In a city that shouldn’t exist, a symposium of the minds is taking place.

Within the premises of this room the brightest feline mind of all Glitch City has been summoned to give his thoughts on a topic of utmost importance.

His opposite in this matter raises her one semi-transparent hand with a finger over the bridge of her nose as a set of eyeglasses materializes from the tip of her finger outwards. She then swings her arm downwards as if producing a hidden assassin blade from her sleeve, but what comes out is a plastic pointer instead.

“…I see today is going to be noisy again…” The ghastly girl, Anna, muses to herself before sighing.

“Listen, I know we don’t really get along, but…” she started saying to nobody in particular before bursting into “DON’T INTERRUPT ME! Fine! Sheesh… that’s why I get for trying to extend you the olive branch…”

This petulant outburst was met by Fore, the black cat with blue eyes that composes the entirety of her audience, with a single, accusing, tilting of the head.

“Sorry to keep you waiting Fore Boy.” Anna proclaimed with a slight bow of the head “But there’s a matter that needs discussing and you’re the best mind in the area to argue this topic.”

Fore quietly stared head-on, his face eternally locked in a combination of deep thought, deeper alertness, relaxed calmness, and judgment worthy of one holding life and death in his hands such as he.

“You see, I can’t help but wonder… your mom -your human mom, that is- she sure seems to attract weirdness like a magnet, doesn’t she?”

Fore continued staring, whether in interest or disapproval, only the indecipherable enigma of his mind would know.

“The fact that she can see me is quite the enigma by itself, but then we also gotta account for how she found you so fortuitously…” As she said this she waved the plastic pointer in Fore’s direction, who proceeded to take the challenge head-on and repel this attempt on his personal space with a fierceness worthy of the house’s sole protector.

Anna waved the pointer some more, before remembering she was talking about something and retreating, granting Fore another victory in the saga of his life.

“But also, look at her circle of friends.” She said while spinning the pointer in the tip of her finger in what’s probably a pun for her alone “You’ve got that Sparkly Idol chick, you’ve got the Bougie Cat, hell even Titty Hacker has some weird hobbies of her own.”

Anna put her hand to her chin in deep thought, leaving the pointer spinning mid-air.

“Even beyond friends though, the guy from the newspaper would probably recognize her face, she knows at least one gun-for-hire on a first-name basis, and if I had a penny for every brain in a jar that knows her… I’d have a single penny which is still one more penny than I expected.”

“Prrr?” Fore queried, whether to the sight of the pointer or to Anna’s ongoing thesis will be a mystery for future generations.

“Great question!” She answered on cue while grabbing the spinning pointer “Very clever of you to notice I left out Boss Lady and Piss Man.”

“That’s because…” Anna hit the nearby vintage cathode ray television kept in the room with her plastic-looking pointer “…this is where my theory today comes in!”

The television in question turned on with its static electricity-producing burst, and two cartoon faces showed up over a blank image.

To the left there was the face of “Boss Lady”, Dana Zane, the former employer but still current “Boss” of Fore’s “Human Mom”.

To the right was a shockingly John-looking doodle representing “Piss Man”, Anna’s less than flattering nickname of this particular day for Gillian, Fore’s Mom’s former colleague.

With a slight wave of the pointer like a magic wand, small vortices started swirling around the faces.

“As you’re aware…” Anna started saying with her voice becoming suddenly more level “These two have lived, and continue to live, quite the sordid lives even now.”

“Boss Lady for example.” Anna said as Dana’s doddle face became bigger “A short list of things that she’s done would include: Food columnist, dry cleaner, construction worker, demolition worker, at least three different types of ‘Bouncer’…”

Anna went mentally through the list of old professions she researched and decided to stop.

“It’s not clear how much of it is true and the timeline doesn’t add up for some of them…” She sighed while scratching the back of her head with the pointer “But it’s not hard to believe she might’ve done any of those things.”

“As for Piss Man…” The image proceeded to focus on Gillian’s face while Anna exhaled exasperated “…nobody knows what his deal is, I doubt he knows what his deal is anymore, but that’s just a sign of how much piss this man has had thrown his way.”

Fore let out a yawn that showed his mighty fangs and included the smallest of squeals the moment Anna stopped talking.

“I know, I know, but I’m just getting to the good part.” She added apologetically.

“My theory…” Anna finally said straightening up as the vortices around the doodles on the screen accelerated “Is that the weirdness in their lives is like an influx of energy, eventually their bodies cannot take anymore of it and it just starts orbiting around them like debris”

She took in a small breath and declared proudly…

“I call this WIST! Or Weirdness Influx Saturation Theory.”

Then silence.

Fore looked at her with his immoveable disapproving face.

“I know, I know…” she sighed “I thought about so many words that would make it into WISH or WISP and even WISE but ‘Theory’ was always the most fitting one.”

Fore, without saying a word, laid with his paws under him in a perfect representation of the word “loaf”.

“But anyways!” Anna punctuated slapping the television with the pointer, making the image change, like a channel changes, into a doodle of Fore’s mom’s face “Imagine WIST’s effect starting and then you add into that environment an uncharged element.”

“Prreow?” Fore added, his attention now piqued.

“Yes! That’s your mom! You’re such a clever boy!” 

Catching how her tone was devolving quickly into baby talk, Anna cleared her throat and went back to her explanation.

“I’m not going to say that your mom has had an uneventful life, after all she did end up working at a bar because of a singular big event, but compared to… allegedly” she stressed this word before stressing it again “Allegedly being on the run from interpol because of an involvement with Hong Kong riots…”

Anna trailed off after saying this.

“…wait, which of the two was the one that was involve- ALLEGEDLY, allegedly involved with Hong Kong riots…?” After a brief pause trying to remember… “More to the point! Compared to the two people she got involved with, I cannot make the mistake of thinking she had that in her past record.”

Anna made the pointer stand vertically mid-air while pantomiming as if holding it with magic in the air between her hands.

“So she’s like a metal rod stuck near two really strong magnets. Given enough time, the rod becomes magnetized.”

“Mew?” Fore quickly queried intrigued, though if about the idea or the pointer doing funny things only he will know.

“Alas… no, I don’t know how magnets work.” Anna lamented while spinning the pointer in her fingers like a baton “But we know the end result, which is that she became a magnet of weirdness herself.”

She then paused for a second before continuing.

“I say magnet but it’s more like a snowball, because it’s less that she loses potency and more like once she starts it’ll just keep going. I guess an engine is also a good analogy? The Weirdness ignited the engine… but if she was an engine the fuel would run out instead of ramping up… so… hm…”

After not finding something that fits her idea of snowballs, engines, and magnets, Anna shrugged and continued.

“Of course, as you might suspect, that brings an interesting question: Who’s next? Who’s the next uncharged element to enter the ever-growing WIST vortex of your mom?”

Anna’s face shifted slightly into the more smug appearance she takes when in the presence of Fore’s mom.

“Thankfully she’s such a reclusive girl that the list of people that she’s frequently with is very VERY small” she said full of conviction to the cat in the room before her face quickly snapped to her earlier, more relaxed form “He’s a better conversation partner than you, shut up.”

After giving an angry glare to nobody in particular, she continued.

“The list of candidates is simple: We just gotta take anyone that’s utterly unremarkable…” She trailed off for a moment “No, unremarkable isn’t the right word. The only utterly unremarkable person I’ve seen is Piss Man’s girlfriend and she’s so unremarkable it’s shockingly remarkable. Perhaps ‘un-weird’ is a more proper term? But ‘weird’ is too vague and too redundant…”

Though her vocabulary and intelligence was so big that in life many colleges were scouting her into her ranks since high school, Anna found herself trying to find a scientifically accurate term for her very subjective thesis for a whole minute before slapping the monitor with her pointer in defeat and saying.

“It’s Frowny Girl.”

The fittingly frowning doodle of “Frowny Girl”, of Gaby, Fore’s human “aunt” as it were, showed on screen. Fore acknowledged this with a relatively long “Mreowow!”

“She’s young, her life is eventful but relatively normal, and one could argue she was pulled in by Jo’s weirdness magnetism.” Anna then looked at Fore and clarified “Your mom, ‘Jo’ is your mom.”

“Thus…” The image of “Jo” appeared right besides Frowny Girl’s on the screen, her spiraling vortex pulling Frowny Girl “It’s only a matter of time before Frowny Girl becomes a weirdness magnet too.”

Demonstrating this, the image on the screen seemed to speed up as a new vortex manifested around Frowny Girl’s face.

“It’ll be an interesting process, though.” Anna said while the image reverted back to its earlier state of a vortex-less Frowny Girl “On one hand, she’s still young which means there’s more time for her to be charged up. On the other hand, unlike Jo who was in direct contact with two supercharged entities for at least one year every day, Frowny Girl’s contact is less dramatic.”

Anna got really into her own explanation, ignoring Fore’s majestic yawning in the process.

“Will they even out? Will Frowny Girl surpass Jo’s Weirdness Index? If nothing else she’ll probably be able to see me before too long if things pan out as they should.”

“Before you say anything, yes that’s the whole reason behind this theory existing” She quickly added, not to Fore, but to nobody in particular “I don’t like the fact that a handful of people can perceive me and I don’t know how or why.”

Anna’s face turned really serious for a moment as she pursued this line of thinking while making the pointer vanish with a snap of her fingers.

“The only thing I know is that Jo can see me and then people connected to her in some way started to perceive me in other ways that I’m not willing to test nor willing to deny…” For a brief instant, Anna was the clear image of a scholar in her field “If I follow this line of thinking and Frowny Girl starts to see me, then that means I’m at least on the right track.”

Her face and posture relaxed as she turned back to addressing Fore.

“So, what do you think?”

Fore gave these matters some thinking…

Some really deep and serious thinking…

And then…

Flopped to the left before purring very loudly.

Success.

The best feline mind in the city approves of this theory for what it’s worth. Or at least, that’s what Anna decided this gesture meant. After all, the one time she proposed that Fore’s Human was a coward he clearly disapproved.

“Fore? Foooooore!!”

A very youthful voice, though one that was starting to crack through puberty could be heard outside the room

“Fore Julius Stingray, First of his name, where are youuuuuu?”

“Prr?”

After Fore’s acknowledgement, the door of the room opened gently and a young girl made her way in.

This was Gaby, Anna’s “Frowny Girl” and Fore’s human “aunt”.

“There you are!” She declared with her naturally frowning face relaxing “Vivi and Bebe wanna see you, it’s rude to keep them waiting, you know?”

Gaby then turned around…

…and made direct eye contact with Anna.

Anna froze.

Gaby started approaching her with her right hand.

Anna could vanish into any number of devices in the area, she could just make herself more transparent, go through the roof or the floor, try to spook her, but she remained in place, completely paralyzed.

Gaby’s hand was close to reaching Anna’s chest.

Anna closed her eyes, as if Gaby’s touch was that of an exorcist able to deliver her final death, going straight for her ghostly heart…

…and then…

Click

“Sheesh…” Gaby exclaimed after turning off the old TV Anna was using in her presentation “Even if Alma is very clearly in a comfortable financial position, Jill should know better than to be wasteful with electricity this way.”

“Prreow!!” Fore protested.

“Don’t defend her! She’s an adult and should know better!!” Gaby retorted.

“Prrrrr…?” Fore added.

“I know you’re her guardian, but smothering her like that is only ever counterproductive, you know?”

Gaby then lifted Fore by his torso before cradling him like a baby in her arms.

Her ability to do that is something that to this day baffles everyone.

Fore only ever let Jill lift him, let alone carry him. It’s unknown what divine right Gaby shares with Jill that gives her permission to do that but it’s been the source of jealousy of many in the house.

Gaby then turned to leave the room, Fore in her arms, updating him on how things have been going in the house since he took his latest nap.

Left behind in the dark room, with the lights of the city seeping through the window was Anna.

Her non-existent breathing was accelerated and her sight unfocused forwards as she kept her singular hand over her chest where Gaby’s hand predictably passed through.

Or it should be predictable at least.

But being invisible to everyone was also predictable until one year ago.

“Not yet…” Anna repeated to herself in an agitated, shaky whisper over and over again, in a tone that’s as much relief as it is a plea for mercy “Not… yet…”