Cat Out of the Bag Read online

  I took my platter and hurried out the door, shouldering past the gathering crowds of people. Dusk was settling in on the junkyard, and the desert sunset streamed its vibrant colors over the land. The look in the eyes of the people I passed was frantic, full of the pent-up fear and anger the Sho’kin had held for so many years.

  I took a deep breath then let it out. Even if every single one of us rose up against the guards, we would be destroyed. Automatic laser rifles could take out ten cats in three seconds flat. All we had were garbage pokers and kitchen knives.

  I hurried past the crowd, holding dinner close to my chest, my heart beating frantically. The energy on the street felt like the moments before an explosion. I made it to my door and slid inside, resting my back against the splintered wood. I closed my eyes and took another deep breath.

  “What’s going on?” Pappi asked.

  “Nothing good, I’m afraid.” I set the food on the table. “Except this.” I flipped the lid off the container, and the smell of shish kebabs and pancakes filled the air. Pappi leaned over the food and took a deep breath.

  “This is too much. You should have saved it for rent. I’ve made cactus stew.”

  “Pappi, we can’t live on cactus stew. It doesn’t have enough nutrition. Besides, it’s disgusting.”

  “You need to save your money if you want to survive.”

  “Don’t worry.” I dished his food onto a plate and guided his hand to a fork. “Please eat your food. You need your strength. Everything is going to work out all right. I’ve got a plan. We’re going to get out of here.”

  “You and your daydreams, Mango. Someday, they’re going to get you into a lot of trouble.”

  Chapter 8

  After I finished my dinner and Pappi settled into his couch to listen to music, I went out to the shed with the transformer to work on my bike. The guards had dispersed the crowds, and the streets were mostly clear. I had just enough credits to enter the race the next day, and I was going to win. And when I did, Pepper and Toby could come with us back to the farm.

  I used my key to open the shed then slipped inside and closed the door. The dim overhead light flickered and buzzed, and I knelt by my speeder, pulling my transformer out of my shirt. I inspected the device, turning it over in my hands and checking for damage. I then hooked it up to my electronics-testing monitor to check its various components. After running through the diagnostics, I found that the transformer needed a single chip replacement. I shot to my feet with excitement. I knew I had one of those chips somewhere in my workshop. I opened all of my drawers and compartments filled with nuts, bolts, screws, and tools, both low- and high-tech. I opened the jar of old batteries and the one of wires. I knew I had one of those chips somewhere, but no matter how hard I looked, I just couldn’t find it.

  I sat down on my stool and scratched my head. Where could it have gone? Maybe I’d used it for something else and forgot. I opened the compartments under my toolbox where I kept the money that I only used for entry fees into the races. I knew where I could buy a chip, but then I would be short five credits to enter the race tomorrow.

  I thought about asking Pappi for the money but decided against it. He was always on my back about saving for rent or something.

  I searched through my drawers for something I could sell. The junk buyer would be open for a few more minutes, and if I was lucky, I could trade him for the chip I needed. I grabbed a few of the tools that I used less often, closed up my savings box, and headed out of my shop. After locking up, I hurried down the street between the shanty huts to the junk buyer. There was still a line of garbage pickers selling their late finds. I found the chip that I needed in the stack and waited in the buyers’ line.

  When I made it to the front of the line, the junk buyer lifted his eyebrow at me and asked me for five credits.

  I put my credits on the table, alongside my tools.

  “No trades. If you want to sell those tools, then you get in the sales line.”

  “Can’t you just do it?” I asked. “You’re only going to be open for a few more minutes.”

  The disagreeable goblin sighed and rolled her eyes but finally agreed to do the exchange.

  “I’m grateful,” I told her as she rang me up.

  On the way out of the junk buyer’s hut, I had a song in my heart and a spring in my step. I knew I was going to win the race.

  I hurried down the street back to my hut and saw a flash of color at the end of the streets. It was the shaman.

  “Hey,” I said, reaching out so I could get her attention. Sasha disappeared behind the hut around the corner. I hurried toward her. The sun had gone down, and the camp had plunged into darkness.

  “Hey, wait,” I called as I rounded the corner. She was walking so quickly that I could barely catch up with her before she made it all the way back to her home. She stopped at her door and was about to walk inside, and I rushed up and finally got her attention. Her eyes widened at me as if I’d startled her.

  “Hey,” I said breathlessly. My name is Mango Mew,” I said, introducing myself. “I don’t know if you remember me. I was a little girl back in Sho’kin Forest when we all came to the junkyard.”

  “Of course I remember you, Mango. What can I do for you?”

  “I have a question to ask you. But I should probably ask it in private.” I looked around.

  “Well, come inside then.” She opened the door for me. “How is your father?” Inside, the smells of herbs and resins filled my nose. It was a welcoming scent that reminded me of home.

  “Pappi is well enough. He started losing his eyesight from the sun and toxins in the garbage. He’s going to need surgery.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She sat at her table. “There was a time when I could have done something for him openly, but now, if anyone found out I’d healed him with my magic, it could mean my death,” she said, gazing out the window at the fading twilight. “So what brings you to me today, Mango?”

  “I had a very strange dream the other night,” I began.

  “Oh?” She looked as if I’d piqued her interest.

  “It was very strange. I dreamed that I stepped through a portal into a cave and was confronted by a dragon who said I was a summoner. Of course, it was just a silly dream. But I was wondering if you had ever heard of anything called a summoner before.”

  She looked very concerned, stood up, and closed the curtains as if to block out any possibility that we’d be overheard.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “I haven’t heard that word in ages.”

  “Then you know what it means?”

  She sat across from me and folded her hands, looking down at the table. “Yes, I know what it means.” She stared off into the distance then looked back at me and smiled. “Summoners are very magical beings who are able to tame and channel beasts’ energies.”

  “So it’s a real thing?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s a real thing, all right.” She stood. “Would you like some tea?” I nodded, and she puttered around in the kitchen.

  “So these beasts that a summoner can tame… That includes dragons?”

  “Yes.” She poured water into a teakettle.

  “So dragons are real?”

  “Very real. But perhaps not in a sense that you would understand.”

  “Oh,” I said, growing confused. I fiddled with the chip in my pocket, wondering how long I should stay. I needed to get home to finish fixing my bike. And if I wasn’t in bed by midnight, Pappi would give me hell about staying out late again.

  “So how are they real?” I ventured.

  “There are no dragons in this world, at least not in the world as we know it.”

  “Okay, so where do they exist?”

  “Dragons are interdimensional beings. They may live in this world, but not on this plane. Dragons are very special creatures, as they can open portals between universes, dimensions, and timelines. They can traverse worlds in an instant. But you cannot find the
m unless you have an opening.” Her eyes looked glazed, as if she wasn’t even talking to me anymore.

  “So if I was going to tame a dragon, then I would somehow have to step through a portal, like in my dream, and go meet them in their world?”

  “In their dimension. Dragons live on a different frequency than you and me. But once you have tamed one, you can summon them into this world, and they will do your bidding.”

  “Why would a creature like that do my bidding?”

  “Because you are a summoner. Once you tame a beast, it is yours to command.”

  “Pappi thinks I’m crazy, and so do all of my friends.”

  “Sometimes the things others criticize us for are our greatest gifts. Don’t ever apologize for yours, Mango.”

  “I just wish people would believe in me once in a while.”

  “Would you like me to help you find your gifts?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said, not really sure what that meant.

  “We cannot do it here. We must get outside the boundaries of the junkyard and from under the eyes of the Landlords. Unlike healing a degenerative disease, this is something we can hide. If we go now, we can be back by morning.”

  “We could take my speeder,” I said.

  “You have a speeder?”

  “I sure do. Fastest in the junkyard. I’m gonna win the race tomorrow, and when I do, I will pay off the taxes on our farm, and me and Pappi can go home. You could even come with us if you want. There’s plenty of room. Then you can use your magic again. I’ll go get my speeder and be back in just a few minutes.”

  “Be careful out there. The new guards have been threatening the workers, and I feel as if something terrible is in the air.”

  I hurried off into the night, running down the street to my house. I slipped into the workroom, popped the chip into the transformer, slid it into place, wired it up, then turned on my speeder and attached it to the diagnostics unit. Everything was running perfectly. I disconnected the diagnostics unit, pushed my speeder out of the workshop, and locked the door.

  I hopped on the bike, and a few minutes later, I stopped outside of the shaman’s door. She slipped out into the moonlight, holding a bag in her hands. She got onto the back of my bike, and we were off. I made for the edge of the shanty camp and kept going.

  The junkyard went on for miles. Most of the crap that the pickers couldn’t sell went straight back into the ground. Since the Landlords had taken over so much of our world, the dump had grown a hundredfold. They’d taken over the land, displaced the people, and sent them to work in factories, where they made things to sell to the people who had lost their hearts and needed to replace them with something. Each year, the heap expanded as another race of people was thrown from their homes and driven to the cities, where they worked for the Landlords, making and buying things to throw away. The things never could fill the void of what had been stolen—their homes, their land, and their families.

  The garbage grew and festered day by day and year by year. Eventually, it would cover the entire world, and maybe then the Landlords would leave in peace. Or maybe our world would be destroyed like the last one they had conquered.

  I hated when I fell into such melancholy thoughts and tried to drive them from my mind. It didn’t help anything to dwell on the plight of our world. I instead focused on how I could get back home, how I could regain the light in my heart and in the hearts of my people. Finally, as the moon glowed brightly overhead, I saw the edge of the junkyard.

  Sasha pointed and yelled over the rush of the wind in my ears. “Up ahead, take a right at the fork in the road. It will take you up the mountain.”

  “Got it!” I yelled. I followed her directions, and soon we were at the top of a ridge that swept out over the desert valley and the junkyard. From that vantage point, even the hell that I called home looked beautiful in the glow of the twin moons.

  Chapter 9

  “We should be safe from the Landlords’ magic and prying eyes here,” she said, throwing out a blanket and settling down in the center of it. She patted the spot in front of her and told me to join her. A moment later, I was sitting cross-legged across from Sasha as she lit some strange-smelling herbs on fire. The smoke filled the air, and thick, gray tendrils crawled up my nose. The scent was pleasant but strong. She waved the bundle of herbs around my head and muttered some words I didn’t understand.

  Sasha continued chanting and making all sorts of weird hand gestures. It was all very unsettling. But more than the oddity of her movements and what she was doing with her voice was how it all made me feel. I had a strange sense of heaviness in my chest and lightness in my head that felt almost like that time I’d had a fever and was in bed for days, dreaming that I was big and small and all sorts of shapes. It was almost as if I was no longer inside my body. My heart rate increased, and I had a hard time catching my breath. I had to lie down—if I didn’t lie down on purpose, it was going to happen anyway. I collapsed on the blanket, and the strange musky smell of luscious herbs filled my senses.

  The twin moons were high overhead, and the stars glowed like a billion candles. The smoke wafted above me, and I closed my eyes. The world seemed as if it had tilted, and I lost my grasp somewhere. I was falling deep into a well of my own mind, deep down into the dark, where there was no bottom and no light. I felt all of my hopes and fears wash through me, one after the next. Finally, I descended to the bottom of a deep sea and found myself floating along the ocean floor. I could breathe in the heavy, dark water, but my body was lighter than usual.

  “Where am I?” I hoped someone could hear me down there.

  “You are in the in-between space,” I heard Sasha’s voice say, far off in the distance. “Here, you will learn what you need to know.”

  “What do I need to know?” I didn’t know if I said it aloud or inside my mind.

  Sasha had gone quiet. There was nothing but complete silence in the depths. I floated through the murky water, searching for some kind of direction.

  I heard the voice again. “You are a summoner,” it said.

  “Show yourself to me,” I demanded.

  “You are not ready to tame your first dragon,” another voice said. It was so completely distinct from the dragon’s smoky, deep voice that it startled me. It wasn’t Sasha, who had the purring voice of a Sho’kin. It was something entirely different, deep and low and soothing but distinctly feminine. She stepped out of the blackness and illuminated the space around me. All of a sudden, we were standing above the water, on a beach near the shore. Turquoise waves crashed against golden sand, and shining light sparkled in the woman’s glistening dark hair.

  “Who are you?” I asked. The sense of her power filled my belly, and I couldn’t tell if it was excitement or fear.

  “I am To’tonya, goddess of water and intuition. I have watched you, dear one, for a long time, waiting for you to be ready to receive me.”

  “But you aren’t a dragon,” I said, feeling completely lost.

  “No, I am not a dragon. I’m a goddess. And I have chosen to be your avatar, your protector, and your guardian. You can call on me when you need my power and strength, and I will always step into the ring to defend and protect you.”

  “How does that work?” I asked.

  “You need only call my name, and I will appear.”

  “What can you do?”

  “I can give you an inner sense of knowing. Something you have always used as a racer and in your games. But now, it’s time for you to use these gifts to your highest ability. And when you tame your first dragon, your true journey will begin.” She walked forward and gently kissed me on the head before turning toward the sea with a smile and a twinkle in her eye. She walked confidently toward the waves then disappeared under the water.

  I called after her, but she was already gone. I sat on the beach, more confused than ever. I couldn’t get back to my body, and I could no longer hear Sasha’s voice. I picked up a stone and threw it in the water, but befor
e it hit the waves, it turned into a seagull and flew away. I was so startled by this that I instantly woke up and found myself lying on the blanket, curled up in a ball at Sasha’s feet. I gasped and started to sit up.

  “What happened?” she asked, ending her chants.

  The sage smoke still hung heavy on the air, and I felt light-headed and starving. “I’m not sure. I thought that I would see the dragon again, but instead, I met a woman named To’tonya. She said she was the goddess of water and intuition and that I should call on her if I ever needed help. I’m so confused.”

  “I’m sorry, Mango,” Sasha said. “I forgot about the avatars.”

  “What is an avatar?”

  “An avatar is a highly powerful spirit who lives on a higher plane of reality. They choose summoners to work with, and when you are in need, you can call upon them for aid. You cannot command them like a beast, but you can ask for blessings.”

  “She said that she had been with me all along.” I thought back to all the times when I just knew when to roll the dice and in what direction and wondered if it had been To’tonya guiding me. She said I had a greater mission then dice games and races, and I already knew that—my mission was getting back to the farm. I couldn’t figure out why a goddess wanted to help me with that. “I’m so tired and hungry,” I said with a yawn. “I didn’t expect that to take so much out of me.”

  “We should get back.”

  “But I still don’t know how to summon a dragon.”

  “You can’t summon a dragon until you’ve tamed it, and you can’t tame a dragon until you’re face-to-face with it.”

  “But how will I get face-to-face with the dragon if they live in another dimension?”

  “A portal must be opened. I had hoped I would do that for you tonight, but it seems I do not have that power. You have been blessed with your first avatar. I am afraid there is not much else I can do for you. But I know that there are other summoners, people who understand this gift much better than I do. You must seek them out, Mango. They can help you harness your power.”