

He didn't have to know that the decision was already made. I couldn't let him go back to the Center.

"I don't know. This is my life." He made a small gesture beside one knee, as if his whole life was constrained in that tiny circle.

"Would you want to? Leave and start over somewhere else where people don't care what you are?"

"You're trying to trick me," he snapped, but he still spoke quietly. Then his head dropped. "But it doesn't feel like a lie. I don't know what to believe." He shuddered. His head fell back against the wall.

"When I was a kitten, I remember the whispers that would go around in the dormitories."

I stared at him, stunned. Kitten? They'd been dehumanized to the point where they didn't even call their infants children?

He didn't seem to notice. "Rumors of wyre captured. Of those who tried to escape being killed by the people outside. We always knew we were being watched, that nothing we said could be safe." He flinched at some memory. "Those who spoke of other rumors, of those who lived their lives outside the Center, they disappeared."

He dropped his head. "No one believed them anyway."

I stared at him, trying to understand. No, not to understand but to assimilate where he was coming from.

It sounded like something out of a previous century, some medieval King deciding who should live and who should die, telling people what to think.

It would make our escape that much more dangerous, and also far more important.

I didn't want to have to kill him.

"Will you come with me?"

His eyes widened a little and turned toward me in the half-dark of the early morning. "Come with you where?"

"Back to my home. I think I can get us both out." This was one of many danger points that I could see in the future. If he came with me because he felt he had no other choices, if he came because he was so used to obedience that he would follow any instruction, chances were very good that he would change his mind later.

It would have to be his decision. Instinctively I stretched my hands, as a rat would do to expose its claws. He glanced down at the movement.



Part 22

If you want to start at the beginning: Wyre-Rat episode 1

Wyre-rat (part 20)

"Having a cat dogging my footsteps is not going to make this easier." I used the word deliberately, wondering if the same sort of rivalry existed between wyre dogs and wyre cats. From the pained expression, it probably did.

I sat on the bed, my legs curled up under me. He sat against the wall, out of sight of either the door or the window, and talked very quietly.

"I can't stay here."

"I agree, but that's something we need to work out. Unless you'd like to wear a collar and harness?" I raised my eyebrows at him. I expected him to get all offended.

His mouth twisted up. "Until a year ago, that's the only way I got out of the Center. The supervisors would take us out to introduce us to the city."

I think my mouth fell open. "What?" I swallowed hard. "That's..."

"Disgusting?" He said it quietly, staring at his hands. "That's the way it is."

The back of my throat tasted foul. "Wyre are people too. Not animals that can turn into people, but people who can turn into animals."

He looked at me strangely. "Is there really a difference?"

"We're people first." I scrubbed at my mouth, swallowing the bile taste. "You are a person first. How could anyone think that is right?"

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. "I don't understand you. We couldn't survive out here. No one would want to hire us, we'd be distrusted and outcast."

"Is that what they told you?"

He seemed to be struggling again, glancing at me for a few seconds and then away. "That's the way it is."

"It doesn't have to be." How strange this must be to him. "My parents were wyre, and they both had jobs. Dad worked in sanitation and Mom in health care."

His eyes closed again. "People didn't mind having her...touch them?"

"Why would it matter?"

His eyes remained closed. "People don't like us touching them."



Part 21

If you want to start at the beginning: Wyre-Rat episode 1

Wyre-rat (part 19)

I rolled upright quickly, and looked under the low bed. Nothing. Stupid, stupid! Quickly I rolled together all of my equipment, slipped into the clothes that would identify me as a local.

Then I stood, undecided. There could be many explanations, and going back to the Center was only one of them. I could leave this place and not come back, leave him to the mercy of whatever prowled these streets.

But if they did come for me, they probably wouldn't use sirens. If I left I wouldn't be able to come back, and walking out that door after curfew would bring trouble down on my hostess as well.

I physically swayed, trying to decide, and saw a motion from the corner of my eye.

The cat sauntered out of the shadows and peered up at me.

I stared at him, settled to the edge of the bed. "And here I was trying to decide whether or not to kill you when you got back," I said conversationally.

The cat stiffened, as if he took the statement seriously.

"Now I'm going to ask you a question." I carefully kept my voice even. "Did you sneak out to go back to the Center?"

He didn't say anything, naturally. Just stared at me with those glowing eyes.

"Because if they come after us, you're going to be a bloody pile of fur on the floor when they get here."

The cat snorted, and I could swear he sounded amused.

"You think I'm kidding?"

In response, he crouched down with his hind end wiggling, then pounced forward, paws over something I couldn't see. For the first time I realized that he didn't have a tail. He looked up as if to make sure I understood.

"You eat as a cat?" I heard the disgust in my voice. I thought about what rats normally eat, and nausea raised its head.

He peered up at me, his mouth gaping open on a cat laugh. A moment later he jumped up on the bed and curled up where my head had been.

I nearly sighed. Time for episode 2, apparently.

I picked him up by the scruff of his neck and dropped him on the floor from head height. "Understand?" I asked.

Probably not.


Part 20




If you want to start at the beginning: Wyre-Rat episode 1

Wyre-rat (part 18)

"Once more, furball." I stared back.

His head ducked a little. He walked forward, staying well out of my reach, and this time curled up in his own bed. Men and cats.

I didn't sleep this time. Instead I stared into the dark. Choices to make.

I could head home, leave him to his own devices. I could send him out of the country, but that didn't leave out the possibility that there was a real "escapee" out there. Obviously he wasn't one--just an opportunist.

Could I in good conscience leave him here? I scrubbed at my scalp under hair, kept short because long hair was nasty to wash after I'd been a rat. Could I stay, and risk capture? I wouldn't be the only one risked in that scenario. They'd said no to me staying in the first place, and with good reason.

I carefully did not lean over to look at him. I knew from experience that a wyre animal's senses were just as acute as the real thing--although what real thing I would leave to the imagination.

I hissed quietly through my teeth, and wondered if he heard it. I might find myself out of a job when I got back, but--there's the rub. I couldn't leave one of my own kind here, if there was a way to get him out.

If he wanted to get out, which was by no means assured.

It occurred to me belatedly that I'd taken charge of a total innocent. He would have no idea how to survive in my world, would know nothing about the reality of it all. Only what he'd been spoon fed.

His comment that he'd thought I was a supervisor suddenly made sense, and I replayed our first meeting in my mind. He'd come with me, a total stranger. Now that I thought about it, nothing in our initial meeting had been what I thought. He hadn't chosen this--I'd simply assumed that any captive wyre would want to be free.

He might be better off if I let him go back, but I wouldn't. I'd compromised not only my own life and mission, but also the lives of any free wyre still living in the city. Letting him go back, to tell his people that there was a free wyre in the city, would start a witch hunt.

Whether he wanted to be free or not, I was committed now. I could either kill him, or get him out even against his will.

If I'd been in rat shape, I probably would have bitten my own tail for my stupidity.

I'd always wanted to be free, which was part of what had landed me in this situation, trapped inside a country hostile to my kind and trying to defend someone who might not want to be defended.

I rolled, looked over the edge of the bed, and hissed in a breath. Gone.


Part 19



If you want to start at the beginning: Wyre-Rat episode 1

Wyre-rat (part 17)

"Why would I do that? If I was one of your supervisors, why would I tell you things that go against everything you've been taught?"

His breath came a little deeper. "I don't know." Abruptly his shape shifted, shrank. He fought his way out of the clothes and stared at me. After a moment of contemplation he jumped up on the edge of the bed and bumped his head at my hand.

Did he want me to pet him? Weird. I held my hands away. He put his paws up on my knee, looked me in the face. I knew he was using the cat's senses to determine if I was telling the truth or not.

"I will try to get you out, if that's what you want," I whispered, and found my fingers running through the soft fur along his back. "I am not one of your supervisors, and keeping any human being captive like that is just..." I couldn't think of the word. "Disgusting."

He bumped his head against my hand and curled up with both paws on one thigh, an odd rumble shaking him. Purring?

I moved my hands uneasily, brushing him away without actually touching. "Get off me."

He jumped down and curled in the nest of clothes, as if determined to keep to his cat shape. I pulled the light blanket up. I'd be more comfortable as a rat, but best to stay human while he was a cat--particularly while I slept.

After a while I peeked over the edge of the bed and he was staring up at me. He twisted his head oddly, purred again. Stopped. Took a step closer to the edge of the bed and butted his head against my hand.

I yanked my hand away. "Will you stop that?"

The volume of his purrs increased. I've heard of a cat smile, but I don't think I've ever seen one. Obviously, just like every other cat, he wanted attention from anyone who wasn't interested in him.

"You jump up on this bed," I whispered fiercely, "you will find out what flying feels like." He peered up at me with that same grin, then put his paws up on the edge of the mattress and stared me in the face. A dare?

I stared back. "Try it, fur-ball."

The cat's head twisted to one side, and I could swear he was considering whether he wanted to push it. I raised my eyebrows at him.

After another contemplative moment, he put his paws down and curled up, still purring loudly. I settled back, pulled the blanket up and drifted off.

I woke up with a warm weight on my feet.

I sat up, glaring. He peered at me from under one paw, trying to look innocent. With the blanket wrapped around my feet I couldn't do much, but I flipped him over the edge of the bed. He thumped, rolled, sat staring at me in the dark. The way a cat's eyes glow is really eerie.


Part 18


If you want to start at the beginning: Wyre-Rat episode 1

Wyre-rat (part 16)

Good. He handed the bottle back to me and I gestured to the bathroom. "You can refill it and keep it, if you'd like."

As soon as that stuff got into his system, it would attack and neutralize whatever tracker they'd implanted. These were the kind of precautions that had kept me free this long.

He got to his feet and did as instructed. He settled back to the pallet with his water bottle clutched in his hand. "Who are you?"

No way I was going to tell him that, when even without the tracker he might go wyre and take the information back to his "Center."

"I'm a free wyre. I run an underground for others who want to get out."

I studied him, waited for his reaction, and wished I was in rat form. The rat would have known whether he was lying just from the smell.

He stared, blank-faced. "Want to get out?" He said it like it was unbelievable to him. "We're taken care of, we have everything. Why would we want to get out?"

So he had been part of a trap.

He stared down at his hands, turned them over. "I don't want to leave. I..."

I heard panic in his voice. "Then why did you come with me?"

"I thought you were a supervisor. Only a supervisor would be allowed out... unmonitored." He blinked, squeezed his eyes shut. His breath came very shallow, and as if I was still in rat form I knew his heart was beating too fast.

Frightened. He looked down at the water bottle. "Did you poison me?"

"No." Let him make of that what he would. "I am not one of these supervisors."

"There's no way." The words were nearly inaudible. "People hate us. The Center saved our lives. Wyre couldn't live out here, you're talking about an impossibility."

"Then why did you come with me?" I asked again. "I'm serious. I can try to get you out, if that's what you want. In most of the rest of the world, we live like anyone else. We're trusted, paid for our work. Treated like human beings."

"You're trying to trick me."



Part 17




If you want to start at the beginning: Wyre-Rat episode 1

Wyre-rat (part 15)

I magnanimously let him use the shower first. The blood, reekish as it was to my rat nose, barely registered as a human. I made up a pallet on the floor, since the single bed in the room was far too narrow for two.

Still a very real possibility that this was a trap, I perched on the windowsill in my rat form listening for any hint of unexplained movement outside the apartment.
He emerged from the shower, toweling his hair dry with one of the used-to-be-a-sheet towels the landlady had provided. He stumbled over the pallet, and stared in surprise at the rat staring out the window.

I jumped down, strolled past him into the miniscule bathroom and shut the door. After a moment I opened it again, still in rat form, and dragged my clothes through the door by my teeth.

He continued to stare, or I assume he did.

No big fancy tub here, no thick soft towels. And apparently no hot water. I shivered through my shower, dried off as much as I could and dressed again in the flippy white dress I'd started the day in.

I fluffed my hair with the square of cloth I presumed was intended to take the place of a towel and walked out into the bedroom. He was already curled up on the pallet of thin blankets, and looked so much like a human sized cat that I wondered for a moment. He looked up at me as I edged around him.

I sat on the bed, curled my feet under me and cocked my head to one side, waiting.

"You look like a rat when you do that." He uncurled himself and sat with his hands on his knees.

"You look like a cat when you do that," I retorted.

The corner of his mouth turned up. "You know they'll be after me."

"They can't track you any more." Of course they would use an implanted tracker as well, but it might be a while before they decided to use that.

"No one has ever gotten away." He looked away, studied my temporary refuge.

"They're holding you prisoner then. That's what the Center is for."

He blinked in surprise, looked me straight in the face for the first time since I'd shifted to human form. "Of course. Did you think otherwise?"

I reached into my bag and handed him a bottle of water I'd brought from my hotel room. "Drink that."

He stared down at it as if expecting poison. I grabbed the bottle, uncapped it and took a swallow. "Satisfied?"

Confused, he downed the water. He did seem thirsty, because he drank the whole thing with only a few stops for breath.


Part 16




If you want to start at the beginning: Wyre-Rat episode 1