Dogsbodies

I have two dogs.

I would call Cade the brains and Bucephalus the brawn, but in reality, they are both frightfully smart and uncannily strong. People often ask me how I chose my dogs’ unusual names. The truth is, they named themselves.

My mother has given up chiding me for walking alone from the shop back to campus after dark. I know she’s worried about me, and if I were anyone else, she would have reason to be. I have to cross a dark, abandoned area between residential neighborhoods, and two-legged predators lurk there. With my dogs to protect me, I have nothing to fear.

It’s sometime after midnight, and my night shift has just ended. These streets are not well lit; the streetlights shine like far-apart islands in the sea of darkness. Cade materializes by my side and keeps pace with me. I have never asked my dogs where they go when they shimmer in and out of existence. They have sworn they will never lie to me, but I’m not entirely sure I can believe them.

And there are some things I’m not sure I want to know.

Cade steps in front of me, hackles raised, his Labrador-like body blocking my way.

I stumble to a halt. It’s late, and I’m not thinking entirely straight. I realize that his partner is missing. “Where’s Boo?” I ask.

Cade raises his head and looks off into the distance, his ears pricked, but does not relax his protective stance. I hear nothing, which is unnerving. Wherever Bucephalus is—and he is never far—and whatever he is doing, he is doing it in total silence.

After a moment, Cade relaxes his hackles and lowers his head.

It is finished, his voice says in my mind. All is well.

The best-case scenario is that I would have been mugged, or I could have been targeted for another more violating type of assault. These things happen with unfortunate regularity to young women stumbling home drunk late at night. Young women who are not drunk don’t walk along this road after dark. Young women other than me, that is.

The other possibility is a more…exotic type of attack. I don’t like to think about those. My dogs would tell me if I asked, but I do not ask. Nor do I ask what became of my would-be attacker.

I did ask—once. My dogs have said they’ll not lie to me, but they do not have human sensibilities or discretion.

I will not ask again. Some things I do not want to know.

Cade turns. Come. We must go to the lab.

“But it’s late,” I protest. “I’m tired, and I’m hungry, and I just want to go home.” I realize how petulant my voice sounds. I’m whining to a dog in the middle of the night.

His unhuman eyes meet mine. He says nothing, just turns and walks purposefully away.

My bed is calling me, but I follow Cade, defeated. I know he’s right, and I had planned to stop at the lab after work. Cell cultures don’t keep regular hours, and I have a limited window to record today’s measurements.

Shortly the wolfhound also appears beside me. “Hey, Boo,” I say as I run my fingers through his grizzled fur and try not to think about where he’s been or what he’s been doing.

My passcard gives me access to the immunology lab at any time of day. Like cell cultures, graduate students rarely keep regular hours. Dogs aren’t allowed in the lab, of course, and Cade and Boo maintain the pretense of abiding by the rules and slink off into the darkness. I know better. Even if I’m by myself, I won’t be alone. I won’t be unguarded.

Everyone dreams of curing cancer, but the truth is, cancer isn’t one thing. Cancer is cells growing abnormally. There are numerous types of cells and numerous ways they can grow. If we find out what causes one particular cell to grow abnormally, we are one step closer to unlocking one particular type of cancer. There is even some thought, among fringe academics that don’t often publish their work in journals, that cancer may be the key to regrowing lost limbs or rejuvenating damaged organs. My work is only one piece of a very large puzzle.

I unlock the incubator and pull out today’s plates. My cell cultures are thriving, happily munching on their agar. I record colony size, color change, rate of nutrient utilization, and other minutiae. Everything is progressing as planned.

The next phase, which I’ve scheduled to start soon, will be more complex and involve measuring the cells’ genetic reactions to new and promising chemicals.

As I start to slide the plates back into the incubator, my eyes fall on the autoclave across the room. From nowhere, the thought enters my mind that I don’t need to continue this experiment. Nobody is in the lab. Nobody would know if I disposed of these plates.

Would they?

I could end this experiment. I could end my schooling. I could move back to the small town I grew up in and live a simpler life.

Would I be allowed to?

I know the answer to that question. I reluctantly replace my plates in the incubator.

As I’m leaving the lab, both of my escorts materialize abruptly beside me and stand at attention, ears pricked and noses pointed, very still.

“Again?” I ask. “What is it now?”

After a moment, Cade relaxes. Nothing, he says. The time approaches. The faction will be growing desperate. We must be cautious.

They can’t tell me precisely what discovery I’m going to make or when it will happen. But I have gathered enough information from little pieces of conversation, things both said and unsaid, over the last several months. It will involve t-cell lymphocytes—my dutiful cell cultures—and will start a cascade of breakthroughs that will lead to a change in the physiology of humanity itself.

I am the first falling domino that will be responsible for the next stage of human evolution.

Sometime in the future, a radical faction of post-humans will decide this discovery should never have taken place. They will try to stop me; they have been trying to stop me; their only goal is to stop me.

By any means necessary.

Luckily for me, I suppose, another faction will decide that the discovery must happen—at any cost.

So far, my cells have been acting as they’re supposed to. But one day soon, they will not. So I only have the weight of all future humanity on my shoulders as I set up each new experiment, as I record each new data set, as I plan each new phase.

I try not to think about a lot of things. I especially try not to think about the secret silent cold war that swirls around me. My dogs have said they will not lie to me, but I know they do not tell me the whole truth.

I am the heart of this conflict, yet I see none of it and I don’t ask. I try not to reflect on how precarious both my life and my research are. I try to live my life. But tonight, lying in bed, waiting for elusive sleep, these thoughts weigh heavily on my mind.

What can I do about it?

Nothing.

Nothing but live my life—and complete my work.

My sentinels, the two trans-dimensional beings who wear dogs’ bodies in this time and space, and who lie unsleeping on the bed beside me, will make certain of it.