It took only a second to spot Culdesac. His helmet was so large it resembled the front of a car. “You had to see it, didn’t you?” Culdesac said, his voice muffled.
He ordered the soldiers to stay away so that he could talk to the two insubordinates by himself. There was more rustling of leaves and sticks as the cats formed a perimeter.
“Why did you do it?” Culdesac asked.
“We had to know, sir,” Tiberius said.
“Then tell me what you know.”
Mort(e) nudged Tiberius. Though hesitant at first, Tiberius was soon blathering away. He probably thought that it would keep him alive. He explained that the victims had discoloration in the fingernails and teeth, along with polyps in the throat and on the tongue. If he was right, then these symptoms arose early, allowing for faster diagnosis and more efficient quarantine, at least until an accurate blood test could be devised. Miriam was still working on that.
Culdesac asked if Mort(e) had anything to add.
“None of this is going to work,” Mort(e) said.
“Socks says that we’re closer to a cure.”
“I don’t mean EMSAH,” Mort(e) said. “I mean this. All of this. We’re going to become just like the humans.”
Culdesac was not one to allow a non sequitur to throw him off. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
“I want to know why they locked themselves in that barn,” Mort(e) said.
“They set up a quarantine. They’re heroes. We should honor their memory.”
“No,” Mort(e) said. “The disease brought out the worst in them. There was a dog at the front of the room, giving them some kind of pep talk while they were dying. Or else he was keeping them there.”
“We don’t know that,” Tiberius said.
“What did you expect to find?” Culdesac said. “A big party? They were dying.”
“There was a fox chained with a leash,” Mort(e) said. “Like an animal.”
Culdesac leaned toward Mort(e). “You better tell me what’s gotten into you,” he said.
Mort(e) did not know where to start. His mind was still locked on the image of the dead.
Culdesac slapped him in the face, turning his head toward Tiberius, who remained still, facing straight ahead. If Culdesac’s claws had not been encased in a thick glove, Mort(e)’s snout would have flopped on the ground, bloody at Tiberius’s feet.
And then it spilled from him, all of it: Sheba, Daniel, the square of sunlight, the bucket of squealing puppies. Shouting out Sheba’s name for no reason. Wondering what he could have done differently. Wondering why he was alive and she was gone. Wondering why others had gotten over their past so easily, while he couldn’t leave his behind. For Tiberius, the past was something to shrug off, to laugh about over drinks and a card game. For Culdesac, it was a badge of honor, the foundation for his bravery and ruthlessness. For Mort(e), it was all bad memories and regret, weighing him down, poisoning the present. As if he were a human.
“You hardly knew Sheba,” Culdesac said.
“I knew her well enough.”
Culdesac told Mort(e) that he was still compromised by human outlooks on the world. He needed to let go of them if he truly wanted to be free. Mort(e) disagreed. He simply missed his friend. There was only one cure for that.
“She’s only good to you now as a reason to hate,” Culdesac said. “Cherish that.”
“A lot of animals experience this,” Tiberius interrupted. “It’s called Regressive Defense Mechanism. RDM. They hold onto some memory. Sometimes they even miss their old masters and cry themselves—”
“Shut up, Socks!” Culdesac said.
Tiberius shut up.
“I can’t tell you how to live,” Culdesac said. “I can only ask you to die. If you miss some aspects of your slave life, go ahead and complain about it. But I won’t tolerate this nonsense about us becoming like them. Do I need to explain why?”
“No, sir.”
“I need you to be at my side,” Culdesac said. “Are you still with me?”
“Yes, sir.” Mort(e) wasn’t even sure if he was lying.
“So now you’ve seen it,” Culdesac said. “You know almost as much as Miriam herself.”
He allowed for more awkward stillness before rendering his verdict.
“I can’t kill both of you,” he said at last, folding his arms. “And it might be good to have you telling people what you saw. It beats rumors spreading. Or doubts.”
He paced. “Stay here for three days,” he said. “If you’re still asymptomatic, come join us at Camp Delta. If you are symptomatic, then kill yourselves. Or kill the other one, and then kill yourself. Plenty of options there.”
Culdesac stepped away and signaled to his troops to follow him into the woods. “Looking forward to the full report.”
The Red Sphinx scattered into the forest.
Mort(e) was drained, wobbly. He was grateful when Tiberius, overcome with emotion, began to weep. For some reason, it kept Mort(e) from doing the same.
THEY STAYED FOR five days, just to be sure.
On the second day, an ant mound rose on the outskirts of town. It started as a dimple but soon resembled a small volcano. The next day, the Alphas began pouring out. From a sloping hill, Mort(e) and Tiberius watched the ants dismantle the town, removing every trace, converting all the inhabitants into nutrients. Mort(e) imagined white blood cells acting in the same way to repel viruses and bacteria. EMSAH had cleansed the town. The Colony would now clear out the EMSAH.
After a while, Mort(e) was glad that they were not close enough to get any real detail. In their jaws, the Alphas carried the victims out of the main hall in pieces: bleeding slabs of flesh dragged along in the insects’ mechanical mouths. There was no attempt to catalogue the names, to maintain some level of dignity. Even in death, these people would be punished for their terrible luck in life.
Mort(e) was too far away to see the little fox on its leash.
The Colony had calculated exactly how many Alphas it would take to remove all the bodies in one sweep. These vulture ants marched in a line to the new mound, while the others went about the business of toppling the buildings one at a time. The structures collapsed in neatly executed implosions, like the splashes from pebbles dropped into still water. The ants carted off the lumber and then plowed up the dirt. By nightfall, only a muddy patch remained, in the shape of an equilateral hexagon. The Queen had blotted out the past, proving once again that nothing lasted forever. She alone could decide what remained and what would be discarded.
Mort(e) and Tiberius examined each other’s eyes for burst blood vessels. They gazed into each other’s open mouths, searching for purple lumps that would turn into lesions. They quizzed each other on basic things, using a recommended list of questions that Miriam had devised: What was your slave name? What was the name of your master? What was the first word you could read? What was the first word you could speak? Who is your enemy? It was Tiberius’s job to know the answers for each member of the Red Sphinx. The answer to the last question was the same for everyone and, after what they had seen in the town, was easier than ever. The humans were the enemy. Now and for all eternity.
They experienced no symptoms, not even a headache or fatigue. Thus they rejoined the Red Sphinx at Camp Delta. The camp was a wooden structure, also shaped like a hexagon, with walls made of forest logs and watchtowers at three of its six points. A scout spotted them and alerted the others. The entire Red Sphinx greeted them at the gate, cheering wildly. The two invincible cats had cheated death once again. They were living symbols of the pending victory over humanity.