Chance seems like he’s in shock, but I can’t tell if it’s from being pursued all over Santa Monica, or because I was giving him directions. He locks up his bike, then stares at me wide-eyed.
“Can you understand me, Wild?”
There are strangers all around us, and I’m afraid to draw any attention, so I play dumb, sniffing the ground and looking this way and that.
“I’m so confused,” Chance says. “Sometimes you act like a regular dog, and sometimes—What are you?”
What am I?
A street drummer starts a set nearby, the rhythms played loudly on overturned white buckets. I look at the hundreds of people on the Promenade, and I realize we’d better keep moving.
Junebug told me to go to the Apple Store. She got us out of the jam with the so-called Animal Control vans, so I don’t see any reason to distrust her advice now.
I look at the map of the Promenade and head south, giving Chance a bark to come with me.
“This is crazy,” he mutters, and he follows along.
The Apple Store is a huge, glass-fronted arch the size of an airplane hangar.
“What are we doing here?” Chance asks.
“I wish I knew.” I bark, and he opens the door for me.
The smell of electronics hits me, and I rear back, uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong?” Chance asks.
There’s something familiar about the smell. Not the Apple Store itself, but the scents of technology—warm aluminum, computer chips, and the wires that connect them. I get a memory flash of a laboratory ringed by computer equipment.
For a second, it feels like I might remember something important—
“A dog and his boy,” a blue-shirted Apple employee says. “It’s like a heartwarming commercial come to life.”
Chance looks at me and rolls his eyes.
“Considering becoming part of the Apple family?”
“I already have a family,” Chance says.
“Got ya,” the employee says, backing off. “Feel free to browse, and enjoy the free Wi-Fi.”
I follow Chance toward a table of shiny new phones. The smell of the technology is still making me uncomfortable, but whatever memory was brewing seems to be gone.
“My mom said she’d buy me one of these for my birthday,” Chance says. “That was last year, right before things got bad. Maybe this year will be different.”
He turns on a phone, opens a browser, and types: If you find a lost pet.
I put two paws on the table and look at the row of shiny new phones with bright, colorful screens. I can see why humans find these cool. One of the screens shows kites flying through the air. I lick my lips, wanting to chase after them.
“They’re not real,” Chance says when he notices me pawing at the screen.
“I know, I know,” I say.
I look back at the screen, and the kites disappear, replaced by a girl’s face. I blink hard, startled by the sudden change. The girl is maybe thirteen years old, with a dark complexion and light green eyes. She has long black hair with a cool blue stripe down one side.
It seems like I’m looking at a still photo, and then the girl moves, surprising me.
“Hi there,” the girl says.
Chance looks over to see who’s talking.
“On the screen,” the girl says.
I recognize the girl’s voice. It’s Junebug, the girl I heard on the bike.
I stare at her, wondering why it feels like there’s something familiar about her face. I comb my memory, trying to figure out if I’ve met her before.
“Are you on a video chat or something?” Chance asks.
“Put the girl on,” Junebug says.
“What girl?”
“Are you the guy with the blue-van dudes after you?”
Chance’s face goes pale. “How do you know about that?”
“Just put her on.”
Chance looks around us. “There’s no girl.”
“The one they call the Dog.”
Chance glances down at me, then he points the phone toward me. “You mean this dog?”
“Listen, kid—”
“I’m not a kid.”
“You’re pretty young,” Junebug says.
“So are you.”
Junebug scowls. “I don’t have time to fool around. The blue dudes are still after you, they just can’t see your signal inside the store. But they’ll figure it out pretty fast, and they’re super angry.”
“How do you know all this?” Chance asks.
“Let me talk to the girl I was talking to earlier. Her handle is Wild.”
“Wild is a dog,” Chance says.
Junebug’s mouth drops open. “You mean the Dog is a real dog?”
“What else would she be?” Chance asks.
“But I’ve been talking to her.”
“That’s impossible,” Chance says. “She can’t talk.”
“Hang on a second,” Junebug says, and she pulls out an earpiece of some kind and slips it into her right ear.
I remember the moment that Myron pointed to his ear in the backroom at PetStar. I don’t have have the device for my ear, he said.
Junebug taps her earpiece. Is that what he meant?
“Hello? Can you hear me?” she asks.
I hear her voice in my head, just like I did when I was on the bike.
“It’s me,” I say.
She gasps. “You’re Wild? But you’re a dog!”
“I think we established that.”
“How are we talking to each other?”
“I think it’s my collar,” I say. “It’s some kind of translator.”
Chance rubs his face in disbelief. “This is impossible,” he says. “Are you talking to Wild?”
“This is surreal,” Junebug says.
“I hear you speaking, but I only hear Wild barking,” Chance says.
“Wild says it has something to do with her collar,” Junebug says.
Chance stares at me, and his mouth drops open.
“That’s like Nobel Prize stuff,” Chance says.
“I didn’t invent it. I’m just wearing it,” I say.
Junebug laughs, and Chance frowns. “What are you guys talking about?”
“She said something funny.”
“It’s not fair that you can talk to her and I can’t. How did you figure that out?”
“I’m a hacker,” she says with a shrug.
“But you’re my age.”
“I got you out of the jam on your bike, didn’t I?”
He looks from me to Junebug, confused. “You were talking to her during the chase?”
“Explain what happened,” I tell Junebug.
She starts to tell him, while I check the area to make sure we’re still safe.
I trot over to the glass storefront, just in time to see the large Animal Control officer from the group home walk by with some kind of device in his hand. He scans the Promenade in front of the store, his head turning this way and that as he looks for my signal.
I growl at him through the glass, wanting to get back at him for trying to shoot me in Chance’s bedroom. But I restrain myself and back up so I can watch him through the legs of customers without being seen.
He turns the device toward the Apple Store, then he frowns and adjusts the dial. I can see from his face that he can’t find my signal. It seems like he’s going to keep moving, but then he changes his mind at the last minute and heads toward the door.
I race back to find Junebug and Chance in mid-conversation.
“What kind of name is Junebug?” he’s asking her.
“A totally cool name.”
“I hate to break up the party, but we’ve got company. There’s an Animal Control officer walking into the store.”
“Darn it. Hold on.” Junebug swivels in her chair and types at a keyboard. “Wild saw one of the blue dudes,” she explains to Chance. “I checked the radio comms. He hasn’t seen you yet. You have to get out of there!”
“Where are we going to go?” Chance asks.
“The beach,” Junebug says.
Chance frowns. “It’s not really a beach day.”
“You’re not going for a tan, kid.”
“There’s a major power line that runs up Ocean Avenue,” Junebug says. “If you stay on the beach and west of the avenue, they won’t be able to see you.”
“I get it,” I say, and I pull at Chance’s pant leg.
The large officer is on the far side of the store. There are dozens of people between us and him, but it’s only a matter of time before he finds us.
“Before we go,” Chance says to Junebug. “How do I talk to Wild like you do?”
“No time,” she says.
Junebug cuts off the chat, and the screen goes black. I see the large officer turn in our direction.
We have to go!
I dart through the customers’ legs, staying low so I won’t be seen as Chance and I rush out of the store.