Your Robot Dog Will Die

by Arin Greenwood

  Mom puts on her mask and indicates for me to do the same. We can’t let the dogs smell our breath or our human scent. The mask is too big, too, but just a little. If it doesn’t stay on, I could be killed. If I take it off and tell Mom what’s happening, who knows when I can come back here.

  So I wear it and hope. Mom puts the GoPod’s top up and switches the vehicle over to manual. The drivable paths inside the Ruffuge are constantly being remade and our AutoDrive function won’t work here.

  We inch forward. The GoPod’s headlights are set to “night vision.” There’s an eerie, spectral glow. We can see the dense expanse of trees and plants—the types that grow hardily, even with the drought. Some palms and other leafy plants but mostly spiny ones, like cacti, pretty and sharp.

  You can hear the waves crashing on the beach and the birds making their nighttime songs. They sound like beautiful ghosts. I look up into the sky, where the stars are so bright, the red moon huge and luminous.

  Mom is a nervous driver. She’s better in a kayak. She inches the GoPod along the dark path. I’m staring out the window. I know it’s unlikely we’ll see any dogs until our food drop-off, but a girl can dream.

  After what feels like hours, we stop. Mom gets out of the GoPod. I follow. There’s a chance she’ll tell me to get back inside the cart since this part of the mission is where we’d get killed, if we were going to get killed. But she doesn’t tell me to come back into the cart.

  The dogs are here. Five magnificent dogs, who watch us intently as I help Mom unload the container of rations from the GoPod trunk. As she unpacks, the dogs begin making their soft grunts to tell us they are excited and impatient, and my heart pounds to be near them.

  There are six portions of food, each given out in an edible container. I watch as Mom walks before each of the incredible dogs—not named, just numbered, since we are not to ever forget they are wild—and places a container in front of it. They look at her for a second—a long second, during which anything could happen, and nothing does—and then they tear into their food. The edible containers are designed to take a little while to get into, to give the humans time to look the dogs over while they’re distracted—to ensure nothing is wrong that requires attention.

  Something is wrong, though. One of the dogs is missing.

  “Where is she?” Mom mutters, looking around and rubbing her temples, which in other circumstances would look kind of funny given that she’s wearing a dog mask and rubbing them with her paws. Like a dog is saying, “Oy vey!” But right now it’s just pretty serious.

  Mom whistles. She shakes the remaining container. We wait.

  “How do you feel about going for a little hike?” Mom asks me brightly.

  Mom and I activate the low-glow lights that are embedded in our dog masks. Then she walks off one way, and I walk up a hill, to the tallest point in the Ruffuge, where I think I hear a little rustling. I’m off the trail, in the thick of the jungle, trying to stay calm as I walk toward the noise.

  Following the sound, I crouch on the ground and check underneath a bush. Pushing aside the thorny branches, I see that there, indeed, is the missing dog. She’s a red-furred beauty with a wide flat face, lying in a patch of dirt. With four beautiful itty-bitty black-and-white puppies beside her.

  They look at me, big-eyed, scared, curious. Three bare their teeth while hiding under their mother.

  One does something miraculous and impossible: begins to wag its tiny tail.

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  Chapter 3

  I’ve spent my whole life on Dog Island, and so I tend to assume everyone knows its history like I do; that everyone grew up hearing about the tragic human folly that led to Dog Island becoming necessary.

  That everyone would know inside and out why seeing this puppy wag its tail would so affect me.

  Just in case you don’t, here’s the terrible long and short of it.

  About twenty-five years ago, some scientists thought it would be a smart idea to try and tinker with some dogs’ genes. They thought making a couple of little tweaks to the DNA would make these dogs and their progeny even more useful than they already were.

  Now mind you, these dogs were already extremely useful—like Wooly, one of the most famous canines, who was the service dog for a New Yorker named Maya who was blind and deaf and also suffered a life-threatening heart condition.

  Because of Wooly, Maya could have a real life. She walked and rode subways safely. He also helped her get dressed, put away the dishes and laundry, and ordered refills of her prescriptions using a special app developed for this purpose. He turned the lights in their apartment on and off and knew what button to press for an ambulance should Maya need that kind of help. Oh yeah, Wooly was also trained to know when Maya needed an ambulance.

  Wooly was so incredible that he became the subject of a documentary. That documentary inspired dog trainers to try and teach dogs to do even more. Cook a simple meal, fly an airplane, deliver the mail, do some basic computer coding, and so on. There was no reason for dogs to have to do these things. Fairly complex tasks that could be automated were mostly being handled by robots by that point, with the technology getting better every day. Then some scientists got excited about what might happen if they made a few tweaks here and there to the dogs’ DNA. Obviously that subjected a whole lot of dogs to a whole lot of painful, unnecessary laboratory testing. Which was just one of what turned out to be a lot of really, really awful things associated with these experiments.

  But these scientists! No stopping them once they’ve got an idea they want to pursue.

  They mucked around with the dogs’ DNA. They messed up. The dogs they experimented on were still not able to fly airplanes. Instead, these dogs just got angry and upset and vicious, and lost the qualities that had made dogs our best companions for the preceding 50,000 years. They stopped wanting to be with us, they stopped doing the things that we loved so much—wagging their tails, licking us affectionately, sleeping with us at night. Now, instead, they wanted to kill us.

  That seemed to be the main effect of the experiments: creating a laboratory full of dogs who really hated humans. If there is any comfort to be found in this misguided project, it’s that at least the horrible scientists got bitten a lot. Which would be funnier if it hadn’t led to where we are now.

  Because somehow the changed DNA spread. It is said to have “migrated” from the unlucky lab dogs to all dogs, like a virus. How exactly did that happen? I don’t have the answer to that question. I’m seventeen, not a scientist myself, and the only school I ever really got was on the Internet, and like I told you our Internet doesn’t work very well. I recommend you go look it up if you want more information about the technical side of this disaster.

  I can tell you that the last generation of “pets” died out within about a decade. People kept buying and adopting and breeding new dogs. But they couldn’t live with them in ways that were safe for the humans or for the dogs. It got really, really ugly.

  Because the situation was so unsafe, the dogs obviously couldn’t be kept as they’d been. They didn’t live inside with their families anymore; they didn’t sleep in their beds. The people who still held onto their dogs—out of duty, or love, or for any other reason—mostly kept these animals chained up outside or locked in basements. The dogs got food and water thrown at them, if they got fed and watered at all. Many
starved to death, only being unchained or unlocked once they were dead, and therefore no longer dangerous.

  Other dogs were set free. Gangs of them would terrorize neighborhoods. Attack old people and children especially—the weakest and most vulnerable among us. The dogs would be shot and beaten, intentionally hit by cars. People left out bowls of poisoned food, which led to slow and painful deaths for dogs and any other animals or people that happened to take a bite. It was grotesque and awful for everyone.

  Dorothy Blodgett, our founder, had been working as an immigration lawyer, when all this began. She specialized in securing refugee status for people fleeing politically unstable countries. Given the fraught times and the urgency created by the water wars, she was very busy and very successful.

  Dorothy was so horrified by the violence, the death, the suffering, that she put aside her legal work and set about trying to help restore peace for people and for dogs.

  First, Dorothy opened a massive sanctuary in Texas, where her family had a big ranch. She created expansive, comfortable enclosures for the dogs, so they would be safe and happy. But there were problems. For one, it was extremely difficult to collect all the dogs, given their number, and how ferocious they were. Then there was the issue of transporting the dogs to Texas. This would be hard enough if we were just dealing with dogs from the United States. But the bum genetic changes had traveled the world.

  It’s not like things were great even for the dogs who got to Texas—which they did, by the thousands. They were miserable at the ranch. The dogs hated being enclosed. You could hear it in their mournful howls; in the way they hurt themselves, seemingly on purpose, flinging their bodies at the gates that prevented their freedom. Their bones broke, and so did Dorothy’s spirit.

  Dorothy wept as she watched what became of the creatures she’d promised to protect and care for. She wept thinking about the dogs who were still loose, still imperiled, about the suffering she felt helpless to end. Plus she got terrible press as a few journalists came to the ranch and saw the dogs’ unhappiness, their empty water bowls. This caused public opinion to turn against her plan, which previously had attracted great support.

  Dorothy found herself facing what she considered the only humane solution. It was a terrible solution, she felt, but unavoidable: she would have to kill the dogs to save them, and she would have to convince the public and lawmakers to let her do it and moreover to enforce that mandate by disallowing private citizens from owning or keeping dogs.

  Dorothy shared this awful conclusion with a small, trusted inner circle. One of them was a biochemist. The biochemist helped Dorothy develop a compound still used today to end the dogs’ suffering. It’s called Kinderend and is administered with a spritz on or in the nose; it is painless and near-instant.

  Another of Dorothy’s closest companions then was a young aspiring actor. It’s rumored he was also Dorothy’s lover. I wish the people who spread that rumor would use a word other than “lover,” which feels old and just plain creepy. Back then, this aspiring actor was called Marcus Muhlenberg. Now, of course, he’s Marky Barky. (I hear the Bad Bitches describe him as having “a very sexy physique.” I would not personally use those exact words because I am not ancient.)

  Marky Barky told Dorothy about Beachport. He’d grown up in nearby Tampa and knew that the town had basically been abandoned once the weather patterns changed too much to make a former Florida fishing village much of a current vacation destination. Beachport used to be connected with the mainland, but due to the ocean levels rising, it had become an island. There was no bridge or anything; the only way there was—is—by boat or aircraft. It was still habitable though, he told her. And would make a great place to start fresh with a new sanctuary for any dogs that could be saved.

  At first Dorothy rejected the idea. It was too arbitrary to save some dogs but not the rest. And for what? We tried to keep them alive, and all it did was make them suffer. We did this to them, she said. We owe it to them to give them peace.

  Even then, Marky Barky knew how to read an audience. He correctly grasped that Dorothy’s plan to gather a small army who would travel the world administering her peace-granting nose spray with the government’s backing, was medicine that wouldn’t go down so easily—unless there was a little sugar on top. The sugar was Dog Island.

  Marky Barky was right. Dog Island was an instant hit. People from all over donated tons of money—millions upon millions of dollars. Enough to put this place together and support its inhabitants. There was even enough left that Marky Barky and his business partner could pour some cash into Mechanical Tail—get that outfit kicking and build a business that could support our mission here financially and otherwise.

  The thing is that even with all that money, all those resources, the Ruffuge here is only able to house six dogs at a time. We just don’t have space for more than that. More than that, they fight; they are miserable. More than that, they suffer. So there is a strict birth control regimen—hormones in their food to carefully maintain reproduction.

  But the birth control isn’t fully effective. So every once in a while, there’s an unexpected litter. And then, that’s where we are now.

  I call out: “Mom! Mom, over here.”

  Her footsteps are heavy as she walks to me.

  “You found the dog?”

  “Yeah. But that’s not all,” I say.

  Mom, in her dog mask, looks at me. I can’t see her real face, but I’m imagining the expression. She always looks so open and friendly, cheerful toward the world. My face, behind my mask, is anguished.

  “There are puppies,” I tell her. “Three of them.”

  “Three?” she asks.

  It’s not too late. I could say, “Oh no, sorry, there’s four.”

  I think of the puppy’s tiny tail, swishing back and forth. Like a robot dog’s does. But real.

  “Three,” I say. “I saw three.”

  Mom asks me to get the puppies and bring them to her. I do, one by one. Mom chants a mantra, a blessing, to each as she administers the spray: “Be pacified. Be loved. I bring you peace and happiness. Let’s proceed.”

  The spritz of Kinderend. The end. Peace. Their tiny bodies are placed in a woven satchel in the GoPod’s trunk. They will be cremated at the Dog Island Chapel.

  There’s something different for the mother dog. She has a medicated treat. It is formulated to dry up any remaining milk and give her euphoria for twenty-four hours, so she won’t grieve her stolen puppies. I toss the treat her way, watch her sniff it, eat it. I think about the fourth puppy. What will happen to this one, with its siblings gone, with its mother euphoric? Its tail wagging?

  “Ready, kitten?” Mom asks me.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  Mom and I walk through the jungle back to the GoPod. The dogs will have finished their meals, so who knows where they are now. Hopefully, the dog suits will protect us.

  They do. We don’t even see the dogs again before getting back in the GoPod. We drive back along the path, back out the Ruffuge gate. Mom stops in to talk to George, telling him about the puppies.

  “We need better surveillance cameras,” she says, when she returns. She puts the GoPod into AutoDrive. “Dammit. George missed those puppies so long. They shouldn’t have gotten that big. We should have known about them a week ago, at least. We probably also need better Georges. Jesus. This shouldn’t have happened. Dorothy will not be happy.”

  She seems really agitated.

  “What would be wrong if we just left them?” I ask.

  “Left them?”

  “The puppies. If we didn’t . . . you know. If they grew up.”

  Mom doesn’t answer right away. She takes off her dog mask, shakes out her hair. Her face is all sweaty.

  “Honey,” she finally says. “Kitten. It is our job to make sure that nothing bad ever happens to these dogs. It’s the whole reason why
we are here. Letting these puppies live sounds nice, right? But then there is overcrowding in the Ruffuge. Under these conditions, the dogs attack one another. They could get hurt and suffer. And even worse than that, what if they kill one another? What if the last dogs on earth die on our watch? It sounds so easy. Let some puppies live. It’s not so easy. It’s a system that requires strict adherence to rules in order to work. If we don’t follow those rules, the whole system blows up. We lose our home. The dogs die. Everything . . .” Mom makes the universal sign for “explosion” with her fingers.

  “But they’re so little,” I say.

  “This way they never suffer,” Mom says. “There are fates worse than death.” It’s the line that everyone uses here whenever the topic of euthanasia comes up. Which it does, sometimes—a visitor will bring it up, a journalist. Me. There are fates worse than death.

  “What if there are fates that are better?” I ask Mom. “What if those puppies could have had rich, fulfilling lives? Good lives.”

  I’m thinking of the puppy I left behind now. Worried about that puppy. Hopeful for that puppy. Should I say something to Mom?

  “Oh, honey. We tried that. It didn’t work. Our species can’t be trusted. These innocent animals, beings, would have suffered. That would have been their fate. Along with all the other dogs as well,” Mom says. “And us, too, because that would mean the end of Dog Island, so our home would be gone.” She smiles at me, says, “It’s good to question the dogma sometimes, Nano. Be careful who you do it with. You’re safe with me, of course.”

  Mom and I take the GoPod to the Dog Island Chapel on the other side of Dog Island. It takes maybe twenty minutes to get there. I love the chapel. A former Dog Islander named Mark built it before he died of cancer, maybe twenty years ago. Before I was born. The chapel is small and made of wood. There are only four pews, and each is carved to look like a dog. So we call them the “paws.” The altar at the front is in the shape of a bone.