After the first so-called ‘non-diplocat’ arrived to speak openly about his family at Alaraf, events unfolded in the only way Alaraf permits: by attracting an actual diplocat.

   Somehow,  this brought Fernañdo the actual Diplocat for KittyCatCuba and the Sovereign Nation of Cat Miami, to Alaraf in his pure white escalade, white suit… and full anthromorphic cat paws and a rather stoic, yet almost affiable abyssianian bearing.

      Certain types of suits are designed to keep people at a distance.  Black suit, black tie.  The weird blue blazer against khakis, Hugo Boss from head to catboots… or a pale suit, pale shirt Miami Vice combo, even worse if paired with a dyed bolo tie, signaling the formidable protection of an excellent dry cleaner.

      Mango Butler was the first to notice Fernañdo and immediately hid from him; he also wore the same colors… but also cleaned his thobe/chef uniform/security uniform combo by hand as one the best parts of his week; he and Professor Bird often shared tips at the campus laundromat.  

     (Living in the field and living on YouTube produced remarkably similar stains.)

      Our mango-colored mascot and ombudsman would not approach a white suit without an introduction, so Mr. Butler flattened himself behind a nearby evergreen bush instead. (Besides, he did not have jurisdiction over the relatives of the other ombudsman.)      

     Jurisdiction mattered here, and Mango respected boundaries even when curiousity pressed.

     Fylgia confirmed Mango Butler’s decision as valid by nodding approvingly at Mango, despite his terrible cover, before going low and starting a pre-pounce butt-wiggle.

         Was Fernañdo going to Kafka’s office?

           Absolutely not.

           Because Fernañdo was intercepted by a friendly bobcat.  Whom was purring, wearing a police-type vest with more flair than any typical unit command… and effectively managed to keep Fernando contained just long enough for That Guy Who Always Shows Up: Whose Name Fernañdo Forgot But He Used To See At Conferences and Local Markets.  That Guy, With the Beard & Suspenders who Might teach history or lead a cult. That Guy who runs the International Squirrel Association of which, Fernando’s own son remains an active charter member…

       That Guy introduced himself with a name that had to be repeated three times, and Fernañdo still didn’t write it down.  He couldn’t. He presently had very nicely furred cat mittens instead of hands.  It was Febrary in Alaraf still.  Cat paws, if you have them, are preferable to gloves in wintertime.

        “Calling me Rob is fine,” said That Guy In Suspenders.

         “I am Fernañdo, I used to exist here,” replied the Diplomat, offering his paw for a handshake.

          “We know, our condolences.” Rob replied, offering his hand in return, then continued, “Anyway, Alaraf has slightly improved under the new administration…” Rob paused, “It seems everyone is their own administration now.”

        “How about my Persian friend?” inquired Fernañdo.

         “You will have to be more specific; this narrative contains an entire clowder of them.”

            “The moody one who hides all the time.”

              “You only eliminated one of the list of several, The rockstar hiding in a campus security job with the angry Auf deutsch Jesus podcast… or that also sounds just like our oversight cat from the United Kittydom who was recently recaptured by his prior owners-  He is the one hiding most, maybe….but he isn’t exactly Persian- he just acts like one sometimes, although we do have that ginger Persian in AgScience. Technically, Wolfe is only secretly half Persian –  But we can’t hide from his brother, Dr. Whispurrs producing weird ASMR over campus speakers because they are both also part of campus security: with claims it’s ‘for our protection as a campus and clowder.’”

     Rob paused in thought, then continued. “I don’t think you would know most of them, well, not personally, at least unless you already read their files preemptively or you recognized them or something.  Or you could know more than I do about presumed fellow royals and other peripheral figures to your own life that had nothing to do with your initial question.”

    A sharp-fanged squirrel climbed up Rob’s leg to his shoulder as he walked. He fed it an all beef ‘Lil smokey’ sausage he kept in a bag in his pocket.  He handed the bag with only two snacks left to Fernañdo who tossed both beefsticks as far away as possible.  His prior Alaraf squirrel bites had already taken years to heal.  Running out of food after feeding an unsatiated carnivorous squirrel was risky at best. The squirrel dutifully chased the meat;  Rob was impressed. 

      Being respectful, unselfish, and avoiding future dependency even in squirrels, spoke of high character.

        Rob was very impressed Fernañdo resisted the temptation to devour all the lil’ smokies himself. (It never crossed Fernañdo’s mind, actually.)

    Meat in hand in Alaraf always brings squirrels.  Like a tiny mafia, they still controlled the walkways with well aimed acorns and full on reconnaissance to acquire meat for themselves and their young.

    You feed the squirrels one way or another in Alaraf. 

Willingly or unwilling.

     “…Anyway, there are more important matters to address regarding this campus over university, tariqah, & clowder politics. However, first, I need to update you with a pair of e-glasses. STAT – the best ones are expensive, so I just placed a pick-up order in Delaware. It’s already allocated in the expense report.   Your escalade probably doesn’t do great on gas up here, so let’s pretend to be normal. Would you like an Alaraf Jurisdiction vest instead of the miami vice jacket so you intimidate locals into avoiding us more effectively?”

         “I did forget about that, but I have a Pennsylvania jacket in the escalade” Fernañdo replied, and sure enough, Fernañdo returned wearing a nondescript greyish wool jacket, with brown corderoy professor patches over the elbows.  His pants & shoes still remained albino [faux] alligator white.  But yet, He still succeeded in presenting as half cat and too important to bother; (also, cat fur did not thin so much as refine. Human fur? not so much – it grows where it should not and vanishes from desired locales)

  Rob continued, “Wunderbar! Otherwise, you might get misinterpreted.  We don’t need to hear ‘¡¿YOOOOOO, WHO IS GETTING MARRIED, PAPI‽’  The greatest advantage about new Alaraf is we can teach people protective communications directly while normies totally don’t have the attention span to read details in long blocks of texts.  Lesson one of good tradecraft is to teach it, especially when we can utilize social media and inherited pedagogy as more than appropriate cover to communicate findings or make beautiful introductions between human diplomats and kitty cat intelligence educators,”  Rob paused, as if remembering that teaching is more effective when people are still listening. 

    The Rob continued, “So first we introduce Fernañdo to the audience, then afterwards, after we get you the e-glasses, then we can start teaching further lessons on safe communications during wartime and undermining platform algorithmic fascism with counter education.  So, first we snow our readers with real operations embedded in a cat story, then I figure we could catch up at Dunderbach’s- Maybe get schnitzel or some nice Kaffeekuchen or we could just go grab some churros, molé, & purritos, or even tapas, if that makes you more comfortable.” Rob inhaled deeply, just once, 

     “That was a long drive from Miami to Alaraf. Food is the least I can offer,”  Rob ended his darce, enthusiastically, “Or we can just return to campus as we watch an E-gregore give multimedia lectures to students while threatening the sanity of administration simply by existing”

      Fernañdo actually wanted nothing more than a Wawa coffee and a few acetaminophen.

      Rob Reichhörnchen still hadn’t purchased a parking pass so his electric vehicle was actually parked about a mile from campus.

          Fernañdo’s spine acutely recalled the humid, frosty weather, making him rather miserable. After the first quarter mile, he realized he literally could have driven them in the heated escalade, then taken Rob’s spot in return…

      

…until he saw the state of Rob’s car.  The escalade would never fit the parking spot. 

       The vehicle before his eyes was an entirely different type of vehicular monster:

       “This is a classic Zestava Yugo, Tempo edition,” Officer Rob stated proudly, “I restored it myself, had the solar panels added to the hood, swapped the guts with a smashed Prius, and reinforced the entire chassis with Bondo.  This is now the number one classic vehicle, statistically least likely to be stolen.”

          Fernañdo wondered how Rob could speak for so long without breathing. Then again, if Rob owned that same Yugo prior to its electronic conversion, no doubt Rob learned to hold his breath.  The exhaust always somehow ended up most concentrated in the cabin in the worst models.

       The yugo was painted black and had “Frith Police” clearly written in Runic in white acrylic paint.  Fernañdo could parse out the Fehu, Raidho, Ingwaz, Thorisaz, then the  Purrthro, Othala, Laguz. Isa, Kennaz, and Ehwaz runes clearly. 

     [If Jerry still works here, I’ll ask him later about the second meaning of these runes] thought Fernañdo loudly.

       “In Alaraf, walls are broken only by consent of the reader, including this one. In this exposition; that indicates we are permitted to break all walls of typical literary conduct, including breaking the 4th, 5th, 6th, and other walls. So, I will translate my car myself as we drive ourselves to Delaware to purchase electronics like reasonable people of this area”

      “…” was all Fernañdo could reply.

       This was better than a handshake between two over-educated professionals with very much in common. 

      Three blind men once attempted to understand an elephant independently by touch alone.   A minimum of two men were about to view an E-gregore with mutual history using only their eyes and past knowledge of the elephant metaphor. 

   Fernañdo had already met E-gregore, he just pretended he didn’t for Rob’s sake.  He already knew E-gregore had exactly four present students, and one of them was the son of the most popular administrator on campus.  The course module based on Kings Quest III of a little guy wearing a scarf getting told do chores then wandering down a treacherous mountain to solve weird problems in a valley seemed very, uncannily familiar. 

        Yet when one expects an elephant and receives, instead a creature of indeterminate form and Scope, that could plausibly appear as anything or anyone, curiosity and fear balanced evenly on scales that remained behind in the arena office.  

    Fernañdo had seen a photo of the ancient mizan on a campus email indicating the departure of the Leto Regeime in favor of everyone sharing administrative duties evenly without middlemen [or much funding- Alaraf was an empty campus, most humans now stayed home and online as much as they could] Fernañdo still found the photo composition interesting…

      The scale was placed upon a wide stack of books, including a Shanamah, a Hamaval, a copy of the Kashf Al Mahjub, as well as the complete works of Marcus Aurelius.  Above the mizan were a series of scriptures on a fancy carved cherrywood and mother of pearl inlay shelf.

     However, what balanced the mizan was most intriguing:

         One side of the scales had the book “The Long Lost Friend” by John George Hohman and the other, “The Prince” by Machiavelli.  

      If he managed to get a word in edgewise, he intended to ask Rob about it… on their way to Delaware, cramped together like fresh canned sardinas in a Yugo.

    As per Alaraf Charter: The lessons would come during or before the explanation; once the Yugo was in motion, there was no remaining way to avoid the answers.