Dog Country

by Malcolm F. Cross

  “Fuck it,” Marianna muttered, after getting off the radio.

  Edane shook his head to clear it, and drew back from his spot at the top of the irrigation trench, ears dipping back. “Problems?”

  “My handler went on rest break, and the new one’s one of these fuckers who want us out of the league,” she snarled, yanking open a pad. “I’m gonna talk to what’s left of Seven-Forty-Six. They usually have a heavy UAV… We’ll get this done with on-field assets. Kacey, Edane, Eissen, sort yourselves out. I want enemy anti-air assets fucked up in this corridor — do it.” She swiped two fingers over the tactical map on the pad, tagged it, passed it to their uniforms’ electronics, and then took off alone up the irrigation trench without even waiting for them to confirm.

  The zone glowed, a mile-wide path moving up toward Svarstad and Erlnicht.

  “You with us?” Eissen asked Kacey, casually pulling a brick-sized magazine from its pouch on his webbing. He double checked that it bore a black and red stripe — unguided general purpose explosive shells — and flicked it at Edane.

  “Totally,” Kacey said, head snapping up to follow the magazine’s arc.

  Edane caught it out of the air one-handed, left-handed, and stuffed it down in an empty pouch. He pulled out another magazine, consulting its display instead of being able to feel its weight to gauge how many rounds were left like with a real one, and threw the empty magazine back at Eissen. “Gimme the fin-guided solid core.”

  Eissen grinned down at her, switching the caught magazine and juggling another out to Edane with barely a glance. “Think you’re gonna keep up?”

  Had to catch the ammo two handed, this time — but Edane wasn’t slowed down by his arm, anymore, so long as he didn’t push too hard, remembered he was a little clumsy at times and compensated.

  Kacey looked up from grabbing one of her box-mesh antennas, glancing at Edane, gaze shooting up and down the LAMW hanging off his body-straps. A moment’s consideration and she lifted an eyebrow at Eissen. “With him hauling that thing around, yes. Absolutely.” She laughed, Eissen joined in.

  Edane didn’t laugh — he just strapped down his ammo pouches, bounced on his toes to make sure his gear was secure, and started running. Muscles burning, breath hot almost instantly, lungs stinging.

  “Hey!” Kacey called after him, packing up the antenna. “Wait up!”

  He thudded to a halt, and grinned back at her and Eissen. “Way you were talking I thought you were going to give me a head start!”

  She laughed — Edane felt good about that. Back in Tajikistan Thorne always used to tell him that making people laugh was the first step, and back then, Edane hadn’t been much good at it. But he was learning how, bit by bit. Just had to find an unexpected corner to lift.

  *

  After three miles of cover-to-cover sprinting, hiking, dodging landmines, waiting for Kacey to jam wireless stationary sensors, hitting sentry-patrols and avoiding landscaping machinery — real, automated, and keeping the lawns and nature-park’s gardens irrigated during the match — Edane was ready for a break. Nothing long, just five minutes to shake out his arm, sip some water, blow off a little heat.

  Eissen was, too. Kacey, though…

  Red-faced, she hunched over her pad, hardly able to speak between wheezing breaths. Her fingers were trembling on its screen. “Active electronic contact… at forty — whfff — forty-two degrees.” Sweat dripped off her nose and blotted on the pad’s surface.

  Eissen snapped his head around, following his goggles’ HUD to find forty-two degrees… he gestured at a park bench distantly ahead, made quick hand signals. Observation position — landmark — halfway. Halfway between the them and the park bench, a walker’s path forked around a patch of scrubby brush.

  Quick as if he were barking, Edane signed back at him. Firing position — landmark — quarter-left. For landmark he pointed at the observation position. Eissen looked a little way left, spotted the piled stones around a flowerbed, nodded and started moving. The exchange had taken less than three seconds of snapped gestures, and they had the bare bones of an engagement plan in place.

  Before setting off, Edane unhooked his water-bladder and drinking tube from his backpack and held it out to Kacey, with a slosh.

  “Thanks,” she said, only pausing to briefly rub the drinking tube’s nozzle with her palm before sipping.

  Some people, Edane reflected, treated him like he was people too, instead of something dirty, something disgusting. That was nice, even if in his heart he knew he wasn’t people.

  People couldn’t hump it for three miles that quickly without getting entirely blown, people couldn’t haul seventy-ish pounds of metal without complaint, people didn’t learn tactical hand-signals from the cradle, people couldn’t survive the kind of wounds he’d suffered in the marketplace in Tajikistan.

  Maybe, he thought, glancing back at Kacey shaking with the exertion of keeping up with them, the folks complaining about Edane and his brothers playing had a point. Hell, even if Marianna needed to gobble pills by the handful to keep her metabolism stable — her earlier geneline hadn’t benefitted from the ten extra years of development Edane’s had — she could outrun, outshoot, and outfight just about anybody on the field, genemods included. (Edane included too, maybe — he could handle more weight than Marianna in total, but as a percentage of bodyweight she could haul fractionally more. And she had ten extra years of experience.)

  He was better than humans, at MilSim. Much better. And the thought didn’t sit well with him, because everywhere else in his life he saw humans doing better. They understood how to live life, they were more social, they could enjoy series shows without needing Janine to explain why it was fun… but at this, at MilSim, at fighting, Edane was superior. Built for it, engineered for it in a way they hadn’t been.

  It wasn’t fair on regular players, in a way. He could see that. But it wasn’t fair on him, either.

  He pushed up, banking left from Eissen’s line, and set the LAMW up in the spot he’d picked between the rocks, sighting in at forty-two degrees. He didn’t see where the electronic contact Kacey’d detected was initially, but when fireteam Seven-Forty-Six’s heavy UAV thudded its way overhead, Edane blew out the hidden defense turret on reflex the instant it unfolded to deploy its tracking radar antenna.

  The UAV went on to deploy its single heavy anti-tank missile, ripping the enemy mortar installation to scrap metal. With the help of fireteam Seven-Forty-Six, the soon-to-be Hallman Hairtrigger Hounds took seventh place for the match, nudging them up into eleventh on the overall season’s leaderboard.

  7. Losing Proposition.

  ::/ San Iadras, Middle American Corporate Preserve.

  ::/ February, 2106.

  ::/ Edane Estian.

  Janine didn’t want to sleep. Not sex stuff. When Edane got home after the match she was slumped in her underwear on the couch with a videogame gun that Hallman Electronics had given him, a pile of her lingerie abandoned on the floor and armchair. She had her toes spread on the coffee table, pushing forward a little to walk forward in the game, tilting her foot side to side to lean. The room was dark, lit up by an old pair of display spectacles perched on her muzzle. She looked in his direction when he got in, but didn’t say anything.

  She didn’t say anything while he put his things away, or when he asked if she’d had dinner. Sat silently while he picked up her lingerie, the game gun clicking as she played whatever game the gun was for. Janine glanced down at the neatly folded stack of her clothes, then put down the toy gun on top, and stared across the room at the other wall through the spectacles, face lit by the lenses.

  There were plates in the sink, so she’d eaten, and Edane didn’t want to disturb her. So he tried going to bed, but she didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to talk, appearing in the bathroom doorway after his shower.

  “Edane?”

  He looked at her. She looked at him. At his body, while he toweled himself off.

  “Yeah?”

/>   Janine leaned back against the doorframe. Watching his groin while she pulled off her bra. Her breath squeaked a little, through her nose, while she disrobed the rest of the way. Stood there, nude, one hand on her own belly. Watching him. Looking for a reaction.

  He thought he knew what he was supposed to do. But instead he dipped his ears back awkwardly.

  She bit her lip at him. “Edane?”

  “I’m listening.” It didn’t seem polite, somehow, to put his towel on.

  “You’re listening.” Now her ears swept back, now she released her lip.

  “I’m sorry. I. I don’t know what you want.”

  “Yeah, you do.”

  He flattened his ears against his skull. Wished he was smaller. Like he could hide. “I figured you were distracted with the game.”

  “I’d been trying on lingerie all day, and then I realized, it just doesn’t work on you, does it? So I gave up.” She gazed at his crotch. Up at him. Back at his groin. “Do you even get aroused, Edane?”

  “Well yeah—”

  “Not by touching, I mean. By thinking sexy things.”

  “I don’t think sexy things.”

  “Maybe you could try?” She posed hopefully for a moment. Blinking those green eyes at him, hopeful. “My sister Jane spent a little time with one of you guys. Said it worked out eventually.”

  Edane didn’t answer that. Just hesitated with his towel flopped over the side of the basin, uncertain.

  “Christ, Sweetie. Don’t you know if any of your brothers. Y’know. Have sexual relationships?”

  Edane picked up his toothbrush. Toothpaste. Put the one on the other, and stared at the brush. “Yeah. couple.”

  “Like?”

  “Stolnik.”

  “And how’d that happen?” The hope in her smile got stronger. Got worse.

  “He’s been living with Stacy for three years.” Edane didn’t want to screw up that hopeful smile of hers. But it seemed inevitable. After all. Three years was longer than one. “And they were dating before that. Since seventeen.”

  Of course a little thing like time wouldn’t get to Janine. Not entirely. So she shifted. Presented her body, and even with her ears swept back uncertainly, kept up the hope. “So it took awhile.”

  “Maybe, yeah.”

  “So, maybe, with, y’know. Time and effort…” She pushed her foot forward on the tiles. Toes spread. Hopeful still.

  “I should probably get to sleep early. There’s another match tomorrow.”

  She frowned. Ears quivering back. “No sex before the big game?” she asked, trying to make it funny.

  It wasn’t the kind of joke Edane understood. But he could tell by how she said it, it was supposed to be funny. Kind of. He put his toothbrush in his mouth, switched it on, and buzzed his teeth clean.

  “Look at me?” Janine ground her shoulders back into the doorframe. Posed like something out of one of her erotic magazines.

  Edane looked, but it didn’t seem to help. She squirmed a little. Maybe it was a dance of some kind. She flicked an ear. Just looked hurt, waiting for him to finish.

  He spat foam. Rinsed his mouth. “We can make love if you want.” Didn’t look up at her, while washing his fur clean of toothpaste.

  “Yeah,” she murmured, voice strained, “but what do you want?”

  “Do you want to have sex?” He looked at her, cautiously.

  “Why are we back here night after night after fucking night?” she moaned, slumping back against the wall. Not a pose. Covering her face. Braced against that wall like it was better support for her than he was, and that hurt.

  “It’s just—”

  “Just what, Edane?” She pulled her hands from her muzzle, leaned forward, almost like she was exploding in his direction. “You always fucking dodge it, and we make love, and you’re like a cold fish. Our anniversary is next week, Edane! Moving in with me was supposed to be special.”

  “It is special! We’ll, we’ll do something nice — like a meal out at a restaurant? That’s romantic, right?”

  “Don’t fucking dodge it!” She jabbed her fingers into his chest, hard enough he was scared she’d hurt herself. “Answer me, what do you want?”

  “I want what you want. Okay?”

  “That’s not an answer, Edane.”

  “I don’t want to make you unhappy with me.” He gripped the basin’s edge, hard enough to hurt him. But the basin was just a thing. That was okay. Couldn’t hurt porcelain. “Can’t you understand that?”

  “What do you want?” She gripped the side of the basin, next to his hands, leaning in, her snout right in his face. Demanding.

  “I know what you want me to say, I know what you don’t want me to say. Are you going to make me say it?”

  “Say it.”

  “I don’t want sex with you.”

  He’d never hit anyone that hard. Sent them spinning away, grabbing at the doorframe, gasping for breath. Never hit anyone that hard in his life, with words. Words weren’t fists. He’d learned that. Sticks and stones, but words could never harm you.

  Marianna had been right. Edane’s fosters were full of shit.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching for her.

  She jerked away before he reached her. Out into the hall. “I already fucking knew that, Edane. I already knew that.” She said it the way people pasted skinplast down over cuts.

  “I’m sorry, okay? I’m not made like that. Maybe I’m asexual, I don’t know.”

  “No?” Janine led him away, pulling her battered old bathrobe off the dresser in the bedroom. “Then why does this Stolnik live with Stacy? Why’s Engelthal perfectly happy to hook up with Jane for casual sex? That’s not asexuality, Edane!”

  “I don’t know!” He just wanted her to understand. Why didn’t she understand? “I’m not Engelthal! I’m not Stolnik!”

  “The point is they’re your clones. It’s possible. If you tried. If you put effort into this.”

  He stopped himself at the bedroom door, grabbing the doorframe. Kept himself from following her. “I do.”

  “No you don’t. You put effort into everything but this.” She swept up the belt bitterly, wrapping it around her waist while she sat down on the bed.

  He bowed his head. Cathy and Beth had said, when he’d been a kid, that sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never harm me. Bullshit, the words hurt. It was all bullshit. So he said so. “Bullshit.”

  “What?”

  “You just want me to know already. You’re the one who doesn’t want to put in the effort, Janine, you just want me to know how all this stuff works and how to do it properly, and I don’t know. I never knew, and you won’t teach me. Every time I get it wrong or something doesn’t feel right I can’t even ask you for help without making it worse!”

  “It’s a perfectly natural set of impulses, Edane,” she hissed at him. “It’s a basic fucking instinct.” Janine just glared up at him, those eyes of hers glittery and cold.

  He found bitterness inside him, to match. To play off her cold stare. “I didn’t get made like you, Janine. Those aren’t the instincts I got made with. Some of us weren’t made to just fuck people like you were.”

  “Don’t you say that!” Her voice turned to sandpaper and breaking glass. “Sex is important! It’s beautiful, it’s making love!”

  “That’s what I meant! Dammit, I got angry, I said the wrong word. I’m sorry, I wasn’t made to make love.” He forced his voice quiet. He didn’t want to yell. Didn’t want to shout. Didn’t want to have that weird trembling feeling behind his eyes he didn’t know what to do with. “I wasn’t made like you.”

  “Don’t you tell me how I was made! Don’t you tell me anything. Get out, just, just fucking get out, Edane!”

  She clutched the tip of her nose, other hand curled under her chin, glaring at him with cold wet eyes, body trembling, as if she could keep whatever was inside her from spilling out so long as she could just hold it all in with her hands. Edane didn’
t like seeing Janine like that. Didn’t like hurting her. But he had. Because he wasn’t any good at making love, or keeping her happy, or anything except following orders.

  So shoved his gear into a rucksack for the game tomorrow, pulled on some reasonably clean clothes from the laundry hamper, tried not to wince at the sound of her slamming her bedroom door, palmed at the wet in his eyes when the trembling feeling got worse, followed her orders, and got out.

  *

  “Aren’t you even going to try?” Beth sat with her elbows up on the kitchen table, her hair down, like it always was, first thing in the morning. Good and familiar, that.

  Edane’s ears hurt a little, he’d had them flattened out so much lately. “Please don’t.”

  “Would it kill you to—”

  “Hssst!” Cathy hissed like she hissed at the cats.

  Beth wasn’t a cat, wasn’t even genemodded in that direction, but she reacted the same. Pulled up straight, blinking in surprise.

  Cathy stroked Edane’s forearm, his right forearm, in hard sweeps that made him push his spoon around his bowl of cornflakes. “Edane’s having enough trouble with people wanting him to be something other than what he is.”

  “Well you’re our son and I’m your mom,” Beth said, pulling over her and Cathy’s cereal, a finger in each bowl. She picked up a banana, peeled it, started industriously chopping slices into each bowl, alternating, one slice for her, one slice for Cathy, back and forth.

  Edane preferred his cornflakes plain. Always had.

  “I know,” he said quietly. “I appreciate it. I just. I just think of you as Beth, the lady who made me part of her family. Not as what your role is in that family.”

  The right thing to say, for once. Beth rewarded him with a smile.