Two Dogs

I have two dogs.

I would call Cade the brains and Bucephalus the brawn, but they are both frightfully smart. And uncannily strong.

My mother and my classmates alike chide me for walking home by myself after my evening shift. I have nothing to fear, I tell them, with my dogs to protect me—which is truer than they know.

Tonight, I am walking across campus sometime after eleven, in the dark between streetlights. 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 some things I’m not sure I want to know.

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

It occurs to me 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--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.

Perhaps it would have been a mugging, or another violating kind of assault. That’s entirely too likely to happen late at night on a college campus. Perhaps the crime would have been more…exotic. I do not ask, nor do I ask what became of my would-be attacker.

I did ask—once. My dogs will 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.

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.” Even I realize how petulant my voice sounds. I’m whining to a dog.

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

I follow, defeated, but I know he’s right. Cell cultures don’t care what time it is, and I have a limited window to record my 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.

My passcard gives me access to the immunology lab at any hour. Like cell cultures, graduate students rarely keep regular nine to five hours. Dogs aren’t allowed in the lab, of course, and they both shimmer off into the darkness. Even if I’m by myself, I won’t be left unguarded.

Everyone dreams of curing cancer, but the truth is, cancer isn’t a thing. Or rather, it isn’t one thing. There are as many types of cancer as there are cells. The key is to find out what causes one particular type of cell to grow abnormally, and we can unlock the key to one type of cancer. My work is only one piece of a very large puzzle.

The incubator's nighttime light casts an eerie green glow across the lab as I pull out tonight’s plates. I could turn on the overhead light, but the otherworldly green is enough to see by. My cell cultures are thriving, happily munching on their agar. I record colony size, color change of the agar, rate of nutrient utilization. Everything is progressing as planned.

The next phase, which I’ve scheduled to start soon, will be more complex, adding various chemicals to the agar and measuring the cells’ genetic reaction to them.

I go to replace the plates back into the incubator, and something makes me pause. I look toward the autoclave. It would be so easy. I could quit this particular experiment; I could possibly even quit school. I could live a simpler life.

Would I be allowed to?

I’m leaving the lab--my plates safely back in their incubator--and both dogs materialize beside me. As they escort me down the steps, they both suddenly stand at attention, ears pricked and noses pointed, very still.

“Again?” I ask. “What is it now?”

Nothing, Cade says, relaxing after a moment. The time grows nearer. We must be cautious.

They won’t tell me 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, that I know it will involve t-cell lymphocytes—my dutiful cell cultures—and that this discovery will cause a cascade of breakthroughs that will lead to a change in the physiology of humanity itself.

I will be responsible for the next stage of human evolution.

And a radical faction of post-humans, sometime in the future, will decide this should never have happened. 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 silent secret cold war that swirls around me. My dogs have said they will not lie to me, but I know they do not tell me everything.

I am the heart of this conflict, yet I am insulated. I see none of it, and I don’t ask. I try not to reflect on the danger that surrounds me. 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 sure of it.