Falling Stars, Rising Hopes

Making Plans

    Again, she was greeted with a swarm of cats. Although she didn’t realize there was a swarm until it reached her feet. Night-vision goggles only worked if you were looking at the thing coming towards you. “What happened? Show us! Show us!” the kittens clamored in their little squeaky voices, tugging at her pants. Some of them stood on their back legs to bat at her hips and elbows. “Let us see!”

    “I’ll show you if you’ll turn visible and give me enough room I don’t step on your paws.” It was good practice for them and made it easier for Tanya to tell them apart. Instantly, the room was filled with twenty-two cat-sized kittens of all colors. They quickly organized themselves into a neat semicircle around her with their tails tucked primly around their front paws. “Now will you show us?” Wildfire demanded. She was one of the youngest kittens, only three months old, named for her favorite tortoiseshell pattern.

    “Yes, I’ll show you.” Tanya replayed the video. The scouts kept up a running commentary the entire time. It sounded like they were watching a sporting event, cheering at Dr. Daniels’s logic and hissing at Dr. Hill. Some of them fell over laughing when Jasper came out.

   “The expression on his face! He hates carrying the thing, you can tell!” Apparently, the cameras picked up infrared light. Like pit vipers, the scouts had heat sensors that let them see each other, even when they were invisible. One of the assistants had tried to explain it, but Tanya had given up about halfway through. It worked, and she didn’t care how. The other kittens nudged the laughers upright, then fell over themselves when Jasper asked “Cat got your tongue?”

    “Oh, the way he said it. Just the way he said it.” Shadow, a six-month-old male, giggled, flopping over on his side. If Tanya ever did get married, she would be an expert on kids. The kittens were like hyperactive six-year-olds, and she was the one who had to corral them for half the day. Thankfully, they settled down around nine months old. She steadfastly refused to play the video a second time. She’d already seen it three times, and the idea of a fourth wasn’t particularly appealing. After a good amount of whining, the fulls calmed down.

    “So, what have you been doing today?” Tanya asked. From the babble of answers, she gathered that they’d woken up, eaten breakfast, played Match This Thing, where one kitten named something they all had to make their fur match, slept, practiced fighting, and slept some more until they heard her coming. Then the younger ones demanded that she tell them a story.

   “Not until you’ve shown me our work from yesterday.” With more grumbling and complaining, each scout showed her the essay they’d written the day before. For the youngest, it was a paragraph about their average day. For the middle ones, it was a description of what they’d learned that day. For the oldest ones, it was an analysis of an assigned poem. Tanya’s job was to evaluate their work and learn about their personalities. She reported her findings to Dr. Daniels or his replacement. The essays were kept on file to trace both the development of the individual scouts and the development of their society.

    After reading and making notes on the last one, she told them the story of Jasper’s first mission, which they preceded to reenact seventeen times before flopping into exhausted sleep. With a sigh, Tanya put her night-vision goggles back on so she could keep track of the kittens, rubbing her nose, which was sore from where the goggles rubbed it. Why do they have to turn invisible when they sleep? she wondered, not for the first time. It would make them so much easier to keep track of. Of course, the rats would have an easier time keeping track of them, too. From what little information she had managed to gather, it sounded like the invisibility was subconscious, and they only turned visible when they were thinking about it. When they weren’t, like when they were sleeping, they turned invisible.

    When the kittens woke up, they went back to playing, wrestling and acting out parts of their favorite stories. One, Cape, even made up her own story about a brave scout who went on an adventure and fought rats and killed them and brought back a giant bag of food to share with her friends. Tanya recorded the entire thing, feeling a thrill of excitement. She hadn’t realized the scouts were creative enough to come up with their own stories. She’d seen them adapting human stories. Wildfire and Slinky were pretending to be merchant ships, and Highwayman and Insider were pretending to be the pirates that came to attack them. But she’d never realized they could come up with stories on their own.  

    After her shift, she made her way to what was usually Dr. Daniels’s office. If she remembered correctly, his top assistant, Parmina Gravari, was in charge until he came back. Tanya debated waiting. The poor woman was busy enough already. But she knew putting it off would make her even less likely to get up the courage to ask. She knocked on the door.

    “Come in.” Despite originally being from India, Parmina had an accent that bordered on British. “What is it?” she asked without looking away from her screen. Her white shirt was pleated neatly. Tanya hadn’t even known there was an iron on the base, much less anyone who would bother with it. Ironing was pointless, at least in her opinion.

    “Um, I was wondering if um, one of my friends could come visit the scouts,” Tanya stammered.

    “Speak up. I can hardly hear you. And you’d better have a reason for interrupting like this. Do you realize how much work I have to do?”

    “I was wondering if one of my friends could come visit the scouts,” Tanya repeated, resisting the urge to shout. Passive aggression wasn’t the best bet for getting someone to agree with you.

    “Which one? I didn’t know you had or needed friends.” Parmina flicked her finger against the screen. She still hadn’t looked at Tanya.

    “George Whitfield,” she said. Of course I have friends, she thought. Haven't you seen me eating lunch with them five out of seven days?

    “Ah. Him.” She smiled knowingly, and Tanya blushed. Why did everyone assume that- She shied away from the end of the sentence. “Well, it doesn't look like Dr. Daniels has gotten around to authorizing it, if he ever did. You did talk to him about it, didn't you?"

    "Yes, before he left."

    "What did he say?"

    "He said it ought to be fine."

    "All right, I suppose that's good enough. Has your Mr. Whitfield been to Dr. Ramirez?”

    “Yes. We’ve been there several times. But he's not my Mr. Whitfield.” Now Tanya was confused. Why did she want to know?

    “Good. I’ll talk to her, see what she thinks, and let you know tomorrow.” Parmina said, completely ignoring Tanya's last statement, and waved her free hand in dismissal. Tanya left and headed towards the common room. She could still feel her cheeks burning as the thick steel door hissed shut behind her.

    “Why? Why,” she asked the empty hall, “does everyone think that-?”

    “Think what?” She was suddenly very grateful she hadn’t finished the sentence.

    “Hi, George. Nothing. Just talking to myself.”

    “Didn’t sound like nothing. Sounded more like you were irritated with something.”

    “Don’t worry. It wasn’t you.” At least, not technically. “I talked to Dr. Daniels’s assistant about letting you come, and she said she’ll let me know tomorrow.”

    “Great! I hope it goes well.”

    “So do I.” They headed off for another night of talking and playing hologames. Tanya heard the hiss of the door reclosing and turned. She caught a glimpse of a white shirt before the door sealed.

    That night, she thought a lot about her relationship with George. Why did everyone think they were closer than they were? Was it just matchmaking instincts? Here, there's a guy and a girl about the same age who know each other. Let's get them together! Or was it something else? Tanya had never been very good at reading social cues. Were they spending too much time together? Were they doing "more than friends" type things together? Or, more generally, what in the world was going on to make people think that? To make Handful think that. Was she just talking about him too much? Was that it? And of course, there was no way to tell who had started the rumor. Rumors spread like crazy, and there was no way to track down who started them. And she couldn't ask George if he'd had the same things happening to him. Just no. There was no way to phrase that question without extreme awkwardness. She'd just have to wonder and hope someone bothered to explain it to her. Until then, she'd just have to try not to think about it. Not like that worked very well. Every time she managed to think of something else, it would creep back in. Only going to sleep made the question go away.

    Tanya stopped by the office before she started work the next day. She was almost more nervous than she had been the first time. Again, she knocked on the door.

   “I don’t have time for this, but come in.” Parmina sounded exhausted and determined to pretend she wasn’t. Her shirt was a bit wrinkled, and she'd undone the first button. This time, she glanced briefly at Tanya before turning back to her screen. “Dr. Ramirez seems to think he’s safe, so I guess it’s all right.” Tanya barely resisted the urge to squeal, clasp her hands, and go skipping around the room. She went with a broad smile and “Thank you very much.”

   “When were you thinking of bringing him?"

    "Monday at four." Parmina nodded.

    "I'll put it on the calendar, and we’ll see how it goes.”

    “Thank you, Ms. Gravari.”

    “You can go now.” As Tanya left, she heard her mutter. “How in the world does Dr. Daniels handle all this? I stayed up all night to work on this and there's still mounds of paperwork. Oh, right. He has me to help him.” Tanya hid a smile. Some things couldn’t be changed, even by the end of the world as they knew it.