The Best of Nancy Kress (16 page)

Beside me, I felt Deborah’s despair.

3.

Caroline jumps. She jumps with her hind legs out straight, one in front and one in back. She runs in circles and jumps again. Dmitri catches her.

“No, no,” Mr. Privitera says. “Not like that.
Promenade en couronne
,
attitude
,
arabesque efface
. Now the lift. Dimitri, you are handling her like a sack of grain. Like this.”

Mr. Privitera picks up Caroline. My ears raise. But Mr. Privitera is safe. Mr. Privitera can touch Caroline. Dmitri can touch Caroline. Carlos can touch Caroline.

Dmitri says, “It’s the damn
dog
. How am I supposed to learn the part with him staring at me, ready to tear me from limb to limb? How the hell am I supposed to concentrate?”

John Cole sits next to me. John says, “Dmitri, there’s no chance Angel will attack you. His biochip is state-of-the-art programming. I told you. If you’re in his ‘safe’ directory, you’d have to actually attack Caroline yourself before Angel would act, unless Caroline told you otherwise. There’s no real danger to break your concentration.”

Dmitri says, “And what if I drop her accidentally? How do I know that won’t look like an attack to that dog?”

Caroline sits down. She looks at John. She looks at Dmitri. She does not look at me. She smiles.

John says, “A drop is not an attack. Unless Caroline screams—and we all know she never does, no matter what the injury—there’s no danger. Believe me.”

“I don’t,” Dmitri says.

Everybody stands quiet.

Mr. Privitera says, “Caroline, dear, let me drop you. Stand up. Ready—lift.”

Caroline smells surprised. She stands. Mr. Privitera picks up Caroline. She jumps a little. He picks her up over his head. She falls down hard. My ears raise. Caroline does not scream. She is not hurt. Mr. Privitera is safe. Caroline said Mr. Privitera is safe.

“See?” Mr. Privitera says. He breathes hard. “No danger. Positions, please.
Promenade en couronne
,
attitude
,
arabesque efface
, lift.”

Dmitri picks up Caroline. The music gets loud. John says in my ear, “Angel—did Caroline go away from her house last night?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Where did Caroline go?”

“Left four blocks, right one block. Caroline gave money.”

“The bakery,” John says. “Did she go away to any more places, or did she go home?”

“Caroline goes home last night.”

“Did anyone come to Caroline’s house last night?”

“No people come to Caroline’s house last night.”

“Thank you,” John says. He pats me. I feel happy.

Caroline looks at us. A woman ties a long cloth on Caroline’s waist. The woman gives Caroline a piece of wood. Yesterday I ask John what the wood is. Yesterday John says it is a fan. The music starts, faster. Caroline does not jump. Yesterday Caroline jumps with the fan.

“Caroline?” Mr. Privitera says. “Start here, dear.”

Caroline jumps. She still looks at John. He looks at me.

Some woman here smells of yogurt and a bitch collie in heat.

Caroline opens the bedroom door. She comes out. She wears jeans on her hind legs. She wears a hat on her head. It covers all her fur. She walks to the door. She says to me, “Stay, you old fleabag. You hear me? Stay!”

I walk to the door.

“Christ.” Caroline opens the door a little way. She pushes her body through the door. She closes the door. I push through the door hard with her.

“I said stay!” Caroline opens the door again. She pushes me. I do not go inside. Caroline goes inside. I follow Caroline.

“Take two,” Caroline says. She opens the door. She walks away. She goes back. She closes the door. She opens the door. She closes the door. She turns around. She goes through the door and closes it hard. She is very fast. I am inside alone.

“Gotcha, Fido!” Caroline says through the door.

I howl. I throw me against the door. I bark and howl. The light goes on in my head. I howl and howl.

Soon Caroline comes through the door. A man holds her arm. He smells of iron. He talks to a box.

“Subject elected to return to her apartment, sir, rather than have me accompany her to her destination. We’re in here now.”

Caroline grabs the box. “John, you shit, how
dare
you! You had the dog bio-wired! That’s an invasion of privacy, I’ll sue your ass off, I’ll quit the company, I’ll—”

“Caroline,” John’s voice said. I look. There is no John smell. John is not here. Only John’s voice is here. “You have no legal grounds. This man is allowed to accompany you, according to the protection contract you signed.
You
signed it, my dear. As for quitting the City Ballet…That’s up to you. But while you dance for us, Angel goes where you do. If he gets too excited over not seeing you, the biosignal triggers. Just where were you going that you didn’t want Angel with you?”

“To turn tricks on street corners!” Caroline yells. “And I bet he has a homing device embedded in him, too, doesn’t he?”

She smells very angry. She is angry at me. I lie on the floor. I put my paws on my head. It is not happy here.

The man says, “Departing the apartment now, sir.” He leaves. He takes the small box.

Caroline sits on the floor. Her back is against the door. She looks at me. My paws are on my head. Caroline smells angry.

Nothing happens.

A little later Caroline says, “I guess it’s you and me, then. They set it up that way. I’m stuck with you.”

I do not move my paws. She still smells angry.

“All right, let’s try another approach. Disarm the enemy from within. Psychological sabotage. You don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, do you? What did they give you, a five-year-old’s IQ? Angel…”

I look at Caroline. She says my right name.

“…tell me about Sam’s cat.”

“What?”

“Sam’s cat. You said that first day you came home with me that you smelled a cat on Sam, the day doorman. Do you still smell it? Can you tell what kind of cat it is?”

I am confused. Caroline says nice words. Caroline smells angry. Her back is too straight. Her fur is wrong.

“Is it a male cat or a female cat? Can you tell that?”

“A female cat,” I say. I remember the cat smell. My muscles itch.

“Did you want to chase it?”

“I must never chase cats. I must protect Caroline.”

Caroline’s smell changes. She leans close to my ear.

“But did you
want
to chase it, Angel? Did you want to get to behave like a dog?”

“I want to protect Caroline.”

“Hoo boy. They did a job on you, didn’t they, boy?”

The words are too hard. Caroline still smells a little angry. I do not understand.

“It’s nothing compared to what they’re doing in South America and Europe,” she says. Her body shakes.

“Are you hurt?” I say.

Caroline puts a hand on my back. The hand is very soft. She says no words.

I am happy. Caroline talks to me. She tells me about dancing. Caroline is a dancer. She jumps and runs in circles. She stands high on her hind legs. People come in cars to watch her. The people are happy when Caroline dances.

We walk outside. I protect Caroline. We go many places. Caroline gives me cake and hot dogs. There are many smells. Sometimes Caroline and I follow the smells. We see many dogs and many cats. The man with the small box comes with us sometimes. John says the man is safe.

“What if I tell Angel you’re not ‘safe’?” Caroline says to the man. He follows us on a long walk. “What if I order him to tear you limb to limb?” She smells angry again.

“You don’t have programming override capacity. The biochip augmenting his bioenhancement is very specific, Ms. Olson. I’m hardwired in.”

“I’ll bet,” Caroline says. “Did anybody ask Angel if he wants this life?”

The man smiles.

We go to Lincoln Center every day. Caroline dances there. She dances in the day. She dances at night. More people watch at night.

John asks me where Caroline and I go. Every day I tell him.

Nobody tries to touch Caroline. I protect her.

“I can’t do it,” Caroline tells a man on the street corner. The man stands very close to Caroline. I growl soft. “For God’s sake, Stan, don’t touch me. The dog. And I’m probably being watched.”

“Do they care
that
much?”

“I could blow the whistle on the whole unofficial charade,” Caroline says. She smells tired. “No matter what Privitera’s delusions are. But then we’d lose our chance, wouldn’t we?”

“Thanks for the time,” the man says, loud. He smiles. He walks away.

Later John says, “Who did Caroline talk to?”

“A man,” I say. “He wants the time.”

Later Caroline says, “Angel, we’re going tonight to see my mother.”

4.

Demonstrators dyed the fountain at Lincoln Center blood red.

They marched around the gruesome jets of water, shouting and resisting arrest. I sprinted across the plaza, trying to get there to see which side they were on before the police carted all of them away. Even from this distance I could tell they weren’t dancers, not with those thick bodies. The electronic placards dissolved from how many must die from denying evolution! to free medical research from government straightjackets! to my body belongs to me! Pro-human bioenhancement, then. A holograph projector, which a cop was shutting down, spewed out a ten-foot high holo of Jane and June Welsh, Siamese twins who had been successfully separated only after German scientists had bioenhanced their bodies to force alterations in major organs. The holo loop showed the attached twins dragging each other around, followed by the successfully separated twins waving gaily. The cop did something and Jane and June disappeared.

“They died,” I said to a demonstrator, a slim boy wearing a free my body! button. “Ultimately, neither of their hearts could stand the stress of bioenhancement.”

He glared at me. “That was their risk to take, wasn’t it?”

“Their combined IQ didn’t equal your weight. How could they evaluate risk?”

“This is a
revolution
, lady. In any revolution you have casualties that—” A cop grabbed his arm. The boy took a wild swing at him and the cop pressed his nerve gun to the boy’s neck. He dropped peacefully, smiling.

Abruptly more people gathered, some of them wilier than the boy. Demonstrators stood with their hands on their heads, singing slogans. Media robocams zoomed in from the sky; the live crews would be here in minutes. A group of counter-demonstrators formed across the plaza, in front of the Met. I backed away slowly, hands on my head, not singing—and stopped abruptly halfway across the chaotic plaza.

An old woman in a powerchair was watching the demonstration with the most intense expression I had ever seen. It was as if she were watching a horrifying execution, judging it judiciously as art. Bodyguards flanked the chair. She wore an expensive, pale blue suit and large, perfectly-matched pearls. Her wrinkled, cold face was completely familiar. This was how Caroline Olson would look in forty years, if she refused all cosmetic treatment.

She caught me watching her. Her expression didn’t change. It passed over me as if I didn’t exist.

I took the chance. “Ms. Olson?”

She didn’t deny the name. “Yes?”

“I’m a reporter with
New York Now
, doing an article on the New York City Ballet. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your daughter Caroline, if that’s all right.”

“I never give interviews.”

“Yes, ma’am. Just a few informal questions—you must be so proud of Caroline. But are you worried about her safety in light of the recent so-called ballerina murders?”

She shocked me. She smiled. “No, not at all.”

“You’re
not
?”

She gazed at the break-up of the demonstration. “Do you know the work on dancers’ bodies they’re doing in Berlin?”

“No, I—”

“Then you have no business interviewing anyone on the subject.” She watched the last of the demonstrators being dragged away by the cops. “The New York City ballet is finished. The future of the art lies with bioenhancement.”