Life in the slums of Terraxia is just as you might expect. It’s dank. It smells. And it’s populated with the usual assortment of cretins, low-lifes and, opportunitsts just trying to make a quick mark. Uriah, a bright eyed boy of ten, strolled down his favorite alley. It may have looked like all the other alleys that populated this part of the city, but this one had a book shop nestled in a dark corner. It’s not that Uriah really liked reading per se, well its not to say that he couldn’t but he definitely did not like to. He rather liked looking at the pictures in the books. They allowed him to transport himself, well, anywhere really. He loved all the same things that you’d expect a young boy of Terraxia to love, the latest technology, sticks (not that you could find many among the slums but still.) and playing. He loved playing.

Today was shaping up to be another normal day as he picked along this particular alley. He fancied popping into the book store for a quick look, and then it was off to his favorite play spot. He did not mind one bit that he walked through nearly every puddle he came across, his mind was on other things. Running through the mental catalogue of the pictures he had seen in previous forrays into the book store. Some of his favorite were of the space ships that had the diagrams in them. Not that he had ever seen one for real, accounting for him living in the slums and all. But, hey, a boy can dream can’t he. That would definitely be one of the very first things he would spend his marks on if he every got any. One of his favorite day-dreams was to think through those sort of hypotheticals like: what would you do if you had infinite money? Or, Would you rather fly a space ship or smell farts for the rest of time? You know, silly boy stuff.

It was just about the time that he was deciding to buy a theme park, with that non-existent infinite money, when he pulled up to the glowing sign that marked the entrance to the book store. Uriah’s parents would have taken a moment to savor the bright spot that is the book store, seeing it as a escape from their dreary day to day. But not Uriah, he couldn’t be bothered with trivial stuff like that. He could not see the point to waiting for something that he wanted. He wanted to look at the pictures in the books so that is what he was going to do!

As he eased open the heavy steel and glass door, a small buzzer went off in the back, alerting the old man who owned the shop that someone was coming in. Ok, well he wasn’t old per se, but he was to Uriah, I mean come on, how young could you be if you “owned a bookstore?” He looked about as old as his parents and that was practically ancient. I mean they have some grey hair so they just HAVE to be old, right?! Just as the door slid closed, “Good day, Uriah,” the old man called out from behind his glasses. He sat behind a massive desk that he ran the shop from, Uriah always thought he looked like a judge, or noble, or fancy pants surveying his little fiefdom. But not to be rude he simply looked at the man and smiled. “Are you going to look at some more books today?” He asked genially.

Uriah nodded. He didn’t like talking much to strangers. Not that the book store owner is a stranger, in that he had been coming into this shop for as long as he could remember. But the point still stands, just go look at the books, if that’s what you wanted to do. Why waste time talking. Uriah really didn’t see the point. There were pictures that needed looking at, and he was going to oblige.

Sitting behind the desk Jarek just smiled to himself and shook his head. He thought the boy was nice enough, albeit a little hyper at times. But what boy wasnt. He went back to work cataloguing the newest books that had just come in. There were the usual suspects of the lastest, and juciest (if his wife was to be believed) romance novel. There were training manuals that would not sell well here because the book store’s “clientele”, if such a fancy word would even make sense. There was a good stack of the popular fantasy novels, as well as the extreemly popular immersive audio books. Those were by far his most popular, people in the slums wanted an esacpe from their reality and who wouldn’t want to spend a week off planet on some treasure hunting adventure, or chasing down ancient civilaztions that may or may not have existed millennia ago.

As Jarek came to bottom of the stack there sat an unusual book. Flipping through the paper pages, which wasn’t as rare as everyone made it out to be, but still, he saw several black and white images that looked to be as if they were drawings. He knew they weren’t, of course, because real hand drawn images hadn’t been produces for what, a hundred years or more. Savoring the feel of the paper between his fingers, and the look of the type on the pages, he thought about what it must have been like when the majority of books were printed on real, honest to gods paper.

Lost in thought, Jarek almost forgot Uriah sitting over on the floor flipping through the latest graphic novel from that one author that made his fortune making those kinds of books with punny titles and this was what number 67 or something like that. He shook himself from his reverie and finishing thumbing through the book noticed there was a drawing of an antiquated building of some sort. Resembling the same slums that were outside his windows if it were three thousand years ago. And opposite, there was a drawing of the most insane creature he could have imagine. Ok, maybe it wasn’t some sort of nighmarish horror ripped out of a fever dream, but still crazy.

_I mean all animals are extinct right?_ Jarek thought. Flipping over to the next page he read a few lines of the text

“less commonly held belief was that creatures like this lived in cities across the globe. Before the events of 2236pce we all remember well, There were more species that inhabited this planet we call home. Taking to account that the earliest manuscripts we have are all but faded ink on molding parchment, we here at Movim Books believe that these so called species were called animals by primitive humans. Our favorite among these fabeld creatures was called a cat…”

It went on. _This is a pile of hot garbage. What are they going to say next that there are little green men living on one of moon fragments? _He scoffed.

“Hey Uriah” Jarek said looking over to the boy who was now onto one of the space adventure graphic novels.

No response. _Did he hear me?…I guess not._

“Uriah?!” He asked again.

“Yeah” Uriah mumbled without even looking up. Couldn’t he tell I was doing what I wanted to do.

I only half paid any attention to what other people said to me. My brain had “super powers” or so my mom was fond of telling me. I liked to live in my own head. I had great thoughts and people just needed to leave me to them.

“….something….something…something…you should see this… something… something…something.” The old man said.

Ignoring him and going back to my super interesting thought about the benefits of having a spaceship with infinite ice cream on board would be amazing. Flipping the page there was a cool drawing, in ever popular 3D style holographic image on the polycarbonate page, of a unique engine design. _Would I want to put three or four of those on my ship._

“Uriah!” The man said loudly.

“Hmmm”

“Buddy, look at me!”

Slowing tearing my eyes from the page to look at the man,,, well look past him but close enough, right?

“There is something you should see in this book I just found!”

Slowing getting up to my feet and shuffling over I see he’s got one of those super…no extra…no super extra mega old books. The ones with **real **paper. Weird. He hands the book to me and I almost dont know what to do with it since it doesn’t have any sort of nano screen embedded. No auto page turn AI features that is in EVERY book since forever. Flipping through the first couple of pages it’s, it’s ok, I guess. I mean there are only a couple of weird drawings in it but nothing that is interesting to me, there are too many words and not enough pictures. I am about to hand it back as I flip to the middle of the book and my eyes land on the most AMAZING…no the most super mega super ultra amazing thing I’ve ever seen.

Mouth hanging open. Eyes wide. I ask, “what IS this???”

“A cat,” the man says.

“What’s…a….caaaat??” My eyes are pulled as if magnets are behind them to glue back to the page. This is the most amazing, stupendous… I don’t even have the right word for how amazing this is.

“I’m not sure.” The man replies, “The book says its some sort of creature that used to live here on the planet.”

I am too awe struck to respond. But I have to know more about this thing.

“You know you could flip the page and get more information about them if you want!” He says like I WANT to read.

“Can you read it to me?”

“No bud that’s you’re job!” He says smiling with a smile that I think means he thinks this is something I would want to do. But I don’t.

“Please…” I try again.

“I tell you what why don’t you come back with your mom and or you dad and we can talk about them buying it for you so you can look at it and read it for yourself at your pace.”

UGH why do old people have to be so annoying. He sounds just like his parents. _Are ALL old people like this??_

“Fine. How much is it?”

“Come back with them and we can talk about it.” He says with that annoying grown up smile again.

Back at home, mom is cooking in the small kitchen, and dad is tinkering on an old computer doing who knows what on it.

“…you know that they’re going to make a big deal out of it.” Mom says.

“Mom”

“I know they …”

“Mom”

“…aren’t going to pay for it if they can help it.”

“Mom”

“Oh well, I guess that’s true”

“Mom”

“Honey,” she says turning to me. “Can’t you see that I am on the phone?”

I mean yes I CAN see that she is on the phone but so what. I’ve got something to tell her.

“Well let’s talk about it next week.” She says into the phone. Setting it down she turns to me, “you need to be more patient when I am on the phone. What did you need?”

“I went to the book store today.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“Well, the book store guy, I can’t remember his name, said he has this cool new book.”

“That’s amazing sweetheart. Was it about spaceships or was it that next book in the graphic novel series you’ve been reading? What’s it called, Spacer Spacington?”

“Mom! Ugh…no. It was about a cat!”

“What’s a cat?”

“I don’t even know… its this crazy thing you just got to go see! The guy…”

“Jarek.” Mom interrupted.

“Yeah, Jarek. He said that you needed to come down and buy it for me!”

“Oh, babe. I don’t know if we can do that.

“Please mom?”

“We’ll head down there after dinner and you can show me at least. Your dad and I will talk about it. Now go wash your hands so we can eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“That’s not what I asked. Go wash so we can eat.”

“Ughhhh mom…”

“Wait Uriah!” Mom said.

Back at the book store, the door buzzer went off as Uriah walked into the book store and his parents as they trailed behind. He just couldn’t understand why his parents kept telling him to wait for things. He knew he wanted to go to the store, and they were going to the store. _So what was the problem with doing that? _Uriah wondered. He didn’t seem to understand their wanting to keep him safe and that the overriding thoughts in his head were compulsive in nature. Racing back to the books that he was looking at earlier, Uriah already forgot why they were coming to the store in the first place.

“Welcome in.” Jarek said as the Uriah’s parents made it in the store.

“Thanks, Jarek!” Uriahs dad said brightly. “How’s the shop going?” He was one of those guys that could really talk to anyone although not for very long. He seemed to find something in common with whoever he was talking to but rather quickly ran out of things to say if the topic at hand wasn’t something that was interesting to him. There weren’t a lot of things he didn’t seem to know at least something about, or at least could fake for a short conversation.

“Got a lot of new material in. So it’s a lot to go through.” Jarek responded. “Did you hear about the book I showed Uriah earlier?”

“Yeah.” Said Uriah’s mom sweetly. “Well we heard it was about something called a … a cat?” She was one of those type of people who are genuninely nice and liked by most everyone. She loved being with people and helping them out where she could. She loved coming to a book store, there were so many places to go, adventures to go on that it was always exciting. Since she was a little girl she loved books.

“Oh yeah!” Jarek said.

“So what is a cat anyway?” Uriahs dad asked. Bumping up against one of those things he knew nothing about was a novel feeling and he liked learning new things more than he disliked long conversations.

“Well,” Jarek continued, not wanting to give too much away. “It seems it was another type of creature that lived here a long time ago.”

“So, something mythological?” Uriah’s mom asked confused.

“Well, maybe not! It seems that humans are only beings on the planet, now anyway. But there used to be a whole bunch of other types of animals that lived here a long, long time ago.”

“Evyerone knows that humans have been the only beings to live here on Terraxia since at least the mid 2500’s” Uriah’s dad said factually. As if he couldn’t believe that anyone thought these so called _extinct _ animals were anything more than fanciful myths.

“Yes, that is was I thought too” Jarek stated semi indignantly. “I’m just saying what this book claims. It seems to say that before the mid 2500’s there were hundreds of different species that lived alongside humans.”

“Wow,” Uriah’s mom reverently said.

“It is crazy to think that humans aren’t the only beings that live here. Well, _lived here.” Jarek said. _

“Yeah for sure.” Uriahs mom said. “So, Uriah said something about buying this book?” She continued hesitantly. Not really thinking that they could afford the book but knowing that if he came home excited about it, it would likely be something they would end up doing even if finances were tight.

“I’m glad you asked!” Jarek said brightly. “I was really thinking about just _giving_ him the book. But I wanted to make sure you two were ok with it first.”

“Oh, Uriah did you hear that?” His mom said. Uriah meanwhile was absorbed in another book about one of the lasted video games that all the kids his age, and some adults entirely too old for it, were into these days.

He sat there ignoring the adults, well not ignoring per se but the book he was looking at really was interesting so he simply didn’t hear his mom calling him.

“Uriah!” His dad said sharply.

“Calm down.” Uriah’s mom said, smacking his arm. “He’s just focused.”

“I can see that. But he needs to pay better attention to what’s going on around him.”

Yes, he does. But yelling at him isn’t going to help that fact.”

“I wasn’t yelling.”

“You definitely were but its ok just remember that his brain doesn’t work the same way as yours.”

“Uggg, yes dear.” He said. Turning back to Uriah, he said more calmly, “Uriah, buddy.”

Finally Uriah’s brain caught up to the fact that someone was trying to get ahold of him. “Hmmmm?” He said without looking up from the book.

“Bud, would you come over here please?”

“Sure.” Uriah said not really paying attention or getting up.

“Uriah?” His mom said. “We need you to come over here and talk to Mr. Jarek about something.”

“Ok” Uriah replied, and stood slowly and wandered over. His dad rolled his eyes and was really ready to move on to something more interesting than getting his kid to pay attention to what was going on, but he didn’t say a anything. Not wanting to annoy his wife.

“Mr. Jarek said that book that had that picture of the cat in it..”

“Yeah” Uriah interupted.

“….said he would like for you to have the book. So you can learn more about them! Isn’t that great? Sweetheart.” She beamed.

“No thanks.” Uriah said flatly.

“Don’t you want to learn more about cats, dear?” She asked confused.

“I don’t want to read more about the cats, mom. I just liked looking at the pictures of them”

“Well… I think you would really like it. And, besides, it would really be good for you to read more. You’re going to have to do that in school more. So why not read about something interesting and mysterious.”

“No.” Uriah said distracted. He really just wanted to go back to looking at the book he left on the floor. Or maybe go pick up another of those graphic novels he liked so much, something interactive at least. He started to wander back that direction as his mom continued.

“Well I still think you need to read more.” Continuing to Jarek she said, “If you’re still willing to give the book, I’m sure it’s something he would read…eventually. When we can make him!”

“We might have to bribe him, dear.” Uriah’s dad said helpfully.

“Yes we may have to do that!” She acknowledged.

“Well that sounds like it might be a chore, but yes I will still give you the book.” Jarek said as he joined back into the conversation.

“It’s not expensive is it Jarek?” Uriah’s dad asked skeptical. He did not mind getting things for his kid that he needed, but he definitely did not want to waste his money buying something he knew wasnt going to get used. He also, really hated the idea that he would be wasting the generosity of others for something that was just going to collect dust in their home.

“Not particularly” Jarek continued, “It costs a couple dozen marks but I want him to have it!”

“Oh, Jarek that is too much. We couldn’t let you do that. Can we dear?”

“I’m sure we could if he wants to do it sweetheart.” Uriahs dad continued unhelpfully.

“You guys are more than welcome to just take it. I am not sure I could really sell it anyway. Not sure why my supplier sent it with the others. Probably didn’t even know it was in there.” Jarek laughed.

“Well if you’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Thank you! That is so nice of you to do that for him” Uriah’s mom replied.

Later the next day Uriah was walking home from school. He really didn’t like school, but his parents kept insisting that he had to go. He really didn’t see the point, he would much rather spend his time playing games, or playing outside, or watching videos, or well a lot of fun things that weren’t school. Opening the door to his home his mom said from the living room. “Uriah, is that you?”

“Yeah.”

“How was school dear?”

“Good.”

“Tell me more.” She asked.

“No…I dont want to.” Uriah said obstinately. He wasn’t trying to be difficult he just didn’t like talking about school and besides he wanted to go play anyway.

“Well, I tell you what? If you read some of that cat book you can have some video time.”

“Ugh, mom…” Uriah complained. “Do I have to?”

“Yes.” Se said sweetly yet firm.

He could tell they just wanted to bribe him to read the book. So maybe he’ll just go look at it for a few minutes and then he can get back to what _he _wanted to do!

“Fine.” Uriah replied flat. “I’ll go read in my room for a little bit.”

“Thank you sweetheart and more than just a little bit. I want you to read for like ten minutes.”

“I don’t want to. That’s too long. How about five mintutes?”

“No, ten baby. And then you can have your video time!” She cajoled.

“Fine.” He dismissed.

Picking up the book. He headed to his room to “read” for what he hoped would just be the allotted time and not a second more.

As he flipped through the pages trying to find the part about the cats, he mused about if they were really real or not. Finding the page he saw that picture of the cat again. As though it was the first time all over again he fell in love with the image of this majestic creature. It was siting on its back legs as though it walked on all fours. Had a tail coming off the back. Short fuzzy ears pointed as if he, Uriah wanted to pretend it was a little boy cat, heard something. It’s two front legs were out in front of the animal poised like he owned everything in the world. Uriah desperately wanted this cat to be real. He almost didn’t want to turn the page, but he really wanted to see if there were more pictures of the cat more so he reluctantly turned th page. He saw lots of other creatures and places that definitely did not exist anymore.

Flipping through pages he came all the way to the back of the book. Disappointed there was not a single other picture of the cat. But what there was on the back cover was a link to a list of videos as “proof” that the animals in this book were real. Slipping his tablet out from the not so secret hiding spot, behind his bed. Uriah pulled up a the link to the videos to see this proof.

The first video, grainy, tiny and only two dimensional. _Couldn’t they at least get proper hologram images of these things_ Uriah complained to himself. But the complaint died as soon as he heard the first sounds of the cat. Watching the cut fuzzy animal no bigger than … well he really didn’t have anything to compare it to since there were no other beings on the planet besides humans, and Uriah was pretty sure they didn’t come that small. But the cat would definitely fit curled up in his hands if he cupped them together.

The cat appeared to be sleeping. Curled up in a little bed next to an indoor fire pit area. _How old is this thing? _Uriah mused. _This has to be a least a million years old, maybe even a mega million trillion. _As the cat napped in the bed it was making the cutest little sound. It sounded like a very small machine running almost silently, with an up and down nature to it. It was so mesmerizing that Uriah almost didn’t notice the next video playing because of his transfixtion.

In the next video on the player was of another cat but this one was much larger. _Maybe the other one was a baby? So cute! _Uriah thought. This one matched the picture on the middle of the book. It was sitting on its back legs, curled up underneath it somehow, and was just sitting there watching something the viewer couldn’t see.

Uriah wasn’t sure what it was about these things that he loved so much but he wanted to figure out any and every thing he could about cats. He didn’t know how he was going to go about it but he would spend his life trying to find a way to get one, make one, build one, he didn’t even know.