John Scalzi - The Android's Dream

"I didn't know," Creek said.

"It's true," Robin said. "I think that's kind of like defining deviancy down. You should be teaching a six-year-old that you need to respect living things, rather than making pets so they can survive a mallet attack. So, economics and morals. That's why. People who come in here respect animals and teach their kids manners. Well, usually," she said, signaling to the door to indicate her last customer. "You have any kids? Are you married?"

"No and no," Creek said.

"Really," Robin said, and glanced Creek up and down. "Tell you what—what's your name?"

"Harry Creek," Creek said.

"Nice to meet you, Harry," Robin said, and pushed a piece of paper at him. "Write down the name of the breed and your comm number and I'll make some calls. I can tell you now I probably won't find anything, but on the off chance I do I'll let you know. Here," she reached over. "You can use my new pen."

"Thanks," Creek said.

"But don't think you're walking off with it," Robin said. "I'm a small business owner. That pen's money in my pocket."

Harry wrote his information, said his goodbyes, and headed over to his car, which he'd parked on the side of the strip mall, next to the strip mall's Dumpster. As he started the car, he noticed something crawling on the edge of me Dumpster. It was a gecko.

Creek turned off his car and got out and headed for the Dumpster. The gecko stood motionless as he approached. Creek got over to the Dumpster and looked in. The terrarium and book on geckos was on top a pile of trash.

"You, geek," Rod Acuna said, pointing at Archie as he came though the door. "Is the pen sending?"

"It's sending," Archie said, already not liking his new "team," which consisted of a dimwit human, a large Nagch who was spending most of his time sleeping, and this guy, his boss, who started calling Archie "geek" at their first exchange and now appeared to have forgotten he had any other name. "But your guy left just a couple of minutes after you did. The woman hasn't done anything but sing along to the radio since. I'll print you a transcript if you want, but you'll have to move your big friend there," he said, pointing to the dozing Nagch. "His feet are blocking the cabinet door to the printer."

"Leave Takk alone," Acuna said. "He had a big breakfast. Does this store owner know anything about the sheep?"

"Didn't say that she did," Archie said. "I've already hacked her computer connection, but she hasn't done any searches on the sheep. All she's done is go to a wholesaler site and order some birdseed."

"What about Creek?" Acuna said. "Have you gotten into his system yet?"

"No," Archie said. "I don't know what sort of protection this guy's got, but it's incredible. It's batting back everything I'm throwing at it"

Acuna sneered. "I thought you were supposed to be good at this shit."

"I am good," Archie said. "But so is this guy. Really good. I'm working on it."

"While you're at it, find out more about this woman," Acuna said, and then stomped off somewhere. Archie wondered, and he was sure not for the last time, what he had gotten himself into.

"What is that?" Brian asked as Creek walked in.

"It's a gecko," Creek said, putting the terrarium on his kitchen table.

"That's some good salesmanship," Brian said.

"Can you get into the computer system for Robin's Pets?" Creek said. "I want to check out a credit card."

"I'm already in," Brian said. "What are you looking for?"

"Follow up a charge that was made while I was in the store," Creek said. "It would have been for about sixty bucks. Find out everything you can about the guy who owns the card."

"I'm on it," Brian said. "Aside from the reptile, how did it go?"

"Terrible," Creek said. "Robin didn't have the slightest clue what I was talking about."

"What did you say to her?" Brian asked.

"I told her I was looking for some sheep," Creek said. "What were you expecting me to say to her?"

"Oh," Brian said. "Oh. Okay. I guess I wasn't being clear about it."

"What?" Creek said.

"When I told you to find Robin Baker, I didn't mean to ask her about sheep," Brian said. "I mean that she was the one you wanted."

"You're nuts," Creek said. "She's human."

"She's mostly human," Brian said. "But her DNA has definite sheep-like tendencies."

"I'm not following you," Creek said.

"She must have been really pretty for you not to get what I'm saying to you," Brian said. "Your pet shop owner is a human-sheep hybrid. The kind of sheep she was hybridized from was either in part or in whole of variety. She's sheep, Harry."

"You're insane," Creek said.

"Call me HAL and make me sing 'Daisy, Daisy,'" Brian said. "It still doesn't change the fact."

"How did you find this out?" Creek said.

"Insurance companies don't just keep livestock DNA on file, my friend," Brian said.

"I didn't tell you to look through human DNA," Creek said.

"I know," Brian said. "But isn't that why you wanted an intelligent agent that was actually intelligent? To find stuff you didn't already think of? And look at it this way. You were behind before. Now you're ahead. Because I guarantee you no one else has thought of this yet. Of course, time's ticking."

Robin Baker was adopted at the age of four days by Ron and Alma Baker, a nice couple from Woodbridge, Virginia, who had opted not have children on their own after a geneticist read their charts and found nightmare after nightmare of recessive genetics in their makeup. This may have had something to do with Ron and Alma Baker hailing from the same small town in downstate Virginia where the same four famines had been interbreeding almost exclusively for centuries, thereby reinforcing several undesirable genetic traits. Ron and Alma, while only nominally related on paper, had a genetic consanguinity somewhere between half-siblings and first cousins. Their geneticist declared this a neat trick and strenuously advised them against making any kids the old-fashioned way.

This was just fine by Ron and Alma, who left their hometown precisely because they both considered the vast majority of their kin to be inbred freaks. Just because they weren't didn't mean they couldn't breed a new generation of freaks. So they weren't in a rush to have their sperm and eggs fuse and grow. But they did like kids, and they were nurturing by inclination. This led Ron and Alma to sign up with Prince William County as foster parents. This was how Robin came to them.

The Bakers were told by the Prince William Child Protective Services that the little girl was the only child of mentally deficient woman who had been used as a prostitute and who had died while giving birth. Ron and Alma, who were assured that the child was herself in all ways physically and mentally fit, instantly fell in love with the child, named her after a favorite aunt of Alma's, and started the adoption process immediately. They then proceeded to give their new daughter a perfectly pleasant and utterly unremarkable childhood. Outside of a broken arm in the fifth grade from falling out of a tree, Robin had no physical troubles of note. In high school and college Robin did well but not exceptionally in academics, eventually earning a B.A. in business and a minor in biology from George Mason University, both of which she immediately applied by opening Robin's Pets with seed money provided by loving parents Ron and Alma.

Creek breezed rather impatiently through the information about Ron and Alma. They were fabulous parents, which was great for Robin. But adoptive parents didn't tell him anything about Robin's genetics. He went rooting through Prince William County's sheriff reports for mentally deficient prostitutes and their pimps. He found a report that matched his search query and opened it, and men pulled up the photos of Robin's biological mother.