Seconds after Cliff signed the contract and clicked the cap back on the pen, his house was pandemonium. A huge number of birds and cats swarmed from unseen hiding places.

"What are all these animals doing in my house? Get out of here now!"

No one paid any attention to him.

He walked around, trying to figure out what was going on, careful not to step on anyone or anything that might be important. Every surface of his house seemed to be full of birds scribbling into notebooks, chatting into dictation devices, and quibbling with each other. A small flock gathered around the telephone, its receiver knocked onto the floor. Cats trotted in with rolled-up papers and instruments in their mouths. In minutes, the floor was covered with diagrams, maps, geographical tools.

He did not like where this was going. It seemed like utter chaos. Artifacts fell from the shelves and shattered. His private space and person were being violated by complete strangers, by animals. Were he not still under the effects of sedation, he would be screaming and looking for something to throw.

Cats raced by carrying random items of his: socks, loaves of bread, toilet bowl cleaner, jam, clock radio. He tried to chase them and recover the more valuable objects, but he was too slow and clumsy. He was just barely able to retrieve his wallet which he held onto jealously.

He looked around the ocean of animals for Bismarck and Twake. Bismarck was nowhere to be seen, but Twake was quite easy to spot. At the center of the action, on the coffee table, the little bird stood on a clipboard, barking out orders and making inquiries. He seemed to be in the eye of the storm, controlling it.

"Documents?"

A crow flapped into view and dropped a pile of cards and booklets onto the floor. "Passport, traveler's checks, luggage tags."

Cliff bent down to pick them up, but other animals scooped them up and carried them away. "Hey, bring those back!"

"Logistics?"

A siamese cat slinked to the fore. "Meals prepared and sealed, sir. Equipment will be waiting at the destination."

Cliff ran after some cats with frozen dinners. "Are you going into my refrigerator? Get back here with those..."

"Transport?"

"Cargo plane booked," said a pigeon. "The container is being made ready now." As she spoke, a long crate was carried in by number of dogs and set down on the floor of the foyer. The dogs leaped up to grab the lid and set it on the ground.

Twake flew up to stand on the edge of the crate. "Human, get inside now, please."

"You expect me to...?"

"Yes. Now. Hurry."

"No way," Cliff laughed. "I am not going to go anywhere inside a box."

Cliff was the only being in the room not jumping to Twake's orders. The bird was very tempted to have him disciplined, but he closed his eyes and calmed down.

"The box is comfortable. Look: a pile of straw bedding; a bottle of water; a bag of pretzels; an issue of Oprah magazine and a flashlight. There are even holes here for you to breathe. What more could you want?"

Bismarck stepped out of the crowd, her tail flicking nervously. "Ahem. I think we should request a seat aboard the airplane. Humans require more comfort than this box will provide."

The bird rolled his eyes. "Very well, to keep the soft squishy man from getting bruised we will book him on a traditional flight. Now, Team 4, how is that luggage coming?"

A group of cats pushed a massive pile of trunks and suitcases into the hall.

"Everything needed for the trip, vacuum-sealed and ready. Waterproof to a depth of 100 meters."

"Excuse me," said Cliff, "Do I have any say in what gets packed? This is my stuff, you know."

"No time. The rotary conveyance will be here..." he checked a tiny clipboard. "... five minutes ago. Team three! Did you telephone the conveyance?"

Noella's eyes popped open. The cassette radio was blaring the song "Carioca", meaning that something had tripped the perimeter alarm. She sat up and peeked through the curtain. A black cat was slinking unhurriedly around the car.

"Oh hot buttered crap, they found me again."

She closed the curtain and scrambled into her jeans and a shirt. Then she slid into the driver's seat. Hopefully this cat was alone and she could get away before it noticed who she was. But now she saw more. The sun was still not over the horizon, but she could see them, stealithy creeping out of the shadows. There were scores of them; she had never seen so many.

She had better get out of there fast.

"Where is the key?" she said with rising panic. "Key, where did I put you? Where is that damned key?"

She was rooting around the floor, tearing through duffel bags and file boxes. Outside the cats were closer, and starting to surround the car. She ran her hands along the dashboard. When she got to the statue of Saint Christopher, she stopped. The good saint of drivers was holding her keys. Strange, did she leave them there last night? Who cares! She grabbed the keys and jammed them into the ignition.

The Checker was grumpy at first, but at last it fired up. And not a moment too soon.

One of the swarm of black cats leaped onto the hood. It peered inside with that unemotional gaze she despised. Its yellow eyes looked around, taking everything in. It reached up a paw, about to put it on the windshield.

This cat was the distractor. There would be others trying to find a way in. Already, the doorhandles were starting to jiggle. And the sound started to make strange noises. All of this was done with no vocalization. The cats knew what they wanted and methodically went through the process of getting it. Noella was determined not to let it be her.

She threw the car in reverse and pushed hard on the gas. The car sped backward, knocking the cat off its feet. It landed on all paws amidst the other cats.

She shifted into drive, but hesitated. They were about 30 feet away, and just standing around. Something was not right.

She saw through the mirror that there were more cats behind her, on top of a dumpster. One of them jumped off and landed on top of her car with a gentle thud. In a few seconds there was a scraping sound. Looking up, she saw the tip of a claw slowly slicing through the roof.

She jammed her foot on the accelerator. The claw was still slicing. The cat had managed to get a good grip with its magnetic foot pads. She peeled out of the parking lot. Light was starting to peek through the roof. She reached under the seat where she had stashed a can of pepper spray.

The cat had not been expecting a spritz to the face of painful pepper oil. It meowed angrily and bailed off the car. She looked into the side view mirror to see where it jumped to, and saw another cat clinging to the side.

This one had a head-mounted torch and it was cutting an access hole in the side. Jeez, these things just won't stop!

She easily removed the cat by driving up against a bush, though she was now driving on the wrong side of the road. To avoid a head-on collision, she swerved onto the sidewalk and skidded to a stop.

Cutting the engine, she prepared to get out. She saw no cats in the mirrors. Armed with aluminum baseball bat, she warily exited the car. She walked all the way around. So far, so good. Next, she knealt and peeked underneath.

There was nothing... no wait... that doesn't look like grimy metal. It moved! An upside-down head popped out from behind the oilpan. As she instinctively fell backwards, it sprang at her. She lay in the street as the black cat dugs its claws into her jacket and hissed. She grabbed it behind the neck with one hand to pull it off and received a terrible electric shock.

When she regained consciousness a few seconds later, she saw the gang of cats trotting up the street. The cat she had been wrestling with was letting the air out of a tire. She found her bat and struggled to her feet, preparing to give it a good swipe.

The cat sat on its haunches and lifted up both paws, ready to do something terrible. She threw the bat at the ground where it made a loud PING sound, stunning it long enough for her to run back to the cab. She got back in, started it up, and peeled away.

Half an hour later, she had stopped at a diner on the other side of town for breakfast. The damage from the cats was pretty minor. She would find a garage to touch up the scrapes later, but for now some duct tape did a good patch job.

"You can do whatever you want to me, but nobody touches the car," she muttered as she sipped her coffee in a diner. She had taken off her coat and was rubbing a bruised elbow when the waitress came by to drop off a plate of scrambled eggs.

"Don't like cats?" said the lady.

Noella looked up, startled.

"Your tattoo. Isn't that a cat there, crossed out?"

Noella looked down at the picture on her forearm and laughed. "Oh, it's... it's sort of an in-joke."

She had a penchant for tattoos and piercings, many of which she didn't remember getting (she was drunk when a grumpy penguin was etched onto her thigh). The most prominent was a hello kitty icon on her neck, crossed out with a red bar; for reasons only she and a few others knew, she did not like cats. Like many people who lived before recorded history, she regarded the tattoos and piercings as spiritual armor.

"Well, enjoy your breakfast. Here's the check, no hurry."

Her mobile phone rang. She checked it and didn't recognise the number, so it was probably a fare. LIMOS employed a number of anonymous dispatchers in the area who simply routed calls directly to drivers from an untraceable public number.

"Hello, Independant Taxi. What do ya need?"

"Good day to you, driving professional." The voice was very smooth and silky, almost inhumanly human. "Prepared are you, for the conveyance of a mentally-challenged man plus his excellent companions to the flight station?"

"You mean the airport?"

There was a pause, then: "that is correct. It is to the airport that they must be conveyed. Please receive location now..."

She jotted down the address in a notepad and said, "okay, I'll be there in fifteen minutes." She ended the call.

She pulled a rubberband-clasped wad of cash bills to pay the bill. There were eighteen hundred dollars in that wad, just about the amount she needed to make the trip down to Mexico, hire a guide, get equipment. One more week and she would leave this place behind. She savored that feeling for a moment before putting the money away again.

"Now listen to me, human," lectured Twake. "The others of your specie must not know of our advanced status. The cat and I will pretend we are your wards and travel in ventilated luxury compartments you will carry."

"You mean those pet carriers on the floor?" Cliff asked.

"They are luxury compartments!" insisted the bird. "Now remember, if you try anything inadvisable I am prepared to subject you to varying degrees of pain ranging from irritation to total incapacitation. However, you will find I am a gracious master if you do not make mistakes. If you are very, very good, I will not make you sleep in the street tonight shackled to a tree."

"I appreciate that," said Cliff. It was hard to believe that this cute little ball of feathers was really all that mean. On impulse, he reached over to pet it on the head. "You're a cute lil' guy!"

The bird quickly pecked the bracelet on his ankle and in a second, Cliff was flopping on the floor.

A horn honked outside.

"The rotary conveyance is here. Teams dismissed!"

Animals scurried off in every direction, disappearing almost instantly. Cliff looked behind a curtain and saw a standing cat looking back at him. "Shh!" she said, shooing him away with her paw.

"Carry the baggage to the conveyance," ordered Twake.

Cliff reluctantly lugged the 14 bags and trunks out the door. The driver (Noella) offered to help. Though the trunk was quite roomy, it was soon filled with the many articles of luggage, and some had to be stowed in the passenger compartment. Last to emerge from the house were the animals in their "luxury compartments".

Noella took the bird carrier from Cliff's hands and slid it onto the seat.

"Cute little fella," she said.

Cliff chuckled half-heartedly.

"What's his name?"

"He's called..." Cliff looked to the bird who shook its head slowly. "Uh, Chirpy." He left to get the cat-carrier from the doorstep.

"Hewo Chirpy!" Noella cooed. The bird glared back at her.

She turned to take the other carrier from Cliff and froze. "That's a ... cat?"

"Yes it is," agreed Cliff. "A very tiresome cat."

She stared at it for a few seconds. It was a cat, yes, but there were two very good things about it. It was not black, and it was alone. The black cats are the ones you have to watch out for, and they usually work in groups, especially when they are about to ambush you. Probably no immediate danger, she decided, but she would have to be very careful not to give herself away. She took the cat carrier gingerly and stuck it in the cab as though carrying a tray of nitro-glycerine bottles.

Before starting the engine, she was careful to hide the LIMOS marker by knocking it onto the floor.

"So we're going to the airport today?" She asked, looking in the rear-view mirror. "You got enough bags there to last a few months. Where you headed?"

Cliff shrugged. "I have no idea." He turned to the bird, who was just staring ahead, and whispered, "Where are we going?"

The bird turned and stared at Cliff like he was looking at a little child. "Serpentopolis."

"Serpentopolis," Cliff repeated to the driver.

"Serpentopolis!" whispered Noella. She was so excited, she almost steered into a guardrail.

"Shut up!" Twake screamed shrilly. "What are you doing? Don't tell the other human anything."

"That's right, Cliff," said the Cat. "We have been told by our advisors that taxi drivers are not to be trusted."

Not being switched-on, Noella heard none of the conversation except Cliff's harsh whispers. Still, she knew there was more going on than her senses detected. The excitement made her want to scream, but she had to force herself to seem disinterested.

"Well, none of my business. Wherever you're goin' it don't matter to me."

She kept glancing up to watch them through the mirror. They didn't seem to notice her unusual array of papers, photographic equipment, and shortwave radio. So it would seem she was safe. She put all her effort into focusing on Cliff's whispering.

"City of snakes?" Cliff hissed, "Is that an actual place on earth?"

"Of course. It is in a place you call Ireland."

"But there are no snakes in Ireland. In fact, there is a parable about Saint Patrick chasing the snakes out. Don't you think it would make more sense for their city to be in Africa or South America or someplace like that?"

"Yes," said the bird wearily. "Yes, and yes. Now, please do shut your soft mandibles until we get to the airport."

Cliff was getting tired of not knowing what was going on. He was willing to forgive the manhandling up to now because it was fresh and interesting. But as soon as it became work, carrying the baggage down the stairs, he started to lose his enthusiasm. Now it was time to get some answers.

"So what is it you want from me? What is my role in all this? You need something from me which gives me some power over you. You can shock me all you want, but until I get some concrete information, I am going to be as uncooperative as I can be."

For the first time, the bird looked at Cliff with respect.

"We need... that is, we require... you to negotiate a truce with the snakes."

"Truce? Are you at war with them?"

"Not at war, no." Bismarck explained. "It's more of a spat. We haven't spoken with them in about a thousand years. The last we saw them, Saint Patrick was leading a posse to chase them out of Ireland. It was our fault. We were trying to boost the popularity of the Snakes a little. They were feeling down because the humans weren't paying as much attention to them, and their projects were delayed. We thought we would help them out by developing a snake-worshipping cult. This Patrick fellow got the message backwards and decided snakes were the spawn of evil. He rounded up some friends and together they went around Ireland beating, chasing, and almost exterminating the snakes. The snakes went into hiding we have not seen them since."

"But I see them all the time on the Animal Channel. Some idiot in khaki shorts is always pulling them out from under rocks and saying 'crikey' to them."

"Those are the insane ones," said Twake. "When the snake nation was chased underground, a few were locked out. Cut off from their compatriots, they went mad and reverted to wild ways. The vast majority of their brethren are still in the palacious capital city of Serpentopolis, a mile underground."

"The snakes are upset with us," said Bismarck. "When they see us, they will want to have us torn to shreds and use our blood to paint murals of hate slogans. You are a neutral party. You will get past their defenses and tap into their sympathies to bring us all back together."

"And you are dispensible," added Twake. Then, in response to Bismarck's snarl: "well he is."

"How do you know they would react that way? Have you tried to contact them yourselves? Send a card and flowers?"

"Of course we have tried. Every goodwill ambassador we have sent was returned, their body parts arranged in a collage or sculpture."

"I don't think I want to do this anymore," Cliff said.

"You have to," said Twake, "But don't worry. We have studied the problem in incredible detail with thought experiments. There is better than an even chance you will succeed."

"And by 'succeed', you mean..."

"Live through it. With some of your limbs intact."

Cliff laughed nervously. The animals looked back at him. He laughed again, trying to get them to join in. They did not.

"Holy crap!" interjected the driver, as she stood on the brakes and everyone smacked into the driver's seat. "Did you see that? A truck just cut across three lanes right in front of me, and I swear there was no driver. Or maybe a very short one." She stretched her neck to see, but the truck had already barreled down an off-ramp and was gone.

The rest of the trip was silent but for the occasional insult Twake flung at the driver who, of course, could not hear him. Noella continued watching them in the mirror while trying not to be too obvious about it.

When they arrived at the airport terminal, she popped the trunk and ran around back to take out the bags. There was nothing useful she could ascertain from them. They were all normal pieces of luggage, though a little heavy and lopsided. She dearly wanted to open them and ravage the contents for information.

Cliff watched her set the bags down on the curb. She was awful cute for a taxi driver, he thought. If he had any gumption, he would ask her what she was doing lately. And then the bird would probably zap him again. A surge of anger started to well up, along with the urge to run off again.

"Well, hurry up, pink-skin," admonished the bird. "These airplanes do not sit around all day waiting for you."

"We have to pay the fare," said Cliff, suddenly conscious that the he was talking to the animals in view of the driver.

"Oh, very well. You will find a packet of compensation tokens in your left pocket. Take them out and give the driver an adequate sum."

Cliff pulled a strange papery mass out of his pocket. It was some kind of regurgitated nesting material woven into a pouchlike shape. Inside were little painted stones. "I can't pay her with this!"

Noella craned her neck to see what Cliff was holding.

"Those stones are legal tender around the world! All avians accept it. All right, then in your other pocket you will find the standard human denomenation. Use that."

Cliff felt a bunch of large coins jingling in his pocket. When did they slip that in there? He pulled out one of the coins and saw that it was made of gold, a kruggerand worth, at the time, two hundred and eighty dollars.

"A metal disc? Intriguing! You know, I have heard that the humans have a form of money made from paper," said Bismarck casually.

"Impractical," replied Twake. "And not terribly interesting. Let us go now."

"Do you have any change for... whatever this is?" Cliff placed the large coin in the driver's palm. "Oh, who cares? Keep the change."

"Thank you," said Noella, smiling nervously.

She didn't even look at the coin as she put it in her pocket. Her only thought was to find out where they were going. As Cliff loaded his many bags onto a cart, Noella backed slowly to the cab and got her camera. Then she followed Cliff into the airport, hanging back to keep out of view. She snapped photos of the airline's baggage check counter and noted the flight numbers on the television screens. Heading back to the cab, she had the biggest grin on her face. This find more than made up for the hassle she went through with the black cats that morning.

"Ser-pen-topolis!" She pounded the roof of the cab.