* Authors : K. A. Teryna and Alex Shvartsman

* Narrator : Yaroslav Barsukov

* Host : Summer Fletcher

* Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh

*

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Originally published in Strange Horizons.

Rated PG-13 for cunning felines and strong language.

Copy Cat

 K. A. Teryna and Alex Shvartsman

Imagine a Russian cat. Not just any Russian cat, but a cat from Leningrad.

Those who claim passing familiarity with Russian literature might imagine a cat straight off the pages of Pushkin or Bulgakov. An eloquent cat, dispensing folk wisdom while chained under an oak tree, or schmoozing the Moscow intelligentsia at parties, probably in a soothing baritone. But those are fictions, lofty lullabies from literary luminaries. In real life, cats don’t recite fairy tales or ride the tram. In real life, cats don’t talk. 

This one is a typical cat from Leningrad. A mature cat, but not so old as to have one paw in the grave. He’s lived his whole life with a prim old lady. You know, the born-and-bred-in-Leningrad sort of woman, one who could recognize tourists and recent transplants at a glance by the way they carry themselves, and smack them with her umbrella for the temerity to ask for directions. Now, this old lady has not one but both feet in the grave. Which is to say, she died.

The cat is at a loss for what to do. On one paw, the old lady deserves a proper sendoff. She deserves a funeral with a small band playing sad music, a priest waving a censer, that sort of thing. On the other paw, the cat realizes how that would play out. As soon as the word of her having kicked the bucket gets out, some thrice-removed relatives from the boondocks will descend upon the old lady’s prime real estate — an apartment on Nevskiy Prospekt, no less. And they’ll evict the shit out of the aging cat.

 Not wanting to become a vagrant, the cat shakes off the indecision, comes up with a plan of action, and begins implementing said plan.

Back in the day, the old lady used to work as a radio announcer. Two of the three rooms of her apartment are packed with reels of magnetic Svema brand 6mm tape: hours upon hours of the archives of her broadcasts. It’s midnight in Petropavlovsk . . . In today’s news . . . We’re taking your requests by phone . . .  Broadcasting live across the Soviet Union . . . The first exercise in this morning’s radio calisthenics is . . . An Aurora reel tape player occupies a place of honor in the living room.

The old lady used to listen to these recordings, at all hours and at high volume because her hearing wasn’t so great. She would play the tapes and inflict the old Soviet broadcasts on her long-suffering neighbors. The neighbors became so indoctrinated by these obligatory concerts from the Soviet past that some had trouble falling asleep without them, and banged on pipes on especially quiet nights.

The cat, naturally, was part of the captive audience. He listened enough that he memorized many of the recordings, enough that he could’ve easily worked as a prompter for any radio announcer.

Given how sophisticated the old lady had been, it stood to reason that her cat wasn’t a simpleton fur ball, either. He was a well-bred and intelligent cat, and he, too,

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