AD.

“Off the grid. That’s where we gotta go. Off the grid where they can’t find us and there’s no electricity.” Grey’s in a harrumpf. He sits on the salon couch, raising a puff of dust.

“Why do we have to go off the grid, Smokey?” Polly Pureheart’s voice sounds like Rocky the Squirrel from Rocky and Bullwinkle.

“Well, it’s safer off the grid. As long as you’re on grid, tapping into their resources using their services, they can track you. Know where you are. Know what you’ve used. Go off grid, they can’t find you.”

“This would be hard, Smokey. I don’t know if it’ll have any effect. But mutantkind’s gotta start preparing for a post energy age if the Earth’s gonna survive.” Pureheart snuggles up to Grey’s side. He pats and smoothes her hair.

“Yes, Polly. Sometimes, we won’t have refrigerators. And no hot water. We could dip in and out of the cybercafes, but that still leaves tracks. They can see where you accessed and when. So basically, to go off grid we’d have to shut down our cyber selves.”

“We could access, but we couldn’t send e-mail, couldn’t use blogs…”

“And no cell phone calls, Polly. No long distance anywhere. No airplanes, though boats and trains might be OK. If they take cash, and a smile. No ATMs. No border crossings.”

Pureheart bolts upright. “Borders aren’t relevant. I like the idea of the complete freedom of a human being. Anything that’s administrative law can be discarded.”

“Who decides?”

“All that matters is if you’re a rat who can get out of his cage.” Polly Pureheart the romantic. She paces up and down the salon. Grey’s prone on the couch. He crosses his arms.

“I’m a good rat,” Grey asserts matter-of-factly. He squeaks, “Someday I will make the holy journey to Rodentia, that Great Rat Trap in the Sky Reached on a Stairway of Cheese.” He lisps, “We rats have great mythsss…”

Polly stops pacing, giggles, asks, “What are the Great Rat Myths?”

“One of them is Build a Better Rat Trap and the World Will Beat a Path to Your Door. We got that one started, passing around. Pretty soon everybody’s busy trying to build better traps while we ate all their grain.”

Pureheart sits down, lays her head on Smokey’s lap.

Grey spreads out his arms demonstratively. “And there’s the Great Rat Moon. Once every thirteen Mouse moons, comes Rat Moon. We all go out in the dark and worship this large chromium rat trap that our Great Leader almost escaped. We worship the bits of leader left encrusted in the trap.”

“Oh, dear.”

“We also worship a special clan of rats, the Venice Water Rat Clan. They ate the city’s cats.”

“I hate to think of the kittens vs. the rats here in Morocco.”

“You think the rats eat the sick little kitty cats, Polly?” He tickles her side playfully.

“Definitely.” Pureheart notes her rising nausea.

“Nature’s garbage disposal. Cheaper than an undertaker. More honest, too. Rats should run all our funeral homes. We’d just eat the dead.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s food.”

“Ew! No; I mean why are undertakers dishonest?”

“Oh, there’s been a whole expose on that. They lie about what things cost. They lie about what the law requires, usually something more expensive. They arrange their showrooms and their tours psychologically so you tend to choose another thousand more to start with. They also don’t do very well keeping track of peoples’ bodies and they don’t bury or burn the right body.”

“Oh dear, Smokey.”

“Yes, Polly. Would you want an undertaker inserting things into *your* daughter? I think NOT! How’d we get on to that anyway? Oh yeah, the Great Rat Myths.”

“I think they’ve made off with some of the cats here.”

“The undertakers, or the Rats?”

“No, silly. I was thinking of –”

Grey cuts her off. “Oh, the undertakers were also selling body parts and organs for the medical replacement factories. Only just like used cars, they would roll back the odometer and tell you it was from a much younger person, healthy. They also sent a few diseased people parts out. Quite a scandal. ”

She’s not gonna let Grey get away with any bald assertions. “What evidence do you have for this, Smokey? Is this one of your solved cases?”

Grey ignores the question. “Rats are definitely more honest than undertakers. The rats look at you as you’re dying, as they nibble you, eating little bits and pieces. They look you right in the eye, and say, ‘What do ya think of THAT, buddy’ as they swallow a piece of your cheek.”

“And this is when you’re still alive?”

“Yes.”

“I would think they’d wait until after you were dead.”

“Oh no, they’re more honest than that. All they care about is if you’re slow enough and feeble enough to eat. If you move a little bit, that’s all right. Adds flavor.”

“How do you know all this, Smokey?”

“I used to work with rats. Some called them Collection Lawyers. Everybody hates collection lawyers. Even collection lawyers.”

“Oh dear. So, finish your story. How can we get off the Grid?”

“We have to go to America,” Grey says. “Take all our money out, stop using banks, no more ATMs, no long distance phone calls to your mother, nothing in our name, utilities, nothing. Shut down our Internet accounts. No more e-mail to any of our friends. Drop out of electronic civilization, and stay away from places like England that have a video camera every 20 feet.”

He continues: “Gotta have some sort of population around you, otherwise your body heat would stand out. Misdirect view away from you, camouflage as one of the ants. Or we can just act real crazy and loud and swear on the streets and wave our arms and no one would pay attention to us this way too. Become so obvious they just don’t see you anymore.”

Polly says, “I’m afraid the end point of your logic is lucid insanity, Smokey.”

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