Your Robot Dog Will Die Read online

  We gently glide to a stop in front of a new-looking large brick house. It seems out of place in these surroundings. Mustached-Billy and Wolf-in-his-cap and I get out of the car, leaving my robot dog behind.

  “Follow my lead,” my brother says under his breath.

  He rings a doorbell. A friendly looking man with a beard answers. He looks pleased to see us.

  “Aiden!” the man says. “How the hell are you?”

  “Terrific, Cody. Couldn’t be better,” Billy aka Aiden replies.

  I get it. We’re undercover. He could have told us as much on the trip.

  Billy waves his hand at us. “I want you to meet my friend Ashley and her brother Fred.”

  Ashley? Wolf is my brother? I try not to grimace.

  “Hi Fred,” Cody says, holding out his hand. Wolf shakes it with vigor.

  He doesn’t shake my hand and barely even seems to realize I’m here except for looking me up and down once, slowly. I’ve heard lectures about “nasty sexists” from Dorothy plenty of times, so I recognize what this is. It’s almost exciting meeting a real-life sexist in the wild.

  “So, what are you kids in the market for?” Cody asks.

  Billy (as Aiden) answers on my behalf. “They are new to the Organic live experience. Just taking a look, so they can begin considering their options.”

  “Cool, cool. There’s always a first time,” the guy says. “Well, come with me.”

  I restrain myself from holding Wolf’s hand as we follow him through a gaudy home. It’s dark inside; there’s a lot of heavy wood furniture with metal accents, like whoever decorated it wanted it to seem like a medieval castle. There’s nothing on the walls other than weird gold-framed family photographs of what I assume are a dozen-odd grandkids. Maybe they’re just stock photos. Who has that many blond relatives?

  At the end of a long hall, we enter a living room, where a large pen holds five puppies. They are golden-colored, soft and small, and romping around one on top of another. They pay us no mind whatsoever. No growls or barks, but also no wags.

  I hear Wolf’s phone buzz. He’s gotten another PrivateText. His face sours when he glances at the screen, but he quickly replies. Billy shoots Wolf an irritated look.

  “They’re real?” I ask. I feel a physical urge to touch the puppies. It’s taking all my willpower not to run to them.

  “One hundred percent,” says Cody. “Bred them myself.”

  “How?” I ask.

  “As God intended,” he replies. “A male and a female. You need me to explain the birds and the bees, chicky?”

  I feel myself blushing. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “She’s curious about their lineage,” says Billy, glaring at me over his stupid mustache. “You understand: there are a lot of bones on the table here. Let Ashley and Fred meet the parents, so they can see they’re healthy and strong. You want their money or not, man?”

  Cody grumbles but finally agrees. We walk to a less gaudily appointed part of the house. He opens a locked door, turns on a low light, and we walk down some stairs. A sharp stench burns my nose and throat. That’s nothing compared to the sight that greets us: four small wire cages, with dogs inside—one small black dog, one small tan one, two big yellow dogs. I’m horrified. These dogs look just like some of the current lot at the Ruffuge. Except these are filthy and look sad and are confined so tightly they can’t move. They don’t make a peep at our arrival. I’m too stunned to speak, either.

  “See, healthy,” Cody says. “The pups are third generation captive, so they won’t complain about being in a cage. We can breed yours in a year and share the profits. You have to be very discreet. No one can know you have them. Do you have your basement or shed prepared to house one of these puppies? If not I can recommend a guy who does excellent work. Your neighbors won’t hear a peep, will never know you’ve got one of these dogs, so long as you follow my rules.”

  I am about to explode. I am about to say something I shouldn’t. Something to Cody. Something like: You are an evil monster. You are inflicting suffering on these beautiful creatures. You should be locked in a cage like this. You should be forced to sit in your own filth, with no hope of escape. You should be so lucky to have Kinderend offered to you. And you, Billy, how could you take me here? How could you show me this horrible thing?

  Instead I say, “Let’s go back upstairs.”

  My brother sneaks me a grateful look. We return to the puppy room. After a deep breath, I remember that I am “Ashley,” a despicable person. I ask Cody if I can pick one of the puppies up. He says no, that it’s not safe for me to be with them, nor safe for their future owners.

  “They get your scent in them, then you belong to them and they belong to you,” he says. “You won’t change their minds. They won’t imprint on whoever will end up with them. If you want to put down a deposit now, then you can touch the one you’re going to buy, but I’d prefer you not.”

  Billy nods quickly, stepping in front of me. “She’s just getting a feel for the market now. Not ready to make a deposit,” he says. “But if you’re looking to off-load any of those breeders I can take them off your hands. If any of ’em are done pushing out puppies, we can use them as target practice. I know some folks who’d pay big bucks for the chance to hunt a real Organic dog.”

  “Nah.” Cody shakes his head. “Not yet. I’ll call you when this crop’s about through so we can make plans. Might not be for another year.”

  “Okay, brother,” says Billy, steering Wolf and me toward the hall that leads back to the front door. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

  Cody follows us through the darkened halls. I don’t realize my own mouth is hanging open until I see that Wolf’s is, too. Then all of a sudden I’m squinting in bright sunshine and a blast of freezing cold wind; I shiver and run for the car.

  Back inside, Billy the robot dog hops up and wags his tail jerkily. As soon as we slam the door, I lean down and hug him tightly. Wolf and Billy stare out the window, watching Cody watching us.

  “Keep it together until we are out of sight,” my brother mutters.

  Somehow, somehow, somehow, I do.

  “You okay?” Billy asks once we’re out on the main road. He’s pulled off his mustache, at least. Wolf’s hat is still on his head. I touch it and he looks at me, his eyes sad.

  “What was that hellhole?” I shout at my brother. “Why did they have dogs? How did they have dogs? Why don’t we stop them? I have Kinderend. I stole it from Mom before I left. We could have done it right then.”

  Billy doesn’t answer right away. His eyes are on the bubble overhead. “I know,” he says finally. “It’s awful. I was real shook up the first time I saw one of these breeders.”

  My stomach lurches. “One of these breeders?”

  “There’s about a dozen that we know about.”

  “We? You mean Wanda and Fiona and Ellie?”

  “Yeah, and everyone else.” Billy sighs. “I almost forgot how totally shocking this is at first. Until I saw your face, and his.”

  He shoots a glance at Wolf.

  Wolf looks ashen. He asks to pull over. Billy presses some buttons, and the car rolls to stop by the side of the road.

  Wolf gets out and vomits. I jump out to follow, but Billy grabs my arm. Wolf smells bad when he re-enters the car, but I take his hand. He pulls it away. He won’t look at me.

  “You okay?” I whisper.

  “He’ll be fine,” Billy answers for Wolf.

  I glare at him. For some reason, my brother then decides that this is the perfect time to repeat the entire story he told me last night. At least he’s not stoned, so it goes fast. Wolf just nods, nods, nods. Mostly he looks like he wants Billy to shut up. I also want him to shut up, especially when he begins to explain that the Underground Tailroad operated without much of a plan.

  “See, we were de
sperate to get some of the puppies and dogs out,” he’s saying. “You know, before they were killed. So we didn’t spend enough time thinking about where these animals would end up. It had to be somewhere secret. Ellie with her money and connections and persuasive abilities—they placed the animals with some guy named Dom. He told her he had a remote piece of property in southern Virginia where as many as fifty dogs could be kept safely, happily, until more permanent plans were made. Or they could stay there forever, he said. Dom just wanted to help.”

  I hold my breath, sneaking glances at Wolf. The color is returning to his cheeks. I’m so busy trying to figure out if he’s okay I don’t even notice when he reaches for my hand and takes it, not until my fingers are intertwined in his.

  After that, Billy’s rambling doesn’t seem so bad. Or at least not as bad as before.

  Billy goes on about how Underdog Tailroad members needed help. They were so ecstatic to have a safe haven for their at-risk dogs that they didn’t ask enough questions. They became emboldened. Their animals were sedated and packed into cages, transported to Virginia, where Dom apparently made a big deal about how happy he was, participating in this noble act. He made a big deal about how he was blessed with enough money and space to make sure these precious animals would always be taken care of.

  And then one day—about a year and a half ago—an Underdog Tailroad smuggler arrived to find Dom’s property shuttered and the dogs gone.

  It took a few months to find out what had happened to them.

  Dom had sold the dogs to exotic animal collectors and breeders. Not run-of-the-mill monkey and lion peddlers, gross but mostly legal. No, these are people who operated in an extremely secretive fashion, selling animals that aren’t legal to be bought, sold, owned, or hunted. The most valuable obviously were dogs, real dogs. Organics. By now they’ve been bred, who knows how many times already. Organics can breed twice a year; they can give birth to as many as ten or fifteen puppies at a time.

  Some of the Underdog Tailroad wanted to search for all the dogs and puppies, to track them down, to give every single one a Kinderend. Others wanted to quit for good. Others did quit, in their own way. One felt so guilty she gave herself a Kinderend.

  “Was that Belinda?” Wolf asks suddenly, interrupting Billy’s monologue.

  “Pardon?”

  “The one who . . . ?”

  Billy nods.

  I nod, too. I remember going to her funeral. We had a service for her at the Dog Island Chapel then a big picnic at the beach, even though it was really hot out.

  “I didn’t know that’s how she died,” Wolf says. “Or why.”

  Billy’s face hardens. “It was wicked bad. We pretty much shut down then. But Ellie and I wanted to make things right. We had a plan, even. Ellie would use her contacts and connections, and money, to try to track down and get back as many of the dogs as possible. I introduced Ellie to Wanda. She promised to donate money, so much money, to Fuzzy Mansion, too—”

  “You felt guilty,” Wolf snaps.

  Billy says, “I couldn’t leave Dog Island to go looking for the dogs because Dorothy was still keeping me off WAG. There was one thing I could do, though. I signed up for as many feeding shifts at the Ruffuge as I could get. I volunteered extra hours, to fix fences, and cull back weeds. I was determined to spend all my time around the dogs. So I could get to know them as individuals and have them learn the same about me.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “We domesticated dogs,” Billy says simply. “People, I mean. Human beings. Or we used to. For as long as we’ve had human civilization. And they domesticated us. We’ve been joined for so long, us and them, I just had a feeling we could be like that again,” he says. “That we could stop the killing. Like, for real.”

  “Donut,” I say.

  Billy tries to smile. “Donut,” he echoes. “I spent so much time in the Ruffuge. I was so happy. Happier than I’d ever been, surrounded by six wild, dangerous dogs throwing themselves at me to get me to play with them. I mean it. They trusted me. Either we were going to make this work or they were going to kill me, and either one was okay with me honestly, Nano.”

  I think of Donut, chewing on my hair, tussling around me, cuddling up close and snoring. His sweet breath, his damp snout, his wrinkly skin. The improbability of his existence.

  My robot dog Billy looks at me, sticks his nose under my arm. I put my arm around it. Around him. He leans against me, closes his eyes, as if he is napping.

  The upshot is this: Billy took a leap of faith—a giant leap, but a mistake.

  One day, almost exactly a year ago, he asked Dorothy to come with him into the Ruffuge. He wanted to show her how the dogs were behaving; not viciously, not violently, but like they were his friends. As if they enjoyed his company. As if they were redomesticating. Because if they weren’t dangerous anymore, if they once again wanted to be with the humans, didn’t that mean that things could start going back to how they used to be? Wasn’t that proof we should end the killing?

  Dorothy agreed. He’d never felt such relief or joy.

  The dogs seemed happy to see him, as always. They approached, sniffed, wagged their tails. They did not do the same with Dorothy. At her, they lunged, teeth bared. One jumped at her. Another tore at her dog suit, ripping off a piece of fabric on her butt. Billy would have laughed a little if they’d done that with anyone else. With Dorothy, he knew there would be bad consequences.

  “I’m glad you brought me here,” she said, after they’d left. “Now I know what your project has been and that it is a failure. If I can’t trust my own people to behave morally maybe I should just shut down Dog Island right now. End this enterprise. Chalk it up as a failed experiment. It’s so small, anyway. So very small in the grand scheme of things. My larger goal is to end all suffering. This place is a tiny speck of dirt to be scrubbed clean.”

  “What do you mean, end all suffering?” Billy tells me he asked.

  “Foxes eat birds, birds eat fish, fish eat other fish. The world is terrifying and full of pain . . . I want to make that pain go away. Robots,” she said, declining to further explain.

  Billy went home that night and tried to talk Mom and Dad into leaving Dog Island. He confessed to them what he’d done. He told them about Dorothy’s plans, insofar as he understood them—which he didn’t, really; he just knew she had something dastardly and bad in her head. He told them about her not-super-veiled threat.

  “Oh honey,” Mom told him. “Just be a good boy. Can’t you just be a good boy? Honey, sweetie, dear boy, this is our home.”

  So he decided to disappear.

  The car is silent for a while. But I can’t stand it anymore. I muster the courage to tell him what I really think, how I really feel. Wolf’s hand in mine helps; his grip grows stronger.

  “You just left me,” I say, feeling upset and not completely rational but also not totally un-rational. “You left me, not knowing what would happen. I could have been killed. I could have helped you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t just leave you,” he says. “I came back to give you the dog suit. I knew I could trust you to carry on my work. And now, look, here you are.”

  Then my robot dog Billy opens his mouth.

  “Please call, Nano, kitten, my love,” he says in Mom’s voice, but a quavering version of that voice. “I don’t want to scare you. But we are all in trouble. Please, just call. Please, Nano.”

  Wolf says quietly that that’s what his PrivateText said, too. The one he got back at that horrible breeder’s house. It was from Jack. He said things were getting bad.

  “When I asked him what he meant he didn’t respond,” Wolf says. “I’m really worried.”

  With that, the gravity of all we’ve done and seen hits me.

  “What should I do?” I ask Billy, my brother.

  “Ditch the robot, first off,” h
e says.

  I hug Billy my robot dog closer. “I can’t,” I say.

  “Nano, don’t be an idiot. They are obviously using it to get to you,” he says. “It’s not real. It’s a robot.”

  “Please, no,” I beg. “How can they use him to get to me? He’s just my robot dog. You know he has GPS and you let me bring him anyway. That can’t be the issue.” It occurs to me that I am probably hurting my case, not helping it.

  “Nano, through this hunk of metal, they can reach you. One word from Mom through that stupid robot and you are ready to leave and go back home. We have too much work to do for that to happen.”

  “Why did you let me bring him with me at all?” I ask.

  “I have my reasons,” Billy says. Then he looks ashamed. “I just felt badly saying it had to go. I don’t know, kiddo. I could see that you’re starting to love it . . . I didn’t want to hurt you. Again.”

  Billy is right. After hearing Mom’s voice I just want to go home.

  “Let’s get back to Fuzzy Mansion,” I tell my brother.

  My robot dog licks my cheek with its synthetic tongue.

  My brother Billy stops the car.

  He opens up the pod, gets out and places robot Billy by the side of the road, then gets back in.

  As we drive off, I stare out the bubble to watch my robot dog Billy getting smaller and smaller. He, it, sits there, watching us go.

  REMEMBER how the scientists really screwed up? REMEMBER how all of our beloved dogs got sick, thanks to them? REMEMBER how our beloved dogs succumbed to genetic experiments and un-Organic viruses cooked up in a lab?

  REMEMBER how they stopped wagging their tails?