Pavlov's Dogs Read online

  “Well, he finally got his way,” Lucy said. She turned back to her plate of rice. “Crispy has flipped his lid.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  A SMALL YACHT pulled into the deserted wharf, its presence announced by the thumping of the twin engines. Everything else in the night was quiet, save for the gentle rhythmic slapping of waves against the piers.

  Then came the moaning.

  From boathouses and offices they came, dead men and women dressed in rental company uniforms and grease-stained overalls, a few enterprising individuals who had tried but failed to get to their boats when the disaster first hit. One of the dead dragged behind him a small suitcase, strapped to his wrist.

  As the yacht pulled up to one of the finger piers, the horde shambled faster in anticipation of a mouthful of flesh. Something to cool the furnaces in their guts. Clumsily but relentlessly, they moved forward, closing on the quiet yacht.

  It bumped against the wooden pier as the waves pushed it around, and the noise drew more and more of them from inside the fenced-off shipyard.

  Then a new sound split the night. At first, it was indistinguishable from the purr of the engines, but it rose steadily from a growl to a howl, ringing out into the dark.

  The zombies, excited, hurried toward the boat.

  A dark, furry shape shot up from the deck, landing heavily on all fours on the pier. The large, thickly muscled beast bared its wicked teeth, and, unwilling to wait for the rest of the pack, charged.

  The creature hit the crowd of zombies at full speed, scattering them like ninepins into the water. Those that kept their feet reached for the Dog, only to draw back stumps of bone and flesh.

  Clawing, slashing, the Dog rose up, scooping reams of bowels from bodies, letting thick blood from still veins spill, liberating heads from shoulders.

  A short minute later, viscera, dismembered trunks, and rent limbs floated in the water, and the pier was clear of the undead, if a little slippery from the offal.

  “Good job, Kaiser,” McLoughlin said from the boat. “Come on, Dogs. Clear the rest of the boatyard. Keep your heads on. If you need to change, make it count. Because after you change back, you’ll be stuck until we return to the therapy rooms.”

  The seven other Dogs put out a gangplank and crossed it, following in the wake of the hulking Kaiser.

  ’

  The next morning, Thetas Hayte and Rose stood behind the gate, each holding a black bullpup submachine gun at the ready and sneering at the straggling dead in the street beyond. The sound of a heavy engine behind them signaled the beginning of the day’s festivities.

  Hayte turned and looked at the massive wrecker that Jaden’s man had found. Last night, Dunne and Kristos had gone through the Change and had followed Kaiser out onto the street to clean out loads of walking corpses. The three of them were now sleeping it off in the hold of the yacht.

  “Are we ready?” Rose asked, pointing at the driver, one of Jaden’s men. Four of the security guards had come along to lend support. The man nodded and gave a thumbs-up, then wiped his forehead.

  Rose grinned and stepped back, mouthing the same question to the driver in the school bus they had dragged in off the street. Holly Randall had raised hell about losing one of her welders for the job of fortifying the bus, but Dr. Crispin got his way.

  The bus driver gave him an A-OK, and Rose whistled once, a high, piercing sound. An office door opened under a jet-ski rental banner, and Alpha McLoughlin strode out, with Theta Landis and one of his Sigmas in tow.

  “When we get out there, Parker, you stick with Landis. Understood?” McLoughlin looked down at the Sigma.

  Parker, a lithe man, redheaded and pale, nodded sharply. “Yes, sir.”

  McLoughlin clapped his hands together and looked over at Hayte and Rose. “Where’s Samson?”

  “Up here.”

  McLoughlin looked up and saw Samson already lounging atop the school bus, the trunk of his dark blue coveralls pulled down and tied around his waist. His dark skin shined with sweat in the warmth of the morning sun.

  “Good,” McLoughlin said. “We hit the ground running. The security team will drive and ride shotgun for each other. Samson, you and I will split off, looking for the survivors. Landis, you and Parker keep together, do the same. We have three directions to go. Remember,” he said, tapping the side of his nostril.

  Landis said, “Follow your nose—it always knows!”

  He and Parker climbed atop the wrecker, and McLoughlin joined Samson on the school bus. Hayte and Rose pulled the gates open, and the wrecker rolled through.

  After the bus was clear, the Thetas closed the gates and resumed their watch.

  Rose already looked bored. “You think they’ll find anybody?”

  Hayte shrugged. “Only the Great Spirit knows.”

  The wrecker slowed, easing into the first entanglement of cars. Its engine revved up as the great, dirty machine pushed the vehicles apart.

  “All right!” McLoughlin shouted. “Dogs deploy!”

  The four men unzipped their coveralls and stepped out of them. Before the dark-blue garments had hit the ground, the Change had started. All four of them hunched over, dropping to their hands and knees as bone and sinew rearranged itself with popping, gristly sounds. Human cries and grunts dropped down to guttural depths, and then there were four Dogs on the vehicles, howling.

  The Alpha leapt away to the north, his golden coat rippling as he ran. Dark-furred Samson followed suit, running south. Parker and Landis, in gold and patchwork brown-and-grey coats respectively, loped off to the west.

  “I don’t care how often I see that,” the driver of the wrecker said, “I will never get used to it.”

  ’

  “Did you see that? What the hell was that?”

  The man at the door peeked out through the narrow glass slit, eyes wide. He wore a tattered red shirt over dark-blue jeans, and a green trucker’s hat on his head. The back of his leather belt read BUCK in large letters, which was appropriate for the large man. He clutched a double-barreled shotgun that had seen better days.

  “What did it look like?” a woman behind him asked.

  “It looked like the devil.”

  The woman, who wore black motorcycle leathers, rolled her eyes. “Come on, Buck. Be serious.”

  “Screw you, Shayna. I saw what I saw. It was a... a... a beast. Fur, black as night. It ran by on all fours, big as a bear, maybe.”

  Shayna put her fists on her hips. “Oh, really.”

  Buck turned back to the door. “Not as wide. Thick through the shoulders, slimmer at the hips. Moving fast, too.”

  She walked forward, her square-toed boots clicking on the concrete floor. “You sure you haven’t had a nip or two this morning? Let me see.” She brushed Buck aside, and he let her.

  “I saw what I saw.”

  Shayna put her face up to the safety glass, looking around. “Well, I don’t doubt you saw something. If it was moving fast, maybe it was the rescue squad. But a beast-man?” She shook her head. “That doesn’t sound—oh, God!”

  A yellow eye in a black, furry face appeared in the window, and Shayna saw a mouth full of sharp teeth before she fell back.

  “The Devil!” Buck shouted, lowering his shotgun and firing both barrels. The blast sheared away the window and a significant bit of wood around it. The face disappeared, and Buck hooted.

  “I got it!” He put a hand out to help Shayna up. “And, no, I haven’t had anything to drink this morning, thank you very much. Ran out two days ago.”

  Shayna’s sharp reply was cut off as a thick arm, corded with muscle and covered in black fur, jammed through the broken window and slapped at the door handle.

  “Oh, shit,” Buck said, dropping Shayna and fumbling his shotgun open. “Shit, shit, shit.” His hands shook as he dug shells out of his shirt pockets. He dropped four of them trying to reload his shotgun.

  The claws hit the handle just right and the door popped open. The daylight from outside was
eclipsed by the hulking, wolfish form. It looked up at Buck and snarled, pointing one black talon at the shotgun. Slowly, it shook its doggie head, flinging blood from its muzzle.

  “Better put that down, Buck,” a voice said from behind. Jorge came out of a stairwell. “I told you idiots the rescue squad was lobos or something.” He cleared his throat and pointed at the Dog. “I didn’t think that would be so literal, but... what the hell, right?”

  The Dog grunted and licked its lips.

  It turned to go.

  “Come on,” Jorge said. Then he yelled up the stairs, “Vamanos, we don’t have all day!”

  A line of people came down from the upper floor and followed Buck and Shayna, who were following the Dog. Outside, a tangle of dead limbs and torsos littered the street, and the survivors took care stepping over them. The Dog woofed once as a yellow school bus pulled into the intersection. Plate steel covered the windows, with crosses cut into them.

  “Get to the bus!” Jorge yelled. He and the six other survivors jogged forward, but Jorge stopped as he got to the Dog. “Sorry about that. Buck’s trigger-happy. It’s why we love him.”

  The Dog growled, and Jorge took a step back.

  “Yes, of course,” he said. “Whatever you say.”

  He got on the bus and his legs went a little weak when the air conditioning hit him. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I could definitely... Marie?”

  His ex-wife sat in one of the seats with another man. Jorge took him in, looking him over, eyes narrowing. Dark striped shirt, blue jeans, forearms and biceps powerful enough to crack nuts in between.

  “Jorge?” Marie said. “Ay, dios mio, you’re alive!”

  “Yeah,” Jorge said. “And who is this?”

  The man’s face hardened. “I am Paulo.”

  Jorge laughed once, an ugly sound. “Well, good luck with this one. ¿Y los niños?”

  Marie’s face fell, and Jorge felt his guts turn to water.

  “N’ombre,” he said. “Tell me they’re okay.”

  “No se,” Marie said. “No se. Estan con mi mama en Mexico, pero no se nada de ellos.”

  Paulo reached around Marie and rubbed her shoulders. He looked up at Jorge with clear eyes. “We tried calling. The kids have been with their grandmother for six weeks now, even before all this.”

  Jorge met the man’s gaze and knew there was something he wasn’t being told. “Shit,” he said, turning away. As he did, a large man with a shaved head stepped onto the bus. He glistened as if he were covered in sweat, but the smell coming off his sheen was bitter and tangy.

  “I’m McLoughlin,” he said. “I realize my team must come as a shock, but everyone can relax. We’re taking you someplace safe.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  DR. DONOVAN STOOD in front of a six-foot sculpture of a Dog, looking at it in the sharp fluorescent light of Crispin’s Command Center. The statue was crafted in painstaking, loving detail, from the yellowish-black talons on the misshapen feet to the tufts of hair on the ends of the Dog’s ears.

  Donovan tilted his head. “So, this is... decoration?”

  Crispin, who was sitting at a very large touchscreen above a bank of controls, took off his headphones and turned to the neurotechnician. “I’m sorry, what?”

  Pointing at the model of the Dog, Donovan said, “What is this?”

  “Oh!” Crispin smiled. His mood had much improved since the skewed vote, and it had only elevated with each positive report from McLoughlin’s team. “There is a rectangle on the base of the statue. Step on it, please.”

  Turning away and rolling his eyes, Donovan did as the project director bid. A seam of light brightened down the center of the Dog, splitting it from crown to crotch. The two halves of the sculpture rotated outward, revealing a network of fiber optics and realistic viscera. The skeletal structure was exposed on the right, the musculature on the left, with all the organs suspended in between.

  “That’s... different.” Donovan’s eyes widened and took in everything. The fiber optics ran throughout the systems of the Dog, a fine line of pulsing light. “These are, what? The pathways monitored?”

  Crispin grunted at the touchscreen. The monitor was tiled with little picture-in-picture video feeds of each Dog’s vision. “Close, Dr. Donovan. Those are the neural pathways the Pavlovian Chip controls. I’ll show you.”

  The doctor pinched his forefinger and thumb together on the touchscreen, then expanded them, zooming in on Samson’s feed. The display was moving steadily and smoothly in hi-def, sweeping from side to side as the Dog searched the alleyway. The size of the monitor, combined with how close Donovan stood, induced a bit of vertigo. He put out a hand to steady himself.

  “It takes a bit of getting used to,” Crispin said. “The neural interface captures the image coming into Samson’s eyes, even before it gets to his optic nerve. In fact...” He paused, raising one eyebrow at Donovan. “We can even intercept it. Would you like to see?”

  Donovan nodded.

  “Good. Let us see what our erstwhile Beta Samson is up to.”

  They watched as the view closed in on a stout wooden door with a lancet window of meshed security glass. Samson edged toward the door, bit by bit. Dr. Crispin’s finger hovered over a button.

  Samson moved, about to look in through the window, and then Crispin’s finger came down. The image on the monitor erupted in a flash of light, and Crispin and Donovan jumped as the tinny sound of an explosion rocked the headphones. Vital signs spiked at the bottom of the display.

  “Ah, damn it,” Crispin whispered, taking his finger off the controls. He watched the screen in horror, grimacing and typing as Samson’s pulse and respiration leapt.

  Donovan stood back, knowing better than to ask questions as the project director typed in a string of commands. The motion on the screen stopped, and Crispin blew out a breath. He scratched at his chin for a second, then began typing again, fingers flying over the modified keyboard.

  Onscreen, a black-furred arm came up and one talon pointed at the shotgun that had produced the burst of light. Crispin typed again, and the display swung from side-to-side. He pulled a microphone out of the console and spoke into it.

  “Samson, this is Crispin. Stand down. I am returning control.” He sat back and slapped at a glowing square button on the console. Looking up, he caught the sharp concentration on Donovan’s face.

  “As you probably have inferred, I can override one or all of the Dogs from here,” he said. “The idea was to slow them down or stop them if one of their targets was deemed fit for interrogation instead of termination. But I also installed this quick release...” He pointed at the square button, which was no longer glowing. “The QR returns control to the Dogs in case they need to react independently.”

  Donovan indicated the keyboard, which had another full row above the function keys. “And this is the controller?”

  Crispin nodded. “It is.” He stroked his fingers over the extra row of keys. “These are the shortcuts, if you will. Each one has a string of commands tied to it to save time and facilitate ease of coordination between the Dog packs, if needed.” He turned and pointed at the bookshelf that spanned from one wall to the next. It was crammed with two-inch binders and what looked like military manuals.

  “You’ll find all of this in there,” he said. “I did the bulk of the programming myself, but every now and again, hah, I find the need to consult the Wall.”

  Donovan walked to the expansive bookshelf and plucked a binder from it. It was densely packed with folded papers, with a four-page table of contents at the front. He picked a folded sheet at random and pulled it out, revealing a three-foot, one-line diagram of system interconnections inside a panel labeled TxRx-3.

  “What’s TxRx-3?” he asked.

  Absently, Crispin pointed at a spot on the far wall as he put the headphones back on. There, where he pointed, Donovan saw a small door built into the metal wall. The neurotech put the binder down and walked over, sure Crispin had made an error
.

  That access door can’t be more than four inches square. Surely...

  He got close enough to read the letters etched into the metal surface.

  “TxRx-3,” he said.

  Twisting the little handle, he opened the access door and peered inside. Donovan sucked in a breath. There, in the space behind the door, was a circuit board ringed on all sides by filaments of wire. He closed the door and looked at the rest of the wall where he stood. From top to bottom, there were twenty such access doors, and another twenty next to those.

  “Fascinating.”

  Looking back at the thick binder, Donovan saw that the cover said TRANSMIT/RECEIVE. He put it back on the shelf. “Is this how you get the commands to the Dogs? And how you get their readings?”

  Crispin nodded.

  “But there are only fourteen Dogs. You have forty modules. What are these, built-in spares?”

  “Not exactly,” Crispin said. “The... hold on. Yes!” He reached out and turned off the monitor. “Come with me, Dr. Donovan. We are going to have a celebratory drink.”

  “Celebratory? In celebration of what?”

  “The Dogs have found survivors and are on their way back!”

  ’

  As the Dogs herded the two groups of civilians off the bus, Jorge split off and walked over to the big blond man who had called himself Mac. The big soldier had just turned off a radio of some sort.

  “Hey. You the leader here?”

  Mac turned to the smaller man, taking everything in quickly. “I am. You’re the one who calmed things down when Buck shot Samson.”

  “Ah. Is he the, uh, what do we call you?”

  Smiling, Mac put a large hand on Jorge’s shoulder. “We’re the Dogs. And that’s all you need to remember for now. There’ll be plenty of time on the island to play get-to-know-you.”

  Mac began to turn away, but Jorge caught his hand. “That’s not why I came to talk to you. There are more of us out there.”

  Mac raised his chin. “Tell me about it.”