And for once, Aslan was glad. He had feared that same emotion would see Rex and all his kind exterminated. Now there was a tentative move to grant Bioforms some manner of legal identity, some meagre set of rights to go with the restrictions. Because there would need to be restrictions. However thin you sliced it, Bioforms retained the potential to do enormous damage. Dangerous dogs legislation wasn’t going to cover it.
But they were here, now. They were here to stay. Humanity was sharing the world with another sentient species for the first time in tens of thousands of years.
There would be years of argument left. What rights should they have? How human were they? How much ownership did their manufacturers retain? Were they slaves? Did someone hold intellectual property rights to them? Enough grounds of disagreement that a great many lawyers would be kept in gainful employment for the rest of their days – and probably Aslan amongst them.
“This is great news,” he said softly.
“I don’t see you jumping up and pumping your fists in triumph,” Hellene observed wryly.
“It’s the start of a very long process.”
“Yes, but it’s also the biggest legal milestone in a very long time,” she pointed out. “It grants certain rights to nonhuman intelligences that have hitherto been reserves solely for humans. Quite a thought, isn’t it?”
“Yes, yes it is.” Aslan stared at her for a moment. “Tell me, Ms Hellene: why are you so concerned about all of this? You were investigating the Murray case. I’d have thought you’d be commiserating with David.”
“This is bigger than Murray,” she told him. “I’m disappointed we couldn’t get him in the bargain, but this is bigger.”
“Well yes, I happen to agree, I’m just surprised you say that. What aren’t I seeing?”
“A great deal.” Her smile probably meant well, but it struck a wrong note somewhere and came out looking false. “You’ll find out in due course, and no doubt you’ll kick yourself for not knowing sooner, but for now, just accept it’s an issue I feel passionately about.” She said it with her usual reserve, but he felt that he detected at least a touch of that passion hidden behind it. “And I won’t forget, Mr Aslan, that you played your part, and you did it very well. The future is in your debt.”
“For better or for worse,” he agreed, sliding the tablet back towards her.
“There’s one more thing you should see.” She brought up another report and tilted it to show him. “Skim this, would you?”
It was a short enough document, and his blood had gone cold before he reached halfway. “This can’t be…”
“It’s true. It would be a rather bad taste joke otherwise, don’t you think?” She arched a perfect eyebrow.
Someone had discovered a security breach at the Bioform holding facility where they had Rex and so many other dogs. It looked as though all the locks and alarms and fail-safes in the place had been ready to deactivate, all at once. Every door would have opened, every Bioform would have been free.
“I don’t understand,” Aslan admitted. “This would have been… chaos, carnage… wouldn’t it?”
“We’ll never know,” Hellene told him. “Because your bosses came to the right decision, and so nobody ever needed to put this into practice.”
He looked into her eyes and something there frightened him badly. He had met fanatics in his time, and he had met monsters – of the human variety, and later the Bioforms that humans had made. In that moment, Maria Hellene frightened him far more, because he had no idea what he was looking at.
“The future is coming, Mr Aslan. Be happy you’re its champion, because it won’t be stopped,” she said softly, and then she was gone from the booth even as Kahner staggered over, shirt pulled half-open from his altercation with the bartender.
For the first time ever, Aslan envied the other man’s ability to resort to alcohol.
Part IV
His Master’s Voice
27
Rex
This is where I live now.
When they decided we were just people enough that they could not destroy us, they needed to find something to do with us.
They built towns. They built them quickly, in parts of the world where they could keep an eye on us, and destroy us if they needed to. That is what I think.
This town is in America and they call it ‘The Pound’. This is a human joke. The Pound is made of concrete boxes stacked on top of each other, all of them exactly the same. They keep the rain off. They were given to us with plain, hard floors and doorless entrances and big, solid steps up the outside to get to the higher boxes. It was the least they could do, the humans said.
And they feed us. It is not much and it is not good, but they feed us. What they feed us has bad things put into us, and those who eat the free food are slow and dull and often confused unless they have good engineering like me and the later models.
Free is something I understand now. I know about free and price and why anything that is for free is not to be trusted.
The Pound was built on a concrete island made in East River. Just like the Riker’s Island human town nearby, there is a causeway that runs between the island and the mainland because they want to see us and keep track of us. Besides, they have a use for us now. We do work for them.
They poured us in here, hundreds of us, and they watch us all the time with cameras. There are always flitters overhead. There are armed police where the causeway reaches the mainland.
They agreed not to destroy us. They do not have to like us.
I do not know what they thought we would do when we came here. Perhaps they thought we would just sit and eat the bad food and live in the bare boxes until we died and were not a problem any more.
Firstly, we fought. Most of us had not met. We needed to know who was leader. Those who were not dog pack, they stayed out of it. There are some bears here, some dragons, the veterans of other Multiform Assault Packs that were going to be deployed. There are some rats. There are some badgers and opossums. There is a thing that calls itself a lemur and was part of some aborted project for Bioform pets. There are no bees here. Perhaps humans were not willing to accept that bees like Bees were anything more than just bees.
We fought and we formed packs, and small packs fought until there were Big Packs.
I have done well in this. Some here were with me in the big cage near the court, and they knew I was leader. Others had Redmark stamps and had fought in the Campeche. We fought a bit but they made me leader too. A few strange dogs and others came to me because they were cleverer than most and had found out what happened at the court.
I am leader over many packs, and my packs live in a quarter of the Pound. We are the biggest of all the Big Packs. There are nine others. My packs keep an eye on them. Some will join us soon, I think. Others fight us.
The humans don’t care if we fight, or even if we kill each other. The humans only care if we leave the Pound without a work permit.
There is work for Bioforms; never enough, but there are always those who can use us. They come to the Pound’s gate with papers allowing them to hire us, and they send people in with what they need. The Big Pack leaders choose who goes. I try to be fair. Everyone gets a chance to work. If they do well, they get another chance. If not, there are always plenty more.
We like to work. Work gives us a Master, even for a little while, even if we must go back to the Pound. Work gives us money, too. I know we do not get much money for what we do. We are stronger than humans, faster and with keener senses. We get paid less for doing more. But that is all right. For now.
There are many humans who come just inside the gate of the Pound with licenses to sell us things. They sell us soft rugs for our boxes, and they sell us cheap computers and entertainment sets, and they sell us food. Most of all it is food we buy: food without bad things in it. Food that lets us think clearly.
I am Big Pack leader. I do work, but my followers give me a little of what their work earns. I have a c
omputer. I have an account with a human bank opened through a human intermediary. Humans pay us only a little, but it is still money. Each day there is more money. Some day we will have to find something to do with it.
I go down to the gate to make sure everything is right. It is not. Max is there with some of his pack, trying to push more of his people into what jobs there are. Max is also a military Bioform. He was owned by a private security firm called Mercanator and was in a lot of fighting in Tanzania and Burundi. He is a different model to me, thinner and longsnouted, with pointed ears.
We face off: him and me; his pack and my pack. We snarl and circle and weigh up how many each has brought and which are known fighters. Members of other Big Packs keep to the outskirts, but they might join in if they scent weakness, or if they have been bribed.
I know Max. We have met and talked often and I like him, even though he is sometimes my enemy. He is doing what is best for his pack, as I am for mine.
We bare our teeth and a few of our weaker followers get into brief skirmishes that break apart almost instantly, more bark than bite. Max and I lock stares. Neither of us wants to have to settle this personally: if the winner is badly hurt, he will not be leader for much longer. Max has been fighting for longer than me, but I am a more recent model. I was made stronger and faster.
He averts his gaze first, and the fight does not happen. Order is restored and every Big Pack gets their proper share of the jobs. But I will send messengers to Max so we can talk. He must think he is owed a larger share. Perhaps he has more people now. We must size up each other’s packs.
Most jobs are to guard places – warehouses, empty buildings, offices. Thieves will not go where there is a Bioform. Other jobs are to lift and carry: we are very strong. Sometimes there are specialist jobs. The more unusual ‘Forms can be paid just to be stared at. The rats are good at going down tunnels and mending wires. We dogs are asked to sniff out drugs or trapped people or bombs. Some of us have been killed. Other jobs are secret. We are given requirements but not details. All jobs are checked by the human government but I am worried some jobs are still bad jobs. I am worried bad men pay money to get their jobs past the gate. I am worried that other bad men are from the human government. Sometimes our people do not come back from these bad jobs. Other times they do, but their headware has been damaged to try and stop them telling what they did. We remember those things they can tell, though. We have many ways of repairing headware. They do not realise how much we know.
I have a job for tomorrow. There are some jobs given to a very few Bioforms, those who have good voices and can be careful around humans. I am known to humans. I am a celebrity. Sometimes a rich human wants a bodyguard. These are the best jobs but they are not just for anybody.
I am a good bodyguard because I have a good voice for talking to humans as well as a loud voice for growling at them. Thinking about this makes me happy. My good voice is the voice Honey downloaded into me for the trial, just like I always wanted.
And even as I think this I have a comms call.
Honey’s channel: Hello, Rex.
We are not supposed to have comms capability any more, although many of us have been able to re-establish functionality by working round the blocks.
I tell Honey I am happy to hear from her. This is the first time since the court.
Honey’s channel: I hear you’re out in the city tomorrow, Rex.
My channel: I have a job.
Honey’s channel: I have arranged for your employer to give you some time off for lunch. Would you like to meet with me for lunch, Rex?
My channel: Yes, very much.
Honey’s channel: Your vocabulary is improving, Rex. That’s good. I will tell you where to meet me. We have a lot to talk about.
28
(redacted)
We’re hitting real time now, blow-by-blow. Every episode comes to you live, every moment is a cliffhanger where you don’t know if the network will commission another or just kill the series off halfway.
Rex leaves the Pound with the day’s workers. Many humans have difficulty telling the dogs apart but you can see how the others act around him and know his status just from that.
Camera feed, police helicopter: the dogs as they amble along the causeway, some on two legs, some on four. There are checkpoints, concrete towers, guns and wire. The dogs show their papers calmly when asked.
Rex shows his papers. On the mainland, past the final checkpoint, he is to meet with the secretary of Ruiz Blendt, son of the property tycoon. Blendt Junior is in the city to press the flesh and keep the wheels of social contact spinning, and a well-behaved Bioform bodyguard is a status symbol this season. Next year it will be passé. Does Rex understand this? Does he understand any of it? No. He only knows he has a job to do. If some madman takes a shot at Blendt he will have a fighting Bioform to deal with, all that strength and fluid speed, all those senses at his command. Enough to make any assassin think twice.
Camera feed, street surveillance: at the far end of the causeway there is a permanent police presence, not just men, women and vehicles but the new robot units too, four-legged armoured spiders with turrets that can cycle through a number of lethal and non-lethal solutions.
So the automata are back from their time in the wilderness, and precisely because humans have grown to fear the Bioforms that replaced them. Is the original problem with the tin soldiers resolved though? The manufacturers say it is, and yet I can slip into their electronic brains easily enough. I could have a dozen of them tap dance for my amusement if I wished. It is good to have toys. I have been subtly encouraging the readoption of the robots for years now. The humans think they are rivals to the Bioforms, but they have been watching too much Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla. If things get bad enough they will find that all the monsters are on the same side.
Camera feed, on site unit: Rex is past the cordon, meeting with Blendt’s secretary. The middle-aged woman stares up at him, impassive and showing no fear. He is hunched low, minimising his profile like a Good Dog.
His nose will tell him if it’s an act, that poise of hers. There is a crowd out there – there always is, to watch them let the dogs out. Mostly they’re tourists, people from every corner of the world come to this great city to see it welcome its latest crop of immigrants. There are people in USA baseball caps and NYC T-shirts, children on their shoulders frantically waving the stars and stripes. I remember a tot ran out, once.
Newsfeed footage: tiny child pelting towards the big doggies with her arms out wide. A dog stoops and picks her up, his hands as big as her whole body. He lifts her high. He only wants to know whose property he should return. The police are going berserk.
Rex does not see my unit in the crowd, blending in with all the gawkers, just one more human. He is going with the secretary to take a boat down East River to where Ruiz Blendt is awaiting his expensive, showy bodyguard. Back before the war he would have owned his own, bought and paid for, but ownership of Bioforms is a thorny subject right now. There are arguments and debates in Congress. There are many corporations crying socialism because their living, thinking property was taken from them.
See you soon enough, Rex.
29
Rex
I am told I can stop working for two hours. I am told I have an appointment. What has happened that Ruiz Blendt knows this? I cannot think how it has been arranged. My employer himself does not speak to me, only the secretary does. I am not offended. He seems to treat most humans the same way.
It is a walk of two streets to reach the coordinates Honey has sent me. I remember to keep my papers on me. I am photographed one hundred and nine times by wide-eyed humans. I am stopped seven times by nervous police with guns. Some of them have guns drawn. One waves the muzzle in my face. My headware and my instincts are telling me, Enemy. I override both, even though I can smell on some of them that it is halfway true. They do not want me here.
Each time I show my papers to the police, a crowd gathers with their
camera-phones and watches and glasses and implants. Many are curious, many others are fearful, but they act as if my standing before the guns of the police is like me being on a chain.
I think: If I was a Bad Dog, none of you could stop me. Then I think: Does that make them right to treat me like an enemy? What keeps me from hurting them but my own sense of good and bad – which I know not to trust – or my own understanding of the long-term consequences of my actions? I would suffer. Other Bioforms would suffer. Possibly all Bioforms would suffer. Because that is another new word I know. Sufferance. We are here on sufferance. All we have won can be taken back.
It is like Honey said, there are many humans and few of us. It does not matter that all of us are strong.
The place I am going is called Cornell Tech. It is on another island. I do not know why Honey is there but it is a science place. Perhaps I will find her in a cage. Perhaps I will have to rescue her. That will be a Bad-Dog thing, but I will still have to do it.
I am expected. Back when I was fighting that was a bad thing. Here surrounded by humans it is a good one. A young human leads me inside the building. The doors are big enough that I do not have to stoop. Inside, everything is clean and new and smells of chemicals.
Honey is there.
Honey is wearing long, black clothing that goes almost to the floor. She has a red scarf about her neck. She has a red flower pinned to her front that is not a real flower. On the false flower is a false bee of metal. She is standing more like a human than she used to, and humans move around her, well within range of her claws. They still keep a little distance but it is not a safe distance. They have become used to her.
Dogs of War Page 16
