Cyberkatz 1999 -- Conclusion

 EPISODE FIFTEEN: PARKER'S LUCKY BANDANNA

Kurt let his bag drop with a groan and flexed his arms. He felt as if he had been walking for days without getting any closer to his destination

He should have gone towards Ucluelet instead of Tofino. Ucluelet was closer, and he could have caught a bus there just as easily as in Tofino. The difference in distance had seemed negligible when he was on wheels, but he was on foot now, loaded down with a hockey bag that seemed to be gaining weight by the minute.

He looked at the sun, trying to estimate the time. His almost new multi-function watch was still lying on the bedside table in Unit 6 of the Riverbend Hotel in Port Alberni, unless the police had seized it for evidence, or the chambermaid had wrapped it up for mailing to Bill Curtis at a non-existent address.

The walk had worked the chill out of his bones and sharpened his appetite. His stomach growled, reminding him that breakfast was overdue.

He had planned to make his getaway on Parker's motorcycle. If he could manage the switchback in the dark, it should be a cinch by daylight. At Nanaimo, he would buy a bus ticket and spend the long ride home making up a plausible story to explain the loss of the Trekker and its contents. Once he arrived in Saskatoon, he could get his life back on track and forget Melissa, Cynthia, Parker, and their assorted thugs. His plan, which had seemed simple and elegant while he was sitting on the driftwood log listening to the soothing roar of the ocean, had run aground when he discovered that the motorcycle had disappeared. Someone had beat him to it.

A recreational vehicle passed. He tried to flag it down, but the driver accelerated.

Kurt dropped the bag beside the pavement and slumped down on it. Tofino might as well be on the moon. Surely somebody would take pity on him and give him a ride before he starved to death!

His eyelids began to droop. 

The sound of an approaching engine snapped him back into alertness. He looked around eagerly, then sighed. It was only a motorcycle. Even if the rider wanted to help, he couldn't accommodate the hockey bag. 

The road hog roared closer. The rider was helmetless, going hell bent for leather, his auburn curls swept back by the wind. It looked like . . . it couldn't be . . .

"Parker!"

Kurt leaped to his feet, waving wildly as the motorcycle swept past him.

"Parker," Kurt said again, letting his hands drop to his side. He had greeted him as a fellow survivor, forgetting that their last meeting was not particularly amicable. Instead of waving his arms and shouting, he should have been praying that Parker did not recognize him as the man who had knocked him out with a chair, shot at him with a disintegration pistol, and stolen his motorcycle.

Parker executed a U-turn without slowing noticeably. Kurt picked up his hockey bag and hefted it. Maybe, if he threw it at Parker hard enough, he could get a head start in the final race of his life.

Parker stopped beside him, scowling. The scowl deepened when Kurt reached into his pocket.

"Relax," Kurt said. "It's just your bandanna." He held it out to Parker tentatively, like a white flag. "I found it when I was checking out the explosion."

Parker's face lit with a grin. "Thanks," he said, as if the battle of Unit 6 had never happened. "That's my lucky bandanna. I just had to come back and look for it."

"It must be lucky, for you to survive that explosion. Your jacket is hardly melted at all."

Parker finished tying the bandanna around his head. "That was your car, wasn't it?" he asked. "Sorry about that."

"Nothing you could do." Kurt put the bag down, his knees trembling. "It was a cow anyway."

"A bit underpowered, but it had guts. We would have made it if I hadn't slowed down, but that damn cat kept screaming at me to slow down so she could jump out, and I got rattled."

"Sorry about wiping out your road hog," Kurt said. "I'm glad it's still running."

"She's a tough machine. Been through worse."

"Did Cynthia send you back here to kill me?"

Parker snorted. "If that was the case, you'd already be dead. I'm done with this gig. I told Jenny to pack up her equipment and get the hell out of my shop. I never want to see that bitch again."

The corner of Kurt's mouth twitched. "Bet you've said that before."

"Yeah, but I mean it this time. She keeps me in the dark about everything, and next thing I know, I'm in the middle of a fight with no idea who's who."

Kurt nodded. He and Parker had more in common than he'd realized.

"Cynthia is gone too?" Kurt asked, fantasizing about just one more farewell appointment before he headed home.

"Forever," Parker said emphatically. "I ran my shop without all that fantasy junk before Jenny came along, and I can do it again."

"What -- and live without the VR rush?" Kurt teased.

For a moment, Parker's eyes softened with longing. Then he shook his head. "Forget the VR. I'm sticking to rpgs from now on."

"You do role playing?" Kurt asked. "What's your favourite?"

"Megatrex."

"Me too!" Kurt said. "Path of Peril has sort of taken over the last six months, but there's nothing like a good Megatrex campaign to get my mind off my troubles."

Parker revved his engine. "Gotta get back to the shop. You want a ride?"

"Cool," Kurt said. "I'll just grab a few things out of my bag."

"Leave it," Parker said. "It's just stuff."

Kurt meant to protest. Instead, he found himself laughing. "You're right," he said. "It's just stuff."

He straddled the seat behind Parker and yelled a war cry as they took off. It was good to be alive.

"Can we stop for breakfast at Port Alberni?" he shouted into the rushing wind

CONCLUSION: CYBERKATZ UNLIMITED

"I had to get out of there," Kurt told anyone who would listen. "The big one could come at any time." He didn't talk about Melissa or the other cats. At times, he wasn't even sure they had ever existed.

His memories were like a handful of isolated pieces from a jigsaw puzzle. An earthquake, mind-numbing pheromones', a hair-raising motorcycle ride over the switchback, and some impossible images of phaser fire and a cat leaping into the ocean waves.

His uncle had given him a job as a short-order cook right away, along with a bachelor apartment over the restaurant. Kurt spent most of his free time at home watching TV with the stuffed cat he had bought at a garage sale. It was a hassle to go anywhere without a car, and he didn't feel like going out anyway. He knew his friends were laughing at him for panicking at a simple 3.7 tremor. After all, the big one had never come.

One off-work afternoon, Kurt was absorbed in the most thrilling moment of a sword and sorcery movie when someone knocked. He tried to ignore it, but the person on the other side continued to pound on the door.

He got up, growling under his breath. Who in the hell was it this time? There were too many unwanted visitors here -- salesmen, bums, kids with chocolate bars, all intent on separating him from money he did not have.

"Hello! My name is Nancy." The young woman who greeted him with her enthusiastic hyena smile was wearing a blue pleated skirt and an immaculate white blazer with the word "CYBERKATZ" written in flowing script on the breast pocket. Obviously a salesperson. He would have slammed the door in her face, except for one detail.

She was holding a cat: a large cream-coloured fuzzball with bright blue eyes.

"Melissa!"

He reached out. Nancy gently placed her in his arms. He buried his face in the soft fur.

"She's so perfect," he murmured. "How did you fix her ears?"

"This is a Melissa unit," Nancy explained. "Our marketing focus group decided the name fit perfectly. Your Melissa was a prototype. This one is essentially the same model, with a few modifications."

He tilted his head. Melissa was purring: a low, rich rumble.

"You fixed the purr!"

Nancy smiled. "We thought you'd approve."

"How much?" he asked. "I don't have much money right now, but if you have a time payment plan--"

Nancy cut him off. "Complimentary. My company, Cyberkatz Unlimited, feels that you deserve some compensation for the unpleasant experiences
you had with our prototype. It was malfunctioning, you see."

Kurt stepped back from the doorway. "Come in and tell me more."

He sat on the floor, petting Melissa, while Nancy rattled on about her product.

"Cyberkatz are the perfect pet. They are hypoallergenic, odourless, and never require messy food. They interact safely and positively with any human within range, and will even interact with each other in a life-like but non-violent manner. We are conducting our West Coast campaign now, and will be launching Cyberkatz in the prairies as soon as our supply catches up to the demand. There are fourteen different models, nine adults and five kittens. . . ."

Touching Melissa brought Kurt's memories into focus. He had almost convinced himself that the cat who listened was a fantasy. But here she was, along with all the good feelings he remembered.

He broke into Nancy's spiel. "Why were all those goons chasing me?"

"Well -- the Vice President of Development told me that the G700 prototype malfunctioned and crawled into your car, and they sent a team in to recover it." She giggled nervously. "It seems that you were extremely reluctant to give it up."

"Do you have an agent called Cynthia? She works out of Dave's Tattoo Parlour and Fantasy Broker."

"That doesn't sound like the kind of place we like to do business with," Nancy said with a silvery laugh. "But the Toptoy corporation was working very persistently to get hold of our prototypes. You must have run across one of their people. Everything has been properly patented and registered now, so those cloak-and-dagger days are over."

"Cynthia said something about alien encounter suits," Kurt said. "I tried to hide Melissa, but General Ajax chased her away and took apart my Gamestation to track her. I found her and we went over the mountain, and there was a big firefight and she died, only she didn't." He looked up at Nancy pleadingly. "At least, that's how I remember it. Am I crazy?"

Nancy patted his shoulder. "Perhaps you weren't able to interpret what you were seeing. The company was conducting some tests at the time, and there were some serious glitches."

"There was this huge firefight near the beach. . . ."

"Remote control. Part of the testing."

Kurt relaxed. "Of course. But why did Melissa jump into the ocean?"

"Just a routine test. You never know what children are going to do with kitty, do we?"

Kurt nodded. There were loose ends in Nancy's version of the story, but it was no crazier than his.

"Why did your company track me down?" he asked.

"You kept the G700 prototype out of the hands of the competition. We are very grateful. We would like to offer you a position with the firm."

"A position?"

"Distributor in the prairie region. You would be selling Cyberkatz wholesale. You would keep a sample of each model in your home, and demonstrate them to buyers."

He shook his head. "Thanks, but no thanks. Melissa is enough for me."

"Suit yourself." She took a business card from her breast pocket. "Just call me when your Cyberkat needs a battery replacement. Or if you change your mind about the job." She glanced around his near-empty apartment. "They are very generous, you know. They totally revolutionized my lifestyle."

"I'll think about it," he said.

After ushering Nancy out, he lay on his stomach facing Melissa.

"Welcome home, Sweetums. Whatcha think -- should I phone about that job? God knows I could use the money. It never occurred to me you might need a battery change. I thought you were rechargeable, like Ajax. Wish I'd asked what kind of batteries."

"Mrrr," Melissa said, and butted his nose.

"Hey -- that tickles!" Kurt pushed her head back and stared into the intoxicating perfection of her eyes. "How about it -- would you like thirteen brothers and sisters? You'd never get bored, that's for sure. Maybe I'll wait a couple of days, just so I don't look too hungry, and give 'em a call." He rubbed Melissa's ears and jaw line. "I've missed you so much."

* * *

Agent SX09 made some minor adjustments to his recording device and curled up to doze until his next scheduled maintenance check. Soon agents would be distributed all over the world, snugly hidden in Cyberkatz, and the Surface Expansion Strategy Board would be privy to all the secrets of the dominant species that threatened the existence of undersea creatures.

Peculiar creatures, these humans. They imagined their pets were inferior to them, but they told them everything.

THE END -- OR THE BEGINNING OF A NEW WORLD ORDER?