Let Slip the Pups of War: Spot and Smudge - Book Three

by Robert Udulutch

  “He was a kind man, honest. If he shook your hand it got done, whatever it was,” Fisho said.

  “You got the job, Fisho, you don’t have to kiss our asses anymore,” Banji said, wiping his fingers on the towel.

  His bother snorted and said, “Yeah, that doesn’t sound like the dad we knew.”

  Fisho smiled, looked at the twins and said, “Well, boys, that is how I prefer to remember him. How do you prefer to remember him?”

  For a long while the brothers stared at this odd, noble, dirt poor man standing in front of them.

  Fulfort returned, opened the office door and left it open as he crossed the office to stand at his father’s side. The young man looked like he’d seen a spirit.

  A man had followed him up the stairs. He entered the office and closed the door behind him, ducking as he came through the threshold. The tall man had a scruffy beard and a Rastafarian hat. His untucked shirt was still wet from the hooker’s spilled beer, and it also had a large smear of blood on it.

  The twins introduced Fisho and Fulfort to Ayo Habba, their lead poacher.

  “So,” Ayo said, “You dumb fucks coming with me to South Africa?”

  Chapter 26

  A gust of wind rattled the bedroom window and heavy drizzle tapped on the sash. Spot pulled the covers over him and returned to Ben’s tablet where they were watching a video from Barton’s accelerator files.

  Two men were side by side and jumping rope with their backs to the camera. The men wore tight white shorts that barely covered their bottoms and dozens of tiny wires ran across their muscular backs, legs, and buttocks. The wires connected to a small black box attached to the waistband of their shorts.

  Their jump ropes were a blur and snapped on the floor like machine gun fire. The men were slightly bent forward and hopped quickly as the ropes whipped over their heads and under their feet.

  In front of each man was a cart with an older style tube-type video monitor. The monitors flashed pictures of everyday items mixed with images of geometric puzzles, math problems, and words from different languages. Each man received a different image and the men rapidly shouted out the answers. They named the items, solved the puzzles and math problems, and translated the words. As they got the answer correct the image changed to the next picture. Images flicked by quickly as the men typically called out the answer in less than a second.

  Sweat started to run down the back of the man on the left.

  As two more minutes of hard jumping passed the images became more difficult. The items were more esoteric, and pictures of an apple or a pencil were replaced with exotic animals and uncommon tools. The math problems were harder and the translations progressed from Spanish and German words to Farsi and Hebrew. The men continued quickly shouting out answers as the ropes whipped around them.

  After another minute the man on the left got a math problem wrong. The muscles on his back jumped and there was a loud snap from the box attached to his waist. He screamed and the rope slowed, but he was quickly back to shouting out answers. He regained his pace as sweat began to tickle down his arms and legs.

  A minute later the same man missed a Cyrillic translation, and again there was a loud snap. He faltered but immediately started again. Sweat poured from his muscles, wetting a strip in the center of his shorts.

  He started to gasp between each answer, and his rib cage was pumping in and out. He hesitated solving a square root problem and then shouted the wrong answer. He doubled over in pain from the shock he received but continued to jump rope. The man started to favor one leg, and hopped on one foot but his pace was still fast and the rope slapped the floor quickly as he continued to yell out the answers.

  Sweat dripped from his arms and ran down his legs. He got three wrong in a row, and spasmed as the box snapped three times between each incorrect answer. The man was coughing and taking great hops to keep the rope moving around him. He fought through the pain to regain his pace, and forced both feet to jump together again.

  He continued on for another full minute but had slowly twisted to one side and hunched as sweat pooled at his feet. He was getting horse, each answer rasped out of him as spittle flew from his mouth.

  The rope caught in his feet as he missed two answers. The box snapped and the man fell forward as the rope tangled around his ankles. He crashed to the floor, flipped over, and dropped the rope’s handles to clutch at his chest. He arched in pain and pounded the ground as he struggled to suck in air.

  A dark skinned man in a lab coat appeared between the men. He looked down at the man writhing on the floor and took a bite from an apple while checking his watch. He scratched his bushy beard and pushed his round glasses further onto his nose with the palm of his hand.

  He turned to watch the man on the right.

  The muscular man was still jumping rope at a blistering pace.

  He barely appeared to be moving. His wrists rotated at incredible speed and his feet vibrated off the floor just enough for the rope to pass beneath them. The rest of his body had a strange, humming calm. He called out the answers in an even voice, and he was barely sweating.

  The man in the lab coat watched him for another five minutes, ignoring the other man who was now still on the ground at his feet.

  The man jumping rope missed a translation from Greek and the box snapped. He didn’t slow, he hadn’t even flinched.

  He missed two more questions and the man in the lab coat stepped closer and bent at the waist. He eyeballed the man from inches away, and then pointed to his feet and hands. The camera zoomed in on fingers and toes that had started to turn black.

  Spot looked up from the tablet when he heard a toilet flushing. Ben and Kelcy were both on the bed with him, and it was far too late for either Mimi or Hamish to be awake.

  He saw the hallway bathroom light go out and a second later Smudge trotted down the hall and into the little back bedroom. She scooped up her little plush chicken toy from the floor as she jumped onto the bed. After she circled twice she dropped down on top of Kelcy’s feet, with the worn stuffed animal tucked under her chin.

  Both kids and her brother were staring at her.

  What? Smudge signed, I’m not going all the way out to the woods. Its damn cold out there.

  She stretched, straightened her forelimbs, and spread her paws wide open. She wiggled the tips of her pads and then relaxed again with a big rumbling yawn. Before curling into a ball she signed without looking up, Don’t give me that look, I put the seat down when I was done.

  Smudge’s yawn triggered an equally long and grumbling one from Kelcy. She smiled and gave Smudge’s head a scratch as she put her tablet down. She had been reviewing more of Barton’s files as Ben and Spot watched the video of the men jumping rope.

  “Enough for tonight,” Kelcy said as she pulled Ben’s tablet off his lap and put it on top of hers. She curled up close to her brother and put her head on his chest. Spot snuggled into his other side and rested his chin on Ben’s stomach.

  “This stuff’s pretty crazy,” Ben said as he put an arm around both of them, “It looks like they had one failure after another but the subjects can do some amazing crap, just before they melt.” He pulled the blanket up and over Kelcy’s shoulders as another blast of freezing rain shook the bedroom window.

  Ben asked, “Have you two figured out the magic yet?”

  “We’re getting closer,” Kelcy said as she pulled Spot’s snout to her and touched noses with him, “but it’s like a puzzle with lots of blacked-out pieces, isn’t it boy? And we’re not even sure what the picture should look like when it’s done. We aren’t through all of the files yet, but there isn’t much on animal testing as it looks like they moved to human testing almost immediately. We’re trying to extrapolate how their failures with using the compound on humans ended up having very different results on our canines.”

  She played with Spot’s silky ears. As he grumbled happily Kelcy said, “Basically, it looks like our pups just had everything go horribly,
tragically, wonderfully right. There were literally a hundred variables that had to align for them to be accelerated, and then live long enough to brag about it. Every time we find a roadblock where they should have bloated and blown up, or just melted, we find a crazy coincidence that explains why they didn’t.”

  Smudge wiggled her way up between the kids’ legs and rolled onto her back. She was listening, and looking up at Kelcy.

  “We started with their mother,” Kelcy said, “Just her living through the initial exposure was a miracle, and a big part of that secret seems to simply be that she was a mutt. Obviously she was a very mixed breed. We expect like most rescue dogs from down south she was part lab, boxer, shepherd, spaniel, even toss in a little pit bull. And based on some of our pup’s other physical traits she very likely also had ridgeback, whippet, and even some Catahoula leopard dog in her. This gave her what’s known as hybrid vigor. It’s like super DNA, and far more accepting of modification than we fragile humans. She also probably came from generations of dogs that survived under rough conditions. She must have been tough as nails, inside and out, right?”

  Spot nodded, followed by Ben and Smudge.

  “Then their mother ingests a massive amount of that accelerator goop somehow,” Kelcy continued, “She got the exact dose needed to flood her system in one shot, but not enough to immediately bloat her. The high cal garbage Jerry was feeding the dogs gave her the carb spike she needed to process the bulk of it. Oddly enough that crap alone would have probably killed her in a few weeks anyway.”

  Kelcy paused, and as she scratched the bottom of Smudge’s chin said, “Sorry guys, I should be more careful when talking about your mom.”

  Smudge licked her hand, and reached out and signed, It’s okay sis, keep going. We need to know.

  Kelcy smiled and said, “Alright little girl. Your brother and I think your mum happened to be at exactly the right stage in her pregnancy for you pups to get the proper placental dose to kick start the acceleration, but it should have melted you right there in her abdomen.”

  She looked at Ben and said, “It didn’t because the supplements Jerry was adding to the food must have had some key raw amino acids. They flooded the pup’s little developing endocrine system and protected them from the cellular destruction trigger. One of the additives must have also contained some growth hormones and trace antibiotics that prevented the initial infection from taking hold.”

  “The one that starts out as black extremities?” Ben asked.

  “Yeah,” his sister said, “That alone should have done them in.”

  “Jeez,” Ben said as he rubbed Spot’s nodding head.

  “Just wait,” Kelcy said, “It gets nuttier. So their mom lived long enough to give birth, but Spot and I were struggling to explain their viability. They shouldn’t have lasted an hour. One of the doctors outlined how inherited transmission was possible, and there’s a section of files about testing they did on pregnant mothers. They were right that the mother would die, and the babies were indeed accelerated, for a few minutes.”

  “Eww,” Ben said.

  “Yeah,” Kelcy said, “I recommend skipping those videos. They thought they weren’t getting the right mix of dosage, pregnancy term, and supplemental inputs for the baby to make it. Spot and I think human babies are just too fragile, and take too long to develop normally. The acceleration tried to change the babies too quickly, and with really bad results. Our pups were able to handle the accelerated growth rate because they were physically and genetically tough, and because canine pups grow super fast anyways. There were fifty changes that had to occur in the first few days to stay ahead of the acceleration. Those changes take normal human babies several weeks, or even months. The nature of the accelerator compound is that it acts fast, and we think only animals with quick maturation could successfully inherit it from an infected mom.

  “Whoa,” Ben said, “that’s awesome.”

  “Yeah, well,” Kecly said, “not awesome enough. They still should have been dead by the end of the first week.”

  Smudge’s ears pricked up and Ben gave them a tug.

  “Jeez,” Ben said, “How many friggin’ times should you two have kicked the bloody bucket?”

  Lots, Spot signed.

  “We found another big problem,” Kelcy said, “The accelerated process should have caused a massive congenital aganglionic problem in their intestinal tract. That’s actually what starts the bloating side effect in infected hosts. It attacks the intestines first, and then the liver, and then it blows up the rest of the organs and tissues.”

  Kelcy paused and watched her brother’s face as Ben chewed on what she was saying. She said, “Sooo…”

  Ben said, “Sooo…they needed protection from a severe intestinal infection?”

  Kelcy said, “Yep, sooo….”

  “Soo….” Ben said as his bunched brow loosened and his eyes lit up, “their Parvo.”

  Spot signed, and Kelcy whispered, “Yah, for a dummy he is pretty smart.”

  To Ben she said, “Well done brother. Yes, the parvovirus. Their mom must have picked it up in the kennels. She also must have had it pretty bad towards the end, and as Ronnie said, it would have been nearly debilitating. But it allowed her to shed the worst parts of the infection in her stool until she could climb into the pen and give birth. The infection couldn’t take hold as she was dumping the lining of her intestines. She also polluted the pups, either directly or by their later contact with their birthplace under the shed.”

  “It had stripped away the lining of their little puppy intestines before the infection set in as well,” she said, “The parvo almost killed them, but it also saved them. As an added bonus we think the antibodies and platelets they developed during that time to fight the infection were accelerated too, creating the super immunity and repair system that allows them to heal so rapidly now.”

  As Kelcy rubbed Smudge’s neck she said, “We also speculate that Smudge’s Cu Sith hell hound muscles are a result of the special diet she received when we were treating her.”

  “Mimi’s special baby formula and vitamin cocktail,” Ben said, nodding, “The one she made from Ronnie’s recipe. I always knew that stuff was powerful. It sure seemed to work wonders on Smudge. It took her from death’s door to Bolt in a few short weeks.”

  Kelcy said, “Yeah, and it explains why Spot doesn’t have her muscles. However, he must have had parvo too, but for whatever reason it didn’t present as symptomatic in him. We think his natural ability to fight the virus probably allowed his cerebral cortex to metastatically process even more of the acceleration than Smudge. It resulted in the massive increase to Spot’s brain density.”

  Spot nodded confidently at his sister, and then at Ben, and then at Kelcy.

  Kelcy nodded back at him, and said, “Give a developing puppy synaptic hyper-connectivity and Bob’s your uncle, we end up with a really, really smart dog.”

  “Not smart enough to poo in the house on a cold night like his sister, apparently,” Ben said, drawing a low growl from Spot and a wag from Smudge.

  Kelcy said, “Well he’s sharp enough. He figured out one of the more totally insane pieces to this puzzle. I didn’t believe him at first but we’ve been through it a dozen ways and it’s the only thing that makes sense. Besides, we know Spot’s never wrong, so, yeah.”

  Spot growled again as Kelcy tugged on his ears.

  “We still struggled with Mom’s issue about the speed at which they can control some of their gifts,” she said, “Even with the genetic modifications they successfully inherited, they shouldn’t be able to mutate themselves and control their autonomous systems as quickly as they can. The files mention it only as a theoretical possibility involving some kind of steered biofeedback through specialized meditation. They didn’t have any idea about the depth or limits of that control, but obviously our little bastards can immediately modify things like healing, fur color, coat thickness, and of course Smudge’s Cu Sith.”

  “Ex
actly how their control works isn’t clear,” she said, “The science gets a little loosey goosey, and the DARPA doctors were still arguing about their theories when the project ended. The one thing they all agreed on was the requirements of the initiation protocol, which obviously must have happened to our pups for them to have developed such an advanced level of control.”

  Kelcy paused as if waiting for a drum roll as Ben and Smudge stared at her.

  Kelcy smiled and said, “Somehow they had received multiple impressions of small amounts of flavonol glycosidesc on the genes governing neural-cellular control over the course of their early accelerated development.”

  Ben and Smudge both looked disappointed.

  “That’s it?” Ben said, “I thought it was going to be something cool. I’m not going to try to guess this one. How did our pups get doses of this flavo-glyca-whatever?”

  “Flavonol glycosidesc, and don’t worry, it’s plenty friggin’ cool,” Kelcy said, “Go ahead Spot.”

  Spot signed.

  Ben laughed out loud and Kelcy and Spot covered his mouth to keep him from waking up the whole house. He pulled his sister’s fingers and Spot’s paw aside, and whispered, “Black tea is full of flavonol glycosidesc?”

  Kelcy and Spot nodded.

  As Ben’s laugh and Smudge’s tail thumping subsided he moved their tablets to his nightstand and reached up to turn off the small light clipped to his headboard. For a long while the kids and the dogs sat huddled together in the dark, listening to the icy rain hitting the window.

  “That’s some seriously crazy stuff,” Ben said as he patted Spot, “You truly are miracles, and I suppose it’s good news that you can’t ever be duplicated. I mean, who would ever figure out to add a cuppa tea to an acceleration program?”

  Kelcy didn’t answer, and Ben could feel Spot stiffen under his arm.

  “Oh that’s not good,” Ben said, “Okay, spill it.”

  Spot reached out in the dark and moved his paw under Ben’s hand.