Roger entered the darkness of the conference room, and Noble Redavich followed.
The fluorescent lights flickered on with an almost subliminal hum as the motion sensor switch acknowledged their presence. Windowless, glossy white walls bore faint traces of dry erase marker below large “Erase Me!” signs. Roger pulled out a gray-upholstered office chair and sat at the melamine table. He leaned back, tenting his fingers together and pursing his lips.
Noble started to pull out a chair of his own, but Roger didn’t give him the chance to sit.
“I want to make one thing very clear before we start,” Roger said. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, here, mainly because of your experience in this…” He gestured with his hands, circling them around one another, looking up as if searching the ceiling tiles for the right word. “…area.”
He leaned forward. “Don’t think for a second that I haven’t realized what a great excuse this makes for yet another example of your habitual inability to be in on time, to say nothing of your generally poor attitude, et cetera, et cetera.”
Noble didn’t wait for Roger to stop talking. “You seriously think I’d make this up? This? As an excuse?”
“Et cetera,” Roger continued, louder. “I still personally doubt that you saw what you think you saw, and regardless of whether it turns out to be a deliberate lie or a simple lack of competence in the area of observing and identifying actual quantum phenomena—a key component of your paying job, to be clear—if this turns out to be nothing, you will also turn out to be, metaphorically, nothing.” He leaned back again. “So. Clear?”
Stress is carried in the jaw, Noble thought. He actively unclenched, exhaled, focused his thoughts. I have the truth on my side, he thought, but it didn’t make him feel much better. “Clear,” he said.
Roger nodded. “Ok. So what did you see?”
Noble raised his hands, palms out. “Just to set the lay of the land, you’re familiar with the overall Arbor Day situation, the cats, and so forth…”
“I’m familiar. Get to the point.”
“As you know, it’s been quiet the last four years…”
“Ok, stop,” Roger said. “We’re not doing this whole, this, this drawn out ‘well, you know quantum mechanics blah blah blah’ thing. Right now, I want to understand very clearly and very briefly and very quickly: you say you saw the cats. What exactly did you see?”
“I saw a cat that was a dead ringer for Eloise,” Noble said, in a single breath. “Mostly black, with the same white mark above its left eye, same white-tipped tail. Smaller, though, like an older kitten.”
“Stop,” Roger said again, firmly, holding up a finger. “Several things: first, you’re now saying you saw a cat, singular. Previously, you said something to the effect of ‘the cats are back’, plural.”
“I was getting to that,” Noble said. “Yes, there were cats, plural, but initially, there was just the one cat, singular.”
“Second,” Roger said, raising a second finger, “there’d better be more to this than ‘I saw a kitty that looked like a different kitty that I loved very very much despite the obvious world-ending danger and therefore I am making an outrageous claim about…’”
This time, Noble cut him off. “The kitten—the cat was in a tree. An aspen. A quaking aspen. I saw it. And then I saw it again. And again. Same cat. Same tree. Four times, on the bus.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. It was the same cat in the same tree. At first it felt like deja vu, but then I saw it again and again. Same branch structure, same leaves, same cat. I’m sure of it.”
“Lots of cats out there. Lots of trees. Moving vehicle. Bus windows usually aren’t very clean.”
“I know,” Noble said. “Believe me, I thought it might just be coincidence, or not getting a clear look out the window, or some rational reason. But the fourth time convinced me.”
“What was so special about the fourth time?”
“The fourth time, the cat and the tree were a lot closer. I got a very good look.”
“Why was that?”
Noble paused. “They were both right next to me. In the back of the bus.”
