That evening, after dinner, when the Macks were all bedded down in their stalls and the trainees were supposed to be studying, Jimmy answered a knock on the door of his room to find Alec Higgins standing in the hall. “C’mon in,” he said, gesturing toward the easychair. “I’ve got beer.”
Alec’s shoulder patches were identical to Jimmy’s, though his coverall bore a broad red stripe from left shoulder to hip. He shook his head. “Nah. I just wanted to stretch my legs. Come with?”
“Sure.” Together, they passed down the dorm’s central hallway toward the staircase, ignoring the sounds of veedos, music, and conversation behind the doors they passed. At the head of the stairs, they leaned over a balcony to watch the dimly lit floor of the puppy barn below. Steel cages kept the pups away from the groundfloor entries, and drainage grills surrounded the bases of the pillars that upheld the dormitory level.
The puppies were smaller than Tige was now but still huge, huge enough, Jimmy recalled, simultaneously to intimidate and to enthrall a young man, fresh out of high school, who had never seen them before. Now they lay in sprawling heaps, nestled in straw, windrowed against a wall, snorting, kicking, whining. Litterbugs quietly patrolled the floor.
“Making any progress with Julia?”
“Hah!” Jimmy raised his upper lip, fleering as might a Mack that scented something pungent. After a long moment of silence, he said, “Remember what you told me?”
“Mmm?”
“About how Julie and her friends rode their Macks to a local Scottish games.”
“And the pups chased the cabers?”
“Yeah. Do you think she’d like a dog that does tricks?”
“You been teaching Tige to roll over?”
Jimmy gave a short laugh. “Not yet. Not that, anyway.”
Alec grinned. “Maybe, but it ain’t smart, you know. Keep ’em on the wire. Don’t give ’em any choices. And BRA won’t give you any trouble.”
“I know, but…” Jimmy didn’t think it was fair. Tige was obviously smart enough to train, quickly and well. He was probably smart enough to drive on the road without any computer hook-up at all. Plugging him in must be like gluing a concert pianist’s fingers to the keys of a player piano. No trouble, yes. But also no freedom.
“As for women,” said Alec, with a wink. “The last thing you want to do is start rolling over for them.”
* * * *
Was that what Julie liked? Dog games? Tricks? Sitting up and shaking hands were kid stuff. But the Daisy Hill Truck Farm would not, he was sure, approve of building a catapult to throw tree trunks for the Macks to fetch. So maybe he should teach Tige to point every time he saw Julie. No. He shook his head. She probably would not consider that cute.
What could Jimmy do? How could he convince Julie to pay attention to him? She was older, yes, but not that much older. A year, that was all. That was nothing.
Julie herself had trained her Mack for riding. So had every other trainee, even him. Most straddled their truck’s neck, hooking their feet under the collar. A few preferred to put a strap around the genimal’s chest to bind a broad bench-like seat upon its back, which was much too broad to straddle.
How trainable were the Macks? No one knew. No one had ever tried to find out, for no one had ever needed to know. As soon as the Macks were grown, their computers made them do everything their masters wished.
It didn’t take much longer for Jimmy to decide that perhaps, just maybe, if only he could train Tige to do something new, something no one had ever seen a Mack truck do before, something the computers were never programmed to make a Mack do, for it had nothing to do with trucking, then he could impress Julie and get her attention. And then.… The grin he grinned in the privacy of his skull, he knew, was as fatuous as it could be, but the knowledge did not stop him.
* * * *
The stock from which Macks had been gengineered had been dominated by English bulldogs, but some showed strong signs of other stocks that had gone into the genetic mix. Julie’s Mack, for instance, had a slenderer build and was marked with a few large, white spots on a black background. She resembled more than anything else a Boston bulldog grown up. Julie called her Blackie.
Jimmy stood near the bus barn, chewing his lip and watching the girl and her Mack as they left the latter’s stall. Blackie wore only her collar, Julie her Farm coveralls and shoulder patches.
Blackie was half again as big as Tige, but that was only because she was a year older and that much closer to her full growth. Eventually Tige would match her, and they would make a pair of Macks well suited for the long-haul routes.
Would he—could he?—be as good a match for Blackie’s driver? For Julie?
He winced as his teeth came down too hard on a fold of skin. He would never have a chance to find out, would he? Tige was smart, yes. He learned quickly, and he seemed to grasp immediately whatever Jimmy wished. But he could not learn anything that the human could not teach. And Jimmy had been able to think of nothing that might have the remotest chance of making Julie notice him.
He wondered whether she might have any interest in the more abstract question of whether Macks truly needed computer controls. She knew they didn’t, for she seemed about to go riding, and Blackie would do her bidding for love and eagerness to please. Not because she was forced willy-nilly to obey.
As Julie closed the door to the stall, Jimmy waved. She turned her head, saw who he was, and turned away. She swung onto the Mack’s neck and tucked her feet beneath the collar.
“Litter,” said Jimmy. Her deliberate ignoring of his greeting stung. He patted Tige’s shoulder and asked plaintively, “We haven’t got a chance.”
The Mack lowered his great head as if he understood. Jimmy climbed aboard, and they followed Blackie onto the turved greenway that passed the Farm, Tige’s nails clicking occasionally on the patches of ancient pavement that poked through the grass. Jimmy wished that she would turn and notice him and pause to wait for him. But that didn’t matter, any more than did her destination. In just a moment, he and Tige would catch up, while the farm’s buildings were still in sight behind, and then…
What could he say? What could he do?
He could only try.
“Julie!” he called.
She turned, saw who was behind her, shook her head, made an exasperated face, and turned again, away. Jimmy sensed the clear thought: He was just a kid, right? A year younger, a year less trained. Not worthy of her time.
He slapped Tige on the neck behind his ear. “Go on, boy. Get ahead of her.” Then, as Tige drew abreast, he said, “Julia! I’ve done it!”
When she did not stop or seem to notice, Jimmy had Tige put on enough speed to draw ahead a hundred feet and stop. Then, “Watch!” he yelled, and “Sit,” he said, and Tige lowered his hindquarters to the ground. “Beg,” and the massive forepaws rose mantis-like into the air. “Speak!” and a thunderous “Woof!” shook the air.
Jimmy untangled his feet from Tige’s collar and slid down his back, checking the slide by grabbing handsful of fur. Tige’s skin twitched but otherwise the Mack ignored him, holding his pose almost as rigidly as a statue.
Blackie came nearer and stopped. Julie stared curiously, first at Tige, then at Jimmy. “How’d you get him to do that?”
“I showed him. And I bet Blackie would catch on just as fast.” He gestured, inviting her to join him on the ground.
Jimmy watched her hesitate while the wish to know more rose to dominate her scorn for an underclass kid. He turned to the Mack and said, “Lie down.” Tige obeyed, and when Jimmy turned back to Julie, he found her standing beside him, an arm’s length away. His heart leaped within his chest. He swallowed painfully. She was interested!
“How did you show him?”
“I squatted and begged and lay down and rolled over. An
d he caught on real fast. They’re pretty smart.” He eyed her cautiously. “I bet Blackie could catch on, too.”
She looked back at her Mack. The genimal was standing quietly, watching the proceedings with every appearance of alert attention. “There’s not much point, is there? I mean, it’s neat, but who wants a truck that can do tricks?”
Jimmy’s spirits fell. He had been right. Such simple tricks were not enough. He waved a hand, and Tige promptly stood up. “But…,” he said. “It means that we can drive our trucks without the computers. We can train them to do what we say! We don’t need to enslave them.”
She shook her head. “BRA would never allow it. It’s not reliable enough.” She turned toward her Mack. “You’re too idealistic.”
Jimmy clearly heard the words she did not say out loud: “Grow up, kid. Forget the silly ideas.”
Her tone changed suddenly. “Blackie! Hold still! Dammit!” Jimmy spun around. Julie was reaching for her Mack’s collar, but the genimal was sidling away from her. “Look at this!” she cried. “If she had a computer, there wouldn’t be any of this nonsense.”
Jimmy had to agree that Blackie’s behavior was unusual. “She’s too young to be in.….” He caught himself. When the gengineers had removed the male Mack’s ability to respond to heat pheromones, they had also removed the female’s ability to produce them, and to respond to male odors. They had, the textbook said, reasoned that while trucks should not respond to each other in that way, neither should the male trucks chase unmodified dogs, or the dogs chase female trucks. For the trucks, mating was necessarily a matter of artificial insemination.
“Look at her!” Julie had stopped chasing the Mack. Now she stood, legs spread, arms akimbo, watching as Blackie moved closer to Tige while Tige raised his head and sniffed. Then Jimmy’s Mack stepped forward to butt Julie’s with the side of his head.
Blackie stood still and cocked her head attentively. Now Tige barked once, softly, and sat. Blackie promptly followed suit. Tige shifted into the begging posture, and so did Blackie.
“I’ll be damned!” Julie scowled and stamped one foot on the turf of the greenway. She turned toward Jimmy. “Did you teach him this, too?”
Jimmy shook his head. He was as surprised as she, but he was grinning with delight.
“Then help me separate them!”
“No!” he cried, putting out a hand to halt her movement toward the genimals. He hesitated, trying to think of a plausible excuse for denying her. “They must be trying to show us how smart they are.”
“Bull litter!” She pushed his arm aside and reached for her truck’s collar. Blackie responded by sidestepping, turning, facing her mistress, and barking once, gently, just as Tige had spoken to her. But she did not sit. Instead, using her nose, she butted Julie gently in the chest, pushing her inexorably toward Jimmy.
Tige simply lay down on the turf, his chin on his forepaws, watching. Jimmy reached out, and when his hand touched Julie’s shoulder, Blackie backed off, lay down beside Tige, and joined the watch. Together, they blocked the road entirely. Fortunately, for the moment, there was no traffic.
Julie tried to jerk away, but Jimmy’s hand tightened. “I think,” he said. “I think your truck wants us together.”
“It’s none of her business!” She twisted and freed herself of his grasp.
“But that’s why I taught Tige those tricks.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t really trying to prove we don’t need the computers. We don’t, but I really just wanted to impress you. To get your attention.”
She was looking at him now. He was not quite a kid anymore. “And you expect me to think that my truck agrees with you? That I should let you court me? That I should…?”
He said nothing. He simply stood, staring, his hands limp at his sides. The Macks watched them both.
“You are out of your ever-lovin’ mind!”
Despite her words, his heart leaped in his chest. She was smiling as she spoke. Smiling at him. And the future bloomed as bright as it had ever done in his dreams.
But then he frowned. His mood crashed. His future was bright.
Tige’s was darker than ever. His destiny had not changed. He was still the pianist who would have his fingers glued to the keyboard of a player piano, forced to follow willy-nilly someone else’s score. But it was not just freedom Tige—and Blackie, too—would lose. Their controlling computers would deny them any chance to exercise the virtuosity they had just displayed.
“What’s the matter?” Her hand was on his arm. Concern was in her voice.
He looked at the Macks. They understood so much. Perhaps they even understood this, though their doggy grins said as clearly as words that life held more important things to worry about.
He sighed. Worry was a human thing, wasn’t it? Animals, even gengineered animals, tended far more to live in the moment.
Still, he would have to tell her. Perhaps, together, they could find an answer.
HARD TIMES
Sorry!
“We can turn you into any animal you wish,” said the woman from TransLife. She herself had a mane of russet hair that reminded him of a fox’s tail. Her disdainful nose helped the illusion, and he wondered if she had changed her mind halfway through the process. Whatever it was.
She pointed to her open sample book. “Lions. Porpoises. Dogs. Even birds. Or we can plug you into the machinery and let the computer give you the perfect match. You’ll wake up in whatever animal best suits your personality.”
He hesitated. He had filled out a blank at the zoo’s TransLife booth. It had been an invitation for a salesperson, he knew. And he was certainly sick of his human life. Bolting nuts on assembly lines, polishing the city’s blundering buses, anything that would feed him for another day. Robot work. Hard work, boring, unsatisfying, and none of it with a future.
“Isn’t it expensive?” he asked at last.
“Only if you choose some common animal, or if you insist on being released in the wild. Choose an exotic, and let the zoo have you, and it’s free.” She faced him steadily. Her gray eyes didn’t blink. Yes, she seemed to be saying. That’s what all those exhibits are. The real things are almost extinct now. Of course they’re people. “Or you can let the zoo choose.”
Life was hard as a human, especially since the welfare system had collapsed in his childhood. But at least you had your freedom. You’d lose that in the zoo, he thought. Though you wouldn’t have to worry anymore. Or work.
“That doesn’t sound so bad.” He sighed and looked away. The TV set in his single room hadn’t worked for months. Movies were out of the question. And the price of beer had just gone up. “And I want out. But can a guy change his mind later on?”
“No.” She shook her head gently. Her mane swayed. “Once you’ve made the change, you won’t be able to ask. You’ll be an animal.”
“Then it’s for good.” Even so, he thought, it’s got to be better. Anything would be. Work your ass off for a meal. Go hungry for a shirt. Always a month behind on the rent.
“That’s right.”
He nodded and reached for her pen.
* * * *
When he woke, he remembered the dream. He had been spiking litter in the city park, stripping paper into a sack tied to his waist. Over and over: spear and strip, spear and strip. Cleaning up after the City Hall picnic. Ten bucks a day. Room and board and a six-pack. He’d had better jobs.
The headache brought him rolling to his feet. All four of them. Oh, Christ! he thought. What am I? He tried to clutch his head and fell. Not a monkey. That wouldn’t have been so bad. Oh!
The pain didn’t surge when he stood up. Not the way it used to. His head didn’t move as far now, and his new, healthy body was already shaking off the pain. He opened his eyes, but the world was a
blur. So now I’m near-sighted. Another change.
He moved, and he heard the scrape of heavy claws against the concrete under him. They’re mine, he thought. They must be. His face moved against the hazy background. It’s long, stretched out. What the hell am I?
He moved again. He could make out a wall, a corner, and another wall. A darker shadow seemed to be a door, an exit. He turned, and he caught a glimpse of his heavy tail. Conical. Like a pastry tube. What am I?
His belly rumbled. He felt a stirring in his mouth. The exit beckoned. He scraped through it and into a narrow tunnel. The sides brushed his fur and tickled the tops of his ears. The concrete gave way to dirt as he stepped into a larger, better lit enclosure. He explored and found a low wall, just high enough to keep him in, a mound of packed dirt, and a stream of water running through a stone trough.
A hazy figure appeared beyond the wall. It drew nearer, and he made out a white uniform. A zoo attendant, and he carried a bucket.
The keeper set the bucket on the wall. “A little strange, eh, fellow? Can’t say I ever wanted to try it. But they say you’ll get used to it.”
Claws shuffled in the dirt as the beast approached. He craned his long snout upward and received a friendly pat between the eyes. The keeper then took a small cardboard box from his bucket. He paused as if reading the label, ripped it open, and cast the contents across the dirt within the enclosure. “Your first meal, fellow. Have fun!”
Thomas A. Easton’s GMO Future MEGAPACK® Page 11