Author's Note: Tobias will be posted this week, hopefully by Wednesday but definitely by Saturday evening PST. If you feel like supporting, my is at dot com slash sabien.

Interlude—before

"I shouldn't count," said the gangly orphan boy, Tobias. "You can bring Cassie and Tom and Marco's dad."

The player tweaked the controls on its physical avatar, lifting the lips a small distance, crinkling the skin near the corners of the eyes. In an infinitesimal fraction of a second, the player composed a message, translated it, transcribed it into code and entered it into the simulation. "You have a point," came the words, the you subtly emphasized.

Another adjustment, and the avatar turned toward the girl, Cassie. "Is that what you want?"

The girl hesitated. "I—" she began, and then faltered. "I'm not—"

In another dimension, on another plane of existence, an alert sounded, and with little more than a thought, the player terminated the simulation. Yet again, the odds of success had dropped below the necessary threshold.

The player surveyed the landscape, adjusting its time horizon. The search space was large, almost unmanageably so—trillions of bits of data, in a fractal of chaotic organization, from quarks all the way up to bodies and buildings. An uncountable number of levers, of lines of influence, and few clues to make the relevant distinct from the meaningless.

Yet every scrap of efficiency mattered. Every effort not taken, every force left unleveraged, each molecule undisturbed. The simulation was infinitely malleable, and could be altered arbitrarily, but reality was ponderous, and changes costly to make. There could be endless ways to produce the desired effect, and none of them would matter if they weren't practical—if they required too great an investment, burned too many resources. The rules of the game were clear—when the moment came, there could be no discrepancies between the true pool and the projection, no unfair manipulation via cheap and easy deception. It had to be real, down to the smallest peak in the quantum wave function.

A calculation ended, and a list expanded, highlighting every possible point of intervention given the data from the most recent iteration. An algorithm began, guided by the player's instincts—filtering, narrowing, refining the list until a manageable billion options remained. Selecting from among them—a breeze minutely strengthened, so that a passing chill made a woman go back for her coat—the player began the simulation once more, carrying it up to the critical moment—

"I shouldn't count," said Tobias. "You can bring Cassie and Tom and Marco's dad."

The player tweaked the controls on its physical avatar, lifting the lips a small distance, crinkling the skin near the corners of the eyes. In an infinitesimal fraction of a second, the player composed a message, translated it, transcribed it into code and entered it into the simulation. "You have a—"

"No," Cassie began—

"Cassie, listen," said one of the other boys—the stocky one, the leader—Jake Berenson. "This isn't—"

Once more, the alert sounded, and once more, the player terminated the simulation. A cascade of data flowed into its analysis, from the beat of Cassie's heart to the ebb and flow of neurotransmitters in her brain. Subroutines analyzed every sight she had taken in, every sound that had registered, the twists and turns of her emotional state. Flags were dropped in a thousand different places, indicating a thousand possible branches to explore, and those thousand branches were fed back into the higher routine, where some were considered and evaluated and others summarily discarded.

Slowly, the player moved closer.

Interlude—during

We do not understand. Six-three-four-eight-one was here, and now six-three-four-eight-one is there—

[Danger! Peter Levy and Tom Berenson are Controllers—they will injure Ax!]

Then we must intervene, of course. But what has happened?

[Two, have you moved?]

[No. Has three?]

[No. Has four?]

[No. Has five?]

[No. Has six?]

…

…

…

…

[No. Has one-three-nine-three-two-zero?]

[No. Has one-three-nine-three-two-one?]

[No.]

Only six-three-four-eight-one. We do not understand. It is teleportation, but teleportation is only a word; it is not a meaning. It is not a how or a why.

[We have the situation under control. Peter Levy and Tom Berenson will not injure Ax. Based on the interlink signals, these others with me are Jake Berenson, Marco Levy, Garrett Steinberg, and the female.]

We do not understand. Where are their construct bodies?

[They do not have any.]

This is not a meaning.

[They are emerging directly from the gate, with no construct to disassemble.]

This is not a meaning.

[There is no evidence of footsteps or other disturbances to the area around us. Whatever process brought us here likely also brought Peter Levy and Tom Berenson and Ax and the gates of Jake Berenson, Marco Levy, Garrett Steinberg, and the female.]

We are reviewing our memories of the moment of transition.

They do not provide clarity.

We are communicating with Peter Levy and Tom Berenson.

[They are not providing clarity.]

Perhaps we will communicate with Jake Berenson, when he has fully emerged? Jake Berenson has provided clarity, in the past, as has Marco Levy—

[It will have to wait. Sergeant Pepper has decided to join the game.]

We are happy. Sergeant Pepper did not like leaving the yard, and has not played as often as he did before. It is good to see him running alongside the others. Monty and Daisy in particular are very excited to see him—Monty nipping at his heels, Daisy racing out ahead to impel him to greater speed.

[Should we produce the stick?]

[Not yet. This is a good chase. We should wait until it is over.]

We watch as Chance, Winston, Princess, and Bella break away from the rest of the pack, forming a second group that arcs away toward the far side of the yard before looping back, the two lines of dogs mixing and mingling in joyful chaos. Winston stops short, and Daisy crashes into him—

[Concern!]

—but they are both already back on their feet, running flat-out as they try to catch up with the others.

[The stick.]

[Or the ball.]

[Yes.]

Four-nine-nine-nine produces the stick. Heedless, Sergeant Pepper and Monty and Chance continue to run, but Daisy and Winston and Princess and Bella all come to a halt, their eyes wide and alert, their limbs quivering with barely contained excitement.

[Now?]

[Not yet.]

We will throw the stick, but anticipation makes it all the sweeter—

[We must leave! At once!]

We do not understand at first, but seven-two-four-zero-seven's memory is clear. We have very little time.

[Is it violence?]

We fall silent for a moment, thinking.

Yes, it is violence—on a scale we haven't seen since the great war. But we cannot prevent it, not with so little time. We must preserve ourselves—

[And the dogs!]

Yes, of course, it goes without saying—

[This may be related to what has happened to six-three-four-eight-one.]

[Yes. It is. Somehow, we were moved to a safe distance.]

We have begun to evacuate. Sergeant Pepper and Monty and Chance and Daisy and Winston and Princess and Bella are the closest, and we gather them almost immediately. The Duke and Noam Chompsky and Akela and Julius and Lucy and Clifford and Maya and Marceline and Chester and Pupsicle and Buddy and Rocky and Toby and Molly and Ladybug and Puddles and Coco and Shadow and Duck and Madeline and Margaret Thatcher were all a little farther away, but they are safe now, we have them with us. And soon we will have Gizmo and Penny and Bentley and Spark Pug and Lulu and Pocahontas and Whuff and Luna and Dixie and Cheeto and Dipper and Maximus and Bean and Kitten and Bigfoot and Radar and New Yeller and the slightly larger Princess and the slightly smaller Monty and Bounder and Bolt and—

[The others!]

We are distressed. There are thousands of them—the ones without owners, and the ones whose owners are unaware.

[We have to try!]

[The risk of discovery—]

[We have already been discovered.]

It is true. We continue to hide, but we take less care with noise and pressure, moving quickly enough that even with holograms it is theoretically possible to track our movement. We rescue Spot, and Jasper, and Chip—

[The human. It is suffering.]

We feel sadness—the deep, echoing sadness that reminds us of—

[We will bring the human.]

[Careful! We cannot risk—]

[It is young. Its family will perish. Its domicile will be destroyed. There will be no evidence. We will keep it.]

We have done this before, on occasion—when discovered, or when it is the safest way to protect and care for a dog. We were not meant to care for humans, but we have learned how, and it is not difficult. We agree, and we carry on.

Hunter and Snuffles and two more Spots and another Bella and four strays on the street with no names—we will call them Godric, Salazar, Helga, and Rowena—and Spam and Bark Twain and Socks and Thor and Snowball and Richard Garfield, Ph.D and T-Bone and Peanut and Rex and John-John and Wendy and Sputnik and Oprah…

Interlude—(long) after

She is already crying, beneath the moonlight—tears streaming down her face as the change begins, as her skin lightens from the brown of dinosaur bones to peaches-and-cream, as her hair lengthens and unkinks and turns soft and silky. Her sobs are silent—restrained—but they shake her entire body, as if tearing their way out of her chest.

The tears flow right through the transformation, as she becomes he, as every trace of her disappears back into the void, leaving only him behind. For long, long minutes, he sits, silent, curled tight into a ball. He clutches his knees, his eyes squeezed shut, his lips bared in a rictus smile.

Eventually, he cries himself out—as he has before, as he always does—his face growing slack and hopeless, despair writ large in every muscle as he slumps, sideways, staring at nothing in particular.

And then a shadow flickers across his face—something dark and ugly, a grasping, frantic, desperate neediness, like a starving child, a caged animal, an addict in burning withdrawal. He grits his teeth and clenches his fists, the strength returning to his body, and his eyes focus—still distant, but very much on target.

The change begins—thick muscles dissolving into graceful, slender limbs, a jaw softening into roundness, dark stains spreading across his skin as he becomes her once again. A minute and a half, and she is there beneath the moonlight, her breath faintly misting, her heartbeat almost audible. She is alive, and somewhere inside her head, he reaches for a door, and opens it.

‹Cassie,› he whispers. ‹It's me.›