the cat

[instar]

Comments

[hold_infinity]

"Right," she says, "yeah."

[instar]

"And then maybe Charlie - I mean, Dad, sorry - pretends to be an illegal immigrant or that he lost all his ID in a house fire and his parents believed that Social Security numbers were the mark of the beast, and washes dishes or something and rents an apartment. Not really seeing you settling comfortably into the pigeon lifestyle, Dad."

[sundayfish]

"I know you call me Charlie when you're not paying attention. Think you have plenty else to pay attention to, now." He sighs. "I'll see what I can get, I s'pose."

[hold_infinity]

"Yeah," says Robin, contemplating this plan.

[instar]

"Hmm?"

[hold_infinity]

"Nothing, just - I'm worried something's going to go wrong with that. There's too many things that could."

[instar]

"I've been trying to think of a way to safely get at blood samples," shrugs Bella. "Or corpses, for that matter, but I'm not coming up with anything. Ideas?"

[hold_infinity]

"...It shouldn't be that difficult to get at a corpse," Robin says thoughtfully. "Especially if it doesn't have to be a whole corpse..."

[instar]

"Do you have whole or partial corpses lying around somewhere unguarded where it won't be obvious someone has been digging them up? Charlie says the local morgue would be too easy for him to get caught in - if someone legally alive and officially present were found in there it'd be fairly easy to paper over, but the place does have cops around."

[hold_infinity]

"Well - I hadn't got as far as details, I just sort of put 'morph powers', 'nighttime' and 'digging' together in my head and gave them a shake," she says. "I mean, no one accuses earthworms of grave robbing, do they? But I don't actually know what kind of creatures would be good for the job - we might even need several. And it'd be nasty work, and we don't actually know how big a piece we'd need to acquire from, or how fresh it'd have to be..."

[instar]

"The casket seems like it'd get in the way of a mole or whatever, and I don't want to disturb enough earth to make it clear that someone has, in fact, been digging up dead people. I'd rather figure out how raccoons or something could go about robbing a blood bank, if we decide it's too risky to send Charlie and Trouble flying to Las Vegas to acquire drunks."

[hold_infinity]

"I was imagining something smaller than a mole," says Robin. "Acquiring drunks in Las Vegas would definitely be less disgusting, though."

[instar]

"By a long shot. And if they're drunk, being observed by them is not nearly as big a problem."

[hold_infinity]

"Yeah. Hmm, blood... can mosquitoes throw up, I wonder?"

[instar]

"I think only the females drink blood, which suggests they're doing something with it other than lunching, so maybe. But I do not think any of us should be a mosquito. Mosquitoes are fragile, hated, slow, and not terribly difficult to detect."

[hold_infinity]

"Mm," says Robin. "That just means we should be careful mosquitoes, if we need to be."

[instar]

"If Trouble or Charlie screw up in Las Vegas or wherever, then there will be an unsubstantiable report of someone who's supposed to be dead - and screwing up that badly is very unlikely; do you read obituaries from out of state and memorize the associated photographs and bother to tell anyone if you spot them, in the dark, while buzzed? If we screw up as mosquitoes we're dead - or, potentially even worse, maybe half-swatted and trying to demorph in front of somebody who we really should not be demorphing in front of."

[hold_infinity]

Robin shrugs. "I don't necessarily mean we should use mosquitoes for this. But who says this is going to be the only time we'll want to acquire somebody we might not be able to just walk up to? Or something. Maybe someday we'll want to acquire an animal from a zoo we can't break into, or something wild we couldn't get close to easily. I think it's worth finding out if we could use mosquitoes in those kinds of situations, and maybe even figuring out how to do it. And if not mosquitoes, I want to know if there's something else that's small and drinks blood that would work better."

[instar]

"It's worth at least looking up blood-drinking bugs," allows Bella. "Fleas are harder to swat. Find out if fleas can vomit."

[hold_infinity]

"Fleas might not have the carrying capacity," she points out. "And they're probably even less mobile. I'll make a chart."

[instar]

"Excellent. A chart."

[hold_infinity]

Robin grins. "I'm proud of my charts!"

[aeskhyne]

A feline of some kind - tall for a housecat, small for most other things, with long luxurious fur in a pale grey-brown with black spots, and a creamy off-white underbelly - slinks into the room, tail held high.

<Look how cute I am!> says Trouble. <Aren't I the cutest?>

He butts his head against Robin's knee.

[hold_infinity]

"You're adorable," giggles Robin, crouching down to pet him.

[instar]

"You look like one of those ridiculously expensive - what are they called - Savannah cats," says Bella. "What'd you mix in?"