The Dog Said Bow-Wow Read Online Free Page B

the bodice closed again, and said, “Your man is watching us.”
    “And what concern is that to us?” Surplus said jovially. “The poor fellow’s an autistic. Nothing he sees or hears matters to him. You might as well be embarrassed by the presence of a chair.”
    “Even were he a wooden carving, I would his eyes were not on me.”
    “As you wish.” Surplus clapped his paws. “Sirrah! Turn around.”
    Obediently, Darger turned his back. This was his first experience with his friend’s astonishing success with women. How many sexual adventuresses, he wondered, might one tumble, if one’s form were unique? On reflection, the question answered itself.
    Behind him, he heard the Lady Pamela giggle. Then, in a voice low with passion, Surplus said, “No, leave the diamonds on.”
    With a silent sigh, Darger resigned himself to a long night. Since he was bored and yet could not turn to watch the pair cavorting on the bed without giving himself away, he was perforce required to settle for watching them in the mirror.
    They began, of course, by doing it doggy-style.
    The next day, Surplus fell sick. Hearing of his indisposition, Lady Pamela sent one of her autistics with a bowl of broth and then followed, herself, in a surgical mask.
    Surplus smiled weakly to see her. “You have no need of that mask,” he said. “By my life, I swear that what ails me is not communicable. As you doubtless know, we who have been remade are prone to endocrinological imbalance.”
    “Is that all?” Lady Pamela spooned some broth into his mouth, then dabbed at a speck of it with a napkin. “Then fix it. You have been very wicked to frighten me over such a trifle.”
    “Alas,” Surplus said sadly, “I am a unique creation, and my table of endocrine balances was lost in an accident at sea. There are copies in Vermont, of course. But by the time even the swiftest schooner can cross the Atlantic twice, I fear me I shall be gone.”
    “Oh, dearest Surplus!” The Lady caught up his paws in her hands. “Surely there is some measure, however desperate, to be taken?”
    “Well…” Surplus turned to the wall in thought. After a very long time, he turned back and said, “I have a confession to make. The modem your brother holds for me? It is functional.”
    “Sir!” Lady Pamela stood, gathering her skirts, and stepped away from the bed in horror. “Surely not!”
    “My darling and delight, you must listen to me.” Surplus glanced weakly toward the door, then lowered his voice. “Come close and I shall whisper.”
    She obeyed.
    “In the waning days of Utopia, during the war between men and their electronic creations, scientists and engineers bent their efforts toward the creation of a modem that could be safely employed by humans. One immune from the attack of demons. One that could, indeed, compel their obedience. Perhaps you have heard of this project.”
    “There are rumors, but…no such device was ever built.”
    “Say rather that no such device was built
in time
. It had just barely been perfected when the mobs came rampaging through the laboratories, and the Age of the Machine was over. Some few, however, were hidden away before the last technicians were killed. Centuries later, brave researchers at the Technarchaeological Institute of Shelburne recovered six such devices and mastered the art of their use. One device was destroyed in the process. Two are kept in Burlington. The others were given to trusted couriers and sent to the three most powerful allies of the Demesne — one of which is, of course, Russia.”
    “This is hard to believe,” Lady Pamela said wonderingly. “Can such marvels be?”
    “Madame, I employed it two nights ago in this very room! Those voices your brother heard? I was speaking with my principals in Vermont. They gave me permission to extend my stay here to a fortnight.”
    He gazed imploringly at her. “If you were to bring me the device, I could then employ it to save my life.”
    Lady