Chapter 12

Eeny-meeny-miny-moe had served Isaac well. Given the circumstances, the cat he chose made for a surprisingly good kidnap victim, especially once it settled into a Birkan bag Isaac swiped from the trainer’s room. The only exception was when the cat got its hackles up while bypassing Super Jesus’s trailer on their way out of the lot.

Isaac was tempted to stop in and interrogate the movie star, but he decided against it, not with the hot property he had pocketed away in his purse. Too risky. This was a heist. He had to play it safe. Under the stress and duress of a guilty conscience, Isaac sweated out his escape even though no one even gave him so much as a second look as he left the lot. Despite the Birkan bag’s bulk, loud polka dot design, and the occasional meow that emanated from it, it was about as conspicuous on the Fox Studios lot as a blue hat was in Dodger Stadium. No one paid him any mind.

In a war to be noticed, fashion in LA was an arms race. There was almost nothing you could wear in the city that could attract the eye, or even the ire, of others, no matter how wild. A purse-carrying male in a town abutting West Hollywood doesn’t even register. Reduced to its most elemental nature, being a star was nothing more than the amount of attention you could attract, whether you measured attention by followers, subscribers, or ticket sales. The phrase “to pay attention” was no idiom. It was a reality. Attention was the city’s currency, and everyone was hell-bent on amassing as much as possible. But stardom was a zero-sum game, so people were equally careful not to give any of their attention away, especially on someone as low rent as Isaac. These rules were unspoken but acknowledged by everyone.

Whenever two denizens of LA pass each other in the street, neither will glance at the other if they can help it. So instead, they will each do their best to remain cool and self-possessed. But sometimes the right outfit, if stylish enough, can force someone to break and look up from their phone, and give the other notice. When they do, it’s an act of submission, akin to a dog rolling over onto its belly before the alpha, an admission that the other party is a bigger star than them. But, of course, no one on the Fox lot would endure such humiliation for a boy with a Birkan bag, so Isaac slipped out of the lot unnoticed, even if there was something fuzzy-wuzzy sticking out of the top of his purse.

As he drove towards Venice, the traffic was thick as thieves, Isaac dad-joked to himself. He wasn’t taking any chances, heading straight for Anne’s office without detour and with the cat sitting in the passenger seat. The cat’s eyes peered out over the edge of the purse to look on with interest at an El Pollo Loco crawling by the window.

Isaac had to cover for ditching work, so he texted Liz an excuse. He went with something that she’d believe--a stomach ache--blaming his indigestion on his overindulgence of sour lox at the craft services table. Then, he set his phone to do not disturb, knowing full well she would do her job and follow up with him. He hated that about her.

Isaac was anxious with Super Jesus watching him. No matter what road he was on, he passed under Super Jesus billboard after Super Jesus billboard. He counted 33 of them before he reached west of the 405, and the June Gloom pulled the curtains down over the entire exercise. They were proliferating. While at a red light, he watched a worker with a bucket of paste slap up another Super Jesus advertisement, but this one was at a bus stop.

Once, Isaac had read a Reddit post suggesting LA traffic wasn’t a naturally occurring phenomenon but was manufactured, on purpose, a dark conspiracy conceived by Big Billboard. The idea was simple: every extra minute a commuter was stuck in traffic was an extra minute they could consume billboard content, so transportation bureaucrats citywide were threatened and bribed by Big Billboard until they turned every stoplight red and put a pothole in every road. It was the perfect plan until the advent of the smartphone, and everyone began to text and drive. This then gave rise to more billboards, new ones which implored people to keep their eyes off their phones in the name of traffic safety. Isaac was convinced of this truth after watching a supplemental Youtube video linked by the original Reddit page, and he could never look at another billboard the same way again.

Venice was a mess. It took Isaac twenty bucks worth of parking and fifteen blocks worth of walking to reach Anne’s office. He sighed, beaten down. There used to be a time when you could cruise around Lincoln Blvd after lunch on a Tuesday and get curbside parking wherever you wanted, unimpeded, but those days were long gone. Thanks, Obama! He thought fondly of the new Metro installations going up all around the city and the salvation they promised. But was it too little, too late? This city needed a miracle to fight off overpopulation.

Unfortunately, even the dreariness of the June Gloom couldn’t chase people away, so Isaac kept the Birman hidden in his purse and away from prying eyes. The boardwalk was full of bathing suit-clad people cursing the clouds in foreign tongues, tourists from all over the world who booked their trips and were ignorant of the foggy phenomenon that descended every year like clockwork. A terrible chill struck Isaac. Had he discovered something? Was the June Gloom part of the conspiracy? Could the heavy cloud cover and the lack of sun account for the increased vampire activity?

When Isaac arrived at Anne’s, he could scarcely believe his eyes. For who should be leaving their appointment with their psychic but the one and only Margot Robbie? “Holy fuck,” was all Isaac could mutter. Even the cat pawed its way to the top of the purse to get a glance at her. Isaac tried to see if the cat recognized her and vice versa, but he couldn’t say.

“Hello there, mate!” Margot offered to Isaac in a pleasant Australian accent that Isaac hadn’t been expecting. She stunned him. At that moment, he realized the difference between seeing a celebrity and seeing a star. It wasn’t the beauty that distinguished the two groups but their gravitational pull. Margot was a star.

All he could do was bear it all to her, “I dream about you.”

“That’s very kind of you to say.” Margot didn’t break character, having heard this comment many times before. Plus, she was intrigued by the sad look on Isaac’s face. That was new for her. But he was sad because he had never imagined an Australian accent when reading the narrator’s voice in his script. So was it possible Margot Robbie wasn’t the cat burglar? No, Isaac thought. It had to be her.

“Can I hold him?” Margot gasped, finally noticing the cat.

“Meow,” the cat suggested.

“Sure,” Isaac said as he held the purse open for her without a second thought.

“He’s beautiful!” Margot remarked, taking the cat out of the bag. “What an absolutely precious beast.” The cat nuzzled Margot in response to her compliment.

“You two look like old friends,” he tested her.

“I know, right?” She held the cat up to her face, cheek-to-cheek, and smiled.

“Are you?” Isaac’s eyes brightened.

“What do you mean?”

“Have you seen him before? Would you consider yourself friends or maybe acquaintances, or does he skipper your boat, perchance, as a captain would?”

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of his acquaintance.” She laughed, and her laugh held the same bright, airy tones as fine china does when clinking at high tea. Not that Isaac had ever heard such euphoric sounds, but he imagined them from time to time in a lonely moment. Margot shook the cat’s paw, saying, “Nice to meet you.” She looked at Isaac to fill in the blank of the cat’s name.

“Captain Flapjacks. He belongs to Anne.”

Her eyes narrowed with distrust. “Does she know you have her cat?”

“Not yet.”

“Meow,” Anne called out from behind Margot. She stood at her front door.

“Meow,” the cat responded in kind.

“Agreed. Thank you, Margot. I’ll take it from here.” Anne came over and took the cat from Margot’s arms with ease. Isaac marveled at how effortlessly she operated around Margot. Weightless, Anne was utterly resistant to her gravity. “I’ll see you next week, and try to text me next time if you’re running late.” She reminded Margot as she was leaving.

“You got it, Anne. G’day!” When Margot passed Isaac, he could taste her heat on his tongue. He savored it before following Anne’s lead. She was waving him into her house office.

Anne didn’t waste any time. “Explain yourself.”

“Er,” Isaac was taken off guard by her accusatory tone. “I found Captain Flapjacks, so it’s time to lift whatever curse you put on me and give me my reward.” Isaac shooed another one of Anne’s cats away from his feet. He was mad at himself for forgetting to negotiate the price of the reward before she obtained possession of her prize. He had lost all his leverage. “And what was the reward again?”

“The reward is not monetary in nature,” Anne explained, “but spiritual.” She waited until Isaac finished his eye roll before continuing, “On your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So you got that going for you.”

“Great,” Isaac sighed.

“But that’s only reserved for the person who procures the correct cat.” Anne thrust Captain Flapjacks back into Isaac’s arms. He gathered the creature clumsily, almost fumbling the exchange, and received several scratches for his efforts. “I don’t accept imposters.”

Isaac tensed up. “Imposters?”

“That’s not Captain Flapjacks. He’s a cheap imitation. I asked for Heinz, and you gave me Hunt’s. No offense to you, Niles.”

“Who’s Niles?”

“Me—,” the cat in Isaac’s arm began, “—ow.”

“Why did you think you could pull one over on me? The only reason I’ve entertained this hoax for so long is that I didn’t want to publicly undress you in front of Margot. Because I thought that maybe a psycho like you would get off on that, the humiliation.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Isaac said as coyly as he could, but Anne was not buying what he was selling. “Well, you’re not the only one who can call B.S. around here. You’re as big a liar as I am. I know Captain Flapjacks isn’t your cat, and I don’t want to be a party to whatever sick scheme you’re concocting, either. Niles belongs to someone on the Super Jesus set. Her name is Jane Furbury. I’m sure Captain Flapjcaks belongs to her, too.”

“Never heard of her.” Anne crossed her arms.

“So it’s your cat?”

“I never said that either. I was entrusted with Captain Flapjack’s care while his owner is out of town.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Isaac’s ears perked up. “Who’s the owner?”

“I’d tell you, but the owner is a client of mine, and the psychic-client privilege is a principle sacred to psychics everywhere. I uphold it at all costs.”

Isaac’s eyes searched the wall of fame behind Anne like a Guess Who? gameboard for the potential owner. “Does your client have black hair?"

"..."

"Can you tell me if your client is associated in any way with Super Jesus or the Super Jesus 2 production?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” she paused, “mostly because I’m ignorant on the subject. I’m not a workplace-focused psychic, okay?”

“Great,” Isaac sighed. “Well, what kind of psychic are you anyway?”

“The kind who could see right through your fraud immediately,” she fumed.

“Fair.” Isaac slumped into a seat, and Niles settled on his lap.

“How about we work together on this? In your capacity as a psychic, I will hire you to advise me on information about the cat’s owner. It won’t be you telling me about the owner, but the stars will tell me or whatever tool you use.”

“Stop it. You’re insulting me. I don’t do loopholes. As a psychic, I firmly believe that one should always follow the spirit of the law rather than the letter. Plus, there’s no way you can afford my rates, and I don’t work pro bono.”

“Fine.” Isaac threw up his hands, spooking the cat. Niles leaped off to mingle with the other cats in the room. “Why not just use your powers to locate Captain Flapjacks, then? What do you need me for?”

“Because it’s a cat. Getting a psychic reading on a cat is like asking for blood from a stone.”

“You can’t do that either?”

“If you’re interested in that sort of service, then I can refer you to an accomplished alchemist.”

“A magic eight ball seems to be more accomplished than you.”

“You think you’re being funny, but magic eight balls are exactly that, magic. I own several." She sighed, "You don’t get it. Cats are tricky little bastards. They’re mostly immune to charms, mine included.”

“Cats?”

“Let me guess. You believe in science?” she asked.

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“Good. Because both scientists and psychics agree on cat power. In fact, a physicist is just a psychic but by another name.”

“You’re all in agreement on cat power?” Isaac repeated himself, seeking confirmation. “Cat power? Like horsepower, but with cats? Cat power.”

“Yes. Can I assume you know Schrodinger’s cat?”

“Uh, of course, but feel free to refresh my memory.”

“It’s a physics paradox about quantum mechanics and cat poison.”

“...”

“All right,” Anne took a deep breath, “try and keep up with me because explaining Schrodinger’s cat is often a thankless task. First, pretend there’s a box.”

“What’s in the box?”

“A cat. And the box is rigged with poison to be released by a special trigger.”

“A special trigger?”

“Yup. The trigger is set to go off whenever it meets a certain quantum mechanic condition.”

“A certain quantum mechanic condition? What’s that?”

“The act of observation is the trigger. Whenever the person running this test-”

“Schrodinger? Is that the person?”

“Sure. Wherever Schrodinger looks into the box, it sets off the trigger, and there’s a 50/50 chance the poison is released, but until they look into the box, the poison is both released and not released because it’s waiting to be observed.”

“So, is the cat dead?”

“Yes. And it’s alive. That’s the trick of quantum mechanics.”

“How?”

“Exactly. That question has been a real pickle in the science community, so they decided to get to the bottom of it and bring the thought experiment into the real world. They got the money. They got the cat. They got the poison. And they ran the experiment.” Her eyes glistened, baiting him into begging her for more.

He obliged, with bated breath, “And?”

“They ran the experiment a thousand times over. Again and again and again. They expected to find a dead cat in half of their observations, you know, because of the 50/50 rule, but that’s not what happened.”

“What happened?”

“Every time they opened the box, the cat was alive.”

“...”

“They realized that the prime observer, the being who would set off the poison trigger, through observation, wasn’t the scientist. It was the cat, and that cat was always present in the box, so the trigger was never really activated.”

“...”

“Prior to this moment, there was an understanding that only humans could meet the quantum mechanic condition to set off the trigger, but cats, man. They discovered that cats got their own cosmic credentials.”

“Oh, yeah. Totally.” Isaac did his best to feign a eureka moment for himself, but it fell flat.

“They’ve since rerun the experiment, looking for other animals that can pull off the same trick, but no. Dogs, monkeys, you name it. Nothing. Just cats. And us. Curious, isn’t it? There’s something unique about them. It’s why I have so many.” She looked around at the cats that littered her office, laying across the furniture like coats at a party.

“Did they try lizards?” Isaac wondered.

“Or snakes?” Anne laughed. “I don’t know. I’ll have to ask.”

“Who are you going to ask?”

“No one, Isaac. It was only an expression.”

“Oh, sorry,” Isaac blushed. “I mean, who discovered cat power? Feels like I should have heard about this.”

“The Nazis figured it out, of course. Because of that, the mainstream media covered it up, but you can still find the info on the internet's darkest corners or if you ask your friendly neighborhood psychic.”

“The Nazis?” Isaac groaned. “Why is it always the Nazis?”

“The Nazis were always into the occult. They were looking into everything. Hollow-earth. UFOs. Searches for the Holy Grail. Et Cetra. Anything that could swing the tide of the war was considered a subject of interest. So, naturally, these forays led them to investigate Cat Power, and the Allies found their cat-related research materials when they liberated Auschwitz, but they had to hush it all up.”

“Why?”

“Because the higher-ups at the time felt the discovery of cat power would be used to discredit God since it puts cats and humans on equal cosmic footing. Thus cat power was considered communist.”

“Oh,” was all that Isaac could offer in response. Even after a couple of weird days, this was beyond all belief.

“Humans tend to be quite insecure about their position in the food chain.”

“What does cat power do exactly? The only cat powers I’m familiar with are that they always land on their feet and they can lick their balls. Is there some other cool quirk?”

“Quark,” Anne corrected, “and their power is a little more subtle than that.” But Isaac got the impression that she was guessing.

“Has anybody from the Super Jesus 2 production come to you looking for information about the cat? Maybe a producer named Liz? She’s cute.”

“No.”

“I would expect a visit shortly. You can consider that a psychic prediction of my own from me to you. Free of charge.”

“Why’s that?”

“Based on the review of my case notes, it’s my conclusion that whoever dropped off the cat to you was an animal rights activist and stole it from the set of Super Jesus 2. Because you won’t lend me your psychic abilities, if you have any at all, we have to go about this the old-fashioned way. Question and answer.”

“Gunga galunga!” Anne exclaimed with extreme exhaustion.

“I’m sorry?”

“You have successfully goaded me into a position where I feel as if I have to prove myself to you.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You will be after I’m done with you.” Anne grabbed her tarot cards and began shuffling. When she was satisfied with the shuffle, she dealt off the bottom of the deck. “Here we go.”

Isaac reached for it. “Wait. I want to pick. Don’t I get to choose my destiny? That’s something I’ve been working on with my therapist.”

“No, no,” she said as she slapped his hand away. “That’s the problem with most amateur psychics. They let their clients get too involved, but the secret to tarot cards is that the cards need to be handled by a true believer. Only the heart of the cards can reveal what’s in your own heart.”

“Bullshit. Heart of the cards. That’s just something out of Yu-Gi-Oh!”

“Yu-Gi-Oh! is more fact than fiction, just so you know. I’d be careful when mocking it.” She began to flip the cards over, placing them in an arrangement that mystified Isaac, but any trained tarot user would recognize the pattern as the kabbalah or the Tree of Life design. Anne analyzed the cards. “Oh no.”

“What?” Isaac begged.

Anne looked at the cards still in her hand, examining them as if something was malfunctioning. “This can’t be. Impossible!” She touched some of the flipped cards in sequence to double-check their materiality. It was what it was.

Isaac marveled at the cards, too, mirroring her astonishment. Even though he didn’t understand what he was looking at, he respected the cards since they produced the first crack in Anne’s calm facade.

All the flipped cards had a roman numeral attached to them, but some had different designators. Isaac found the ones with words the easiest to understand. “The Fool” that sat at the top of the pattern seemed self-explanatory. The ones with the swords and cups were a little harder to suss out their meaning. Anne had to tell him.

“You’re going to have to save the world,” Anne observed, picking up the last card in the pattern, an upside-down card emblazoned with a big, blue Earth. It formed the trunk of the Tree of Life.

Isaac gulped, unhearing. His attention was elsewhere. “What do you suppose this one signifies?” He pointed to the card in the middle labeled “Death.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Anne dismissed with a wave of the hand. “What we need to figure out is how you’re supposed to save the world.”

“Excuse me, but I am very worried about it. What good is saving the world if I’m not around to be in it?”

“You’re a Slytherin, aren’t you?”

“Only on the weekends.”

“What the fuck does that mean? Only on the weekends?”

Isaac shrugged, embarrassed. “I don’t know. It was an expression. I thought it would be kind of cool?”

“Please don’t try to be cool ever again.” Anne pursed her lips and turned her attention back to the cards. She stared at them with total transfixion. “I got it.”

“Am I dead?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“Don’t be so boring, Isaac. Everyone dies. And the card’s reading doesn’t have to be so literal. They’re often not. These are symbols, okay? More of a metaphor than anything else, but mystical. Is the interpretation sometimes literal, and you’ll die while trying to save the world? Sure. Probably. But not always. It could mean everyone else will die if you don’t save the world. Anyway. You have nothing to fear, remember? You don’t think I’m any better than a magic eight ball, so what do you care if I pulled the death card for you?”

Isaac grimaced as Anne looked at the cards again, trying her best to remember where she had left off before he interrupted her. She picked up the Queen of Wands card. “Oh, yeah. To save the world, you will have to save the cat. You have to save Captain Flapjacks. The real Captain Flapjacks. No messing around this time, Isaac. The fate of the whole world weighs in the balance.”

“Save the cat, save the world?” Isaac croaked. He was dumbfounded and a little afraid after being once again asked to save a cat. What did it mean? He took the Queen of Wands card from her hand and examined its picture. The queen was dressed in a golden, flowing robe and sat atop a tall, ornate throne against a backdrop of three pyramids. The queen was beautiful, reminding him again of Margot Robbie and the woman of his dreams. Isaac’s heart skipped a beat. Sitting at the golden queen’s feet was a little black cat. Just Isaac’s luck. “Save the cat, save the world,” he muttered, the weight of his responsibility finally settling on his shoulders.

“Save the cat. Save the world.” Anne confirmed, deepening Isaac’s despair.

“Save the world from what?”

“I don’t know. The cards don’t say. But feel free to pick your poison. Climate change. Nuclear war. Zombie apocalypse.”

Isaac trembled at the thought. “How’s a cat going to prevent climate change?”

“I don’t know. Cats are tricky little bastards, remember?”

“But if they’re so tricky, how do you know they’re telling you to save them? What if they’re saying something else?” Isaac tried.

“Oh, it’s not the cats speaking to me. They’re a black box. It’s the world that’s speaking to me. It’s the world that’s crying out for you to save it, Isaac. Save the cat and save the world.” She took his hand with tender sympathy. “Congratulations.”

“...” Isaac began to cry.