“No, thanks. As for your question, all I can say is that the wheels are coming off Wolf’s operation, worse than is generally known. Between our embargo and their crummy practices, food shortages keep getting worse. Peace is maintained at gunpoint. Brain drain and attrition has left them with very few who know how to run and repair crucial parts of their infrastructure, and a lot of critical jobs have gone to the loyal, not the competent. He’s getting desperate. Desperate enough that he contacted us and offered something in trade.”
“Must be something special.”
“It is.”
“What is it?”
“I’d rather not say. Not just yet.”
“You don’t trust me?”
I shake my head. “I trust you just fine. I don’t trust myself.”
This is the absolute and unvarnished truth.
We circle above an airport. Chloe has been arguing with whatever passes for ground control for several minutes, insisting—quite loudly and at times breathtakingly profanely—that she is going to make at least one low pass for a visual inspection of the runway before landing. This request is being stubbornly refused.
She glances my way, rolling her eyes and making an obscene gesture. I pick up the headset hanging beside me, adjust the microphone, then say, “Allow me.”
She cocks her head quizzically. I nod.
She grins, then says, “Brace yourself, bonehead. My boss wants to talk to you.”
Once my mike is live I summon my best alpha male voice. “To whom am I speaking?”
“Ralph,” replies a voice greasy with officiousness.
“This is Merlin, personal representative of the President of the United States. You have two choices, Ralph. Either oblige my pilot’s request this instant, or start figuring out how you are going to explain to those you answer to why we turned around and flew back to Washington without meeting General Wolf, as requested.”
“Now wait—” Ralph’s voice has gone shrill and panicked.
“We are done waiting,” I say in a voice heavy enough to squeeze the pee out of the flunky in the tower. “Pilot, turn this plane around and chart a route back home.”
“I didn’t mean—” A pause. “Ah, be advised you are cleared to fly over and inspect the landing strip.”
I pull off the headset. Chloe swallows her laughter. “Coming in to inspect your strip in just a minute,” she says. “Air Force Ten out.” She racks the mike and gives me a big loopy grin. “Just for that I’ll do my flyover right side up.”
“That,” I reply, “Would be greatly appreciated.”
For the most part our kind doesn’t suffer from the same fascination with and fondness for guns shown by our predecessors. But in the Bad Lands such weapons appear to have regained their fetishistic status. As we exit the plane we are surrounded by over a dozen heavily armed canifolk, all males, a mix of mastiffs, pit bulls, and Dobermans.
Chloe catches my eye. I can see that she is wondering if we should raise our hands in the face of this menacing reception. I answer by first giving her a slight shake of the head, and then striding briskly up to the leader of this pack. He is easily identifiable by being the proud owner of the meanest scowl, most guns, and gaudiest emblems of rank.
“Well?” I demand sharply.
His scowl deepens. “Well, what?”
“Well, are you here to escort us somewhere, or were you ordered to just stand around looking like you’d really like to be tough?”
The mastiff bristles.
I bare my teeth.
The whole pack-order, dominance/submission thing has remained a part of our psyche through and since the Change. Only those of us with a scholarly bent have given it the thought it deserves.
The primitive and the newly civilized coexist inside us all, sometimes uneasily. The nexus of tension between the two creates a sort of psychological pressure point. Understanding it and being able to manipulate it is useful, verging on a peculiar form of behavioral kung fu.
The militia member I face is a major. He is larger than me, heavier than me, armed as if expecting war to break out at any second, and backed up by a cadre of violence-prone brutes possessing the same advantages.
Yet he is nothing more than an individual of middling rank in a much larger organizational structure/pack, answerable to who knows how many others above him. I, on the other hand, answer only to one: the president. Even there I acknowledge him as dominant out of admiration, respect, friendship, and agreement with his goals and the means he employs to reach them. Not from fear, or any feeling of inferiority.
It is no contest. The mastiff cowers, tail lowering.
“Well?” I say again, even more sharply.
“This way, please,” he says with an eggsucking smile.
Chloe and I ride in the back of a long black limousine, insulated from the heat and dust as it follows a deserted highway through a barren landscape. We are led and followed by a number of military vehicles escorting us to our as-yet-undisclosed destination.
Chloe’s presence is the result of a short, quiet disagreement. She wanted to stay with her precious plane and make sure no “braindead groundhogs” fooled with it. I insisted that she accompany me. While I could have just given her an order—with a low likelihood that she would obey it—I instead offered one of several reasons for her to remain at my side: If things got sticky it would be easier for us to find another plane than it would be for me to find another pilot even half as good as her.
“Well, duh,” had been her response to that.
Now she watches out the window, searching for stray planes to appropriate while I attend to business on my laptop. I can’t get online with it, there is no cell-phone reception inside the Lands; that has been cut off. Some of the land lines still work, any traffic on them carefully monitored. Yet we are not completely unconnected, thanks to the satellite phone I carry. I assume the compartment we ride in is bugged, and so work on a white paper concerning the psychological makeup of canifolk born after the Change. Those who don’t remember before.
I wanted Chloe along for more than her ability to fly a plane. She is smart, level-headed, sharp, and funny, and her unshakable irreverence is a weapon of sorts. A friendly face will be a comfort in the depths of Wolf’s disintegrating empire. Then there is one reason I keep to myself: I am not sure that whatever diplomatic immunity we enjoy would protect her back at the airport. Rapaciousness and poor impulse control are reportedly the hallmarks of Wolf’s elite.
“Boss?” she says in an oddly strained voice.
I look up from the laptop screen and follow her gaze.
A rough wooden beam has been nailed to a telephone pole. Hanging from the beam are six bodies, probably a family judging by the size range of the corpses. The limo has slowed as we pass to let us enjoy the sights.
“Those folks are most likely beneficiaries of the sort of justice system that comes with martial law,” I say quietly.
“That’s terrible.” Her voice is hoarse.
“Yes, it is. It is meant to appall and terrify. Notice anything else?”
She had turned toward me, now she twists around to peer out the back window. “Like what?”
“All those bodies but no vultures.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Reportedly they have eaten any that stray into the Lands, along with anything else they can kill or dig up. Chances are if you searched the area you’d find a sharpshooter waiting to pick off any scavengers drawn by the smell.”
I have shocked her. I was shocked myself when I first read about it.
“Their bodies are . . . bait?”
“Among other things, like advertising the cost of getting on the wrong side of Wolf policies.”
“That’s awful!”
“For all involved,” I agree. I do not tell her that they shoot and eat our cousins, the coyotes, too.
My expectations are low and realistic. It is unlikely I will see hide or hair of Wolf until after I am tempted with his priz
e. That will be the best time for him to strike a bargain. Despots tend to be, at least on the macro scale, fairly predictable.
As has been our destination. It is what I thought it would be: a military installation buried in the guts of a mountain, a leftover from before the Change.
The level and type of activity we encounter as we approach the place suggests that this is Wolf’s official residence. This is hardly a surprise. His kind tends to den up in fortresses the same way worms hide under rocks.
This trip will write the f inal page on three years of vague reports that Wolf has some sort of special ace up his sleeve, one he intends to play when the time is right.
Now that ace is being dealt.
Dogs playing poker. A wildly popular postChange image that keeps coming to mind.
It would be funny if there wasn’t so much hanging on it.
We are driven inside the mountain, past level after level of security, an obstacle course so convoluted it hints at the twisting levels of Wolf’s paranoia. I note that the deeper we go, the fewer armed militia we see. This tells me we are nearing the part of the installation Wolf calls home. Someone in his position would not want armed individuals other than his own personal bodyguards getting that close to him. When you have staged a coup, you buy a fear that you have started a cycle that will outlive you.
Chloe looks unhappier by the moment. I can’t blame her; she is no happier having half a mountain hanging over her head than I am hanging miles above the ground. This is also one of those areas were canifolk have to deal with two competing urges. On one hand, we still have the impulse to den up, to find a safe, defendable place. On the other hand, we also have a profound discomfort with confinement, be it in a cage or pen.
For my own part, I have too much else to be anxious about for being taken into what could be considered a military-grade pound to count for much.
The car stops. The minions who met us at the plane pile out of their jeeps and trucks, surrounding our car. This time they carry fewer weapons, and what weapons they do carry remain holstered.
The mastiff major I cowed at the airport gestures curtly, acting as if it is we who are making him wait. “This way.”
We are taken deeper into the mountain by means of a wide, brightly lit tunnel. Our footsteps are soft, but the boots of our escorts thump and drum hollowly. The place smells of steel and concrete and fear, heavy and oppressive.
“I love what you’ve done with the old place,” I say brightly. “What do you think, Chloe?”
“The lighting makes my fur look bad,” she grouses.
“Ah, but it brings out the sparkle in your eyes.”
“No talking,” the mastiff growls.
“Why not?” I ask. “Afraid we’ll say something that might confuse your motley little pack? Like that back outside your little ratturd republic everyone—not just half-assed excuses for soldiers—get all they want to eat?”
“Don’t forget the Ice Cream For Everyone On Sunday Law, boss,” Chloe says with a laugh. “Ain’t buzzard-flavored either.”
“I said no talking!”
“But yelling is all right?” Chloe asks with mock innocence.
I have to smile as I pat her arm. “Silence is golden,” I say.
She snorts. “Yeah, and so is piss on snow.”
“Which these people probably consider a Sno-cone.”
Our laughter echoes brightly, making our guards scowl.
We are taken to the entrance of an even more secure area. Our original escort hands us off to a dozen hard-faced and silent Dobermans armed with Tazers and truncheons. They lead us deeper yet into the maze of tunnels.
I am the sort who thinks things out. At times I may even overthink a given situation.
How I will deal with what waits for me has been high in my mind since I first heard Wolf’s emissary deliver his message and offer.
Still I have no idea how I will feel or act, or what I can make of the bargain I must strike.
Our escorts never say a word. They unlock a heavy steel door and gesture for us to go through.
The door closes behind us, leaving us in a dimly lit chamber that was once some sort of supply office. I smell age, and fear. Mildewed paper and stale food.
A hoarse voice calls, “Who’s there?”
“Merlin and Chloe,” I answer. “Who are you?”
A shaggy humped shape rises from a pile of blankets and pillows over in one corner, breathing heavily and groaning slightly as it unfolds.
“Buddy.”
The owner of the voice is an ancient Newfoundland, broad muzzle grizzled with age, eyes rheumy. He comes toward us, his movements stiff and slow.
“We’re here to see them, Buddy,” I say gently.
Those eyes meet mine. “I was told—I was told someone was coming at last. To see them. Will you—will you take them away?”
“I don’t know,” I answer, trying to sort the hope from the despair in his eyes, and in the angle of his ears.
Buddy steps closer to me, his voice dropping to a whisper. He looks up for a second as if checking for unseen listeners. “I hope you do. They’re—they’re dying here. Not fast, no, but bit by bit and sure as can be.”
“You’re their attendant?” I ask this to get more of a sense of where he feels his place is in all this, beyond his obvious devotion and concern.
“Attendant. Keeper. Jailor.” He is weeping, something not all of us are able to do. “I’m their friend. The only one they have here.”
I stroke his head as if in benediction.
“I believe you. We all owe you more than we can say.”
He slumps under my hand, and in his bent back I feel how his task has broken him.
One final door.
I take a deep breath, then go through it, knowing I am entering a moment where the past, present, and future collide.
The outcome of this crash is utterly uncertain.
Wolf’s emissary told the truth. I have not come here chasing a lie or a dream. A shiver passes through me as I first smell, and then see that which only yesterday I would have said was absolutely impossible.
I see people.
Behind me Chloe gasps. “Holy shit!”
This is what I might say, were I to permit myself to lapse into ungoverned reaction. Not losing my composure takes a considerable effort. Before me are ghosts made flesh, the departed come back from the void to which they had been consigned.
“Good day,” I say, pleased to hear that my voice carries no hint of my inner turmoil. “My name is Merlin. I’m here representing the President of the United States.”
There are four women and three men, all dressed in ill-fitting fatigues. They do not look or smell well. Their color is bad, their skin bad, their gazes dull and lifeless. My arrival has provoked fear and distress, causing them to huddle together.
“Boss, are they real?” Chloe whispers behind me.
“They are,” I answer. “And we’ve been sent to help them.”
The oldest one, a woman with raggedly shorn white hair, rises, takes a step closer to me. In her eyes I see fear, but also faint glimpses of hope.
“My name is Viola,” she says in a low, raspy voice. Her face is slightly lopsided, suggesting that the bones in her cheek or jaw have been broken and have healed badly. “Viola Spooner.”
“Ms. Spooner.” I bow slightly. “I am very pleased to meet you.”
My courtly behavior emboldens and strengthens her. She stands a little straighter, and looks at me more directly. “Are you really here from the president?”
“I am. Tell me, ma’am, how much do you know about what happened, and how things are now?”
“Not much,” she answers bitterly. “We’ve been kept locked up here, away from everyone and everything. No TV, no radio, no contact of any sort.” Her shoulders slump. “Sometimes we wonder if we’ve gone crazy.”
“Can you tell me why?” I ask gently.
She tries to smile. “We were captured by talking dogs, wer
e brought here by talking dogs. Buddy—another talking dog—brings us food and tries to take care of us, but he’s too scared to talk about any of that. He’s the only one we’ve seen since we were captured.”
“Now I show up. Another talking dog.”
A glum nod. “Yeah. Either the world has gone crazy, or we have.”
“You’re not crazy. There’s a lot to tell you. Do you want the straight truth, or should I sugar-coat it?”
She glances back at her companions, faces me again. “I guess you better be blunt. I think we’re too numb for subtle.”
I collect a battered government-issue chair for her, and one for myself. Chloe looks to me for instruction. “Grab a chair,” I say. “Sit beside me.” I want Chloe there because there is nothing threatening about her; instead she exudes a down-to-earth likeability that may make things easier.
“By the way,” I say as she goes for a chair, “this charming young female is my pilot, Chloe.”
“Dogs can fly too?” Viola Spooner asks uncertainly.
“Better us than pigs,” Chloe says with a laugh.
Once we are seated I launch into a capsule history of the past five years. I direct my lesson at Viola Spooner. If I can explain it to her, she can in turn help her companions come to grips with it.
I am, as asked, blunt. “We, that is to say planet Earth, were invaded by aliens.”
The look she gives me asks her question before she voices it. “Are you—”
“An alien? No. But they were extremely canine in appearance and behavior. They came, and they did not like what they found here.”
“Meaning?”
“Humans in charge, and dogs as pets, possessions, and property. To them this was a . . . sacrilege. Pure unbearable blasphemy. Something so criminal that it could not be allowed to stand.”
“So what did they do?”
“You have to understand that when this happened I, and all others who were alive then, were just dogs. So our perceptions, and the conclusions we can draw from them, are somewhat limited. Our kind were as much pawns to these beings as people were.”
Viola Spooner frowns. “You’re bracing me for something bad.”
“I am. Humans were basically put down. Some sort of mental overlay from them was transferred to us. That gave us language skills, education, acquired skills, thought processes much like yours, and in most cases, even certain attitudes.”
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