Chase

Twenty-Three

“This is not happening,” Emily said. “This dog—”

“His name is Chipper,” Jeff said, pointing to the screen of her laptop. “He just told you right there.”

“This Chipper is not talking to us,” she said. “This is some kind of a joke. Someone is playing a trick on us.”

Emily tipped her head back and said, in a loud voice, “Whoever you are, very funny!”

Words came up on her screen.

“Who’s your owner?” Jeff asked Chipper. “Who’s your, you know, master?”

“No, no, you don’t understand. Who looks after you? Where’s your home?”

“Um, well, this is just an old abandoned train station. You must have come from a better place than this?”

“Stop,” Emily said. “This is nuts. Dogs don’t talk.”

“He’s not talking,” Jeff said. “He’s communicating with us. A talking dog, well, that would be nuts.”

“This is nuts, too!” Emily said.

“Then how do you explain it? You found that port, you wanted to check it out, you got your laptop. And now we’re having a conversation with Chipper.”

“With a dog.”

“What do you mean?” Jeff asked. “You look like a dog. Are you a computer?”

“What did you mean when you said you wanted us to help you?”

“Who’s chasing you?”

“You mean... kill you?” Jeff said. Emily, who’d been rolling her eyes a few moments ago, was now giving Chipper her full attention.

“Why would these guys in white coats want to kill you?”

“You mean, more like I found you,” Jeff said. “I nearly killed you with the truck! You really, really scared me.”

“Like what?” Jeff said.

“What things? What things have to be turned off?”

Emily said, “He must be talking about these settings. There’s all these icons and stuff across the top of the screen.”

“So, you don’t think it’s a joke anymore?”

“I don’t know what to think. But I can tell you I’ve got a pretty bad feeling about all this. I think I should tell my dad.”

“Your dad?”

“He used to be a cop.”

“What do you mean, no?” Jeff said to the dog.

“He’s not a cop now,” Emily said. She shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m arguing with a dog.”

Jeff said to her, “You’re way smarter than I am with computers. Study that thing. Turn off anything that looks like it connects to these white coat dudes he’s talking about.”

Emily studied the screen, did some clicking. “Okay, I think I know what to do here.”

To Chipper, Jeff said, “Okay, let me try to figure this out. Who are the white coat guys?”

“The Institute? What’s The Institute? Is that, like, a community college or something?”

“Like a government agency or something?”

Chipper nodded his head several times.

“This is where they turned you into some kind of computer dog? And you escaped because they were going to kill you? And now they’re looking for you?”

“Do they know where you are?”

“Holy crap,” Jeff said.

Emily said, “Okay, I found the GPS thingamabob, and I’ve turned it off. It didn’t look like it was working, but now it’s not going to come back on. And there’s this thing called ‘video link’ that’s kind of flashing on and off like it’s trying to work.”

Jeff leaned in close to Chipper, nose to nose. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, looking into his eyes. “We’re going to protect you.”

Chipper wasn’t so sure, but he did not want to tell them that. At that moment, he felt his right eye do something. He knew, immediately, what was happening. He wanted to close his eye, to close off the view, but his internal workings wouldn’t allow it. But he was pretty sure Emily could do it if she just clicked the right things.

To Jeff, the eye seemed to twinkle. There was a spark, and then it was gone. He stepped back and looked again at the screen to see what Emily was up to.

“Okay,” Emily said, “I just killed the video link. Now there’s something here labelled ‘base connect.’ Let me just see... ”

“Chipper says turn that off,” Jeff said.

“I can see the screen, Jeff.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.”

“I think all the things that connect him to anybody else have been disengaged,” Emily said.

Jeff breathed a sigh of relief. “I want to try to do something here,” Emily said. “I can’t haul a laptop everywhere, but we want to know what he’s saying. I think I can configure this so what he says will show up on my phone, and I won’t need a wire.”

“And I’ve got a phone back at the camp, too,” Jeff said. “Can we set up mine, too?”

Emily nodded. “I think so.”

“What I figure I should do,” Jeff said, “is get that trash out of the truck, go back and come up with some kind of story for my aunt, then get my phone and get back here.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Emily said.

To Chipper, he said, “I guess you heard all that. So I’ll be back as soon as I can. But I have a question for you.”

Chipper looked at the boy expectantly.

“If these white coat guys who are looking for you — if they find you, and they find you with me and Emily, will we be in a lot of trouble?”

Chipper took a moment.