by Todd McAulty
It’s strange what people left behind when they fled. The power is out in the Continental, but Buddy had given me a flashlight, and enough moonlight filtered in through wide windows to allow us to make our way around. We found tables set for dinner, and personal data tablets resting on coffee tables. The whole building is like an abandoned set between acts, ready to explode back to life at any moment. I tiptoed everywhere, trying not to make noise, afraid we’d wake some guy with a shotgun who’d leap out of his bedroom to confront the intruders prowling through his home with a bag of cat food.
But Buddy was right. The building’s abandoned. We didn’t find any overzealous owners with artillery, or even any squatters. We did find fish tanks—mostly empty, thank God—and a whole lot of dead and dying house plants. More than once I heaved the cat food onto a counter in the kitchen, rummaged through cupboards until I found a pitcher, filled it with water, and returned to bone-dry begonias and geraniums, cursing under my breath while Black Winter watched, amused. I knew it was hopeless, but what could I do? The only reason we were here at all was in the service of a hopeless cause.
Which brings me back to the dog. While closing another door on our circuit, Black Winter turned away suddenly, staring down the hallway.
“Did you hear that?” he said.
I was repositioning the cat food bag on my shoulder. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“It sounded like a bark.”
“Are you serious? Where?”
“I’m not sure.”
We listened quietly. A moment later, I thought I heard it too. It was hard to make out, but it might have been a bark. One lonely, desperate bark, coming from an animal that probably still had a few teeth left.
“Just how crazy with hunger might a dog be after a few weeks?” I said nervously, as we made our way down the hall.
“Don’t chicken out on me now. This was your idea, remember?”
“Yeah, but I was picturing a small dog. Didn’t it sound big to you?”
“I couldn’t tell what it sounded like.”
Now I understood why Mac had brought gloves. I wished I’d been thinking that clearly. We searched the next few units more thoroughly. Shining my flashlight into corners, picking up cushions. Glancing in closets, worried we might miss a dog that had crawled into a small space to die.
All that extra diligence was unnecessary, of course. I knew we had the right place the moment Buddy’s key unlocked 1114, and the smell hit me.
“This is the place,” I said. I stared into the shadowy hallway before us. “You go first.”
Black Winter took a half step, then backed up. “Why me?”
“Because you won’t get eaten. Probably.”
“I’m the one who just had major surgery,” he muttered. But he bravely led the way, and I followed close behind.
“Look at this,” Black Winter said. He was pointing at a box of cornflakes in the foyer, savagely shredded. From here we could see that the living room was strewn with gobs of torn white cotton, ripped from gaping holes in the leather couch. White where it wasn’t stained yellow with dog urine, anyway.
The dog had been alone here for weeks, that much was obvious. Droppings were everywhere, and there were gaping holes in the drywall where it’d been chewed through. From the foyer of the apartment I could see that the cupboard under the sink had been pawed open. Plastic jugs of various cleaning fluids had rolled or been barked into an obedient pile by the fridge, and there was a sticky, bloody mess in the hallway where it looked like the dog had vomited up a metal scouring pad.
But so far, no dog.
We moved carefully at first, half sure a pit bull was going to come barreling around a corner at any moment, insane from hunger and weeks of abandonment, ready to tear a leg off—human or robot. But the rooms were eerily quiet. I searched the closets in the too-neat bedroom, got down on hands and knees to peer under the queen-sized bed. When I checked on Black Winter, he was pulling back the curtain on the bathtub.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
When we’d completed a circuit of all the rooms, I made my way to the living room and sat down on the coffee table. It was well after midnight, I was tired of being on edge for the last two days, and I wasn’t looking forward to the creepy walk through deserted streets back to the hotel, carrying a bag of cat food.
“There’s a dog in here somewhere,” said Black Winter, moving to my side.
“A dead dog,” I said in disgust.
“You don’t know that.”
“Just look around! None of the damn droppings on the floor is less than a week old. If the dog were still alive, it would have confronted us by now. Even half-dead, it would have growled or barked.”
“What did we hear in the hall, then?”
“I have no idea. It could have been pipes knocking, for all I know. We’re too late, probably by a week or more.”
“If it’s dead, where’s the body?”
I gestured toward the dark bedrooms. “It probably crawled into a lonely crevice to die. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the fortitude to search for a dead dog right now.”
Black Winter wisely left me alone to brood for the next few minutes. He prowled around the apartment, poking into dark corners. When he returned to the living room, he stared at the paintings on the wall. I couldn’t make out many details in the gloom, but they looked like abstracts, great swaths of color framed in neat bundles.
“Who do you suppose lived here?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said after a minute. “An older woman, I guess, from the décor.”
“What happened to her, do you think?”
“Probably left in a hurry in the mid-February evacuations, after the American Union shelled Grant Park. She must have been certain she’d be back. Probably poured a week’s worth of dog food on the floor, gave her dog a hug, and then was hustled out by a soldier in the doorway, telling her to move her ass.”
“That was right after I arrived,” said Black Winter. “Hell of a time. Lot of heavy action. I hadn’t been here a week when we got orders to be ready to evacuate the Consulate.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“To you, maybe. But not to me. Adventure. Excitement.” Black Winter shook his head. “A Jedi craves not these things.”
“If you say so. I’m glad I missed all that, anyway. It happened weeks before I got here, and I’m not sure I ever really understood all the politics.”
Black Winter came closer, lowered himself into a chair next to me. “Yeah, you’re not the only one. Things got pretty spun up. After the Memphis Ceasefire between the US and the SCC, the Union Syndicate was isolated. It threatened to drive the AGRT out of Chicago. The Sentient Cathedral was trying to broker peace, bring them into the ceasefire, when the Union struck the machine depot in Grant Park. A daring move—took out the bulk of the Venezuelan heavy equipment in one strike, but it permanently soured the AGRT on peace with the Union, let me tell you. For a while, it looked like the Union could actually do it—make Chicago so hot that the Venezuelans pulled out.”
“They might have, if they hadn’t destroyed the Thought Museum,” I said. That part I understood, at least. When the museum was destroyed, all those infant AIs had been flushed into the sewers like a thousand baby alligators. That had destroyed whatever hope the Union had of generating sympathy for their cause in the Sentient Cathedral. In the face of that political nightmare, the Union had retreated south.
“Where is she now, I wonder?” said Black Winter. He’d plucked a small framed photograph off one of the bookshelves and was peering at it, but it was too dark and too far away for me to make out the details.
“Who knows? Maybe she was evacuated across Lake Michigan in the middle of February, with the rest of the city. Maybe she’s in one of the DP camps in Indiana. Maybe she’s dead.”
“That’s morbid.”
“I’m just being realistic,” I said.
“Shut up.”
“Think abou
t it. If she were alive, don’t you think she would have at least tried to—”
Black Winter raised his hand to silence me. “No, I mean, be quiet for a second.”
I shut up. Black Winter was listening. He turned around slowly, his head oddly cocked.
“Do you hear that?” he said at last.
“Hear what?”
“Breathing. We’re not the only ones in here.”
Black Winter’s ears were clearly better than mine. I listened, straining to catch the faint sounds in the room. I heard the wind against the windows, and the far-off rattle of a train as it snuck through the city, its whistle quavering in the air like a prayer not to be shot.
And I could hear breathing. Black Winter was right. Something was in the room with us.
I turned slowly. It was coming from behind me. The ripped couch filled most of that side of the room, nudged up against a leather chair to the left. I shone my flashlight in the corners. Nothing.
Nothing except the strange way the couch was angled, jammed up against that chair. Its right side was further from the wall than the left. Not a lot, but noticeable.
I stood up, stepping gingerly on the couch cushions. I shone my flashlight between the couch and the wall.
It was a tiny space to search, and I still almost missed her. She’d burrowed behind the couch, and the white cotton stuffing she’d pulled out formed a nest, her own little cave. Her fur was dark, too much like the brown leather of the couch, and it was only her nose, round and black and tucked against the sideboard, that revealed she was there at all.
“Help me,” I said to Black Winter.
The robot pushed the couch away from the wall. The dog stood on all four legs for a moment, leaning against the wall with trembling legs, then tumbled over onto the rug. Her eyes were closed, and it looked like she wasn’t going to open them again.
I knelt down next to her. She was panting, in ragged, irregular gasps. There was a raging infection in her left eye, and white pus covered much of her cheek.
She was a rottweiler, and she’d been beautiful once. Now the skin hung on her frame like a collapsed tent. I reached out gingerly, stroking her back, whispered, “It’s okay, girl. It’s okay.” Her breathing stopped for a moment, and then lurched up again, but her eyes didn’t open. I put my hand on her chest, felt a faint thump-thump under her rib cage. Her heart was an engine that had run out of fuel, but refused to die.
“Water,” I said simply.
Black Winter returned to the kitchen, found a cloth, and soaked it with water. He brought it to me and I dribbled water into her mouth, cleaned the pus out of her eye. Black Winter rinsed the cloth and I did it again, holding her head in my lap. There was no response from the dog, but I thought she might have swallowed some of the water.
“We have to go,” Black Winter said abruptly. He was staring at the window.
“I don’t think we should move her for a few minutes,” I said.
“Now,” he said. He got a hand under my arm, and was pulling me to my feet.
“What are you doing—?”
A bright beam of light cut through the room. It was coming from the window, which was impossible. We were eleven floors up, inside a building that had been sealed by the AGRT.
There was a rapid tapping sound, and then a quick vacuum sluurp as something solid sealed itself to the glass. The bright, probing beam twitched once, twice, crawling over the furniture, over me, and then switched off. I was left facing three bright metallic eyes staring into mine through the glass.
“Move your ass,” said Black Winter.
There was the sound of breaking glass, and the high-pitched whirrrr of a drill, or a weapon charging. Something big and heavy was climbing into the room through the window. I heard the crunch of glass as two dark claws gripped the windowsill.
Black Winter bolted for the door. My heart was racing. I was about to follow when I heard a soft whine from the floor.
The rottweiler, her eyes still sealed shut, was groping toward me with her head. When she found me, her tongue, cracked and bleeding, darted out to lick my shoe.
There wasn’t time to think about it, so I didn’t. I grabbed the dog, hugged her to my chest with both arms, and ran for the door.
I caught up to Black Winter as he was hastily trying to get the door open. Behind us, I heard more smashing glass as a half-ton of metal muscled its way into the living room. There was a high-pitched, metallic buzz, and I imagined the thing scanning with a dozen different sensors for the most direct route to put a bullet in my brain.
“What the hell is that thing?” I asked.
“It’s a Venezuelan war drone,” said Black Winter. “And if it catches us, we’re dead.”
Black Winter got the door open, and we spilled out into the carpeted hallway. I nearly tripped in my hurry to get out. Still fighting to keep my hold on the dog, I caught the door with my foot. As I pulled it shut, I caught a glimpse of a thin cable of metal sliding into the foyer of the apartment. The door closed with a click, and for a moment I stood frozen, staring stupidly at the numbers 1114.
“What’s it doing here?” I asked stupidly.
“It’s hunting,” said Black Winter.
“Hunting what? Us?”
“I have no idea. They’re controlled by Venezuelan Military Intelligence, but they were all supposed to be deactivated. Maybe they missed this one. Or maybe it’s hunting Union agents, or looters. Whatever it is, it won’t hesitate to put a bullet in us and sort the details out later.”
I heard thumping from inside 1114. The thing was still coming. “Can we outsmart it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. They’re based on the design for Venezuelan aerial recon units. You know anything about them?”
I knew a little. I knew a team in Stockholm who’d talked about writing part of their operating system. They called them “war needles.” Good bunch of guys; we’d taken them drinking near the red-light district, and one of them told a story about running into his ex-girlfriend working a street corner after hours. He’d told two versions, and the second one, which tumbled out only after the third round of drinks, had ended very differently and been much, much funnier. The team had been contracted by Venezuela to write tight little drivers for weapon systems running on a modified RTOS kernel, and right now one of those drivers was probably telling the war needle how to kill me.
“Nothing helpful,” I said.
I heard a light scratching, the sound of a metal tendon caressing a wooden door, and I tore my feet from the thick carpet and ran. Black Winter followed.
I slammed into the door at the end of the hall, pushing into a dimly lit stairway. The dog in my arms whined. Her eyes were open, and she stared at me in terror and confusion. She struggled briefly, but I pinned her firmly against my chest and her strength was quickly exhausted.
I looked into the stairwell. “Up or down?” Black Winter asked, coming up behind me.
I was considering the options when the door to 1114 exploded outward, followed by the thud of something very heavy moving with confidence into the hallway. I was halfway to the next floor before I even realized I was moving.
The door to the twelfth floor opened quietly, and all three of us slid through. “It will try and track us with infrared,” Black Winter whispered.
“Which means you’re almost invisible,” I said.
“But you’re not. Stay here,” he said, moving ahead of me. “I’ll check the hallway.”
I was happy to oblige. I dropped to a crouch, watching the thick fire door as it silently closed behind us. Three inches of sturdy metal, but no obvious way to lock it. I scanned the hall ahead of Black Winter quickly. The doors were spaced farther apart on this floor—we were into the luxury condos now, and if anything the carpeting was even thicker.
There was at least one layer of tile and concrete between us and the needle, not to mention a maze of ductwork. If it was tracking me with infrared, that might help throw it off—especially if warm air was sti
ll circulating through the heating ducts. Until I could figure out where it was going, my best bet was to avoid movement and noise. Which meant the wisest course of action was to sit tight, and not panic.
Okay, easy enough. I took a long, slow breath, bouncing slightly on my heels. Not the most comfortable position while holding a fifty-pound dog, but I could endure it. There was no sound from downstairs. That was one thing I had in my favor, at least. The war drone had been designed for the battlefield, not navigating the tight corridors of civilized society. I wasn’t even sure it could open a door without blowing it up, which should make keeping track of it easy enough.
The dog whined again. I clumsily lowered her to the carpet. She flailed weakly, trying to get her feet under her, and let out a sudden bark. Black Winter glanced back at me, alarmed.
“Shhh! Shush, easy girl, easy,” I whispered. She barked again, louder this time. Goddamn it.
Black Winter looked at me again, exasperated. He spread his arms, silently asking What the hell, man?
There was a clang, the hiss of metal on metal, and a long slithering rasp. The war drone was in the stairwell. Seems it could open doors after all.
I stroked the dog, trying to calm her, speaking so softly I’m not even sure she heard me. “Good dog, yes. You’re a good dog. Shut up, good dog.” She pawed feebly at my face, twisting, trying to lick my hands.
There was a rattle from the stairs, and the dog barked again. I grabbed her snout, silencing her. I swear to God, dog, if you bark again I will leave you here. I will leave your bony ass right here on this carpet. Shut. Up.
The silence stretched on. My hand was starting to cramp. She fought me abruptly, all four paws digging at me, at the carpet, the air, but I pressed against her, pinning her firmly to the floor, and she relented. I counted to thirty, then released her mouth, my eyes fixed on that big metal door.
I couldn’t hear anything from the stairwell. My heart kept pounding as I stroked the dog. “Good girl,” I whispered.
She barked plaintively. Noise erupted from the stairs, metal coils sliding relentlessly into motion. I cursed, gathered her in my arms, and fled down the hall after Black Winter.
