The dingy apartment felt larger than a black hole. Bud's sleep had been short and restless. If anything, he felt even more exhausted. His paws echoed on the bare floor as he searched for scraps in the kitchen cabinets. Each one he opened yawned dark and vacuous, reminders of the nightmares he’d endured both awake and asleep. An empty martini glass sat on the table, a further source of despondent recollections. In the corner, Laz’s "experiment" bubbled away, its lights flashing and equipment humming with a steady rhythm that Bud had never fully appreciated before. The familiar sounds ought to have been comforting, normal. But alone and hurt, all they did was drive home the glaring absence within the apartment.
Bud's gaze drifted to the corner where his dog bed usually resided. The sight of the vacuum-sealed canister, still tightly closed, hit him like a physical blow. For all his advanced capabilities, he couldn't even unscrew the simple container to access his own bed. The irony wasn't lost on him—a superintelligent langdog, defeated by a screw cap.
With a heavy sigh, Bud hopped onto Laz's bed, the familiar scents both comforting and painful. For the one thousand and seventeenth time since retreating from FOG headquarters, Bud attempted to track his owner’s location. But while he could tell that Laz’s neural link remained active, his global positioning system was silent. Bud laid his head between his paws, stomach rumbling, enhanced mind racing yet feeling utterly lost. He saw now how wrong he’d been. All this time, he'd thought that perhaps a bit of independence was what he craved. Now Bud understood the truth.
Everyone need a purpose in life, and for better or ill, the role of companion had been programmed into him from the moment of creation, first his genetics modified in FOG test tubes to serve their clandestine aims, then his developed friendship with Laz over the course of decades. FOG’s plans had backfired, at least so far as Bud was concerned. Rather than a co-conspirator, they’d bred a protector, not of the FOG’s cyberphobic policies, but of the very thing it sought to eradicate. Bud could no more run from that as he could his own tail.
Still, for all the sticky situations from which he’d extricated Laz in the past, this latest disaster was on a scale Bud had never faced. Laz wasn't just in trouble—he was in the clutches of FOG, likely facing an imminent lobotomy, a decommissioning like that faced by so many other cyborgs in the immediate aftermath of the Purge. Or even worse—forced enlistment in the hitherto covert army. The thought sent a shudder through Bud's enhanced frame. This was certainly the deepest hole Lazhad ever dug for himself, and Bud knew with grim certainty he was the only one who could pull him out.
But how? Before this, he’d usually been able to solve his owner’s problems with some quick math or slick hacking, or else a sharp snap of the jaws. But no amount of fancy arithmetic or systems manipulation or brute force was going to save Lenz now. Trip knew to watch out for a purebred langdog staging a rescue. Posing as a cysniffer was no longer an option, and what else could Bud do to get past the heightened security at FOG headquarters?
Still, Bud's circuits hummed with renewed determination. One thing was obvious—this wasn't a problem he could solve alone. His ears perked up as an idea began to form. The very thought of it made his fur stand on end, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
With a new sense of purpose, Bud rose from the bed. The apartment that had felt so empty moments ago now seemed to buzz with potential energy. As he made his way to the door, Bud cast one last glance at Laz's bubbling experiment. Its steady hum felt like a promise—a reminder that no matter how dire things seemed, life found a way to persist.
Bud's paw hesitated on the threshold. This could be the last time he ever walked out this door. But this apartment had never really been his home, anyway. Home was no longer a physical place for him, it hadn’t been since the Purge. His home had been taken from him, and he was going to get it back.
With a deep breath, Bud stepped out into the Martian day. He knew what he had to do, who he needed in order to help Laz. But first, he had to find her.
Click here for the next chapter.
Are you enjoying Bud's adventures? Then please consider buying the author a coffee to support his continued writing pursuits!
Don't miss the next chapter: sign up for the author's newsletter for regular updates!
Note: I wrote this story with the assistance of AI. To read about my process, see the following post:
buymeacoffee.com/dtkane/mars-174-years-after-earth-destruction