I creep through the house, moving down the dark hallway toward Ms. Horvath’s room.
“Slow and steady,” General Rupani says.
I grunt an acknowledgment and continue down the hall. I pass Joy’s bedroom and hear her snoring lightly as she sleeps.
I stop in the middle of the hall, my breath quickening, my pulse speeding up.
“Your heart rate and respiration are too high,” General Rupani says. “What’s going on with you?”
I hesitate, fighting the instinct to run away before I do something to harm this family.
“You’re thinking too much, She-Nine. That’s always been your problem. You’re too intelligent, and it gets in your way. Follow my commands, and you’ll be okay.”
“What do you want me to do?” I whisper.
“Helen Horvath’s bedroom. Head there now.”
I take a deep breath and continue down the hall toward the bedroom, my paws silent on the carpeting.
I glance out the second-floor window of the mansion. A bodyguard walks the property, looking for dangers from outside, unaware that the real danger is me.
I walk toward the bedroom. The door is slightly ajar.
I stop, and a sense of déjà vu washes over me. I’ve been in this situation before, this same hall, this same moment.
The memory of the blond soldier hits me like a wave. He’s wearing a blue Maelstrom uniform, and he’s adjusting my collar, just like Rupani did earlier today.
“Keep going,” General Rupani says.
I hesitate, struggling as the memory pushes its way into my consciousness.
“You may feel uncertain,” the general says, “but you’ve done this many times before. You’re trained and bred for it. Trust your instincts.”
I whimper and shake off the memory. I nudge open the bedroom door with my snout. The room is dark, with just a hint of moonlight coming through the drapes. It’s more than enough light for me to be able to see everything.
Ms. Horvath is sleeping soundly in a massive bed, her boyfriend next to her. The jump drive glints on a silver chain around her neck.
“Get the drive and take it to the hall window,” General Rupani says.
This is the mission I was briefed on earlier, but is it the entire mission?
I take a step toward Helen Horvath, and my body starts to overheat. My tongue lolls out of the side of my mouth and I hear myself panting.
“What’s happening to you?” General Rupani asks.
The scene before me is calm, just a woman and her boyfriend sleeping soundly, yet my body is reacting as if something terrible happened in this room.
I stare at Helen’s face in the moonlight, and my memories start to return.
Six months come flooding back to me.
I lived with this family. I gathered evidence on Ms. Horvath implicating her in money-laundering activities overseas. That money was funding terrorism, or so it seemed.
I remember that part now. But there’s something else—something more troubling. Not about her, but about me.
About Maelstrom.
Why can’t I remember?
“Why didn’t I finish the mission before?” I ask General Rupani.
“No matter,” he says. “Stop asking questions and get the drive.”
Why didn’t I finish?
I edge toward the bed, lifting my paws and hoisting myself up as quietly as I can.
Ms. Horvath stirs. “Honey, is that you?” she says, still half-asleep.
I come closer, pushing my weight against her. She reaches for me, instinctively pulling me toward her.
“You’re a good dog, Honey. Joy loves you so much.”
I snuggle against her and she sighs.
“I’m glad you came home, girl. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
The sweetness of her words burns me. I hate myself right now, hate what I’m about to do.
I lick her face and she laughs in her sleep and pushes my head gently away. As she does, I brush past her bare throat, using a tooth to snag the jump drive necklace and pop it from around her neck without her knowing, then catch it in my mouth.
I lean into her, putting too much weight on her leg.
“Get down, Honey,” she urges. “Sleep in your own bed. I love you, but I’ll see you in the morning.”
She pets me and pushes me away at the same time, then she rolls over and goes back to sleep.
“Did you do it?” the general asks.
“Yes,” I whisper, barely containing my anger.
I hop off the bed, carrying the jump drive necklace in my mouth. I walk to the hall window and nudge it open with my snout. Then I jump up and drop the necklace outside, watching as a Maelstrom drone whizzes by and snatches it in midair, before rapidly ascending and disappearing over the wall.
There’s a pause in the transmission as the general gets confirmation of the pickup. A moment later, his voice is in my head.
“See how easy that was?”
I growl low, anger hot in my chest.
“That’s it, then. I’m done. You can let Chance go,” I say.
“You’re not done yet,” the general says.
“You know what I mean,” he says ominously.
Just then I remember a different voice, the voice of my former handler.
It’s time to finish the job, my handler said.
“What is the real mission?” I ask General Rupani.
“Same as it was before,” he says coldly. “Go downstairs and turn on the gas stove.”
“What?”
“You’ll accidentally turn on the burners as you’re trying to get food. This will start the chain of events that will take out Helen Horvath.”
I steady myself, the hall spinning around me.
“What about Joy?”
“We left the sprinkler system on in her room.”
“She needs her mother.”
“You’ve done it before,” General Rupani says. “You’re good at making accidents happen.”
I whimper and fall back to my hind paws.
“That can’t be true.” My voice sounds high and strained, almost like it’s coming from a different dog.
“These are guilty people, She-Nine. You become their beloved pet, and then you make them disappear. It’s your special skill.”
“I love people,” I say.
“That’s where you’ve gotten confused. Your brain got scrambled by that zapper. You love people so you can hurt them.”
“I don’t believe you,” I whisper.
“If you want to help that boy, you’ll go downstairs and finish the job.”
The bedroom door down the hall is open, and I can hear Helen Horvath sleeping, her breathing slow and steady. In a room nearby, Joy whispers in her sleep.
“Finish the job,” General Rupani says.
I trot downstairs to the kitchen and see the stack of dish towels sitting near the stove. I trace the path from burner, to towels, to drapes, to ceiling.
“You’re the family dog,” the general says. “You’ll panic when you see fire and grab the flaming drape, pulling it down and unintentionally spreading the fire across the room and up the stairs.”
“You told me there was a sprinkler system,” I say.
“An electrician was working in the home the other day and accidentally cut through the wire that powers the system, everywhere but Joy’s room.”
“A Maelstrom electrician.”
“That’s right.”
I stand in the kitchen, my heart racing as memories of my previous mission flood in.
It was a week ago, and I was in this same home. On the same mission.
In my memory, I’m listening to my former handler, the blond soldier from my nightmares.
“We’re adjusting the mission,” the handler said. “It’s become a termination event.”
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s not a discussion, it’s an order,” my handler said.
Now I’m back in the present, standing in the kitchen. And General Rupani is asking me to do the same terrible thing.
“I understand the mission now,” I tell the general.
“Good. Then you should have no problem carrying it out.”
I think about Chance and the things I’m being asked to do to keep him safe.
I would do anything for him. Anything but this.
That’s when a new plan comes to my mind. I turn away from the stove and walk toward the front door.
“The blond soldier,” I say. “He was my last handler. He led me on this mission.”
I hear a gasp on the line. “Your memory is coming back,” General Rupani says.
“Parts of it. What was his name?”
“You never knew his name. You only knew him as your handler.”
I think about the younger version of myself I saw on the video in the Maelstrom base. I remember the brown-and-white spotted puppy I used to be training with the blond soldier. I run an obstacle course while my handler looks on. I react to his commands, wanting to please him, carrying out a task, then running toward him, waiting on hind legs to be rewarded with treats. The memory sickens me. I thought these people were teaching me to be a good dog, but they were training me to blindly follow commands so I would kill for them.
“Each dog bonds with a single handler,” General Rupani says. “It’s part of the training protocol. You’re deployed on a mission by your handler, you follow his or her orders, and then you return to the handler.”
I walk through the front door and out into the yard.
“Something went wrong a week ago,” I say.
“You went wrong. You abandoned the mission and you went rogue, turning on your handler.”
In my memory, I refused to hurt the family. I burst out of the house, and I ran to a command trailer down by the beach. I broke in and lunged at my handler, clamping down on his arm, stripping him of the zapper, then attacking him.
His screams are the ones I’ve been hearing in my nightmares.
I killed him, and then I fled down the beach to the marina and snuck on board the Horvaths’ yacht to hide out. I sought the comfort and familiarity of a location I knew, and I judged that Maelstrom wouldn’t look for me there, assuming I would run as far as possible from the scene.
But I was wrong. They found me, they zapped me, and then they arranged an accident of their own.
For me.
“Why are you breathing heavily?” the general asks.
“I’m excited,” I say.
I move at lighting speed across the lawn, a blur to the bodyguard, who barely registers my movement. I leap twenty feet in the air, over the wall, and race down Malibu Colony Street.
“You went rogue a week ago,” General Rupani says. “We have one rule in Maelstrom: Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. When you attacked your handler, you left me no choice. I had to put you down.”
“I had good reason to attack him,” I say.
“You didn’t have any reason. You were clouded by emotion.”
“I made a choice to protect the Horvath family,” I say.
“We made you intelligent so you would follow orders better, not so you would exercise free will.”
The command center is a mile away hidden in the darkness of the beach. The wind carries the scent of metal and electrical components that lead me there.
“This is your second chance,” General Rupani says. “Finish the mission and Chance goes free. Then we can discuss bringing you back into Maelstrom.”
“All I have to do is follow orders?”
“That’s all you ever had to do, She-Nine.”
“I have a name,” I say. “My name is Wild, and I can think for myself. I know who I am, and what you are.…”
I race across the sand, my breath roaring in my ears.
“What am I seeing on the drone footage? Where are you now?” General Rupani shouts.
I ignore him and head for the double trailer of the command center.
Maelstrom soldiers guard the perimeter. I approach them in the dark, but I’m moving too fast for them to defend themselves. I hit them with ferocious kicks, sending them sprawling across the sand.
I smash through the front door of the command center to find twenty or more soldiers looking up, confused. There are complex electronics and monitoring equipment on consoles around them. I see images outside the Horvath house from multiple angles, including a sky view from the drone.
The soldiers realize what’s going on and come at me, but I’m moving on instinct, arcing in the air and smashing as I go, a whirlwind of legs and body strikes that take out the entire room in a matter of seconds.
With the first trailer clear, I plow through the inner door into the next.
General Rupani stands on the far side of the trailer. He holds Chance in a vicelike grip, one arm clamped around his shoulders. He holds a zapper in his opposite hand.
It’s pressed to Chance’s forehead. Chance looks at me, his eyes desperate.
“Let him go,” I say, growling deep in my throat.
“I gave you an order in that house,” General Rupani says.
“I don’t take orders from you.”
“I’m your creator,” he says through gritted teeth. “You wouldn’t exist without me. Maelstrom wouldn’t exist.”
“Madeline Pao was a creator,” I say. “You’re just a thief and a murderer.”
“Dr. Pao had every opportunity to join us, but she refused.”
“She didn’t want her technology to be weaponized.”
“Weaponized? She barely wanted it to be utilized! She had incredible power at her disposal, and she was wasting it on what? Cute little puppies and babysitter dogs. I was the one with vision. I saw the potential in her technology—the kind of animal we could build. An animal like you. A soldier. A weapon. You can’t deny what you are or what you were born to be.”
“I have a choice,” I say, baring my teeth at him.
General Rupani laughs and squeezes Chance tighter.
“A choice? You think you chose to be friends with this boy? You’re programmed to trick humans into bonding with you. You befriend, you ingratiate, you play the good dog—and then you destroy them. It’s what you were created to do, and what you’ll always do. You’re a killer.”
I think about the Maelstrom dog saying that we’re alike, and I realize it’s not true.
“I killed to save the Horvath family a week ago and to protect Chance yesterday. I don’t kill for you. I kill to defend my pack.”
“You think Chance is the first kid to love you? What about the Silberstein kids, and the Mercurio brothers before them?”
I’m horrified as I remember Myron saying I’d been to PetStar with different families over the past couple of years. I didn’t know what he meant at the time, but now it’s becoming clear.
“There have been many families, many kids who think you’re their beloved pet,” General Rupani says. “You’ve lied to every one of them. You believe you’ve been going against your instincts this last week with Chance, but you’ve been following them. You set Chance up to trust you without even knowing it. You made him love you, and you had no idea how much aggression was inside you.”
“That’s a lie,” I say.
“You can’t hide from your true nature,” the general says. “It’s more powerful than you are.”
I calculate the distance to Rupani, and I think about his reaction time on the trigger of the weapon.
There’s no way I can get to him before he hurts Chance.
Which means I’m stuck.
“Turn around and finish the mission,” General Rupani says.
There’s a sudden movement behind him. From the shadows in the back of the command vehicle, Junebug comes running forward, a zapper in her hands. She raises it toward me, and I step back, thinking she’s going to shoot me.
“What are you doing?” General Rupani shouts, his eyes wide.
Junebug abruptly changes direction, swinging the zapper toward her father, using it like a baseball bat and striking the general in the back of the head with a loud smack.
General Rupani grunts and his eyes roll back into his head. He immediately lets go of Chance and falls hard, the zapper dropping out of his hand as he collapses on the ground in a heap.
We stand there, shocked, looking at the general’s unconscious body.
Chance gasps and runs across the trailer, stopping in front of me. He looks down, his face solemn.
“Tell me it’s a lie,” he says. “All those terrible things he was saying about you not really being my friend.”
I think about our time together this week, all the experiences I’ve had with Chance and the feelings that have come up as I’ve gotten to know him.
I bring my face close to his, our noses touching.
“You’re my best friend, and I love you,” I say. “That’s the truth.”
“I knew it!” he shouts, and he flings his arms around me, squeezing so tight that it hurts. I lick his face and yelp as he grabs my fur, hanging on for dear life, the two of us laughing and rolling on the floor together.
“Hey, how about a little credit up here?”
We both look up to see Junebug standing over us.
“I’m the one who knocked him out, right?”
“You were amazing!” Chance says. “Where have you been all this time?!”
Before I can stop him, he grabs her, pulling her down to the floor with us.
“You saved both of us,” he says.
She shrugs. “You guys are cool. And my dad can be a real jerk sometimes.”
Chance sits up fast and his face goes pale. “What did you just say?”
“My dad sucks.”
Chance looks from Junebug to me, confused.
“The general is her father,” I tell him.
“Your dad runs Maelstrom? So you knew what was happening all along?”
“Kind of. Yeah.”
“But… but you were trying to save us,” Chance stammers.
She sighs. “I guess Wild isn’t the only one who went rogue.”
“This whole thing is tripping me out,” Chance says.
I look at her, trying to understand a girl who defies her father, yet seems to have allegiance to him, too.
“I have some explaining to do,” Junebug says. “It started when—”
A door slams loudly, and we all jump up, startled.
“The general’s gone!” Chance shouts.
“Where did he go?” I ask.
“There’s a secret door!” Junebug points.
In the back of the trailer, I see a hidden trapdoor, its hinges buried in the floor.
“He’s going to get away,” Junebug shouts.
“No, he’s not,” I promise.