Chapter 10 #4
She’s right on his tail. Literally, the swipe of her claws leaving some dark and light hairs behind as she pounces.
The scrabble of her as she turns the lunge into more forwards momentum.
He can hear Meece’s shrill wheeze for breath, and maybe the mouse has ten million years of being prey to prod him forwards, but he’s also a mouse towards the end of his lifespan who’s lived as sedentary scientist for most of it.
The sky darkens over them. At first Skotch thinks it’s just his own vision because he’s pushing his own boundaries too. It’s not, though. It’s the locals, come to see what’s going on.
The parrots descend in a wheeling, cackling mob.
Clawed feet snatch and rake at Skotch’s ears and back.
A thunder of bright wings batter the air back and forth.
Dozens of parrot throats give rise to a ghastly mutant gabble that runs the whole spectrum from comprehensible Tiersprech to just shrieks and whistles.
For a moment he’s sure they’re going for him, but instead it’s Tybelle they mob.
They know a predator on their patch when they see one, and numbers make them bold.
She hisses, yowls, leaps up to bat a couple from the air.
The rest evade, circle, return like flies to meat.
The brighter ones drop stones and bits of wood on her, or try to bullseye her with their shit.
And Skotch would very much like to sit back and watch this enjoyable turnabout but instead he’s pelting along with Meece under his chin.
And probably the mouse doesn’t trust him, but adversity has made them bedfellows and that apparently counts for something because, when Skotch has a moment to stop and breathe, Meece does in fact stop and breathe right alongside him.
Although he’s so plainly in need of breath that perhaps he’s just out of flight, and there was never much fight in him to start with.
Skotch is in the shadow of a great outgrowth of ivy the local street crews should have cut back a long time ago.
Meece is in the shadow of Skotch. There is an awkward détente, the mouse still poised in case flight turns out to be the right option after all.
“Listen,” Skotch says. Gets it all out as fast as he can. The betrayal of a confidence, the revelation of a personal secret that he could have done with keeping under wraps. But right now it’s all he can think of. Meece watches him, wide eyes behind grotesque goggles.
Tybelle comes stalking round the corner a little later, after she’s dodged the parrot mob. Perhaps after she’s taken a moment to clean herself off, given their filthier habits. Staring down at the exhausted Skotch through narrow eyes.
“You’re short a mouse, Herr Washbear.”
Skotch makes a big show of searching his super, shrugs, spreads empty hands. “Tricky little squeakers, you know how they are.”
Tybelle steps closer, dainty as a water strider dancing on a pond. There’s blood on her paws and she licks at it thoughtfully. Parrot blood, Mauler blood, maybe a bit of Skotch’s own. None of hers. Nobody’s come close to breaking Rule One on her account today, though not for want of trying.
“We’re throwing down now, you and me?” Skotch doesn’t feel like he has much to give, in the fighting stakes. Bruised and battered, a little cut up, wiped out by too much running around. A raccoon no longer in the bloom of youth. Three years old, and not likely to see four.
“You amuse me, Herr Washbear,” Tybelle says. She’s craning around a little, sniffing, trying to work out if Meece is still in Skotch’s shadow. He isn’t, though. He’s still running, and maybe he’s following Skotch’s plan, and maybe not.
“Raccoons, nature’s lovable clowns,” Skotch says, and braces for her to come at him.
She doesn’t, just sits there and regards him.
It’s the most damnable thing about cats, honestly.
Now they’re smart and augmented enough to beat a raccoon one-on-one, and they know it, they enjoy it.
They fight and kill dogs, too—Sly’s lost a few of his pack to them.
Those ailurophile genehackers didn’t know what a curse they were unleashing onto the Gehirner world, honestly.
But because they enjoy it, sometimes that means they don’t just go ahead and murder you.
If they feel that you’ve still got some fun in you for the future.
“Until next time, Herr Washbear,” she says, and he feels a wretched flood of relief pour through him. “Or until Mother Murnau gives me more explicit orders, concerning your fate. I’ll be watching you. I’ll be your shadow. When you lead me to the mouse next time, we’ll finish our dance.”
Szerky, he can understand. The stoatweasel is just like a hyper-carnivorous version of him, really.
Part of the system, working for a living, even if she clearly enjoys that her work involves hunting and killing prey animals.
Tybelle is like an alien monster, though.
She has a food bowl and a human home to go back to.
She’s out here killing Gehirner because it’s her hobby.
“Until next time, Tibbles,” he agrees. He’d hoped the nickname would annoy her but her tail crooks in amusement, and then she’s gone, leaping away into the green.
Skotch sags back. There will, he has no doubt, be a next time.