Falling Stars, Rising Hopes

Names and Faces

                                                                    Chapter 8

    As Tanya finished her shift, a woman appeared at her elbow.

    “Hi. I’m Adira Ramirez. Dr. Daniels asked me to come talk to you. I’m a techno-sociologist. I study how technology impacts society,” she translated. “And I would love to hear your first impressions about the research we’re doing.”  Tanya guessed she was in her forties or early fifties.

     “Okay,” she said. Adira led her to a small room off the main one. Tanya had never noticed it before because the door was always closed. Now it was open, and she followed Adira inside. It was a nice, cozy, little office. She felt herself relaxing. It was almost like she was stepping into an office before, the most commonly used term to describe anything before the fateful night of May 10, 2164. Or possibly the 11th. No one had quite decided if the dividing line were when the fake meteorites landed or when the rats hatched.

    “Do you mind if I record this?”

    “No, not at all.” The older woman busied herself with a screen for a few seconds, giving Tanya time to examine her. Average height, black hair just starting to turn gray. Nothing spectacular except for the cloud of energy she put off, energizing anyone who got close.

    “So, how did you find out about the cats talking?”

    “I was putting Battalion, SSCR-37, back in his cage…” Expertly, the sociologist drew her out, moving from the day’s events to her job before. By Tanya’s estimate, they were there for more than half an hour, but the interview flew by. Finally, Adira called an end to it.

    “That’s all I need to know for today. Thank you for participating.”

    “You’re welcome. It was nice.” She left and headed out the magic door, which seemed more magical than ever. All throughout that day, she could feel the secret nestled within her mind, like holding the last piece of a puzzle and knowing how it fit.

    Now that she knew the truth, things changed almost unbelievably quickly. Tanya was given higher security clearance and another job; helping with the modified kittens. But these were by no means ordinary kittens. By the time they were ready to leave their mothers, they were already almost as big as Handful. The oldest ones, around six months old, were so big their backs came to Tanya’s knee. And by the time they were full-grown, she would be able to pet them without bending over. She could barely imagine it.

    And their size wasn’t the only amazing thing about them. After a month working with them, Tanya still couldn’t get used to the invisibility. One second, a kitten would be facing her. The next second, it would be gone. Not really, but the control they had over their coat colors was so precise they really did seem invisible. The only way she could find them was by touch.

    But they didn’t stay invisible all of the time. At any given moment, of the fifteen kittens she helped take care of, five would be invisible and ten would be visible. Some of the kittens liked normal cat patterns. Alec and Rabbit were gray, Pebble was a tabby, Princess was black, Yeast was a sandy color, and Patchwork was a calico. But some of them didn’t. Cheshire, for one, loved an almost fluorescent orange that had given him his name. Siren was bright red and blue. Amethyst was the color of her namesake, and Highness was a rich, dark, green.

    Tanya loved them all, and she wasn’t the only one. The other people who worked with them loved them too, and as time went on, she became friends with them. Iris Remmiral was the kind of person you just didn’t refuse, and she was determined that Tanya was going to be her friend. So she was. Thomas Reed had the shift after Tanya’s, and they were both on the kitten naming committee, so they became friends, too. Emilia Rodriguez, who refused to be called Emily, was Thomas’s girlfriend and a former elementary school teacher. Her job was to teach the kittens about humans, so she spent a lot of time with Tanya. Felicia got promoted a few weeks after Tanya, and she introduced them to her brother Carlos.

   It was a strange sensation, having a group of friends. For a perpetual outsider, it was both exhilarating and worrying. Exhilarating because she had people to talk to that agreed with most of her opinions, and worrying because she always wondered if she were about to drive them off. It made her more careful with her words and less likely to be the first to mention a controversial topic.

    She found herself drawing away from George. He didn’t know about the cats, and now that she had other friends, she tended to talk to them instead. Besides, he had his own friends, few of which liked her. He defended her from the others, but now he didn’t have to, because she didn’t have to spend time with people she didn’t like just so she could spend time with people she did. He had his friends, she had hers. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to work?

    The outside world got worse and worse. The satellite images showed complete devastation, as if every city in the world had gotten bombed. Nowhere escaped. Some of the bases near big cities, by necessity the least hidden, were destroyed. It became a ritual to gather around the common room’s radio every night to hear the reporters reading a list of those who had died that day. The words “There have been no new casualties today” were a cause for celebration. They rarely came.

   By October, the bases around the world had worked together to make two lists. One was the list of the survivors, created by compiling a census of each base. The other was the list of the confirmed dead, and was added to after the reporters’ announcements. But those only covered about one and a half billion people. The rest were unknown. Many cities had burned. Others had only been leveled. Trackers went out almost every day, looking for supplies the rats had left relatively untouched. Among the things they brought back were bone samples, in hopes that DNA sequencing could identify them. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t. Both lists grew daily, but they barely made a dent in the number of unknowns.

    Most of this Tanya learned from Iris, who seemed to consider it her duty to know everything that was going on above their heads. Before everything happened, she had been a reporter for the Frankfort news, chosen for her drive and curiosity. That drive and curiosity now led her to a position as the civilian head of base media, where she worked with Adira and Francesco Cariello, the military head. Because so much happened on any given day, it was their job to sort through the information and decide which ones to tell the rest of the base about. And whenever one of her friends asked about the news, she could tell them more than they could ever need to know. Sometimes, Tanya wondered how her brain could possibly hold so much information.

    But mostly, what Tanya and her friends talked about was the cats. The breakthroughs and difficulties with making the transformation safe, the different aspects of the transformation, and the kittens. Mostly the kittens. Because talking, color-changing kittens, once you got used to them, were even cuter than the regular kind. And funnier. Everyone who worked with them had a favorite. Tanya’s current favorite was Alec, because he reminded her of Handful when she was a kitten. And his name had a similar story. One day, he had asked “Why do you call me Popcorn?”

    “Because when you were born, your meows sounded like popcorn squeaking. So we named you Popcorn,” Thomas said.

   “But I don’t want to be Popcorn. It’s a ridiculous name,” the kitten had sniffed.

   “All right. I’ll talk to the naming committee, and we’ll see if we can come up with something.” Popcorn was the oldest of the kittens, so no one knew how to react to this request. That had been an interesting discussion. Some of the committee members had been furious at the thought of the cats changing their names.

    “We don’t get to change our names if we don’t like them. Why should they?” they grumbled. “Names are permanent.”

    “But people can change their names. They do. There was a whole section of the government devoted to keeping track of name changes. And back when a lot of cats changed owners during their lives, a lot of them got their names changed. It’s not that unusual,” Thomas retorted. After a long debate, the committee decided to let him change his name. Then there was another long debate about whether he or they should come up with the name.

    “It’s his idea,” Tanya said.

    “But he’s three months old! He’s not old enough to know what is or isn’t a good name!” Iris retorted. Finally, Dr. Daniels had an idea.

    “What if we make a list of names and he picks between them? That way he still gets to choose, but he’s not going to choose something totally inappropriate.”

    “Fine,” they all chorused. Like with most compromises, no one was happy with it, but no one could come up with a better plan. So, they all came up with three names and discussed their choices until they narrowed the list down to five. Tanya’s three were Might, Protector, and Imaginer. None of them got picked. The final five were Victor, to inspire him to be one, Sword, because he was gray and to be a weapon against the rats, Lake, because he had the most gorgeous blue eyes Tanya had ever seen, Hatter, because, in Iris’s words, “he’s as mad as one,” and Alec, because he was such a smart-aleck. The whole discussion took most of an afternoon, so they decided not to show Popcorn the list until morning. Which, conveniently, was Tanya’s shift.

    “Well?” the kitten asked almost as soon as she stepped into the room. “Can I change my name?”

    “You can. We’ve even come up with a list for you to choose from.” Tanya put the screen down on the floor so he could read it.

    “Victor, Sword, Lake, Hatter, and Alec,” he muttered. “A lake is a giant pool of water, so no. Water is fine for drinking, but a million million cats couldn’t drink a lake. I don’t like hats, and I don’t want to be named after someone who makes them. Victor is fine, I guess. Kind of cool-sounding, but I don’t want to be named after Mr. Victor.” Victor was in charge of testing the kittens to make sure they were developing properly, so of course, none of them liked him.

   “Sword is interesting, if a bit old-fashioned. Who makes swords anymore besides holovid people? They’re cool, but not nearly as powerful as guns. So, I guess that leaves Alec. Kind of like Alex, but more interesting. And I wouldn’t be named after a thing. That would be nice. Alec. Alec, Alec, Alec. Sure. I’ll be Alec,” he said.

   “All right. I’ll put it in the computers,” Tanya said, picking up the screen and crossing off the other four names.

    Soon, the others followed suit. Tickler became Amethyst, Ape became Cheshire, Silence became Princess, Irate became Siren, and Engine became Patchwork. The new names took a bit of getting used to, but everyone got used to it. There was nothing like the look of pride and excitement on a kitten’s face when someone called them by their new name for the first time. They almost seemed to glow with happiness.

    As time went on and more and more kittens were created, they needed a name for the modified cats besides “modified cats.” Sometimes, Tanya thought that joining the naming committee had been a terrible mistake. It was fun coming up with names that fit the kittens, but sometimes it seemed like names were vital to every important decision about the cats. Including this one.

    “Invisikitties?” Tanya suggested half-jokingly. They had been there for half an hour, and nobody had come up with a good name yet.

    “Sounds like a superhero sidekick on a kid’s holovid,” Thomas said. “What about, um, let me think. There’s got to be something we can call them.”

    “Why not just keep calling them modified cats?” Iris asked.

    “Because it emphasizes how strange they are. If we give them a more neutral name, they’ll be accepted more easily,” Dr. Daniels said.

    “Adira told you that, didn’t she?” It was exactly the kind of semi-technical explanation she would give.

    “Guilty as charged.” They all laughed, and the mood relaxed.

    “What will they be doing?” Iris asked. “A lot of the time, things are named after what they do.”

   “We’re thinking they’ll go out with the searchers, scout around, see if there are any rats in the area. If there are, they’ll either kill them or call the expedition off, depending on how many there are. They’ll also defend the bases they stay at between formal missions,” Dr. Daniels explained.

   “If their main job is scouting around, why not call them scouts?” Iris asked.

   “That would work.” They took a vote. Seven people thought it was a good name, four didn’t.

   “So, it’s official. The modified cats are scouts,” Dr. Daniels said, scribbling it down on the official record-keeping screen.

    “But there are two kinds. The adults and the kittens. They’ll need different names, too, soon enough. It won’t be long until Alec and Cheshire and the rest are all grown up,” Thomas said.

    “It’s the difference between partly modified and fully modified cats, right?” Tanya asked.

    “Yeah.”

    “So, as long as we’re going with simple names, why not just call them partials and fulls?” The vote on that was close, but six to five was still a majority. The adults would be partials, and the kittens would be fulls, and both would be scouts.