Chapter 27
“What happened to you?” Isaac inquired. Liz was a shell of herself. This was not the same person who stared down P38 at the cat trainer’s house in Silver Lake. Her bravado was long gone in exchange for a tired, worn woman. Isaac appreciated he wasn’t alone in this.
“Help me,” she pleaded in a whisper that Isaac could scarcely hear over the uproar breaking out in the rest of the hospital. Isaac couldn’t tell if she was addressing him or the cat cradled in the crook of his arm. Captain Flapjacks’s eyes remained closed, and his breathing grew more uneven.
“We have to go,” Isaac stated plainly. He started to head back to the main hall where P38 and Dr. Rousseau’s battle took place, but Liz stopped him. Instead, she pulled him in another direction.
“Come with me,” she said, heading toward the darker recesses of the Twin Towers.
Isaac followed dutifully. It was quieter this way. Utilizing back stairways and service halls, they traveled down to the ground floor of the Twin Towers and kept going. Liz moved with a sure-footedness that Isaac took to mean that her stay here had been longer than his. Her dreadful look made him think her stay had been more traumatic than his own, too. What had she done to Dr. Rousseau to deserve this? And what had he done to her?
When Liz brought their party to a stop, they were in a subterranean garage where a fleet of panel vans awaited them. All the vans were the same make and model as the one Isaac saw in the driveway of the stuntman’s apartment. He wondered what they were doing here until Liz disrupted his thoughts by raiding a valet key cabinet and ripping off the first set of keys she found.
Beep! Beep! A van in the third row chirped at her when she hit the button. At this point, Isaac wanted to know who needed who’s help. Liz seemed to be doing a bang-up job of escaping the Twin Towers on her own, but, to Isaac’s surprise, her next move was to throw him the keys.
A-ha! Isaac thought. He should have known a damsel in distress would be a passenger princess. Happy to finally be of some service, Isaac gripped the van’s wheel at 10 and 2 while Liz loaded into her seat with a laboring Captain Flapjacks in her arms. The Birman was limp and pathetic, so Isaac waited for Liz to fasten their seatbelt before starting the car. He saw the cat wince as the buckle clicked. Then, without warning, Isaac felt a hot tear splash onto his cheek. He didn’t know what to say.
“This way!” Liz pointed to the exit ramp, like a field marshal directing her troops. “Go! Go! Go! Go!”
Isaac jammed the van’s accelerator until the tunnel’s walls and lighting melted with speed. The force of the g’s dried his tears.
“No! No! Right, right!” Liz cried when they reached a fork in the road, but Isaac was already heading left. Her arm shot across the center console and yanked the wheel hard, nearly tipping the van and crashing it. The cat and Isaac both mewled in distress.
“Super Jesus Christ!” Isaac screamed once the van flattened out again. That was close. He’d be lucky if the only skid marks that little maneuver left were on the road. Isaac opened a window to breathe. “Was that necessary? What was wrong with my way?”
“You don’t understand. That’s how you get to the coroner’s office….”
Isaac grimaced as he spun the van around and around up the corkscrew exit ramp at full speed, not slowing down when they reached the parking gate so he could ram through it.
As they cleared the last speed bump, all four of the van’s tires left the ground.
They hit the street with a bang, but the night's biggest shock occurred when they realized they were alone on the road with clear sailing ahead. No traffic. A chill ran down Isaac’s spine. There was only one phenomenon in LA that could cause this.
That’s when Isaac put it together. He now knew why there wasn’t any fire-life safety at the Twin Towers tonight. The bastards at Fox Studios had set up a perimeter. He saw filming notices and street closures for the Super Jesus sequel reshoots everywhere he looked. They were playing the cat-powered explosions off as part of the film production, even going so far as to place a couple of token Star Wagon trailers on the street for show. Isaac wondered if the same tactic was used to cover up for the commotion at the library.
“It was all a dream,” Liz muttered once the Twin Towers were safely in their rearview mirror after Isaac ran down a sawhorse blockade.
“We need to get to the vet,” Isaac said once he merged the vehicle into regular traffic. He didn’t know what to do with an injured movie-star cat with mystical powers. Did conventional veterinary techniques work on such creatures? Isaac had his doubts, but what was he supposed to do besides all he could?
Aside from the fate of the world, the cat’s welfare was his own. Isaac couldn’t risk raising the ire of Anne or P38 if anything befell their Captain Flapjacks on his watch. If Isaac were to face either of them at Captain Flapjacks’ funeral, then he wanted to do so with a clear conscience and without remorse. He wanted to try his best.
“It was all a dream,” Liz repeated.
“What was?”
“It was all a dream,” Liz confirmed as she stroked Captain Flapjacks with a gentle hand. Isaac thought she had lost her mind. “You were right,” she admitted, “I should have believed you that night in the diner. Your screenplay was a dream.”
It could have been Isaac’s imagination or his mind playing tricks on him, but with every stroke of Captain Flapjacks’ fur, strength and vitality seemed to flow into Liz. The bags under her eyes and the shakiness were disappearing every time her fingers combed the cat. Cat Power.
“That’s okay,” Isaac said, keeping his eyes peeled for a VCA clinic. “I didn’t believe it myself until you told me about Zee. How did you find out the dream was real?”
“Well, after we spoke, I didn’t give up looking for Zee. I knew I’d never make EP if I didn’t follow through for Mr. Lennox.”
“So what did you do?”
“I started with the cats, of course.”
“Cat Power,” Isaac said with reverence but also with a curiosity about how it stacked up against whatever power lizardmen (and half-lizardmen) held. Was he stronger than a cat?
“Cat Power,” Liz agreed solemnly. “Zee knew about it before the cat handler did,” she explained, and Isaac could only think of Zee’s connection to Anne and her army of cats. Of course, any patient of Anne’s would have known about Cat Power in advance.
“What do the cats have to do with the Super Jesus production?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Liz admitted, “but somehow the cats are intertwined with the movie in a way that they’re more than mere props or characters. Whether or not that was the plan of the studio… or the intention of the cats, I’m not sure.”
“They’re intertwined in our lives, Liz. The world's fate hangs in the balance,” Isaac informed her.
“I was afraid of that.” Liz looked outside the window as Isaac weaved in and out of downtown traffic. “Zee was the one who wrote them into the script, so—”
“Zee was in cahoots with the cats all along!” Isaac finished her thought. “That’s it! She put them into the movie like a Trojan horse. Here we are, John Q Public, enjoying a movie, not realizing it’s laced with cat power. It’s like she roofied our drink!” Isaac banged the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.
He kept driving blind, having no idea where the nearest vet was without his cell phone’s GPS, but he couldn’t stop the car and ask for directions in case they were being trailed. “Why was she bringing the cat to Super Jesus at the Annenberg? Did you figure out my dream?”
“No.”
“Or what the blue beam was? The one coming out of the ceiling?”
“No.”
“It seems that the cats want something with Super Jesus. I thought they were coming to rescue me at the Twin Towers, but it seemed like Super Jesus was their target, and I was there by coincidence.”
“Rescue you?” Liz scoffed, the idea's absurdity momentarily shaking her out of her moroseness.
“Yeah, rescue me,” Isaac repeated, taking offense. “What’s so funny about that? I’m worth saving!”
“I mean…”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a cat saved my life, you know.”
“When?” Liz challenged.
“At the ritual sacrifice under the library,” Isaac said plainly, purposefully leaving out how Super Jesus told him that event was nothing more than reshoots for the sequel. But based on what happened at the Twin Towers, Isaac didn’t lend that idea as much credence anymore.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Which one?”
“Which one?” It was Isaac’s turn to scoff. “How many ritual sacrifices are there?”
“Yeah, which one? If there were only one, then it wouldn’t be much of a ritual now, would it?” Liz challenged.
“I guess that’s true. It was a few nights back and was held under the downtown public library.”
Liz’s face went ashen. “You were there that night? So you were the intruder?”
He turned to her, surprised. “You were there, too?”
Liz slapped him across the face with as much force as she could. The strength of the blow shocked Isaac. “You were the reason why I was caught!” She shrieked, lashing out at him again. The wounded cat in her arm was the only thing restricting Liz’s rage. She was careful not to harm the Birman.
“What?” Isaac used his off-hand to ward off her attacks while trying to steady the van.
Liz relented, but only after the cat began to wheeze. “After you got caught, the organizers checked their members and discovered me in the crowd. That’s how I got sent to the Twin Towers.” Liz looked at the cat before whispering to Isaac, “How did you get into the library?”
“Well, I guess you could say that I was a plus one,” Isaac said, thinking back. “I was over by Skid Row, looking for a break in the case, when suddenly a Birman appeared before me and asked me to follow him, so I did.”
“Me too.” Liz stared at the wounded cat in her arms with wonder. A weak mew came between pained breaths. “I was looking for them, but they found me. One of the Birmans escorted me to the library, and that’s when I knew you were right about Cat Power. They beamed something into my brain that told me to follow.”
“Cat Power,” Isaac’s tone remained reverent.
“I tried to work backward, searching for the source of the Birmans, like where their trainer got them, but came up empty. They seemed to have materialized out of thin air. There were no breeding papers or breeders, so I called around the community, but that quickly became an impossible task of trying to decipher the rantings and ravings of the various crazy cat ladies I interviewed.”
Isaac raised an eyebrow, “Do you really think they’re so crazy now?” He waved a hand in the air to indicate the general situation in which they found themselves now.
“I guess not,” she admitted. “But it was hard to take the Egyptian conspiracy theories too seriously at the time. And that was the least ludicrous one of them all.”
“Hmm?” Isaac murmured, asking her to continue. “Egyptian?”
“For a conspiracy theory, it was pretty straightforward: the idea being that the Egyptians used to worship cats as gods because, well, they are gods.”
“Are they?” Isaac wondered. “Are they gods?”
“No, cats are not gods, Isaac. However, the conventional wisdom held by the cat scholars of Wikipedia is this: cats were revered because they played a pivotal role in Egyptian society.”
“They fertilized crops by using the desert as a giant litterbox?”
Liz ignored Isaac and continued on, “As desert dwellers, the Egyptian people and their livestock were regularly terrorized by dangerous scorpions and snakes and—”
“And lizards!” Isaac interjected, putting the pieces together.
“Sure, and lizards. The point is that cats protect people by hunting and killing vermin. Then, to thank cats for their service, Egyptians provided shelter and regular feedings to them, which began the domestication process, but the cats ended up domesticating the Egyptians instead, to the point they began to worship the cats. Or that’s the working theory anyway.”
“Isn’t it obvious? Cats are still protecting us from lizards with cat power!” Isaac thought aloud. His speech gained steam with each successive sentence. “What if the scholars have it wrong? What if the lizards the hieroglyphics referred to weren’t the common pests we know them as. But what if the lizards in question were really an intergalactic species? One that produces popular entertainment for reasons I’ve yet to uncover?”
“Yeah, what if?” Liz almost snorted, but she was forced to reconsider her position after remembering her current situation. “Yeah, what if….”
There was one flaw in Isaac’s conjecture, he realized. If cats and lizards behaved like cats and dogs, then why would the cats team up with the space lizards to star in Super Jesus 2? Isaac sighed. It was another dead end.
“Wait, are there lizards from space who mean us harm?” Liz demanded.
“You didn’t see the lizardman at the ritual sacrifice?”
“No, I didn’t see a lizardman at the ritual sacrifice.”
“There was at least one in attendance that night, and I know because it attacked me. And it would have been the end of me, too, if a cat didn’t save my life. If Dr. Rousseau was there, you could add another lizardman to the tally.”
“Dr. Rousseau is a lizardman? Dr. Rousseau who works at the Twin Towers?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Oh,” Liz said with the least amount of skepticism she had expressed thus far in the conversation.
“Did you know that the pyramids of Giza are aligned to the stars of Orion’s belt?” Isaac asked.
“So?”
“I dunno,” Isaac shrugged. “But it’s got to mean something! I know we can figure it out. Together.” For the first time in a long time, Isaac was feeling optimistic. This was what Blake Snyder predicted. By joining forces with his love interest in his greatest time of need, his story was about to hit a new inflection point. It was time for his third act!
“...”
“So if the Egyptian thing was the least ludicrous of the theories produced by the cat ladies you interviewed, what were the most?” Isaac wondered because no ideas should be considered beyond the pale at this juncture.
“One of the breeders I met with had the idea that cats invented the question mark.”
“That’s ludicrous,” Isaac laughed. “Everyone knows that Dr. Evil’s dad invented the question mark.” (A second Austin Powers reference, Isaac thought, what could it mean?) What Isaac still couldn’t piece together, however, was how saving the cat would save the world. And why were the cats after Super Jesus?
“Stop!” Liz urged Isaac, and he did as he was told, slamming the van’s brakes and causing it to fishtail out of control. Once they settled, Isaac looked out the window but saw no animal hospital. Instead, they were parked at the bottom of Angel’s flight and across from Grand Central Market, where the morning’s produce was being loaded inside the enormous warehouse. The scent of the Egg Slut griddle warming up wafted through Isaac’s window.
“What’s going on?” Isaac asked, alarmed as Liz frantically fumbled for the door handle, but he locked it before she could make a clean escape. “Where are you going?”
“Let me out!” Liz’s face turned ugly as she continued to claw at the door. “This cat needs to be interrogated.”
“What?” Isaac asked, bewildered.
“I’m taking the cat. “
“Why?”
“This is my chance! If I can get him to Mr. Lennox, I’ll be back in his favor and back on track to make executive producer.”
“You’re out of your mind, Liz. Lennox is probably the biggest lizardman there is!” Isaac lunged toward Liz, making a bid to take back Captain Flapjacks.
“Stay away!” Liz recoiled, shielding the cat from Isaac. “If you get any closer, I’ll kill the cat. I’ll wring his little neck, I swear to god!”
“So it’s mutually assured destruction, then?” Isaac pulled back from her and weighed his options.
“All I was told was that the cat was wanted. Dead or alive was left unsaid. And if they want one alive, then I’ll just try again. About eleven more Birmans are out there in the wild for me to capture. This one means nothing.”
“Advancing your career can’t be worth this.”
She threw her head back, laughing. “You really are new to the industry. Kidnapping a cat is nothing. You should see what I’ve done to people. Who I’ve done. You realize you’re talking to someone who put in time with Rudin and Weinstein and came out the other side with character references, right?”
“Are you a lizardwoman?” Isaac asked. “Be honest.”
“No.”
“No joke?”
“No joke.”
“Then why are you siding with the lizard people?” Isaac asked, willing to take Liz at face value.
“Isn’t it obvious? Because there is no such thing as space lizards! Probably. And if there are space lizards, then you want me to go against the space lizards? Do you hear yourself? That would make them some sort of superspecies from outer space. And you expect me to side with the humans when I have the option not to? That’s no way to climb the corporate ladder or the food chain. It’s just too much to ask of me. I’m only human.”
Isaac unlocked the door, not knowing what else to do. He figured the right thing to do was help the cats, but what would the cats do when they learned he was half-lizard? Would they accept his kind? Maybe he should join Liz. She made some excellent points, as siding with the lizards seemed like the safer strategic play. He could give them a chance. After all, perhaps the lizards weren’t so bad. There were two sides to every story, right?
Captain Flapjacks meowed, interrupting Isaac’s treasonous thoughts. The sound was a cold shower to his senses. He had to save the cat. And the best way he knew how was to let Liz go. He couldn’t risk her snapping Captain Flapjack’s neck. Isaac would have to bide his time and be patient. The cat needed to live so he could fight another day.
Using whatever strength the Birman had left, the cat turned to Isaac. They two locked eyes, and time stopped. A connection was made. Was this Cat Power? Isaac wondered as reality slipped away and something else replaced it. His brain and optic nerves no longer perceived the images of Liz, Captain Flapjacks, and the panel van’s interior. Instead, he saw Zee, Anne, and Anne’s office in Venice.
From a disembodied perspective high above the room, Isaac watched Anne render psychic services to Zee, who held a healthy Captain Flapjacks in her lap and looked in desperate need of help. Isaac recognized her outfit. It was the same tactical cat burglar suit she wore in his dream. Based on her disheveled appearance and anxious tics, Isaac believed this meeting occurred after she and Mark had snuck into the photography museum. This must have been when Zee dropped off Captain Flapjacks to Anne for safekeeping.
The meeting seemed cordial enough between the parties until Anne’s office suddenly filled with an ominous cloud of billowing smoke. And the last thing Isaac saw before the room became utterly inscrutable with smoke was an unmistakable look of fear in Zee’s eyes. Isaac tried to shoo the curtain of clouds away, but he had no hands in this suspended state. He could only guess. Then, once the smoke had finally vanished, Anne had Captain Flapjacks on her lap, and Zee’s chair was empty. She had disappeared. Replacing her was a clear transmission from the cat flashing across his brain in bold letters. It said: “Seek Zee!”
Then, with a snap, Captain Flapjacks' mind meld with Isaac broke off as fast as it was made. When Isaac regained his senses, Liz was already out of the car with Captain Flapjacks in tow. The cat looked near death, but Liz didn’t slow her pace any. Instead, she fled as fast as possible across the street and into the dark offered by the Metro subway entrance.
Heartbroken, Isaac called out after her, “You were supposed to be my love interest!”
All was lost. Again. Blake Snyder hadn’t prepared him for this. There was only supposed to be one rock bottom to his story, and Isaac didn’t know how many more he could endure.