The Year's Best Science Fiction--Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  Ever the first to respond, Jen rushed up with paper towels, apologizing as she wiped Lorna’s shoes and pushing Benji away. Lorna slipped her shoes off as Jen wiped them, and said loudly, “Well, if that’s his attitude, I don’t see why you keep him. He must be bad for Marty.” She shrugged. “You oughtta just have him put down, and save yourselves the trouble—”

  At that, Benji started snarling at her, showing his teeth, and Jen searched the crowd for me, made eye contact. I’d just been standing there watching this, and suddenly realized this was my dog who was acting out. I hurried over, and said, “Okay, Benji, time to go inside,” and reached down to hook my fingers under his collar.

  “No!” he barked, his speech half snarl and his hackles on end. I yanked my hand back as he snapped at it. The crowd gasped in shock. Each word that followed was like that first word, a sharp snap of noise, some frightening amalgam of barking and speech and growl: “I … won’t … go … in…” It was just like how Marty threw tantrums: “I … won’t … eat … it!”

  But I didn’t respond the way I did to Marty. No cajoling, no encouraging, no teasing. “Benji!” I yelled. “Don’t you talk to me that way!”

  His response was a snarl, and he lunged at me again, snapped his teeth at me. I jumped back, suddenly much more angry than before. “Benji, you get inside now, or else.”

  “Or else what?” he snarled.

  I stood there, my mind blank, my mouth wide.

  Then, suddenly, he stopped snarling. He just sniffed, once. There an expression I’d never seen before on his face, something new, something I couldn’t read. Then he broke into a run towards the gate that opened out on the front walk. I couldn’t understand why he went there, unless to go indoors, since he’d never been able to get the latch open with his mouth.

  But then, around the corner, I heard human voices call out, “Hey!” and “Oh my God!” at the same time. Rounding the corner, I found the gate wide open, and Chad and Anoo on the other side of it, bowled over, potato salad and smoked sausages spilled all around them on the ground. He’d heard them open the gate. He’d seen his chance.

  Chad glanced over his shoulder after the dog, saying, “What’s with Benji?”

  * * *

  He was gone.

  I drove through the streets that night, searching all over the city. I checked all the pounds, went everywhere I’d ever taken him—downtown, to the beach, everywhere. I even went to that spot in Volunteer Park where I’d found him with those other dogs—the spot came to mind immediately when he ran away—but it was deserted. I imagined Benji out on the streets, running alone while fireworks bloomed above him in the dark, roaring sky. It terrified me, but even so, I didn’t find him.

  I waited a week or so, figuring hunger or fear or loneliness might bring him back to us. Every time I left the house, I looked up and down the street, hoping he might be watching from some neighbor’s yard, but if he was, he hid well. I didn’t see him.

  When I tried to figure out who to report it to, nobody wanted to listen. The cops didn’t handle missing animals, not even sentientized ones, and the pound told me sentientized dogs were inevitably caught on first inspection and sent home. They said there were like three ways of identifying the sentientized dog’s home, just in case, and I’d have been contacted within forty-eight hours if he’d ended up at a pound. Finally, I was left with nobody to report it to.

  But one Saturday afternoon about a month later, the cops did show up. Of course, when I answered the door, I was confused at first: they were sitting on the doorstep in slightly tattered uniforms, miserable in the damp summer heat. Their custom scooter sat parked in the driveway. Across the street, Lorna Anderson sat on her stoop, fascinated, and I can’t blame her.

  After all, one of the cops was a big black doberman, and his partner was a squat, muscular bulldog. Both had shoulder cams on, which I supposed streamed directly to a human supervisor.

  “Good morning,” said the doberman, before I had time to really think about the fact who I was talking to. It had a voice so deep and rumbling it could’ve given Barry White a run for his money. “Are you Mr. Stevens?”

  “Uh, yeah?” I nodded.

  The doberman stopped panting long enough to say, “My name is Officer Duke Smith. My partner is officer Cindy. Just Cindy, no family name.”

  “Okay…”

  “Can we come in please?”

  “Uh … is this about Benji?” I said, and found myself adjusting my position. I was blocking the doorway a little more. I don’t know why, except maybe this sense of … of shame, I guess. Like if they came in the house, they might, what, know why Benji had run away? They might smell something wrong with us? That it was our fault?

  “Yes, sir, and it’s rather serious. We need some information from you,” Cindy said, half-growling.

  “Okay,” I said, stepping aside. They hurried in, sniffing the air, and I led them into the living room. “So, do you know where Benji is?” Suddenly I felt even more nervous.

  “No, sir,” said Duke. “Has he contacted you since the day he went missing?” As he asked this, Duke thumped his tail emphatically. Cindy stopped panting, as if she was trying to look businesslike.

  I looked from one to the other, wishing I was better at reading dogs’ eyes. I wasn’t around Benji long enough to really get good at that. I’ve heard they can sniff out a lie, literally scent it on you. Not that I had anything to lie about, really.

  “No, er, officers. No, I haven’t. I’m worried about him, to be honest.” That much was true.

  “And, did Benji ever express any opinions you’d call political?”

  “Political?”

  “Yes, sir. Animal rights, or animal liberation ideology? Anything radical?”

  I laughed softly, before I caught myself. Duke’s eyes narrowed, the brow of his doggie face furrowing like he was getting ready to fetch a stick. Surely he was just mouthing some human cop’s questions, delivered by earphone or implant. Surely a dog couldn’t actually be questioning me? I found myself wondering whether they were paid to do this work, and whether it was in dollars, or biscuits?

  Cindy sniffed the air between us, as if searching me for some clue, and she said, “Mr. Stevens, we’re concerned that Benji’s mixed up with a dangerous organization.…”

  “Dangerous? What, like … dog fights?”

  Duke cocked his head as Cindy said, “No, sir. May we show you?”

  I nodded, and she turned her head. With a practiced movement, she yanked a mouth remote free from her shoulder holster and positioned it between her teeth. She growled softly, turning it with her tongue, and the TV flickered to life.

  It was a black-and-white video, night vision, of some kind of security guard post, with an older man in a uniform seated before a bunch of screens, drinking coffee. The resolution was too blurry to see what he was looking at, but good enough to see he was bored out of his skull.

  Then the door burst inward, like it was kicked in, and someone entered. There was audio of him shouting at the top of his lungs. He was some kind of … a hippie, I guess: dreadlocks, a muscle shirt and tattoos all over his body, in sandals. He was holding a rifle, but he didn’t shoot it: he only pointed it at the man, shouting orders. Drop your gun. Hands behind your head.

  The man obeyed. Then a pack of dogs poured into the room and mobbed the poor man, crowding around him, tearing him apart. The man’s screams were terrifying, and blood pooled at their feet, spread across the floor as he fell to the ground, and still they tore at him, until the snarling and howling drowned out his weakening screams. As he went silent, they began to howl, bark-shouting curses and clawing at him.

  “This was at an animal pound in San Diego last night,” says Duke flatly.

  “God,” I said.

  “Some of these dogs are on file: sentientized runaways. Others look like they’re probably strays who were sentientized recently, later in life. The treatment is less effective that way, but it’s still possible. Now, this…”


  Then the perspective changed, as Cindy moved the mouth remote slightly with a click. The video paused, and then zoomed in on one of the dogs.

  There he was, on the screen. My little terrier, my Benji, his furry little face covered in blood, mid-bark-curse, his tail wagging furiously.

  “Is that Benji?” asked Duke the doberman.

  I couldn’t tell. It was so strange, not knowing. “Uh, maybe? I’d have to hear his voice.” Duke nodded, self-consciously using human body language for my benefit I suppose, and the video jumped forward, scanning through the footage until the terrier was in frame again, and speaking.

  “Jesus!” said some dog offscreen. “Did we have to kill him?”

  “They kill hundreds of us every day, for much less,” said the terrier. Said Benji, for I knew it was him now.

  Cindy muted the video but let it run as a crew of young people, women and men in black and wearing balaclavas, quickly unlocked all the cages in the shelter. When they left, they stepped over the mauled security guard without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Yeah, I don’t know,” I said to him finally. “I don’t see him, but…”

  “Uh huh. It’s a little hard to tell, I know. We do have stool samples, though, so I guess we’ll know soon enough through DNA testing. These dogs seem to like crapping in places where they know they shouldn’t.” A chihuahua stared into the camera, stared into my eyes, and said something. Dogs don’t have lips, so it’s pretty hard to lip-read them when they talk, but I’d swear it’d said, Fuck you.

  Somehow, that chihuahua was too much. I ran for the kitchen sink, arriving just in time to avoid throwing up all over the floor. I had an empty stomach, so it was just gastric juices, but still. I felt sick at the thought of it. And terrified. Benji … had we made him like this? It was like … I felt like some serial killer’s father must feel, I guess. It was so confusing, the guilt and shame.

  The dog police stayed in the living room, speaking softly to each other as they waited patiently while I rinsed my mouth out. I was frightened, now, of Benji. I’d never imagined he could do something like that. Not a thinking, rational animal like him. Sure, he wasn’t a human being, but I didn’t think he was a cold-blooded killer, either.

  When I got back to the living room, the dogs said, “So, that was Benji?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s him. What the hell was he doing?”

  Officer Smith nodded at Officer Cindy, and said, “Busting dogs from the pound. Down in California. We don’t know how he got there, or what the group is doing with all those dogs they busted loose. None of them were sentientized. Just normal dogs.”

  “What for?”

  Officer Duke looked over at Cindy, and then back to me. “Well … it’s just a theory, but some animal rights groups online have been talking mass sentientization. Funding treatment for large numbers of animals, and not just dogs. They can’t do that alone, so the next question is: did Benji ever have any human friends around? Animal rights people, PETA, anything suspicious like that?”

  I looked at the doberman in shock. “Animal rights activists?”

  “Yes. That’s what the people in the video are: the Animal Liberation Front. Benji being mixed up with some very bad people. Very dangerous. They’re smuggling synthetic drugs out of Canada in dogs’ bellies. Once or twice a month, some dog will turn up near the B.C. border, dead from an overdose, with a ruptured baggie somewhere in its guts. Our theory is that this is how they’re funding all the sentientization treatments. But what this army they’re building is for … we’re not sure.”

  An army.

  Any reservation or distrust I felt, dissipated before that possibility. Suddenly everything came pouring out of me: his anger, and how he’d started acting up a while ago. I told them about the party—they didn’t seem much interested, like the story was familiar—and I told them about the TV shows he’d watched, which bored them. They seemed ready to go, when I finally realized what I ought to tell them about.

  “There was this one time, in Victory Park,” I said. They exchanged a look, as if to say, finally, something of interest.

  “Go on,” Cindy grumbled.

  “There’s this spot, I mean, I only saw them once, but … there was a group of dogs. Like, a rally or something. It seemed … yeah, I guess, like you said: it seemed political. The leader was some kind of big white husky. I mean, I think it was the leader. It was doing most of the talking, and the other dogs were barking in response.”

  “How many dogs were there?” Duke asked.

  “I don’t know, maybe ten or twelve?”

  “I see,” said Duke, and Cindy pulled up a surface map of the park. “Where was it?” she said, so I showed her on the map.

  “And the husky,” Cindy said. “Would you recognize it if you saw it?”

  I shrugged. “I … probably not. Maybe if I heard his voice. I mean, white huskies all look the same to me. No offense.”

  Neither dog said anything to that, but Cindy quickly asked me one more question: “You’re a medical researcher, correct?”

  I stared at them for a moment, wondering why that mattered. “Yes,” I said, finally, in a tone that made clear I couldn’t understand why they were asking.

  “Did Benji ever ask you about your work?”

  “No,” I said. But a moment popped in my head, vivid and clear. One night, not long before he’d run away, I had found Benji at my desk. His doggie-keyboard within wireless range. A web browser open to his doggie webmail service. But also other windows open, folders containing my various work projects. Everything encrypted, but maybe crackable. I remembered thinking that was strange: I always closed all the folders I was working from when I left the room, especially work folders, because if I didn’t the cloud backup software didn’t work as well. With a sinking feeling, I wondered what folders it’d been, though I couldn’t remember.

  Officers Duke and Cindy sat there, sniffing the air a little. As dogs, they might find my body language as opaque as I found theirs, but I wondered whether they maybe could sniff out my lie of omission.

  And for whose sake was I lying, anyway? If word got out that my dog had stolen confidential information … and if those nuts who’d pressed Benji into their gang ended up using it somehow … my guts sank as I realized just how bad it could be. Never mind the lab, my boss: the stuff I was researching was … in the wrong hands, it could be dangerous. Accelerated gene transfer … the wrong person could design a virus that would sentientize all dogs, an intelligence plague. But if it affected dogs and cats … what would it do to humans?

  I realized I’d been standing there for minutes, not speaking. The cops waited, I guess to see if I had anything else to offer. I didn’t, so finally, I said, “Is there anything else?”

  “No,” said Cindy. “But if Benji contacts you, you need to get in touch with us. Under federal and state laws, sentientized animals are now subject to criminal proceedings. Furthermore, since Benji’s a canine, he cannot be considered a family member. You can and will be forced to testify against Benji if he is apprehended and tried. And you will be considered an accomplice—equally culpable for acts of terrorism—if you aid or abet him or his group in any way.” Cindy paused, as if trying to gauge my reaction, and added, “You should realize you’re on a watch list, and will remain on one until this situation is resolved.”

  Duke added, “One more thing, sir: this group Benji’s tangled up in? They’re dangerous. You need to stay away from him. Do not trust him. If he approaches you, call us. Without delay.” Duke then turned his head to the side. A card slid out automatically from a slot in his uniform’s collar, with a photo of Duke and Cindy, and contact info.

  I nodded. “I understand, Officer.”

  They thanked me for my cooperation, and went to the front door. When I let them out, I saw that Jen had just pulled up the driveway a few minutes before, and gotten Marty out of his car seat. The dogs trotted past them toward their custom scooter, and in a moment all that w
as left of them was the faint ringing in my ears from the roar of the motor. Well, and the tightness in my chest. But what I couldn’t help but think was: they were talking about Benji like he was a criminal. In other words, as if he were a person, not just a dog. Which meant he’d finally gotten what he’d always wanted, I guess.

  “What was that about?” Jen asked as she reached the porch.

  “The cops?” I sighed. “Looking for Benj.”

  Her eyes went wide, though she said nothing. But watching them drive off, Marty mumbled a single, quiet, mournful word: “Benji?”

  * * *

  A few months later, I was walking our new dog, a black Labrador named Cookie, in Victory Park. I was on a picnic with Jennifer and Marty, but they were still on the blanket, on the other side of the park. I don’t know what made me walk to that spot over the rise, but when I did, Cookie started to growl. She was a normal dog, not like Benji. Not sentient, so her growling was just instinct, not rhetoric. And then I turned, and I saw him. It was Benji, walking slowly toward me with this look in his eyes.

  “Cookie, heel,” I said, and Benji’s eyes narrowed. As if being reminded of something painful, like when you see your ex dating someone new a little too soon.

  “We got her for Marty’s sake, Benji. When you ran away, it really confused him.” As if I owed him an explanation. He just sat there, looking at me. “What are you doing here?” I asked quietly, looking around. For cops, or for his dreadlocked friend. “You’re wanted. Not just Seattle cops, but FBI.”

  Ben’s mouth opened slightly, a coughing noise indicating doggy-laughter. “FBI? Ha … try NSA, INTERPOL, the Secret Service…”

  “Are you really smuggling … smuggling drugs?” Cookie growled, tugging at the leash. She either wanted to attack little Benji, or run away.

  “There’s no evidence. Just hearsay. Two dogs with conflicting testimony. Nobody’ll believe a dachshund’s testimony in court.” Benji paused briefly, bitter cough-laugh filling his throat for a moment.