Fantasy & Science Fiction - JanFeb 2017

by Spilogale Inc.

  Nodding, I pretended to give half a shit about her tiny troubles.

  "The thing is, I would have wanted her as she is," said the avatar face. "People are people. That's what I believe. But she proved she wasn't to be trusted, and that means more than anything."

  "Well, I'm not going to lie," I promised.

  "And I don't intend to let you, either. Is that understood?"

  I nodded. I kept smiling. Smiles are important tools in convincing people of pretty much everything in life.

  She opened a drawer.

  "Here's a tidbit," I offered. "A piece of biography not on my resume."

  "All right."

  "I was one of the first people ever tested."

  The big eyes were intrigued, but the mouth remained skeptical.

  "Of course, I can only assume what they found. Privacy laws and all. But this head you're looking at? It was kissed by the prototype sniffer. And then a couple years later, my ex-girlfriend tested me. With a sniffer borrowed from her rich brother."

  "All right," said the woman.

  "Since then, maybe a dozen testers have had their fun with me, and the results never change."

  It was her give-half-a-shit moment, nodding amiably.

  "Psychology," I said.

  "Excuse me?"

  "In college, I read about this unfortunate young man. Like me, he assumed he was normal. Except for the headaches, in his case. When the headaches got unbearable, he went to a doctor. The doctor ordered a CAT scan. And do you know what? The patient was hydrocephalic. Water in place of a normal brain. Save for a thin frosting of white-matter, this miserable fellow had almost no mind, which made him one of the most minimal examples of a functional human being ever discovered. And by functional, I mean that he was a math major. Probably not the smartest mathematician, but certainly better than me. Described as a bit of a straight-line thinker, uncreative by nature. But damn, he had always been a happy boy, right up until he was defined by everything that was missing."

  That unexpected anecdote led to silence.

  From everywhere around us came the cacophony of the kennels. A thousand dogs, some boarded but most living here forever.

  Finally she pulled a trim little soul-sniffer from its drawer: Burmese-built, purchased online for less than a day's minimum-wage earnings. And built for animals, not humans. This woman could be careful with a dollar.

  "Have your look," I said with a theatrical turn of the head. "No whirlpools of goodness here. But afterward, please, check every record. Study my life. This soulless beast has never been accused of stealing. This organic machine has never struck anybody. What sits here will show up for work, usually early, and there won't be complaints about very much. Because this is a compliant sack of meat, and every one of these neurons knows how to act human."

  She wasn't certain how to respond. The polycarbonate tube dropped from sight, and she studied me with nothing but her platter-sized eyes.

  "You want me to shovel dogshit," I guessed.

  And then she laughed, suddenly and surprising both of us, I suspect.

  "If you're willing to do that," she answered. "But no, I have a job that strikes me as being a good deal harder."

  * * *

  I know what hatred means.

  As it happens, the world has granted me quite a lot of authority on that topic. Certainly more credibility than I enjoy while chattering about love.

  Love revels in its complications. The intricate skeletons of lust and need, the shifting attitudes that build every friable relationship. In contrast, hatred wants to appear obvious and blunt. And if a problem is obvious and blunt, shouldn't every solution be as simple?

  "Hurt people and you'll pay with your freedom."

  That's what the law says.

  Except there are so many ways to injure. Every robbery is matched with a hundred smaller cheats. Every knife wound looks tiny surrounded by ten thousand insults. Everybody delivers pain to everybody else, if only by accident. And while we're talking about hatred, let's agree that no matter how successful, even the most soul-enriched human has exceptionally little regard for the damage she does.

  The PES was discovered.

  But just as important, its antithesis was revealed—a syndrome affecting six people out of every one hundred.

  I didn't know which camp I belonged to. Not immediately. But I felt like a reasonable person, educated and responsible, and being part of that initial experiment, it was my obligation to understand the research, and even better, appreciate it. I read about the new field studies being launched. Animal studies. Human studies. I tried to absorb the high physics of quantum theory as it applied to "stable chaotic flows," whatever the fuck they were. Then the woman I wanted to marry placed a borrowed sniffer against the back of my head. While I was sleeping, as it happens. Except I felt the polycarbonate tube being shoved against my skull, and as I woke up and sat up, she muttered that awful word:

  "Dunnage."

  I was dunnage. I was habit and reflex, a machine endowed with faux-personality. But really, how was I changed from two minutes earlier? I could have asked that. I wanted to ask. But the woman in my life had passed into hysterics.

  She had a soul, by the way. A lovely fine soul. Its image filled the screen of an adjacent laptop, complete with arbitrary colors defining the strength and vibrancy of her essence.

  In contrast, dunnage is always characterized by a steel-gray color.

  Who decided that was the standard? Probably those who stole an ordinary word, "sniffer," and made it into a must-purchase toy.

  Initially my kind were treated with easy, instinctive pity. Born a little dumb but generally nice, we would have become a respected minority. But no, it was our misfortune to sound normal and act normal. And worse still, one of our dunnage brothers responded to the diagnosis by sneaking a pair of pistols into a sporting arena, two dozen strangers dead before he put a bullet through his soulless head.

  Good-hearted people instantly arrived at the same conclusion: Take away the soul and you take away remorse. You remove kindness. And despite what dunnage says about love and decency, each of us is just one nudge removed from becoming a psychopath.

  Panicked legislators made panicked law.

  A week later, my job began testing its employees. It was a precaution, they said. They were just building a database for insurance purposes. And because fairness mattered, everybody went through the ritual.

  I considered protesting.

  Not on the legalities, which looked ironclad, but because this was simply and wickedly wrong. Except I understood how that tactic would likely end, and not wanting to be labeled an asshole as well as amoral, I was polite and smiled bravely while hoping that a few of the bosses were like me.

  Not enough of them were, apparently. And I was jobless, trapped inside my childhood home with two people who wanted nothing but a grown and happy and very successful son.

  I tried to explain the world, but I refused to use the "soul" word.

  "People with PES," I said, as if others were afflicted, not me.

  I had read that PES gave people a two- or three-point boost to IQ scores. Which was practically nothing. And it might lower the incidence of some mental illnesses. Maybe. And yes, surveys showed that PES people were happier. "But then again," I pointed out, "those are the same people who stole my job and my girlfriend and everything else from my happy old life."

  "What about folks with two or three souls?" my mother asked.

  "You mean PES," I corrected.

  "That woman professor," my father said. "She's carrying three, I hear."

  "Three signatures," I said.

  "Which gives the bitch what?" he wanted to know.

  There. An example of genuine, fully realized hatred.

  "Is the bitch extra smart or extra stupid?" Dad asked. "Or is she crazy Sybil, flipping from one voice to the next?"

  Crude as hell, yet the old man had nailed down one major problem.

  "Threes are scarce and t
he data are soft," I answered. "But because nobody has ever found a genuine Four, it probably means there's zero advantage in carrying multiple signatures."

  That won a considerate pause.

  But reflection wasn't what these people wanted. Sitting at the kitchen table, they let the quiet run its course. Then they launched into various revenge scenarios, describing what they would say and what they would do if they ever got within arm's reach of that three-headed woman.

  Not for the first time, I wondered if these old people possessed souls.

  PE signatures, I mean.

  But I had no plans to investigate.

  Hatred is fire.

  Once lit, even the guttering flame wants nothing but to spread, consuming the world.

  * * *

  "You work here."

  It wasn't a question. But I wouldn't be any use if I was just another customer, like her, which was why the words sounded like a command.

  "As a matter of fact, I do work here."

  "Take these," the woman said, offering two leashes and the attached dogs.

  "Except I'm on my way to lunch," I said.

  Obviously, I was going to be a problem. "But you work here," she began.

  "Not during lunch," I said. "Go up to the office. There." I pointed helpfully, even though the building was large and well-marked, including cartoon images of happy dogs tugging at invisible owners, eager to live inside this wondrous place.

  "Can't you just take them?"

  A question, at last.

  "No. I'm famished and I want to eat."

  She didn't know what to say next. One possibility was dismissed, then another. I could tell from her shifting expressions. Then she settled on honesty, admitting, "This is hard for me and I really wish I could leave now. I don't want good-byes."

  The dogs were dogs. A small mutt and a fat golden retriever. I looked at them and at her, sizing up her likely worth.

  "Ten dollars," I said.

  "For what?"

  "My time and considerable effort."

  She handed me two coins and both leashes. "Names and the rest are on their chips," she said helpfully. "I can sign anything you send me."

  "Good enough."

  I started across the lawn.

  "I never tested them," she confessed.

  "Testing is my job," I said. "Right after lunch."

  "But I don't think either has a soul," she said.

  Which was when I paused, looking back at her. "Ma'am, I've been doing this for eight months now. So you should believe me. Eyes and slobber and good hearts? None of that matters."

  * * *

  I like to play with revenge.

  Sitting in a quiet place. Or driving. Any routine activity that gives me time without important distractions. I imagine violent acts directed against those who have done horrible things to me. And not just with sniffers. A driver cuts me off in traffic. A salesman gets through my spam filters. Then the fictional villain on a favorite program proves to be exceptionally evil. Each of those enemies earns my strong hands wrapped around their dying necks.

  Maybe you aren't like me.

  Maybe only six people in a hundred are capable of gruesome, vindictive daydreams.

  But honestly, I would never strangle anyone. I'm too much of a connoisseur of this artform. True revenge is very difficult, probably impossible to accomplish, and after years of playing with fantasies, I had reached that point where I was certain nothing worthwhile could ever be accomplished, and I didn't fucking care anymore.

  All true, except for that last part.

  I did fucking care, and that's why I kept up my search.

  * * *

  THE TWO DOGS didn't want to follow after the woman. I couldn't blame them. But they didn't want to come with me either. I had to invest some back into dragging them across the yard. Once inside the office, the golden and then the mutt pissed on the corner that ten thousand other dogs had already marked. The receptionist guessed what had happened outside. Nothing was out of the routine. I started to yank my companions over to the temporary cages, but the receptionist said, "She needs to talk to you. Soon as you can."

  Something important. Words and the mood said as much.

  "I'm working," I said.

  "As soon as you can," she insisted.

  "So where is she?" I asked.

  "The Blue Building," she said.

  That brought a sudden premonition, and in my guts, a nagging pain. I decided to do the testing and then slip away to lunch unnoticed. The dogs had to be dragged back to the first examination room. One of the staff vets was fighting with a toy poodle, trying to place our newest citizen into a cardboard box.

  "I thought you were eating," he said.

  I got out one of the Burmese sniffers, the same model once used on me.

  "Everything okay?" the vet asked.

  Usually I held the sniffer to my head, using myself as the calibrating test. But today I placed the humming tube against his temple, and both of us watched grayness appear on the convenient screen.

  Two dunnages missing their lunches.

  In the end, one dog held a PES, but the mutt had a different destiny. Maybe the boss had left the Blue Building by now. While the vet examined the health of our new brother, I wrapped a bright orange ribbon around the doomed fellow's neck and took him through the back door, heading for that place with its chemical smells and quiet, scared barking, and in its belly, a furnace where still-warm bodies were incinerated with minimal fuss.

  The lady stepped through the front door, catching me.

  "How long have you worked with us?" she asked.

  She knew how long. This was the polite noise before what really mattered.

  "Because I've been very pleased with your work," she added. Then, "Everybody has."

  "Good," I said.

  "Would you like to do more?"

  "More hours or a different job?"

  "Both," she said.

  I waited.

  "Two people are quitting," she explained, nodding at the building in front of me.

  "You want me manning the needle," I guessed.

  My tone, harsh and unsentimental, perfectly matched her expectations. I was empty and we were talking about killing things that were empty. She certainly didn't have the strength for such work, but I did. Which was a common thought: PE signatures felt entitled to do nothing that made them uncomfortable.

  "We've never used needles," she said.

  "I know that."

  "I wish I could give you a raise," she mentioned.

  "And I wish I'd have the luxury to turn down the raise."

  The doomed dog peed on a likely spot.

  "But our grants aren't coming as fast anymore," she continued. "Cat people are getting too good with their fundraising."

  "We could sic our beasts on theirs," I said.

  Which didn't win me any leeway.

  "Think about it," she advised. "Although I have to warn you. Your job isn't that difficult, and I have a nephew who needs work."

  With that threat in the wind, she left me.

  I watched her vanish and I watched my thoughts. Then I kneeled, removing the orange ribbon, and I took my new friend to the other end of the compound, giving him more life than he deserved.

  * * *

  I wasn't considering vengeance, much less justice.

  What I was doing was learning how to manage a new and distasteful job.

  The dunnage vet demonstrated the equipment, and he made me practice with saline solutions, gauging doses while using the pressure injector. The Blue Building was subject to all kinds of accreditation issues. Even killing empty dogs had to be done with a hint of professional poise.

  I understood that.

  And I knew how to read labels, too.

  "I don't know this compound," I said.

  "Yeah, it's kind of new." He laughed. Because something was funny, although I couldn't see what.

  I started to look up the compound.

  "Peruvi
an," he said. "Originally, I mean. They pulled it from some gum tree, and it's easy to synthesize, and yeah, it's ridiculously cheap. Which doesn't make the pharmaceutical people happy. But believe me, it's about a hundred times easier to handle than anything else on the market."

  "It's an anesthetic?"

  "In the right dose. But give the victim more, and the nervous system shuts down forever. Nice and easy."

  "And cheap," I said.

  "That's why our boss loves it."

  "But you don't use it for everything," I pointed out. "When you're cleaning teeth and battling cancers, you use the other anesthetics."

  I couldn't recall medical names.

  "Well," he said. "That's because."

  Again, the knowing laugh.

  I waited.

  "Our kennel has to obey the rules. That or the good souls of the world stop giving us money."

  "So what are we talking about?"

  "Side effects," he said. "Which aren't talked about, since nobody has any money to make here."

  "Tell me," I said.

  He told me.

  The explanation took two moments, and then I knew.

  "You're smiling," he mentioned.

  I nodded.

  "Okay," I said. "Show me everything."

  * * *

  Old age had made the woman scrawny and somehow angrier than ever. But in the next moment, she turned infinitely sweet. I was always a bad son for showing up late, even though I didn't tell her when I was coming. But after the initial round of cursing, I was welcomed like a hero for standing close when nobody else would.

  "Hi, Mom."

  "You look tired," she said.

  "Must be then," I said, sitting in the chair beside her chair.

  We were alone inside a small, relatively comfortable room. The hallway door was open, but traffic was sparse enough to accomplish the first chore.

  "What do you have in that bag?" she asked.