He read what he could find, and felt the list of words growing inside his head like weeds, like fungus — a simile he used after reading a biology textbook. There were several buildings in the city with walls of books rising to the ceiling. Among these volumes he found a few that he liked, stories of knights and dragons. There were comic books, too, along with books filled with numbers and equations. It was so alien, acquiring information this way. It almost felt like theft, and sometimes he would read a passage and expect the words to be gone from the page, absorbed by his mind. He also felt that he was wasting valuable time. He was reading picture books about men wearing capes while Sheba lay dying somewhere. But he could hardly get enough of the texts. He slept less and less because he could not wait to read again. He would often feel intense relief to find that the books he had left nearby were still there when he opened his eyes.
But along with this acquired knowledge, there were the things that had been planted in his mind: numbers, a rudimentary vocabulary, the names of species, the base pairs of DNA. He was not even entirely sure what DNA was. He was made of DNA, he supposed. Or DNA consisted of little bits of him, he could not be sure. Did the humans go through this all day long? Were their enormous brains tormented with trivial facts they could neither understand nor forget? If so, then it made sense that people like Daniel went insane.
ON THE DAY he killed his master, Sebastian made his way to the city in the middle of the evacuation. There were humans everywhere: vehicles laden with luggage strapped to the roof, packed into the trunk. Military transports carrying dead-eyed marines to the battlefront. Packs of refugees, some too dazed to be surprised by a giant cat carrying a rifle, his hand pressing down on a bleeding gash on his ribs. Soldiers setting fire to enormous anthills that had burst through concrete and asphalt.
When Sebastian saw dead animals on the side of the road, he decided to stay away from everyone. He was, after all, in enemy territory. Upon reaching the city, he took refuge in the skyscraper to recover from his fight with Daniel. The loss of blood, along with a fever from infection, forced him to rest for days. When he was strong enough to begin searching again, he found the city almost completely abandoned. That was when he encountered a new creature: an ant the size of a Volkswagen.
She marched down the sidewalk on her hind legs. Sebastian ducked behind a bus as she passed. The claws shuffled closer. Suddenly the bus shook. Sebastian spun around and aimed his rifle at the roof of the vehicle to find the ant staring down at him, her antennae like two arms trying to snatch him up. She was covered in smaller ants, all moving about her exoskeleton like flowing oil. The creature probed for a minute, stood still, then walked away.
Sebastian had several similar encounters before he came to realize that the monsters posed no threat. They were after humans, not people like him.
From his perch in the skyscraper, Sebastian concluded that he had made a mistake going this way. He figured he could head west. However, a map of the countryside revealed that “west” was a vast realm, spreading for thousands of miles. He nearly wept when he first saw it.
As he considered his next move, a new battle broke out along the banks of the river. For weeks, an artillery division set up camp across the water and shelled the anthills. It was not safe to leave now, not with so much shrapnel and unexploded ordnance everywhere. He had already witnessed an enormous ant examining a projectile that had landed on a street corner, right next to a fire hydrant. The device exploded, vaporizing the ant and leaving a geyser from the broken pipe.
One morning, he peeked out the window to find that the ants now occupied the riverbank. The massive creatures lumbered about, acting like normal insects scouting a parcel of land. There was no sign of the humans. The ants must have lured their enemies into a trap and then devoured them before they could scream.
Sebastian wondered if Sheba had run into these same obstacles. Was she even searching for him? Was she in some high place as well, surveying the land, hoping for him to find her? Was she lonely? Was she afraid? When Sebastian thought of the terrible things that could have befallen her, death seemed like a merciful fate. But that only left him wondering why he was still alive and not her.
A week later, when the weather grew cold and the ants returned to their mounds, Sebastian decided that it was safe to head west. He would search for Sheba in the wilderness, and probably never find her, and then die somewhere, shivering.
He walked along the highway until he reached a section where the ramp had been sheared off by some fierce explosion. Metal bars that made up the skeleton of the bridge stuck out like broken bones. Sebastian climbed down, allowing himself to drop the last few feet. Once he landed, the odor of an animal filled his nostrils. His tail stood erect, and his ears shot up. A breeze took the scent away. Sebastian waited for a moment longer, then kept walking.
“Sheba,” he mumbled. He tried to mimic the way Janet would have said it, a breathless whisper.
“Sheba!” he shouted. The echo returned to him. He yelled her name again and again. It felt so good to say it, even if no one could hear. But would she even know to answer to it? And how would she know his name?
He came across a crater as wide as the street. Someone had covered it with a pair of metal girders spaced far enough for the axles of a car to ride over. Slinging the rifle over his shoulder, Sebastian took the left girder.
“I’m coming, Sheba,” he said.
He was halfway across when he smelled the odor again. It was a cat. Two cats. Three. Someone was watching, and now he was stuck here waiting to be ambushed. Sebastian tried to swing the rifle strap off his shoulder. The girder rolled over, the metal grinding into the asphalt. To avoid tumbling from the beam, he jumped across to the other girder, only to find that it, too, was flipping over, jostled by some powerful force. He lost his footing and slipped off, plunging twelve feet and landing hard on all fours.
“No,” he heard someone say from above. Rifle in hand, Sebastian pointed his gaze upward. Silhouetted by the rising sun were five cats, all standing erect like him. Each one had a rifle, their fully formed fingers — claws and all — hovering over the triggers. They wore backpacks and belts like human soldiers. Some of the packs were almost certainly lifted from dead men.
Sebastian’s rifle grew heavier. He raised it nonetheless. The cats propped their own guns against their shoulders. They had the advantage. Even more aggravating, he realized that he had walked right into their trap. They had probably been spying on him for a while. If they were as hungry as he was, he would probably be their dinner this evening.
“You sure you want to point that at us?” one of the cats said.
“You sure you want to get in my way?” Sebastian replied.
The cats laughed, making their rifle muzzles shake. “Who does this cat think he is?” one of them asked.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” another one said. It was the one in the middle, a tall black cat, a female.
“I do not believe you,” Sebastian said.
“And you shouldn’t,” she said. “But how about you lower your rifle?”
“No,” Sebastian said. “I am not here to hurt you, either. So let me pass.”
“We want to talk to you first.”
“You just did.”
“Who’s Sheba?”
“She is my friend.”
Sebastian heard a grunt from the cat to her left, a male with black fur on his back and shoulders and white fur on his feet, like little slippers. The grunt expressed either disgust or amusement. Sebastian could not tell.