by Allen Zadoff
Chance bites his lip, and his eyes dart from Bash to the housemother and back.
“The dog’s upstairs,” Bash blurts out.
“He’s lying!” Chance says.
“Sorry, dude. They offered me ten K.”
“You suck,” Chance says.
The officers look up and catch me watching them from the top of the stairs.
“There she is!” They start toward the stairs.
“Why is there a dog in here?!” the housemother shouts and falls in behind them.
I leap up, torn between my desire to run and my instinct to protect Chance.
“Leave her alone!” Chance darts in front of the officers and blocks the staircase.
“Whoa there, son. How would you feel if you lost your dog?” the small officer asks.
“B-Bad, I mean—” Chance stutters.
“Wouldn’t you want someone to bring her home?”
He looks up at me and our eyes meet. I read the silent question on his face. Should I trust them?
I wish I knew the answer.
The large officer smiles up at me. “I can see you two have a bond. But her family really misses her, and they want her back.”
My heart beats faster. Someone wants me back.
Myron said I came into PetStar with a little redheaded girl and a bodyguard. Could this be the family the Animal Control officers are talking about?
“Enough,” the small officer says. “We have a job to do.”
He reaches for Chance—
“Just a moment,” the housemother says. “I can’t have the boys harmed in any way.”
The housemother steps forward and puts her arms around Chance.
“We have to let these men do their jobs,” she says to him, and she guides a reluctant Chance off the steps.
With the path clear, the officers start toward me. I growl a low rumble in my throat, warning them.
“Easy, dog,” the small officer says.
“No need to be afraid,” the large one says. “Don’t you want to go home?”
“Do you know where my home is?” I ask.
I stand at the top of the stairs, frozen in place as I watch them move toward me.
“Thatta girl. Just stay where you are and we’ll come to you.”
Chance shouts, “Run, Wild!!!”
I follow Chance’s line of sight to the large officer’s hand. The man is holding something behind his back, a black dowel of some kind that looks like a little telescope. I don’t know what it is, but my instinct tells me I’ve seen it before and I should be afraid.
“Liars!” I bark, and I dart away down the hall.
“Get her!” the officer screams, and I hear the thud of boots coming up the stairs fast behind me.
I race into the nearest room and hide behind the door. The Animal Control officers run past, panting hard.
A moment later, the door opens and Bash jogs in. He does a double take when he sees me, and then he shouts, “She’s in my bedroom!”
He reaches for me, and I evade his grasp. The door flies open, and the Animal Control officers rush in.
“Stand back. We’ll take care of this,” the large officer says.
The small officer steps in behind him and closes the door.
“Enough talk. Let’s kill her and get out of here.”
“Kill her?” Bash says. “I thought you were taking her home.”
I thought so, too. I look at these men now, and I feel rage.
The small officer nudges his partner. “The kid heard you, genius. Now what are we gonna do?”
He watches me closely, one hand on the black dowel in his belt.
“He’s a kid. He won’t say anything.”
“I swear I won’t say a word,” Bash says. “I hate that stupid dog anyway. Just let me go, and you can do whatever you want.”
The officer motions, and Bash makes a break for it, running out the bedroom door and slamming it behind him.
Now I’m alone with the two officers in the room. Whoever they really are, it’s clear they mean to do me harm.
The large officer snaps his dowel toward the ground, and it extends into a foot-long baton weapon, the end crackling with electricity.
“I’m guessing that’s the zapper Myron was telling me about,” I say.
“Don’t growl at me, mutt.” The small officer lifts his zapper as I prepare to leap at him.
A piercing tone explodes in my head, scrambling my brain so I can barely think. I scream, frozen in pain and unable to attack or defend myself.
“Do you hear anything?” the small officer asks.
“Sound of silence,” the other says with a grin. Then he looks at me. “Don’t worry, girl. The sound only stuns you, but the beam—that’s gonna leave a mark.”
He raises the weapon to fire—
“Wild!”
It’s Chance’s voice, calling to me from outside the house.
It breaks the spell of the sound, and I whirl around and dive for the closed window.
“NO!” the large officer shouts, but I’m already gone, smashing through the glass before he can fire his weapon.
I land on the roof above the porch. It’s raining outside, and the cold drops hit my back, steaming as they come in contact with my overheated body.
“Come on!” Chance shouts.
He’s in the driveway below, pulling out a bike with a large basket attached to the front.
I scurry across wet roof shingles, looking for a place to jump down.
I pass by a window and see a glint of silver. It’s Chance’s cell phone, sitting on his bedside table, forgotten. I can’t let him leave without it.
“We have to get out of here!” Chance shouts, climbing onto the bike.
“Your phone—” I start to say, but then I remember he can’t understand me. “Be right back!”
I smash through Chance’s bedroom window and go into the house one last time.
I dive for the phone and charger, scooping them up in my mouth and gripping them carefully between my teeth.
The door flies open, and the large officer rushes into the room. I turn to the window to escape, but the small officer is already there, climbing inside.
I’m trapped between the two of them. I growl, looking for a way out of this mess.
Both officers flick open their zappers and sparks fly.
I smell the ozone in the room from the electrical field being generated by the weapons. The smell haunts my memory, sending a shiver up my back that makes my hair stand up.
The piercing tone screams in my head, and I growl from deep in my throat, warning these men to get away from me.
The small officer points his zapper in my direction, and an arc of electricity shoots out like a lightning bolt. I duck at the last second, and the bolt flies past, striking the table next to the large officer, leaving behind a smoking, blackened hole in the wood.
The large officer screams and jumps away, cursing his partner.
“My bad,” the small officer says.
“I’ve had enough of this dog,” the large officer says, and he starts to bring up his zapper.
I spin and kick him in the chest with my hind legs, hard enough to knock him backward into the small officer and send the two of them crashing to the ground.
“See you, boys.”
I leap back through the window, jumping from the roof to the driveway below, and I drop the phone into Chance’s hands. He looks at it, astonished.
“How did you know—”
There are shouts from inside the house.
“We have to go,” I say.
I jump into the bike basket and Chance stands on the pedals, grunting with effort as he fights to get the bike moving out of the driveway and down the street.
Back at the house, I hear the Animal Control officers fighting their way through the broken door while the large officer screams into his radio: “She’s escaped. We need emergency backup!”
CHANCE IS CELEBRATING.
/> We race around the corner, and Chance pumps his fist in the air and shouts, “We did it!”
My ears perk up at a sound behind us. It’s the distinctive high-revving engines of Animal Control vans on the road behind us.
“What’s going on?” Chance asks.
He steals a glance behind and sees what I’ve already heard. Two Animal Control vans skid onto the road about half a mile back and accelerate to pursue us.
“Oh no!” He bears down on the pedals, gaining a little speed, but there’s no way the two of us on a bike can outrun these supercharged vans.
I look around, trying to find a dirt path, a hiding place, anything that might give us an advantage.
“Hello?”
It’s a girl’s voice. I sit up in the basket and look around, startled.
I don’t see a girl.
“Hello?” the voice says again. “It looks like you’re in trouble.”
“Did you hear that?” I ask Chance.
He stares at the road ahead, all of his focus on getting us away from the vans.
“Who are you?” the girl says. “You’ve got some bad people after you.”
I look right and left, but there’s no girl. That’s when I realize the voice is in my head.
“Are you talking to me?” I say uncertainly.
“Who else would I be talking to?”
“I hear your voice in my head.”
“Of course it’s in your head. We’re transmitting on an internet channel. I don’t know what kind of equipment you’re using, but you broke in on my hack, so I think I deserve to know who I’m talking to.”
I look at Chance, wondering if he can hear her, too. He’s pedaling as fast as he can, his face tense and focused, completely oblivious to the conversation I’m having.
That’s when I realize that it’s the collar! Myron said it translated the signal somehow, and it powered up in Chance’s bedroom—
The girl’s voice cuts in again. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me who you are.”
“My name’s Wild.”
“That’s your handle?”
“What’s a handle?”
“Your hacker name.”
“I’m not a hacker.”
“Nice try. You’re up in my signal,” she says. “You couldn’t get here without some powerful tech.”
I moan in frustration. I don’t know what’s happening exactly, but I know this girl can understand me, so I decide to go with it.
“I told you my name,” I say. “What’s yours?”
“You can call me Junebug.”
“That’s your hacker name?”
“You ask a lot of questions for a girl being chased by security troops.”
“Who’s chasing us exactly?”
She takes a sharp breath, and I wonder if she’s stalling for time before answering the question.
“I don’t know who they are,” she says. “Some kind of high-level security operation. Advanced tech. Coordinated. Maybe military.”
“Military? Don’t you mean Animal Control?”
“Animal Control? Did you escape from a circus or something?”
That’s when I realize she doesn’t know I’m a dog. She’s hearing the voice in my head, a girl’s voice, so she’s assuming I’m human.
One thing’s for sure. I’m not going to correct her.
“Hey, Junebug, thanks for your help. We could sure use a friend right now.”
I hear her sigh on the transmission. “Friends. Yeah, I don’t have a lot of those.”
“Why not?”
“Long story, Wild. Not really the time for it. Besides, I see another half dozen vans on my monitor converging on the corner of Twenty-Sixth and Montana.”
“That makes eight vehicles in all. It’s like a small army.”
“Like I said. Military.”
“The people you’re listening to—have they used the name Maelstrom?”
There’s a moment of hesitation on the line.
“I’ve never heard that name,” she says quickly, but I noticed the pause before she answered. “Animal Control, Maelstrom, angry Uber drivers. I don’t know who the heck they are,” she says.
“So why are they looking for me?”
“It’s not you. They’re looking for a dog.”
I’m not willing to tell her any more, so I decide to lie to her.
“Like you said before, it’s a code. My hacker name is Wild, and they call me the Dog.”
“Damn, I’m good!” Junebug says, and she lets out an excited whoop.
I hear tires squeal up ahead. I look at the nearest street sign. We’re on Montana and Nineteenth Street, moving toward Twentieth.
“You said something about Twenty-Sixth Street, right, Junebug?”
“For sure. That’s where they’re waiting.”
“It’s a trap!” I say. “What did you mean when you said you could see my signal?”
“You’re emitting a low frequency GPS signal like a car or a phone.”
“But I’m on a bike. And I don’t have a phone.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. If I can see you, they can see you. So if you want my help—”
I look at Chance sweating with exertion. I don’t know how much more of this he can take. The street sign for Twenty-Second flashes by.
“We want it,” I say.
“Cool,” she says, and I hear keys tapping.
Chance is pedaling for all he’s worth, but he has no idea he’s heading for a trap. The vans behind us drop back, aware that we’re moving into danger. We cross Twenty-Third Street and Chance speeds up, thinking he’s getting away.
Junebug’s voice is back in my head.
“There’s an alley on your right after Twenty-Fifth Street. It’s not on the map.”
“I see it!”
I whine at Chance to get his attention, and then I nudge my nose against his right hand.
“Not now,” he says, stealing a quick glance at the vans behind. “I have to get us out of here.”
I nip his hand, again gesturing to the right with my snout.
“Cut that out,” he says.
I lick his hand, and he looks at me and his expression shifts to curiosity.
“What are you trying to tell me?” he asks.
I position my snout toward the alley. It’s ahead on the right, just like Junebug said it would be.
“You want me to turn in to that alley?” Chance asks.
I bark at him.
“This is not happening,” he mutters under his breath, and he yanks the handlebars to the right, nearly toppling us over, but cutting down the alley and avoiding the unseen trap ahead.
“Good job, Chance!” I bark my approval.
“You did it!” Junebug shouts. “When you hit Washington, take a right.”
Behind us, the first van shoots past the alley, jamming on its brakes when it realizes we’ve disappeared.
I nudge Chance’s arm, indicating we should go to the right.
“Again?” he says, and I bark.
This time he doesn’t argue, and he turns onto Washington, narrowly missing a car coming from the opposite direction.
“Sharp left!” Junebug shouts. “There’s another alley that takes you to Douglas Park.”
I nudge Chance’s left hand.
“How do you know the neighborhood?” he asks.
He turns left, staying just ahead of our pursuers who are pulling onto Washington Street a few blocks back.
“I don’t know how you’re doing this,” Chance says to me. He bikes into the park, pedaling fast down a walking path that runs across the center of the park. The rain has stopped, and there are people everywhere. They shout and jump out of the way.
“Sorry!” Chance yells to them.
“We’re almost out of the park,” I say to Junebug. “What’s next?”
“Until we figure out where your signal is coming from, you have to confuse them. Stay where there’s a lot of interference, like the hig
h-power line that runs along Wilshire Boulevard. Take Wilshire all the way to the Promenade. Do you think you can make it that far?”
I look at Chance. He’s breathing hard, but his face is determined.
“I’m sure we can,” I say. “What happens when we get to the Promenade?”
“You go where the electronic interference is the loudest.”
“Where’s that?”
“The Apple Store.”
WE ABANDON THE BIKE AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE PROMENADE.
Chance seems like he’s in shock, but I can’t tell if it’s from being pursued all over Santa Monica, or because I was giving him directions. He locks up his bike, then stares at me wide-eyed.
“Can you understand me, Wild?”
There are strangers all around us, and I’m afraid to draw any attention, so I play dumb, sniffing the ground and looking this way and that.
“I’m so confused,” Chance says. “Sometimes you act like a regular dog, and sometimes—What are you?”
What am I?
A street drummer starts a set nearby, the rhythms played loudly on overturned white buckets. I look at the hundreds of people on the Promenade, and I realize we’d better keep moving.
Junebug told me to go to the Apple Store. She got us out of the jam with the so-called Animal Control vans, so I don’t see any reason to distrust her advice now.
I look at the map of the Promenade and head south, giving Chance a bark to come with me.
“This is crazy,” he mutters, and he follows along.
The Apple Store is a huge, glass-fronted arch the size of an airplane hangar.
“What are we doing here?” Chance asks.
“I wish I knew.” I bark, and he opens the door for me.
The smell of electronics hits me, and I rear back, uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong?” Chance asks.
There’s something familiar about the smell. Not the Apple Store itself, but the scents of technology—warm aluminum, computer chips, and the wires that connect them. I get a memory flash of a laboratory ringed by computer equipment.
For a second, it feels like I might remember something important—
“A dog and his boy,” a blue-shirted Apple employee says. “It’s like a heartwarming commercial come to life.”
Chance looks at me and rolls his eyes.
“Considering becoming part of the Apple family?”