CHAPTER 25

“Fuck me with flaming floss,” Brannigan said as he helped me secure the camera on Kenji, the one he’d originally placed on the front of Cannon 15.

“Look at it this way,” I said “now I’m not that mad you were spying on me, since we can use the camera.”

“If you’d been that mad, you would have taken off the camera by now.”

Kenji barked and said, “Naneun seongyosalo naganda!”

“That’s right, buddy,” I patted his head. “You’re going on a mission.”

Brannigan squatted in front of his metal mutt and placed his hands at either side of Kenji’s face. “Now listen to me, dog, you’re to get in there and grab the glowing ashes. If you sense anything dangerous, you run your metal ass back here as fast as you can. You understand me?”

Kenji barked and winked one of his digital eyes.

Afu and the others finished opening the hole as much as they could. Further in, Kenji would be on his own, with one of us guiding him via a voice program on a holoreader. Naveena took off her helmet and smeared sweat across her forehead with the back of her armored forearm.

We really needed to invest in some towels.

“We’ve done all we can, Chief. If Kenji is ready, we are, too.”

Brannigan huffed, looked at the ground and whispered a “Goddamn it,” before rising to his feet and whistling for Kenji to follow him.

Afu and Calvinson were smart and got out of Chief’s way as he climbed up the FreeEnergy debris. I’d never seen Brannigan worried before. He’d always hated droids and the idea of them replacing jobs. Kenji and mecha-canines like him had replaced the dogs that had run off just before the dragons showed up, but that was different. At least to Brannigan’s mind. And he might have told me that it was because Bethany loved Kenji, that she’d be heartbroken if anything happened to him, but I knew the truth: Brannigan had a soft spot for the dog-shaped automaton, and Chief would be the one crying if Kenji got buried under the rubble or, worse, if the phoenix came back and melted Kenji beyond repair or recognition.

Hell, I’d feel just as bad. I liked the dog, but this was my idea. If it went south, I’d be responsible. It would be another tick on the list of reasons why I didn’t need to be a captain. Or a smoke eater.

But I stopped myself from thinking like that. Superstition and experience said that you couldn’t lose your cool when you were in the heat of the moment. Success had to be the only thought on your mind.

But that didn’t help the empty, twisty feeling in my guts.

I sat down on the bumper of Cannon Truck 15 and dragged the holoreader application into the air. The video from Kenji’s computer showed clear, with only a brief jostle of static when Kenji looked at the hole and then Brannigan, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to do the job after all.

“You’ll be fine, boy,” Brannigan said. “I only wish you could eat, so there’d be a treat in it for you after you get back.”

“Neuj-eun bam Meogileul bogehago geolae ya,” Kenji said with electronic panting.

“He says it’s a deal if you let him watch the late-night Feed,” I said through my holoreader’s microphone. “And the good stuff, none of that cutto-commercial sleaze.”

“Damn it, Williams,” Brannigan stared into the camera. “I was trying to have a private moment with my dog.” He looked at Kenji. “And that’s fine, Kenji, as long as Sherry or Bethany don’t know about it.”

The promise of tawdry movies sent the metal dog rushing into the hole.

“Turn on your light, Kenji,” I said.

With a click, light filled the tunnel. The path was clear for the first dozen feet, but Kenji stopped when he came to a wall of metal blocking the way.

Harribow leaned over my shoulder, watching the footage. “What’s that pup going to do now?”

“Get through, Kenji,” I said. “If you can.”

The dog looked down at his front paws and barked. Claws popped out of the smooth metal of his toes with a spring-like shing.

“I didn’t even know he had those,” Brannigan said, rushing over to watch.

Kenji used his claws to shred into the metal in front of him until he’d made a hole big enough to squeeze through. After that there wasn’t much in his way, other than a few more tight squeezes he quickly maneuvered. Then he was in the main part of the arena, where we’d left the jabberwock and phoenix to their demise.

“All right, Kenji,” I said. “The ashes should be somewhere over that railing. They’ll be glowing yellow, so you can’t miss them.”

“Aren’t dogs colorblind?” Afu walked over, rubbing his shoulder.

We all turned and looked at him.

“What?” Afu said.

I turned back to my holoreader. “Go on, Kenji. The sooner you find it, the sooner you can get back.”

Kenji leapt over a pile of rubble and nimbly hopped down the rest of it until he got to the railing overlooking the field.

“How can he get down there?” Calvinson asked.

Naveena shrugged. “He can always jump.”

“Are you fucking crazy,” said Brannigan. “That’s my dog!”

“And how would he get back up?” Afu asked.

“Kenji,” I said. “Do you see a way down to the field?” The dog looked left then right. It bent over and began ‘sniffing’ at the edge of the railing, as if the robot could actually smell. But it was one of those built-in quirks that made him more dog-like. Hell, it might have been helping him find a route, so I didn’t stop him.

Kenji snapped his head up and began running. I almost thought another dragon had emerged nearby and that Kenji was running for his artificial life, but then the camera showed him coming up to a fallen and half-smashed advertisement board selling cannabis popsicles. The board extended down to the field like a ramp leaning against the top railing. Kenji had to jump over the part where the board had splintered in two, and if he wasn’t careful, the whole thing would shift and fall over. Then he’d be stuck down there.

“Careful,” said Brannigan, also seeing the wobbly surface of the advertisement.

“Neoui gaseum-eul jinjeong sikyeola,” Kenji said.

Translation: “Calm your breasts.”

Although I’m pretty sure he meant ‘tits.’

When the dog made it down to the field, it scanned the surrounding area. I spotted a yellow glow coming from Kenji’s right, and before I had to point it out to him, Kenji ran for it.

“Scoop it all up in your mouth,” I said. “Then run back here like a good boy.”

Naveena huffed a laugh through her nose. “You guys know you don’t have to talk like that to him, right? I don’t even think it was necessary to speak to real dogs like that.”

“Save your shit, Naveena,” Brannigan said. Kenji stopped suddenly. He was just short of the glowing ashes and wasn’t taking a step farther. Something was wrong.

“What’s wrong, Kenji?” I asked.

The dog made a yipping whine, partially warbled by digital static. The video showed nothing to be worried about. Maybe Kenji was having second thoughts, considering his existence, the sudden realization, like a bomb dropped onto his chrome skull that his world could end right then and there.

“It’s okay, boy,” I said. “Just grab the ashes and run.”

Kenji lifted a paw, hesitated to move it forward, then began taking slow steps toward the phoenix ashes.

“Something has him freaked out,” said Brannigan, under his breath. “Nothing ever gets to Kenji.”

The dog bent over to scoop the ashes into his mouth when the embers ignited and spread out like two fiery wings.

An avian shriek ripped from my holoreader speakers as I screamed, “Kenji run!”

Run he did, God love him. He scaled that broken Canna-Pop ad in less than two seconds, leaping over the railing as the board fell beneath his feet.

Kenji’s shadow was outrunning him, swaying ahead in the camera’s view, the product of the brightening fire closing in behind him. When he reached the top, Brannigan’s dog leapt through the hole leading from the arena into the tunnel, and that’s when the video feed shattered into snowy static.

“No!” Chief got to his feet and ran, power jumping to the hole we’d sent his dog down.

I followed right behind him.

“Fuck, Williams,” Brannigan said as he stared down into the dark, waiting for any sign of Kenji. “You just had to do this your way.”

Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. Brannigan was grieving his dog – granted way too early – and I should have let him be angry. But that wasn’t the way I rolled.

“I don’t want anything to happen to Kenji either, Chief. But what else were we going to do?”

“Our SOPs say–”

“Oh, fuck your SOPs!”

That shut Brannigan up… for a second. He didn’t speak again until his face was redder than Renfro’s eyes and a sheen of oily sweat covered it. “Now, you look here, goddamn it. I put you in your position. I can just as quickly put you back.”

“You want to move us around like your private collection of chess pieces, go ahead. I ain’t going to be a part of it! I should have quit before that fucking smaug dug itself out of the ground.”

“Smoke eaters don’t quit,” Brannigan said, more sad now than angry. “Forget all of the breathing toxic smoke shit. We keep going, we keep fighting, that’s what separates us from regular people.”

“But now you can farm that quality out of anybody, old man. A little shot of dragon blood and you can have your pick of anyone you want. So don’t get sentimental with me. I made a call. I own it. It was the best decision at the–”

Barking from the hole.

“Kenji!” Brannigan screamed into the dark.

A flashlight’s glow, dim and the size of a firefly, shook left and right deep within the stadium rubble. The earth shook. Behind us, Afu, who had been rubbing the back of his leg with the other foot, fell over with a grunt. The other smokies dropped into a squat. Naveena extended her laser sword.

Toward the center of the destruction, the top layer exploded as flames shot into the sky. The phoenix had risen again. It shrieked once before buzzing over us like a jet fighter, but not low enough for any smoke eater to power jump and slash it – although Naveena tried. Then the firebird was gone. And we were back to square one. Again.

How the hell do you kill something that doesn’t stay dead?

“This try-fail cycle stuff is some annoying shit,” Renfro said, dropping to his ass in defeat.

Brannigan reached into the hole and pulled Kenji out, cradling the dog in his arms. “Son of a bitch, Kenji. You’re one hot potato.”

Dropping from Brannigan’s arms, Kenji weakly trotted over to me. The phoenix fire must have really taken it out of him, but the best thing to do was to let his metal cool slowly. Rapidly cooling him down with foam or ice would have jacked his frame and circuits.

“It’s okay, boy,” I said, patting him on his back. I quickly yanked my hand away, sucking air through my teeth. The heat coming off him was brutal. “You tried. We’ll get that damned bird next time.”

Kenji’s eyes winked at me and he bent over, depositing something from his mouth onto the ground.

It was a clump of glowing ashes.

“Holy shit!” I lifted Kenji and swung him around in a clumsy dance. I didn’t even care how much the heat stung.

“He… did it,” Harribow stumbled toward me, giving a weak smile.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Just a… little hot,” he said, and dropped onto his face.

He didn’t get back up.