Chase

Fifteen

When he’d first escaped The Institute, all Chipper had worried about was getting away. But now that he was many miles away, and off that bus — Oh, that wonderful driver! — the dog could assess his next step with more deliberation.

That meant getting his bearings.

He had made it to Canfield, which was good. Not only was it the only place he wanted to go to, he felt it was the place he had to go. Once he’d fled the bus station, gotten outside the small town of Canfield and into the shelter of a wooded area, Chipper stopped. He needed to rest and give his lungs a chance to recover from being filled with exhaust.

It didn’t matter how much technology the White Coats had built into him, Chipper still needed good old air to survive.

He settled into the leafy, forest floor, resting his head on his paws. Almost immediately, he spotted a squirrel running down one tree, across the ground, and up another.

Chipper could not be bothered to give chase. That’s how tired he was.

But the squirrel sighting reminded Chipper that it had been a long time since he’d had anything to eat. Or drink. A squirrel might make a tasty snack, but he wasn’t sure he had the strength or the speed to catch one.

Chipper’s long jaw widened in a yawn. He eased his body onto its side into a pile of leaves and allowed himself to go to sleep.

And sleep he did. Right through the night.

He woke twice to almost total darkness. Not the kind of pitch-black darkness he’d experienced in the bus luggage compartment, where he couldn’t see anything at all. This darkness was filled with gentle light. The star-filled night sky allowed him to take in his surroundings. He heard crickets, the scurrying of mice, an owl’s hoot.

The sounds did not frighten Chipper. They comforted him. They were more reassuring than the sounds of The Institute. The laboured breathing of his fellow captives. The soft whir of the air conditioning. The tap-tap-tapping of computer keyboards.

It was neither sunlight nor sounds that woke him the next day.

It was the smell of something delicious.

Chipper opened his eyes, consulted his implanted clock. It was 11:09 a.m. He put his snout into the air, tracked the direction from which the smell had come.

East.

With some effort, he stood. He still did not feel right. Wobbly. That exhaust had really done a number on him.

But he was hungry. He put one paw in front of the other and followed the scent. It led him out of the woods to the back yards of a string of houses in a subdivision outside Canfield. Chipper saw swing sets and sandboxes and gardens. One yard, with a pool, was fenced off. The folks in the house next to it had a small plastic one, about four feet wide, that held barely a foot of water. Only a low hedge separated their garden from the woods.

A great place to get a drink.

But that yard offered something even better.

A barbecue. The lid was open, and Chipper could see something on the grill, sizzling.

A man emerged from a sliding glass door and walked over to the grill and flipped over whatever was on it. Then he went back into the house.

That was when Chipper made his move.

Swiftly, he emerged from the woods and vaulted the hedge. The first thing he had to do was quench his thirst, and the kiddie pool was like the biggest dog bowl in the world. Chipper dropped his snout into it and furiously lapped up water.

His plan had been to check out the barbecue next, but when he heard the glass door slide open, he crouched low behind the pool. The man was back with an empty plate in his hand. With a set of tongs, he took three hot dogs from the grill and put them on the plate.

He put the plate on the shelf next to the barbecue, went back into the house and shouted, “Where are the buns?”

Chipper went into action.

He came out from his hiding spot behind the pool, rose up on his hind legs, turned his snout sideways and snatched two of the three wieners from the plate. He dropped back down to all fours and ran.

The door opened again.

“Hey! Hey! Come back here!”

Chipper did not go back.

The wieners were delicious. Chipper was thinking they might just be the most delicious things he had ever eaten.

He sought shelter in the woods again before enjoying his takeout meal. He was careful to chew the wieners well so there was no risk of one of them getting caught in his throat. The meal was enough to make Chipper forget, at least for a few moments, all that he had been through.

He was happy.

And wasn’t that exactly why the White Coats wanted to put him down? To end his life? He wasn’t supposed to feel happy. He wasn’t supposed to feel sad. He wasn’t supposed to feel anything.

He was just supposed to do his job.

And where would he have performed this job, if he had turned out the way they’d wanted him to? Where would they have sent him? China? Russia? Maybe someplace right here at home where they suspected some kind of nefarious activity going on? Someplace where a dog could hang around unnoticed, pick up things, overhear things, in a way no human being could?

Better to think about moving on.

So once he’d downed the wieners, he proceeded further into the forest. If his GPS program was to be trusted — and he had no reason to think it shouldn’t be — sooner or later he would come out onto a road. If he followed it west, it would take him where he wanted to be.

He definitely had more of a spring in his step now. He moved confidently through the forest. Walking for a while, then running. Enjoying the thousands of different scents. Trees, flowers, animals, bugs, the earth beneath his paws.

There was a slight wind coming from the west, and with it came a variety of different smells. Rotting food. He could smell fish and vegetables and meat and all kinds of other things. Even some smoke, which suggested that some of these things were being burned. These were the types of smells a person would find pretty disgusting, but for Chipper it made the atmosphere all that much richer.

More stinky stuff! Love it!

He was tempted to go see where the smells were coming from, but he’d already lost enough time recovering from the bus incident, sleeping and finding food. And besides, he was nearly at the road.

Chipper emerged from the woods, stopped, looked left and then right. He’d come upon a gravel road. With the exception of an approaching pickup truck in the distance, trailing dust in its wake, there was no traffic.

The dog came up to the shoulder of the road, intending to trot along in a westerly direction.

Behind him, the truck got closer.

Chipper was beginning to feel... excited. He was almost at his destination. He wasn’t sure what he’d do when he got there, but he’d play things as they came. He’d been doing that all day and it had been working out pretty well for him.

He couldn’t wait to— AHHHHH!

There was suddenly an awful buzzing in Chipper’s brain. Not his real brain, not the one he was born with, but something was going on with one of his attachments. An unbearable, internal screeching. It was akin to having a food processor whirring between one’s ears on the highest setting.

He knew what was going on.

It was the White Coats.

They were trying to lock in on him. They were trying to initiate a reconnection.

He felt as though his head would explode.

And as the screeching continued, Chipper began to stumble. He became disoriented. His four legs had stopped working the way they were supposed to. He took a couple of sideways steps, then one forward, then one back.

What his eyes allowed him to see became distorted. The world turned upside down, then righted itself, then went sideways.

Chipper stumbled further into the middle of the road.

A horn blared.

Brakes squealed.

He was so close.