Chase

Twenty-Five

Emily was attempting to establish a link between Chipper and her phone so that the laptop would no longer be needed when having conversations. Chipper watched her intently, wagging his tail encouragingly. He wondered whether she was going to figure this out. She was very smart, no doubt about it, and if she were older, she had the brains to work at The Institute. They could use more nice people like her, he thought.

But if she was going to figure out how to talk with him using her phone, she needed to hurry up. Who knew how much time they had before the White Coats found him?

As Emily struggled with the laptop, words suddenly appeared on the screen.

Emily looked at Chipper, and said, “Seriously? You know how to synch a phone to your little computer brain?”

Emily blinked. “You gotta be kidding me. What are you? A flea-bitten Siri?”

“Okay, sorry, didn’t mean to offend you,” Emily said. “All right, what’s the capital of Rhode Island?”

“Hmm,” Emily said. “Maybe that was too easy. Let me think. Okay, I got it. Here’s a great trivia question. What do you call this?” She touched her finger to the small indentation under her nose and above the middle of her upper lip.

Emily stared at Chipper. “You’re freaking me out.”

“Back to that, are we?”

“Fine, how do I do this?”

“Okay, I’m there. Now what?”

Chipper led her through several steps. Finally, holding her phone and looking at the screen, she said, “I think I’ve got it. Say something.”

“Yes!” she said, grinning as the words appeared on the phone. “It works!” But her grin quickly faded. “So I get this working and you just want to talk about squirrels?”

“Yes,” Emily said matter-of-factly. “There are a lot of squirrels in these woods. There are hundreds of them. Thousands of them. They’re all over the place.”

“Do you think that’s the most important thing we have to deal with right now?” Emily asked.

Emily shook her head. “This is like something out of a science fiction movie. Mixing up a dog and a computer. I mean, why would anyone even do that? What’s the point? It must have cost millions to do what they did to you. Why? So you can open your own can of dog food?”

“Missions? What do you mean, missions?”

“So, like, you’re a spy? A dog spy?”

“I think so. I mean, how could a dog actually do what a spy does?”

“Who would you send it back to?” Emily said.

“Yeah, right, okay. And they’re part of the government?”

It took several seconds before Chipper came up with an answer, which turned out to be very short.

“Focus, okay?” Emily was shaking her head. “Why are you on the run?”

“What do you mean, a failure?”

Emily said, “Really? I would think, if you’re a half-dog, half-computer thingie, you have all these kinds of powers other dogs don’t have. I think that would be cool. You’re, like, a million times smarter than the other dogs. But here’s the part I can’t get my head around. You seem to have feelings. Like, when the stuff you say comes up on the screen, it sounds like you care about stuff.”

“Well, sure, I guess,” Emily said. “But yours seem more... I don’t know how to explain it. They seem more kind of grown up.”

Chipper had nothing to say for a couple of minutes, so Emily continued with her technical efforts. There was something that was very much on his mind, even more than the prospect of getting out of the station and looking for animals. Finally, he asked a question.

Emily shrugged. “I haven’t really known him very long. But he seems okay. Why do you ask?”

Chipper did not answer. He was still thinking.

“What’s the deal?” Emily asked. “Are you rebooting or something? Why do you want to know if he’s my friend?”

“What?”

“But you don’t even know him.”

“Okay, this is completely nuts. I mean, it’s crazy enough, some robot dog that works for the government, but when you broke out you decided you had to find Jeff? Some kid who runs a fishing camp with his aunt? That’s, like, pretty ridiculous.”

“Like what? You mean, in your settings?”

“Your who? I mean, your what?”

Chipper explained what he needed her to do. Emily searched through the various settings and made what changes she could.

“I hope that’ll do it,” Emily said. “What the heck is a ‘decibel distraction mode’?”

“Well, whatever it is, I think it’s set to go. So, anyway, what’s all this stuff you have to tell Jeff?”

Chipper stopped mid-sentence.

There was the sound of an engine, and seconds later, a big bang from down below. Someone had burst through the door to the train station and was bounding up the stairs.

Screaming: “They’ve found us! We have to get out of here!”

It was Jeff.