I’m posting this to say I won’t be posting tomorrow. Not really. Saturday is going to be a lot of work. A lot of work. But then by Sunday things should be back to normal-ish and next week I should be human.
So bear with me tomorrow (writing this on Thursday) and I might not post at all on Saturday. And keep me in your prayers. It’s nothing dangerous, but it’s tight scheduling and a lot of work.
Meanwhile, to amuse you: my writers’ group used to have “writing challenges.” Some were very silly. Some were fun.
So what story would you write from the following challenge:
First sentence “The invisible mice were everywhere.”
Make it science Fiction.
According To Hoyt 
“-The invisible mice were everywhere. I didn’t want to lose the records.”
“Your ships have mice?” Ezhak was trying to not sound horrified. You could tell, because he sounded strangled and his face was contorted. It was a good thing no-one expected him to be subtle.
Jon nodded and– with much better results– kept his urge to sigh from being visible, much less happening. It was about time, it had been at least two weeks since he’d horrified the pilot.
Well. On accident. There was something deeply satisfying about horrifying someone twice your size and three times your weight
“Of course we have mice. How else are we going to keep things clean?”
“You have… mice… to keep things clean.” Ezhak blinked his very blue eyes several times. “The Fleet is Cinderella, now?”
“Cinder– who?” It was probably a story. Ezhak seemed to have an unlimited supply of them, even if the ones that Jon recognized were only mostly the same.
“They took Kinder- und Hausmärchen out of– argh.” Interrupting himself, Ezahk shook his head. “Remind me to get Mizis Karr to send a copy. She’ll laugh herself sick. When you say ‘mice,’ you’re not talking about little, fuzzy, gnawing creatures that when they’re Common are brown, gray or white? Like this big?” He held up a scaley hand, fingers held maybe ten centimeters apart.
“….no….I think I’ve seen those in zoos…. mice do all the maintenance that doesn’t need a mind behind it. Or some strength– shutupdon’tyoudare.”
Ezhak patted him on the head, smirking. Jon braced himself for a terrible attempt at humor.
“Would I stoop to something as low as that?”
“You are not funny. What do you call the automated repairs? Your ship is clean– there’s got to be something to doing it.”
“Kobolds.”
Oh no, plot bunny! Run away, run away! *scampers off to hide up on shelf, above the invisible mice*
The invisible mice were everywhere.
“I think so, Brain. The stolen cloaking device is working.”
The Azzatar guard muttered “the invisible mice are everywhere”.
His companion sneered and said “next you’ll say that old line about if you see the invisible mice, you die”.
The first guard said nothing.
The second guard said “what that?” then died.
The first quickly looked away from what had killed him.
***
Inside the walls of the alien structure, the Sergeant said “one Monster down, several billion to go”.
Reference to William Tenn’s “Of Men And Monsters”
AKA “The Men in the Walls” I love that story and Tenn’s stuff in general.
The invisible mice were everywhere. Virtually everywhere, in the warehouse Mike Haup had rented.
Mike Haup was a keyboardist, a minority mostly tolerated among the stylus-users and the annoying types who kept insisting that they could make voice- and sub-vocal input work. He was also a keyboardist who preferred mouse to stylus as a secondary mode, something there was much less tolerance for among the majority. Thus the invisibility of the mice.
Mike triple-tapped with three fingers, and the virtual-haptic mouse appeared under his hand. The invisible virtual-haptic mouse. Mike only needed to feel it, not see it, and its non-visibility kept nine out of ten sneering stylus-users from going negative on him.
Port Agent Jennifer Nomoko, unfortunately, was a tenth woman.
(More of a story-start than a complete short-short. Oh well…)
Shared GUI interfaces via ‘the cloud’ had been a mistakes. A terrible, terrible, mistake.
For example, to pick randomly the case Steve was looking at, the invisible mice were everywhere.
Definitely a mistake, or malice.
The mice weren’t really invisible. Shad had just left the back porch light off. But the mice were determined to get in and raid the cheese counter at Whole Foods. And this time they had extra help…
The reason Roswell wasn’t more well documented was that the “small grey aliens” were really small, gray mice.
The invisible mice were everywhere
Out there where the stars began
While ship’s cats watch without care
Silently laughing at their servant, man.
Sorry
Nice!
Lovely.like cordwainer smith
The invisible mice were everywhere.
Their invisibility wasn’t perfect, of course. They still had to see, and after a while they picked up enough dust and lint to show up as sort of blurry transparent ghosts, but it was damn effective. Made catching them a nightmare, and if she didn’t catch every last one she could kiss her doctorate good-bye. She’d wind up a legend, right enough — a name to be whispered fearfully, while making warding gestures. “Watch out, or you’ll wind up like She Who Must Not Be Named, that let the plague of invisible mice get loose in the Genetics building. They’re still here, so don’t leave any important papers lying around or they’ll get nibbled to confetti.”
Maybe if she made a few changes to some cats, they could catch the invisible mice…?
THE MICE MUST FLOW!
Stand by for Invisible Carp! Now where did that thing get to…?
Did you leave it in the invisible carp pond?
Wait. Is it just the carp, or is the whole pond invisible?
You, know, I don’t know. Let me know when you find it?
That’s one of the things with English. Is invisible modifying carp or pond? Darn you whoever cleared English of it’s declensions.
Unfortunately, the carpapult is also invisible, wherever it is.
😂
You’re a bad woman. Well done
The invisible mice were everywhere. Rufus shook his head; going trans-c didn’t usually bother him this badly. He blinked a few times; that’s better the invisible mice were gone now. “Fred, did you see anything funny a minute ago?”
Fred replied, “Just you, buddy.”
The invisible mice were everywhere. Robert twitched again. He could here them skittering, skittering, skittering all around him. Maybe if he covered his ears? No. That didn’t work. They were getting into his mind. “Oh, God! Why did I have to read that damned book!” he thought to himself. “I should have heeded the warnings. There are some things man is not meant to know!”
Lovecraft counts as sci-fi, right?
The invisible mice were everywhere. At least if the behavior of her cat was any indication. He flailed his paws under one piece of furniture after another, scrabbling to get at something only he could see.
Alice’s father insisted that her cat was too dumb to pull his head in when a window was being closed, but any creature that could spend more than half an hour stalking an imaginary mouse hiding under the scratching post was smarter than your average furball.
Though, now that she came to think about it, he usually only flailed for the invisible mousie under the scratching post. Today he was dashing madly from the couch to the entertainment center to the end table and back again. It was enough to make a person wonder…
c4c
“The invisible mice were everywhere.” I was comforted that while the mice were invisible to me, the 4 legged fur kids, everyone else called cats, and the smaller ratter dogs, were busy teaching the invisible mice they still could be stalked, chased, and caught. This didn’t remove the danger I was in. At least when the mice were visible I could follow the mouse’s frantic scramble to escape and maybe avoid getting in the chasers’ way. Sigh. I’ll just sit here and drink my coffee while the mice, cats, and dogs, play.
“The invisible mice were everywhere.”
However, we were leaving Visible, and the electronic hawser-guards on the shuttle were up to date, so we lifted off without mice.
The pin-lighters would not have liked them.
The mice were invisible. Of course, their droppings weren’t. It’s hard to overlook floating droplet clouds of acrid-smelling manure, even if you wanted to. The good news was that most of them were already clustered around or drifting towards the gentle suction of the ventilation ports, instead of at–or inside of–the feed and water bulbs.
I caught one sniff and sealed my faceplate. The licensee, who was upside down relative to my point of view, was still able to follow my gaze. “Now what are you looking at?”
“You’ve got some mice in here.”
Even upside down, there was a triumphant gleam in his beady little eyes. “You can’t tell me you see any mice in there.”
“Do you have a pest control protocol that you’ve established?”
“Those ain’t pests. Those are my mice. They’re listed on my inventory.”
“D’znn’y, are you licensed to breed, maintain, harbor, or sell, or store live mice in this module?”
“You need a license for that?”
“On a space station, D’znn’y?”
Nice! 😀
Is there a word count limit? Or any other rules to this game?
This is not a story, but is my second attempt to post a question. I recall reading a story in which invisible animals father ships in transit between planets and stars and teams were needed on the ships between a cat like animal able to see the invisible creatures and their human. Anyone recall the story?
The Game of Rat and Dragon by Cordwainer Smith.
Yes! Thanks. Also a favorite of daughter.
No I thought people would give plot summaries. Er… Apparently not
Well, I already have a major issue with “Plot? What’s that? Can you eat it?”
So I didn’t do any thinking about plot.
No, but it can bear fruit that nourishes the mind and soul.
Well, first I’d have to have a plot, you see.
You set no limits. They acted as human beings.
While Carrol LeFon was still alive and blogging (Neptunus Lex was his lash up) he’d leave a note for days when he was “going away.” We found the keys to the “likker lokker” and had a massive party. “The Hobbit” (Lex’s other half) didn’t care for the mess and made a remonstrance to the proprietor. Or, at least, that was what Lex claimed.
That’s peculiar for this bunch 😉
You make a valid point….
Rules?
:looks around: With this group?
More like suggestions.
In small type….
Well, we are effectively limited to certain rules.
1. The stile of this confederacy will be “The United States of America”
2. A contestant which loses their head will be considered unable to battle.
3. The Earth is the ring.
Very small type, in pale grey on cream, on the fourth page of the Terms of Service and Use Instructions.
I don’t have a story. What I have is a question. I recall reading long ago a story in which animals which were harmful to ships in transit between planets or stars were invisible and that ships needed a person with a familiar, catlike, which could find the invisible intruders and the team could deal with them. I have no clue who wrote it. I may be recalling it wrong. But invisible nice made me think of it immediately.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_Rat_and_Dragon
Shoot me. Message 1 appeared only behind message 2.
WP delenda est
“The invisible mice were everywhere.”
“What?”
“Do you have a better explanation for why the cats were racing around?”
The nvisible mice were everywhere. Well, maybe they were. The active camouflage system that served as their skin made them hard to detect, after all. No way to be sure… Would they show up on thermal? Terry adjusted his visor system to look for heat sources in the infrared spectrum. “Gotcha!”
“The invisible mice are everywhere!”
“They’re not really invisible, sir, ” Rahkim reminded him tiredly. Dealing with an anxious Archon was so draining. “They’re simply genetically augmented.”
“Yes, and may Bast curse the fool who added chameleon genes to his damnned bioweapon!”
“Well, the improved eyesight and motion-detecting abilities don’t help,” Rahkim admitted. “They’ve made significant inroads on the food supply. But we think we’ve developed an effective countermeasure. We’ve distributed them around all the established mouse routes in the base.”
“Good! They’re in every room, under every desk – they even run across the desktops and get into the drawers! Look at this!” The Archon yanked open the top drawer of his well-polished wooden desk and reached inside. “I–”
“Sir, I wouldn’t–” Rahkim began, but too late.
“ARRRRRRGHHHH!” the Archon yelled, and stood up, frantically waving his right hand. “What–?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I should have told you more quickly we equipped your desk first. I’m afraid you just found one of the invisible mouse traps.”
“Invisible mice do not, cannot exist!” the Minister of Truth proclaimed, as the corner of his page of notes disappeared in tiny, bite-sized chunks.
“The invisible mice are everywhere!” exclaimed the captain “Which one of you idiots has been splicing octopus genes into the experimental animals again?”
“Not me” replied the ensign, “How do you know there are invisible mice anyhow?”
“Because although the mice may be invisible their droppings sure as hell aren’t. How are we going to catch the little things?”
“Splice pit viper genes into the cats?” asked the ensign
“No O’Reilley tried that last time this happened and we ended up with cats with retractable poisonous fangs. It was bad, really bad” said the captain “Any chance we could get IR night vision goggles for the ships cats?”
“I’ll look Captain” chimed in Lt. O’Reilley, “No, no luck skipper they’ve been on backorder for 18 months due to all being shipped to Beta Hydri.”
“Why the heck are they shipping IR goggles for feline crew there?”
“Unclear captain, any queries I make are hitting security clearance issues.”
“Ensign aren’t you from Beta Hydri? Hey where’d the ensign go? Oh crud we are so screwed…” exclaimed the captain
I was enjoying myself so I continued
Of Mice and Men (and an occasional cat)
from the continuing Tales of the Vandervecken
(going where no one wanted to go in the first place)
“Lieutenant get whichever Ensign has been off duty longest and is certified for Engineering/environmental up here quickly”
“That would Ensign Choudri sir. I already commed her and she’s on her way. I’ve also alerted security to keep an eye out for Ensign Marcus, He dumped his com gear in the elevator so his trail’s gone cold”
“Thank you, O’Reilley good work, Unfortunately in a cargo tub like this Marcus will be hard to find if he’s gone into the pressurized cargo sections, we mass over 20 million tonnes and are over a kilometre in length and sensors are limited, money is everything to corporate.”
The elevator chimed and opened, a somewhat disheveled young woman entered, “Ensign Choudri reporting as ordered, sir”
“Thank you ensign, take the E and E console please. I’ll have to have the exec rework the duty roster in light of Ensign Marcus being AWOL.”
Lieutenant Reilley said “Sir, Ships cats report that the invisible mice although hard to see still make noise in the 30KHz range which they can easily hear”
“Ships cats report?” squeaked Choudri at a frequency nearly that of the mice.
“They’re Felis Sapiens v Maximus” said the captain “ An uplifted species from the early 32nd century. We ended up trading Lieutenant O’Reilleys F. Silvestris with rattlesnake additions at a colony that was having nasty rat issues. The colony had a set of F. Sapiens colonists that found the world too hot, so they signed on as auxiliary crew on the Vendervecken. Please tell them they are authorized to use lethal force to control the mice Lieutenant”
“Will Do skipper” After a confused pause OReilley continued, “The head of the cat contingent says they’re concerned the mice may be sentient although probably not fully sapient. They’ve deduced this as the mice seem to be communicating with a language that seems to have rudimentary grammar”
“Bloody great I have invisible mice AND mutinous felines with delusions of grandeur and knowing something about Semantics and Sapientology”, grumped the captain.
“Actually Captain one of the felids has degrees in both. Apparently it is a genius of its kind, and instead of sleeping 16 hours a day like most of its fellow felids it sleeps a mere 10 and spends the other six doing extension courses. It has like six degrees”
“OK so I have a smart ass felid with insomnia and delusions of grandeur, I suppose that’s some improvement. Any chance of having it come up to the bridge an giving a report in the briefing room?”
“The felids aren’t directly in the chain of command sir, but Sleepstoolittle offered to come up and brief us”
“Please Set that up at the felid’s earliest convenience.”
To Be Continued?
–
Please!
The invisible mice were everywhere.
“Which one of you idiots,” the head of the lab asked, “thought that giving our lab mice nano-machines for thermo-optical cloaking systems as their fur was a good idea?”
There were bodies hurtling everywhere in the high-G classroom. Kids running up and down stairs in the middle of the room, jumping on trampolines, climbing things sticking out of walls and hanging from bars on the ceiling. Loud music drowned out the yelling and laughing while the kids and facilitator ran around exercising and whooping it up. They wouldn’t have heard a prompter or call button if their lives depended on it.
There was a sort of slow-motion ripple freezing in place effect as one kid after another noticed me. Kids on this transport almost never see anyone in a G-suit since suits are forbidden for anyone younger than 35. We may have learned our lesson late about being lazy in low G but we did learn it.
“I’m from the Tech Office, did you ask if we have the mice?’ I questioned the facilitator as she wound her way through the group of youngsters, turning off the music with her prompter.
“Oh, I expected Shandy to come.” She explained. “She got mice for the students to use with their prompters. But now they’re gone and I thought she took them back. “
“She’s off sick today. Do you mean those old-time devices they used as inputs on computers?” I laughed. “I thought you meant live animal mice and I have never seen one of those either.”
“Yes, computer mice. The kids really balk at using them but they need to work on their fine
motor skills more than just swiping and tapping.”
“NO! We Don’t!” declared the voice of very small creepy looking kid who had been sitting,
defiantly on the floor the entire time.
The facilitator sort of hunch her shoulders up a little and turned around to face the kid.
“Garrett, do you know what happened to the mice?” she asked tiredly.
He glared.
“What happened to the mice Garrett?”
“Nothing bad.” He said. “I gave them robot legs and I painted them with cloaking paint I got
from my Dad’s office so they are invisible.”
“You gave them legs and made them invisible? Why would you do that?”
“So they could be free and we don’t have to use stupid mice.”
“HOW OLD is this KID? I asked.
“He’s 7 and this isn’t the first time he’s pulled a stunt like this.”
Have you heard the expression “He shuddered like someone walked on his grave.”? I looked at that kid and shuddered like someone walked on my grave.
“So kid, where are they now. I want to see this. I don’t believe it.” I said.
“I don’t know” he shrugged. “You left the door open and they are invisible and probably
everywhere. But I told them to find Shandy.”
The invisible mice were everywhere.
Sure, it had been a brilliant idea to bring on people who could hear the humming of electronics that other people couldn’t, and so find bugs, and nevermind they were hypersensitive types who clashed with the sorts of personality that liked the military life.
Then they started to notice invisible creatures, and ones that hid in the walls, and the next thing you knew, the war was on with the creatures hiding among us, as they panicked.
“Run that by me again, Gunnery Sergeant Merrick.”
“Invisible mice, ma’am. They’re everywhere.” the soldier replied, showing the officer footage from the security cameras’ infrared mode on his hand terminal.
First Lieutenant Elise Ahlstrom kept her professional face up but she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Not that she hadn’t expected a few bits of strangeness from the Ereshkigal System but this sounded like something out of one of her childhood cartoons rather than one of the horrors that sent so many of her fellow Marines to the psych wards over the years. Still, it wouldn’t do for Dumuzid Station to have a rodent problem.
“Could it have been a genetics experiment gone wrong?” she asked, trying to run through the reasonable explanations first.
“Unlikely, ma’am. We haven’t had any bio-lab transports this solar month and none of the scientists or doctors on board have any genetics experience.”
“I see,” Elise remarked. “What measures have you taken to deal with them?”
“I assigned several soldiers to round them up, complete with infrared visors for the job,” Merrick responded crisply. “We haven’t had much luck so far, though, ma’am.”
“I suppose it’s time to join the hunt myself,” Elise sighed, rising from her desk. “Get me an infrared visor and a stun net generator.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Merrick replied with a sharp salute before leaving Elise’s office. She heard small paws skittering over her boots as Merrick departed, hissing at the sound. They really were everywhere. Elise grabbed a nearby officer’s staff and took up position, getting ready to swat the rodent if showed up again.
Her head exploded with pain before she could do anything else, however, sending her to her knees. A blue haze distorted her vision as well, yet once it cleared up she could see the mouse, plain as day. The creature studied her curiously before giving her what looked like a nod and turning around, waving its tail as if to say “Follow me.”
“What is this…?” she thought dreamily, unable to keep herself from following the small rodent. Before she knew it she was in the station’s auditorium, facing down a whole battalion’s worth of mice on the stage. The creatures lined up in perfect military formation and bowed their heads respectfully.
The one who led her there stepped forward, its squeaky voice proclaiming “The Lady of the Great Place welcomes you to her domain, Nin. She expects great things from you and your army.”
Elise wasn’t sure how to respond to that but she didn’t have to. The station commander’s voice shouting her name broke her out of whatever trance she had been in. When she looked up the auditorium was perfectly clear, if jarringly bright after the blue haze lifted, and there was no sign of the mice anywhere.
“Of course not, they’re invisible…” she muttered, her mind still trying to process what just happened.
“Merrick, get her to sick bay!” the commander shouted, getting an affirmative response from the gunnery sergeant. “Accardi, see to the mice!”
Elise heard Lance Corporal Accardi’s response as Merrick picked her up: “Commander, they all just vanished! See for yourself, sir!”
“Vanished?!” the commander exclaimed, falling silent after he turned his visor on and verifying Accardi’s explanation for himself.
“So this is why nobody likes the Kish,” Merrick hissed once he and Elise were out of the commander’s earshot. “It might have just been a college prank this time but something creepy is going on in this system and I don’t think it wants us here.”
Elise’s only response was a bleary “Nin…”
—
…Well, that was what I came up with while walking. Don’t ask me why it went in this direction!
I have LOVED every story so far.
This has been especially fun for me. I haven’t written a single thing except stupid manual pages for work since I had a stroke in 2017 and lost all the stories in my head. I really thought I would never think of another story ever in my life because that part of my brain died. I hang out here because people here think the way I used to be able to think.
For some inexplicable reason, Invisible Mice are Everywhere kindled a little flicker of life that I thought I would never feel again. I don’t even care if it was a silly story. It was fiction and I THOUGHT OF IT!!
I guess my brain is only mostly dead, which means it’s partly ALIVE!
Yay.
:cheers: Outstanding!
That’s Wonderful, Susan! *virtual hugs and high-five*
Three cheers for partly alive brain!
{{{HUG}}}
O frabjous day!
For some reason, I immediately thought of Jethro Tull’s “The mouse police never sleeps”
The invisible mice were everywhere. Of course, not totally invisible, always to everyone; and not quite everywhere, the way they could ‘pop’ in and out of even that tenuous existence (in this universe, our here and now) more or less at will. But ever since the Approximation, three months ago… ‘most everywhere.
And Alexandra was one of the ‘lucky’ people who could see them plainly. Without needing the special rose-colored glasses (thick lenses tinted with gold and other rare elements) that let most people catch at least a fleeting glimpse of them, most of the time, in a favorable light (“Look, George, those flickermice they keep talking about really are real!”). They called it, now so commonly, “faery blood” or some even wilder thing. But to her, it was simply the same old an da shealladh, the two seeings or more conventionally the Second Sight, still in her family line after all these (by now uncounted) generations.
The physicists and cosmologists talked about a near-collision of two whole universes, “M-branes” as they called them, away off in some fith, sixth, tenth dimension of “bulk” — whatever that meant. Alex, by contrast, just knew they were (mostly) mice, that travelled in and out some way, grabbing a few snacks in the meanwhile supposing the getting was good.
Plot summary: Surely someone somewhere on Earth realizes, sooner not later, how transdimensional mice might be really good for something — for us, the humans. Maybe someone will ask the better question, good for something, for the mice? Or whoever or whatever’s helped them along their way..?
Alexandra Porter has (we know) a real head start on all the above, it’s in her blood. And having grown up on all those family stories of Faery and its inhabitants (mostly from legend, at least), she understands that invisible mice that can ‘pop’ in and out of here-and-now could have lots of uses, civilian or military, personal or frankly commercial, nasty or nice. To people from, and not from, ‘around here’ both.
But what she really can’t get out of her head is one simple thing from the German, not Celtic, side of her wide-spreading family tree: Cinderella’s enchanted pumpkin coach was pulled by… mice.
Okay, so maybe she can work with that… on a level more like Nascar. Or even Detroit. Or just possibly maybe the Marvel Avengers?
NIMH had no idea that a select strike team remained behind.
Mrs. Frisby’s problems were nothing compared to that of the few, the proud, the… Ones who watched STTNG on the lab computer monitors.
Remus knew that Starfleet was real. Conspiracy theorist? Bah. But he understood that secrecy, the Prime Directive to preserve Rattus Sapiens, was paramount. Every brother rat had sworn: Death first!
Little did they know that Starfleet might be a joke, but micro-shield technology was one sewer line away…
(If any of you brilliant huns or hoydens writes MF&tRoN – The Next Gen I will do all your illos gratis)
The invisible mice were everywhere. I could feel them crawling on me when I slept. When I sat down to eat or read they crawled up my legs. The only time I couldn’t feel them was when I was walking. I hadn’t slept in days and my meals were grabbed on the run. Anything I could shovel into my face while moving. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could do this and still function. To be fair, it was better than the spiders.
“The invisible mice were everywhere.” Screamed the double bold headline on the eWashingtonPost. “Wild” Bill Thornton looked up from his desk at the Patent Office and sigh. The infestation had started right here, in this office. The evidence was all about him: gnawed woodwork, chewed wires, droppings which slowly revealed their presence as they slowly desiccated. The congressional hearing scheduled to take place in a couple of hours would end his career certainly and might even lead to a stretch in Leavenworth, if the EPA administrator got his way.
It started simply enough: one of the assistant administrators had brought a patent application from one of the leading biotech firms, one with tight links with the current administration. It seems that they wanted a patent on a new type of mouse. Bio-engineered organisms were nothing new to the Patent Office, why did this one rate the attention of the Administrator?
His underling explained how this differed from the run of the mill engineered microbes or even the modified mammals used to simulate one disease or another in medical research. There were so many alterations in this mouse it qualified as a completely new species. “Wild” Bill sighed, he would have to actually make a decision, something his lifetime as a government employee he had striven to avoid. As with so many monikers, “Wild” was the antithesis of what Bill was. He was careful, measured, calculating in everything he did. No blame for any bad decisions ever stuck to him.
The underling outlined the history of the organism: starting as a Ph.D project which was quickly snapped up along with the newly minted Ph.D because of the potential future applications: invisible soldiers & spies could
make them Billions, if this played out. And that brought the attention of the Administration. Pressure to expedite the process was subtly applied.
Well, if he was going to make this decision he would insist on seeing the article in question. In due time his minions ushered in the company’s executives and the very nervous scientist who led the project. Wearing infrared goggles she reached into the cage and pulled out an exemplar. Not perfectly invisible as the pale blue eyes were just discernible, but pretty darn close. She handed her to Bill and he could feel the feet and the ticking of the whiskers against his hands. Brilliant!
“Wild” Bill’s mind raced. Granting this patent would make his career. He could retire with a fat pension & get a cushy consulting gig with the company. He slowly stroked the invisible mouse, contemplating his impending fortune. He absently reached over to the cage to put the sample back when the scientist screamed: don’t let them out. Bill reacted with a start, knocking the open cage to the ground & dropping the mouse in hand in the process.
The shouting brought his assistant from the adjoining office to see what the commotion was about. The scientist, wearing her IR goggles saw the mice scurrying out the door and diving into holes in the floor where cables ran. She went pale. “They’re all pregnant” she said, barely above a whisper.
Invisible Mice? Just let Doc Schrodinger’s Cat out of the Refrigerator. Maybe. or Maybe Not.