The Android's Dream

Chapter 5

At 4:22 a.m. Vernon Ames's coyote alarm went off. Ames was awake instantly, whacking the alarm before it beeped a second time and woke Amy, his wife, who didn't at all take kindly to being woken before she had her full eight hours. He slipped into the clothes he'd left in a pile by the bed, and left the room by way of the master bathroom because the bedroom door creaked loudly even (especially) when you were trying to open it quietly. Amy really didn't like to be woken up.

Once outside the bathroom door, Ames moved quickly. His experience with the coyotes told him that the window of opportunity with those furry bastards was small; even if he managed to keep them from taking off with a lamb, they'd still take a bite out of the necks of some of his sheep, just for spite, as he ran them off. The key to getting the coyotes was to get them early, while they were still on the periphery of the herd, having a community meeting about which of the sheep they were planning to take on.

Ames pressed his thumb to the lock of his gun cabinet to get his shotgun and his shells. While he was loading the shotgun, he looked over the perimeter monitor to see where the coyotes were lurking. The monitor had three of them out near the edge of the creek. It looked like they had stopped for a drink before they Went for the main course.

Ames could also see from the monitor that the coyotes were larger than usual; hell, they might even be wolves. The Department of the Interior people were doing one of their occasional attempts at reintroducing wolves to the area. They always seemed shocked when the wolves "disappeared" within a few months. The sheep ranchers were smart enough not to leave the carcasses lying around. Wolves were a temporary problem, easily fixed. Coyotes, on the other hand, were like rats bred with dogs. You could shoot 'em, trap 'em, or poison 'em and they'd still keep coming back.

Which is why Ames splurged for the coyote alarm system. It was a simple enough setup: Several dozen motion detectors planted on the perimeter of his land that tracked anything that moved. His sheep had implanted sensor chips that told the system to ignore them; anything else was tracked. If it was large enough, Ames got an alert. Just how large something had to be before the alarm went off was something Vern had to calibrate; after a few early-morning false alarms Amy made it clear that any more false alarms would result in Verris head meeting a heavy iron skillet. But now it was in the zone and aside from the occasional deer, reliably alerted Ames to the coyotes and other occasional large predators. It spotted a mountain lion once; Ames missed that shot.

Ames rooted through the junk drawer to find the portable locator and then slipped out the back door. It was a five-minute hike to the stream. It did no good to drive over to the coyotes, since they'd hear the engine of his ATV and be long gone before he got there, and then he'd just have to come out and try to shoot them some other time. The coyotes could hear him coming on foot, too, but at least this way he had a chance of getting close enough to take a shot before they dispersed. Ames padded to the stream as quietly as he could, cursing silently with each snapped twig and crackling seed pod.

Near the creek, Ames's portable locator started to vibrate in his jacket pocket, a signal that one of the coyotes was very close by. Ames froze and hunkered down, so as not to spook the intended recipient of his shotgun blast, and slowly pulled out the locator to get a bead on the nearest coyote. The locator showed it behind him, heading for him and coming up fast. Ames heard the footfalls and the whisper of something large swiping against the bushes. He turned, swung his shotgun around and had just enough time to think to himself that's no coyote before the thing stepped inside the barrel length of the shotgun, grabbed his head with one paw the size of a dinner plate, and used the second paw of roughly similar size to slug him into oblivion.

Some indeterminate time later Ames felt himself kicked lightly back into consciousness. He propped himself up with one arm, and used his other hand to feel his face. It felt sticky; Ames pulled his hand back to look at it. His blood looked blackish in the quarter moonlight. Then someone stepped in between him and the moon.

"Who are you?" a voice said to him.

"Who am I?" Ames said, and as his tongue moved in his mouth he could feel the teeth loosened by the hit that had knocked him out. "Who the hell are you? This is my property, and those are my sheep. You're trespassing on my land!" He struggled to get up. A hand—a normal-sized hand, this time—pushed him back down to the ground.

"Stay down," the voice said. "How did you know we were out here?"

"You tripped my coyote alarm," Ames said.

"See, Rod," another voice said. "I told you that that's what those things were. Now we gotta worry about cops. And we're not even near done."

"Quiet," the first voice, now named Rod, said, and directed his attention back to Ames. "Mr. Ames, you need to answer my question honestly now, because the answer will make a difference as to whether you make it through the rest of the night. Who gets alerted when your coyote alarm goes off? Is it just you, or does it notify the local law enforcement as well?"

"I thought you didn't know who I was," Ames said.

"Well, now I do," Rod said. "Answer the question."

"Why would it alert the sheriff?" Ames asked. "The sheriff's office doesn't give a damn about coyotes."

"So it's just you we have to worry about," Rod said.

"Yes," Ames said. "Unless you make enough noise to wake up my wife."

"Back to work, Ed," Rod said. "You've got a lot of injections to make yet." Ames heard someone shuffle off. His eyes were finally adjusting to the dim light and he could make out the silhouette of a man looming nearby. Ames sized him up; he might be able to take him. He glanced around, looking for his shotgun.

"What are you doing out here?" Ames asked.

"We're infecting your sheep," Rod said.

"Why?" Ames asked.

"Hell if I know, Mr. Ames," Rod said. "They don't pay me to ask why they have me do things. They just pay me to do them. Takk," he said, or something like it, and from the corner of his eye Ames saw something huge move toward his general direction. This was the thing that had knocked him out. Ames slumped; in the shape he was in he couldn't take two guys at the same time, and he absolutely couldn't take on that, whatever the hell it was.

"Yes, boss," the thing said, in a high, nasal voice.

"Can you handle Mr. Ames here?" Rod asked.

Takk nodded. "Probably."

"Do it," Rod said, and walked off. Ames opened his mouth to yell to Rod, but before he could take in a breath, Takk leaned over and grabbed him hard enough that the air bursting out of his lungs made an audible popping sound. Takk turned slightly into the moonlight, and Ames got one good look before he went somewhere warm, wet, and suffocating.

Brian came aware instantaneously with the knowledge of two things. The first: He was Brian Javna, aged 18, senior at Reston High, son of Paul and Arlene Javna, brother of Ben and Stephanie Tavna, best friend to Harry Creek, whom he had known since first grade, when they bonded over a paste-eating contest The second: He was also an intelligent agent program, designed to efficiently locate and retrieve information across the various data and information nets human beings had strung up over the years. Brian found these two generally contradictory states of being interesting, and used the talents derived from both types of intelligent experience to come up with a question.

"Am I dead?" Brian said.

"Urn," Creek said.

"Don't be coy," Brian said. "Let me make it easy for you. When you wake up with the knowledge that you're a computer program, you figure that somethings gone wrong. So: Am I dead?"

"Yes," Creek said. "Sorry."

"How did I die?" Brian asked.

"In a war," Creek said. "At the Battle of Pajmhi."

"Where the hell is Pajmhi?" Brian asked. "I've never heard of it."

"No one ever heard of it until the battle," Creek said.

"Were you there?" Brian asked.

"I was," Creek said.

"You're still alive," Brian said.

"I was lucky," Creek said.

"How long ago was this battle?" Brian asked.

"Twelve years ago," Creek said.

"Well, that explains how you got so old," Brian said.

"How do you feel?" Creek asked.

"What, about being dead?" Brian asked. Creek nodded. Brian shrugged. "I don't feel dead. The last thing I remember is standing in that quantum imager, and that feels like it happened about five minutes ago. I've got part of myself trying wrap my brain around it, and another part of myself trying to wrap my brain around the feet that my brain isn't real anymore. And yet another part noting the fact I can fully concentrate on several mental crises at once, thanks to my multitasking ability as an intelligent agent. And that part is going: Cool."

Creek grinned. "So being a computer program isn't all bad," he said.

"I'm thinking it'll make playing video games easier," Brian said, smiled, and then shrugged again. "We'll have to see. It hasn't sunk in yet. Are there any other programs like me? Former people?"

Creek shook his head. "Not that I know about," he said. "As far as I know, no one else has thought of creating an intelligent agent this way."

"Maybe because if you think about it, it's not exactly ethical," Brian said.

"I was thinking more because most people don't have access to a quantum imager," Creek said.

"Cynic," Brian said.

"Brian," Creek said. "I don't know if bringing you back is moral or ethical. But I do know I need your help. I can't tell anyone else what I'm doing, but I need someone I can trust working on this, someone who can do things while I'm doing other things. You're the only intelligent agent who is actually, honestly intelligent. We can talk about the ethical issues later, but right now we need to get to work."

"And what are we doing?" Brian asked.

"We're looking for sheep DNA," Creek said.

"Oh," Brian said. "Well, then. Nice to see we're focused on the really important things."

"You did a good job with the search," Dave Phipps said to Archie McClellan, in one of the many Pentagon commissaries.

"Thanks," Archie said, and rubbed his palms on his jeans. His military analogue to an Egg McMuffin sat forlornly on a plastic tray; Phipps motioned to it.

"You're not hungry?" he said.

"I'm kind of on a caffeine rush at the moment," Archie said. "I drank about a gallon of Dr Pepper last night. I think if I eat something, I'll just throw it up."

Phipps reached over and took the sandwich. "Listen," he said between bites. "We have a little more work to do with this project. Real 'think outside of the box' crap that needs someone who knows his way around the computer. I've checked your security clearance, and it's high enough for what we need."

"What would I be doing?" Archie asked.

"A little of this, a little of that," Phipps said. "It's a fluid situation. We need someone who can think fast on his feet."

"Sounds action packed," Archie said, jokingly.

"Maybe it is," Phipps said, not.

Archie wiped his palms again. "I don't understand," he said. "I'm just some guy who works on your legacy systems. You've got an entire military full of computer geniuses who are good with guns. You should be using one of them for whatever it is you're doing.''

"And when I want to use one of those boys, I'll go get him," Phipps said. "In the meantime, I'm looking for someone who is competent and won't make a fuss. Don't worry about using a gun, incidentally. You won't need one. But you might need a passport. Also, how do you feel about aliens?"

"The ones from outer space or the ones from other countries?" Archie asked.

"Outer space," Phipps said. He took another bite of the egg sandwich.

Archie shrugged. "The ones I've met seemed nice enough."

Phipps smirked between chews. "I don't know if the one you'd be working with could be considered 'nice,' but fair enough. So are you in?"

"What was I working on last night?" Archie asked.

"Why do you want to know?" Phipps asked.

"If you're going to hire me for something, it helps to know what I'm doing."

Phipps shrugged. At this point he couldn't see any harm in telling him. "You were looking for DNA matches for a particular breed of sheep called Android's Dream. Now we're looking to close up a few loose ends. It's a fast project, a few days at most"

"This work I'm doing," Archie said. "I'm guessing it wouldn't be covered in my contract with you guys."

"That's a pretty safe guess," Phipps said.

"Then I want double time," Archie said.

"Time and a half," Phipps said, setting down the sandwich.

"Time and a half from nine to six and double time every other time," Archie said.

"Fine," Phipps said, grabbing a paper napkin to wipe his fingers. "But if I catch you padding your hours, I'll shoot you myself." He reached into his coat to grab a notepad and a pen, jotted down an address, and pushed it over to Archie. "Go home and take a shower and then go here. You're going to meet with a man named Rod Acuna. He's going to be your supervisor from here on out. Don't be put off if he's a little blunt. He's not paid to be a nice guy, and neither are the people he works with. But if you do your job, everything will be fine, and there might even be a bonus in it for you. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Archie said, and took the paper. Phipps pushed up from the table, nodded to Archie, and walked off. Archie sat there for a few more minutes, staring at the remains of the egg sandwich, before a yawing jag got him up and moving to home.

Sam Berlant was waiting for him as he got off the Metro. "Well?" Sam said, after a hello kiss.

"I'm in," Archie said.

"You weren't too eager about it, right?" Sam said. "If you were too eager about it, they're going to be suspicious of you right from the beginning."

"I wasn't too eager," Archie said. "I even bickered about what I was going to get paid."

"Really," Sam said.

"I asked for double time," Archie said.

"Did you get it?" Sam asked.

"You bet," Archie said. "Well, between the hours of six and eight, anyway."

"You aren't beautiful, Archie," Sam said, "but you sure are smart. Damn if you're just not the sexiest man I know."

"That sounds good," Archie said.

"Don't get too excited," Sam said. "There's no time for that You and I have an appointment at the meeting house. We've got to get you wired."

"I think these people would notice if I wore a wire, Sam," Archie said.

Sam smiled and reached for Archie's hand. "Only if you wear it on the outside, you silly man. Come on."

The meeting house was not so much of a meeting house as a meeting basement, located on three subfloors of an Alexandria corporate high-rise. The topmost of these floors was a private gym, a cover for the members' comings and goings. Occasionally someone working in the high-rise would come down and try to get a membership; it was, after all, conveniently located. These were all politely turned away, with coupons for a months free membership at the fitness center right down the street. This usually worked, as everybody likes "free." The bottom two levels were the meeting house proper, and did not exist on any architectural schematics; the members had long since amended the blueprints on file and anyway, the same organization that owned the meeting house also owned the high-rise.

Archie and Sam walked through the gym, waving at a few of their friends who were exercising (front or not, it was in fact an excellent, working gym), and headed to the men's locker room. At the back of the room was a door that read "Janitor" and featured a palm lock; Archie and Sam went through the door individually, each palming the lock.

Behind the janitor's door were janitor's supplies and a small stairwell that led down. Archie and Sam took the stairs, palmed a second lock at the bottom, and went through.

They now stood in a small antechamber which members jokingly referred to as the Hallway of Peril. About once a decade someone would get into the hallway who wasn't supposed to be there; these unfortunates were then "milk cartoned," to use an obscure but evocative phrase of The Founder's era.

Archie and Sam were scanned one last time; there was a small click as the door at the end of the hallway unlocked. The two went through, into the meeting house of the Church of the Evolved Lamb.

The Church of the Evolved Lamb was notable in the history of religions both major and arcane in that it was the first and only religion that fully acknowledged that its founding was a total scam. The Founder was M. Robbin Dwellin, an early 21st-century science fiction writer of admittedly modest talents and man on the make, who had published one novel to deafening critical and commercial indifference and had no prospects of a second when he found himself teaching an adult education short-story workshop at the Mt. San Antonio Community College in Walnut, California.

It was there, while vetting housewives' stories of plump, middle-aged women seducing high school quarterbacks and computer technicians' stories of freaky libertarian space orgies in zero-g, that Dwellin came across Andrea Hayter-Ross, his class's oldest participant at age 78—and incidentally the sole heir to the combined fortunes of the Hayter and Ross families, earned in bauxite ore and vending machines, respectively, which made her the 16th richest person on the globe.

Hayter-Ross was in fact an accomplished writer (six books under pseudonym) and was attending the class as research for an article. She was an interesting woman who used a facade of bored-rich-person-dilettante mysticism to hide sharp-eyed observation. She was the sort of person who enjoyed going to seances and crystal tunings for the atmosphere and to study those around her, but didn't actually expect to speak to dead great uncles or resonate with the subetherean vibrations of the universe. Dwellin was observant enough to note the first of these but not the second, and so when he hatched his scheme to graft some money off the old biddy, he was not aware to the extent to which Hayter-Ross was ahead of him in his game.

Cribbing liberally from various new age and science fiction texts and adding a dash of his own meager invention, he created a new "religion," in which he was the prophet and avatar, which foretold of the coming of the next level of humanity. Hayter-Ross's writing, he claimed, spoke of levels of sensitivity that he'd rarely seen before. He was ready to unfold the mysteries of the fourteen divine dimensions to her, as described to him by N'thul, a spirit of infinite empathy, who asked only for the construction of a temple, placed in a certain sacred location (a small commercially zoned strip of land in Victorville, off a frontage road, which Dwellin had bought some years earlier in a misguided development scheme), the better to focus its energies and assist humanity into the next stage of its evolution. Dwellirt's plan was to extract the construction costs from Hayter-Ross and pocket them himself while coming up with some plausible series of excuses as to why the temple never seemed to get built. He figured he could keep this up until Hayter-Ross dropped, which shouldn't be too long now.

Hayter-Ross, who knew a great story idea when she saw one, was also possessed of that casual sense of cruelty that incredibly rich people often develop at the first whiff of financial desperation from others. She pretended to swallow Dwellirt's line with wide eyes and then proceeded to make the man dance like a monkey on a leash. She funded the temple out of petty cash but did it in such a way that Dwellin had no access to the funds; instead Hayter-Ross would provide "offerings" based on prophetic short poems derived from Dwellirt's encounters with N'thul—prophetic writings which she would direct by occasionally dropping hints as to what she would like to see in them. One time she rather mischievously mentioned to Dwellin how much she enjoyed sheep. At Dwellirt's next "session" with N'thul, the "Evolved Lamb"—the melding of the gentle, pastoral qualities of sheep with the rough, aggressive nature of man—made its first appearance.

For six years Dwellin churned out thousands of prophetic poems, feverishly chasing the relatively paltry income Hayter-Ross doled out before finally dropping dead of exhaustion and anxiety at the relatively young age of 38. Hayter-Ross, who would live to 104, had his ashes interred in the newly completed (and, truth to tell, quite lovely) Temple of the Evolved Lamb, in the base of a statue representing N'thul. She then collected his prophetic poems and published them as a volume accompanying her book—the first under her own name—on Dwellirt's attempted scam of her and the "religion" founded thereof. Both books became huge bestsellers.

Ironically, Dwellirt's poems were the best things the man ever wrote and achieved a sort of mystical lyricism at the end of Dwellirt's life. Researchers suggested this was due to the hallucinatory effects of fever and alcoholic malnutrition, but some also believed that Dwellin, though a scam artist outwitted by his own elderly, sadistic muse, may have tapped into something mystical, quite accidentally and despite his own moneygrubbing nature.

These souls would be the first to identify themselves as members of a new Church of the Evolved Lamb, and who called themselves "Empathists" or "N'thulians." They would soon be joined by another group of individuals who liked the idea of taking the prophetic poems of Dwellirt's and working toward making them come true, not because they were divinely inspired but because they weren't. If a group actively working to make entirely fictional prophecies come true managed to pull off the stunt, the whole concept of divinely inspired prophecy was thrown into doubt, chalking up a victory for rational thought everywhere. This group became known as the "Ironists" or "Hayter-Rossians."

Despite their diametrically opposed approaches to their so-called religion, the Empathists and the Ironists worked smoothly together, hammering out a practical doctrine that accommodated both flavors of churchgoer and allowed the two to integrate their differences into a cohesive whole that combined with earth-crunchy agrarian feel of the Empathists with the tech-driven, pragmatic thinking of the Ironists. Nowhere was this integration more keenly developed than in the Church's animal husbandry project on the Brisbane colony. It was there the church developed multiple strains of sheep through the combination of conscientious breeding practices and judicious use of genetic manipulation. After all, there was nothing that said that the Evolved Lamb had to evolve naturally.

Andrea Hayter-Ross was as surprised as anyone that an actual religion had sprung up from the pathetic scam attempt perpetrated by a hack writer, and twice as surprised to find that she rather enjoyed the clear-eyed company of the people who had adopted the religion as their own. When Hayter-Ross died with no legal heirs, she parceled out her estate among various philanthropic groups but willed the controlling interest in the Hayter-Ross family of industries to the Church of the Evolved Lamb. This caused rather a great deal of consternation among the board of directors until the Church deacons proved themselves to be unsquishy advocates of the bottom line and stock performance (the Church members in charge of the business end of things were almost all entirely of Ironist stock). Within 20 years, nearly everyone outside of the Hayter-Ross board of directors forgot to remember a religious institution ostensibly controlled the company.

Which was fine with the members of the Church of the Evolved Lamb. The Church preferred not to be noticed whenever possible, and remained small both by selective inclination of its members and by the fact it takes a certain sort of person to want to join a church based on the desperate maneuvers of a second-rate science fiction writer. The Church chiefly recruited among the technical sciences and among the folks who enjoy a good renaissance faire (there was surprisingly substantial overlap), and typically among those who already worked for one or another of the Hayter-Ross companies or concerns. Archie, for example, originally joined while he worked for LegaCen, one of the oldest branches of the Hayter-Ross corporation, which specialized in creating large, proprietary information structures for major corporations and governments.

It's where he was scouted by Sam, who was a Church deacon and Archie's direct superior at LegaCen. It was strictly a Church thing at first; the hot sex part of their relationship didn't happen until after Archie left LegaCen. The Church didn't have any rules against deacons sleeping with congregants, but LegaCen didn't like bosses to sleep with their underlings. That's the corporate world for you.

On a day-to-day basis, Archie didn't think much about his religious affiliation. One of the things about the Church of the Evolved Lamb was it was entirely silent on the big religious issues of God and the afterlife and sin and all that happy crap. The Church's goals of fulfilling the Dwellinian prophecies were almost entirely rooted in the material universe. Even the Empathists didn't go so far as to suggest that Dwellin had communed with actual spiritual beings; N'thul was more like Santa Claus than Jesus Christ to them.

This agnosticism on eschatological matters meant that Evolved Lamb churchgoers didn't spend a great deal of their time praying or worshipping or spending Sundays singing hymns (unless they also happened to be members of a more traditional church, which was not an infrequent occurrence). As religious experiences went, it was a relaxed thing. This much was evident in the layout of the Church's meeting house, which looked more like the interior of a social club than hall of contemplation. A disco ball still hung in the corner, part of the decoration for the Church's monthly karaoke night.

But this just made the unfolding of the prophecies just that much more powerful. What Archie had seen on his computer screen in that Pentagon basement had been foretold in the fevered writing of that poor bastard Dwellin:

The Mighty will bring their powers to bear to search for the Lamb;

Into its very molecules they will seek it; but though they look

One shall bear witness and seek to keep the Lamb

From harm.

Not one of Dwelliris best prophecies, but at the time he was laid out on cough syrup and Dramamine and had another 126 prophecies to go before Hayter-Ross would sign off on another payment. So there was that excuse. And anyway, it turned out to be true, which excused its lack of style.

Whether Dwellin had foretold this incident because he was tapped into something spiritual or because the Church had been plugging away for decades at making his writings come true was immaterial to Archie. All of a sudden, he'd been whacked upside the head by the freaky details of his belief system and punted into playing a part in their workings. Archie had always classified himself as an Ironist, but this shit was turning him into an Empathist in record time.

Archie and Sam didn't waste time in the meeting room. Sam took Archie's hand and directed him down a second set of stairs and into a small, brightly lit, and sterile room with what looked like a dentist's chair in the middle. Waiting in the room was another man: Francis Hamn, the local bishop, whose day job was as "manager" of the fitness center two stories up.

"Archie," he said, extending his hand. "You've had an interesting couple of days. How are you holding up?"

Archie took his hand and shook it. "I'm a little overwhelmed, to tell you the truth, Bishop."

Bishop Hamn smiled. "Well, isn't that just like religion for you, Archie," he said. "One day it's a nice way to spend your weekends and the next you're in the middle of a righteous theological clusterfuck. Now let's get you outfitted, why don't we. Have a seat"

"I'm worried about this," Archie said, but nevertheless took a seat. "The guy I'm doing stuff for is pretty high up in the Defense Department. If there's even the smallest hint I'm spying, I'm going to be in deep trouble. I think I could be tried for treason."

"Nonsense," Bishop Hamn said. "Treason implies you're trying to overthrow the government, and we wouldn't condone that. You're merely spying."

"Which is still a capital offense," said Sam, squeezing Archie's hand.

"Oh," said Archie.

"And which is also why we've made sure that your spying can't be detected," Bishop Hamn said, and held out a small bottle to Archie, who took it.

"What is this?" Archie asked.

"Your wire," Bishop Hamn said. "In eyedrop form. Inside that liquid are millions of nanobots. Put the drops in your eyes and the nanobots migrate to your optic nerve and read and store the signals there. They're organic in composition so scanners won't find them. They don't transmit unless they're in the presence of a reader, so you won't be leaking electrical signals. And as an extra bonus, that bottle is actually full of medicated eyedrops, so if anyone looks at it, that's what they'll find."

"Where am I going to find a reader?" Archie said. "I can't just duck out."

"Vending machines," Sam said. "Hayter-Ross has the vending machine contract for the Pentagon, and owns about eighty percent of the vending machines in the Washington DC area. Just go up to one, put in your credit card, and hit button 'B4.' That activates the scanner, which will upload the information."

"Just so you know," Bishop Hamn said, "the upload is sort of painful. It's like an electrical shock to your optic nerve."

"That's why we always put the really good candy in slot B4. To make up for it," Sam said.

"How often do you do this?" Archie asked, looking at his lover of four years in an entirely new light.

"We keep busy," Bishop Hamn said. "We've been doing this for a long time. Which is why we know this works."

"What happens if I leave Washington?" Archie said. "I was asked if I had a passport."

"Just make sure you get to a vending machine before you go," Sam said. "Also, bring me a souvenir."

"Whatever you do, don't be nervous," Bishop Hamn said. "Do what you usually do. Do your job for them as well as you can. You're not hurting us by helping them do their thing. The more you do, the more we know. Understand?"

"I understand," Archie said.

"Good," Bishop Hamn said. "Now lean back and try not to blink."

"Hello."

"Wyvern Ranch?" Creek said.

"Yeah."

"I may be interested in purchasing some sheep from you," Creek said.

"Can't."

"Pardon?" Creek said.

"No sheep," the voice on the other end of the communicator said.

"Wyvern Ranch is a sheep ranch, correct?" Creek asked.

"Yup."

"What happened to the sheep?" Creek asked.

"Died."

"When?" Creek asked.

"Last night."

"How many?" Creek asked.

"All of them," the voice said.

"What happened?" Creek asked.

"Got sick."

"Just like that," Creek said.

"Appears so," the voice said.

"I'm sorry," Creek said.

"I'm not," the voice said. "The flock's insured. Now I'm rich."

"Oh," Creek said. "Well, then. Congratulations."

"Thanks," said the voice on the other end, and disconnected.

Creek glanced over to where the image of Brian stood. "More dead sheep," he said. "We're way behind the curve, here."

"Don't blame me," Brian said. "I'm spitting them out as fast as I'm finding them. Whoever you're up against has a head start."

It was true. Wyvern Ranch was the fourth sheep ranch Creek had contacted, and each time the story was the same: The ranch's entire sheep population had been killed off in the last day by a fast-moving virus. The only variation to the story was the second call Creek had made, to the Ames Ranch in Wyoming; on that call Creek had a couple of nerve-zapping moments dealing with a crazy, screaming woman before the woman's adult son came on the line to explain that his father had gone missing in the night; they'd found his shotgun and some of his blood but not much else. And the sheep were all dead or dying.

No doubt about it, Creek was playing catch-up.

"New one for you," Brian said.

Creek blinked; it'd been several hours since Brian had come up with the initial list of ranches. Creek wasn't aware he was still plugging away at it. "Where?"

"Falls Church," Brian said.

Creek blinked again; Falls Church was two towns over from where he was. "Not the usual place for a sheep ranch," he said.

"It's not a sheep ranch," Brian said. "It's a pet shop. 'Robin's Pets—Unmodified Pets Our Specialty.' You'll want the owner, Robin Baker."

"Send the address into my communicator, please," Creek said.

"You're not going to call?" Brian said.

"No," Creek said. "It's drivable. And I want to get out of the house. All those dead sheep on the other end of the line are getting to me."

"All right," Brian said. "Just keep an eye out."

"Something I should know about?" Creek asked.

"Someone's been trying to hack into your system all day long," Brian said. "I've been fending it off, but they're pretty sophisticated attacks, and they've been constant. I don't have any doubt as soon as you go out of the house they'll be following you around. Whatever you've gotten us into, it's not just about sheep DNA."

Robin's Pets was a modest store in a modest strip mall, nestled next to a Vietnamese restaurant and a nail boutique. On the door was a sign: "Unmodified Pets Our Specially." Right below it, a second, smaller, handwritten sign: "No more kittens! PLEASE!" Creek grinned at that and went in.

"I'm in the back room," a woman's voice said, as he came through the door and activated the bell. "Give me a second."

"No rush," Creek said back, and looked around the shop. It was in all respects an unremarkable local pet shop: One wall was filled with aquariums filled with various fish, while another wall held habitats for small reptiles and mammals, mostly rodents of varying degrees of furriness. In the middle of the shop was the counter island, with a cash register and various last-minute purchase items. At no place in the store was there even the hint that a sheep might be located somewhere on the premises.

"Swell," Creek said, out loud.

The woman came out of the back with a hair elastic in her teeth and stood behind the counter. "Hi, there," she said, through fabric. "Excuse me a second here," she said. She grabbed her voluminous head of curly, slightly damp red hair and rather severely constricted it, slipped it through the elastic, twisted the elastic, and slipped the hair through again. "There we go," she said. "Sorry about that. I was cleaning out one of the hamster cages and one of the boys decided to pee in my hair. Had to give it a quick rinse."

"That'll teach you to put hamsters in your hair," Creek said.

"We know each other five seconds and already you're sassing me," the woman said. "I think that may be a new record. I was putting the fuzzball in another Habitrail on the top shelf. It was just bad luck on my part and good aim on his. Honest. Want a hamster?"

"I don't know," Creek said. "I've been led to believe they've got bladder control issues."

"Chicken," the woman said. "All right What can I do for you, then."

"I'm looking for Robin Baker," Creek said.

"That's me," she said.

"I was told you might have a particular variety of sheep I've been looking for," Creek said. "Although now that I'm here I don't see how."

"Wow," Robin said. "Yeah, we don't carry large animals like that. No space, as you can see. What kind of sheep are you looking for?"

"It's a breed called 'Android's Dream,'" Creek said.

Robin scrunched her face in, and suddenly she looked much younger than the late 20s Creek was guessing she was. "I don't think I've ever even heard of that breed," she said. "Is it genetically modified in any way?"

"I'd be guessing yes," Creek said.

"Well, that would explain why I've never heard of it," Robin said. "This shop specializes in unmodified pets and animals. If you were looking for a Faeroes or a Hebridean or even a Blackhead Persian, I might be able to point you in the direction of someone who could help you. But I wouldn't even know where to begin for one of the genmod breeds. There are so many. And they're all proprietary. Who told you that I would know where to find this breed?"

"A friend of mine who I would suspect should know better," Creek said.

"Well—" Robin cut herself short as the door buzzer went off and another customer came through the door. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah," the man said. "I need a lizard. For my kid."

"I've got lizards," Robin said. Creek turned to look at the guy. He was swarthy. "Is there any type you have in mind?"

"One of those that can run across the water," the guy said.

"A Jesus Lizard?" Robin said. "Yeah, those have been extinct for a half a century. Something about people turning its habitat into condominiums. But I've got a tokay gecko your kid might like. They can stick to walls through the magic of van der Waals forces. Kids love that."

"Fine," the guy said.

"I'll have to sell you a package," Robin said. "That's the gecko, a terrarium, some live food, and a book about geckos. That's about sixty dollars total."

"Okay," the guy said, and came up to the counter with a credit card. Robin took it, glanced at Creek to let him know she hadn't forgotten about him, and went to go collect the gecko and his toys.

"Kid likes lizards?" Creek said.

"You know kids," the guy said, in a tone of voice that said don't talk to me anymore. Creek took the hint.

"Here you go," Robin said, placing a small terrarium on the counter. "You need to tell your kid that even though the gecko is really cute, it's also a living thing. This is an unmodified animal. If it gets played with too much, it'll get sick and die, and then you'll have a dead animal, an upset kid, and a terrarium with nothing in it Okay? Sign here." She pushed the credit card slip through a pressure reader and handed the contraption to the guy; he took out a pen, signed the receipt, grabbed the terrarium, and went out the door without saying another word.

"Fun dad," Robin said. She put the pressure reader away and then reached for something on the counter. "And look, he left his pen. Nice, too. Mine now. What were we talking about?"

"Sheep," Creek said.

"Right," Robin said. "I've never stocked large animals here. I can arrange to get a pet I don't stock, of course, but since I only deal with unmodified animals, I only work with people who breed and sell unmods. What do you need a sheep for, anyway?"

"I need one for a ceremony."

Robin frowned. "Like a sacrifice? Is this some sort of Old Testament thing?"

"No," said Creek.

"And it's not some sort of marriage thing, is it? You and the sheep."

"Really, no." Creek said.

"All right, good," Robin said. "I mean, you don't look like a freak or anything. You just never know."

"Why do you only sell unmodified animals?" Creek asked. "I'm just curious."

"I've got a PetSmart one shopping center over," Robin said. "All their animals are genmod. I couldn't compete. But they hardly sell unmodified pets anymore because unmodified pets die too easy. Genmod pets are designed with six-year-old boys in mind, you know."

"I didn't know," Creek said.

"It's true," Robin said. "I think that's kind of like defining deviancy down. You should be teaching a six-year-old that you need to respect living things, rather than making pets so they can survive a mallet attack. So, economics and morals. That's why. People who come in here respect animals and teach their kids manners. Well, usually," she said, signaling to the door to indicate her last customer. "You have any kids? Are you married?"

"No and no," Creek said.

"Really," Robin said, and glanced Creek up and down. "Tell you what—what's your name?"

"Harry Creek," Creek said.

"Nice to meet you, Harry," Robin said, and pushed a piece of paper at him. "Write down the name of the breed and your comm number and I'll make some calls. I can tell you now I probably won't find anything, but on the off chance I do I'll let you know. Here," she reached over. "You can use my new pen."

"Thanks," Creek said.

"But don't think you're walking off with it," Robin said. "I'm a small business owner. That pen's money in my pocket."

Harry wrote his information, said his goodbyes, and headed over to his car, which he'd parked on the side of the strip mall, next to the strip mall's Dumpster. As he started the car, he noticed something crawling on the edge of me Dumpster. It was a gecko.

Creek turned off his car and got out and headed for the Dumpster. The gecko stood motionless as he approached. Creek got over to the Dumpster and looked in. The terrarium and book on geckos was on top a pile of trash.

"You, geek," Rod Acuna said, pointing at Archie as he came though the door. "Is the pen sending?"

"It's sending," Archie said, already not liking his new "team," which consisted of a dimwit human, a large Nagch who was spending most of his time sleeping, and this guy, his boss, who started calling Archie "geek" at their first exchange and now appeared to have forgotten he had any other name. "But your guy left just a couple of minutes after you did. The woman hasn't done anything but sing along to the radio since. I'll print you a transcript if you want, but you'll have to move your big friend there," he said, pointing to the dozing Nagch. "His feet are blocking the cabinet door to the printer."

"Leave Takk alone," Acuna said. "He had a big breakfast. Does this store owner know anything about the sheep?"

"Didn't say that she did," Archie said. "I've already hacked her computer connection, but she hasn't done any searches on the sheep. All she's done is go to a wholesaler site and order some birdseed."

"What about Creek?" Acuna said. "Have you gotten into his system yet?"

"No," Archie said. "I don't know what sort of protection this guy's got, but it's incredible. It's batting back everything I'm throwing at it"

Acuna sneered. "I thought you were supposed to be good at this shit."

"I am good," Archie said. "But so is this guy. Really good. I'm working on it."

"While you're at it, find out more about this woman," Acuna said, and then stomped off somewhere. Archie wondered, and he was sure not for the last time, what he had gotten himself into.

"What is that?" Brian asked as Creek walked in.

"It's a gecko," Creek said, putting the terrarium on his kitchen table.

"That's some good salesmanship," Brian said.

"Can you get into the computer system for Robin's Pets?" Creek said. "I want to check out a credit card."

"I'm already in," Brian said. "What are you looking for?"

"Follow up a charge that was made while I was in the store," Creek said. "It would have been for about sixty bucks. Find out everything you can about the guy who owns the card."

"I'm on it," Brian said. "Aside from the reptile, how did it go?"

"Terrible," Creek said. "Robin didn't have the slightest clue what I was talking about."

"What did you say to her?" Brian asked.

"I told her I was looking for some sheep," Creek said. "What were you expecting me to say to her?"

"Oh," Brian said. "Oh. Okay. I guess I wasn't being clear about it."

"What?" Creek said.

"When I told you to find Robin Baker, I didn't mean to ask her about sheep," Brian said. "I mean that she was the one you wanted."

"You're nuts," Creek said. "She's human."

"She's mostly human," Brian said. "But her DNA has definite sheep-like tendencies."

"I'm not following you," Creek said.

"She must have been really pretty for you not to get what I'm saying to you," Brian said. "Your pet shop owner is a human-sheep hybrid. The kind of sheep she was hybridized from was either in part or in whole of variety. She's sheep, Harry."

"You're insane," Creek said.

"Call me HAL and make me sing 'Daisy, Daisy,'" Brian said. "It still doesn't change the fact."

"How did you find this out?" Creek said.

"Insurance companies don't just keep livestock DNA on file, my friend," Brian said.

"I didn't tell you to look through human DNA," Creek said.

"I know," Brian said. "But isn't that why you wanted an intelligent agent that was actually intelligent? To find stuff you didn't already think of? And look at it this way. You were behind before. Now you're ahead. Because I guarantee you no one else has thought of this yet. Of course, time's ticking."