It was a long walk to the docks. Longer because Blackie needed to stop every two blocks and leave a little "present". I checked online to see if augmented hybrids had any guinea pig in 'em, but they didn't seem to. Just my luck to get saddled with an incontinent animal, I guess.

Once I got there, I didn't know what to do, except watch the local traffic. So I parked the Waldo at a bus stop and tried looking innocuous while Blackie ran around, nose down, poking into everything imaginable. If I had a nose, I would be more careful about where I put it. There were some regular work-a-day Waldos unloading a ship container. They seemed a little stiff moving to me, and shuffled mechanically between the dock and a waiting truck they were loading. Just steel frames, like walking skeletons, but watching them passed the time. Otherwise I occupied myself doing facial pattern matches on anyone passing by. Managed to spot some interesting folk, but none that particularly correlated with my current interests.

A supervisor type emerged from one of the port shacks, and made for Blackie. He shouted at the dog, and made shooing motions. Blackie seemed occupied with present-making and ignored the guy, who then picked up a short two-by-four, and set out determinedly in the dog's direction. This seemed not a good thing, in my view, so I left my street-side post and made for the dog. Blackie finished up about then, and trotted towards me. The beet faced, wood toting guy picked up on the dogs beeline, and came my way too.

"Hey! This your dog, pal?"

I fingered my chest innocently. "Mine? Uh-uh. Don't own a dog."

Wood-boy shook his stick at me anyway. "Don't need no dogs shitting up the yard here, pal. Take your walkies elsewhere. Got it?"

I struck an erect, citizen-like pose. "Sir! No need for blandishments. Just waiting for a bus. Can't take a dog on a bus, you know."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Though my logic was inescapable, it made little impression on the man. He continued shaking the dead tree material and growled.

"Been watchin' you. Seen two buses go by, don't see you on either one of 'em. Take your dog and get lost."

All this only attracted unneeded attention, so I decided to saunter across Jefferson Avenue, and take up post across the street. Abruptly, a warehouse door slid open and a beefy sort lumbered out, catching wood boy's attention. The two conferred and the super seemed to lose interest, returning to his shack. Muscles waved at me, flashing a friendly smile and motioning me over. I didn't recognize the face, but couldn't see what harm there could possibly be in satisfying my curiosity, so started back towards him. Blackie followed me back to the yard, and nosed Muscles, then continued sniffing about.

Blackie trotted back close. "No fish smell. Big man, no fish smell."

"That's nice. Best you wait across the street, Blackie. I'll go see what the nice man wants."

I got within five feet, before the dockside loaders zombied over and grabbed me. I hadn't expected that. Muscleman slapped something on the back of my Waldo. My video circuits flared and went offline. Probes! Crap, something had started pinging all my access ports!

I immediately began closing down controller ports and relay bridges all over the Waldo, but as fast as I closed them, they were reopened. Some kind of software worm, must have been part A.I, was digging into me. It had found the service entry sub-systems for my machine, and was anticipating my moves and counters. As I was sunk in the gel interface of the Waldo, I couldn't close it out completely.

It found a slow reacting gateway. Between its commands to open it, and mine to shut it back down, it was able to force through ordered segments of code. Oh great, there was a mole program building in my internal buffers! I struggled, trying to randomize the memory stack it was filling up – mixed up the instruction sequences, but it kept reordering, building...then I lay open and naked. Disconnected, for the first time since my inception, an outside entity pawing over my processes, mirroring my software, setting up learning links. Helpless. No more video feeds, no network, no sound.

Dark, alone, afraid.