JULEEN BRANTINGHAM

OLD FREEDOM

When the call came, whoever it came from, however it came, it was as sudden and
undeniable as the Enhancement, and nobody has ever been able to explain that.

I was in the back yard chopping wood, enjoying the fresh air and the exercise
and the pleasure of my independence from gas companies and electric companies
and every other system that's been set up to spare us physical labor. Freedom
was dozing on the porch, one ear cocked in case I chopped off my foot and he had
to call a medbot.

Old Free had been a snarling, fetal pup when I found him, years before the
Enhancement, most likely one of a litter born to a mother abandoned when one of
my gone-away neighbors found VR better than the real thing. I used to see a lot
of that before the Enhancement, people staying longer and longer in a place
that's no more real than a dream, leaving their dogs to fend for themselves,
poodles and Yorkies and dachshunds who have no more idea how to kill their own
food than a silkworm has how to knit a pair of boxer shorts. Most of the dogs
died off in the first few years. After the Enhancement, of course, abandoning
one would be like cutting off your own arm, leaving it twitching on the floor
and trying to crawl after you.

Freedom wasn't one of those toy breeds I despised; he wasn't one of the bigger
ones like setters or Afghans that had been bred for looks and wound up stupid as
stumps as a consequence. He was part Rottweiler and part Chow, I've always
thought, with maybe some Lab thrown in for seasoning. He wasn't pretty but I
sometimes thought he was smarter than I was. Tough as old shoe leather. He had
to be, to survive on his own as long as he did. It hadn't been easy to win his
trust. I've got scars halfway up both arms to prove it. I won't let the medbot
remove them because they're a badge of honor.

Since the Enhancement we'd been like Siamese twins joined at the heart. He ate
what I ate -- or more often, I ate what he ate, because he was the better
hunter, though I never could develop a taste for raw meat. We did everything
together.

I couldn't believe it when old Free sat up, scratched at a flea, hopped down
from the porch and said *Nice knowing you, man. Got to go now.*

I dropped the axe, damn near lopping off a couple of toes. "Go? Go where? What
the hell?"

He didn't answer, just started trotting down the road. Naturally I followed him.
Joined at the heart, like I said. What else could I do?

"What is it, Free? You smell a rabbit out there?" I knew it wasn't that; he
always told me when he was after a rabbit or a feral cat or a skunk; sometimes
he'd even let me talk him out of it. "Is there a bitch come into season?" But it
couldn't be that either; Free wasn't shy about his needs.

He shook his head and kept on trotting like there was a string tied to his nose,
pulling him along.

Last time Free had gone off by himself, three years before, he'd fallen down the
cellar hole of an abandoned house, broke his leg and couldn't get out. I'd never
have found him if it wasn't for the Enhancement. I was never sure how far that
link could reach and I'd never dared test it.

Since the accident Free had stayed pretty close to me. He was only ten and with
help from the medbots I figured he'd outlive me.

I decided a long time ago that when my time came I'd go out in the wilds where
the medbots couldn't find me and hook me up to life-support and the VR world,
like it or not. [And I wouldn't: people say it's realer than real but how can
your mind and your soul be alive when your body is lying in a dark room, never
moving, never smelling the fresh air, never feeling the sun on your skin, never
. . . But you get the idea. By now you've decided I'm a crank who just doesn't
understand and I'm proud to say you're right.) We'd never talked about it but I
thought Free would want to go with me.

"You're not sick, are you?" I said, feeling half sick myself at the thought.
"Wait. Let me call a medbot. Wait up! I said, wait up for me, you damned
fleabag."

I could tell by looking that Free wasn't sick. The way he was moving along it
was like he was getting younger and livelier with each step.

Finally he condescended to answer me. * Not sick,* he said, grinning his tongue
hanging out. *Going away. Chasing and bitches and wild smells and rolling in the
grass forever and hot meat and no pain and no dying.*

I suspected then it wasn't just Free, that it was all dogs everywhere, like the
Enhancement. It scared me because if it was something big like that, not just a
sudden fit on Free's part, then there was nothing I could do.

I trailed Freedom down one street after another, past empty windows and the
jungles that have grown up around the houses. I don't know which spooks me more,
thinking of the people, my former neighbors, lying in their beds with wires
hooked to their skulls like they were being sucked dry by electronic vampires or
thinking of the 'bots they run with their minds, doing the jobs they used to do
their own selves. Living by proxy, that's what it amounts to. Knowing every time
I run up against one of those 'bots, the systems, farms and factories and right
down to the delivery 'bots and the people-tenders -- knowing there's a mind
hooked up to it that's giving no more real thought to what it's doing than my
own mind gives to the gushing blood in my arteries or the working of the muscles
in my arms and legs.

I got to shivering and stumbling because if Free left me, what could I do but
hook myself up to that system I hate and despise or shoot myself? Free was the
only living soul in all the world I gave a damn about.

I followed him for about half a day. I begged him to stop, to come home with me;
I made wild promises; I crawled after him on my knees for a while. Didn't make
any difference. He kept going, tipping my heart out and carrying it off
somewhere.

"If you ever loved me you couldn't leave me this way. That's it, isn't it? You
never really loved me. You were faking it all along, just taking advantage of
me."

* Chasing and bitches and wild smells . . .* he says, more like he was thinking
to himself than answering. Then he turned his head and looked at me for the
first time since he'd hopped down from the porch. *Man, if you loved me you'd
understand.*

Well, I could understand, sort of. For a dog, living in a house with a human
must be something like a human living in the VR world. Everything important
might be there, but with no substance to it, nothing any healthy red-blooded dog
could sink his teeth into. But how could he leave me? I understood his needs.
I'd tried to make sure my kind of life didn't fence him in too much.

"If it's that good where you're going, I'm going with you."

He shook his head again, never slowing for a second. *Can't be,* he said.

That was the end of that. My eyes were burning but I wouldn't give up. I tried
to convince myself old Free had had a stroke or something and sooner or later
he'd come to his senses and I'd have to carry him home. His leg, you know. It
had never been as strong since the time he broke it. I tried but I couldn't make
myself believe it, especially after I started glimpsing people on the streets to
either side of me and slipping through the jungles, all going the same
direction. The dogs were harder to see but I knew they were there from the way
the people were weeping and wailing like they had no pride, no pride at all.

Pride can be some comfort when you've got nothing else left. Freedom might be
ripping the living heart out of me but I wasn't about to shame myself in front
of anybody else.

Some comfort.

We started passing apartment blocks and office buildings, coming to the center
of the city, what used to be the old town square, which had been turned into a
park. It was badly overgrown, of course, except for the old baseball diamond
where the jungle hadn't yet gotten a good grip. There were so many people I felt
like my skin was going to itch me to death; my stomach was churning pure acid. I
hadn't spoken to another live human soul in twenty years and I wasn't about to
start again, not after the ones I'd loved had one by one opted for VR and
abandoned me. But I'd have followed Free through the gates of Hell if I had to.

We were near the edge of the diamond when I saw this -- this thing hanging out
over the pitcher's mound. Don't know how to describe it except to say it looked
like a heap of intestines and some kind of lab equipment all folded together; it
was churning and misty, purple as a bruise, hanging close to the ground.

One by one, the dogs were going up to it, taking a hop and getting caught up in
the folds. Then they'd disappear.

The noise was incredible: screams and wails and I don't know what-all, the sound
battering at me and making me want to hunch down. Free felt it, too; his ears
were pressed close to his head but he never slowed down. People were throwing
themselves on the ground, clutching at their dogs' legs. A few tried to hop into
the thing themselves but they were tossed back like they'd been bounced from a
trampoline.

Freedom stopped. *Got to go now,* he said with a sad look. *Good knowing you,
man. Don't forget me.*

Then he jumped, sailing over the heads of a couple of smaller dogs. He looked as
happy as a pup.

My eyes were burning so bad I thought they'd turn to cinders right there in my
skull. But if it killed me, I wouldn't let a tear fall. I lifted my hand, hoping
he could still see me somehow. "Good chasing Free. Be happy. Wherever you're
going you be happy, dammit."

When your heart's been ripped out of you, you bleed but you don't weep.

I turned away, my body on automatic. Wasn't thinking about where I'd go or what
I'd do. I was just one big ache. I didn't look at the others who were going
through what I'd just gone through but I could see them out of the corners of my
eyes: men and boys and women and girls. I never would have guessed there were so
many still in this world, still with enough heart to live with a dog and share
his life. There wasn't any point in talking to them. They couldn't help me and I
couldn't help them.

I veered off to get past the crowd that had built up behind me, detoured around
an old live-oak with branches that rested on the ground like elbows. On the
other side I saw something that turned my stomach so bad I thought I'd vomit. It
was a natural man like me, not a robot, some sort of peddlar, though right up to
that minute I hadn't known there still was such a thing. God knows where he came
from or where he got the things he had or how he'd known there'd be a demand for
them. He had a trundle truck full of stiff, furry objects about the size of Free
when he was a pup. People were coming up to him and sticking their fingers in
the credit slot of the truck and he'd take one of these objects and plonk it in
their arms. It would begin to wiggle and squirm and make yipping noises and lap
at the face of whoever was holding it.

Fake dogs. The man was selling fake dogs.

I thought of all the stupidities I'd seen in my life, this was a new low.

The people who got them were laughing and carrying on as hard as they'd been
weeping a few minutes before, tear stains still on their faces. How could they
do it, I wondered. The dogs had been made out of wire and chemicals and puter
chips. How could a living, breathing, caring human being settle for a fake dog
once they'd known the love and trustingness of the real thing? I thought, maybe
the people are fakes too, and I shook my head and turned away.

Before I got more than a couple steps I started hearing this growling noise in
the branches over my head. I stopped to try to figure out what it was and just
then something darted along the branch next to me like a monkey. It jumped on
the peddlar, knocking him down. It was a boy, a tad with yellow hair and bare
feet and rags for clothes. His growl turned into a scream and he was dancing and
flinging himself around and waving his arms. First thing you know he'd upset the
trundle truck and spilled out the fake dogs and he was stomping on them,
stomping them to shit.

I laughed to beat hell.

The other people, though, they didn't like it much. The ones who already had
their fakes clutched them tighter and ran away. The ones who hadn't gotten
theirs yet began to chase after the boy and try to stop him. They had a hard
time getting their hands on him, he was so quick, but there was so many of them
that he never had a chance. As quick as that the show was over. Someone started
yelling for the copbots.

To tell the truth, I don't know what got into me. The boy wasn't anything to me.
Maybe it was the thought of him being dragged into a dark room and hooked up to
the electronic vampire and "reeducated" to take his "proper" place in the VR
world. Maybe it was because I was just so damned mad about losing Freedom. Maybe
I just wanted to hurt somebody. I plowed into that crowd, yelling and stomping
on the fakes the boy had missed. They squished and crackled and crunched under
my shoes. Then the peddlar and his customers were yelling and grabbing at me;
they ripped my shirt, knocked off one of my shoes, and punched me. I was
laughing fit to bust a gut. Oh be joyful! In the confusion I saw the boy slip
loose.

I took a few swings at the people who were in my way, just from general
cussedness, crunched my knuckles on somebody's skull, but managed to cause
enough confusion that I broke away. I ran after the boy and caught his hand and
dragged him along with me. Old Free had once shown me a place where the brash
looks thick but there's a path through the worst parts. We ran for all we were
worth, that angry mob screaming at our heels, both of us laughing so hard we
were almost pissing ourselves. In spite of that we lost the mob in the jungle.

When the stitch in my side got so bad I couldn't take another step, I collapsed
in a little glade floored by a cracked concrete slab and ringed by elderberry
bushes. The boy fell down beside me, rolling around laughing and holding his
sides.

"Kah-crunch, squish!" I choked out, still roaring.

We laughed some more and then a little more and then the laughter sort of
trickled away. The boy was so close I could smell his sweat, see the dirt ground
into his pores and the ribs sticking through the tatters of his shirt. No way of
telling whether he was one of the ones abandoned and forgotten when his folks
found the VR world more interesting than the real one or whether he was like me,
seeing what was happening and just deciding to go off on his own.

Not that it mattered. He wasn't anything to me.

I edged one way and the boy edged the other, both of us looking at each other
slantwise. It had been twenty years since I'd been that close to another human
soul and that experience hadn't been the kind to make me comfortable with this
one.

"Guess I better be getting home," I said, feeling sadness settle as heavy as if
that concrete slab had tipped up and fallen down on top of me.

Getting up, I accidentally lurched in the boy's direction. His eyes got wide and
he drew back, lifting his lip in a snarl like old Free had given me the first
time I saw him.

Old Free.

Freedom, my other half.

Gone.

Forever.

After a while I felt this touch on my shoulder. I couldn't make myself look up
but I could smell the boy's breath, sour like he'd had nothing but grass to eat.

"Mister," he said, all choked up. "Mister, don't think I want to be friends or
nothing, but I'd like to tell you about my dog. His name is Sam. He's the best
old dog . . ."

Before you know it, the two of us were crying on each other's shoulders and
laughing between the sobs and talking about Sam and Freedom and where they might
be, with chasing and bitches and wild smells and rolling in the grass forever.