"That's what droids and computers are for!" HARV protested.
Way looked at HARV. "Perhaps, but our marketing research shows there are some people who are uneasy with intelligent machines."
"I can relate to that," I said, looking at HARV.
"So these people will be okay with a dog that is smarter than they are?" HARV said.
"We admit it's a niche market, but a profitable one," Way told him.
"You say he's missing," I said, trying to steer the conversation back my way.
"Yes, he's run away."
"How do you know he's run away?"
"He left us a message," Way said, very matter of fact.
"He can talk?"
"No no," Way said shaking his hands at the screen. "That would be unnatural. We would have had to surgically alter him besides making the biophysical augmentations."
"So how does he communicate?" I asked.
Way bent over and picked up a keyboard. He moved it close to the screen, it looked like a standard old fashion keyboard with extra big letters on it.
"He uses this," Way said. "A type-a-talker."
"Oh now that's much more natural."
"Here's his message," Lee said. He pushed a button.
"This is all I have to say to you stupid two leggers. I'm out of here. You can fetch your own DOSing smelly shoes from now on!" played from the talk-a-type.
"That's it?" I asked.
"That's enough," Way added. "Apparently we made him a bit too smart."
"Have you talked to the police about this?" I asked.
Way lowered his eyes. "The police are only interested in missing humanoids. Since Max has four legs and has been missing for less than twenty-four hours, they consider him neither. Besides we want to keep this as quiet as possible. That is why we have turned to you instead of one of those big corporations. If our competition ever found out about this they would start doing it. Right now we have the market cornered on intelligent dogs."
"So you want me to find a lost dog?" I said.
"A runaway dog."
"My rate is 5,000 credits a day plus expenses," I said.
"Pricey," Way said. "But we feel Max is worth it."
"You are now officially on the clock," I said. "Did you have any signs or warnings that Max might be planning to bolt?"
Way shook his head. "Not really." He paused for a nano or two. "Though in retrospect…"
"Yes?" I prompted.
"His trainer, facilitator and communicator Ms. Gem Moon said that over the last few months she had been picking up strange vibes from him. Like he was hiding something."
"Strange vibes. Is she a psi?"
"Yes, Class 2, level 2. She specializes in dog communications. We call her the dog whisperer. She is how we communicated with Max while we were teaching him to type."
I just shook my head. This was a bit strange even by my standards. "Okay," I said slowly. "I'm going to have to check out the scene. Where are you located?"
"Here in New Frisco. At 1714 Bonds Avenue."
"I can be there within an hour," I said. "Please make sure Gem Moon and anybody else who works with Max is available."
"Very well, we will expect you then." The wall screen went blank.
~~~
Though today most people travel by airborne hover craft, I don't like them at all. When possible I prefer to take my classic 2022 Mustang convertible. Sure, it's old and stands out like a sore thumb on brain surgeon, but this case didn't call for stealth. I figured I might as well travel in style. I always liked to tell HARV if man had been meant to fly all around we would have been born with parachutes that shoot out of our butts. Besides, driving the old fashion way, on the ground, gave me a chance to commute and commune with nature and connect with my ancestors who lived in simpler, slower times.
As I drove and waxed nostalgia, HARV's face popped in my dashboard's computer screen.
"Zach, I've been thinking."
"HARV, you're a computer. All you do is think."
HARV rolled his eyes. "I've been thinking about Max."
"Good, it's nice to know you're thinking about the case."
"The thing is, if Max is truly as intelligent as they claim and he has run away from the lab, shouldn't we respect his wishes? Or does he have no rights because he's not human?"
As much as I hated to admit it, HARV had made a valid point. Just because LoveClone had made Max and held a patent on him, that didn't mean they could control his actions. Did it?
"You may be on to something," I said. "But my special PI sense is tingling here. Something is up. What if Max has actually been dog-napped?"
"Yes, I do suppose that it is possible Max has been taken against his will. Though I don't believe you have a special PI sense."
"So, let's just check it out and see what we find. And then we'll take it from there."
"Sounds fair enough," HARV agreed.
~~~
LoveClone headquarters was an unimpressive, long and narrow, three-story pale white building that looked more like a low-tech storehouse than a high-tech cloning house. Looking at it from the outside there didn't even appear to be any windows. My guess was this was just some sort of holographic trick to help them maintain some privacy. When you're working with cloning, the less auspicious-looking the better. There are a lot of people out there who are more than a little uneasy with all-too-human scientists making what many consider to be godlike decisions. Perhaps some anti-cloning group had taken Max to use him as an example?
I entered the building and was greeted by Dr. Way and a chubby older man in a blue uniform.
Way held out his hand. "Thank you for coming so quickly, Mr. Johnson."
"No problem. Mr. Way—and please, call me Zach."
"Dr. Way," he corrected.
Way turned to the older man and said, "This is Gus Lobo, head security guard."
Gus nodded to me. "I feel bad that the dog got out of here on my watch."
I put on my best business face. "Please take me to Max's…" I searched for the proper word, but the best I could come up with was, "cage."
Way was a bit taken aback by my choice of words. "I assure you Mr. Johnson, Max's quarters are mega comfortable. In fact, most humans wish they were treated as good as we treat Max."
"Can Max leave whenever he wants?" I asked.
"Well, we take him for walks when he wants," Way said.
I decided not to push the point for now. I've learned from experience it's best not to bite the hand that pays you.
"Lead the way then," I said.
Way and Lobo started walking me through the maze of corridors in the building. As we walked, I talked.
"How many people work with Max?" I asked.
"We had a team of well over 100 work on his initial design, specs and augmentations," Way answered.
Way pulled a disposable computer from his pocket and unfolded it. He touched a few sensor pads. "I've downloaded the names and vital info of the entire Max project team on this computer. Along with some other meaningful information on Max."
Way handed me the paper thin computer. I looked it over briefly.
"He had filet mignon for dinner yesterday?" I said out loud even though I didn't really mean to.
Way shook his head. "Yes, he has filet mignon every day."
I looked over the list a bit more. "Only you, Gem, Moon and security have seen him for the last month."
"Yes, Max can pretty much take care of himself. His tutoring is done via computer," Way said. "He is very particular about who he lets into his pack"
I folded the computer up and stuck it in my pocket.
"When he goes out for a walk he is either accompanied by me or one of my men," Gus said. "I run a staff of twelve security guards. There are always four of us on duty, and we work eight hour shifts."
"When was Max last seen?" I asked.
"Our computer records show him in his room last night at 23:55," Gus answered. "We were doing a routine restart of the secur
ity system. We shut the system down for 5 minutes and the next thing we knew he was gone."
This struck me as a bit odd. "You shut your system down completely yesterday?" I asked.
"Yes, of course," Gus said, very assured of himself. "We wanted to see how long it would take us to start the systems up again if one of our competitors somehow managed to sabotage them."
"I thought it was a great idea," Way said.
"Oh, okay," I said, though the logic behind it still escaped me. I have to admit I never quite understand what makes scientists tick.
After walking through two or three or five off-off-yellow hallways that pretty much looked the same, we came to a big metal green door with a palm-print lock on it. This door was thicker and more secure than the other doors that lined the walls.
"This is Max's room," Way said, as he placed his palm on the palm print.
The door popped open.
"How many people is the door programmed for?" I asked.
"Just myself, Gem Moon, and the security staff," Way said.
I was certainly starting to see a trend.
We entered the room. It might have very well been a cage but it was a really sweet cage. The room was bigger than most people's homes. Though we were on the ground floor of a three story building, the ceiling was much higher than I would have thought possible. It was also transparent, giving occupants in the room a crystal clear view of the sky above. I wasn't sure if this was a holographic illusion or if the floors above this room had actually been removed, but whatever the means the effect was quite striking.
The room itself was separated into two distinct parts. The side away from the door was the natural side. It was layered with thick green grass and had a pool in its center. The pool was dotted by an assortment of palm trees and fire hydrants. The farthest end of the room was simply a dirt area. HARV zoomed in on a sign on the wall that read: designated digging space.
The domestic half was covered with nice thick shag carpeting. Big fluffy swivel couches, flanked by even more fire hydrants, were positioned every 10 to 15 meters around the room. The entire east and west walls were computer screens that currently had simulated bunnies darting back and forth. My guess was if I was an intelligent dog, this would be heaven.
Way and Gus led me to a pleasant looking woman with light skin and curly red hair. She was sitting at a long lab table in the middle of the room. The table acted as a sort of separator between the two distinct areas and it was covered with dog toys.
"This is Gem Moon," Way said as we reached her.
"Nice to meet you, ma'am," I said.
Gem didn't hear me. She appeared to be in deep meditation, holding a rubber chew bone to her forehead. A sparrow flew up and landed on her shoulder. This still didn't upset Gem's concentration. The sparrow looked around for a second or two, decided we were boring and then flew back to its nest in one of the palm trees.
"Gem, Mr. Johnson is here to help us find Max," Way said, trying to break Gem out of her trance.
Gem lowered the bone and looked at me. "Hello, Mr. Johnson," she said politely. "This was Max's favorite toy. I was trying to see if I could pick up some vibes of where he might have run off to," she told me, answering my question before I could ask it.
"A dog with a 150 plus IQ has chew toys?" I asked.
Gem looked at me. "He may be smart, but he is still a dog, a dear sweet dog."
"I'd like to ask you some questions if you don't mind?" I said.
She looked at me and smiled. It was a warm, motherly, disarming smile. I could have sworn I could smell cookies baking.
"No, I don't mind," she said softly.
She locked her brown eyes on mine, her smile broadened a bit.
Thereupon something surprising happened. I heard Gem's voice inside my head saying, Max has run away, you better go find him. The words were meant to be an order, an order I wasn't suppose to hear but was suppose to obey blindly. She was trying to use mind control on me. Luckily, having HARV inside my head scrambles my thoughts just enough to greatly increases my resistance to mental domination.
Way and Gus, not having computers wired to their brains weren't so fortunate. Their eyes glazed over and they both said in perfect unison, "Yes, Max has run away, we must find him."
Not wanting to let on to Gem that I was on to her, I stared at her as mindlessly as I could and repeated, "Yes, I must go find him."
Gem's smile curled up ever so slightly. "Good. Now be good boys and run along."
Way and Gus turned like obedient pups and headed towards the door. I followed them. Sure, I had only been in the room for a few minutes but I had seen enough.
As soon as we got into the hall, Way turned to me and said, "You will go find Max now."
"Yes, I will go find him now," I said.
"Good," Gus said, "we will escort you to the door."
We weaved our way quickly through the maze of corridors towards the exit. As we walked we would occasionally pass a LoveClone employee. I noticed each of them had the same glazed look on their eyes that Way and Gus had.
The two escorted me all the way out of the building to my car. Apparently they really wanted to make sure I was going to find Max. Gus opened the door to my car and motioned to it like a game show host showing a contestant what they had just won.
"Good luck finding Max who has run away," Gus said, as I got into my car.
"Yes, good luck," Way agreed.
Gus closed my door. I turned on the ignition and pulled away.
HARV popped onto my dash screen less than a second after I was away from LoveClone.
"So you picked up Gem's message she sent me?" I asked.
HARV snickered. "It's not like you have so much going on up there that I could miss something like that."
"She turned Way and Lobo into obedient little pups."
"You would have been on her mental leash too if it wasn't for me," HARV said. "It was a powerful attack."
"No way that woman's a class II psi." I said.
"Agreed. She has to be class I, at least level 5—maybe higher."
"She's obviously hiding something," I said.
"Maybe she's working for one of LoveClone competitors?" HARV said.
"Maybe," I said, though I wasn't quite buying it. Some how that didn't fit her vibe. "Can you get her address from the LoveClone db?"
"Already got it," HARV said. "She lives in the country about thirty K outside of the city. I'm feeding the information into the car's navigational computer now."
HARV churned for a nano more. "According to my info she lives alone,"
"Good. Tell Carol I'd like her to meet us there. I want to fight mental fire with mental fire."
~~~
It didn't take us long to reach Gem Moon's. It was a little light blue dome house with a finely manicured lawn, all wrapped in nice and neatly by white picket fence. The neo-modern dome wrapped by an old-fashion fence made for a very interesting look. While dome homes are all the rage these days, I can't help thinking they look like simu-plastic igloos with peep windows.
I hopped out of my car and headed towards the fence. Just as I was about to swing open the gate, three extremely large pitbulls came rushing out of the house door's doggie door.
"I don't think they're friendly," I told HARV as the dogs charged towards me. The three raced through the yard and leaped onto the fence, fangs showing and saliva flying. It was as if they couldn't decide if I was their next meal or I had just stolen their next meal. Whatever the reason, they wanted to rip me limb from limb.
"They may be friendly, but not to you," HARV said.
"Nice doggies," I said, in a futile attempt to calm them down.
The dogs growled louder and snipped across the fence at me. It was as if they were offended by the fact I would try to befriend them.
"I don't suppose you brought any dog treats?" I said to HARV.
"I could make some holographic ones, but they would have no scent, so they wouldn't fool these dogs. Unless by
some off chance they all have head colds. I compute the odds of that being nine million to one."
I popped the gun from up my sleeve into my hand. "Well, I guess I can stun them," I said.
"Hold the ammo," Carol said walking up to us from behind. Amongst the racket of the dogs barking I hadn't even heard her hover land. "I don't want you hurting these nice little pups."
"Nice little pups! I think they're either rabid or in serious need of a doggie anger management program."
"Nonsense," Carol said. "They are just protecting their home."
Carol looked at the dogs.
"Time to be quiet, boys," she said. "We mean you no harm."
The three dogs looked at Carol and stopped yelping. I could swear they smiled at her. One by one they each rolled over calmly on their backs. They weren't sleeping but they seemed as if they had found some sort of Zen inner peace.
"They'll be no trouble now," Carol said.
I opened the gate and stepped into the yard—cautiously, like dogs were sensitive bombs and if I rattled them they would explode. The dogs just laid there as I walked past. They didn't seem to know or care that I existed. Carol followed me, giving each of the dogs a little tummy rub as she passed by. The dogs cooed and lay there even more content. They were now furry putty in Carol's hands.
"I didn't know you had experience using your powers on mad dogs?"
"I don't, but I do have a lot of experience with men," Carol said, as we walked onto the little patio that separated the house and the yard.
Just as I was about to reach for the door a German Shepherd popped his head out of the doggie door. This dog had a different look about him than the others. He seemed to be summing up the situation.
"Mr. Max, I presume?" I said.
Max nodded yes.
Carol looked at him and smiled. "Wow, his thoughts are incredible. So clear. So pure."
Max, figuring out the coast was clear, walked through the door on to the patio. He was wearing a type-and-talk keyboard around his neck. Of course with Carol around he wouldn't need it.
Carol looked at him. "He says he's glad we're here. Those three were keeping him prisoner."
"So Gem Moon dog-napped you?" I asked.
The Heart of Dog Page 20
