#79: Do you have any Cats?

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Sam placed a telephone call to the Austin Animal Center. Austin Texas. It was the successor to Town Lake Animal Center from which he'd acquired his two deceased friends so very long ago.

The phone answered and an obviously automated voice did the menu routine. “press one for English, press two for...........”

The old man impatiently waited until the last....when the equivalent of “speak to a real person” was offered. He pressed that button.

“Hello, Austin Animal Center,how may I help you” said the , supposedly, real person.

“I’d like to adopt a cat" said Sam. "do you have any?”

It was a real person. She started laughing. “Oh my yes...we certainly have cats. All kinds of cats. In fact it's a cat-astrophe here right now. We have kittens too. Many, many kittens.”

“Very good” said the old man “I’ll be there shortly”

Sam thought for a minute, should he take his pod or a cab? As usual he decided to take his own machine. It was a control thing. When in a vehicle he always wanted to be in control. Even though his pod was automated...he'd written the programming. He was in ultimate control.

“Troglodyte....prepare the pod” he said.

“Yes Master” came a deep growly voice seemingly from everywhere. It sounded like Lee Marvin after smoking several packs of cigarettes.

Sam dressed in something comfortable but fit to be seen in public. He picked suitable weapons, a .45 auto-loader for display in a tooled leather holster at his side, a .22 magnum hide out in his hat, and a .357 backup in a shoulder holster under his vest. He thought about taking neck knives and boot knives and decided in favor. He stowed a few blades... He would , after all, be going to downtown Austin. He also selected a cane. At his age a cane might prove handy. A cane seemed to have a positive effect on people. People gave him more space when he carried a cane. It was also an excellent hideout for a heavier weapon. In this case it was a maul, a metal-storm automatic shotgun. He climbed down from the cab of the truck and walked to the rear of the cab where a small pod had been lowered to the ground.

The pod was a single wheeler. The cab was within the wheel. It was battery powered, laser-gyro-stabilized, very lightweight and ultra streamlined, very nimble and extremely fast. The old man climbed told the pod where he wanted to go. It hesitated for a bare moment, then rolled away...rapidly gaining speed. The animal center wasn't too far away from BLT. He would be there in about half an hour.

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And so it came to pass that he was rolling into the parking lot of the Austin Animal Center. Naturally there were no parking spaces. Sam disembarked and told the pod to ‘go play in traffic’. It rolled away to orbit the area...never getting more than a minute or two away in case of recall.

Sam walked up the sidewalk toward the front door, swinging his cane and wishing he had a cigar.

Entering the facility the old man looked around to orient himself in the dimmer inside light. It was an open layout with the reception desk in the middle. He walked toward it. There was a ‘mature’ lady at the desk. The old man used his eyeglass camera, heads up display, the local wi-fi data service and the Google “person-search” to identify her. As he was approaching the desk he was reading a synopsis of her life's history. She smiled as she saw him. He smiled also.......let the games begin.

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Next Episode
#80: The games began
Previous Episode
#78: I lied…
First Episode
# 1 : In the beginning…

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@everittdmickey
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SPECULATIVE FICTION
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