“Shut up!” said one of the masks, or at least that’s what I think it said. I had not realized I was growling, and the trooper struck me with the back of his open hand. Now I know that’s going to read differently for my dog readers and my human readers. To the dog readers, I should say that he surprised me because I was lost in thought, so focused on the threat of the weapon and the insufferable threat it represented to my human. To my human readers, I should say that I made that “yip” noise that you cannot stand to hear. This is why all of humanity basically starts out with at a few Dog Points, in my book—you are instantly arrested by the sound of canine distress. Good on you.
Zideo’s eyes went wide and he lunged forward, but was already held by hands of the sorrow troopers. The robot raised the clamp weapon, and for Zideo’s sake, I stopped growling. I recognized even through his cosmetic contact lenses an animal instinct at play—death, violence, the wordless impulse to dissemble and destroy. Had not the trained soldiers restrained him, who knows what heights of “full goblin mode” he might have descended into? I was overcome with guilt, not only that I had put him into harm’s way, but that I had caused him to give himself over to this extremely animal emotion. At the same time, I was flattered that he reacted that way for me, a dog. Big ride or die energy. Absolute bro status. Now you surely see why he is the most outrageously cool and radical human that has ever graced the pages of a book.
Pushed along, his rage cooled, but not his anger. His face was still a rictus of fury biding its time. He looked at me as he was forced forward, just long enough to make sure I was alright. It is all I can do to not simply type heart emojis for the rest of the chapter. What a guy.
Without the bird’s view we had been afforded in the flying transport, it became crowded and confusing, but I was fairly certain we were being led up the wide central path toward the outer gates of the fort. There was much activity, but still more people than jobs. Soldiers polished and tinkered at their aerial vehicles, big fat propellers stingrays and others. Campfires burned to either side of us, where frowning masks of ivory flickered in the firelight above bored bodies—arms crossed, feet tapping. Some attempting to entertain themselves with conversation, but staring at us. Runners carried messages around the camp, but their shoulders slouched.
There were other beings too. Some were human.
Small groups of two to six humans patrolled the dirt path. They had a look that distinguished them from the sorrow-masked soldiers—not just a different breed of human, but somehow made of something different. They were taller, wider, muscular but playful and full of potential danger. They were strange things like sunglasses, mohawks (a hairstyle that has a very specific meaning for humans), and sleeves made of one of my favorite human textiles—denim. There was much tight leather about them, and industrial chains. They seemed made to patrol the streets at night, or abandoned warehouses and shipyards.
“Street Toughs,” whispered Helmgarth, as we passed a group of them, growling openly like animals and popping their collars which they seemed to feel was a threatening gesture. I did not growl at the street toughs, even though they maintained eye contact for a weird amount of time even after passing. In fact, they were incredibly difficult to take seriously. One shoulder-checked a soldier as they passed and then pointed at him, but said nothing, returning to his comrades who howled with laughter. “From the…” and Helmgarth’s whisper went very low here, “the beat-em up.”
“Oh, right,” said Zideo. “The old-school one, right? Rampage City (19∞9)?”
Helmgarth shushed him urgently. “Indeed, m’lord.”
I didn’t like this “m’lord” stuff.
We made our way up the path, which was slightly uphill. For most of this walk, I followed a nondescript soldier butt in front of me, which I did not sniff. When I raised my head to see how much farther we had to go, I saw it: the great mountain that I later understood was called a Shard.
No—greater than a mountain, for mountain ranges could be seen dotting its surface through the clear night air. In truth it was a small planet that was too close, but my benighted dog mind had no concept of these things, as my first introduction to anything not normal to Airy Zone had been an hour or so previous when I had jumped through a glowing rectangle.
A wall of land loomed above us, reminding me of how big Lisa looks when she leans over my dog bed to wake me up for a walk. The size of the Shard played tricks on my eyes. It felt close enough to run to, but every step we took uphill showed it stationary, fixed in the air in some incomprehensible distance. And even so, I could make out cottony clumps of cloud formations drifting across its surface, white expanses of snowy peaks, tiny blobs I took to be towns and temples, clearly defined roads connecting them. Calm lakes pooled at impossible angles—or were they oceans? The entire time, the Shard moved with celestial grace, the interminable minuet of planetary bodies.
And beside it, a vast distance away yet visible, spun another. I looked the other direction and saw yet a third of these irregular planet bodies. Each came near to the outer ridge of the land we walked on, but whether a mile down the “shore” or ten, or a thousand, I could not say. It was too crowded with people to get a good look. These great planetoids seemed to surround the plate on which we walked, for behind us as our transport shrank into the distance, I could see the dark, impatient ridges of other Shards clear clear across this strange world.
We passed pair of unusual humans were having an argument. They were both a little shorter than Zideo, wider, and bald, with wide, pointy ears. It was not an appealing or endearing aesthetic. I had met a couple of bald humans who could make it work, for sure. But these seemed like crankier, uglier relatives of the human species. They both wore heavy belts from which sagged pockets and bags full of bits and bots and tools, and various other things, which encircled their waists without interruption. It reminded me of the treat bags that my trainer had worn many dog years ago—how I watched for him to make even the subtlest movement of his hand toward that bag! (Lisa had purchased one as well, but abandoned it after a week. She forgot she left it on the counter, well within my reach. It basically became dog Halloween for me.) I was amazed by the sheer amount of stuff they carried with their persons within easy reach of their own squat but muscular arms, like they had been thrust physically upward through the center of an engineer’s work desk and then went about their day. The two goblin people shared a huge technical plan between them, printed or drawn on thick, primitive vellum. And by shared I mean they were essentially playing tug-of-war with it, yelling at one another and and jabbing their clawed fingers into the technical plan.
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They halted, mid-argument, and both sniffed the air. Their eyes snapped toward me, and they both scowled.
“Ugh,” said one. “██████’ wildlife.”
The other, somehow more gobliny in a way I cannot explain, snorted. “Ugly ███████, too. Don’t worry. It’ll be on our side soon.”
“Whether it █████ likes it or not.”
“Oh, it won’t!” They both laughed exactly one syllable’s worth of laugh and went back to arguing.
They seemed overtly and immediately unpleasant, but it was quite another thing to ponder what force of the universe might be deciding that their speech was so foul that it must be censored from my hearing. It reminded me of when Zideo would swear during his streams, but overlay a loud beep over something he called the “clips.” This always led to a session of editing the recording of himself swearing, and having to hear the glowing rectangle play back his swear many times until he edited it just right, which was highly amusing to me given how prudish humans are about very specific words.
“Scroblins,” whispered Helmgarth. “Favored engineers and archtiects of the Boss Council. Modest of stature and foul of tongue.”
“No kidding,” said Zideo.
Soon, we were packed in the middle of a dense crowd. I could see the gates ahead, just over the tops of the troopers’ helmets, the tree trunks that had been stripped down and sharpened. I wondered if this were a meaningful tactic used by this military force, or rather just a way of saying, “This is a fort! Don’t come here.”
Towers flanked the open gates, where troopers with large devices watched the crowd below accumulate in front of the gate.
The gate warden was another masked soldier, initially indistinguishable from the others except for her air of resigned authority (another facet of human life that emulates the world of beasts, but gets really weird about it) and a square of metal on her chest that was slightly different from the squares of metal on the chests of the others.
“Next,” she announced, and it was time to drag us closer to her. She eyed us. (Probably. I could not see her eyes.) “Two humans and a beast. We’re getting crowded, Sergeant. Are they important enough to live?”
Another soldier approached and cupped a gloved hand over his mouth to whisper to the gate warden.
“They what?” she asked, trying to hear better. Then she went completely rigid. I imagined her eyes going very wide, because this was the body language that usually went along with that. She grabbed the informer by the chest armor.
“Dead? Are you certain?” came her muffled voice.
The other nodded and shrugged.
She looked around, and it seemed to me that she was appraising who nearby had heard. “Well… get them secured. I’ll… draft a communique.”
He nodded, then pointed at Zideo. “Them—prison, cell block 6.” He pointed at me. “This one… you know where beasts belong.”
They saluted with a motion that was probably supposed to be a curt fist to the chest, but looked more like they were clutching their broken hearts in deep sorrow. My leash tugged hard, hurting my neck as I was dragged in a different direction from my human.
As you can imagine, this did not go over well. My claws, rudely clipped to uselessness by the vet, drew slashes in the dirt. I wiggled and thrashed left and right, but could not escape my prisoner’s grip. I looked back toward my human as we were separated, and saw a startled look on his face. The strange robot that smelled like prey stepped into the commotion and raised its weapon hand. Commander Zideo did nothing as I was dragged away. He turned to Helmgarth for guidance, but both were shoved in the other direction, pushed almost onto the ground, toward the vice-shaped prison complex.
I had no choice but to comply unwillingly. I noticed though that while most of the patrol that captured us escorted Zideo and Helmgarth to their cell, I was left guarded by only a single trooper.
I was lead into a room that flickered with fire-colored light and hurled into a crate in a line of other crates. This made my travel crate look appear luxurious by comparison. It was small, and there was no blanket or chew toy to comfort me. Worse, it rattled and swung from the thick cable from which it hung. Every step I took caused my whole room to tilt. I was forced to stand very still with a foot in each corner just to get it to hang properly.
Crates—cages, in truth—lined the walls of the chamber. I noticed some of the cubes were tottering as mine had, and made out the shapes of creatures within them. As I was trying to make out the source of the strobing light and maniacal laughter, the line of crates jerked and moved three feet to my left, then jerked to a stop. All of the crates in the room, inhabited or not, dangled and clattered together like horrible chimes.
When I was able to stop swinging and take a better look, I saw the center of the room. There stood a robot, not dissimilar to the one who had destroyed the chimeric monster that had attacked us in the forest. But something was different: its chest was open, its entire torso exposed. What I then understood was a hatch looked to me like the petals of a sickening flower, blooming for some unknown purpose. Lights flashed and smaller glowing rectangles showed letters and numbers in the hollow core of the robot. This made me think that the thing which had threatened us was not a robot after all, but mechanical clothing of some kind, or an unnatural kind of armor.
It gaped like a venus fly trap. And above it hung a crate like mine. The crate bobbed back and forth, and its floor sprung open. A small bird, too frightened to flap its wings, was deposited into the open core. The glowing rectangles and other lights winked out one by one… and one by one turned red. The hatch closed over the innocent creature, a sliver of light giving me a final glimpse of its wild, helpless eyes. Steam spouted from the sides of the metal and glass abomination. Through the smoky black glass of its chest—although perhaps “windshield” is a more appropriate term—I could barely make out the movement of the bird within.
So that was what they were. Walking prisons for critters like me. But if the bird had the devices and sensors and weapons within reach, why did it not turn them against its captors? Did it understand how to use them?
My question was soon answered. The scroblin in charge, a hunched-over golem somehow even balder than the others I had seen, waved to his assistant, who pulled down on a lever as long as she was tall. Energy crackled. I had seen enough lightning for one lifetime, but now more crackled down through the conduits in the roofing, and struck the robot. The electric energy was the color of blood, and the suit of armor smoldered after the strike.
The scroblin in charge approached the newly minted minion. “Will you █████in’ obey the will of the ████-███ing Boss Council?”
The machine tilted forward, ever so slightly. A bow. Step by clanking step, it trod out of the room. “Another successful super trooper. Who’s the next unfortunate ████head who gets to join the army as an Ohmpressor?” shouted the scroblin. The cages clattered and jerked again. I understood it would not be long before I was made into one of those things.