Pack Leader gets some squirrelly ideas into her long-haired brain. She turned from the computer to tell me about a new device that fits onto dogs’ heads and helps them see in the dark.
“I can already see in the dark,” I remind her. “Much better than you.”
“But here’s the thing, Wolfydog: this invention could be an extra pair of eyes for both of us—at the same time! Imagine: infrared vision. We could take walkies in the woods at night. You could see where the bunnies are hiding. Every so often the armed forces invent something useful, wouldn’t you agree?”
I opened one eye to show a little healthy skepticism. “Next you’ll be wanting me to get a voicebox implant and prosthetic ape paws, like those dogs in Lives of the Monster Dogs—remember what happened to them?”
Pack Leader had read Kirsten Bakis’ book to me as entertainment, an odd category for a book about a mad human scientist, named Rank, enslaving dogs with technology, as expendable equipment for humans’ favorite sport, war. The dogs rebel, kill a passel of humans, and decide to explore the world. Winter is coming and who knows what we’ll find Out in the world among humankind. Being three parts wolf to one part dog, I intuited immediately what those rebel dogs would find—disease and death. Nice ending.
Pack Leader has also read me her play War Dogs, about six historic dogs in search of a heroic human. That’s how I heard about the Russian army, which trained German Shepherds—my relatives!—to crawl under enemy trucks with bombs strapped to their backs—but these canine sacrifices crawled under their own humans’ trucks, instead. Oops!
Yah. Gotta love those techno-apes. Human boys must have their toys, no matter who pays the price.
I gave her the full Golden Gaze, hoping my amber eyes blazed with wisdom.