"The Toxoplasmotics built it," Graa explained from Koen's shoulder as his omnivator clawed its way through the city's guts. "It is a shrine to their
Koen didn't ask what the Pitiful Species Fund was, or the Spirit of Thrilling Death, or the Toxoplasmotics, for that matter. His brain felt like it was melting. His shoulders twitched. His heart pounded to the rhythm of "sleep now, sleep now."
The omnivator arrived and the doors of the vehicle opened on a vision of paradise.
Lemon-rose clouds sailed across a sky deeper than oceans, and a cheery sun cast their shadows on an infinite plain of grass. Cool breezes rippled the stalks in lazy silver waves. Koen rocked back, nose overcome by the smell of dewy hay.
General Graa nipped him sharply on the ear. "Bad boy! Keep your shoulders steady."
Koen blinked the tears from his eyes and saw through the illusion. The grass wasn't really infinite. This park or shrine was only as wide across as a football field, but its circumference was walled with video screens, displaying more grass, as well as clumps of acacia trees, rivers, and distant blue mountains. Herds of vaguely-rendered animals grazed on simulated hills. He would have seen through it immediately except it had been so long since Koen had experienced an open space. The clouds and sun were real.
"We're open to the sky?"
"Yes. This is technically an agricultural zone. I am proud. It was I who realized this place's potential. It will allow me to be patronizing at the Paturians." Another nip to the ear. "I am impatient. Forward!" Another jab. "Faster. She's still here. Trot, I said! Your ineptitude reminds me of how much I miss my Mr. Grumbles."
Not for the first time, Koen considered coming clean. I didn't lose Mr. Grumbles, I kidnapped—no. That pick in Graa's beak would go right into Koen's eye. General Graa, I know where Mr. Grumbles is. And once Graa found his steed in the UN Embassy, the pick would go into all of their trade opportunities. No new technology. Climate change and world war would be back on the menu. Maybe another pandemic. And what would Laura say?
The exhaustion pulsed again. Why was Koen doing this?
Because if Graa got his talons on Mr. Grumbles, the pick would not be metaphorical. Koen was saving the erectus. He had to believe that.
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Not all of the trees in the dog park were fakes, Koen saw as he carried himself and General Graa across the grass, nor all the animals. In the shade of a big, flat-topped acacia, a jaguar lounged, panting.
General Graa called something out in a language that sounded like musical Morse code, and Koen's bug translated: "Strain Ct1015-alpha, the Admirable Self-Flinger, good morning! Delay your suicide to educate me."
The jaguar flattened its ears and growled lazily at Koen. He took a step back.
"Don't be such a coward," said Graa.
"Hello?" Koen stammered.
The jaguar was shaggy and brutal, with more tan and less black in its fur than the other South American jungle cats of Koen's acquaintance. He'd seen several stuffed specimens, and one in a zoo. But never like this.
The jaguar rose to its feet, shoulder blades sliding under silky fur and muscle. The tip of its tail twitched.
"One step back, now," said Graa.
Koen's body shivered, unable to run away. His mind frantically wondered how the cat's head fit enough brains to think with. The jaguar crouched, and Koen was just picking apart the idea of super-efficient neurons when the obvious answer burst from behind the tree.
"Down, Fancy! No pouncing. Down!"
The jaguar sat up back on its haunches as a round form hunched up from the grass. Three pink hands reached out to stroke its fur.
A chittering sound rose, like an ivory engine stripping its gears. "My ears hear General Graa and my brain is annoyed. My brain remembers that once again you have brought your steed too close to Fancy Death, despite my repeated reminders that he has been trained to eat primates."
Koen leaned closer to peer at those hands, thoughts racing: not human, not primate, look at those claws. But a mammal, almost certainly—ow!
Koen slapped his hand against his ear, which General Graa had nipped again.
"I am angry and ashamed of you! And ashamed of myself because I forgot you are not my Mr. Grumbles. And now I am sad."
"Stop doing that." Koen rubbed his ear, feeling guilty, although he didn't say so. "Why did you peck me?"
"His brain detected the need to make a public declaration of his mistake." The pink, clawed hands withdrew from the jaguar. The hunched shape rose under the shade of the acacia. "In my amygdala arises the feeling of superiority, but I prune back these emotions and guide my mind toward compassion." A staff protruded into the sunlight, wrist-thick, pale wood carved in meticulous spirals. Two white-clawed pink hands tightened around the wood, and, with a squeak, the Admirable Self-Flinger hoisted herself out of the shade.