PROLOGUE

Eternity is a very long time, but it feels much longer when you’re stuck working in a boring middle management job. High above the human world sat the Feline Assignment Bureau (F.A.B. for short). The office was filled with the annoying buzz of bright lights and the constant smell of stale tuna. It was an endless maze of gray cubicles, tall filing cabinets made just for sleeping on, and fancy scratching posts that no one ever used. Here, the universe's balance of human goodness was controlled by the only creatures lazy enough to handle the boring paperwork: cats.

At Desk 404-B, Case Officer Milo was slowly losing a painful battle to keep his eyes open. Milo was a very overweight orange tabby who looked like he was made out of flat, lumpy pillows. His left ear was torn, a leftover injury from a past fight with a wild raccoon centuries ago on Earth before he had taken his job with F.A.B.. On top of that, he had a terrible attitude. He stared at the glowing, single-color screen of the Assign-o-Tron 9000. It was 3:00 PM Earth time, which meant Milo was already two hours late for his required fourteen-hour nap.

"Just three more," Milo mumbled to himself as he slapped the enter key hard with a heavy, lazy paw. "Three more souls. Then I’m sleeping until the next Ice Age, or until someone opens a can of wet food. Whichever comes first."

The Assign-o-Tron clicked and buzzed as it slowly processed the life scores of eight billion humans. The Bureau's system was simple but very flawed. Humans were born with a Karma Score of exactly zero, and to reach the good afterlife, they had to earn a score of positive ten-thousand points. Since humans were usually terrible at making good choices, often picking greed or reality TV over kindness, the universe gave them Guardian Souls to help guide them. Unfortunately, for reasons Milo would never understand, the Guardians were dogs.

"Milo! My dear, hard-working feline friend!"

Milo jumped so hard he almost pulled a muscle. The loud, super-cheerful voice echoed through the boring office. Milo didn't even need to look up because the sharp click-clack of perfectly trimmed claws on the floor announced the arrival of Sir Reginald. Reginald was an Afghan Hound who looked incredibly, almost annoyingly, majestic. His golden, silky coat flowed around him as if he were always standing in front of a fan. He wore a perfectly clean, glowing Guardian collar that buzzed with magic energy, and his perfect posture made him look like the top graduate of Good Boy University.

"Reginald," Milo sighed as he squeezed his eyes shut and refused to look away from his screen. "You're early. Guardians are never early. They usually get distracted by a loose tennis ball in the lobby."

"A true Guardian is never early or late, Milo! We arrive exactly when the universe needs us!" Reginald struck a heroic pose, staring bravely at a motivational poster that read ‘Hang in There.’ The poster showed a tiny, fluffy orange kitten dangling high in the air, desperately gripping a thin tree branch with its front paws. It could have been a baby Milo. "I am ready. I have finished my tough training at the Heavenly Boot Camp. I have mastered the Telepathic Mind Link! I have learned the sacred art of the Disapproving Whimper! I am ready to guide my human to glory. Tell me, old friend, who is the lucky saint?"

Milo’s left eye twitched at the words 'old friend' as he lazily tapped a few keys with the pink pads of his jellybean-like toes. "Right. You’re top of your class, so the bosses gave you an easy one. File 88-A. A lovely girl in Switzerland. She works at an orphanage and spends her weekends rescuing hurt swans from mountain lakes. Her Karma Score is already at positive six-thousand. You basically just have to sit there, look pretty, and try not to pee on her expensive rugs."

"Excellent!" Reginald wagged his tail so fast that the wind knocked a wobbly stack of papers off Milo’s desk, scattering them everywhere across the floor. "I will guide her to the very top of goodness! We will play in the meadows of justice!"

"Yeah, yeah. Save it for the commercial. Stand on the Drop Pad."

Reginald trotted over to the glowing blue circle in the middle of the floor. The Drop Pad would magically send his soul into the body of an Earth dog, placing him exactly where his assigned human would find him. Because Sir Reginald graduated top of his class, he had the added perk to choose a dog from whichever breed he desired to be his representative. Naturally, he chose an Afghan Hound who was, surely by coincidence only, his very spitting image.

Milo turned back to the Assign-o-Tron. His eyelids felt incredibly heavy, and the bright lights shining from the screen were so warm and inviting. Just one button press to finish this, he thought, his brain already dreaming of warm sunbeams and slow-moving mice. He lifted his paw to hit the confirm button, but as he did, a powerful, natural urge took over. It was the eternal curse of being a cat. His jaw opened wide in a show of pure laziness, his eyes squeezed shut, his pink tongue curled, and Milo let out a massive, whole-body yawn. As he stretched his front legs out in pure joy, his heavy, lazy belly slumped forward and pressed firmly right onto the computer keyboard.

Beep, boop, bzzzt. The screen flashed an angry red color. The Assign-o-Tron let out a loud screech that sounded like a garbage disposal chewing on a metal spoon.

"Milo?" Reginald called out from the Drop Pad, his silky ears perking up in confusion. "Is the portal supposed to smell like gross swamp water and cheap breath mints?"

Milo snapped awake, his fur puffing up until he looked like a scared dandelion. He scrambled backward, fell off the keyboard, and stared at the screen in pure horror. The machine warned that the assignment had been rerouted. The original target was File 88-A, the charitable girl in Switzerland. The new target was File 88-B, a twelve-year-old sixth grader named Birdie Sheehan in Hockomock Hollow, Massachusetts. Her current Karma Score was negative four-hundred-twelve, which was a severe shortage.

"Oh no," Milo whispered, his green eyes widening to the size of saucers. "No, no, no. The B-file. Not the B-file."

"Milo, I feel the pull! To the beautiful snowy mountains of Switzerland!" Reginald barked happily, not noticing the panic as the blue light began to swirl and swallow him up.

"Reggie, wait! Step off the pad!" Milo yowled, throwing himself at the computer and slamming his paws wildly against the keyboard to cancel the trip. "That's not Switzerland! It's Massachusetts! It's the Bridgewater Triangle! It's basically a cosmic garbage dump!"

"I will return with honors! Wish me luck, my feline brother!"

"Reggie, you don't understand! She's a scammer! She has to go to court for selling painted driveway rocks and calling them haunted witch salt! If you don't fix her score, she's going to be reborn as a dung beetle!"

But it was too late. With a final, overly cheerful woof, Sir Reginald vanished in a blinding flash of bright light, leaving behind only the smell of expensive coat conditioner with maybe only a faint hint of wet dog.

The office grew completely quiet, except for the creepy humming of the Assign-o-Tron. Milo sat frozen, staring at the empty Drop Pad. A cold, heavy feeling of dread washed over him, completely wiping away his desire to nap. He thought about the Bureau's rules. Reginald was a dog whose best defense was offering to shake hands. If Reginald failed to get a troubled, scamming Massachusetts' school girl to positive ten-thousand points before the big heavenly deadline, the results would be a total disaster. Reginald would be punished by being turned into a city pigeon, and Birdie would spend her next three hundred years rolling a ball of poop across the African plain.

Worst of all, Milo would have to fill out the Botched Heavenly Mission paperwork. That was a twelve-page document that required three copies and a paw-print signature on every single page. Milo let out a long, miserable groan that rattled in his chest. He slid out of his fancy chair like he had no bones, hitting the floor with a soft thud. He looked down at his own orange paws.

"Well," the cat mumbled, his tail twitching in sharp, angry strikes against the floor. "Looks like I'm going to Earth."