Sheep D.O.G.
Sheep D.O.G.
By Gideon Kalve Jarvis
Request for File P-27-Y18
Clearance: Shepherd 6
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Beginning Transmission of File P-27-Y18
My name is Prometheus 27, as you may have gathered by now if you keep up on current events in this Area. I was conceived and birthed at the GeneMaster Womb-Service labs, and emerged from Vat 48 almost two minutes ahead of schedule, so fast did I mature. My Sires were Prometheus 24 and Epimetheus 6 (the latter having been dead for almost two years before my conception) and my Dam was Andromeda 10. To put that into more meaningful language for those not educated in the terms of the GeneMaster Womb-Service, that means that I have genes from two fathers and one mother, all three of top-quality stock. I was grown to birth-age in Artificial Womb 48, one of a dozen such 'Vats' (as they are often called) that was designed to give subliminal training in addition to the standard nourishment and enhanced development. This, coupled with my unexpected early maturation, means that I am both smarter and more physically fit than the average nuhuman. I have not registered any Higher Mental Activity such as Psychokinesis or Extra-Sensory Perception, but neither have I shown any abnormal mental functions or failings, despite extensive testing for both. As both Andromeda 10 and Epimetheus 6 did possess HMAs I am considered a 'carrier' of such genes, which in addition to my other qualities makes me a prime piece of genetic material. This is one of the few things that I am allowed to take pride in, and I take advantage of the opportunity.
After I had been sufficiently educated and reached the age of ten in the Juvenile Development Center I was interviewed and extensively tested for my potential strengths and weaknesses. When the GeneMasters knew enough to make some educated projections of the course of my life I was given a number of options concerning my eventual career. It is vital that members of the GeneMaster Project be tested and put into their niche before puberty. This is the only way to allow the hormonal, surgical, and genetic treatments we receive to shape our growth so that we can fit the roles we will play in society. I do not remember all of the options given to me, but I do remember that they thought I would perform well as a GeneMaster or a Population Supervisor, both very lucrative positions. I was disappointed that I was not chosen to be a Shepherd, but I guess nobody can have everything they want.
After weighing the options, I decided to become a Demographic Organization Genotype, or D.O.G. for short. The D.O.G.s are the peacekeeping force of the United Consolidation. We watch over the populace and ensure that they live out their lives happily and comfortably without fear or danger. Though admitting this may be considered an Instability, I wanted to become a D.O.G. because they seemed to have such an exciting life. We have a reputation as dashing and adventurous figures, righters of wrongs, the ultimate cross between a SWAT team of the twentieth century United States and the King's Musketeers of Renaissance France. At ten years old that seemed to be the kind of life that I wanted to live. Hence, I jumped at the chance to become a D.O.G.
As just about everyone finds out all too soon, gaining a dream is a lot more work than a person would think when they first start. Then, when you finally attain that dream, the reality is never quite the way you pictured it. That is exactly how it was when I started my training, and exactly how it was when I graduated from the Demographic Control Training Academy. The reason the reality is so different from the image is because I did not know the real reason that the D.O.G.s were needed. I always assumed we were something like the super heroes you can read about in ancient comic books (though doing so is often considered an early sign of Instability), righting wrongs and stopping bad people and then fading away and living a normal life whenever we weren't needed. Obviously this is not the case. You see, we are needed because the vast majority of the citizens of the United Consolidation are not a directly controlled part of the GeneMaster Project. In other words, while the populace has been engaged in eugenics for as long as the Shepherds have been around, they are not birthed in the Vats, nor are they given the intensive training and hormonal conditioning afforded to those who belong to the GeneMasters. Without this, while the average citizen has gained a far longer span of life and genetic disease has been almost totally wiped out, they are not quite as Stable as those of us who have had the benefit of direct GeneMaster manipulation. They are unknown variables, docile for the most part but in need of constant supervision and guidance to ensure that they do not fall into anarchy. Providing this guidance is what most of the time of a D.O.G. is spent doing.
I have heard some of my fellow D.O.G.s describe the essence of the job as that of a glorified traffic conductor. Whenever something strange happens and it seems as though the fabric of society is going to coalesce into the fearsome monster known as Mob, that is the very moment that the D.O.G.s are sent in. Then with our cool and gentle ways we calm the milling crowds and remove disturbances, making everything all right again. For this reason we D.O.G.s have taken to calling our charges 'Sheep.' I think the term fits quite nicely to almost every non-GeneMaster person I have ever met, though there are a few exceptions that I can think of. The boy I saved would be a good example of a Stable exception, though I do not find many of them. Generally, when I find an exception to the rules of Sheepish society, they are Unstable. These Unstable exceptions are the main reason that we are pictured as courageous and daring. You see, we are the ones who must deal with Wolves.
So far I have encountered a dozen such instances where a Sheep has turned into a Wolf. A Wolf is someone who has gone completely Unstable and who is now a menace to society, either through dangerous ideas or through dangerous actions, and most often a combination of the two. They are called Wolves because they are willing to kill others, whether Sheep or D.O.G.s. Many of them would like to kill someone important like a Supervisor, or even a Shepherd if they could pierce the security around those revered figures. In such cases the only option is euthanasia to remove the failed genotype from the gene pool. Once that messy business is ended we put all the offspring and relations the deceased Wolf might have under Stability observation for a month or more to ensure that their own genes have not resulted in an Instability as well, requiring either Rediting, their forcible removal from the gene pool, generally by sterilization, or sometimes both. Truth be told I think that the sterilization is probably not even needed. When the Fleece Rag gets done with the reputations of Wolf kin they have as much chance of breeding as a bug in a jar. Putting down these rabid characters has resulted in the Sheep respecting and even adoring D.O.G.s as heroes and preservers of order and peace. This makes the job much easier.
The only problem with such an image is that I have to live up to it. This can wear on a person after a while. It certainly wears thin for me. As I guide, guard, and protect the people of my area I can't help but watch what goes on around me. As I do so, I can't help but wonder if perhaps there is another way. Of course you never heard me say that. If you did I'm afraid you were hallucinating, which is a most Unstable trait indeed. You should know by now what happens to the Unstable.
As I go about my duties time and again I am confronted with situations that cause me to think. I am afraid that thinking is a bad habit of mine that has resisted all the GeneMasters' efforts to erase. Some of these thoughts verge on the Unstable, and yet I cannot deny them place in my mind. Most of them are my own, but not all of them, a state of affairs that I shall explain. About two months ago a Wolf began to stalk my area of the Metroplex. The Wolf had been known as Ng Ki-Lin V. 3 before he went rogue and had his claim to humanity revoked. Ng was an assistant secretary to the Supervisor of my area, and his genes had been prime candidates for upgrading into the GeneMaster Program until he had become Unstable. All considered, Ng was a very smart man in his mid-forties. He didn't use any of the tailored retro-viruses or designer drugs that are often used for recreation among Sheep, and he had never been known to engage in deviant behavior of any sort, not even in his youth. The only known quirk that he had was a predilection for books, and he was known as an avid reader of whatever he could get his hands on. His parents had similar characteristics, though their love of books was not nearly as rabid as Ng's. This all pointed to an innate Stability in Ng, books excepted, and his turn to predation was a shock to all who knew him.
The first nuhuman to be killed by Ng was the Population Supervisor that he had served so well for so long. This created a number of problems, not least of which was the fact that without a Supervisor to authorize additional resources from outside my area I could not call upon other D.O.G.s to help me hunt Ng down. Thus I was forced to track down the Wolf by myself. Had I been with others I think that I might have gone through this entire incident and simply written it up as another day's work. One does not think so much when one is in a group and instead can rely upon the collective intelligence to organize and coordinate the combined efforts of the members of the group. This makes it easy to simply rely on the established patterns of society to justify oneself and so there is no fear of accountability, removing the need to think before acting. But when one is alone one has time to think for oneself and come to one's own conclusions. In such a circumstance it is all too easy to find one's thoughts traveling down forbidden roads. As I said before, thinking is a bad habit of mine.
Ng may have been bookish by nature, but he was wiry and in good shape. In these days it is considered extremely low-class to be anything but in excellent physical condition, as this better shows off one's genetic potential. Despite this, however, a D.O.G. is more than a match for any normal human, and I was able to pick up his trail quickly. To explain what I mean by 'picking up his trail,' as part of the treatments I received in becoming a D.O.G. I had my senses boosted considerably, with the addition of new sensory pathways in my brain to allow me to use those heightened abilities. Because of these senses I was able to memorize Ng's scent and then follow him for some distance into the Metroplex Sprawl area. The Sprawls are where the last vestiges of the working-class dwell in as close to poverty as the Population Supervisors will allow. At this point I lost his scent in the haze of the Sprawl. One of the defining characteristics of these manual laborers is that they are almost universally stupid. The rest of the Metroplex may be made up of Sheep, but the Sprawl is made up of lazy, obstinate goats. From what I have seen of them, the Sprawlers don't work to better their situation (those that do quickly leave the Sprawl), and are complacent so long as they keep getting free handouts from the Supervisors. They do not listen, they do not learn, and they do not seem to care about anything, least of all cleanliness. Hence, I lost Ng's scent amid a swirl of wrappers, discarded beverage containers, and rolled tobacco and cannabis butts, things that I have never had to deal with in any other part of the Metroplex.
After some time spent wandering the Sprawl, ignoring the occasional taunt or jeer from the inhabitants of that area, I was eventually able to gain the cooperation of an older woman with a kindly face. She said her name was Martha Smith. This seemed an odd name to me, but I did not mention this thought. I was, after all, in a different culture, and it seemed wise to keep my mouth shut until I knew the local customs better. Martha was willing to help me because Ng had killed her husband. From what she told me in her broken Sprawlspeech, the Wolf had needed food, but being a nonhuman created problems in obtaining it by legal means. Thus, when he had reached the Sprawls Ng had waylaid the man Smith as the old Sprawler was on his way back from the Food Distribution Center. Since Smith refused to give up his dinner, Ng pushed him and grabbed the food while the man was down. I suppose it was not Ng's intention to kill Old Man Smith (as Martha called him), but he was elderly, and being pushed over fractured his hip. His demise followed shortly thereafter, a thing that I have never heard of among the Sheep. I can only assume that Sprawlers are more fragile than other humans and Ng had not anticipated this when he pushed the man. But intentional or not, the death toll of this Wolf had risen to two, and I decided that it would be best if I hurried before it rose any further.
After some talk (most of it from Martha, for I think that the old woman did not get much company and enjoyed having my ears to listen to her) Martha showed me around her area of the Sprawls and introduced me to some of her friends and acquaintances. Her age seemed to be a mark of merit and rank among the Sprawlers, and with her helping me I was able to question a number of them until I found out enough to locate Ng. He had been seen a few times heading toward the Shipping District and in the area surrounding the warehouses that lined the docks there. The Shipping District was where most of the Sprawlers worked, unpacking and shipping cargo from other Metroplexes where a robotic hand would be too clumsy. There were a vast number of places that a person could hide, making it a perfect home for a fugitive nonhuman. Once I knew his general location I left the Sprawls for the Shipping District, where robotic floor sweeps kept the docks and streets cleaned of all the debris left over by the Sprawlers. With the stench of garbage now replaced by the clean smell of crisp salt air, it was only a matter of time before I found Ng.
He was secreted away in a recently-built warehouse right next to the docks. It seemed like a perfect place to wait in hiding until a ship was ready to leave, whereupon Ng could have stowed away on an automated cargo craft and escaped to another Metroplex. Once in a place where he was not known he could use his extensive experience in Population Supervision to make a new life for himself, faking records and documents as needed until he was an accepted member of society again and beyond the reach of any D.O.G. At least, that is what I would have done if I had been in his circumstances, and these projections seemed perfectly in keeping with what I knew of Ng from the files kept on him. Files are kept on every person within the United Consolidation, Sheep and D.O.G. alike, from the moment of birth up to the date, place, and time of your cremation. All the better to prepare for situations like that which Ng had created.
I waited until the sun had slipped below the horizon, and then entered the warehouse through a skylight when the waxing moon slipped behind a cloud. D.O.G.s are one of the nuhuman types that have been equipped with several animalistic features, including claws and sharp teeth. These claws gave me ample purchase on the side of the building. Coupled with my enhanced muscle tissue grafts it was quite easy for me to pry the skylight open and then use my extensive training in stalking to slip noiselessly into the darkened building. Even if my eyes were not as light-sensitive as they are, D.O.G.s have senses and training that let us function in total darkness with very little difficulty. I could smell Ng quite distinctly as I moved around in the dark, and soon I could hear the slow, measured breathing that told me my quarry was asleep. Following the scent and sound, I soon came across a slim, middle-aged man with the slightly gold-tinted skin and slanted eyes of the Oriental genotype. His hair was a dark black with a few strands of silver just starting to make themselves known, and had much the same texture as the hair of a China doll I had once seen in a museum. As he slept the Wolf looked almost like a child, so relaxed were his features. It was hard to imagine him having been the cause for anyone's death, and had I not memorized his face from the pictures in his dossier I would never have guessed that he was a Wolf. He was wrapped in a loading tarp, using the stiff nylon fabric as a meager blanket to keep him from the chill of the night. A small two-shot pistol was resting near his head. It was the sort of weapon that one would expect to find among Sprawlers, some of whom I understand are able gunsmiths. As they are highly illegal, guns are never found among Sheep, and mere possession of such a weapon would result in immediate Rediting. Not even D.O.G.s carry weapons. Despite this, because of our enhancements and training we do not really need them, even when confronted with those carrying them. Still, not wanting to press my luck, I quietly lifted the gun from its place by Ng's head and threw it far behind me. It clanked noisily against the wall of the warehouse and then fell to the floor.
At this noise the Wolf was instantly awake, his hand grasping at the spot where his firearm had been. Not finding the gun, he rose to his feet in a flash and entered a combat-ready crouch as he saw me, his hands up and balled into fists. He took a step toward me and then his foot lashed out in a swift kick aimed at my solar plexus. I blocked the kick with a force that I knew would cause a painful bruise and then blocked a punch in the same manner. Ng was a surprisingly skilled fighter for a Sheep, and several other blows followed as he tried to get in close to grab me and put me into a lock that I knew would mean certain doom. I kept backing up as he came in, my genetically-enhanced reflexes keeping him from hitting me. Nevertheless, I knew such an occurrence could only be a matter of time if I wasn't careful. This Wolf was a good fighter, I think in a Tae Kwon Do variant, and I could tell that I would have to use extreme caution in putting him down. Situations such as this called for less civilized measures. But, of course, D.O.G.s are very well equipped for these occasions.
At the next punch I grabbed the extended fist and clamped my teeth down on the Wolf's exposed wrist, both hearing and feeling the bone crunch under my powerful jaws. Ng cried out in pain as blood started to spurt from his arm. In that moment of distraction I struck out with my open hand, my claws raking across his throat. I could see from the marks I left that I had almost cut his jugular veins, missing by a hair's width. Obviously I had fallen out of practice, for I should have finished my adversary with that strike. Still, it took all the fight out of him. The Wolf stumbled backwards and sat down heavily on his tarp blanket, holding his neck with his good hand. I began to move forward, the blood in my mouth already starting to cloud my rational mind as I entered my Death Sequence, ready to finish the job I had begun.
"Stop, Dog," said Ng calmly, holding up his good hand. "I wish to say my last words."
I stopped. In all the times I have fought Wolves, not one of them has ever wished to talk with me. All they wanted was blood, to strike out at, destroy, and cause pain to all that lived and was Stable in this world. Now a Wolf, a nonhuman monster, wanted to speak. If I had been with others I would not have heeded him, and his lifeblood would have stained my claws and splashed across the warehouse floor as the Death Sequence ran its course. But I was alone, and this strange behavior from a Wolf intrigued me.
"Speak then, Wolf," I said, taking deep breaths to regain control of my mind and body, suppressing the bloodlust that seeks to possess me when I let the darker side of my nature take over. Letting my civilized self go gives me all the animal savagery of a brute beast and grants both superhuman strength and an incredible resilience. But on the downside it makes it very hard to keep myself in rational control of my actions. I suppose this is a flaw in the design of D.O.G.s, but since it only manifests when we hunt Wolves, almost the only real fighting we ever do, the GeneMasters have never seen a need to fix it. As part of this savagery, we D.O.G.s enter into a 'hunter's trance,' so to speak, as we stalk and bring down the Wolves that are our prey. We call this trance the Death Sequence because once we have entered it we cannot leave until our target is terminated. It frightens me to think of it, and we try to never let Sheep see us when we are in such a mode. That would end any illusions they might entertain about the heroic nature of our job in a very short span of time indeed.
Ng seemed to realize that I would only be able to hold myself back temporarily and so he wasted no time as he began to speak. What he said changed me forever.
"I did not intend to become a Wolf, D.O.G.," he began, "but it is nevertheless what has happened. You know all about me from my files, I know, so I need not bore you with details of that nature. I only wish to explain myself, and what caused me to become what I am now. You see, D.O.G. I was not seeking to escape to another Metroplex, as I expect you thought. I was seeking to escape to the Outlands."
I shook my head in confusion.
"That makes no sense," I told the Wolf. "Why would you seek for the Outlands? There is only wilderness there, and the Outlanders are the only humans that know how to survive in the wilderness."
"That's right, D.O.G.," said Ng with a grin. "Only the Outlanders. That was exactly what I intended to become."
"What?" I exclaimed without thinking. I admit to having heard a number of strange notions from Wolves in the past, but this one beat them all. Ng only smiled sadly as he began to explain.
"There is a natural order in this world, D.O.G., with laws, checks, and balances. In the world of Nature, natural selection finds those who are most fit for survival and raises them up while putting down those who are less fit. Of course, you know that already."
"Indeed I do," I told him, showing him my teeth. "Every schoolchild knows what you have told me, even among Sheep."
"Then you also know that we humans are beyond the bounds of nature," said the Wolf, "For that is also what they teach us in school. Our entire history is a struggle to overcome the obstacles that this world pitted against us, and that we pitted against each other. From that struggle arose the technology that we enjoy today. But as our technology grew, so did our escape from the demands of the natural order. Thus even the least fit among human society were allowed to breed and run rampant, often overtaking whole populations with their inferior genes."
"Yes, I know," I said to the Wolf. "Those dark times were not too long ago, when there were no Shepherds to watch over the flocks of humanity. Chaos, confusion, disharmony, and war were all that resulted from this neglect for the laws of selection that nature set for itself. But now we have Shepherds, and the nuhumans, and even the Sheep from whence you came, Wolf. Because nature could not contain humanity, we have taken a new mode of selection upon ourselves. In that new mode we have prospered."
"With the prosperity to be expected before the slaughter," said Ng with an agreeable nod. "Let me tell you a story about one of humankind's first eugenics projects: raising sheep. Sheep in the wild have long legs to help them run away from their predators. That is the natural order. But when humans took it into their heads to keep animals with them so that they would not have to hunt, long legs made it very hard to control those animals. After all, you cannot herd a beast that runs away from you. Thus, those first shepherds began to select and breed those sheep with shorter legs, choosing a path other than that of nature to suit their ends. This worked well to make sheep slower and easier to control, but it also made it easier for predators to raid the flocks of the humans. A human shepherd can't run fast enough to stop a predator that has its heart set on a mutton dinner. Because of this, those early shepherds captured some of the wild dogs that had been preying on their sheep and bred them into their especial servants. These were their good right arms in protecting and guiding their flocks."
I growled.
"I do not like the implications of your story, Wolf."
Ng gave a tired shrug, cradling his mangled arm.
"That matters little to me, for I am almost finished. For a different kind of Sheep there are different Shepherds, and Shepherds need their D.O.G.s. But what are the long legs of these new Sheep? Well, thinking for yourself is one of them."
I could only blink at him in surprise as he smiled inscrutably at me.
"I've read your file just as you've read mine, and I know all about your idiosyncrasies that give the GeneMasters such fits. My reason for going to the Outlands, my D.O.G. friend, is because I wanted to find a place that used the old rules of selection. That seems to be the lesser of the two evils offered to me. The Supervisor found out about my plans and found my way of thinking disturbing. He was going to turn me in for Rediting. In essence, he was going to have me hollowed out and then put my empty, docile shell back to work. A very neat method indeed: killing without losing the skills of the one killed. But I killed him first."
"You sought to let the natural rules take you?" I asked, intrigued. "But what if that meant your death? What if you did not prove fit enough to survive? Here at least you were guaranteed a place of high importance in the Metroplex food chain."
"Perhaps what you say is true. But I was not happy at the top of the 'food chain,' as you call it. You see, in all my reading I have come upon a question that has disturbed me no end. It gnaws at me night and day, driving me to seek an escape, to somehow find a better way. Now I shall leave this question with you, and we shall see how you fare under its burden. In the story I told you there was a selection of traits deemed desirable. But one can't help but wonder: who decides what is a desirable trait? The Sheep? Or the Shepherds?"
I killed him then. Though I wish to blot it from my mind, I cannot forget a single grisly detail of what I did as I let the Death Sequence run its course. When it was over I waited until the Shipping District Manager arrived to open the docks for the work to be done that day. He was a fellow nuhuman, and so it was easy for me to get him to let me use his primitive telephone to call in. I reported my mission as being complete and successful, and then requested a cleanup crew. They arrived in short order, and I rode back to headquarters with them. It had already been a long day, though it had just started, and there was much that still needed to be done.
There were many who questioned my reasoning in saving the boy, but I thought the matter through quite carefully before proceeding with a rescue operation. All things considered, I found it to be an expedient action. You have probably read about the incident in the Fleece Rag, though perhaps not. I don't believe what the newspapers tell us anymore, not since the United Consolidation took over the last free presses, and I don't blame anyone who feels the same. I might have to bring you in to be Redited if I ever found out, though. The article went as follows:
2-10-2273 THE GAZETTE .30 Nucreds
C.O.T.G. MEETING DISRUPTED
By Hatwood Thoroughbred Version 2
Hundreds were shocked yesterday evening as young Marcellus Thoroughbred Version 1 disturbed members of the Church of the One True Genome when he walked into the middle of one of their ceremonies being conducted in Mendel Park. The members of the Church had scheduled the park area as their own several weeks in advance, and were conducting their services as usual in the law-abiding and rational manner characteristic of members of that sect. Marcellus, who lives only a short distance from the Park, was playing quietly with some of his friends until he somehow developed the notion that he wanted to know what the C.O.T.G. members were doing. According to his parents, Diocletian and Aletha Thoroughbred Version 1, Marcellus had been told repeatedly that he shouldn't go to the Park that day. Disregarding their orders, Marcellus left his playmates and climbed over the gate leading into the Park. It seems he went undetected for some minutes, but was eventually noticed by the participants in the C.O.T.G. ritual and accosted. The situation quickly deteriorated as Marcellus became both unreasonable and unmanageable. Fortunately for the peace of the neighborhood, Marcellus' friends acted properly and reported his behavior to their parents, who promptly called in the nearest Demographic Organizational Genotype, Prometheus 27. D.O.G. P-27 responded immediately and retrieved the erring youth from Mendel Park after calming the justifiably troubled C.O.T.G. congregation. Marcellus has since been returned to his parents, and they are seriously considering Behavior / Personality Reconditioning-Editing to correct the undesirable characteristics that have recently surfaced in their offspring. This author wishes to add that no Thoroughbred Version 2 has ever demonstrated such disgraceful behavioral anomalies such as Marcellus did during this episode. Thank the Shepherds for genetic progress.
Perhaps you did not catch all the writing between the lines in the previous article. The very nature of my job means that I have extensive experience in reading between lines, and I shall tell you what really happened at Mendel Park that day. Marcellus, an eleven-year-old boy, was curious because he was not allowed to go to the Park as was his normal practice in the early evening. He was also curious about what the Church of the One True Genome was doing, since they are very strict in keeping their rites secret. As the C.O.T.G. is also the state religion, it is not wise to pry into their activities. Not even D.O.G.s like myself can interfere with their ceremonies, whatever they may be. Nevertheless, Marcellus wanted to find out what was going on, and so he crept into the Park much as described in the article, though the complete truth is that he went through a hole in the gate instead of over it. That piece of information was omitted since it implied that the Supervisors don't take care of public grounds as well as they should. He was noticed after some time, and a mob formed shortly thereafter. The Nomes, as they are called informally, are well known among the D.O.G. community as trouble, since they tend to be skittish in large numbers and can turn dangerous very quickly. If I hadn't been informed as promptly as I was I doubt that the child would have survived more than a minute, perhaps two.
When I arrived the situation had indeed deteriorated, as the article said. From what I understand the boy first stepped out in the middle of the ceremony and asked the leader of the congregation what the congregation was doing. This was the 'unreasonable' behavior mentioned in the preceding article. His 'unmanageable' behavior came when he was grabbed by a nearby male member of the congregation and reacted by hitting the Nome in a very sensitive area (when I hear of such incidents I always consider it a blessing that, thanks to standard D.O.G. surgical modifications, my own 'sensitive area' is safely tucked away inside my body cavity). When others grabbed him and the angry crowd started to turn ugly the boy began to cry. This also qualified as 'unmanageable' behavior, though certainly not unreasonable under the boy's circumstances. That was when I arrived.
I had never been to a C.O.T.G. meeting before, preferring to keep my skepticism (an Instability, but a manageable one) while paying lip service to the official religion of the Shepherds. Perhaps I should have been more religious and shown a little more faith in my creators, but I guess there just isn't a gene for religiosity. If there was, the GeneMasters would have made sure I got a double dose of it before I got out of my vat. Despite not being religious, and hence never having had dealings with the secret meetings of the C.O.T.G., I think I reacted rather well upon first entering the open-air amphitheater at the center of the park. The leader was dressed all in red, with a green coif upon his uncombed pate (I later learned from some discrete questioning that these symbolized blood and nerve tissue respectively), while the lay members were dressed in blue, which is the color of the light that illuminates the vats when a Nuhuman is ready to be birthed, and the older members were dressed in red without a coif. Deciding to overlook the extensive symbolism that I knew was present in the many candelabra and smoking censers in the shape of test tubes, I walked quickly to where a knot of red and blue robed Nomes were standing, all talking at once and making a noise to drown out Central Square, and yelled at them to get their attention.
"Hold and give an accounting."
The crowd fell silent in an instant. Seeing me, the red-and-green clad high priest turned and addressed me in a strange sing-song voice, as though he were addressing a congregation instead of just myself.
"Ah, so we are saved by the appearance of one of our most noble protectors and benefactors, the D.O.G.s." He pointed a bony, accusing finger at a hunched, sobbing figure near the center of the knot of robed people. "We beseech you to aid in restoring order and Stability to this wayward lad so that my flock may continue its worship of the Shepherds and their ideals in peace. He has behaved both unmanageably and unreasonably, and we call upon you to bring the full wrath of the Shepherds down upon him."
I nodded, smiling kindly at the priest and his whole congregation as I walked toward the boy. The crowd parted before me in submissive silence, though a number of the Nomes gave the huddled figure several scathing looks that I thought were ill-fitting for the religious. I doubted they would have appreciated this observation had I mentioned this to them, though. Wrapoing one of my arms around the boy's waist and lifting him easily onto my shoulders, his legs draped on either side of my neck, I turned and addressed the crowd.
"I shall see to it that the disturbance is quelled and that all is restored to its proper order. Until I am next needed, may the Shepherds be with you, and let your ceremony continue in peace."
"May the Shepherds be with you," the congregation intoned in unison as I left.
When I had passed the gates of the park I set the boy down and knelt in front of him, putting my hands on his shoulders. He looked at the ground, his eyes still puffy and his face still red from crying. He gave a sob as I squeezed his shoulders reassuringly, then tilted his head up with one hand to look him in the eyes.
"Are you all right?"
The boy blinked, surprised at my question. Apparently nobody had ever asked him that before.
"I . . . I guess so, sir," he replied after a moment of thought. "I'm sorry for what I did, sir. I didn't mean to make everybody mad."
I smiled, making sure to keep my teeth under my lips. No sense scaring the boy, after all.
"What is your name?"
"Marcellus, sir."
"My name is Prometheus 27, or P-27 if you prefer. You may dispense with 'sir.' As to what you did, you have done nothing wrong. Do not let it trouble you."
Marcellus looked confused.
"But . . . why did they get so mad at me, P-27?"
I shrugged.
"I do not know everything, Marcellus. Only that you should not do that again, if only to avoid making the Church angry at you again. How did you get in there in the first place?"
Marcellus pointed to a bush that had grown through the fence.
"There's a hole in the fence behind that bush," he said. "I got through that way."
"I see," I said, scratching my chin. "Thank you for that information. I am sorry to take away your secret passage, but the Population Supervisor will have to send a crew in to repair the hole. Where do you live? I shall walk you home."
Marcellus took my hand, and together we went to his home. His parents both worked, however, and so I walked with him back to my Outpost in the middle of Central Square and waited for them to get back. A D.O.G. Outpost is the small guard and housing facility we use to live in and watch over an area. An Outpost is our home, and each one is equipped with a number of television sets connected to several hidden cameras all over our Areas, a radio transmitter / receiver for communicating with other Areas and with the Population Supervisor when he wants something done, and an emergency beacon. The beacon reacts whenever a person or group's cardiotack rises above a certain level in a time unregistered as an exercise period. We D.O.G.s can keep track of this because with the rise of the Shepherds it has become mandatory to have a biomonitor implanted in each Sheep shortly after birth. This makes it possible for us D.O.G.s to better take care of our Sheep. This is how I was called in to save Marcellus in the first place, and I spent the next several minutes explaining it to him, and how I did my job. He was interested for all of an hour, which I thought was quite good for a child, since my own interest in such matters only lasts three hours. After that we amused ourselves by reading from my secret stash of books until Marcellus' parents returned home, whereupon I walked the boy back home.
I was quite pleased that the incident with the Nomes had gone as well as it did. This was not so much because of the 'peace of the neighborhood,' as the article above said, but because there would have been a cleanup and coverup if the child had died. Unless you have ever been a part of a GeneMaster coverup project, you cannot possibly appreciate the intense organizational headaches they cause. I have taken part in four thus far, and I do not like them one bit.
Yet even with the danger of having to form a coverup, there were a few in the GeneMaster hierarchy who questioned my wisdom in allowing Marcellus Thoroughbred Version 1 to continue existence, and possibly pass on his 'behavioral anomalies' to his children. That would, after all, be defeating the whole point of the GeneMaster Program of the United Consolidation: to perfect the Human species by encouraging desirable traits and discouraging undesirable ones. The first person I heard such a sentiment from was my friend, Achilles 31. We had first met many years ago at the Academy, and I usually trusted his assessment of situations. This time, however, I had already formed my opinion and saw no further need to shape it. A-31 was followed by several others in short order through the following week, making it readily apparent that my decision had not been a popular one among the Powers That Be.
Despite the opposition, I responded in a diplomatic manner in my report of the situation. I took especial care to play up the benefits of avoiding another coverup, while at the same time playing down the very existence of a small boy who happened to display the undesirable characteristic of curiosity. Hence, Marcellus gets to keep both his life and his genes, and I get to keep my current position. In fact, after my report was read and all the details were known to my superiors, I was given an Official Recognition by the Shepherds for my actions. Needless to say, that increased the desirability of my own genes no end.
You may now be asking what this has to do with anything. Were you to ask such a question I would reply 'Nothing at all,' and then have you put under observation for a week or two to ensure that you were Stable. But since you haven't asked I will tell you. I have been thinking long and hard since my meeting with Ng, and I have found that I cannot deny the truth in what he said. Saving the boy was only the first of what is now a long chain of minor, seemingly unrelated events in my Area that have preserved the lives, genes, and Stability of several humans who would otherwise have been lost in the whirl of societal purification. You see, there is much that a lone D.O.G. can do to control the Sheep in his Area, and even more when the Supervisor sent to replace the one killed by Ng is young and inexperienced. She has not given me much trouble, which has made me the almost undisputed master of this area. In time I think that a new order will arise, a new breed of humanity. I let Marcellus live because I am no longer certain that Sheep should keep their short, incurious, unimaginative, legs. Perhaps the best course would be to help them grow wings. I have heard it said that pigs may fly. Why not Sheep?
The one problem that has thrown my plans off kilter is the introduction of the two-D.O.G. system. Almost a year after analyzing the problem caused by the loss of a Supervisor, most specifically the inability to move D.O.G.s from one place to another when they are needed, the Shepherds decided to place two D.O.G.s to one area. Achilles 31 has become my partner, and it has been hard keeping the wool over his eyes, so to speak. I have given much thought to what I have decided to do with my Sheep, and I cannot allow any interference while my project is still in its infant stages. Achilles 31 is a straight arrow, which was the reason I like him. Honesty and integrity are hard to come by, and so I trust and respect those like A-31 who possess these traits. But he is also a law-abiding nuhuman, a worshiper of the Shepherds. Though I have tried to speak with him of the matters that gnaw at my soul, he cannot understand them. The GeneMaster Project that made us and rules us is the only way he knows, and he will not waver from it. I fear that something will have to be done about my old friend. It is my fervent wish that it will not have to be the Death Sequence.
For the first time in my life, I have started to pray. I only hope that someone hears me.
Transmission of File P-23-Y18 Complete
Requesting File P-23-Y18: Shepherd Bartlett's Synopsis
Request received and cleared
Transmitting File
The loss of Achilles 31 from active duty was truly a tragedy, and one for which we are all deeply sorry. This tragedy is made all the more horrible because the deed was committed by one of those who we had thought above corruption. Never before has a D.O.G. shed the blood of another D.O.G. While we can take some comfort in the fortune that has allowed Achilles 31 to remain alive, he is quite crippled and shall never be of any use as a D.O.G. ever again, except for breeding purposes.
I know that you thought quite highly of the D.O.G. known as Prometheus 27, Shepherd Herculaen. That one of our most skilled and intelligent nuhumans should become so totally Unstable without our knowledge is both tragic and horrific. P-27 is beyond our ability to control any longer. He even seems to have overcome the Death Sequence limitations we had imposed on his kind. Impossible as it may seem, P-27 did not kill A-31, despite all the readings of his biomonitor that indicate his entrance into the Death Sequence after Achilles 31 confronted him with what he had learned about P-27's heretical notions. We shall have to impose stricter indoctrination methods in our D.O.G. training programs. After all, if we lose the D.O.G.s we have lost everything, for no shepherd can maintain order in the flock without a dog.
When last seen, P-27 had fought his way clear of the docks bordering the African Outlands, despite extensive measures to contain him. According to reports from the trading post on the outskirts of that land, P-27 has set himself up as the leader of a tribe of Outlanders, and they are steadily building up their power base in the area. What the end result of this drama shall be I do not know. But this much I do know: we Shepherds are no longer the undisputed masters of the fate of the human genome. I fear, my friend, that Nature is taking back what we humans stole from it so long ago. We are witnessing the end of an age. Herculaen, what is to become of us? I am afraid.
End Transmission of File P-23-Y18: Shepherd Bartlett's Synopsis
Log Off? Yes
Goodbye, Shepherd Herculaen