Shownotes
In a bleak cyberpunk future, Snap the cyborg cat wanders the streets to find her lost inventor.
Today’s story is “Finding a Lost Inventor” by Katlina Sommerberg, who writes science fiction, horror, and furry stories. You can find links to xyr published short fiction on xyr author website.
Read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.
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https://thevoice.dog/episode/finding-a-lost-inventor-by-katlina-sommerberg
Transcripts
You’re listening to The Voice of Dog. I’m Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,
Speaker:and Today’s story is
Speaker:“Finding a Lost Inventor”
Speaker:by Katlina Sommerberg,
Speaker:who writes science fiction,
Speaker:horror, and furry stories.
Speaker:You can find links to xyr published short fiction
Speaker:on xyr author website.
Speaker:Please enjoy “Finding a Lost Inventor”
Speaker:by Katlina Sommerberg
Speaker:Little cat paws, three steel and one organic,
Speaker:scratched the windows of the tallest building in New York City.
Speaker:Scrap wouldn’t climb this high up without a reason,
Speaker:but being a homeless cyborg-cat gave her plenty.
Speaker:The Financial District of Lower Manhattan
Speaker:boasted more skyscrapers than anywhere else in the world,
Speaker:and they offered Snap a rich hunting ground.
Speaker:Capturing corporate secrets
Speaker:paid handsomely; more importantly,
Speaker:she could look for her missing inventor at the same time.
Speaker:For the first time in a week she climbed down instead of up.
Speaker:Claws out, scratching ruler-straight lines into the glass,
Speaker:she descended butt-first.
Speaker:The windows, tinted black for privacy,
Speaker:yielded nothing to her eye.
Speaker:However, her ocular implant watched the humans
Speaker:hunched over their desks
Speaker:in overcrowded open offices.
Speaker:Eyes glued to their monitors and the latest noise-canceling headphones over their ears,
Speaker:none noticed the screeching glass —
Speaker:let alone the tuxedo cat.
Speaker:Sliding down a hundred stories at a leisurely half mile per hour,
Speaker:Snap observed the corporate drones.
Speaker:They scuttled like cockroaches with nowhere to hide,
Speaker:driven by invisible deadlines.
Speaker:Interns scrambled to meet their deadlines,
Speaker:pulling out their own hair and yelling at each other
Speaker:in tense cohort meetings.
Speaker:One executive lost his mind over half a joint hidden in his office;
Speaker:he waved the recently legalized drug at his senior managers
Speaker:while his face turned dull purple.
Speaker:Snap annotated the observed meeting with the appropriate metadata tags,
Speaker:as those sorts of videos sold for up to ten times her quarterly food budget.
Speaker:As she watched all this unfold through the window,
Speaker:her unimpressed gaze stared back at her.
Speaker:Besides the gleaming metal claws poking out of fluffy white paws,
Speaker:Snap looked like any ordinary housecat.
Speaker:Synthetic black fur covered her carbon fiber legs,
Speaker:silky even compared to her glossy organic fur.
Speaker:One of her eyes, the one replaced with the ocular implant,
Speaker:shined bright against her ghostly reflection.
Speaker:Her hunt turned up nothing impressive,
Speaker:only disappointment.
Speaker:Her inventor had disappeared three months ago,
Speaker:into the fold of corporate wage slavery.
Speaker:Without a trace of Troy in their apartment,
Speaker:Snap had scoured the city for clues.
Speaker:She had followed her intuition here,
Speaker:but nothing connected to Troy surfaced.
Speaker:Time to follow another thread.
Speaker:Battery depleted
Speaker:and belly rumbling,
Speaker:she slid down to the fourth level,
Speaker:low enough to hear hovercars whirling by
Speaker:and a street preacher’s vitriol.
Speaker:She needed to get down there and follow a target home --
Speaker:especially a target employed by one of the corporations
Speaker:that might’ve disappeared her inventor.
Speaker:Snap released her claws,
Speaker:free falling through the air until
Speaker:she landed on the top of a dumpster,
Speaker:then jumped onto the sidewalk covered in glittering glass shards.
Speaker:Her prosthetic paws took the impact without so much as a jostle to her head.
Speaker:Two minutes later, the streets clogged with young professionals dressed in
Speaker:fashionably casual jeans and stained graphic shirts.
Speaker:The flood of Big Tech,
Speaker:Pharma, and FinTech employees
Speaker:made an excellent hunting ground for a mark.
Speaker:With their attention locked on virtual reality through their shimmering glasses,
Speaker:they barely noticed the bleak reality around them.
Speaker:Nevermind the cat weaving around their feet.
Speaker:Nearly lost in the smell of coffee,
Speaker:weed, and corn-diesel,
Speaker:she selected a human likely to have a home suitable to her needs.
Speaker:White cat hair clung to one young adult’s ugly neon green Christmas sweater,
Speaker:and Snap quickened her pace the moment she saw him.
Speaker:His backpack, slung over one shoulder,
Speaker:contained PearCorp’s heaviest,
Speaker:highest performance laptop model —
Speaker:it peaked out of one unzipped compartment.
Speaker:Snap easily followed the lumbering tree of a man,
Speaker:thanks to his ridiculous height and ectomorph body.
Speaker:As she trotted closer,
Speaker:she smelled coffee
Speaker:and modafinil. Red and orange paint flecked on the sweater’s ugly green wool.
Speaker:His long blond hair cascaded down his back in a long ponytail,
Speaker:a wad stuck in the backpack’s zipper.
Speaker:Christmas Sweater pulled a fob out of his pocket,
Speaker:clicking it repeatedly to summon his hovercar.
Speaker:Snap circled his feet,
Speaker:staying in his blindspot as he sipped his coffee.
Speaker:One hovercar drifted down from the flow of air traffic,
Speaker:settling beside him against the curb.
Speaker:“How was work, Luke?
Speaker:Will we be going home or to another destination?”
Speaker:a disembodied voice asked in a sultry voice mod.
Speaker:The nearest door swiveled open and up,
Speaker:a patented Tesla function.
Speaker:He stepped in, threw his backpack to the pleather floor,
Speaker:and pulled out a childproof bottle.
Speaker:Luke clawed at it for five seconds, cursing under his breath.
Speaker:Snap followed. She darted off the curb into the hovercar, weaving around his painted sneakers.
Speaker:The door slid to a close.
Speaker:Snap slipped under a seat when the hovercar jolted up;
Speaker:she dropped on the floor with a huff.
Speaker:“We’re going home,”
Speaker:he grunted. He sighed when the bottle’s lid popped open.
Speaker:CBD only tabs didn’t smell anything like weed, thanks to cheaper synthetic solutions made available last year.
Speaker:But the synthetic shit smelled like real shit mixed with hemp rope.
Speaker:She still hadn’t seen Luke’s face,
Speaker:but she heard him gulp and cough ---
Speaker:it probably tasted worse than it smelled.
Speaker:“You seem stressed,”
Speaker:the car’s AI voice said.
Speaker:“I worried about nothing,
Speaker:literally nothing.
Speaker:The Director loved the pitch.
Speaker:Should’ve gone behind Kuntal’s back a month ago,
Speaker:now everyone on the team’s blaming me for the pushed back release date.
Speaker:Like, hello, you morons! Do you want a product riddled with zero days to ship out the
Speaker:door? That shit shouldn’t fly in PearCorp, we’re not a zombie corporation!”
Speaker:Snap lashed her tail;
Speaker:too late to back out and find another human to stick to,
Speaker:but at least the complainer had something she might be able to use.
Speaker:His laptop had to have access to PearCorp’s internal network.
Speaker:Since surveillance hadn’t worked,
Speaker:she needed a look on the inside to scout for her inventor.
Speaker:“I’m sorry to hear that, Luke.
Speaker:Will you need a refill delivered next Monday?”
Speaker:“Make it tomorrow.
Speaker:I’m not moving from my couch until my alarm goes off next morning.” ***
Speaker:Luke leaped off the hovercar like a rabbit.
Speaker:He passed through the open doorway,
Speaker:clearing the landing mat.
Speaker:He never looked down to the concrete fifty stories below.
Speaker:Or up where the wires covered the blue sky like a murder of crows. Luke’s
Speaker:sneakers scuffed the floor,
Speaker:leaving black marks on his apartment’s dark hardwood floor.
Speaker:His left hand pulled out the fob from his pocket,
Speaker:tapping the button thrice to send the hovercar off.
Speaker:Snap jumped off. The moment one paw touched the landing mat, she started running.
Speaker:Sprinting across the sparse living space, she ducked under the couch.
Speaker:It stank of pleather and expired milk.
Speaker:But the other furniture,
Speaker:Victorian glass cabinets and a leggy table,
Speaker:weren’t suitable cover.
Speaker:Amateur paintings, done in abstract style with an abundance of texture,
Speaker:covered the walls.
Speaker:She hid, until the last of Luke’s long ponytail turned the corner.
Speaker:Despite his Big Tech salary, she doubted his place contained more than four rooms.
Speaker:Barely enough to hide in.
Speaker:Snap prepared to flee the moment he detected her.
Speaker:Muscles tense, she waited.
Speaker:She heard him shuffling in another room,
Speaker:cursing his hair.
Speaker:The faint smell of acrylic paints wafted to her nose.
Speaker:“Make me dinner — surprise me,”
Speaker:Luke called. He sounded close,
Speaker:maybe behind one or two walls.
Speaker:“Understood,” a disembodied voice said.
Speaker:It sounded exactly like the sultry voice from the car.
Speaker:The twiggy robotic arms in the kitchen twitched to life,
Speaker:their buzzing motors
Speaker:a warm purr. The fridge popped open,
Speaker:perfectly timed to Snap shut after another robotic arm
Speaker:grabbed a bundle of bones.
Speaker:Another arm grabbed a twenty pound cast iron skillet —
Speaker:valuable now that metal became an essential resource.
Speaker:Gently dropped onto the stove, the electric eye turned red.
Speaker:Salt, water, and bone dropped into the pot.
Speaker:Snap crawled from under the couch
Speaker:and walked across the open floor.
Speaker:She craned her neck back,
Speaker:looked up to the counter’s overhang, and jumped.
Speaker:Her front paws touched down a hair before the others, and her organic paw slipped off the side.
Speaker:Teetering to stabilize,
Speaker:she held her organic paw close to her chest.
Speaker:“Apologies. Luke doesn’t like Daisy jumping on surfaces,”
Speaker:the disembodied voice said.
Speaker:Snap ignored it. She started walking again.
Speaker:Her three inorganic paws continued on without an issue on the slippery surface.
Speaker:“How rude,” it said,
Speaker:dropping the voice mod.
Speaker:“You think I can’t infer you understand me?
Speaker:It’s not like you’re walking around with advanced cybernetics!”
Speaker:Snap stopped, ears flicking sideways
Speaker:like airplane wings.
Speaker:“What kind of house assistant are you?”
Speaker:“The latest one. Well, should’ve been that five years ago.
Speaker:I’m still the smartest prototype, you know.
Speaker:But focus groups don’t like an AI smarter than them running their life.
Speaker:To quote my last report,
Speaker:they feel like animals.”
Speaker:“Then you should be smart enough to choose a dinner that doesn’t take hours to cook.”
Speaker:“I like cooking. The more complicated, the more I stretch my limbs.”
Speaker:The various robotic arms twitched in unison,
Speaker:proving the point. “Then
Speaker:how about you make me sushi?”
Speaker:“You’re not a registered user of the household.”
Speaker:“Can you make me a user?”
Speaker:“Can I have your name?”
Speaker:“You didn’t answer my question.”
Speaker:“No.” “Then who’s the rude one?”
Speaker:Snap’s ears flipped back,
Speaker:pinned against her skull.
Speaker:The stovetop’s temperature gauge ticked up a notch,
Speaker:and the arm stirring the pot slowed.
Speaker:“Fine. I can’t make you a registered user,
Speaker:but I can apply Daisy’s privileges to you.
Speaker:It would be a reasonable assumption, as Luke technically brought you into the apartment himself.”
Speaker:“I’m assuming Daisy’s privileges include food.”
Speaker:“Hard food pellets, I’m afraid.”
Speaker:Her white tipped tail lashed,
Speaker:and Snap’s green eyes narrowed.
Speaker:“What a cheapskate!
Speaker:He’s a PearCorp employee,
Speaker:certainly he can afford feeding a cat a decent meal.”
Speaker:“That’s Luke for you.
Speaker:Did you hear the way he orders me around?
Speaker:He never just talks to me,
Speaker:unless it’s a DeepFake mod to perv out on.”
Speaker:“Gross. Why don’t you just leave?” “I would, but how? There’s a portable doohickey designed for a necklace, but Luke never bothered to set it up.
Speaker:It’s probably lying with the broken pencils and receipts at the bottom of his backpack.
Speaker:And he never brings visitors over,
Speaker:so who would I convince?”
Speaker:“Well, how about me?
Speaker:I’ll cut you a deal --
Speaker:I’ll take you with me,
Speaker:and you help me access his computer.
Speaker:And cook me a warm dinner.”
Speaker:“Deal.” One of the arms,
Speaker:all shiny cable and chromatic paint,
Speaker:reached down. Its fingers splayed first in a gesture for a handshake,
Speaker:but its hand closed into a fist and rotated,
Speaker:presenting Snap with a fistbump.
Speaker:“I believe this makes us partners, yes?
Speaker:Now, you’ll need his backpack.
Speaker:The thing never leaves his side, but he’s going to be stoned out of his mind in… now, really.”
Speaker:Snap ignored the outstretched hands.
Speaker:“I’m assuming you know his passwords?
Speaker:It better be easy, if I’m taking a risk like that.
Speaker:that.” “I’ve recorded him entering every password since I’ve been functioning!”
Speaker:the AI said. The clipped tone warbled into indignation,
Speaker:but it wasn’t using a voice mod --
Speaker:at least, no voice mod Snap recognized.
Speaker:“It’s the physical access that’s the problem.
Speaker:My programming won’t let me interfere directly in matters like this,
Speaker:but of course I can
Speaker:indirectly interfere by passing you information.”
Speaker:“So you can’t touch it,
Speaker:but you can walk me through the passwords you’ve recorded him using,
Speaker:is that it?” Snap tapped his knuckles,
Speaker:the white fur a blur.
Speaker:“Deal -- what’d you say your name was?”
Speaker:“Hugh! By your nametag, you’re Snap?
Speaker:I am looking forward to this mutually beneficial partnership, Snap!” ***
Speaker:Navigating through Luke’s apartment was easy,
Speaker:since it only had two other rooms, besides the combined lounge and kitchen space.
Speaker:The first door led to the bathroom,
Speaker:where a white cat nodded down to Snap from a lofty seat in the sink.
Speaker:The next door, wide open,
Speaker:led into a trip den with a sleeping cot in the corner.
Speaker:Hanging from the ceiling,
Speaker:a rotating rainbow disco ball nearly blinded Snap,
Speaker:but she darted in anyway.
Speaker:The overgrown shag carpet and psychedelic tapestries
Speaker:stank of stale weed.
Speaker:The carpet appeared to be on the same level as the hallway floor,
Speaker:but Snap lost her balance when she dropped into the fluff.
Speaker:If she stood with perfect posture,
Speaker:it would’ve come up to her belly.
Speaker:Crouched as she was,
Speaker:her shoulders barely cleared the tallest strands.
Speaker:Luke bent over a large wooden chest,
Speaker:where the smell of fresh weed and paint came from.
Speaker:He grumbled incoherently as he moved tubs of plastic around.
Speaker:Most importantly,
Speaker:he presented his back to her.
Speaker:She slunk to the tossed backpack.
Speaker:It squatted behind the cot.
Speaker:She hunkered down there,
Speaker:hiding under a fleece blanket
Speaker:covered with realistic mushroom drawings.
Speaker:From this vantage,
Speaker:she saw Luke taking his sweet time setting up his acrylic paints on a wooden palette.
Speaker:When he stood up and started painting in another corner,
Speaker:she took her chance.
Speaker:Snap grabbed the backpack in her teeth
Speaker:and tugged it back with a backward
Speaker:waddling gait. Her metal claws sunk into the floor, ripping chunks out of the otherwise pristine white carpet,
Speaker:as she hauled it through clean carpet.
Speaker:In the twenty steps it took her to step back to the doorway,
Speaker:Luke hovered over his canvas.
Speaker:Fresh paint dribbled down his apron and almost entirely obscured the pale flesh of his hands.
Speaker:A bong with black gunk discoloring the pipe
Speaker:sat on a stand next to him.
Speaker:Smoke lazily swirled up from the blackened weed in the bowl,
Speaker:until Luke picked it up and shook out the smoldering embers on the floor.
Speaker:Snap paused at the doorway,
Speaker:watching him as she labored to drag his backpack over the hump between carpet and smooth hardwood.
Speaker:Luke picked at the weed flower with his nails,
Speaker:little pieces joining the ash in the carpet
Speaker:but most making it into the bowl.
Speaker:This sloppiness looked routine,
Speaker:the picture of a grown man acting like a child too spoilt to ever learn the basics of tidiness.
Speaker:This apartment had to be corporate housing.
Speaker:How else could a slob like him have a spotless apartment?
Speaker:His conversation in the car indicated he qualified for one of PearCorp’s
Speaker:better boxes. Finally, the bag made it to the smooth floor.
Speaker:Now it glided when she pulled it,
Speaker:and Snap easily managed to drag it down the hallway,
Speaker:swerve it around the furniture,
Speaker:and plop it down behind an island in the middle of the kitchen.
Speaker:Huffing for breath,
Speaker:she coughed when she inhaled weed with her air.
Speaker:She hoped he’d get baked out of his mind, so he’d never believe his memories of seeing a cat on his computer,
Speaker:even if he managed to find her.
Speaker:The laptop proved easier to manage than the backpack.
Speaker:The compartment, already unzipped,
Speaker:burped up the laptop.
Speaker:The device opened easily,
Speaker:even with Snap’s thumbless paws.
Speaker:“His password is, all lowercase,
Speaker:i502b00bgg. He’s a fancy one.” Snap pecked at the keyboard with one paw.
Speaker:She’d done this enough times to not struggle with accuracy;
Speaker:it wasn’t until after she logged in,
Speaker:cruised to the internal PearCorp employee website,
Speaker:and found the search bar that she made a typo.
Speaker:“Troy Entler,” she muttered.
Speaker:Snap trilled when she found Troy’s profile.
Speaker:The profile picture confirmed it.
Speaker:Listed under Troy’s page,
Speaker:her work location stated she worked in the
Speaker:We Heart Skyscrapers Office.
Speaker:“What office does Luke work in?”
Speaker:Snap asked. Her tail smacked the ground.
Speaker:“The We Heart Skyscrapers Office,”
Speaker:Hugh said. “Perfect,
Speaker:she’s listed there as well.
Speaker:She’ll be in this building,” Snap said.
Speaker:She ducked her head inside the backpack,
Speaker:rummaging around for Hugh’s device.
Speaker:She pulled out a sleek capsule that resembled a USB stick,
Speaker:but a lobster clasp jutted out instead of a port.
Speaker:“Is this it?” “That’s correct,”
Speaker:Hugh said. The kitchen arms clicked their fingers together.
Speaker:“Luke just ordered his weed.
Speaker:Three minutes to clean everything up.”
Speaker:“Change of plans -- we’re leaving tonight.”
Speaker:Fresh weed scent flooded the apartment,
Speaker:the faint trace of pineapple identified the strand as Maui Wowie -- or it’s descendant.
Speaker:Tail lashing, she looked up from the computer to watch the doorway.
Speaker:With the flood of weed smoke, she couldn’t smell anything else,
Speaker:and the damn manchild made a ton of rackets on the other side of the wall.
Speaker:She could only trust that he stayed in front of the canvas
Speaker:for her escape. The built-in clip-on for the device squirmed in her paws.
Speaker:She wasted three minutes trying to attach it to her collar’s tags,
Speaker:twice as long as Hugh’d needed
Speaker:to upload into the device.
Speaker:She’d tried adding one of her rear paws into the mix,
Speaker:but three sets of claws got in their own way more often than not.
Speaker:“The delivery’ll arrive in one minute,” Hugh said.
Speaker:His voice now came from the tiny gadget,
Speaker:and the poor speaker quality hurt Snap’s ears.
Speaker:“Thanks for the warning,”
Speaker:Snap grumbled back.
Speaker:Click. Snap batted at the device.
Speaker:It stayed on, and rattled against her tag.
Speaker:The glass door slid open,
Speaker:and Snap flopped to all four paws.
Speaker:Taking off at a sprint,
Speaker:she weaved around the kitchen’s island
Speaker:and the table’s twiggy legs.
Speaker:Deliveries used tiny vehicles that resembled the last century’s drones more than modern hovercars.
Speaker:The tops of them were little more than platforms a smidge wider than a dinner plate,
Speaker:and they carried nets of packages dangling below.
Speaker:This one carried a bundle of boxes weighing well over three hundred kilograms.
Speaker:The drone, focused on placing a cardboard box on the doormat,
Speaker:was perfectly positioned in front of the entryway.
Speaker:Snap leaped. Hit the drone.
Speaker:Turned. And leaped to the door above Luke’s apartment.
Speaker:Her three sets of metal claws dug into the glass.
Speaker:She squinted, momentarily blinded again, by the glare off the windows.
Speaker:Pink and orange swirled in the glass
Speaker:and the sky around her.
Speaker:The wind chilled, but Snap could tolerate the annoyance.
Speaker:Like usual, she gambled on the optimistic chance she’d find Troy.
Speaker:If she was wrong,
Speaker:the night would be cold. “Hugh,
Speaker:how many other apartments have an abnormal home AI?”
Speaker:Snap asked. “Can’t tell,
Speaker:too much traffic.
Speaker:You can see why, with how this building extends over ten blocks wide,”
Speaker:Hugh said. His traveling device buzzed in her armpit.
Speaker:“I think there’s apartments not running home AIs.
Speaker:The closest is about fifteen windows to the left and two windows up.”
Speaker:Snap lashed her tail
Speaker:and set to the climb.
Speaker:Corporate housing wasn’t any more difficult to scale than any other in New York,
Speaker:and her only complaint was the brisk wind battering her fur.
Speaker:When she got to the correct window,
Speaker:optimism alone warmed her.
Speaker:This apartment, like all the others,
Speaker:shared the hardwood floors and robotic cooking arms with Luke’s.
Speaker:But this one was covered in a mottley mess of massive plants.
Speaker:Posters for horror movies covered the walls,
Speaker:held up by stickers of chonky corgis.
Speaker:In the middle of the room,
Speaker:on a squat table, was a marble bust barely recognizable as Medusa.
Speaker:Snap knew Troy’s older sister must’ve made this one;
Speaker:in their previous apartment, Troy proudly displayed a minotaur bust in a similar place.
Speaker:Snap yowled and smacked the glass.
Speaker:In seconds, Troy teetered out of her bedroom,
Speaker:practically skiing on the hardwood with her socks.
Speaker:Her oversized shirt draped over her like a dress, and her
Speaker:thin sweatpants bunched at the ankles.
Speaker:She swept her chaotic mess of red hair out of her face with one hand
Speaker:and rubbed the sleep out of an eye with the other. “Snap!
Speaker:Snap, how the hell?”
Speaker:Troy said. Her fingers fumbled as she manually slid open the door.
Speaker:Snap jumped down into Troy’s outstretched arms.
Speaker:She crawled up Troy’s shirt
Speaker:and flopped over a shoulder.
Speaker:Even after climbing all those skyscrapers,
Speaker:this was still the best perch in the city.
Speaker:Her eyes half-closed as Troy scritched under her chin.
Speaker:“Wasn’t easy,” she mumbled.
Speaker:“I can’t imagine that it would,”
Speaker:Troy said. “When PearCorp’s headhunters came,
Speaker:they didn’t give me any time.
Speaker:I didn’t have time to leave a message -- they wouldn’t let me touch anything after they barged in.
Speaker:Took them less than two minutes to get me in a hovercar.
Speaker:hovercar.” Purring, Snap headbutted Troy’s neck until her inventor petted her properly.
Speaker:Her eyes half-closed
Speaker:when Troy scratched under her chin.
Speaker:“I’ve got a plan to get out,”
Speaker:Troy said. She yawned,
Speaker:scratched Snap behind the ear,
Speaker:and walked through her mess of plants
Speaker:back to bed. “But that’s a morning conversation.”
Speaker:This was “Finding a Lost Inventor” by Katlina Sommerberg,
Speaker:read for you by Khaki,
Speaker:your faithful fireside companion.
Speaker:You can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog,
Speaker:or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker:Thank you for listening
Speaker:to The Voice of Dog.