Skodla, Part 1

I have owned a bunch of cats in my lifetime. My two best cats were Freddy and Skittle. Skittle was a huge, orange tabby who was very ill when I first got him. He nearly died. But he survived and thrived and grew and grew and grew. He got so big, we once joked about getting him first his own ZIP code then later we thought he might need his own area code. He died several years ago and I miss him a lot. I thought I'd put him in a book so that he would be remembered. When I wrote the original long form of Rome's Revolution, I was determined to find a way to work Skittle into the story. Thus Skodla was born.

Skodla was Rome's cat. He was mentioned several times in the original long form of Rome's Revolution and also figured prominently in Part 3 when it was its own standalone novel. Unfortunately, when the time came to compress the three novels into one omnibus, a lot of stuff had to go and Skodla was one of them. So here is the (now) untold story:

Rome was only six years old when she found him. She was sitting at a workstation practicing her eye-hand coordination when she heard a tiny, mewling sound outside of her front door. The Overmind commanded that she ignore it but she found her reaction time was fractionally reduced by the distraction. She determined that she would be better served by researching the sound before returning to her practice.

She went to the front door and opened it. At first, the sound stopped but then started again. The sound came from behind her and on the ground. There, huddled in the corner, was a tiny, orange kitten making whimpering noises. With no thought regarding what it was doing there, Rome bent down and picked up the kitten and instinctually cuddled it in the crook of her arm. Immediately, the kitten’s sound changed from the plaintive tone to a surprisingly loud purring noise. Again, without really knowing what she was doing, Rome used her free hand to stroke the kitten and its purring sound grew even louder. The Overmind tried to convince her that the kitten was disease-ridden but she ignored this, choosing to attend what she saw rather than what the Overmind was telling her she was seeing

Tomorrow - Rome asks for permission to keep him.