John Scalzi - The Android's Dream

"Holy Christ," he said.

Robin's mother was photographed nude, front and side photos. Her breasts were large and swollen, as was her belly. She was clearly pregnant; Creek would have guessed seven or eight months. Her gravid torso gave way to limbs that tapered at the end not to hands and feet but to hooves that were clearly not designed to allow clean, bipedal motion. In the front-facing picture she was supported by two police officers on either side, allowing her to stand. In the side picture she hunched on all fours. Her limbs, of human proportions, balanced her awkwardly in this position as well. Any motion, two-legged or four-legged, would be difficult. Her front was smooth, either that way by nature or shaved for effect. Her back was thickly covered in electric blue wool. A human neck gave way to a sheep's head. From the front-facing picture, sheep's eyes gazed into the camera, placid, complacent.

The police report provided details. Robin's mother had been found as part of a hybridized menagerie kept by Arthur Montgomery, chairman of ZooGen, the second largest provider of genetically modified pets and livestock in North America. Montgomery's personal estate featured a small but fully stocked biogenetics lab and factory, in which Montgomery personally designed the hybrid creatures using livestock on the estate and gene samples that were later discovered to have been taken from members of ZooGert's board of directors, specifically shareholder-elected members who generally voted against Montgomery and his bloc of directors. In addition to Robin's unfortunate mother, other hybrids combined human genes with the genes of cows (Guernsey), horses (Jordanian, a ZooGen variation of the Arabian), and llamas. The hybrids had numerous human physical characteristics but were no smarter than the animal breeds from which they originated.

One would naturally assume that Montgomery had assembled this menagerie for his personal pleasure, but that assumption would be incorrect. Montgomery was straightforwardly and blandly heterosexual and took care of his needs with longstanding Tuesday and Thursday outcall appointments with the Washington DC area's leading escort service. Montgomery's game was subtler than that. One doesn't work in the modified animals field without eventually becoming aware of the unsettlingly large number of zoophiles out there. Their numbers were hardly restricted to farm boys with access to alcohol and a herd of sheep; there were executives, legislators, and celebrities whose personal kinks ran from simple "furry" play—dressing up in animal costumes—to diddling the dog when they thought no one was looking. Over the years Montgomery's personal web of corporate and government informers had provided him with a comprehensive list of who had what quirks and how they sated them.

Montgomery's scheme against his victims was simple: Gain their trust—generally accomplished through business deals or PAC donations—introduce them to the menagerie, give them the one free taste that makes an addict, and then provide access in exchange for certain business and governmental favors. Usually this worked beautifully, and the occasional recalcitrant could be brought into line through the threat of exposure. Montgomery, of course, had an extensive video collection. All told, the scam worked nicely for Montgomery (and by extension, ZooGen) for a number of years.

It came crashing down, as things so often do, because Montgomery got greedy. Montgomery was blackmailing Zach Porter, the CEO of a small cosmetics company, and needed some additional leverage to convince Porter to use ZooGen's modified rodents for his company's animal testing. So he let the sheep hybrid get pregnant. Montgomery had specifically designed the hybrids with 23 chromosome pairs for just this sort of eventuality, and tweaked the embryo with DNA and RNA therapies as it developed. He wasn't sure what the resulting creature would be, but no matter what it was, it wouldn't be good news for Porter, who had married into the cosmetic company's exceptionally Christian fundamentalist founding family.

Montgomery expected Porter would fold and he would then abort the fetus; Montgomery wasn't expecting that Porter would counter the move by shooting him dead in his ZooGen boardroom and then kill himself with the next shot, which is what Porter ended up doing. Porter's suicide note led the Prince William Country sheriff's to raid Montgomery's estate, where they found the menagerie and Montgomery's blackmail videos. There were unusually high numbers of prominent suicides in the DC area over the next few days.

The pregnant sheep woman presented a problem. Prince William County health officials were inclined to abort the pregnancy, but Zach Porter's in-laws and widow threatened to file a lawsuit halting the procedure. Half-sheep or not, life began at conception and aborting the near-term fetus was wrong. The county, which wanted the whole thing to go away, took the in-laws up on their offer to pay for the medical needs of the pregnant sheep woman until she gave birth. The delivery a month later was presided over by both a doctor and a veterinarian, neither of whom could stop (or, possibly, was inclined to stop) the mother from bleeding out during the complicated delivery. A genetic scan showed the child's DNA to be mostly human save for some junk sheep DNA apparently randomly positioned among the chromosomes. They declared her human and offered her to Porter's in-laws and widow.

They refused her, saying she was no kin of theirs. Their interest in her did not extend past the fact, and the moment, of her birth. Porter's parents were already deceased, and at the time the human DNA donor of the sheep woman was unknown. The baby girl was declared an orphan and placed in the care of Ron and Alma, who were never told the full sordid story of the birth of their adopted daughter, and therefore were never able to tell her anything meaningful about her past. Robin Baker had no idea she was anything but fully human.

"That's some fucked-up shit, Harry," Brian said, as he passed along the information. "And I believe 'Fucked-Up Shit is indeed the technical term, here."

"I'm suddenly reminded that you were eighteen when you had that brain scan," Creek said.

"You have a better way of describing it, then," Brian said.

"No," Creek admitted. "You've pretty much hit the nail on the head."

"What are you going to do now?" Brian asked.

"I don't know," Creek said. "Finding our lost sheep has suddenly become a little more complicated. I have to think."

"Think quick," Brian said. "You have an incoming call."

"Who is it?" Creek asked.

"Just you wait," Brian said, and put the call through.

"Hi," Robin said. "It's Robin. Find your sheep?"

"Funny you should ask," Creek said. "Listen, Robin—"

"Would you like to go out on a date?" Robin asked.

"What?" Creek said.

"A date," Robin said. "You know. Two people go out and eat food and make small talk and wonder what each other look like naked. You have dated before?"

"Yes," Creek said.

"Okay, so you know how it goes," Robin said. "What do you think? I'm thinking tonight would be good."

"It's kind of sudden," Creek said.

"No time like the present," Robin said. "You're cute and I did a search on your name and came up with no outstanding warrants for your arrest. That's good enough for dinner in a public place."

Creek grinned. "All right," he said. "Where would you like to meet?"

"Arlington Mall," Robin said.

"You want to eat in the mall?" Creek said.

"Oh, no," Robin said. "I'm a cheap date, but not food court cheap. But there's something there I'd like to try out. Actually, you should try it out with me. Ever play basketball?"

"Sure," Creek said.

"No bum knees?" Robin asked.