38

Reunion

Outside, the second taxi that day squealed to a stop in front of the house. Mom and Dad, back from China, jumped out and rushed to Max.

“Did you get our messages?” Dad gave Max a hug, noticing his distress. “What’s wrong, buddy?” Mom took one look at Obi and went to check with Mrs. Reynolds. Dad looked at Obi. The kittens were squirming and climbing on Obi, doing their best to cheer him up. “Um, did Obi have babies? Where did these munchkins come from?”

Before Max could answer, Mom came back, shaking her head. “Looks like old Obi is pretty sick. Mrs. Reynolds says he might not make it through the night.” She reached in to give Obi a scratch when she saw the kittens. “Oh! What do we have here?”

Max moaned. He pulled away and looked at his parents. “Mom, Dad, I’m sorry, this is all my fault.”

Dad looked at Max. “Now, you know that’s not true.” Dad looked at Mom, pleading for help.

“Max, Obi has had a great, long, happy life. You were always good to him,” Mom said, trying to smile. But Max saw tears in her eyes, and he let it all spill out.

“No, you don’t understand. I ruined everything.” He looked at the stroller. “I found the kittens at the river and brought them here.” Mom’s eyes got wide.

“Let him finish,” Dad said.

“I know I wasn’t supposed to, but they needed help. And we were going to send them to a shelter right away, but I wanted to keep them, so I talked Javi into letting them stay.” Max was speaking as fast as he could, trying to get it all out. “Then they escaped the downstairs, got into the lab, peed in Min’s robot, and totally trashed my room.”

“The lab?” Dad said, concerned.

“Peed?” Mom said, making a face.

Max kept going. “Yeah, peed. They even somehow ruined the level I was working on for weeks, and then my friends were so mad, and I was really mad too.”

He paused for breath, looking down. “So I yelled at them. And I thought they ran away, but really they hid in Min’s robot, and because of them she lost her competition today.”

Max looked at Obi. “Now Min hates me, Obi is dying, and you guys were gone and everything is terrible and it’s all my fault.”

Mom and Dad exchanged a look. “Wow. That’s a lot of stuff, kiddo,” Dad said, reflecting. “But we’ll figure it out, right?”

Mom nodded and gave Max a hug. “Yeah. We’re back now, Max.”

Max held on, miserable.

Dad looked at Obi and the kittens, trying to take it all in. “Wow. You know, I had a bad feeling about leaving. I feel bad we weren’t here to help you out.”

Mom gave Max a kiss on the head. “Me too. I’m sorry about everything, but mostly I’m sad about Obi. I know how much you love him.”

They all stood quietly for a moment, watching Obi’s slow, labored breathing. The kittens licked his fur, doing what they could to help.

From the cloudy sky, a drop of rain landed on Obi.

Then another.

Obi opened his eyes and groaned as he sat up.

Javi saw a glimmer of light around Obi’s neck and leaned closer. “Hey, did you know his collar lit up?”

It was true.

In the early-evening twilight, with rain starting to fall, the pyramid around Obi’s neck was glowing.

Max reached out to touch it. “I’ve never seen that happen before. Whoa, it’s warm!”

Max stepped back and saw Obi and the kittens look up in the sky together. “What’s up there?” Max asked, and followed their gaze. “Whooaa,” Max said again. His mouth hung open.

“Whoa, what?” Mom asked, then she looked up and said, “Oh my.”

Above them, through the growing rain, a light came streaking down through the clouds. “Ball lightning?” Mom wondered out loud.

“Maybe a meteor?” Javi added.

The light changed direction and was coming straight at them, getting brighter. “Guided missile?” Dad said, getting nervous.

In a flash, the light descended and a strange, cat-like ship dropped into the yard, blowing leaves and dust and old newspapers into the air.

“Spaceship?” Max said slowly, and was right.

The ship settled down, smoke swirling, and a square outline appeared on its surface. The outline became a hatch, which opened into the yard, revealing the bright lights of the interior of the ship.

A four-legged silhouette appeared in the doorway.

As their eyes adjusted, Pounce emerged. He walked carefully through the opening, pausing to sniff the strange, moist, Earthy air. As he took in the scene around him, a pyramid medallion hanging from his neck began to glow.

“Greetings.” A voice came from his medallion. “I am Pounce de Leon, second-in-command and Major Meow-Domo of the Great Feline Empire. I come in peace.” Pounce took a long, ceremonial stretch as everyone stared in silent amazement.

Only Obi seemed unfazed by the sudden appearance.

Pounce finished his stretch when a drop of rain splashed on his nose. He looked up, annoyed. “I also strongly dislike the rain. We should go inside. We have much to discuss.”

Inside the house, Pounce started from the beginning.

As Obi and the kittens snoozed in the stroller, Pounce did his best to explain the origins of the Cat-Robot War. Javi, Max, and his parents stood in a circle, listening to Pounce in disbelief. It seemed impossible, but here they were, in their house, listening to a talking cat from outer space tell them of a centuries-old galactic conflict between Cats and Robots.

It got stranger, still. According to Pounce, they were all involved in the conflict. “Yes, unfortunately for all of you, the eye of the hurricane in this war is the Singularity Chip, which we believe is somewhere in this house.”

Mom and Dad exchanged a concerned, knowing look. Hearing this, they began to understand their place in this new, strange reality.

Javi went into college-student research mode and started taking notes, recording everything Pounce said.

Max didn’t seem to care either way. He just stared miserably at Obi, making sure he was still breathing.

On the wall, House’s monitor glowed dimly, carefully observing everything.

Pounce continued. “As we understand, the Singularity Chip is enormously powerful, with the potential to, somehow, extend our existence beyond what our frail, biological bodies allow.”

Mom folded her arms. “How do you know this?”

Pounce accepted this as a confirmation and continued. “Our leader, Chairman Meow, is especially motivated to acquire this technology. For the Feline, the possibility of extending our lives has enormous implications. Of course, the chairman is focused on the end of his own lives, but I see greater opportunities for all cats from such an invention. With longer lives, we could finally evolve beyond our current nap-based culture. With more time, we could, possibly, do something, shocking as it sounds, productive.”

Javi looked up from their notes. “Like when humans started farming, or the industrial revolution!”

Pounce paused for a moment, confused. “Maybe?”

Javi nodded. “Well, I can see why robots wouldn’t want you guys to get ahold of this chip. It could give you a real strategic advantage.” Javi was really geeking out on this.

“Yes. The Robot Federation is quite determined to keep it out of our paws.” Pounce looked at Mom and Dad. “In fact, they have also sent representatives to acquire the chip, to keep it from us, but also to use for their own nefarious purposes, as a limitless power source. They are on their way right now, and may be dangerous.”

“We’d better get it. While we’re at it, we can explain exactly what it is,” Dad said.

“It’s right in here,” Mom said, and they led the group into the lab.

Min heard the commotion outside the lab but didn’t want to know what was going on. It was all too hard for her to think about, so she wiped her stubborn tears and started fixing Elmer. Her peace didn’t last long, when her mom and dad swung open the door and walked in.

“MOM! DAD!” Min rushed to hug them both. “You will never believe what happened while you were . . .” Min froze when she saw Pounce walk in. “ANOTHER cat?”

She sneezed involuntarily.

“Greetings, child,” Pounce said through his medallion. Min’s mouth hung wide open. “A talking cat.” Min sat back down.

“We’re trying to figure it all out now, Min,” Dad said, hand on her shoulder. “This is Pounce, and we need to find the chip your mom and I were working on.”

Mom sat next to Min to give her a hug.

Dad walked to his area and stopped when he saw the safe, wide open. He knelt down and looked in, shaking his head. “I don’t believe it. It’s gone.”

“How?” Min said. “It’s only been me in here. Well, me and the furry wrecking balls of destruction.”

Mom gave Min a squeeze. “Oh, Min, we heard about what happened. Sounds like your worst nightmare.”

Min shook her head. “You have no idea.”

“We’ll get to that, but right now, we have an even bigger problem.” Mom moved to her computer and started typing. “House should have logs of everything that went on while we were gone; we should be able to see what happened.” They gathered behind Mom as she scanned through pages of text and video.

“This is strange,” she said. “And bad.” She turned in her chair. “All the logs and feeds from the lab for the past few days are missing.”

“But even so, nobody has been in the house but us,” Min said.

“And other than Min, I’m the only one who’s been in the lab.” Javi held up a hand, and Min added, “Yeah, and the kittens.”

Javi gave a sheepish grin.

Dad looked around. “Well, we know they didn’t take the chip,” he said. “Although I guess nothing would surprise me at this point,” he added, looking at Pounce, who was sniffing at the safe.

Mom was shaking her head. “We need to find that chip.” She looked at Obi in the stroller and frowned. “Pounce, I know you want the chip to help your . . . what did you call it?”

“The Great Feline Empire,” Pounce purred reverently.

“Right. It’s possible the chip could help your empire. But”—she paused to gently stroke Obi’s fur—“we could also use it to help Obi.”

“Assuming we can find it,” Dad said, looking sadly at the empty safe.

Min, Max, and Javi looked confused. Mom looked at Dad, who raised his eyebrows, then nodded. “We might as well tell them.” He looked at everyone. “We had just finished building the chip and were about to use it to test our experiment,” he said cryptically.

“And it turns out, we wanted Obi to be our first test case.”