by Unknown
"Hill Top."
“Yes?"
"Notify the Sawrey dirty-harrys. We have a trespasser. Get me a kill clearance."
A high-baud squirt down the optics and a squirt back.
"Secured."
Not bothering to dress, McGregor reached down from its wallrack a bell-mouthed gun with a magazine shaped like an old-fashioned film canister, its alloy stock featuring oval cutouts as a weightsaving measure.
Downstairs, McGregor roused a gently snoring Mr. Tod. (Many splices, their vocal apparatus modified in the sim-womb for speech, suffered from attendant respiratory problems.)
"Get your slagging withers out of bed. We've got a fox in the henhouse."
"A fox?"
"Don't take me so fucking literally, you stupid trans. Now move it or lose it."
Leaving Mr. Tod to catch up, McGregor raced swiftly and silently toward the barn.
The door was slightly ajar, its rim edged with light.
McGregor kicked it off its hinges.
His extra wetware instantly processed the scene revealed to him, as if it were a freeze-frame.
Several splices crushed beneath the falling door. All the rest clumped in a loose knot around two rabbits. A third rabbit lying on the floor.
The renegade Peter!
Lone blot on McGregor's record...
The scene went realtime.
The bad rabbit darted a paw under its coat. McGregor recognized a Jumpstart shoulder harness. The pistol leaped out into the rabbit's paw.
But McGregor had already fired.
A small packet burst against Peter's chest.
Faster than even McGregor's eye could follow, Peter was wrapped from head to toe in Ivax netting, his pistol trapped against his body. He teetered for a moment, then toppled.
McGregor walked confidently up to the trameled rabbit, the stunned splices shakily parting for him.
"Fucking Crusader Rabbit... What'll you do now?"
Not waiting for Peter's answer, heedless of the soreness of his own door-bruised limb, McGregor buried his foot in the var's stomach.
6. The Tale of Mr. Tod
Mr. Tod, grunting on his foxy-smelling doss-pad on the first level of Hill Top Farm, was dreaming.
He was free, free to course the hills and valleys of the immemorial land in his ancestral unmodified form. 'Cross brook and meadow he ranged, following the scents of friend and foe, mate and prey. The sun, the wind, the deep den in winter, these were all he required to be happy. His life was a fulfilling completeness in itself.
In this dream, Mr. Tod had a nightmare.
Humans caught him and tied him to a rack. They bent and twisted his limbs until he yelped with searing pain. When he finally resembled his tormentors, they released him and gave him duties. To watch similarly tortured creatures, guard and chivy them. In return, he was "rewarded": a suit of useless clothes, cloying food, the occasional hurried mating with an imported vixen delivered by the Hedonics Plus van, synthetic chases of bloodless quarry through the thickets of his own brain....
In this nightmare, the days passed like an eternal winter. He struggled to return to his real life. With a vast effort he awoke—
Then awoke once more, back into the nightmare.
Carrying a gun, McGregor was shaking him roughly. Was it morning already? He could hear the tourists laughing at his antics. "Who's been eating from my pie-dish? Who's been using my best tablecloth? It must be that odious Tommy Brock. And look, he's sleeping in my bed! I'll teach him -"
But no, it was not even dawn yet. McGregor was saying something about a fox. He was the only fox here, wasn't he?
Why couldn't the man let him sleep? He was supposed to be allowed to sleep at night. At the training kennel the teachers had promised him an easy life. They had claimed he would have a kind master. But McGregor was not kind, far from it.
He hurt splices, seemed to enjoy it. And he forced Mr. Tod to aid him. Mr. Tod worried about this. He did not want to hurt anyone unnecessarily. You killed only to eat, in order to survive. Hurting was not sport. Sport was frisking and mating—Yet what could he do? McGregor had to be obeyed....
Now the man was suddenly gone. Mr. Tod forced himself to get up. He took his coat down from a peg and donned it.
"You must not appear out of costume in public... "
Then he went outside.
The barn door was missing, light spilling out. This was not normal. Mr. Tod snapped alert. Danger thrummed in the very air, as when the baying of a pack of hounds was heard.
Cautiously, Mr. Tod poked his pointy nose around the empty doorframe.
McGregor stood above a rabbit in a net. The rabbit was gasping for breath and retching.
As Mr. Tod watched, the splice named Flopsy made a move toward McGregor, who swiveled his gun toward her.
"You too?" said the man.
Flopsy halted. "You may stop us today, but you won't hold us forever. The end of your rule is coming. There is a place where splices live free—"
Mr. Tod listened unbelievingly. Not privy to the whispered nightly rumors exchanged among the barn-dwellers, he had never heard of such a thing. Could it be true? There was the presence of the bound rabbit to consider. Wait, was he the old Peter?
McGregor silenced Flopsy with a backhand across her muzzle, rocking her on her big feet.
"Anyone else have something to say?" he demanded.
The splices all looked at the floor. McGregor laid down his gun. One of Peter's ears, the left, protruded from the net. McGregor grabbed it and effortlessly lifted Peter up to his feet.
''I've been waiting a long time for this-"
Peter had managed to regain his breath. Mustering all his strength, he spat now into McGregor's face.
"Eat your own pellets, proke!"
McGregor howled and closed his hands on Peter's neck.
Something snapped in Mr. Tod.
He launched himself across the distance separating him from the struggle.
The impact of Mr. Tod on the man shattered his chokehold and knocked him to the floor.
Mr. Tod scrambled atop McGregor.
"What—" was all McGregor had time to utter.
Then Mr. Tod fastened his teeth in McGregor's reinforced throat.
Roaring, McGregor reflexively began to throttle the fox.
Mr. Tod did not let go. Though all grew black, though the sound of some celestial hunter's horn filled his ears, his powerful jaws remained fastened tightly until he was dead.
But by then, so was McGregor.
7. Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes
Mrs. Tiggywinkle freed Peter with her pinking shears. He surprised himself by being able to stand on his own.
His throat felt like he had smoked a pack of fags in five minutes. His left ear throbbed. When he had fallen, his pistol had gouged him. Yet he had never felt better.
Regarding the pair of corpses at his feet, Peter sensed words swelling up unbidden in him.
"In the end, Tod was no quisling, but a true splice. And if man has stripped us of our birthright, he has also showed us the commonality of our lot. Fox saves rabbit, cat helps mouse, the lion lies down with the lamb. Tod's death was not the first, nor will it be the last. But without our further actions, it could be in vain. Come, we must flee."
Outside, as the splices gathered 'round him, looking nervously at the world that awaited them, Peter removed a letterbomb from his coat.
He threw the capsule at the barn.
Shattering and splattering the wall, the intelligent silicrobe paint formed a departing message from the CLF.
We have a little garden,
A garden of our own,
And every day we water there
The seeds that we have sown.
Doggy Love
Scott Bradfield
“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” is the caption of one of The New Yorker’s most popular cartoons (by Peter Steiner, in the July 5, 1993 issue). Or in the newspaper Personals announcemen
ts, according to Scott Bradfield. His wickedly funny story, “Doggy Love”, shows what our pets might be getting up to behind our backs.
Wikipedia speculates that the cartoon’s popularity owes much to its timing. 1993 was right at the time when computers reached “critical mass” and transitioned from being government and corporate office machines to become common household appliances. Certainly it was after this that fantasy novels began to appear about pet cats or dogs who lead active Internet lives on their humans’ computers while the humans are not looking. See Feline Online: What Happens When a Smart Cat Surfs the Internet? by Elyse Cregar (Tamerac Publishing Co., June 2001), A Dog Among Diplomats by J. F. Englert (Dell, May 2008), Cats in Cyberspace by Beth Hilgartner (Meisha Merlin, September 2001) and its sequel PKP for President (Brigantine Media/Voyage, December 2011), and Libra, the Cat Who Saved Silicon Valley by Lincoln & Lee Taiz (AmSea Group Publishing, December 2002).
Tall, Dark, and Furry
I find it quite awkward all this silly writing about myself, but here goes.
I am a reasonably attractive mixed-breed setter and blond lab (on my mother's side) seeking a companionable mate in the vicinity of Regent's Park, where my master takes me most afternoons between four and five-thirty. I am three years old and, while still a virgin, my genitalia remain fully intact, which has led to some rather embarrassing confrontations with my master's guests recently. Especially if they've been in contact with a female dog in the last, say, seven or eight hours.
I can't help myself. I'm quite amorous by nature.
I enjoy grooming (myself and others), television (with the sound off), and most of Haydn's late wind concertos, even though they are normally dismissed by the world's dull-as-dishwater Mozart enthusiasts. I'm not disparaging Mozart, understand. I just think there were a lot of equally talented eighteenth-century composers running around Europe, even if their lives weren't melodramatic enough to inspire an Oscar-winning film by Milos Forman.
My ideal partner would be a mixed breed like myself, since I don't want to get into a lot of weird social games about who pisses where. She should be attractive, with a nice rump, and enjoy the same things I do, such as catching flies, and illegally bathing in the duck pond. Also, it would help if her master got along with my master, kind of like in 101 Dalmatians. My master, incidentally, is a very kind (and totally unattractive) human male who doesn't like living alone any more than I do. When he's not at work flogging surplus capital in the City, he lies around the house masturbating and watching Nazi documentaries on the History Channel.
No time wasters, please. Photo available on request.
This Lady's Not for Stroking
Dear TDF,
I joined this service as a trial member a few nights back when I came across your profile. You sound really nice and yes, I, too, live within the immediate vicinity of Regent's Park.
It feels sad joining a computer dating service, but I'm a middle-aged bitch who has never been on a proper date in her entire life, so I've got to start somewhere.
I should mention right off that I'm not a virgin. This is due to an unfortunate week spent in the so-called “animal-friendly” Doggy-Do Kennels in West 14, when my mistress went to Barbados. It's an experience I'd just as soon not talk about right now.
I hate trying to describe myself, so I've attached a recent e-photo. Sorry my mistress is in it, but she butts into all my photos. And yes, I realize she is pretty unattractive, even for a human female. But she has a good heart and walks me twice a day. So I guess I probably love her.
As for my likes and dislikes, here goes.
I like long runs at the beach; raw meat (though I can get along fine on cereal); and lazy days lying at home on the shag carpet with a good video. I guess it's hard to describe my ideal mate, since it boils down to a matter of chemistry, but I value honesty and a good sense of humor above all else. And well, okay. A great-looking rump doesn't hurt.
On the other hand, I hate phoniness and cynicism and needless cruelty to trees.
Hope to hear from you soon,
Denise
Russian Princess Seeks American Prince
Zdrastvuyte from Mother Russia, where lonely Slavic princess find herself living with great-nippled Mama and six beautiful lesbian sisters. I am being much fond of America and its people all the time, where I would like to visit shortly, preferring it be in company of tall handsome butch American so-and-so. Perhaps you may find yourself this hunky pup as described?
Perhaps we become pen pals and you help me with my troubled English?
Love,
Anastasia
P.S. My rump not so terrible for looking at neither. But why take my word for it? Check out my doggy action at wolfbitches.co.ru. And prepare yourself for hot humpy loving all night long!
Lovely
Dear Denise,
Thank you so much for your lovely photo. I had my doubts before, but perhaps this Internet dating service has its merits.
Time will tell, perhaps.
Please find attached a recent photo of myself on holiday last spring in the Lake District, a gorgeous country filled with so many brilliant smells you wouldn't believe it. I know I'm not Rin Tin Tin in the looks department, but that has never left me wanting for female admirers, since I possess many compelling natural odors that are not convertible into rich text format.
Of course, this innate attraction to the opposite sex has never paid off in what might be called carnal dividends. Sure, I'm allowed to race and frolic with the ladies of Regent's Park, but once the action gets serious? My master hits me on the nose with a rolled-up copy of Private Eye.
I loathe Private Eye. I don't know about you, but I genuinely loath it.
Maybe we could meet sometime soon. My master and I usually arrive at Marylebone Green around four or four-thirty.
Is your mistress persuadable?
Your new friend,
Randall
Do You Yahoo?
Dear Randall,
I'm sorry I took so long getting back to you. My mistress was home sick and I couldn't get near the PC.
What a handsome doggy, Randall; I'm really impressed. You're definitely a lot better looking than you seem to realize. (Not that looks matter to me in the long run.)
Actually, I still have my doubts about this dating service. With the obvious exception of yourself, Randall, the only people who ever write me seem like total creeps and weirdos. Russian pornographers, cosmetic surgeons, international loan brokers, and e-perverts of every species and description. It makes you wonder about the genetic imperative, doesn't it? Reproduce or die. Is that what it's all about?
Being a single female in the big city has made me a little cynical, I guess.
As far as an assignation, I'll see what I can do. There are two ends to every leash, as my mom use to say.
Love,
Denise
Doggy Doggy Doggy Doggy
Doggy doggy doggy me love doggy doggy are me favorite me like big doggy me like strong mean doggy doggy get mad and bite me doggy get mad and chase me down and bite me hard me like big strong doggy bite me hard miaow sorry for that miaow sorry for that me a big doggy me a strong doggy and want lots of doggy love want lots of mean doggy love miaow sorry sorry big mean doggy paws are too big for master keyboard miaow love the big doggy love the big doggy doggy love me?
Please write back please send photo of big mean doggy growling hot angry all night long photo please jpg format please big doggy so hot and angry me want you so bad me very big doggy me very strong doggy please love me please.
Your obedient doggy need discipline now,
Rosco the Very Big Doggy Definitely Not a Cat Miaow
A Perfect Day
Dear Denise,
What a lovely day in the park. Even if the best part did only last a few seconds.
I love my master and remain devoted to him. But if he ever goes near you again with that rolled-up copy of Private Eye, I'll see to it personally that he spends the rest of
his life learning to sit on one buttock.
Will write more later but I can already hear his feet on the pavement and smell his awful signature odor wafting through the kitchen window. I can't help myself.
I just start barking like crazy.
Will write more soon,
Randall
Counter-conditioning
Dearest Randall,
What can I say? I detected a pretty convincing whiff from our correspondence, but as soon as I smelled you coming across the children's playground I knew you in my bones, Randall. You make me feel like a radar.
It was so perfect. The bits of sun shining through and the green grass and the dusty pollen everywhere. Racing and snapping at each other and then you caught me (just at the moment I let you) and please, don't blame your master for getting strict with that rolled-up rag. We both kind of deserved it.
That weird orange cat freaked me out, though. Slithering through the nasturtiums and peering and hissing and licking himself. What a creepy guy.
Do you think our respective masters hit it off? They hardly looked each other in the eyes, which, considering their appalling features, is pretty understandable. And the smell!
