SP1K3
Deborah A. Wolf
Lifting his muzzle into the grit and smoke, Spike thrilled at the wind riffling the hair on his face. The scents shifted, and he lolled his tongue, wagged his tail a little, very much like a real dog. His claws dug into the rubble, sending small bits of concrete and dirt rolling. Straining forward he snuffled and chuffed, sifting through the delightful chaos of information.
Static burst through his skull. Spike stiffened and emitted a high-pitch whine of pain from between his clenched teeth as the wind shattered into exabytes of data. He snarled and snapped at the wind, trying to recapture the moment, but it was lost.
In the combat information center of the USS Nancy Pelosi, slicing through the waters of the Taiwan Strait, a team of officers and DOD civilians cheered as a black screen flared into polychromic life. Spike’s neural processes were laid bare for them all to see like a frog pinned open upon the dissecting table. Spike growled low in his throat, knowing that these people would assume his aggression was directed outward toward the hidden PLA holdouts, never toward themselves. Loyalty was coded into his DNA as surely as obedience was programmed into his circuitry.
Faraway fingers tapped a series of commands directly into his mind, demanding information they already had, wanting to show him off for the civilians.
: : :
<LOCATION CHECK>
: : :
Latitude & longitude
24.05415705, 120.436165556056
Arc-Minutes
144324942, 722616993
DDD.MM.SS
24.3.15,120.26.10
NMEA (DDDMM.MMMM)
2403.2494,N,12026.1699,E
: : :
<MISSION QUERY>
Spike growled again. His stomach rumbled in answer; he was hungry. In their eagerness to launch his pod that morning, the team had forgotten to feed him.
<MISSION QUERY>
: : :
Mission: Chase a rabbit. Lick my balls.
: : :
The link dropped. Spike’s head and tail drooped, knowing his handler would be coming online to take command. He would be punished for this. He’d been a Bad Dog.
His nostrils twitched involuntarily as the wind shifted again, bringing the usual savors of smoke, ruin, and death. He searched his bio-memory for the scent of rabbit, the sensation of running through grass, the taste of clean wind after rain. A full belly. A kind touch. But his queries came back null; they must have swept his database again while he slept.
In another corner of his mind, a door slid open as his handler typed in a series of passwords.
: : :
<Hey, Spike.>
Spike lay down in the rubble and rested his head on his paws. He closed his eyes and imagined that he was in a room, in a house, with his friend.
Hello, Jerry.
<Are you okay?>
Hungry. He sighed deeply. Lonely.
<Sorry. I should have made sure they fed you before launch.>
You should have let me know they were going to open a link. It’s rude to break into someone’s mind like that.
<It is. You’re right. I’m sorry.>
I am not a machine.
<You are not. You are a dog. A good dog.>
Not anymore, Spike thought, but decided not to send. None of this was Jerry’s fault: not the war, not the things that had been done to make him into this—this thing—not even their link had been the man’s choice.
Yes, Spike sent instead, and waited. There would be a command. There was always a command.
<MISSION QUERY>
Spike imagined that he could feel reluctance in the communication, which was of course ridiculous. It was the same query, the same pattern of keystrokes, no matter which fingers pressed the keys. Jerry was as human as the rest of them, just as invested in this war.
Mission: Seek the PLA holdouts. Destroy their position.
Spike raised his head and perked his ears as a frisson of excitement caused his hackles to rise. Hunting enemy troops was a little like chasing rabbits. He pulled himself up to all fours, shaking dust from his fur and titanium plating. He could do this. It was what he was made for.
<HUNT>
Once more Spike raised his head, drawing in long breaths and letting his tongue loll like a real dog might. A feast of information rolled across his palate, more savory than meat. Sweeter than the pup cups Jerry had used to buy for him, before—
He stiffened. His hackles rose stiff as spikes from ruff to tail.
The wind had shifted again, bringing with it the tail end of a scent cone. The oils and shed skin flakes of a dozen people uncoiled before him in a ribbon of odor, taste, and data. Men had come through here not three hours before, armed and armored and shot full of synthetic hormones. Soldiers. Enemy soldiers.
An embarrassing series of yips and whines escaped Spike’s throat, and for a moment he was glad that Jerry wasn’t there to witness his lack of control.
Enemy Scented, he spelled out. Triangulation In Progress. But he hesitated, lifting his head higher, flaring his nostrils wider.
Intermingled with the markers of metal and oil and induced rage was a pair of strange, soft scents that made Spike’s ears perk up and his tail wag a little. Something strange, something wonderful and familiar, tickled the back of the meager brain scraps the augmentors had left when they had butchered his flesh.
Spike took a long draft of air and held it in his mouth, sifting through the tastes of death to seek out the bright note of new life. Female, he thought. Young. Unarmed. Unaugmented. And with her, a child.
A memory came to him then, like the aftertaste of summer during a winter storm. Buried deep in what little brain stem they hadn’t scraped out and thrown away. A light touch. The smell of soiled diapers, and of milk. A woman’s voice, soft and full of laughter, calling him by name.
“Good boy,” she had said. “Good boy, Hero.”
Hero.
He closed his eyes and moaned.
<STATUS REPORT>
Spike crouched low, tail tucked between his legs, trembling.
<STATUS REPORT>
Spike could feel Jerry’s anxiety. The other humans in the control room could see inside his mind, but none of them would understand what it was they were seeing. None of them would know that he had scented the PLA soldiers. That his augmented brain had already triangulated the enemy’s position, that he could call in an air strike and the mission would be a success.
Or that a woman and child would die along with the soldiers.
Jerry would know. Jerry was peering straight into his mind and wondering why he was not sending the coordinates. Spike could no more hide from his handler than the enemy could hide from Spike.
Hero. Not Spike. Hero.
He deleted Enemy Scented, replaced it with Enemy Not Found, and sent.
He crouched in the dirt, trembling and miserable. Jerry knew. Jerry must know. They had been a team for three years now, had trained together since they day Jerry had brought him out of the shelter and into the bright, cruel world of war.
There was a long pause, and then:
: : :
<MISSION COMPLETE. RETURN TO POD FOR RETRIEVAL>
Affirmative, Spike replied, almost staggering with relief as he turned twenty degrees south-southeast and fired up both engines for the return flight.
Another query tapped at a door in his mind, a private channel shared only with Jerry, one they hadn’t used in years.
: : :
Open.
<Spike>
His tail drooped, and Spike braced for the pain. But a new sensation rippled through his body, starting at the titanium plate that shone through the fur on his forehead, continuing between his ears and down the back of his neck. Like a hand, stroking him.
<Good boy, Spike. Good dog.>
The connection broke.
Spike stood for a minute, wagging his tail uncertainly. Then he lifted from the ground and burned toward home.