Tickity-tack, rickety-rack, the sound of the train went on. Edward was burnt out. The last publishing deal he tried to broker went down the drain. It was hard enough writing stories that his brother could illustrate and sell, but now his new publisher just had to be helmed by a certain Mohammed Al-Asad. Damn that stingy, inflexible, arrogant bugger. Well okay, that wasn’t the actual problem. The problem traveling all the way from New York, at the behest of his brother, to Japan just so he could be told personally that the latest manuscript was a piece of s*** that would not sell. Whatever happened to the courtesy of using letters? Perhaps that rich git from Abu Dhabi had nothing to do. Not only that, he wanted to actually spend some more time with his brother’s cat, Floofers, instead of covering over 9000 kilometres to sit around in Sendai. Well at least the ramen there was legendary. That there was still plenty to see and do before his flight from Narita departed in a few days, so Edward took it upon himself to visit that famous train station with a cat as stationmaster. It was not an exaggeration to say that Edward loved cats.

Settling in to the seat of the latest generation Shinkansen as it hurtled towards his destination at speeds to rival the French TGV, Edwards was about to fall asleep. Sleep didn’t come in time. Edward was jerked out of his seat by inertial as the train itself seemed to have stopped relative to him. Reflexively, he closed his eyes and braced for impact with the seat in front of him. Instead of pain, a cold sensation drenched him to the bone. Liquid filled his mouth and hose when he tried to inhale. He was still moving though, as Edward felt him moving in another direction. The sensation was akin to a potted petunia falling from a window sill. Managing to mouth, “not again,” before the emptiness gave way to terra firma.

Gasping for the fresh air that filled his lungs, Edward opened his eyes. The sun’s bright glare bore down on him and the ambient temperature was indeed hotter than Japan in the autumn. Edward already knew what happened, even before he noticed that his black cotton sweater was replaced by a brown hide jacket. His semi-formal attire had already transformed in to thin yet hardy linen clothing. He lay upon a fine yellow sandy area. Getting to his feet and dusting himself off quickly, Edward took stock of his surroundings and acquired his bearings. A decorated mural to one side, a sheer drop to the next level on the other, a paved path lined with equally beautiful shrubbery and the sights of minarets, arches and various architectural marvels below. There was no mistaking that Edward was in the suspended gardens of Babil. Scurrying towards him in a comical zigzag path was a hat. It was the kind of hat you’d see on an adventurer archeologist and not a soft-looking and unassuming British novelist. Edward picked up the hat, revealing the means of the hat’s locomotion, a small, white, short-haired tom.

“Koneko, is that you?” Edward asked and putting the hat on, fixing a gaze at the cat as he did.

“Welcome back Ed,” the cat replied cheerfully.

“You seem smaller than I remember.”

“A lot of things have happened,” Koneko said sullenly but the little tom looked at a nearby sundial and changed the subject, “We better hurry, we shouldn’t keep Venaticus waiting.”

It seemed inevitable that every time Edward came to Babil, Venaticus knew about it. Little surprise really. Venaticus was one half of the founders of the Acynonyx Brothers Courier Service. It was more of a trading company nowadays but Edward had heard the story of the founding enough times to want to toss cookies. Back in the day, Venaticus and his brother, Jubatus ran Trade Route 108 in under a month. Now it’d seem ordinary but this route was the most dangerous yet most direct route that was essential for the continued existence of civilisation.

All civilisation owed their existence to the wondrous ploine fruit. It was succulent sustenance in the absence of adequate farmland. If cherries were as least as large as an average man’s balled fist and joined together in a pair like Siamese twins, that’s what a ploine would look like. They were only found at the heart of Frikaasland’s equatorial region, approximately south, southwest of Babil.

Trade Route 108 went straight from the abundant fields of ploine fruit growth to the Kaire Staging Post, a few days ride south of Babil and the only certified crossing point across a crocodile infested river. Once the precious ploines arrived at Babil, they could be easily sold to various other cities. From the cultural and historically old Bombay and the smithies and forges of Lutecia to the Principality of Siam and the United Provinces of Siberia and Tartariya, Babil remained at important central point for the world.

the plot looks good! i cant wait to see how you fit pirates into it...

INFILTRATION! I can feel it...
My character gets a dual barrel machine gun! I hope!

INFILTRATION! I can feel it...
My character gets a dual barrel machine gun! I hope!

implying you're not going to be denied outright due to godmodding just as much as f*** silver has pk

Ha.

What a weird and wacky world it was too. For Edward, it was close to paradise. Not only do the cats here actually talk, they are as smart as any man or woman. Well cat was a generalisation. They were a whole array of the felids living along side humans. From the lions, the tigers, obviously and fortunately no bears, t the common house cat, each found their own niche. Powerful independent cats found themselves keeping the peace or running businesses where as the more social ones were hunter-gatherers or caravan escorts. The smaller cats, especially the domestic cat took up some of the more administrative and scholarly jobs. The reason was pretty simple; cats have nine lives, as opposed to the other felids. Combined with the unusual longevity of everyone’s lives, the cats tend to have much greater pool of experience. That made Edward’s favourite feline friend special in a sense. Koneko enjoyed field work. In fact, many cats on their first lives enjoy it out of curiosity. After one life, they tend to mellow out and choose to find another calling. Not so for Koneko, who was apparently still at it despite being on his fourth, or was it fifth, life.

They reached the ABCS main headquarters and Venaticus’ unsurprisingly human secretary showed them to his office. Well, it was more of a warren instead of an office but purpose was still the same. Edward took a seat in a great purple, comfortable-looking cushion as Koneko settled on his lap.

“Good to see you again Mr. Smith,” Venaticus greeted.

“Same,” Edward answered less enthusiastically.

He had reason to be. Venaticus usually offered, or rather, assigned him dangerous tasks. The kind of takes that involved life threatening situations and plenty of pain as Edward recalled.

“Cheer up Mr. Smith,” Venaticus started after an awkward pause, “It’s not like I’m sending you straight in to a lion’s den.”

“What’ll it be this time? Pirate hunting?” he asked.

“This one is just a simple caravan escort,” Venaticus answered.

“Through route 108?”

“How did you know?” Venaticus asked, faking surprise.

“Just a hunch,” Edward shrugged, feigning ignorance, “There’s a reason it’s the most dangerous route out there. It’ll get me killed again.”

“Well, it’s not like you actually die,” Koneko interrupted.

“That’s true,” Venaticus added, “You seem to disappear then reappear in the city again.”

Like Venaticus said, humans who seem on the verge of death do exactly that. It was as if they just respawn like in a hideously real videogame. Those existential nutjobs in the “brain in a vat” school of thought would have a field day. It seemed likely but now was not the place for deep thought about the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. The only thing Edward was sure of was that he came from somewhere else each time he regained consciousness after his supposed death. That was the sole shared sentiment between all humans, regardless of whether they arrived for the very first time or not.