After that things got confusing. The police, two fire trucks, Gilly, and my father arrived all at once, bringing with them a thousand questions. Billy and I both tried to explain what had happened. At first Gilly was upset about Billy hijacking and wrecking his AG-3601, but once he heard that Rausch had taken me prisoner, he had to admit that it had been necessary. My dad seemed mostly mad that we’d come out there on our own. The cops went chasing after Rausch. The firefighters ran around looking for fires and were disappointed not to find any. Right around then, Brazie woke up. He staggered to his feet and took off after the firefighters—I think he was offended by their bright yellow slickers. They scrambled up onto the fire truck. Brazie stamped and snorted and looked around for someone else to gore. The rest of us took refuge in the lab building, where Gilly immediately went to work on Rausch’s computer.
“I like you,” said the goat, its eyes fixed on Gilly. “Feed me!”
“Do you think Gilly’s memories are in that goat?” I whispered to Billy.
“I hope not. He’s still getting over everybody thinking he was a Sasquatch.”
Gilly said, “We have a problem. Rausch managed to delete several files from his servers.”
“And he took his memory machine with him,” I said.
“How big is this thing?” my dad asked.
“It’s like a big toaster. And the thing he attaches to your head is a bike helmet with a bunch of wires.”
“We’ll get him,” my dad said. “Is there anything else we should know?”
“There was a file called Client Key on his computer. Is that still there?”
“I don’t see it,” Gilly said. “Why?”
“I looked at it before Rausch caught me snooping. It was a list of people he had rauschinated.”
“Rauschinated?”
“That’s what he calls what he does. He calls the bike helmet thing a Rauschinator. He fills up people’s heads with books and then sticks their memories in animals. There were a bunch of initials on the list I saw, including yours and Billy’s.” I looked at my dad. “Yours too. And after each one were some Latin words and some numbers. Like for Billy it was . . . ” I closed my eyes and tried to remember. “I think it was Canis lupus familiaris zero two.”
Billy said, “Isn’t Canis lupus familiaris the Latin name for a dog?”
“That’s right,” Gilly said. “I’ll bet the number identifies the specific dog.”
“It’s Gertrude,” I said. “Gertrude was with Rausch when he came over to your house and . . . well . . . Gertrude really likes me.” I might have been blushing. I looked at Billy. He was blushing too.
“I hate you,” said the cat.
“All of them have collars with tags,” my dad said. He was over by the cages looking at the animals. “The cocker spaniel is number three, the Yorkie is number one, and the cat . . . ”
The cat hissed and backed into the corner of its cage. “I hate you.”
“I can’t read the cat’s collar, and I’m not sticking my hand in there. The goat’s tag says oh one. Ginger, do you remember any more of the list you saw?”
“I saw the initials X.Z., so I suppose that’s Mr. Zlotnick. And it said what memories were downloaded—American history for Billy, ‘Evangeline’ for you, and some drone code for Gilly. I don’t remember the rest. A few of them had something about a king. I wonder where the rest of the animals are.”
“Has anyone looked in the barn?” my dad said. He looked out the door. “I’d check, but I’m not sure I’m fast enough to outrun that bull.”
“You’re not,” I said. “But you could use this.” I pulled the Projac from my pocket and handed it to him.
His mouth fell open. “Where did you get this?”
“From Mr. Rausch.”
My dad looked at Gilly. “This is the missing prototype.”
“It takes five shots to knock out Brazie,” I said.
“You used this on the bull?”
“I used it on Mr. Rausch, too,” I said proudly. “Only he didn’t stay down long.”
My dad gave me the Look. “Ginger, you cannot go around shooting people with an experimental weapon. You might have killed him!”
“He started it,” I said.
Dad pocketed the Projac and said, “Be that as it may . . . ” It was one of those things he said when he didn’t know what to say. He went to the door and looked outside.
“If we don’t do something about Brazie, we’ll be stuck here forever,” I said.
“One of the fire crew has managed to get into the cab,” he said. “They’re driving through the main gate . . . they’re on the road now, and the bull is chasing them.”
I ran to the door and looked out in time to see the fire truck—and Brazie—disappearing into the sunset.