***
About two more blocks and he paused to catch his breath. He leaned against the wall of an apartment tower. The tower base spanned several city blocks, sweeping up to the heavens. The monolithic structure gradually tapered on its way up, narrowing to less than half the width of the base. The uppermost building dissolved from view within low hanging smog.
He knew the buildings were massive, but looking at it from the outside at street level gave them a new, terrifying perspective. The transit tubes that connected the towers every 100 feet added to the feeling of insignificance.
He picked up his pace to the store.
Distant yelling rose above the normal chaotic din of the streets. About half a block away, a sign protruded from the top of a two story brick building. The retro sign hung over the sidewalk and flashed the electric letters A-C-M-E. In front of the store, a large crowd undulated on the sidewalk, spilling onto the street, hindering the sparse traffic.
Tim walked closer and found the instigators. Six ladies stood out from the rest in the center of the crowd.
They wore similar long, flowing, grey dresses. The cuffs of the dress bell sleeves ended with a large strip of purple accented with strange looking embroidered symbols. Small grey bonnets adorned each of their heads, and the remainder of their cascading hair entwined with colorful ribbons.
Two of them held a five-foot wide electronic billboard with the words ‘Familiars First’ across the top in a fiery red font. An electric black cat covered the bottom half of the billboard, hissing with arched back. The other four ladies surrounded the board and fist pumped the air screeching that Acme was no innovator, but an imitator.
Spectators held their Menagerie pets high and roared back at the ladies. Others chanted their support for the demonstration. Still others enjoyed the tense emotional gathering, snapping camera phone pictures and streaming video directly to the cloud.
Tim pushed his way through, becoming one more in the crowd. He worked his way to the center of the action.
A middle aged man in a baseball cap with the Acme logo across the front emerged from the store. He held out his arms in a defensive manner and pushed through the crowd to the sextet. He approached the one lady that yelled the loudest and held up his hands in an apologetic, or defensive, manner. It was difficult to tell.
“Lilly, Dale said the magistrates will be here in a few minutes, and this time he’ll ban you,” the employee said.
Lilly puffed her chest out and stood within inches of the man. The girls turned their anger to the Acme employee.
“Listen, lackey,” Lilly said, “we’re not leaving until Dale comes and speaks to me. If he does, I may consider leaving, or I may not. Just depends.”
“Be reasonable. We have no say-so in the matter; we just sell the products.”
“You’re a pawn for a corporate lie.”
Tim couldn’t reach the door to the store, so he pushed further through the throng until he drew close to one of the girls. Her twenty-something year old voice carried a musical quality as she called for the earth to open and swallow the Acme store.
He tipped his hat to her. “Hello, what’s your name?”
She stopped mid scream at his interruption and lowered her arm. “Oh, hi. I’m Jillian.”
“What’s going on?”
“We’re protesting Acme.”
“I see that. Why?”
“We’re protesting because Acme has profited from our intellectual property.”
The LED billboard cat Jillian held strutted in place, raised one paw, hissed, and arched its back. The program looped and the cat started strutting again. A holographic projector, even an older model from six months ago could project better quality cats than this old billboard.
“Intellectual property, I’m not sure I follow. It doesn’t look like you’re using any type of property that is intellectual.”
“Hello, Acme’s Menagerie. The animals guide you, talk to you, tell you what to do. We’ve had companions like that hundreds of years before they all became extinct. Familiars were spirit guides and bridged the gap between our world and the one beyond. They also helped us cast spells.” Her sleeved arm flew in wild exaggeration to her speech.
Tim laughed but stopped when he saw the expression on her face. “I didn’t mean to laugh. I thought you were joking,” he said. “You’re comparing your folklore with Menagerie? One is magic, this is science. How can you compare the two?”
Jillian looked at the box he held when he shifted it from one hand to the other. “Lilly says magic becomes science. All science, especially the kind that Acme claims to have invented, starts out as magic. We know what Acme is trying to do. They took our idea and turned it into another revenue stream.”
“Lilly, that woman over there?” Tim pointed.
“Yes. She’s our coven leader for a reason. She has great ideas.”
Lilly’s voice rose again above the racket as she continued raging against the Acme employee. “Okay, lackey, if Dale doesn’t set foot out here in the next five minutes, I’m going to hex you, Dale, the store, your house, your Menagerie... ”
“Ideas?” Tim said. “Your archaic familiar idea? You can hardly say the Menagerie is Lilly’s idea.”
“I thought you wanted to know about us, not argue,” Jillian said. “You’re like the rest, you and your Acme box. Go away and let me protest.” Jillian turned away from Tim and raised her arm again in defiance, picking up the witches’ chant.
Tim waded through the rest of the crowd, around the witches, to the store front doors. He lifted his box to the Acme employee that stood on the inside of the plate glass door and entered once the man unlocked it. The burly door guard shut and locked the door, keeping the protesters out.