Invention

Today's piece is a little old. I'm working on digging into my writing habits and kick-starting this whole "writing a book" thing again. My last project fell through (there are salvageable bits, of course, but the narrative was wandering and a little forced) so I'm starting over and trying again. 
In the meantime, enjoy a visit with Jeremy and his not-cat.

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If only one could think things into existence. Wouldn't that be nice? Jeremy gazed forlornly at the prototype sitting on his desk, and knew it wasn't good enough. It didn't look nearly as nice as the one that he'd imagined. Of course, the one he'd imagined it a little bigger, and shinier.... Something heavy and spiky jumped into his lap and Jeremy bit his tongue as he almost yelled in surprise. Then he remembered that he'd let the cat into his room earlier. Obviously, the ridiculous creature must have been hiding under his bed for the last several hours. 

And it truly was a ridiculous creature now, neither male nor female, neither cat nor hedgehog, but something in between. The cat (he still thought of it as a cat, even if it technically wasn't one anymore) was called Hampton, and had pliable, hollow spikes from its shoulders to its haunches. There were a few on its head, but those were harder, and Hampton had taken to using them very efficiently to make its master pay more attention when it felt neglected. Which the creature now felt. Jeremy noted as his wrist started to bleed, courtesy of Hampton's earnest nudging.

"You're an animal," he told Hampton, stroking its back, "you're not supposed to have feelings. You know that, right?" Hampton neither acknowledged the question, nor answered. Considering the beast was incapable of speech, Jeremy supposed he could forgive the cat's rudeness. The boy sighed and looked back at the device on his desk and sighed.

"How come all I ever make is garbage? It doesn't even look cool, let alone work." He looked down at Hampton, and decided that maybe a couple hours away from his project would make it look a little better. Still holding (and more importantly, petting) the strange animal, Jeremy made his way out into the curved hall and stopped by his parent's room to drop off Hampton... but when he keyed in his code, the status bar flashed red. Either his parents weren't in, or they wished not to be disturbed. The boy sighed. That was only slightly disappointing, as this happened at least half of the time, anyway.

 "Well, Hampton, I guess you're coming with me." Still carrying (and petting, definitely still petting) the animal, Jeremy slouched his way downstairs, only to find a message marching around the edge of the table display, blinking to show it was still waiting to be red. He tapped the table with one hand and watched the message as it disappeared from the border and reappeared in a window in the middle of the table. 

Jefferson Park, 10:45 PM. Come alone.
PS - Bring the cat.

Come alone? Bring the cat? Weren't those statements contradictory? The message wasn't signed, so he wasn't sure who had sent it, but he had a good idea. He tapped the table until it pinged Cain Mariner. When he answered, Jeremy said simply, "No."

"No?" asked Cain. No vid for this ping, just voices. Jeremy put Hampton down on the chair and started to put together a sandwich. 

"No, I'm not coming to the park tonight." The reaction to this statement was almost instantaneous, and sudden enough that Jeremy almost dropped the almond-butter jar.

"Come on, Jer! It's just one little experiment!"  

"I don't care. My cat is already messed up enough as it is." He turned, only to find Hampton sitting on the counter beside the bread, glaring at him. "Hampton, get down." The cat didn't move. 

"But I think I found a way to soften the spines-"

"No, Cain. Besides, we have a test tomorrow, and being up all night won't help." Jeremy hooked an arm around the spiny cat and shoved it off the counter, where it landed with a heavy thump.

"Fine. But you know the sooner I get this figured out, the sooner we can sell-" Cain's voice cut off abruptly as Jeremy reached over and tapped the table to end the ping. Cain was always coming up with ideas about how to use his friend's ideas to make money. The irritating thing was that most of his ideas worked. 

Sandwich in hand, Jeremy scooped up the cat again and headed back to his room. Unable to think of anything else to do, he just sat down in front of his desk and stared at his invention again. Maybe one more try wouldn't hurt. And then, maybe Cain would get off his back about Hampton.