Einstein Dog

by Craig Spence

  He’s not what you’re making him out to be, Genie, Einstein argued. If we could only get through to him I think we’d find Cap is a pretty good guy.

  I’m sure he’d be glad to hear that, she said sarcastically. Why don’t you just trot on over there and tell him.

  Okay, he said. I will.

  Jeez, she hissed. Don’t be an idiot.

  Before she could finish her sentence, Einstein loped across the pound, shaking himself awake as he went.

  Well, well, Cap taunted. If it isn’t the genie-ass himself.

  Breeze and Blizzard snickered nervously.

  Can I play? Einstein ignored Cap’s remark and dangerous look.

  I don’t know. Has anyone taught you how to play yet?

  Again Einstein let it go. If he joined in the game, maybe Cap would ease up and they could have a little fun. Then, when they were tuckered out, they could talk.

  What’s the game called? he asked. Cap exchanged a mischievous glance with his companions. It’s called Kill the Weakling.

  Oh. Einstein gulped.

  But he couldn’t back out now. They’ll think I’m chicken, he told himself, waiting to see what would happen next.

  Cap’s grin widened.

  How do you know who’s the weakling? Einstein stammered.

  They laughed as if he’d asked something really stupid. You know, Cap mused, for a SMART dog you ask some pretty dumb questions. Maybe it’s a trick you’re playing on us. What do you think, Breeze: is he trying to lull us, or is he really a loser?

  I don’t think he’s trying to fool us, Breeze answered. He’s never played before, that’s all . . .

  Never played because he’s always got his nose upwind, like the air is better in any direction that ain’t here, huh?

  Cap! she cautioned.

  Him and Genie over there, Cap snapped, shutting her up.

  Einstein glanced desperately over at Genie, who still lay in the sand, her head resting on her paws. She didn’t want to get involved, Einstein thought. Suddenly, though, she sprang forward, barking fiercely. Look out! she screamed.

  Instinctively Einstein crouched and pivoted toward Cap.

  Before he could complete the manoeuvre Cap bowled him over. This is how we choose the weakling, he exulted, his jaws locked around Einstein’s throat.

  Enraged, Einstein struggled, but he couldn’t break free. Cap bore down even harder, applying his weight and strength expertly. Behind them Genie snapped and snarled, battling with Breeze and Blizzard.

  Give! Cap demanded.

  Get off! Einstein raged.

  Cap tightened his death grip. Einstein held in his yelp of pain and stopped his thrashing. He couldn’t break Cap’s stranglehold and would only injure himself trying. If Cap didn’t loosen his hold soon, Einstein felt sure he would faint.

  Give! Cap demanded again.

  Einstein refused. Why do you hate me, brother? he pleaded.

  Hate! Cap unlocked his jaws and sprang back. Bree! Blizz! he called sharply. Immediately the battle with Genie ended, his lieutenants returning to his side. I don’t hate you, little brother, Cap corrected. I’m just teaching you a lesson.

  Teaching? Genie spat. The only thing you can teach is how to be a cheat and a coward!

  Cap laughed, but Einstein knew the rebuke stung. No, sis, he retorted as if she’d been joking. I’m teaching little brother here a lesson in survival. Our Einstein thinks too much, and thinking slows you down. Trust your instincts, Einee; they’re quicker in a fight.

  Thanks, Einstein grumbled, picking himself up and shaking the dust out of his fur. I’ll remember that next time.

  No problemo, Cap answered grandly.

  Weary and sore, Einstein slunk past Breeze and Blizzard. They looked sad and ashamed, but defiant, too. How had all this happened? Einstein could figure out a lot of things: the time of day by the angle of the sun; patterns of human speech; any number of riddles posed by Professor Smith — but he couldn’t figure out why Cap hated him so when all he wanted was to be friends.

  That worked out well, Genie grumped as they limped off to their corner of the pound.

  Anger flared, but Einstein checked his tart reply. After all, she’d tried to warn him, and she had come to his rescue. You know what’s going to happen in the next couple of days, don’t you? he said.

  She nodded.

  Is this the way you want to remember your brothers and sister?

  What is, is, she said quietly.

  What is can be changed, Genie!

  She shook her head. You’ll never learn, will you? she sighed.

  You’re a laboratory pup, locked up in a kennel, you can’t even beat your bully brother in a fight, and you figure you’re going to change the world? You think you’re going to make Cap into a tail-wagger, and that nasty dean and her evil friend puppy huggers? Wake up, Einstein! Use your brain. We don’t change the world, we adapt to it. Like Cap said, we survive.

  He flopped down on his side, panting. She lay down next to him, using his tummy as a pillow. But you have to believe in something, Genie, don’t you . . . I mean, something other than what is?

  She didn’t answer. Instead Genie yawned hugely and nuzzled her snout into his fur, getting ready for a snooze. That was her answer, Einstein supposed. They had each other and there was some hope that they, at least, would not be separated like the others. From Libra’s reports it seemed Ariel had made some progress with her mother. Perhaps there was room in the Krieger house for a dog to join a plump cat and a noisy cockatoo. Perhaps Genie and Einstein would be neighbours.

  Charlie flicked his cigarette butt off into the tall grass.

  “You ought to be careful,” Bob warned. “You could start a fire.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You just keep your eye on those dogs, bro.”

  Bob wished he knew what they were supposed to be looking for. It seemed to him they were taking a big risk. More than once he’d seen SMART 73 snuffle the air, poking her nose through the kennel fence. She’d even barked angrily in their direction until she’d been calmed by Elaine Schwartz. Bob remembered his encounter with SMART 73 in Campus Wood. He didn’t want a repeat performance.

  “I still think it’s a waste of time being here,” he said crankily.

  “Do or die, little brother. Don’t question why.”

  Bob sighed and resumed his surveillance. By his calculations Elaine was the last person still in the SMART lab and she would be leaving in a few minutes. Professor Smith had already gone home. The dogs had been brought inside. Unless he went down there and actually pressed his nose against the lab’s window, there’d be nothing more to see. There never was.

  “Sunday night will be different, bro,” Charlie promised cheerfully.

  Charlie was lying on his back, his hands behind his head, soaking up rays from the declining sun. Funny, Bob thought, the only time his brother ever looked truly happy was in that eerie interlude when a job had been planned down to the last detail and they were biding their time, waiting for the action to begin.

  “You ready Bob?” Charlie asked.

  Bob’s stomach turned. “Yeah,” he lied.

  “You’re gonna have to toughen up,” Charlie advised. “I can’t have you wimping out. You saw Hindquist’s look. If we screw up, he’s going to skin us alive, man. Who’s more important: us or a bunch of lab mutts? Make up your mind.”

  Why did they have to choose, Bob wanted to know? Why couldn’t they work things out so it wasn’t always us-against-them?

  “Once Schwartz has gone, we’ll skedaddle too. The Boss will be satisfied. Besides, we have to rest up for the big day.”

  “Sure,” Bob agreed sourly.

  Bertrand and Ariel moped on the steps in front of her townhouse. Squawk perched on Ariel’s shoulder; Purr lay curled up in her lap.

  “Do you think she’ll come around?” Bertrand wondered.

  Ariel glanced at the kitchen window. “I haven’t seen her this mad since . . . ” She thought about it for a while, then ga
ve up.

  “Should I leave?” he asked.

  Ariel stared at him, desperate and speechless. “No!” her look said. He shouldn’t even have asked. After all, he had to accept some blame. Hadn’t he suggested the perfect home for Genie would be Unit Eleven, Forestview Townhouse complex?

  The house shuddered as if an explosion had been detonated deep within.

  Ariel winced.

  “What’ll you do if your mom says no?”

  “She won’t,” Ariel vowed, looking straight ahead.

  Another thunderous crash interrupted them.

  “Shee-oot!” Mrs. Krieger bawled.

  Then an ominous silence emanated from the kitchen, a silence more threatening than all the clatter and bang that had preceded it. Bertrand and Ariel were still exchanging a worried look when the front door sprang open and Mrs. Krieger thrust her head out. “Okay!” she growled, then banged the door shut. The door flew open again. “But you have to feed her, and walk her, and brush her.”

  “Mom?”

  “And we might have to use some of the money from your paper route to cover expenses . . . ”

  “Are you saying yes?” Ariel beamed.

  “Yes, I’m saying yes,” Mrs. Krieger snapped. “But I’m furious with the two of you!”

  Ariel jumped up, dislodging Purr, and hurried over to give Mrs. Krieger a hug.

  A crooked smile lit up Mrs. Krieger’s face as she wrapped her arms around her daughter. “What am I going to do with you?” she crooned. “And you,” she frowned over Ariel’s shoulder at Bertrand.

  “Sorry Mrs. K,” he mumbled.

  “Sorry as the cat that ate the canary,” she grumbled.

  Hearing this, Squawk cocked his head in an accusing manner, pointing his beady eye at Purr, a gesture his human audience found uproariously funny.

  As soon as they could, Bertrand and Ariel hustled over to his house. They pleaded with Professor Smith to take them to see Libra and Genie so they could deliver the good news.

  “I suppose I’ve got some work to do,” Professor Smith allowed. “You two can take Libra and the pups for a short walk while I shift some paper. Dean Zolinsky won’t be around so it should be okay to let them off-leash for a bit.”

  If Professor Smith had meant by “walk” that the children and their pack would move at a steady pace, in a chosen direction, then he had things entirely muddled. If he meant running, shouting, grabbing, falling, rolling in the grass, and laughing hysterically, then he must have understood what it was to herd SMART puppies.

  While Bertrand and Ariel joined in the antics of the pups, Libra darted to and fro nervously. If one of the pups did wander, she would rebuke it sharply and send it scurrying back into the pack.

  “What’s the matter girl?” Bertrand asked. “They just want to have a little fun.”

  She sniffed at the air and tellied him the results. An acrid stench filled his nostrils.

  “Yuck!” he said. “What’s that? It stinks like the bottom of a gym bag.”

  Before she had a chance to answer Cap darted off toward the East Parking Lot and Libra had to corral him. After a half-hour of carousing they returned the pups to the kennel yard then moved away to confer.

  “Mrs. K. has agreed to take Genie,” Bertrand informed Libra. “All the pups are accounted for,” he added, when she didn’t respond. Libra wagged her tail halfheartedly, but she still seemed distracted.

  When will the pups be moved? she wanted to know.

  Soon, Bertrand answered.

  She frowned.

  What’s wrong? he demanded.

  Before he could say anything more Libra was up and away. She crisscrossed Campus Green snuffling the grass. Occasionally she’d stop abruptly to examine a patch of lawn, then move on. Gradually she homed in on Campus Wood, and a depression atop a knoll at the forest edge. She growled, rooting at the earth angrily.

  “Look,” Ariel said, pointing at a bunch of cigarette butts littering the ground Bertrand traced two depressions in the tall grass. “I’d say there were a couple of guys, lying on their stomachs, facing the SMART lab,” he said. “They’ve got us under surveillance!”

  “Who?” Ariel wanted to know. “And why?”

  A telly materialized of a lean, angular man, kneeling in front of Libra’s pen. Fear and rage boiled in Bertrand’s gut.

  “It’s that Hindquist guy,” he growled.

  “But why?” Ariel wanted to know.

  Another telly took shape, this one of a skinny, rough-looking character sneaking into the darkened SMART lab, a security guard following and the man hiding expertly behind the cinderblock wall of the last cage. Bertrand shivered.

  Why didn’t you show me this earlier? Bertrand wanted to know.

  Libra transmitted an image of Dean Zolinsky, looking upset and angry.

  “Oh,” Bertrand nodded. “Because if you told me, I’d tell Dad and he might tell the dean. Then she’d change her mind about letting you go because of the security risk.”

  Yes, Libra signaled.

  “What’s going on?” Ariel asked.

  Bertrand described Libra’s tellies.

  “Why’s Hindquist doing this, Birdman?” she asked again.

  “I don’t know, Airee, but we’re going to find out,” he vowed. “Something really weird is going on here. We have to dig up everything we can on Frank Hindquist and Advanced Medical Operating Systems. And fast.”

  Libra barked her confirmation.

  “What about your dad, Bertrand? Shouldn’t we tell him?”

  He shook his head sadly. “Libra’s right,” he said. “Not until we’ve got more information. Dad wouldn’t believe us, anyway. You know what he’s like. First you have to come up with a hypothesis and then you have to develop an experiment that supports it . . . and blah, blah, blah.”

  Ariel kept her thoughts on that to herself.

  A-M-O-S. Ariel typed the letters in then launched her search. Twenty-nine-million references came up, most to do with the Bible, a few with a famous musician she’d never heard of, some with family genealogies. Next, next, next. She clicked through the screens rapidly, scrolling down for something — anything — of interest.

  “What do you expect to find, Airee?” Bertrand teased, his comments popping up on her screen. “A link to ‘famous criminals and evil dudes’ or something?”

  “I’ll know what I’m looking for when I find it,” she typed back.

  The Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society. The Association for Morbid Obesity Support. It figured. When you were searching the world, there would be more than a few uses for the AMOS acronym . . .

  Advanced Medical Operating Systems. There it was on the tenth page of her search. “Yeah, so?” Ariel muttered, studying the picture of a sleek, glass office building with the AMOS logo emblazoned above the front entrance. “Aiming for a better world,” a banner proclaimed.

  She clicked through the links, which took her on a virtual tour of the AMOS facility. Nothing even remotely suspicious.

  Clicking back to her search page, she scrolled farther down. There it was again, AMOS. But this time the label stood for Advanced Military Ordinance Supply. “In the shadowy world of the illegal arms trade the nefarious dealings of AMOS are legendary, but does the organization really exist?” Curious, Ariel clicked the link and found herself on a site called Peace Watch, which was run by “global citizens working together for a world free of war.”

  “No one’s even certain AMOS exists,” the article continued, “but the name has been connected with some of the most horrific conflicts of recent history. If AMOS does exist, it has been the supplier of weapons to the most ruthless dictators and international criminals of our times.”

  Wide-eyed, Ariel read on. What did Advanced Military Ordinance Supply have to do with Advanced Medical Operating Systems, except for the sharing of a commonly used acronym and the unlikely hunch of a kid playing secret agent girl?

  Ridiculous! But . . .

  “But what
?” Ariel muttered, angry at herself.

  Well, for starters she’d overheard more than once Professor Smith and Elaine mocking Hindquist’s cover of “cell farming”. The AMOS medical research proposal didn’t make sense, and that was cause for suspicion. If cell farming wasn’t the real reason AMOS wanted to see the SMART Project continued, what was?

  “Hey, check this out!” Bertrand cut into her frustrated musings. Included in his message were a couple of links. “It’s what comes up when you do a search for Frank Hindquist.”

  “President and Chief Executive Officer of Advanced Medical Operating Systems,” said the first link.

  “Yeah, I already know that,” Ariel chastised her computer.

  She clicked the second link. “The Global Council,” its header said. “This ultra-secret, fascist society is reported to have representation from every continent. Almost nothing is known about The Council, except that it aims to attain influence by promoting warfare and supplying arms to the combatants.”

  Ariel stared at the screen, her heart pounding. AMOS, Frank Hindquist, the Global Council? None of it made any sense. Bits of information swirled around like confetti in her head.

  A message from Bertrand popped onto her screen. “Hey Airee,” it said, “I’m thinking of going for a little bike ride tomorrow. Want to come?” Attached to the invitation was another link. She clicked and a map to Advanced Medical Operating Systems opened up in her web browser.

  “Count me in,” she tapped, grinning.

  The chock-a-block streets of Langley City gave way to the large acreages and farmlands of Willoughby. They crossed the Trans-Canada Highway, rolling into the suburban community of Walnut Grove, then headed west into a zone of warehouses and factories. Most of the businesses were closed, the streets deserted.

  “Spooky,” Bertrand said.

  “I don’t like it,” Ariel agreed. “We’re too obvious.”

  “Who’s watching?”

  “I don’t know,” she snapped. “They must have security patrols or surveillance cameras? We’re sitting ducks.”

  “We’re not doing anything wrong.”

  “Not yet,” she replied.