Pavlov's Dogs

by Snell, D. L.

  He let the pipe go and Ken caught it. With an explosive exhale, he swung the weapon, clearing the frame of glass, showering the concrete below with a hail of shards.

  “Here I come!” Landis shouted from above, and Ken dove into the building as the Dog hurtled from the roof. He landed in the basket, and it let out a bang and a groan as one side of it dipped, making the whole thing tilt at a crazy angle.

  Before Ken could move to help, the Dog was airborne again, tucking into a ball and rolling into the office with him. He came to a stop at Ken’s feet and glared up.

  “Never again.”

  “Wuss. Come on!”

  They went through the fire door into the stairwell and went careening down the stairs. Landis caught up on the way down, leaping several steps at a time.

  “Hah!” Ken laughed. “Now he wants to jump!”

  “You going to tell me what the hell we’re doing, Boy Scout?”

  “Eagle Scout,” Ken said. “And I should have never told anyone that.” He gestured down the hallway. “Building’s got two stairwells. First thing we’re going to do is blockade the clear one, just in case.”

  On the second floor, they burst out of the stairwell and ran down the hallway a few feet. “This won’t take both of us,” Ken said, slightly short of breath. “I set it up so any single person could trigger it.”

  Landis assumed he was talking about some sort of trap. “So why am I with you? If you made me jump off the roof just so you could show off...”

  Ken stopped running and leaned over, hands on his knees. “No,” he said, panting. “Yank that cord.”

  Shrugging, the Dog walked over and pulled the cable. A terrific crash came from within the stairwell. He nodded. “Very nice. What did you do for a living, Boy Scout?”

  “Construction. Now come on, we’ve got to get to the bottom floor, get the rest of these things out of the building. It looks like there aren’t too many more outside.” He cocked a thumb over his shoulder. “That way is easier down the stairs, but a pain in the ass to get through the blockade. This way is hard going down, since that’s where all the dead folks are. Which one you want?”

  Landis popped his neck. “I’ll take the hard way.”

  Ken smiled. “Good. See you in the lobby, yeah?” He put out his fist and the Theta Dog bumped it.

  Taking a series of quick breaths, Landis rolled his shoulders and gripped his gun tighter. “Here we go.”

  He slammed the door open and knocked one of the zombies back. Raising the gun, he popped off several rounds, dropping the dead men in the stairwell above him. The moaning and gunshots in the stairwell echoed and mingled to create a new sound altogether, and Landis wondered for a moment whether he had chosen the wrong door.

  ’

  Ken raced down the other stairwell, hoping his installation in the lobby would work out like he had envisioned.

  He got to the bottom of the stairs and opened the door. Holstering his gun, he kicked at the shims holding the barricade together, freeing a pair of mop handles. He threw these aside and then pressed his back against the wall, putting one foot on the couch, which sat to the right. With everything he had, he pushed.

  The barricade wobbled, and he hooted, dropping to both feet and throwing his shoulder against the couch. With a grinding sound, the barricade of furniture and office gear came down with a crash. Ken leapt over it and ran to the bend in the hallway. Closing his eyes and offering a quick prayer, he grabbed both the big .44 and the .38, then peeked around the corner.

  Zombies milled in the lobby. Now that they had nowhere to go, they stood there, and Ken knew they would continue to stand there until either something outside drew their attention, or they were killed.

  “Come on, Landis,” he whispered. “Please make it. Please, please, please.”

  The sound of gunfire came from the other side of the building. Single shots, and then someone was yelling, nonstop and loudly. There was a loud bang as the stairwell door was flung open; the gunshots and yelling got louder.

  Ken came around the corner, guns up and firing.

  The zombies in the lobby turned back and forth between Dog and man, confused as to which one they should go after first. They were mowed down like wheat before the guns of the defenders.

  Landis and Ken stood in the room, looking down at the bodies.

  “It worked,” Ken said.

  The Dog shot him a look, then burst out laughing.

  ’

  “Does it hurt?” Landis asked, spraying a bite mark on Dunne’s shoulder with antiseptic.

  “Yeah. Burns. Even more with that shit, thanks.”

  Ken turned from supervising the rebuilding of the barricade and walked over to the Dogs. “What happened?”

  Dunne grimaced. “I was doing fine on the roof. The dead shits in the stairwell were starting to wear thin, so I got up and walked the last of them down. Then the idiot who shot the radio got up and followed me, I guess.”

  Cursing, Ken turned away. “I should have put one in his head.”

  “Yes, you should have,” Landis said. “Fucking Eagle Scout, indeed.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think he would... do you hear that?”

  Everyone quieted; the working party and the Dogs all hushed, and when they did, they heard it too.

  Moaning.

  “Shit,” Ken said. “All the shooting must have drawn their attention. Do you think you guys could hold them off? Hey, are you listening to me?”

  The Dogs sat with vacant expressions on their faces. Unmoving, unresponsive.

  “Dunne? Hey. Landis? Hey, Earth to Landis!” Ken turned back to the work party. “What are you waiting for? Get moving!”

  The workers scurried back to the barricade, setting it up with a new sense of urgency. Ken jogged to the door and looked down the street. More of them were coming. A lot more. He looked back at the Dogs, who had finally stood up.

  “Thank you,” he said. “If there’s anything I can do... hey, where are you two going?”

  As one, Dunne and Landis had turned and started marching quickstep away from Ken. They reached the door and turned away from the approaching zombie horde, breaking into matching clumsy jogs as soon as they were outside.

  “Hey!” Ken shouted. “What the hell?!”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CRISPIN HIT THE ENTER KEY and let out a long, slow breath. “It’s done,” he said. “Alpha McLoughlin’s team has gotten the order to stop. They’re now waiting for Dunne and Landis, who are on their way. Then the entire party will return to the marina. What the hell is wrong with you? Both of you. All those people.”

  Donovan chewed the end of his thumb. He’d been watching Crispin work, trying to follow the code and syntax of the Command language, but it was like trying to learn French by watching somebody sign it. After it was up once, it was gone. The strings of code disappeared every time Crispin hit ENTER.

  The neurotech finally let go of his thumb and pointed it at the director. “One of those Dogs was bitten.”

  Crispin grimaced. “Theta Dunne, yes. First time. We don’t even know how the virus will interact with the Dog’s biology, and—”

  “Dispatch him.”

  “What?! Do you realize what we’re up against here? If anything, we need Dunne back here as soon as possible. No, sir. I am not going to sacrifice—”

  Theta Kaiser was there before the director could finish, snapping his sharp teeth in the man’s face. Crispin got a close-up of Kaiser’s canines, and some of the rebellion went out of him. A small part of him wondered at Kaiser’s savagery. He had always been the hardest Dog to control.

  Donovan stood at the panel, stroking its brushed aluminum surface. “I assume this system has some sort of termination sequence? I bet it does. How would you do it, Doctor? What kind of man are you, really? Would you constrict a blood vessel in the brain? Or would you use something more exothermic? You can tell me.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “Just between you and me. You seem like the k
ind of man who always has insurance policies.”

  Crispin didn’t answer, but his skin flushed even more, and his pupils retracted to pinpoints; Donovan had his answer. He could, if the need arose, dispatch a single Dog. He nodded, happy again and smiling.

  “What a very well-engineered system. I congratulate you. If this weren’t a super-secret installation and, you know, if the dead hadn’t eaten the academy, you might well have won the Nobel Prize.” He waved his hands at the world around them. “Instead we have this. How unfortunate. And now, as to our equally unfortunate Theta Dunne: dispatch him.”

  Eyes taking on a sheen, Crispin began typing again, wishing he had listened to his intuition. He hadn’t liked Donovan from the start. He’d been right not to.

  Perched over his shoulder like a vulture, Donovan tried to follow the string of commands, but the algorithms were beyond him. Accepting that as a fact for now, he moved to the right and watched the touchscreen. It was split, Dunne on one side, Landis on the other. They walked together through the ruins of downtown.

  Dr. Crispin’s eyes darted from the keyboard to Donovan’s reflection on the big screen. He began to type faster, adding a parallel command in the syntax string. It was a short command, and this would be the fourth time he’d sent it. Any Dog receiving this directive would have to obey promptly and decisively.

  Except Kaiser.

  Damn his eyes!

  Crispin hit ENTER and waited. Sliding his gaze sideways, he caught a glimpse of Kaiser grimacing. The Dog fidgeted for a moment, flexing and rolling his shoulders. But then the moment passed.

  Looking up at Donovan and seeing his attention riveted to the LCD, Crispin began to type again.

  Onscreen, the Theta Dogs walked side-by-side down the street, headed back to the marina. Dunne licked at his shoulder wound, which wasn’t healing as it should. The edges of the bite were ragged and dark red. Faint lines radiated outward on the surface of his skin.

  Infection.

  Landis reached out, maybe to help, and Dunne snarled and snapped his teeth at him. The other Dog pulled his hand back, eyes wide but worried. Licking his wound again, Dunne kept his eyes on Landis.

  Donovan blinked a few times. Watching the same thing from two different angles, as fascinating as it was unique, was giving him a headache. He put out a hand, wishing there was a way to jack directly into the Dogs’ sensory input. To live what they were living. To fit them on like a glove.

  He noted that Crispin was still typing.

  “What are you doing?”

  Fingers clattering on the keyboard, Crispin looked up. “What? I’m doing what you told me.”

  “Why don’t you just show me how to do it then? You’re taking too long.”

  Crispin’s teeth showed for a moment. “Look, you must realize that something like this, terminating one of my creations remotely... I didn’t make it easy to do. This is not a command I had planned to use willy-nilly.” He typed faster, re-keying the directive to Theta Kaiser, along with Dunne’s final command. “As a matter of fact, if you’ve been paying attention at all, you would know that quite a number of things need to happen before the final command. If every protective function in the Pavlovian Chip isn’t shut down, the command could trigger an—”

  “Director,” Donovan said.

  “Yes, yes—there!”

  Crispin hit the ENTER key, and the three of them turned to the monitor. Dunne’s half of the screen flashed bright white and then went dark. Through Landis’s point of view, Donovan watched as Dunne took a stutter step. His eyes rolled back and his head shook once, violently. Blood poured from the Dog’s ears and nose, and he fell over, stone dead. He didn’t even twitch.

  Crispin had not stopped typing. He had reworded the command to Kaiser, putting it in terms so strong, if the Dog did not comply, surely he would sustain some sort of damage. Had to. Crispin also added a rider, activating the loyalty protocol. For the other Dogs, this step was unnecessary, but for Kaiser, Crispin could only hope.

  Again, he hit ENTER.

  Donovan hooted. “Good job, Doctor! I know this seems an odd time to say it, but I really admire the system you’ve pioneered here. It’s not often that I come across something so revolutionary. Now, if you would be so kind—”

  He stopped, feeling hot breath on the back of his neck. Donovan turned, finding himself face to snarling face with Theta Kaiser. The Dog loomed over him, fangs bared, growling deep in his chest as drool oozed from the sides of his mouth. Kaiser sucked huge breaths of air, his chest and diaphragm working like a bellows.

  “Kaiser?” Donovan asked in a small voice. “I thought we were together on this.” He took a step back and cried out as the Dog tensed.

  Kaiser lunged.

  But to the left.

  Crispin’s eyes widened in the split-second he realized that Kaiser had defeated the command. Then the Dog was on him, his sharp, sharp teeth buried in Crispin’s throat.

  Kaiser shook his head, worrying at the director, and when he stepped back, he pulled out two inches of red and black gristle in his mouth. His eyes danced with bizarre mirth.

  Doctor Crispin’s throat made a sucking sound as he watched his own blood jetting away from him, and the thought went out of his eyes. He fell over the console, fingers scrabbling at the ragged, gory hole in his neck as he coughed and sneezed out gouts of blood.

  Crispin’s chair tipped over, and he hit the floor. His legs kicked and he rolled onto his belly, pushing himself up. The jet from his throat pumped one last time, and then the strength went out of his arms. He fell down, smacking his face into the cold concrete. Finally, still.

  Kaiser turned to Donovan, who had backed up all the way to the large screen. The Dog grinned as he chewed on the chunk of muscle and windpipe he had torn from the project director’s throat.

  “Good... good boy,” Donovan said.

  He fell to his knees and gripped his stomach and mouth. He couldn’t stop it; the vomit came up and sprayed through his fingers and out his nostrils, his breakfast and bile hitting the floor, mixing with Crispin’s swiftly-cooling blood.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  KEN AND HIS SMALL GROUP were frantically clearing bodies out of the short hallway to the stairwell. The gunfire had attracted even more undead attention, and he wanted the bodies out of sight before the rest of the zombies arrived. And there were plenty of cadavers to go around.

  He had already decided that the ones in the stairwell would have to stay put. He and his team certainly had the manpower to move them all; they could have easily dumped them out a window at the back of the building. But right then, Ken knew that nobody had the heart for it.

  And while he didn’t know the inner workings of the zombie mind, he knew they always investigated fresh corpses. Always. So the lobby had to be cleared if they wanted any kind of lasting peace. While everyone else was happy to wait for the Dogs to return, Ken had a bad feeling about them.

  A piercing whistle stopped work; the roof sentry had seen something. Ken left the work detail and ran to the front of the building and looked out. Zombies on the lawn, what else? He looked up at the sentry and put his arms out. What?

  “Dogs!” Kelly yelled. “A whole group of them!”

  Ken hooded his eyes with his hand. He spotted them, far away on the rise. He saw their bus and their tow truck.

  “They’re coming back!” Kelly cried.

  Ken grimaced. The work detail started hooting and clapping, and it just made him feel worse. His next move wouldn’t be popular, but he was the leader and it had to be done.

  “Okay, everyone, let’s get back to work! We get this place back to how it was before more zombies get through. If the Dogs are really coming, we’ll let ’em in. But until they’re here knocking on our door, let’s keep working.”

  The assorted men and women of the work group shrank a little, as if Ken’s words had let all their air out. And he supposed it had. But he would be damned if he let their hopes get up only to be dashed again by the
Dogs.

  He led by example, attacking the job in front of them with renewed vigor. Maybe the Dogs were coming to take them back to the island. Maybe they weren’t. He still couldn’t believe the way Dunne and Landis had just walked off. He slammed a corpse off to one side.

  And before we go anywhere, I’m going to figure out how the zombies made it up to the roof. That was no accident. Someone had to have let ’em up. And when I find out who...

  Rifle fire started behind him. Single pops from multiple gunmen.

  Ken knew time was getting short. If his people weren’t behind the barricades before the front of the building was overrun, that would be it for them. And all their hardship, all their heartache, would be for nothing.

  ’

  At the crest of the hill, the Dog convoy had stopped. McLoughlin could see through his binoculars that the survivor cell almost had their barricades back into place.

  “They’re set up pretty well.”

  “They are,” Samson said from the wrecker. “The pair of shooters on the front steps are doing a good job.”

  McLoughlin nodded. The men with rifles were taking single shots, not rushing, showing remarkable poise for civilians.

  To have survived all this so far, they’d have to.

  They were slowing the tide of oncoming dead, but that’s all they were doing. Still, North Regional was a defensible position. Especially after reinforcements.

  So, the sixty-four thousand dollar question was: Why had Crispin ordered the Dogs back to base?

  “Incoming,” Rose said at McLoughlin’s side. “Thetas Dunne and Landis.”

  Absently, the Alpha nodded, still peering through the binoculars and counting heads at the building. There were more than just a few survivors. They had done well, even after the Dogs left. The work crew was moving quickly, the gunmen were doing their jobs admirably, and the lookout on the roof had spotted the Dogs.

  So, why?

  He dropped the binocs and waved Dunne and Landis on. Maybe they would have some kind of intel on the order to pull out. It looked to McLoughlin that Dunne was acting strangely. He was also wounded. Their orders had been to hold off on the Change unless absolutely necessary, because once they had done it, that would be it until they could hit the recovery ward. But now that reinforcements had arrived, Dunne should have changed to accelerate the healing process. So why hadn’t he?