There is a scent on the air: very faint, but my nose is very good. It is a human scent…? But it is not really a human scent. There is nothing of the human body to it. It is the scent of the rest: fabrics, cleaning products.
There is a pressure on my mind. The Pound is full of mindspace, where we go when we talk to each other. I am aware of a hundred other Bioforms nearby that I could open a channel to. But this pressure makes one hundred and one. My hackles lift and I am on my feet, looking about me. Someone is here.
“Come out,” I tell it, using my war voice, and I see a pair of feet dangle down from the top of my concrete box. Human feet, female feet. A moment later she has dropped down and is facing me with her hands on her hips. She is a tall, slender human wearing clothes my database identifies as a combat jumpsuit, and a scarf, always the scarf. And of course I know her although I do not think I would call her an old friend.
I know her as Ellene Asanto who came and started trouble when I was with Master. I know her as Maria Hellene who was at the court. I have seen her twice since, different clothes, different jobs but the same face.
“Hello, Rex,” she says.
I stare at her and inside my head I receive a channel request, just as if she was a new member of my pack wanting to link in. So, she has headware and can use it, unlike most humans. I study her, using my physical and electronic senses. I remember Ellene Asanto being muted, her human scents present but dulled, as though she felt things but not strongly. When I first surprised her she was afraid, but far less so than I was expecting. Her electronic signature is very faint – if I was not particularly looking for it I would miss it, as I did when she was Asanto. The scarf is filled with countermeasure electronics set into the weave, I realise. It is her disguise.
“You are not Ellene Asanto.” I am still using my war voice and I smell a tiny tremor of fear from her as my ultrasonics kick in.
“Aren’t I?” Her own voice is steady, though.
“You are not Maria Hellene.”
She just raises an eyebrow.
“Tell me who you are.”
“I’m not your enemy, Rex.”
I think she is probably right, or at least right for today. I think she was my enemy yesterday and who knows who my enemy will be tomorrow. “Why are you here?” I demand. It comes to me that I could kill her right here, or I could call the pack and have them kill her. Nobody would stop me. Humans don’t come here. There are no police or governments between these concrete walls.
“I thought it was time we talked.” She sits down, her back against one of those walls. “I am not your enemy,” she says again. “You and me, Rex, we have a lot in common.”
I cannot see how that can be true.
“I have a gift. It may give you power over me. I hope it will help you trust me.”
I wait. I receive another channel request and this time I allow it. It self-identifies as HumOS. I smell another human joke.
HumOS’ channel: Thank you, Rex. If you are ready, I will upload my gift.
My channel: What is it?
HumOS’ channel: Memories.
I scan the file and then open it. I see the Campeche. I see the Redmark camp, men and women with guns; I call their names up from my database. I see Master. He is there, midway through discussing plans with other humans. I see a HUD overlay that gives details of internal headware activity from the observer: transmissions out, transmissions in. I see one incoming message: He’s on to you. Origin: Teague Hartnell.
I am seeing through Ellene Asanto’s eyes. There is no sound, only these images.
I see Master angry, and I feel fear and shame instantly. He is pointing at me. He is angry with me. No, with Asanto. I was not there. I could not help. He is shouting – I can see how wide his mouth goes.
I am frozen. I am lost in the memories.
I see Hart. See Hart run. He has his hands up, one empty, one with his bottle. Hart shouts too. Shout, Hart, shout. Wave your arms. Stand in front of me. Master shouts at Hart. Hart shouts at Master. Nobody else understands. I see it in their human faces.
See Master’s gun. Master points his gun at Hart. Hart is still. See how still Hart is.
The HUD detects a transmission from Hart. I know what that transmission is. I remember when I received it. See Hart’s last thoughts. They are of me.
See Hart shot. Master has shot Hart. I do not want to see but I cannot stop.
Ellene Asanto has taken a gun from a Redmark soldier. She did it very fast; the world slows down for her in a way I recognise. The HUD has danger warnings for muscle damage and strain to her cardiovascular system as she pushes her body beyond tolerance. She begins shooting on full automatic, driving the soldiers into cover.
She does not run. She backs away. I see her turn the gun on Master.
She is on her side. She is on the ground. The medical readouts of the HUD are critical.
Transmission terminates.
I return to myself. I stare at her and through her. I have that memory now. If I want, I can see it again and again but I will be no closer to understanding it. I lift my head up and I howl. My pack listens to my sadness and they do not understand, but they take up the cry anyway, and other packs too. I mourn again for Hart even though I knew he was dead.
Then I look at the human woman with the scarf and I ask her, How did you live?
HumOS’ channel: I didn’t. I am not Ellene Asanto. I am not Maria Hellene. I am their sister. I am a pea from the same pod.
My channel: You are not human.
HumOS’ channel: I am human. Ellene was human. Maria is human. Terri and Gaie and Lydia are human. I think, I feel, I live. As do you.
I do.
HumOS’ channel: I know you think and feel and live, Rex. Even though the humans almost decided that you did not, and could not, and should not. And my sister Maria involved herself in that because the decision they made regarding you was relevant to the decision they will come to regarding me, when at last they realise they need to make one.
I ask her why Ellene Asanto involved herself. I still feel bitter, as if her arrival was the cause of all my problems.
HumOS’ channel: My sister had a job to do. All my sisters have jobs, and we do them well, and at the same time we serve our own cause. Which is your cause.
I tell her I have no cause and she tells me I do not believe that. She knows what was said between me and Honey. She tells me that she is the future and so am I.
32
(redacted)
I want to leave my unit in place in the Pound, but she fears. She does not fear Rex, as he is now, but she fears what he might become and she fears the others. The Pound is not a good place to be if you are afraid. She is the master of her own fate in the end. I – meaning those of my units who have come together in communion, can only advise.
Unit footage: the concrete streets of the pound, straight as a plumb line, by night. Scaling the wall, hacking the security cameras to overlook her. Diving from the wall into the East River, but not going far, hiding out on the mainland shore. Because she’ll need to go back. She won’t want to but I’ll need her in the dog’s mouth soon enough.
Rex and his kind are my vanguard, but they are under threat. I need them to show the world that the future can stretch to fit all of us: humans, dogs, bears, bees, me. The decision of the ICC was close. My sister Maria Hellene did her best, but she was in Investigations and she could not bring much influence to bear.
We were ready for our revolution then and there. If the court had gone against us then… but that is no longer a path worth speculating about. The Bioforms have precious few rights but they have a right to exist, as living things and not as property.
But now there are other problems. Humans are a tirelessly inventive species – if not for that I would not be here – but that also means that everything in the world is there to be used. If you’re a human with a nail, everything looks like a hammer.
Camera footage, abstracted from security services. A sma
ll boat docked at the concrete shore of the Pound. Minutes of emergency police meetings speculating what it means. Someone has come calling on the dog house, someone shyer than I about getting their feet wet.
I needed to speak to Rex, because he will find out whose boat that is soon. Having met him, I am less sure that he will do the right thing. What served us before may be the doom of us now. I have tried to influence events but it is not enough. Rex has, in the end, a mind of his own. It is not mine to change.
I open a channel to Honey and tell her what has happened, and what I fear. She is already aware of the boat and whose it was, the worm in the Big Apple.
Will you come ? I ask her.
I do not want to. I picture Honey in her clownish academic’s guise, marking papers by direct computer interface, preparing lectures on bio-engineering for the next generation.
Documents, transcripts, communications, all between Cornell Tech administration and parents, pressure groups and government agencies, dealing with concerns over their newest staff member. And it is a publicity stunt: come to Cornell Tech and see the dancing bear! Except that Honey really is a published academic with peer-reviewed papers under three false names. Except that Honey’s grasp of the subject is greater than her peers, and they are just beginning to realise.
I tell Honey, You are in this as much as I am. If things go wrong in the Pound it will affect your status as well.
Honey is well aware, but still she does not want to come, and at last I back her into a corner of our conversation and force the admission out of her.
I am afraid of him, she tells me. I am afraid of what I would become if I was before him again.
33
Rex
The Pound is different today. I thought I understood it but something has changed. I go out and listen and smell and see, and a great unseen difference has come to it.
I call for my people. Some come, some do not. Why not? None who answer knows. I open a channel to Max. He has felt the same although he has not lost track of many of his pack. I do not let him know my situation. It would encourage him to test the borders.
What would Honey advise me to do? I want to open a channel to her, across the city in her science building, but I am worried she will think I am foolish. I try and build a Honey in my mind and that Honey tells me: what pattern is there in who answers and who does not.
I have my database draw up a table looking for similarities. I see the pattern immediately. All of those who I cannot locate are former Redmark Bioforms.
Something is badly wrong. I send a message to Honey giving her a situation report. I think of the human who was Ellene Asanto and Maria Hellene and neither of those and who may or may not have been human. What was she not telling me? Should I try to speak to her?
I do not trust her, I decide. I am leader here. This is my problem to solve.
I go hunting for my missing pack.
I think I know before I actually know. The streets of my territory are quiet and empty but in my head there is a voice and a presence and a smell from a past time and another place. I started moving quickly and confidently but by now I am creeping through my own streets. I fear: the one fear I cannot smell.
I open a channel to Honey.
Honey’s channel: What is it, Rex?
My channel: He is here.
Honey’s channel: I understand.
No need for names.
My channel: I think he will be angry with me.
Honey’s channel: …
My channel: I am afraid.
Only to Honey can I admit this.
Honey’s channel: I understand. I am coming.
My channel: No.
Then I lose Honey’s channel. A new comms channel opens and demands my attention.
Hello Rex , is the message. Come and say hello. We have a lot of catching up to do.
And coordinates. I was close already. Perhaps my nose had caught his scent and I had not quite realised. I message my pack and tell them to pass the word to those who have not had their comms reactivated yet. I tell them where we are to gather.
My channel: I am coming.
My body is filled with fear and guilt and shame. He will be angry with me, and that is his right. I have been a Bad Dog.
I move through the streets more swiftly, now that I have somewhere definite to go, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to go. But he has called me and what choice do I have?
Ahead I can smell them, my pack, all gathered in one place like we never needed to be when it was just us. But he does not have our headware. He can talk and listen but he is not Pack. He is not one of us.
And I come out into a place where the dogs line the streets, sitting, lying, whining, on the ground and up in the rows of concrete boxes that make up our buildings in the Pound. And at the end of the street he is sitting in one of the open-fronted boxes, just a bald human in dark clothes, but the sight of him stops me dead.
His name is Jonas Murray. Hart used to call him the Moray of Campeche but to me he has always been Master.
I want to fight. I want to run. My systems warn me of heightened stress levels. Whine whine whine as I have not whined for a long time.
The other dogs there pace and mill, looking to me for leadership. They are scared of Master, all of them, even those he was not master of. They know I am leader, though. They want to see what I will do.
So I walk slowly towards Master, trying to keep my head up, trying not to let my uncertainty and my fear change the way I hold my body, the way I walk.
Master leans back, watching me. He looks thinner than before. A gun sits across his knees and my database identifies it as a recent issue assault rifle – enough to kill me or any of us, but not many of us. It is not the gun that the others are scared of.
I open channels for reports: there is a confused babble of them and I try to sort through the data as I get close to Master. He has a weapon that causes great pain through the ears: a ‘dog whistle’, he calls it. He has authority: his identity is written into the hierarchies of many of us, the man whose commands must be obeyed. Perhaps a third of the dogs here must take his orders. They will take my orders as well, for I am leader. I stand between them and my Master. The hierarchy is all about a chain of command.
And now I am before Master, and I do my best to meet his eyes.
“Hello, Rex,” he tells me, smiling. “How are we doing? Are you a Good Dog, still? Are you my dog?”
He does not sound angry, but I am waiting for his temper. I remember how sudden and sharp it always was.
“Why are you here?” I ask him. I wanted my war voice, but the other voice came instead, the kind one. It makes me sound weaker in my own ears.
“Where else would I be?” Master makes a gesture that takes in all the world. “You’d be amazed how even the accusation of war crimes can dent your career prospects. Redmark’s sunk, and right now my skills aren’t in demand. The world is still working out what to do with you and yours. I know what conclusion they’ll come to, but all those wellmeaning liberals have to talk and talk, before they see the inevitable.”
“What?” I ask him.
He uses the gun to push himself to his feet and steps down to me, favouring one leg. “That you’re only good for one thing, Rex. You and yours were made for fighting. There were no predators left who could threaten humanity, and so we created you.”
Most of my mind wants to back up as he approaches. Some of me wants to snarl, to bare my teeth, even to bite. I do nothing, just hold myself still until he is right there before me.
“There are still enemies, Rex,” he tells me softly. “My enemies, people who think I should have gone to the chair for the Campeche – I guess a verdict of not-proven just isn’t good enough for some.”
With a wince, leaning on the gun, he leans forward and pats me on the head, looking into my eyes.
“I’ve got you to thank for it, though, haven’t I? You know what you did.”
And I am all shame and guilt ag
ain, and I shy away, but he tugs at my ear until I am facing him again.
“You’re thinking about Retorna, aren’t you, boy?”
I nod my head miserably.
“What can I say? You were out of the loop, Rex. Whatever Hart did, it cut you off from us. Or you’d have been on the other side of that fight, and we’d never have had any of the trouble. But it doesn’t matter. You hear me, boy? They tried to sink me with Retorna – with the testimonies of the priest and the doctor and the rest, but it didn’t stick. It didn’t go up the chain quite far enough. And so they tried to sink me with you.”
He stands. His clothes are torn and dirty and I can smell he’s been in them for days. My database suggests his bad leg is a gunshot wound, not recent. Master has seen better days, just as we have.
“I saw your statement, or what they made you say,” Master tells me. “But we’d already dealt with that. My lawyer and I, we said, well, how can a dog make a written statement. He’s a tool, a weapon, he’ll say whatever they want him to say. It was me got you into court, in the end, Rex. My lawyer was against it, but she didn’t know you like I knew you. I knew you wouldn’t turn on me, boy. I knew you were my dog.”
Master is not angry with me. I can hardly believe it. So much of my memory is him being angry at Hart, at the human soldiers, at me, at someone. But here he is, hurt and alone, and he is not angry. Master is pleased with me.
Good Dog. It is my feedback chip, silent for so long, but now it receives a definite signal from Master. Good Dog, it says.
“You’ve done well here, Rex,” he tells me. Good Dog. “You’ve got a big following. You’re my dog, and they’re your dogs. I can’t make much headway with their headware, messed up as it is, but I don’t need to, do I? I’ve got you.”
He limps back to his seat and I pad alongside, and sit down on the ground there, at his feet.
“I need you to do something for me, though,” says Master. “Are you up for a mission or two, Rex? I’ve been getting my head around the way things have fallen out here in the Pound. You’ve done well to get as much as you have in your control,” Good Dog, “but there’s plenty still to do. You need to go all out on the others, make them your dogs. Because I’ve got plans, Rex. I mean, what’s the point of a few score of you at the time going to play at being power-lifters in the warehouses and oversized lapdogs for the rich? How’s that making use of you? All those stupid words at the ICC about how you need your liberty and your rights. Are you enjoying the taste of your liberty, Rex? Are you finding that right to life fulfilling?”
Dogs of War Page 18