"Hello, Dog," I said evenly, sliding in front of his overturned cage.
"Hello, Cat, you bastard," said Dog. "Open the cage."
Have I mentioned that Dog and I were not exactly pals? Dog is one of those medium sized German shepherds, but a real cool customer. It was a pleasure fighting with him. Most dogs are useless, especially suburban dogs. They lose control way too early in the game. Dog was one of those dogs who would slow down, rather than speed up when he had you on the run, so as to keep you in his sights. He wasn't great on cornering, which is always important, but other than that. To tell you the actual truth, he was a pretty good dog (if you are big on dogs, spit).
Also he was not a dog you mess with, if you get me. Very early on in our war, we had gotten beyond the mere trivia of names, and were down to the basics, Dog, Cat. None of this Muffy and Roofie crap. So I opened the cage.
He climbed out. "Where are we, Cat?"
"Truth is, Dog, I don't know. We were flying for a long time."
"I wonder how long it will be before they notice we are gone." He padded around the array of busted boxes, checking it out. "There's some food here, not in cans, thank goodness."
"What do you think, Dog?"
"I would avoid a rush to judgement here, Cat, which is not your style, but give it a try."
"To tell you the truth, Dog, my instinct is to dump all these critters, and move out on my own, and take my chances."
"You are a cat, Cat, which means that you don't give a shit about anyone else anyway, so that does not suprise me."
"Hey, did I get you out of the cage, or didn't I?"
Dog looked up at the sky. "At least the rain has stopped. Drives you crazy trying to get your smells in order." He sniffed. "The big choice is, do we wait here for rescue, or do we head out. Don't know. The smart thing would be to stay here, if we can find some real water. They are going to have to come looking -- after all," and here he nosed around in the wreckage for a few seconds -- "they lost their Scrabble game." One nice thing about Dog was that he was also not much on humans. "On the other hand, we might find some people in a homestead or a town somewhere nearby. It can't all be wilderness."
"I think that the best thing to do is to stay here for a day or two, and check out the neighborhood, and if nothing happens, then we go."
"One problem, Cat."
"Yes?"
"Where do we go, if we go?"
We looked out on the dark green forest all around us, still dripping with wetness pattering down. I didn't want to let Dog see it, but I was beginning to get scared and homesick, and we had been on the ground about 25 minutes.