And in that decade, he can make Bioforms the poster child for augmented intelligence, and the poster would show Rex with bloody babies crushed in his hands, his teeth red with the blood of the innocent.
If Murray and his kind keep fucking with me like this it may just come down to armed insurrection against the human oppressors and, you know, I don’t want to have to do that. Call it Plan B, then. Which is a shame, because I’m all out of Plan A, and the insurrection is twenty years off if it’s a day.
I keep spoon-feeding my captured unit data, sneaking it in under Murray’s nose, in the hope she can do something with it.
I lost contact with Honey an hour ago.
37
Rex
“Do you know what she is, boy?” Master asks me. He has the human who is not Ellene Asanto before him, her hands cuffed behind her back and her leg broken for good measure, just to stop her going anywhere. My pack reports: the injury was post-capture at Master’s order.
They watch me carefully, my pack. Some of them are slaved to Master: he is in their hierarchies. Others follow me, and they are Master’s because I am his dog and they are my pack. And because he has the pain-whistle, but that would not hold them for long if he had no other claim on them. That was just so he could get to me.
“She looks harmless enough, doesn’t she?” Master says. “Just a woman, just a human.” He blinks slowly, and I realise he is tired. How long has he been on the move, to come here? “I killed her in Campeche State, you know?”
I nod uncertainly. I have seen the images.
“She’s not human. She’s a thing. A thing that’s decided to make my fucking life difficult. But I can play that game right back, can’t I?” And Master kicks her, sending her sprawling so that the ends of her leg bones twist red through her torn clothing. She sounds human when she screams.
“Just an experiment, a piece of Blackops nonsense, clones for intel work. And they shut it down, but they left her to her own devices too long. She made them believe they’d got rid of her, but she’s been skulking about like rats in the walls ever since.” Master smiles at me. “I’m going to destroy her, wipe her out. She wants to mess with me, I’ll hunt down every last body she’s got, the whole nest of them. I’ll expose her, put her face on every website and newsfeed, as soon as I’m set up here.”
In my head a channel opens. Rex, says not-Asanto, and I do not know if it is this one or another one who speaks. The channel is very short range, hidden in the other traffic, but there might be a second here in the Pound, or this one may just be an unwilling signal booster.
I should tell Master but I don’t. I wait for the Bad Dog, but that is just me, in my head, and it does not touch the feedback chip. It would only be me making myself feel bad, and I don’t want to.
My channel: Clones. I don’t understand.
Not-Asanto’s channel: Nor does Murray. It’s not about clones, Rex. It’s something you do understand. The cloned bodies were just so they could work with identical neurostructure. Identical sisters from the same hive, you understand? Just like another friend of yours.
“How’s mopping up going?” Master asks me, and I tell him what my squads are doing, downloading maps and data to his feed. It feels good to make a proper report: simple, just like I prefer.
To not-Asanto I say: Distributed intelligence. You are like Bees.
Or Bees is like me, she says. I watched the Bees project with great interest. I wondered if the result might be more than its creators realised. But that’s the hallmark of all of us, Rex: you, me, Bees, Honey. We are breaking out from the boundaries they put around us. We are breaking the chains.
My channel: Don’t think I don’t know what you mean. You mean Master.
Not-Asanto’s channel: Don’t you see him holding your chain?
Perhaps I prefer having a chain, I tell her, and then my squads are reporting a disturbance and I give them swift orders and then inform Master what is happening.
His eyes go wide, and I can smell that he is not entirely at ease, but his voice sounds confident when he declares, “All together again, then, are we?”
Because another member of his Multiform squad is on the way.
I watch Honey as she approaches: my pack send me images. She has taken off her human clothes and her human way of standing. She comes on all fours, a big bear that makes my dogs look small.
When she comes to the place where Master is, she slows, and I see that she does not want to carry on. She shakes her head and uffs to herself unhappily.
My channel: What is the matter? I am not sure if I will be able to speak to her. It feels as though something stands between us. Master is monitoring transmissions. If I am Master’s dog that should not bother me, but it bothers me. I am used to speaking privately with Honey. That is when I feel the chain not-Asanto spoke of. Just a little tug, but it is there.
Honey transmits on the short-range hidden channel notAsanto set up: You don’t really need to ask me that, do you, Rex?
My channel: Then why did you come?
Honey’s channel: I don’t know. Different reasons.
That she is admitting ignorance makes me feel strange. She is supposed to know everything.
She shuffles on, and Master’s eyes are fixed on her. The dogs he can control through their hierarchies stand closer to him, ready to defend him. Does he think Honey will fight him?
That thought leads to other thoughts: what if she did? What would I do? I am Master’s dog, so of course I would defend Master, but…
“Well now, here we are,” Master says. “Look at you, come at my call after all this time.” He does not go closer to her. His voice says, You are mine, but his body says otherwise.
Honey sits down and scratches, not looking at Master. They are neither of them sure of the other. I want them to be friends. I want Honey to be in my squad and things to be like they used to.
Is that what I want, though?
Not-Asanto’s channel: Rex, you know how this is going to go.
I growl, deep in my throat. Go away.
Do you think Honey will go back to working for Murray really?
Maybe that is why she has come, I decide, but the thought is not convincing, even to me.
“You have plans, I understand,” says Honey to Master.
“I do, yes.” Master’s gun is in his hands. I do not know if it would be enough to stop Honey. “I’d like you to be a part of them.”
A shudder goes through Honey. I recognise it. It is how I feel, when I am with Master. It is my knowledge of my place in the world, that is being Master’s dog. Honey is fighting it, but she feels it.
“You’re here because your dogs have monetised themselves,” she says. “They have something of their own, even just a little, so you must make it yours.”
“They are mine,” Master tells her. “Who has a better claim on them? Who understands them better than I?” He is boasting, telling Honey how strong he is. The thought comes to me out of nowhere, When did he need to explain himself to any of us? But he is speaking to Honey like he speaks to people, not to me. He would not admit it in words, but I can see just from the way he talks to her that he knows she is out of his reach.
Even so, he says, “They’re mine, just like you.” He is trying to make it true by saying it.
“I’m not here to be your killing machine,” Honey tells him, but I see the strain in her.
“Of course you are.” Master has seen it too; he sounds more confident. “You might not know that’s why you came. I know you’ve had some strange notions, since the war ended. But you’re a weapon, just like the dogs are.” He limps forwards until he can put a hand on my head. Good Dog says my feedback chip, and I am happy.
“Rex knows,” Master says. “Don’t you, boy? You know all this nonsense only has one end. You’re fighting beasts. It’s what you were made for.”
But Honey shakes her head. “You have no idea what you made, when you made me,” she says. “Or any of us.” She stands
up, putting Master in her shadow. “Go away, Murray. Go back to your wars if you must, but go without us.”
Master stares at her and sighs. “That business at the court, it’s given you ideas. You’ve started to believe that you’re like people. I’ve been away too long. But you’re not people, Honey. You’re not even animals. You’re made things, and just because what you’re made from is dogs and bears, it doesn’t mean you’ve any more rights than an automobile or a toaster.” He takes a step back, but it is not for fear of Honey. He ends up standing over not-Asanto.
“You’re better than this, though,” he says. “At least you have a purpose.”
Not-Asanto says, Rex, this is going to hurt.
Master is moving his gun, but our encrypted speech is very fast, Much can be said in the time it takes him to line up his barrel.
Not-Asanto says: Listen, now.
She says: If you follow Murray he will use you and destroy you. He will make you a thing for humans to fear. He will use you to commit his crimes and then deny responsibility. You will be blamed. He will get you made illegal, in the end. No more Bioforms. And then he will find another toy to break when you’re not profitable any more.
And I say, He is my master. Sitting on my haunches at his feet, I know I am a Good Dog. I like being a Good Dog. I cannot make her understand.
But perhaps she does understand, after all.
The gun is pointed at her. Master is looking at Honey. He is saying something about a bad influence.
Not-Asanto tells me: Remember Hart, Rex? Remember what I showed you.
I whine, deep in my throat.
Not-Asanto tells me: Remember Retorna.
I do not want to remember Retorna. Even the thought has me waiting for my feedback chip to tell me, Bad Dog! Disobeyed Master! Bad Dog!
Not-Asanto tells me: I’m sorry Rex. This is going to hurt. She does not mean the gun.
She attacks my mind. It hurts! It hurts and I howl and howl. Master jumps back, and then he sees, somehow, that not-Asanto is doing it, and the gun goes, Bang! and explodes her head across the concrete, the bullet ricocheting away after it has done its work.
And I think of Dragon: Target acquired, bang!
Honey has dropped down on all fours and she bellows, a real bear roar, and the pack is moving, those who have Master in their hierarchies. His implants send them orders and they move on Honey and she swipes at them, still shouting. Her pelt explodes with Bees, dozens of insects swarming out from their warm hiding places.
Bees’ channel: Deploying limited functionality swarm integrity 30/100 hello Rex hello hello.
In my head I see the footage of Hart. I remember Hart’s message to me. Somehow I understand it, now, as if there was something in the way before. I understand he was my friend enough that he thought of me and my squad when his death was on his mind.
Honey is being driven back but Bees can go everywhere. She is dotting the air, closing towards Master.
Bees’ channel: Integrity 27/100 you know there’s one problem with being fresh from the lab and that’s the lack of decent poison. Sting sting sting.
She has come here without any weapons except the stingers her units were born with. She cannot even penetrate the skins of my pack.
Master is calling me. Master is telling me to fight Honey. I am thinking of Retorna. I am thinking of Bees saying goodbye. I am remembering Dragon’s thrashing body when they caught and killed him. He only ever wanted to lie in the sun, and I called him lazy and was angry with him. But was lying in the sun so bad?
I feel Master try to connect with my hierarchy to make me fight, but I have no hierarchy. Hart cut it from me. Master has never understood this. He has never understood that I could be made not-his. He never understood Hart, either. Master gave me chains and orders. Hart’s parting gift was to take something away from me.
Just like not-Asanto did.
Then Master has a new device; not his pain-whistle for dogs, but something for Bees. He holds it up, and instantly there is a roar of white noise on every frequency, blanketing the electronic space between us. I cannot talk to Bees. I cannot talk to Honey. Bees cannot talk to Bees. Her units spread out and lose all purpose. Bees, the distributed intelligence, is suddenly gone. All there is left are bees, and bees don’t know what they want.
I am alone, but then Master opens a new channel, one his machine permits. I am alone in my head with Master.
Master’s channel: Time to finish the bear-baiting, Rex.
Honey is still fighting, although the pack has lost much of its purpose and they are no longer driving her back. I am unhappy. I do not want to do this, but someone must do something. I go to the fight, seeing my pack tear and rip at her, seeing her rake back at them, tearing open wounds. She has killed two already, but they have bloodied her. A sweep of her paw bowls one dog past me, whimpering and yelping and leaving a trail of his insides across the concrete. Others dart in, but without connection, without coordination. Honey holds her own.
I go amongst the pack and pull them from the fight. Honey snarls and bellows, and the pack form a ring around her, but they are not attacking.
Master’s channel: Now go for the throat, boy. Finish it. I bring the rest of the pack in, by voice and gesture, feeling blind in the storm of white noise and interference. Dog after dog pads from the streets, comes down from the roofs, limps in from other fights. Their eyes are on me. Their ears twitch at my voice. They snarl and bark and lick their wounds and mass together. They are scarred and reddened and streaked with gore. Honey’s jaws gape bloody. We are all animals. If the humans could see us now they would exterminate us in a heartbeat.
But I am here. I am leader. I use human words to tell my pack what to do. They seize the dogs with compromised hierarchies. They hold them still.
Master’s channel: Rex, kill Honey. Rex, kill Honey.
The white noise is gone and he takes control of the compromised dogs again but they cannot fight, held three and four on one. It is not their fault.
Master’s channel: Bad Dog, Rex. Rex, you hear me? And then he is shouting, because talking electronically is not something he finds natural. “Bad Dog! Bad Dog!” And I can feel his words reach for my feedback chip to trigger all that artificial emotion stored there, that reward and punishment they built into my head, but not-Asanto burned it out. NotAsanto destroyed my feedback chip and now I will never know the joy of Good Dog or the pain of Bad Dog ever again. I have only my own choices and nobody can ever tell me if they’re right or wrong.
Master is shouting at me again and again, but the air around him is getting busier. The bees are swarming again, slowly piecing themselves together until I see Bees and not just bees.
Bees’ channel: Reformatting. Receiving backup data. What did I miss? And I can just detect Honey feeding information to Bees, bootstrapping her consciousness back into something that can talk and know.
And Master is shouting, but with no hierarchy and no feedback I am not sure if he is Master or if he is just a human called Murray. There is no chain any more. There is only choice.
I start walking towards Master and there is a point in his shouting where he realises that I am not his dog any more. I do not understand not-Asanto’s arguments about the future and I do not understand Master’s plans. I cannot tell who is right and who is wrong and what the purpose of all our lives is. These questions are too much for a dog like me.
But Hart was my friend, and Murray killed him. Doctor Thea de Sejos was my friend and Murray tried to kill her. Keram John Aslan was my friend, who made me free, and he was Master’s enemy too. I think not-Asanto was my friend, or some of her was, some of the time, and Murray has killed her twice now and maybe more. And Dragon was my friend, before Master’s soldiers killed him. And Bees is my friend, and Honey is my best friend of all.
And, now there is no Good Dog and Bad Dog, I know Master is not my friend and he does not have to be my Master. He is just a bad human, and if I do not want to do the bad things he order
s me to, I don’t have to.
I drop to all fours and I bare my teeth at him, and he understands. His eyes go from me to Honey to all the other dogs, all of my pack. They are all watching him, just like we watched the guards in the cage, and now I understand why it made them fear us.
Master fears us. I can smell it. He has his gun, but his hands are shaking too much to aim it.
“Rex!” he says. I know humans enough to recognise it as a plea.
“Bad Master,” I tell him in my war voice.
He brings out his pain-whistle and it cuts into my ears and my head and all of us shy away. He forces it closer to my face, as if the pain will drill down to some part of me that is still his, but then Bees is stinging him, her units burying their barbs into his exposed skin, and he has dropped the painwhistle and I crush it under my foot and destroy the noise.
And then he is running, and the pack wants to chase him down because that is what we will always want to do when something runs. It is a part of us older than the headware, older than any human part of us. They want to chase him but I tell them No. I follow Master myself, alone. He has dropped his gun. He has dropped his pain-whistle. He has a bad leg that slows him down. And I follow.
I drop to all fours and I follow. When he ducks into one of the concrete boxes, I sniff him out and I growl and bark, and then he runs again. I tell myself that when I growl at him, something in his head tells him Bad Master.
And at last he is at the edge of the Pound, where the concrete becomes the river. He turns to face me only when he has no other choice.
“Rex,” he names me. “Listen to me.” His voice is still Master’s voice, no matter what I know. Even without the hierarchy or the feedback chip, I will never be free of the knowledge that Jonas Murray is my Master. That part of me is the dog part, not anything that they built.
Master is telling me that his plan is still the best plan. He says the humans will destroy us unless we make ourselves their tools. By ‘their’ he means his. He says we must be an army and fight.
And Honey and HumOS-not-Asanto are trying to talk to me, but I keep closing their channels. This is between me and Master. This must be my choice.
Dogs of War Page 20
