Your Robot Dog Will Die

by Arin Greenwood

  Marjorie takes the canister from her.

  “I’ll take him,” I say. “Please, Marjorie, Dorothy. Let me do it. Marjorie, you’d be okay with that?” She says yes. So does Harold.

  Dorothy sits back for a moment, as if she is considering this proposition. Then she says, slowly, “No, I don’t think that is the best plan.”

  Sobbing, Marjorie begins to chant: “Be pacified. Be loved. I bring you peace and happiness. Let’s proceed.” Dorothy and Mom chant with her, as she says it three times, then opens the canister. She kisses Harold, while holding the Kinderend to his face. In seconds, he is dead. His wings hang limp. His beak is slightly opened. Marjorie cradles him like a baby. She begs him to come back to her.

  Dorothy says, “You’ve done what’s right and humane and necessary. Now he will not suffer, and your loyalties have been proven. Bring his body to the Dog Island Chapel. He can be part of our community forever.”

  Dorothy and Mom, and my robot dog and I get back into the GoPod. I can’t stop shaking. But Mom and Dorothy are acting like nothing unusual just happened.

  “Why did you do that?” I finally ask, after a couple of minutes.

  “I won’t compromise,” she says. “When it comes to doing what is right.”

  “How was that right?” I cry.

  “It is selfish to want an animal’s companionship, more than you care about the animal’s suffering,” she says.

  “He wasn’t suffering!”

  “Stop it, Nano,” Mom warns. “Stop it now.”

  Dorothy waves for her to relax. “No, it’s okay. It’s good to restate our values from time to time, at crucial moments.”

  Then she asks Mom to pass the dog suits from the back of the GoPod. Dorothy tells me to put mine on while we’re driving. It takes some maneuvering, but I get it on. It fits better than the last one I’d worn. My brother Billy’s dog suit. I stare out the window as we drive. My robot dog Billy climbs from the back seat into my lap. I wrap my arms around him and hold him close to me.

  Funny: I wish Mom would speak to me through him right now.

  Dorothy drives us to the gate of the Ruffuge. I go inside the guard house to ask for the gate to be opened. George isn’t on duty today. It’s Jack’s mom, Betsy. I hug her; I wasn’t expecting to see her.

  “Please save him,” she whispers to me.

  “Oh no. No. Jack,” I say.

  She nods, looking terrified.

  “I’ll do anything it takes,” I promise her, trying to sound as if that is something I am in a real position to promise.

  I go back to the GoPod. The gate opens. We drive into the holding pen. The second gate opens, and we enter the Ruffuge.

  We drive for a while and then stop. I’m not sure why, or where. I think this is the part of the Ruffuge where we found Donut. As I’m getting out, Dorothy hands me a canister of Kinderend. She doesn’t explain herself.

  We walk a little bit, my robot dog next to me on one side. Mom is on the other. She takes my hand. Our paws, clasped. It’s so quiet. I hear a few howls here and there, a couple of yips, but it’s unnervingly quiet.

  I see a little bit of motion up ahead. Hear some rustling. A howl that’s somewhat louder. We walk closer. Fear turns to terror. Soon we’re pushing through a thicket of bushes and trees. They are catching my dog suit, tearing at it, trying to stop me from moving. I get through. What I see on the other side is a nightmare.

  About a hundred feet away, I see Jack. He is in a dog suit, with the mask removed. His hair is still crispy. His hands are tied behind his back.

  Two other people wearing dog suits stand by him, I suppose to ward dogs away.

  I don’t recognize them by their shape and size. Normal grown-up sized. They could be anyone. I drop Mom’s hand and start to run toward Jack.

  Dorothy shouts, “Halt!”

  I stop in my tracks. One of the people in dog suits pulls out a knife.

  “NO!” I yell, but Mom comes up to me, puts her hand on my shoulder. She shakes her head. The ears on her dog mask jiggle back and forth.

  “How can you let this happen?” I whisper. She shakes her head again. I can’t see her face but I swear I can tell she’s crying.

  Dorothy says, “Go on,” and the person with the knife begins to cut Jack’s dog suit away. The arms, the legs, a slice from the middle. He is only wearing underpants underneath. Dog-print boxer shorts. I want so badly to cover him up, and take him home, and get away. But I just watch. My legs are frozen in place. When the material is mostly gone, I watch in horror while one of the dog-suited people holds Jack, and the other inflicts gashes on his skin. A long one on each of his arms, a circle on his belly, small stabs on his legs.

  He cries out as it is happening.

  I do, too.

  “Nano?” Dorothy calls. “In a moment your mother and I will leave. The dogs will soon arrive. Only five of them now. I had to give one a Kinderend yesterday. She hurt her paw, got a little cut, and I couldn’t let her suffer. These five, they’ll smell the blood. The human blood. Your friend Jack’s blood. And, then—I really hate putting it like this, but let’s be factual. They will try to eat him. Rip his flesh from his bones. I assume you will be okay with this, since it’s not any different from your friends at Fuzzy Mansion eating meat. I know you believe that they have all the answers.”

  I refuse to turn around. My eyes are on Jack’s.

  “You can stay,” Dorothy continues. “You can watch if you want. You can even try to help. I gave you that one can of Kinderend. You can try to use it on the dogs but I don’t see how that’s going to be possible. You could also use it on Jack, I suppose. Make this easier for him. Of course I will be forced to tell the public at large that we had a ‘tragic incident’ which led to all the dogs having to be euthanized.” She pauses. “Or you can come with us, Nano, right now. That way the dogs will definitely live. I promise that. They’ll live. Jack probably won’t though. I hope you understand, I can’t allow dissent. We simply have too much at stake here.”

  Finally I turn to look at her. But she turns around, too, and begins to walk away, her tail bobbing up and down with every step.

  The people in dog suits follow, passing me in silence.

  Mom rushes over and kisses the top of my head, then pulls away.

  “Are you really going to go? You’re going to leave us here?” I shout.

  “I have no choice,” Mom sobs. “There are three of them. They have a knife. They have Kinderend. They will kill me, and you, and Jack, and everyone if I don’t go.”

  I watch Mom run after Dorothy. I imagine her tackling Dorothy to the ground.

  She doesn’t. Through the path we left in the brush, I see that they return to the GoPod and drive away.

  So that’s it. I’m alone now. I race to Jack. He lies injured on the ground, his hands still behind him. They are tied up with some kind of plastic cord that I can’t tear through. I call my robot dog Billy over to try to bite through it. I guess he doesn’t understand what I am ordering him to do, though. I tell him to go get the knife but he still doesn’t move. He really is just for companionship, I think. It’s a great function, but a bad time to learn his limitations.

  I can hear the dogs howling. It doesn’t sound far away.

  “Jack, we have to get out of here,” I say to him. “Can you walk?”

  He shakes his head no. “You can leave without me,” he says.

  “Stop talking like this,” I beg. “Let’s go. We have to get out of here.”

  He sits still on the ground. There’s a lot of blood. I didn’t realize how deeply he’d been stabbed.

  The dogs are coming closer. I can now hear their movement through the jungle. Two appear, then three more. One of them is Donut’s mom. Red and beautiful. They stride toward us, closer, closer, closer. Their heads hang low, their necks stretched out. I have one ca
n of Kinderend.

  Billy, my robot dog, begins to run at them, even just with his three legs. He bares his teeth. He snaps. They retreat, but not far.

  Holding out the canister, I begin yelling, “Raah, raah, raah!” Billy keeps after the dogs as they get nearer. At first that works to scare them off, but then they seem to get used to him, and they take turns coming in to sniff his butt (which must be confusing, since it probably smells like metal and not like dog). Then three dogs come toward us at once. Then a fourth. A fifth. Their mouths hang open, slightly. Their ears are pinned forward. I yell at them to go go go go go go go. I tell them that I have the Kinderend.

  Jack is moaning. He is crying. He begs me to use the Kinderend on him. He doesn’t want to be ripped apart by the dogs, the dogs he grew up worshipping. He cries that he has nothing left.

  “What about your mother?” I say. “You can’t leave her. You can’t leave me.”

  “What’s the difference,” he says back. “We’re all going to die, anyway. Let me do it now. Please. End my suffering.”

  I tell him to shut up, hold on. Let’s get through this, let’s at least try.

  The dogs form a circle around me and Jack and Billy. And then they sit, very still.

  It is clear. They are not going to hurt us. They are guarding us.

  “Jack,” I say. “Jack, look.”

  He raises his head. He looks at them, then at me. He smiles.

  Jack is too injured to walk, and I can’t lift him. There’s no choice but for him to remain behind there, in the Ruffuge. I trust that he will be protected. I have to trust that he will be protected. I leave him the Kinderend in case not. I ask Billy to stay with him, too, but he follows me anyway.

  It’s too dangerous to go back to the gate. So I walk to the fence, climb it, and swim back to Dog Island, as fast as I can.

  Billy can’t climb. He can’t come. I have to trust he will be okay, too.

  Back on shore, sopping wet, I begin to make my way toward the Dog Island workshop, where all our tools and whatnot are kept. I’ll find a bolt cutter to cut Jack loose, I figure, then grab a kayak. Then get back to the Ruffuge. Somehow I’ll cut through the electric fence, get Jack onto the kayak. Paddle us both home.

  Then . . . who the hell knows. My robot dog Billy won’t be able to come because he isn’t waterproof on a good day, and this is not a good day. Well, I’ll find a way to come back to get him, too. No way am I ditching him again. He’s a robot sure, but he’s family now. I will find a way to keep him safe, from the water, from Mechanical Tail, from anything that tries to take him.

  As I’m walking, wet, hungry, determined, a GoPod pulls up beside me. The door opens. It’s Patricia.

  “Get in,” she says.

  I shake my head, my legs wobbly. This is the end. “I . . . Jack—”

  “I know,” she says, exasperatedly. “We are the Underdog Tailroad. The Bad Bitches want to help, Nano.”

  Collapsing into the GoPod, I have no choice but to pray to Dog that Patricia is being honest. Her robot dog Sasha is in the vehicle, too, in the back seat. Another voice comes through Sasha’s mouth: “We are ready. Do you have the biscuit?”

  Patricia shouts, “Bitches: I have the biscuit!” She turns to me, “That’s you.”

  “Can they hear you?” I ask.

  “I think so,” she says. “I think this is one of the models with two-way. But I’m never really sure. I’m not here because I’m great with technology, you know!”

  She pets Sasha, and says, “Good girl. Good robot dog.”

  Patricia starts driving us toward the Ruffuge. I see there’s a whole caravan of other GoPods also heading in that direction. Maybe twenty of them. We pull in line at the rear. I feel my heart lift. We pass the Casino, The Smiling Manatee. I wonder if that’s where Wolf and Donut are hiding out. I pray to Dog they are safe. Together we bounce along the beach, take a right, plunge down the long, long dirt road—to the gate, en masse.

  It doesn’t open.

  Patricia’s GoPod is still at the back of this motley caravan, so I hop out and race toward the security booth, hoping Betsy will let me back in. If not, I think, I will have to go back for the bolt cutters, for the kayak. But that might not be possible. There must be forty people here now. They’re getting out of their vehicles. They’re forming a crowd.

  Either this is going to work now, or . . .

  People step aside to let me pass. A few touch my arm. I hear, “You get ’em, Nano” and, “Go on, girl” and, “Dog be with you.”

  I enter the guardroom. Inside is Betsy. Dorothy is there, too. At first I think that the jig is up. We’re done. But then I see that Dorothy is restrained. Now her hands are tied behind her back. She is being guarded by a person in a dog suit. This time the figure looks more familiar. As I stare, the person pulls off his mask, and a cascade of wavy brown hair tumbles out. I see some exceptionally pretty eyes.

  Wolf.

  “Thank you,” Betsy whispers. “Dog bless you. Dog bless you, Nano and Wolf.”

  “What are you doing here?” I ask him.

  Wolf explains that his hiding spot wasn’t so good. The Bad Bitches found him, like instantly, and first kissed Donut head to tail, then explained the urgency of the matter. How bad it really was. Jack in the Ruffuge, Dorothy taking out vengeance on dissenters. He couldn’t let me face this alone.

  I kiss him. Then pull away to ask, “Where is Donut?”

  Betsy opens the gate. I go outside. I see Donut in the passenger seat of the first GoPod, waiting by the gate. I reach through the window and grab him out, kissing him and cuddling him and for once he’s not trying to wiggle away; he just seems really happy to see me; his tail just wags and wags.

  Still holding Donut, I ask the driver of the GoPod—it’s Owen, whom I didn’t even know was part of this movement—if I can take the wheel. He gets out. I climb into the driver’s seat. Wolf races to join me in the passenger seat. Donut goes onto his lap. The first gate opens. Then the second. Then we’re inside.

  I drive and drive until I find Jack. He is on the ground, bloody and barely hanging on, but he is hanging on. The five dogs are sitting with him.

  Billy my robot dog sits with them, too. He found his way back. He wags what’s left of his tail so hard when he sees me, I’m worried the last stub will fall off. I’m ridiculously head over heels overjoyed to see him, too.

  “Good boy,” I tell him. “You are a very good robot dog.”

  Epilogue

  It takes Jack several weeks at a hospital in Tampa to recover. It is hit-or-miss for a scary time. But he recovers. He gets well.

  Mom and Dad leave Dog Island for a little bit. They stay with Billy at Fuzzy Mansion and then go up to Rhode Island for a spell to see some cousins. They come home to Dog Island after not too long a time, back to the house.

  Mom still does spokesperson-ing for the sanctuary. Dad is still in charge of food, which means the meals still aren’t what you’d call “fantastic,” but we are fed well enough. We are still vegan here. It’s still what seems right, for us.

  Some Dog Islanders leave for good. Most, like Mom and Dad, stick around. They tell me that all they’ve ever wanted to do is live with dogs, to protect dogs. Now they get to do that, beyond their wildest dreams.

  The dogs live with us now. The five quickly become twelve, then twenty, and then we resume the hormonal birth control. The dogs live inside our homes. They eat with us and walk with us. They make us laugh and keep us company. They have redomesticated themselves. They wanted to be with us, and we want so badly to be with them.

  Donut is big now. He is twenty pounds of fur and fun. We go hiking and walking and swimming together every day. My robot dog Billy comes on some walks, but it’s hard for him to walk so much now. Robot dogs, especially really battered ones, wear out eventually, too. Mechanical Tail has gone out of business, and there
is no one left to repair him. Wolf does his best to keep Billy going, dreaming up ways to repair his body, keep him with me a little longer. There are times I hold my robot dog Billy and cry, knowing the end will be coming. Hopefully, not soon.

  Billy may be slowing down a bit. But he is still here. He is still with me. I press the “positive interaction” button several times a day, though there’s no one keeping track, since Mechanical Tail closed up shop. I just like doing it. There’s a part of me that thinks, even though he’s a robot, Billy might like it, too.

  My brother Billy is still on the mainland. He now lives with the veterinarian, Dr. Samira King, in Virginia. She gave up her boyfriend for Billy. Boobie McChicken lives with them, too, and is doing “clucking great,” Billy likes to tell me. He is back to investigating animal cruelty. And to finding and liberating the caged dogs like the ones we saw in the basement. This time it’s a real liberation.

  Dr. King—Sammy—treats the animals that Billy finds. Wanda helps them find homes for the animals—the chickens, and the horses, and the goats, and especially the dogs. She helps their new families learn how to care for them properly. These are good homes, with loving people, who treat their animals well. Then when these animals die, as they eventually will, their people often come to Dog Island and leave memorials at the chapel. The walls are getting full. We may have to expand.

  Billy tells me that he used to see the world as full of bad people who would hurt any living creature, any chance they got. Now, he says, he sees mostly good.

  He can do this, we can do this, because Ellie has convinced her father Marky Barky to continue supporting our work. She asked for that, as her wedding present, when she and Fiona got hitched last month. They are young, but they are in love.

  They had their wedding at the Casino. The Dog Island Coco-Nuts played. Mom and Owen decorated with Ellie’s close supervision. Extra toilet paper, the good kind, was brought in from the mainland.

  Donut and Billy were co-ring bearers. Both wagged their tails all down the aisle. Carol and Hammie were flown in to be the flower girls. They had massive tulle skirts and everything.