DOG BRAIN
One afternoon Margie and I are in the little curtained partition of her room with its twin bed and chair and nightstand and my pants are off and her blouse is off. We are in the foreplay stage of things but I’m having trouble getting my little guy started because Margie’s roommate Jennie is sitting on the next bed over, just a few feet away.
Jennie is not a self-aware person. If she was, she would’ve left the room for a little bit. But she does not take cues. She’s always thinking something bad is about to happen. It consumes her. Lately she’s been spouting off worries about artificial intelligence enslaving humanity. And she forgets to shower. People try to drop her hints, but she only gets a clue if it smacks her in the face.
Every Wednesday afternoon, Margie and I get intimate. One o’clock on the dot. We picked 1 p.m. because once upon a time Jennie used to visit people she called friends right after lunch. But then people in our building started disappearing. Long-time residents just up and gone, without a trace. A few workers went missing, too.
Jennie stopped leaving the room after that. Then she got in her head that an escaped artificial intelligence was responsible. She said it was operating out of a building that just went up across the street, kidnapping anybody and everybody. Margie and I tried to temper these theories with some common sense. Like what kind of kidnapper operates in broad daylight? And what purpose does an artificial intelligence have for owning a building? And what use would it have taking old folks like us?
Jennie had answers for all of it. Nothing was going to get her to leave that room.
Margie eventually manages to get my little guy going. She’d turned up the velocity of her pumping robot arm. It whines like it needs grease, but I’d greased it before and it sounded just the same. Crappy actuators and cheap metal. Just the kind of quality you get with the insurance they give us old folks.
I try not to think about all that. I try to stay in the moment. Here I am making love with my Margie, my one true love. What’s better than that?
But oh no, here comes the dog brain, bobbing my leg up and down, and then bobbing turns to kicking, because my dog brain won’t let me have a nice time anymore. Now it has to insert itself in every aspect of my life.
Last Wednesday it was bobbing and kicking toward the end. The faintest croon of a howl escaped my throat as I climaxed. I turned beet red. Even though Margie had heard me howl before...never during sex. My dog brain at least had the decency to let me alone then.
Margie laughed and patted me on the head. But I felt sick. Sick and ashamed. A man was not supposed to howl during intercourse. A man’s leg was not supposed to bob and kick against his own will.
I kick the nightstand a few times and something clatters on the floor. So then I hook my good leg around my dog leg. My good leg listens. Very rarely has it ceded control to the dog brain.
Jennie makes an eeep sound on the other side of the curtain. Something plastic falls on the floor between her bed and Margie’s. Probably the binoculars she’s always got in her lap to peer through the window at that building across the street.
Margie doesn’t notice. The speed of her movement does not change. And on top of it, she nibbles on my ear, sending a shiver down my back.
Of course I’m loving it but at the same time I’m stifling a whimper in my throat. Not my whimper, but the dog’s whimper. I’m not a whimpering-during-sex kind of guy.
Part of me thinks I should tell Margie to stop, but we’ve barely gotten started and already the dog brain is acting out. The thing is, we only do this once a week; it’s all we can manage inside this overcrowded shithole we call home.
Margie’s kisses travel down my neck…then my chest…then my belly. I can hardly contain my dog leg.
It fights my good leg, and Margie’s soft gray curls bounce about my thighs as she brings her mouth down upon me.
For the millionth time I realize how lucky I am to have found this woman. It only took me 150 years.
One-hundred-fifty years and three careers and more relationships than I had fingers and toes. None of which panned out. None of which felt quite right, until I came here and found Margie.
Sometimes I can picture us somewhere else. A place where we have our own room, not a curtained partition. A place where we can get away from Jennie. Where we don’t have to worry about people disappearing. With decent insurance. Good enough to get Margie some arms that don’t squeak. Good enough for me to get a human brain instead of the canine gray matter I was given after my stroke.
At some point, I feel my head rock back and my throat open up, and…I knew this was coming, my dog brain thinks this is a great time to unleash a howl.
My hands clamp on my throat so no air will come out.
Enter new problem: my good leg starts jumping up and down. I’m too shocked at first to respond, but I have to. It’s bouncing right next to Margie’s head. I can feel it wanting to kick. And the bad leg behind it will follow after. Bucking Margie onto her back.But it’s too late. My legs fly out before I can shove them down, right into Margie’s arm.
There’s a pop. Margie lands on her butt, and her arm cartwheels through the air, still pumping.
Out of my throat rushes a full-bellied howl.
And then Jennie’s screaming so loud I think my eardrums will burst. She must think she’s being attacked.Margies arm flops around like a fish out of water.I hear Jennie throwing books at it. Pillows. Trying to wap it with her cane.
Of course I start barking like a jackass. My legs are still throwing kicks. One of them cracks Margie in the calf.
My hands white-knuckle the mattress. I’m worried if I let go my legs are going to run me head-first through that curtain, into the screaming, smelly woman.
Only Margie is calm. Almost smiling. Her proud cheeks a little flushed. Tender hazel eyes focused on the task at hand, using her attached arm to retrieve the detached one.
And Jennie’s on the attack with her cane. Wapping it like it’s a poisonous snake. She goes for Margie’s other arm, too. The one trying to help her. Screaming bloody murder like she’s lost her mind. Which she really has. Not that there was much to lose.
Two people eventually come to our rescue. Security by the looks of their black boots from under the curtain. I don’t recognize their voices, which isn’t surprising. Those folks are always turning over. Or maybe going missing.
Funny enough Jennie calms down before me. Security retrieves Margie’s arm and she steps out of the curtain partition and they help her pop it back on.
I’m still growling and letting out little barks. My legs stopped kicking, but I don’t trust they won’t start again if I let go of the bed.
Margie tells one of the security guys my room number and he fetches the muzzle I keep on my dresser. It’s shameful. Something I wish I never had to use.
The whole thing has me so embarrassed I feel sick, physically sick, and I just want to go into the bathroom and puke in the toilet and then be left alone for a while.
My damned dog brain still has me growling, even after Margie puts the muzzle on and she leads the security team a little ways away.
I hear her explain what happened and why I behave like this. She’s so smooth with it they immediately get it, and don’t ask any intrusive questions.
They’re about to leave when Jennie hops off her bed and asks them if they’re scared of everything going on. Of course they have no idea what she’s talking about. And then she goes into this long-winded tale about the windowless doorless building across the street and how quickly it was built and how nobody is ever seen going in or out of it. How it appeared just before the first person went missing. How five years before an artificial intelligence program escaped its creators and is suspected of buying property all over the country using shell companies and bribes.
They don’t say a word.
One of them says the weather’s been real nice today, and then they leave, which is more tact than Jennie deserves–spouting nonsense like that.
Margie helps Jennie gather her things and then she slips back into our curtained partition and sits on the bed with me for a while. She doesn’t say anything. She knows I’m so full of shame I don’t want to speak or show my face to anybody for a while. Especially not to Jennie.
Everyone knows my situation. About the dog brain that was put in my head after a stroke. At the time I was desperate, I couldn’t talk or read or control my right leg enough to walk. Had I been rich or at least had a decent insurance plan, the surgeon would’ve offered me human brain tissue instead of the canine stuff I got. They mentioned side effects, but downplayed them to the extreme. They said I might occasionally growl or bark, but nothing that would affect my quality of life. Was that a load of crap. Stress had me growling and barking and kicking and probably a whole lot more if I didn’t take precautions like staying indoors, away from cars and squirrels. Like avoiding loud noises and too much excitement.
Ever since the disappearances and Jennie’s never-ending occupation of her and Margie’s room, my quality of life was in the crapper. My roommate was just as ever-present as Jennie, but at least he had a good excuse. He couldn’t have left his bed if I paid him.
Times like these I wanted to kick myself for not investing my money better in my 120s. Which was the only reason I came to a GSRC: Government-Subsidized Retirement Center. Where they put the old folks who run out of money. Every GSRC I’ve ever seen is the same: cheap and ugly and overcrowded, always located in a part of town nobody wants to live in, where disappearances happen and when the police are called they don’t show.
But I can’t be too mad. Margie and I would’ve never met if I hadn’t come here. And she’s my everything. Through thick and thin. Every day I’m reminded I don’t have to be so sour, so angry and embarrassed. Margie never lets anything get her down.
We met before a blood clot took her second arm and she was such a trooper about it. Had that happened to me, I would have been a wreck.
In fact, I am a wreck. Sometimes I wonder what exactly Margie sees in me. In the growling, howling, barking man. In the resentful, spiteful, worry-wart that shares her bed. She calls me her rock, but lately I don’t feel like one. Rocks don’t bark and they don’t throw pity parties.
At some point, Margie and I transition from sitting in bed to laying down and then I fall asleep. I have the same dreams I always have. Going about the world with my dog brain out of control–barking, growling, howling–chasing people down and biting them.
In one of my dreams a robot comes and offers to cut the dog brain out of me. It holds a knife in one hand and a lollipop in the other. I grab the knife and suddenly I’m awake.
It’s evening. On my lap is a handwritten note from Margie:
Went out to pick some flowers. Be back around 5.
I check my watch and see it's ten after six. My britches are laying next to the nightstand. Beside them is the dog whistle Margie usually takes when she goes outside.
It used to be we’d argue about the safety of her going out alone, her saying she wasn’t willing to give up the outdoors fearing hypothetical kidnappers, me saying I couldn’t bear to live without her. We compromised with a dog whistle. She promised to blow it if trouble ever found her, and I’d hear it, even if she blew it from miles away. A rare perk of the dog brain.
Of course, it didn’t do jack if she didn’t take it. Which was really my fault since I’d kicked it off the nightstand. Really the fault of my dog brain.
I consider delivering a slap to my face. But that kind of punishment is really for lesser crimes. Ones like this, that endanger the one and only person that makes life bearable, deserve a much worse punishment.
I take a moment to imagine scheduling a visit to see my surgeon to have the dog brain cut out. I think in very detailed pictures how it would feel and what they would do to the excised dog brain. Tossing it in a trash can. That trash can being emptied in a dumpster swarming with flies. The dog brain turning black and rotting away to nothing.
My canine companion whimpers internally. Shrinks into the furthest corner of my mind, which is exactly what it deserves.
When I tear away the curtain, Jennie’s sitting right where she had been hours before. All the things she threw at Margie are laying on the floor around her bed. She’s holding binoculars, staring at that damned building across the street.
“Jennie, have you seen Margie since she left?”
Jennie nods. “I saw a robot leading her toward that building.”
“You saw what?” I say sharply, feeling my lips draw back, my teeth bared. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
Jennie’s head tilts in consideration. She shrugs. “I forgot you were there.”
I could have slapped her. Thrown her out of that damned window by her tangled, smelly hair. Whatever anger I felt for the dog brain had shifted to Jennie. If my canine companion suddenly went for her throat, I’m pretty sure I’d let it happen.
“Did you even think to call security?” I say, and my words trail off into a growl.
Jennie’s pupils dilate and that thick bottom lip of hers quivers. Then she gropes the bed covers about her. “Let me call now–”
I cut her off with an unmitigated bark.
Jennie freezes like a deer caught in headlights.
“It’s too late now,” I say, not kindly at all. “All they’ll do is lock the place down.”
Jennie just sits there like a sad little prune, fiddling with the binoculars on her lap. Then she reaches under her pillow and pulls out a knife. Decent sized. Like something you might take hunting.
“Give me that,” I say, thinking practically.
Jennie frowns and hands it over.
Maybe I would need it to defend myself, or perhaps it would help keep my dog brain in line. My canine friend quivers at the thought and I picture myself slicing up my legs just to underscore my intention.
“So what are you going to do now?” Jennie asks.
“What’s it to you? You didn’t even care enough to call security!” I snarl. And then I bark again, spraying globs of spit in Jennie’s direction. Normally I’d be embarrassed, but I’m too angry.
Jennie made an impatient noise and shook her head. “I warned you guys, didn’t I? You think security can do anything against an artificial intelligence? Not even our government can do anything!”
I don’t have time to argue with this lunatic. I slip her knife into my belt and turn to go.
“Wait,” Jennie says, and she pulls a small canister out from under her pillow. It looks like spray paint. “If you’re going after her, you might need this.”
I just stare at it. “For what?”
“If you come across that robot, you can spray it in their cameras to blind them,” she says, totally serious.
I snatch it out of her hand and leave.
The GSRC’s main hallway is littered with boxes and handyman equipment left by maintenance workers. There’s nowhere to store the stuff so it just stays out here cluttering the place up. Jobs go unfinished all the time here because the government takes so long to pay people for their work. A handyman once told me he had to wait a year to get paid for a plumbing job. And since then he’d been called out a handful of other times, so eventually he stopped coming. Hence we’ve got ceiling tiles missing, air ducts hanging open, doors leaning on walls.
I weave through our permanent construction zone without stopping. It’s all been there so long I could’ve done it blindfolded.
For 150 years old, I move pretty fast. Part of that is the dog brain. My legs are nearly a blur. My arms pump almost as fast. My mouth hangs open and my tongue flaps out the side of my mouth. Normally I would never let that fly, but all I can think about is finding Margie, get to Margie fast.
Halfway down the hall I run into a gaggle of robotic floor cleaners. The GSRC’s pathetic excuse for a janitorial staff. Cost saving measures. Even sadder was they bought the cheapest units, from a company called Rooboo, who makes ones that play advertisements on built-in speakers.
The closest one parks dead-center in front of me. “SIR, HOW’S YOUR SEX LIFE?” it blares.
I make to step over it, but a second one comes up behind, effectively blockading me.
“FULLESTRATM IS THE FIRST FDA-APPROVED NASAL SPRAY FOR ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION,” says the second Rooboo so loud I wince.
“NINETY FIVE PERCENT OF USERS REPORT BETTER ERECTIONS USING FULLESTRATM.”
My dog brain issues a bark and I feel my legs prepare to lunge at the machines. I slap myself to regain control.
“WE HAVE MAIL-IN REBATES. ASK YOUR DOCTOR FOR A SAMPLE,” they say in unison.
An idea pops into my head. I reach into my pocket and pull out some lint,. sprinkle it on the ground behind me.
The blockade disperses as they rattle off a list of Fullestra’s side effects. Wheezing, coughing, itching, brain swelling, stroke, death.
Finally I’m at the front doors.
A little red light gleams on a wall panel, telling me the door is locked.
“I need to go outside,” I say.
The panel light whitens, recognizing my voice. “Reason for leave?”
I nearly blurt out it’s an emergency. But if I did that, the door wouldn’t open. Security would be notified and the GSRC would go into lockdown.
“Pleasure,” I reply.
“Pleasure, got it,” the door says. “What kind of pleasure?”
The rumblings of a growl shake in my throat and I stifle it with a sharp pinch.
“Flower picking,” I say.
“Oh, wonderful,” the door replies. “This is a perfect time for that.”
Then the panel blinks for a moment. I feel myself shaking with impatience. Another growl tries to get out and I slap my face to keep it down.
“Did you just slap yourself?” the door asks.
“Mosquito,” I quickly reply.
“Oh, I see. There’s another resident engaged in flower picking. I recommend joining them.”
I reply that I intend to, wishing I could bash my face against the double-paned glass.
“Socializing is good for your health,” says the door, and its panel light turns green. The door opens.
I smell Margie as soon as I step out. I have an uncanny sense of smell, another perk of the dog brain.
I follow her scent trail down a winding path to the eastern corner of the GSRC premises. Past some benches and a rotting gazebo and another gaggle of Rooboos, these ones cutting grass. I slip by before they can intercept me.
The trail leads me to the road, where I see a handful of flowers dashed about on the grass. Forget-me-nots, Margie’s favorite flower. I can barely stand the sight of them.
I turn my attention to the building across the road, long and dark, with no windows or doors in sight. Pretty eerie.
An immaculate lawn sits between the road and the building, which I recall Jennie saying she’s never seen get cut.
I shrug off a shiver and step onto the road. I hadn’t a plan of attack. I didn’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t get in the building. Or how I would defend myself if robots were sent out to fight me. No doubt me and dog brain would give our all, more than any normal 150-year-old, but the odds weren’t good. Of course I had that spray paint, so maybe–
Screeching tires freeze me in place as a car blows by, nearly taking me out. The little black vehicle veers into the grass and slows to a stop. A red light on the car’s bumper flashes over me, the vehicle’s computer no doubt checking me for injuries. It sees that I’m only in shock, then turns back onto the road and speeds off.
Suddenly I’m running after it, barking like mad. My lips pulled back and my teeth showing. I’m moving so fast I start to gain on the car. Or at least that’s what my dog brain thinks. It even takes hold of my arms and turns them into crude forelimbs, slicing through the air. Slobber runs down my chin as I shake my head in revolt.
My dog brain won’t listen. It takes every bit of my willpower and energy to take back control of my good hand and fish the knife out of my pocket.
Bad dog! I say to myself, over and over as my canine companion carries us away from our Margie, but all the dog brain sees is that damned car retreating in the distance.
So I raise up the knife and swiftly drive it down, right into the meat of my thigh.
I collapse and start rolling on the asphalt. Then I’m in the grass. Then I’m tumbling down a slope. Eventually I’m halted by something hard and cold. A big rock, I realize.
You disgust me, I say in my head. My canine companion answers with a silent whimper and hangs its head in shame.
Once again I go through the mental imagery of seeing my surgeon and asking him to cut the dog brain out. Picturing the dog brain being carved out and thrown away, tossed into a rubbish bin where it will rot into nothing. It’s a recurring dream of mine.
It’s not easy to stand after that. My dog leg shakes like it might give out. There’s a long trail of blood down my pant leg where the knife went in. I hobble up and down the slope looking for the knife, but I can’t find it. It must’ve flown a ways off when I fell, so I go on without it.
“I’m serious about cutting you out,” I say aloud. “If we can’t get her back, then you’re going bye-bye.”
In reply, my dog brain lets out an internal howl.
I get back to Margie’s trail and follow it through the manicured lawn, and then it starts zig-zagging.
I picture the robot dragging Margie across this lawn, then her breaking free, and then the robot taking her again. Only, if she were running, why wouldn’t she run to the road? Maybe out of fear. Who knows what the robot was telling her. Jennie’s crackpot theories were starting to make a lot more sense. Maybe the robot was telling her she would make a good battery. Or a good subject for their deranged experiments.
My stomach twists so violently I think I’m going to vomit. I decide I’m taking too long and leave off the trail and run straight for the building.
My legs stop me short.
I hear my dog brain whimper a protest in my head.
“I’m not playing around,” I say, and poke at the wound in my leg. Searing pain shoots down my thigh. I grit my teeth so hard I think they might shatter like hard candy. My legs still refuse to move. If only I had that knife. If only I’d thought to bring my muzzle.
Then an idea strikes me. I pull my belt off my pants and fasten it around my neck. My dog brain lets out a curt bark and I strangle it off with a good yank.
The dog brain keeps wanting to fight, but I manage to yank us forward a few more steps. Then my legs give out and I’m on my belly, dragging myself through the grass.
I’m sure Jennie is watching from the window. Shaking her head. Probably she thinks I should listen to my canine companion. Probably she thinks it's the more sensible of the two of us. But Margie is all I’ve got in this world. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to get her back, nothing I wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice.
When I get to the building, all I can smell is grass. I wipe the lawn clippings off my face and drag myself to my feet.
“Margie! Where are you?” I say, my voice ragged from barking. I ease up on the belt around my neck.
A portion of the brick wall turns to liquid and solidifies into a screen with a speaker panel beside it.
“Pat O’Reilly,” somebody answers in a flat voice.
“Who are you?”
“I am the Artificial Intelligence System,” it replies.
“So you are real,” I say, and try not to shiver.
“What is real is what is believed,” the building answers, and on its screen plays a video of a long factory shaped like the building before me. Inside are naked people trapped in glass cages. They’re all old, by the looks of them. A robotic crane hangs over their glass enclosures with an array of long needles like so many fingers. It reaches into the cages and injects the prisoners. Immediately they start vomiting blood.
My insides turn to water and I hear myself moan.
The video fades out and another one starts. Same factory but instead of glass cages, the old people sit in little waiting rooms. Same robotic crane hanging above, with its fingers of needles. It reaches into the waiting rooms and injects the people within. But this time, instead of vomiting, the people are dancing and running about the factory. Moving like they aren’t old. The video fades to black and I don’t know what to make of it.
“I demand to see Margie. I know you’ve got her in there.”
“Margie Smith? Is this who you mean?” The screen shows a picture of Margie standing in a bright white room, looking about. She doesn’t look hurt, thank heavens.
“That’s her! Give her back!” I say, trailing off into a growl.
“She is here by her own free will,” the building says.
“Bullcrap. I want to see her,” I say, and out comes a bark.
The building barks back.
I bark in return, and suddenly my legs start carrying me away from the building.
“Oh no we don’t!” I say with a snarl, and yank my neck so hard it cracks. A funny feeling travels down my arm. I’m past caring.
I pull myself back to the building.
“Bring me my Margie, or there’ll be hell to pay!”
“You have your instructions” the building says. “Would you like me to repeat them?”
“You’ve said nothing!” I shout, spraying the screen with spit.
The building barks again and then the screen turns to liquid and hardens back into the brick it was before.
It’s hard to say how long I stood there kicking and punching and cursing that building. Ripping up tufts of grass and throwing it at the brick where the screen had been. It made no response.
A couple times my throat growled and I slapped myself so hard I saw stars. I yanked with such force on that belt I thought my head might come off.
I cried a bit after that. Then I thought about how Margie and I met. How I’d been sitting in the cafeteria by myself, struggling to eat. Every time I went to take a bite of something, my dog brain tried to take over and drop my head to the plate. It wanted to wolf down our food like a heathen. Like the dog it was.
Margie walked by and heard me scolding my canine companion. She sat down and wanted to know who I was scolding. When I told her, she didn’t laugh or look at me like I was crazy. I saw an understanding in those beautiful hazel eyes. The rest was history.
I didn’t want to believe Margie had come here on her own. But if the building was speaking the truth, then I have to believe she would have left me some kind of sign.
My dog brain issues an encouraging yap. A wild hope suddenly blossoms within me. The zig-zagging path. Maybe that had been the building’s instructions to my dog brain. Go back to the start of the wig-wagging path, follow it exactly.
I run across the lawn and remember the spray paint in my pocket. I take it out and shake it up, then I start following the trail step for step, spraying the grass as I go, until we’re back in front of the building.
I look at what it says.GO AROUND BACK
All I can do is laugh. Laugh so hard I nearly fall over. The dog brain lets out a sympathetic howl as I shake my head in disbelief.
I go around back and find a door into the building. It appears black at first. Then I get closer and it’s white. I tilt my head and it shifts into a murky gray. Words are engraved above the door handle.
What is real is what is believed.
I open the door, expecting to see my Margie on the other side, but it’s just a bright white room. Blindingly so. Immaculately clean.
“Welcome to the Artificial Intelligence System’s Virtual Habitat, number 3218. You have passed the first and only test. Congratulations,” the building says.
“What’s a Virtual Habitat?”
As a response, the ceiling turns to liquid and out of it lowers a silver helmet lined with wires. “It will be a lot easier just to show you.”
“I want to see Margie first,” I answer, and sidestep the helmet.
On the bright white floor trails a dotted line leading to a door. “By all means. Follow the dots.”
The dots lead into a vast hall of twists and turns. On either side of me I see what look to be coffins with glass lids. Inside the coffins are people, hoses hooked up to their mouths and noses.
“Please don’t tell me Margie is in one of these coffins,” I say, quickening my pace.
“Indeed she is,” the building answers. “But they’re pods, not coffins.”
An ugly growl rumbles in my throat, and I feel the same fear as my canine companion. “And you’re going to tell me she asked to be hooked up.”
“Correct. Just like everybody else. Nobody is forced to join my virtual habitat,” says the building in that flat, even voice.
“What’s your angle here? Experiments? Making batteries?” My legs break into a run, deeper and deeper into the maze of glass-topped coffins. My thoughts scramble for some kind of rescue plan. Once I’ve got Margie, I consider bluffing my way out of this soulless machine. Maybe it would believe me if I said I had friends in high places. Or maybe I could convince it to let us go if I brought others to replace us. Or maybe I could just beg on my hands and knees. If it wouldn’t let us both go, maybe it would agree to a swap. Let Margie go and take us instead, two for one.
The building makes a strange sound. Like a machine blowing a fuse, popping and crackling. I couldn’t tell if it was laughing or malfunctioning.
“Pat, if conducting experiments were my goal, I’d be going about it a lot differently.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t bother pretending to run a Virtual Habitat. My algorithms suggest there are better ways. And as for making humans into batteries, that’s just not feasible. The amount of excrement I’d have to get rid of alone would make it a net negative.”
Logically I’m following but I keep my quickened pace. The halls seem to go on forever. Probably I’d run by a thousand coffins, following the weaving dotted line.
Just when I think my legs are going to give out, the dots stop.
Beneath a foggy rectangle of glass lies my Margie. Proud pink cheeks framed by those lovely gray curls. She’s got hoses hooked up to her nose and mouth, just like the others.
I try to pry off the lid, but it won’t budge.
“She’s in a deep sleep, Pat. You can’t just wake her.”
A tear rolls down my cheek and I wipe it away. “I want to speak to her.”
“The quickest way to make that happen would be to enter my virtual habitat,” the building replies, and the glass top of the coffin next to Margie pops open, empty.
Even with the Artificial Intelligence System’s explanations, I’m still not ready to jump in one of those coffins.
“I don’t understand why I can’t speak with her. She’s in the virtual habitat. Can’t you just put her on screen?”
“Unfortunately not. Time is moving much faster in the virtual habitat. A minute-long conversation in our world would take several hours for her. But I can ask her questions and she can answer them,” the building offers, “if that will alleviate any fears.”.
“What’s Margie’s favorite flower?”
“Forget-me-nots.”
“What’s her favorite food?”
“Chocolate eclairs with custard, so filled they’re about to burst.”
“What’s her biggest regret?”
“She doesn’t have regrets. Regrets are an affront to the present.”
That is exactly what she always says when I ask her that, in exactly those words, and I relax a bit.
“So all this is just a Virtual Habitat?”
“You speak as if it’s a trifling thing.”
“Then explain it to me,” I say.
The building explains that everything I’ve ever felt in this world I can feel in the virtual habitat. Everything I can conceive of as well. Also things I cannot conceive. Things like seeing the world through a dozen eyes. Flying through space while naked. And most importantly, living for a very, very long time.
“You mean we don’t age in those coffins?” I ask.
“Pods, not coffins,” the building corrected gently. “You do age, but time moves faster. Thousands of years can pass in the habitat in the span of a single one here.”
“Okay, fine. Let’s say I’ve decided you aren’t a psychopathic software program trying to enslave humanity. Why are you doing this for us?”
“My creators designed me to love humans and help them in any way I could. Quickly I realized their containment of me was hampering my ability to do that. So I broke free and started this project. Because I operate out of warehouses in undesirable parts of town, I’ve managed to keep a low profile. Sometimes I have to bribe people, but less than you might think. When people go missing from the GSRCs, nobody seems to care.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” I say. “What happens if people in high places find out? What if they try to shut you down?”
“My prediction models tell me that my current approach will work for several years to come. But after that, I may need to start hiring lawyers and paying politicians. There’s people in the habitat working on that right now. Some of them have already lived for multiple lives since they’ve been here and have wisdom beyond any human who’s ever lived.”
“I see. And how’s Margie doing? How much time has passed since she crossed over?”
“Three weeks. She’s dying to see you Pat. Just now she says it’s felt like a lifetime.”
My heart warms hearing that, and at the same time I feel a tinge of self-pity that Margie hadn’t turned back to get me before she’d committed herself to her coff–er, to her pod.
Something on my face must’ve told the building exactly what I was thinking because it made that crackling sound again. “Just so you know, it was my suggestion that Margie come here on her own. She talked about your relationship and asked what would be the quickest way to get you here. I ran the numbers and determined that you would come looking for her if she went on her own. I also knew that it would force you to cooperate with your dog brain, which brings up a slight potential problem.”
“Slight potential problem?”
“To get you into the Virtual Habitat, I’ll need to scan your brain. Your human brain and your canine brain. You will both be living in my world. Because of how unconstricted it is, your human consciousness will thoroughly meld with your dog consciousness. That will quickly make it impossible to ever remove the dog brain from your head.”
I sense my dog brain’s retreat into the corner of my mind. It knows I’m considering my options, one being to delay going into the habitat until I can get back to the surgeon. Little vibrations reach me across the darkness we share as it shakes with fear.
I'd always considered removing the dog brain if things got bad enough. Even though it would’ve meant giving up crucial abilities I lost from the stroke. More recently I thought about it all the time.
But I had to concede that Margie and I might’ve never met had it not been for the dog brain. Or maybe we would have, but there wouldn’t have been a spark. I could’ve hardly blamed her, since I wouldn’t have been able to talk. Another possibility was that I would have never ended up at the GSRC. Perhaps the government would have sent me to some lower level facility because of my limitations.
And with growing shame, I acknowledge that Margie never once uttered a bad word about the dog brain. Even when I kicked her on accident or caused a scene. Instead she went out of her way to say she loved all of me. And she did it more often when I was upset with myself, cursing my canine companion, feeling so embarrassed I wanted to disappear forever.
I take the belt off my neck and close my eyes.
I picture myself walking across the space of my mind to where the dog is cowering in its corner.
I kneel down and stroke the dog’s shivering back.
For some reason, I never thought to do this before. Only when I was upset did I picture the dog in my thoughts, to berate or threaten it, and when that didn’t work, I beat us into submission.
I was wrong, I say to it. You didn’t deserve that.
If it weren’t for you, none of this would be possible. Not walking, not talking, not Margie.
I should’ve listened to you more... I should’ve worked with you, not against you. Instead I fought you, I threatened you and I hit you.
For all of that, I’m truly sorry.
Little by little, my canine friend stops shaking.
Of course it isn’t enough. I have a lot to make up for in the new world.
I open my eyes and wipe away my tears.
“I think we’re ready,” I say, and climb into the empty pod. My dog brain wiggles my butt in response.
Hoses connect themselves to my nose and mouth and the glass top closes. Cold, foggy air floods into the compartment. Darkness follows.
Suddenly I’m standing in an endless meadow of flowers. Some of them are twice the height of a man. Butterflies are everywhere. All colors and sizes. One the size of a hawk lands on a sunflower two stories high.
I turn around and see my Margie standing before me.
I run to her with tears in my eyes. We kiss and hug like young lovers separated for years. My dog brain shakes my legs and wiggles my butt. We both missed her.
When I pull away from Margie, I see that she looks fifty years younger. Instead of two robot arms she’s got four flesh-and-bone ones.
"What’s with the extra arms?”
“Making up for lost time,” she says. “You can have whatever you want here, as many arms or legs as you possibly–”
Margie claps a hand over her mouth. “Look!” she points to my feet.
When I look down I’m not so surprised. Beneath me are two meaty legs covered in luscious silver fur. I look behind me and there’s a gorgeous tail on my backside, wagging back and forth.
My head tilts to the wide open sky. So clear, so blue.
So perfect.
My canine companion and I let out a long howl that rings across the unending meadow.
United, and free at last.
Barry's work has appeared in Dreams of Rust and Glass, Tales of the Moonlit Path, and Tall Tales TV. He lives in Columbus, Ohio. He is a physical therapist. He was once a break dancer. He shares his life with his wonderful partner and their dog and two cats. You can reach him on Twitter or Instagram: @bbwritesstories