The Puppy War, page 11
I stand and shake myself off, dust flying in every direction.
There’s movement beneath me as Scarlett whimpers and stands up. She’s disoriented and her eyes are unfocused.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She looks up at me, blinking the dust off her long lashes.
“You saved me, Momma,” she says, and her small tongue darts out and licks my cheek and lower lip, before she settles into the crook of my neck, crying and pushing herself against me.
I quickly check her for injuries. She appears unhurt, but she whimpers in fear. I tuck her under my chin and lean into her, letting my body warm and embrace her.
Technicians are shouting around us, calling for Dr. Pao and a medical team to check us out. Sebastian is looking on, concerned.
But I only focus on Scarlett, her body warm against me, her breathing in sync with mine. I think about the words she spoke, words that I’ve never heard.
You saved me, Momma.
I press my face into hers. “You’re okay now, baby,” I say, and I feel my heart open in a way it never has before.
THE REST OF THE DAY FLIES BY.
I take Scarlett for a medical checkup, and then I supervise an investigation of what went wrong in the training facility. At one point I ask Dr. Pao about Chance, and she assures me that his lessons with Big Eyes are going well.
It’s almost dinner by the time I’m free, and I run down the hall to Chance’s room, excited to see him and tell him what happened during the training session.
But when I push open his bedroom door, he’s not there.
The room is perfectly clean, the bed stripped of its sheets.
Panic floods my thoughts. I bark and take off down the hall, racing along the scent trail of the Puppio dog that almost completely covers Chance’s smell. I follow the two scents around one corner, then another, my speed increasing as I keep my head down and my senses on full alert.
I run past Puppio employees shouting as they’re forced to jump out of my way.
The scent strengthens, which means I’ve almost caught up to them. I increase my speed, turn a final corner, and I stop dead in my tracks.
I’m in the front lobby of Puppio, just in time to see Chance at the door with Big Eyes by his side.
I look beyond him and see a Puppio van waiting in front of the facility, its engine idling.
“What’s happening?” I ask, my voice shaky.
“Hi, Wild,” Chance says, as calmly as if we’d bumped into each other in a dog park. “I was just heading out.”
“Out for a walk?”
“For good. We’re going home.”
“We?”
He reaches down and gives Big Eyes a scratch on the head. “You know. Me and my puppy.”
“Actually, I don’t know. You’re leaving and you weren’t even going to say goodbye?”
“I wrote you a letter. It’s on your dog bed. I guess you didn’t go to your room yet.”
“No, I didn’t.”
He commands Big Eyes to stay, and he walks over to meet me in the center of the lobby.
“I thought it would be easier if I wrote it down,” he says. “I didn’t want you to get upset.”
I look at him, confused. “Upset that you’re sneaking away? Why would that be upsetting?”
Chance bites at his lower lip. “You have a family now,” he says. “You don’t need me anymore.”
“I just met those puppies,” I say.
“But they’re your puppies.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Doesn’t mean what? That you won’t be busy all the time being a mother to them? That you can spend time with them and me? I don’t want to hear it, Wild. I saw it with my mom. Lots of promises and then—” He hesitates for a moment. “Wait, I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to guilt me into staying.”
“Why would I try to make you feel guilty?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I don’t trust you right now.”
I cry in pain at Chance’s accusation. Before I can say anything else, Big Eyes comes over and does a little dance in front of Chance.
“She’s super cute,” he says with a laugh. “I can’t resist her when she does that.” Chance leans down and buries his face in the puppy’s side. “She smells delicious.”
“Not to me,” I say.
Chance stops petting the Puppio and glares at me. “I’m leaving, Wild.”
“Is that why your room is cleared out?”
He nods. “I have to go home. And let’s be real—you have a home here.”
I whimper involuntarily.
“There’s no reason to be sad,” Chance says. “We both got what we wanted.”
“This doesn’t sound like you.”
“I disagree,” he says. “It sounds like me—only happy. Maybe you haven’t heard me happy before.”
He pulls a leash out of his pocket and hooks it to Big Eyes. “She doesn’t really need a leash. I mean, she’s practically trained after only one day. But just in case. Dr. Pao says I have to keep her hidden for a few days until—” He pauses, looking over my shoulder.
“Until what?”
He doesn’t respond. I turn and see Dr. Pao standing inside the room.
“Anyway, I have to get back to my mom. To school. To the soccer team.”
“Do you have to go right now?” I ask, my voice high and cracking.
He nods. “That van’s my ride.”
Dr. Pao crosses past me and stands next to Chance. She puts a hand on his shoulder, and I grit my teeth.
“Come on, Chance,” she says. “This is hard enough without dragging it out.”
Chance takes out his earbud. I hear the transmission snap off, and with it, my only way of talking to him.
Chance drops the leash and runs back to me, dropping to his knees and flinging his arm around me.
“I love you, Wild. But you have your own life now. We both do.”
I whimper and lick his face, trying to keep him there. He quickly opens my collar and replaces the earbud.
“Wait!” I shout, but he can’t understand me anymore.
He releases his grip too fast and runs out the door.
I can only stand there, watching him go.
“I’ll make sure he gets home safely,” Dr. Pao says gently.
She follows him outside. I watch as he climbs into the van with Big Eyes. Dr. Pao closes the door, then walks around and gets into the front seat.
I close my eyes and howl in pain, the sound rising in pitch and echoing off the walls around me.
“WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT?” SCARLETT ASKS.
A few days have passed, and she and Sebastian are up on a climbing tree in the training gym. Sebastian is halfway up the structure, a series of platforms that leads to a revolving circle at the top. He’s jumping from one platform to the next, struggling to make it to the very top.
But Scarlett left the tree without my noticing and she’s standing in front of me.
“Why aren’t you playing with your brother?” I ask her.
“You were whimpering,” she says. “I heard you from across the room. Are you sad?”
“I was thinking about someone,” I say.
“Chance.”
I glance around, making sure we can’t be overheard. “He was my friend. We took care of each other.”
“What’s it like to take care of a human?”
“It’s nice,” I say. “It feels natural. You take care of them, and they take care of you. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
I lean forward to groom Scarlett, licking carefully around her head and ears while she moves closer and snuggles into my body. I breathe deeply, enjoying her puppy smell. She smells real, not like the Puppios.
“That tickles,” she says when I lick her side.
Sebastian interrupts us with his barking. “Look at me, Scarlett! I’m the alpha dog!”
He’s made it to the top of the apparatus, a whirling platform designed to test balance and challenge the puppies’ climbing ability.
“Be right there,” Scarlett shouts. “To knock you down.”
“Come and get me!” Sebastian says, letting out a long, high puppy howl.
“You should go climb,” I tell Scarlett.
“Will you tell me more about Chance sometime?”
“Sure.”
“And also what it’s like to live with humans?”
“Of course.”
She starts toward the climbing tree, then turns back quickly. “You told me a secret, so I’m going to tell you one,” she says, her voice low. She looks over her shoulder at Sebastian, making sure he’s far away. “You need to be careful,” she says urgently.
“Careful how?”
She comes forward, pretending to adjust my collar with her teeth so she can whisper into my ear. “The things Dr. Pao says. Don’t believe her.”
“What things?”
“The reason we’re here, it’s not—”
“Come back, Scarlett!” Sebastian says. Sebastian’s tone has changed. He’s no longer asking her; he’s demanding.
Scarlett presses her mouth up to my ear and speaks quickly. “You’re in danger, Momma.”
Before I can ask her what she means, a blur comes toward us from the climbing tree. It’s Sebastian. He’s sprung down from the platform, and he’s racing across the floor, aiming like a missile at Scarlett.
She whips around and shouts angrily, “I told you I’d be there in a minute!”
But Sebastian doesn’t stop. He hits Scarlett at full speed, knocking her away from me, the two of them tumbling across the floor.
The violence of the attack is surprising.
Is it possible he overheard her?
The puppies fight, snarling and nipping at each other. It might seem harmless if they were normal puppies, but these dogs get stronger every day, and this doesn’t feel like a game.
“No fighting,” I shout, but the siblings ignore me, snarling and rolling across the floor.
Sebastian tries to dominate her, two paws slapping down hard on Scarlett’s face. Her head bounces off the floor with a crack.
“Sebastian! Scarlett!”
I shout their names, surprised by this new role. I sound like one of those humans in the park who gets upset when their dog runs off the leash.
I move to intervene just as Sebastian grabs Scarlett by the fur and shakes her hard.
“Enough!” I shout, but Sebastian won’t listen.
I can see Scarlett is rattled, and I slap at Sebastian with a paw to the hindquarters, not hard enough to hurt him, but with enough strength to startle him into releasing his jaws.
Scarlett pulls away, and her collar snaps and goes skittering across the floor. She’s in shock from the fight, and she stands alone, startled and unmoving.
I call to her, and her eyes begin to focus, and she realizes her collar is missing.
She scampers across the room, running to retrieve it. As she passes by, I see an ugly surgical scar on the back of her neck, deep enough that fur has grown in abnormally in the spot.
It’s the same scar I saw on the Puppio puppy.
She drops down and rolls over her collar. It attaches automatically to her neck, sealing itself with a magnetic click. With the collar back in place, she stands up and shakes herself off.
“What was that all about?” I ask.
“Just playing,” Sebastian says with a smile.
They trot past me as if nothing happened, and they start to play on the climbing tree.
“Is that true?” I ask Scarlett.
“Just playing,” she shouts, and she jumps on the apparatus like nothing happened.
I smile like everything is fine, but I’m thinking of the scar I just saw and the hastily whispered things she said to me before Sebastian’s attack.
I LOOK FOR DR. PAO BEFORE THE NEXT DAY’S TRAINING SESSION.
I tap at her office door, and she motions me inside.
“How are you bonding with your puppies?” she asks.
I think about the scar I saw under Scarlett’s collar. I want to ask Dr. Pao about it, but I have to choose my words carefully.
“We’re still getting to know each other,” I say. “Their schedule is packed. I’d like more time for us to play. It’s important if they’re going to get along with humans.”
“I wish I could give you more time, but I don’t have any to give. The first fifty dogs are going out this weekend.”
“You’re releasing the Puppios?”
“We’re holding an adoption event at STAPLES Center. The dogs are going to the mayor, the governor, a few celebrities, studio heads, some YouTubers.”
“VIPs and influencers.”
“What better way to get the message out?” the doctor says. “Fifty dogs this weekend, five thousand dogs by the end of the year. That’s why we’ve been working Sebastian and Scarlett so hard. I want them to be able to support these dogs when they’re in homes.”
“Support them how?”
“Monthly training workshops. Puppy school for owners and dogs. That kind of thing.”
The idea of weekend workshops with Puppio trainers and dogs working with new owners makes sense, but something is still bothering me.
“Scarlett’s collar fell off earlier,” I say.
The doctor hesitates. “They’re growing quickly,” she says. “We need to work on that collar.”
“It’s not about the collar design,” I say. “I saw something on her neck.”
“You saw the surgical scar,” Dr. Pao says matter-of-factly. “I imagine that was disturbing for you.”
I flash back to the time I found a scar on my own body and pulled a BreedX microchip out of my thigh. The memory makes me shiver.
“Why did they have surgery?” I ask.
“Remember I was the one who created the BreedX technology that was stolen by General Rupani. I had the chips and I decided to use them.”
She comes over and sits on the edge of the desk in front of me, so we’re close in the small office.
“These Puppios are ultra-sophisticated dogs, the first of a new breed. Cars have VIN numbers, computers have serial numbers, and my dogs have ID and tracking chips.”
“These are live animals. They’re not property.”
“They’re our creations, and we need to be able to monitor them. Sebastian and Scarlett will help us. You were out there, so you got a sense of what CAT was trying to do.”
CAT. It’s the first time I’ve heard Dr. Pao mention them.
“What’s CAT all about?” I ask.
“They’re a group of bio-hackers trying to beat us to market.”
“I thought they were Russian?”
“Not officially. They were thrown out of Russia, and now they’re in exile, people without a country. If they can get their hands on our tech, they can impress their government and maybe get back home. These dogs are priceless to them.”
“That’s why they were trying to capture me.”
“And Chance, so they’d have control of you.”
I imagine Chance at home alone with the Puppio.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Dr. Pao says. “We’re keeping track of him. Big Eyes has a chip so we can track their movements at all times. Trust me when I say he’s safer with us than he could ever be with you.”
I whimper, the comment hitting a little too close to home.
“It’s not personal,” she says. “It’s a resource thing. We have a whole staff who can look after him. He only had you.”
She goes back around her desk and sits down. “You’re suspicious. I’d be worried if you weren’t. But you’re one of the family now. No more secrets between us. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I say.
She leans forward and looks into my eyes. “You want to protect your pups. I think that’s a good sign.”
“A sign of what?”
“That you’re becoming a real mom,” she says, and she touches her chest, directly over the heart.
I DREAM OF CHANCE.
I’m giving him a tour of Puppio headquarters, showing him all the things I’ve learned about the facility since he’s been gone.
“I want to meet the puppies,” Chance says.
“But you have a Puppio now,” I say.
“I lost her,” he says. “I want to get another one.”
He sounds different in the dream, his voice too loud so it echoes off the walls around us.
A door slides open and a gaggle of Puppios come tumbling out and rush toward Chance. I smell the overly sweet scent of multiple puppies, and the odor is nauseating to me.
Chance squeals in delight, but before he can open his mouth to speak, the Puppios leap on him. It seems like they want to play, but the game becomes real and it turns into an attack. The tiny puppy bites are savage, small mouths digging into Chance’s flesh.
“Stop!” I scream, but the dogs won’t obey me.
I turn to find Sebastian standing nearby, smiling and looking on as the Puppios attack Chance.
“Help him,” I beg.
“You taught us how to fight,” Sebastian says. “You taught us everything we know.”
He leaps into the pile, snarling and baring his teeth as he goes for Chance’s neck.
I wake up from the dream howling in terror, my breath coming in gasps. I can still hear Chance’s screams echoing in my head.
I hop out of bed and shake my head violently, trying to get the feeling of the dream away from me.
Now that I’m awake, I realize what’s been bothering me about my puppies.
The scars on their necks, Scarlett’s warning, the whole idea of dogs training other dogs.
Training them to do what exactly?
I decide to talk to Scarlett right now, in the middle of the night, away from Dr. Pao or the Puppio employees who are around all the time. I want to examine her scar more closely and ask her some questions to find out exactly what she knows about Dr. Pao’s plan for the Puppios this weekend. I head for the room where she and Sebastian sleep, hoping I can wake her up without his knowing and find someplace to talk to her alone.
BUT WHEN I GET TO THE ROOM, THE PUPPIES ARE GONE.
