Familiar

We Make Great Pets

I step out of the bathroom and the fresh steam from the shower mingles with the fog they've conjured in the kitchen. What's a little green smoke between friends, right?

"Launch FleshGolem! Launch FleshGolem!" Polly shouts.

Scout pushes a button on her Raspberry Pi. "Relax - it's not leaving the salt circle, no matter how mad it wakes up."

The three of them are collected around the table but just outside the salt line, watching as the green funk travels in ripples over the raccoon. The raccoon seems to expand as the smoke travels into its mouth. The lights flicker again. Temple strikes a wooden safety match. We all hold our breath.

"Booting..." Scout says. "Throw the match in... now!"

"CLEAR-CLEAR-CLEAR!" Temple reaches up and neatly hucks the match over the salt line into a bowl full of stuff at the raccoon's head.

Polly says something in Latin and everyone looks at her quizzically. She crosses herself and asks, "What?"

And then the raccoon springs to life with a noise somewhere between a growl and a toddler's shriek. It scrambles circles in a rage over the kitchen table, knocking cutlery and stuff to the floor. We lose the lightbulb over the stove, but aside from that, it looks good. The salt line holds.

"Well, I'll be damned."

"You should go put some pants on instead," Temple suggests.

I go put on some pants.

                                                                                                         ***

Half an hour later and the raccoon is still on the table, but now relatively content and eating a handful of grapes that Temple tossed it over the salt line.

"Siri!" The familiar bonk-bonk chimes softly from somewhere in the raccoon. "Siri, sit!" Scout orders. The raccoon swallows and sits back on its hindquarters. It does not release the grapes.

"You named it Siri?"

Scout gives me a challenging glance. "What? It has most of an iPhone 5s in there."

"Voice activation, hello," Polly giggles.

"Does the camera work?" I ask.

"That's why I opted for the s instead of the c - it has optical image stabilisation. Boot up your lappie and I'll show you." Temple is wicked excited. "Go! Get your laptop!"

"You cannot, under any circumstances, take it to the Genius Bar if it breaks; am I clear? None of you." Scout is not fucking around here.

"Crystal," I assure her. "Hey - how did you get the Raspberry Pi to talk to OS X anyway?"

"Magic, duh," Polly says.

Really, what did I think the answer would be? I boot up the laptop and Temple takes over to log me into something that I suspect was once the building's parking lot surveillance system. Siri is looking at the grapes. The picture is startlingly clear.

"Siri!" Bonk-bonk. "Siri, go ahead and eat your grapes," I tell it. The raccoon looks at me and then resumes snacking. The camera follows its perusal of my apartment shakily as it chews. It's showing a strong interest in the tree by the couch.

"Did, um, did you guys have a plan for when it has to, uh... go?"

As if on cue, the raccoon drops the grapes and empties its bladder across the kitchen table and onto the floor, effectively breaking the salt line. Siri waddles over to the ficus and takes a noisy dump.

I just sit there with the computer on my lap and blink.

"The litter box is in the car," Polly says, ablush. "We didn't think it would get to this stage."

"We've never progressed this far," Scout defends.

Temple takes his hand from his mouth. "I'll clean that up," he says, and goes for the paper towels.

"Siri," I call.

Bonk-bonk. "I live here now," the little phone voice inside the raccoon responds. "This is my forever home."