It turned out that the landlord wasn't that angry. Evidently these free apartments were regularly trashed. James didn't even have to pay for any repairs, the manager said that the damage was relatively normal and that the government paid him for these types of things.
Unfortunately for James the landlord wouldn't even let James go back up to his apartment to get his things. Instead the city offices were called and even SPAM showed up. Five separate people interviewed him asking about what happened and why he let it happen. Mostly it was a spatial issue. They didn't care about his personal life. All they cared about was making sure that there were no space pockets involved.
James didn't tell them about the game he played with Wilbur to find and enter collided anomalies. Expecting them to discover his little game he resigned himself to explaining everything. But in the end after about five hours of interviewing they let him go.
The landlord was especially sympathetic.
"Hey, cheer up kid. It is not the end of the world."
"Can I go up and get my stuff?"
Asking politely James begged the landlord with his eyes.
"What? Stuff? No, kid, everything is gone. That is what happens in situations like this. They sterilize everything. Everything was boxed up and sent out for burning."
The landlord put a hand on James' shoulder.
"What? Please, my pet, Wilbur was up there!"
Suddenly desperate James pleaded again.
"Okay, sure, but make it quick. I don't want to see you again kid. Go up look at your old room and then get out of here. That's all I can do for you."
Squeezing his shoulder the landlord gave James some encouragement and then turned away.
"Thank you, I will be quick and no one will know I was there!"
Understanding that some rule was being broken and not wanting to cause any more trouble James ran down the hall and up the stairs ignoring the elevator. He didn't want to risk being seen and trapped in the elevator with someone who could report his location later.
At his floor he sneakily peaked out the emergency reinforced stairway door and seeing that there was no one in the hall he sprinted for his room.
Inside the entire room had been cleaned out. There was literally nothing there. Bare walls and bare floor. The wall paper, the carpet, the kitchen cabinets, the bed, even the half walls. All that was left were the plumbing pipes and the electric boxes everything else was stripped down to the concrete.
Yes, that is what the walls were made of, some kind of sound dampening utterly gray and boring concrete.
'Wait? How did the mice get in, anyway?'
Putting his confusion aside he called out.
"Wilbur! Wilbur and you here?"
But no answer came back. In fact his voice sounded weird to his ears since there was absolutely no echo when he would have thought the concrete would reflect sound back to him.
Knowing that he couldn't wait forever James decided to give Wilbur until the count of one hundred. He didn't know how a tamer bond felt when it was broken, but he knew he would at least suffer some kind of backlash. Right this moment he was feeling completely fine. There was absolutely no feedback from his contract with Wilbur.
When James was at 36 in his count James heard the best sound he had ever heard in his life.
[Cheep, cheep!]
There on the floor of the apartment was Wilbur cheeping angrily, like Wilbur was the one at fault.
"I know, I know, I am sorry little buddy. Things happened and we have to get out of here."
Presenting his pocket for Wilbur to crawl into James just wanted to get away so he could think about how to fix all this.
Yet Wilbur did not crawl into the pocket. Instead he turned up his head to the pocket and stood on his back legs looking up at James.
"What, come on buddy, enough of that stuff. You didn't come with me this morning and look how that turned out. Come on, let's get out of here!"
Again James leaned over and opened his pocket knowing that Wilbur could jump in easily or crawl up his leg and over his shirt. It would be easy.
Instead Wilbur did the strangest thing. At least it looked like Wilbur did a strange thing.
A little mouse sized hole opened next to the half grown pup. The little black hole moved over to James' foot, and then Wilbur crawled in. Dimly, from within the miniature spatial gate, James could see Wilbur stick out his tongue. Then the hole closed disappearing completely.
"What? What just happened?"
James couldn't figure out what was going on. He didn't care how cheeky Wilbur had been. James just wanted his pet back.
"Wilbur? Wilbur come out right now! Wilbur!"
Calling for his pet James became a little hysterical.
For twenty minutes he paced up and down the barren room calling for his pet. Eventually someone knocked on his door and called.
"Are you okay in there? Hello! Are you okay?"
Panicking even more James realized that he was out of time. This wasn't his room anymore and he could be prosecuted if he was found trespassing.
"I'm okay, sorry for the trouble! Everything is fine!"
James called back after clearing his throat a little bit.
He couldn't stay any longer, he would have to come back for Wilbur another time. There was no use getting fined or even put in lock up for the night for unruly conduct. Besides he had made a promise to the landlord, which he had now broken. Someone had heard him and was now knocking on the door. It was impossible to stay hidden now!
It was time to get away. James still had some acquaintances that lived here. They were friends of friends, but he would find a way to get Wilbur back.
Quickly he opened the door and greeted the grandpa who had knocked on his door.
"Hi! Excuse me elder, I am so sorry!"
So saying James squeezed himself past the man, trying not to jostle him too much and with no shame ran down the hall.
The elder looked after him confused and then eventually shrugged.
Knowing he was being overly paranoid James didn't want to risk anything. This was his life and he wouldn't have another. In the stair well a flood of tears finally came to his eyes. He could still feel that Wilbur was bonded to him, but he felt a sense of loss never-the-less. When would he see his partner again!
Some people had broad bonds with their pets while others had depth. It was now obvious to James that he had deep bonds. So deep that it was hard to think clearly in this situation. broad bonds allow the master to have more control. The master could train more and have more varied skills. It was also said that the top trainers in the world had this sort of relationship with their pets.
On the other hand masters with deep connections with their pets inherited more from their pets. Often this meant that the master had more powerful versions of their pets skills, but it also meant that some of the mentality of the pet transferred over as well. This transfer of mentality was frowned upon in the beast taming world and masters who bonded deeply with their pets were often put in rehab and sometimes in containment facilities in very rare circumstances.
'Why is this happening to me! Why can't I think straight??'
Thinking to himself James felt the itch that something was not right. He was panicked and paranoid. All he wanted to do was hide and get away from people.
Outside the apartment complex he started running as fast as he could. The direction he was running did not matter, only that he was getting away.
'Come on, come on. Calm down, what is so weird about this situation?'
First of all if this whole building was concrete there should be no places for mice to live. No, that wasn't right. Mice always found a way to survive. But, even if the mice did have a den there should be very few. Especially if the management of the complex used such extreme measures to exterminate them.
Second, if the wall was concrete and there were no mouse holes in the wall then where did the mouse hole in the foot board go? James distinctly remembered seeing a hole in the trim along the floor.
'Could that dark hole have been a stable spatial gate?'
Maybe his mind just interpreted it as a mouse hole, because that is what made sense. At least it used to make sense.
'Am I going crazy! No, slow down, just take this slow. Try to think.'
Third, as Wilbur gets older I am inheriting more and more from our bond.
'Is Wilbur inheriting more from me as well?'
Shaking his head James put all of it out of his mind. Just asking questions and thinking about them had allowed him a small measure of rationality. Finally he stopped running.
Now in an entirely different neighborhood he found a quiet spot and leaned up against a building.
It took a few minutes for his racing heart to calm down. He was soaked in sweat, but there was no where he could go to shower and change. His apartment was gone, all his clothes had been destroyed, and now he had no where to go.
This was an unfair thought. He knew that he could get another free apartment from city hall. A certain amount of youthful mistakes were forgiven without any holds barred. It was just that that particular apartment complex might not accept him back any time soon. On the other hand he could go back to his family. If they knew what kind of trouble he had gotten himself into they would help him out.
But he didn't want to trouble his family. There was still the issue of protecting Wilbur and he still had some pride.
As for the government he could get another place easily enough, but without a way to control Wilbur the same thing would happen again.
'What else can I do?'