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Thomas Clarke is just an ordinary employee of a mysterious federal agency in the halcyon days of 1986. When a tiff with his boss sees him volunteered for an experimental new procedure, he winds up getting more than he bargained for in his equally experimental Soviet counterpart...

Here is a very straightforward story with some transformation, some Soviet Union, and some knots. Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will find rumors of their death to be more or less accurate, &c &c.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

"Workin' like a dog," by Rob Baird

---

Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear decides to wreck your whole damned day. I had just finished testifying to a stony-faced congressman. That was stressful enough, and I was beginning to cultivate a sneaking suspicion that things would be getting a whole lot worse.

The television in the break room was showing none other than me -- taking repeated, nervous sips from a glass of water and staring down at my notes. "Yes, senator," I said, on the fuzzy black and white screen. "It was my judgment that the selection hadn't followed the right protocol."

The break room was empty, but I couldn't have been the only one to be watching news coverage of the hearings. After all, somebody just had to go and file a report with the Inspector General about how much we were overpaying on our maintenance contracts...

I had the moral high ground, sure, but so what? No, I knew it was going to come back to bite me in the ass. I skipped lunch, settling for M&Ms from the vending machine in the hopes that working studiously through the stack of files on my desk would make me look suitably innocent.

But shortly after two in the afternoon, a shadow fell over the manila folders. I looked up to see the slim, bony features of William Park, director of the Denver office. "Busy morning, Clarke?"

"Ah, a little, sir."

"Why don't we talk?" One of those questions that, phrased as a question, nonetheless offers very little in the way of options. He pointed to his office and, gathering a notepad and a mechanical pencil, I followed. Park's office was small, tightly crowded with bookcases and filing cabinets. I maneuvered my way into a seat. "I only have one question for you, Clarke."

"Sir?"

"Why didn't you come to me first? We could've handled this internally. You're a pretty good agent, but you have no sense of teamwork..."

"I did, sir. I sent you two memos and spoke to you directly on one occasion this April. You told me that you would handle it, but we gave Starlink the contract for the new radios anyway."

Will shook his head. He was career Agency; his face was lined with the years of service. "Did you ever stop to think that maybe it was because Starlink had the best bid?"

"Yes, sir. But the IG disagreed." The real reason was, of course, that Starlink GmbH -- a foreign company that shouldn't have been eligible in the first place -- had complicated ties to Jeff Lewis-Mason, one of the Agency's finest operatives. Jeff got away with a lot -- more than he should've, in my opinion. His house, by the University of Denver, was far nicer than he could've been able to afford on a government salary alone.

Park grunted. "Well, I still think we could've handled it without needing to bring outsiders in. Tom, you've never gotten this: the most important people in the world are your fellow Agency men and women. When the shit hits the fan, they're the only ones you can trust." He was balding, and his white hair did make him look vaguely like a sage, so the advice sounded properly meaningful.

"Yes, sir."

"But hey, water under the bridge. Sunshine is the best disinfectant, right? You ready for an assignment, Tom?"

I suspected that there was some angle to Park's suggestion, though I didn't know what it was -- and anyway, what was I supposed to do? Tell the district supervisor to go fuck himself? "Ah... of course. What do you need?"

"I want you to hand all your current work over to Wilson. You're on a special detail -- we need somebody very... talented. Someone's come up looking like they have an eye for industrial espionage and, well... naturally, I thought of you."

I had never worked any espionage cases before. My focus was on drugs, particularly the new 'crack' that had appeared over the last few years in New York and now seemed poised to infiltrate the seedier parts of Denver as well. But, hey, always got to be on the lookout for something new -- right? "Oh... alright, sir. What kind of industrial espionage?"

"Somebody claims to know ten out of the eleven secret herbs and spices. Agent Clarke, we need to stop him before he discovers the last one." I stopped writing and, seeing the look on my face, Park laughed. "Nah, I'm kidding you, agent. We were alerted by Lockheed that one of their employees seems to be looking for a contact in eastern Europe. Before we could apprehend him, he went underground."

"Is this espionage, sir? This sounds more like human tracking..."

"Is it?" Park raised a snowy eyebrow. "I hadn't noticed. You'll report to Dr. Hartmann at once."

He handed a manila folder to me, and I took it with some trepidation. "Sir, I --"

"What definition of at once did you suppose I was using, Agent Clarke?"

Dr. Ansel Hartmann was not in the building. His office was in the basement of the hospital at Fitzsimons, and when the cab pulled up at the gate I felt singularly nervous. The guard checked my ID tiredly, and waved me through -- but the receptionist at the hospital knew what was up. She had nice, tan skin -- the kind you get in a city with three hundred days of sun a year.

"Mister... Thomas Clarke, I see? Get in the elevator and press the button for basement level 6. I'll override the security lockout."

"Thanks."

"Are you excited, Mr. Clarke?"

No.

No, I was not excited. Hartmann ran the Evolved Species Department, and one did not become an Evolved Species when one had made a lot of friends. "K-9 Cops," they called them -- it was not a term of endearment, and not a compliment.

The only good thing about it was that it didn't last very long. I'd clearly gotten on Park's bad side, and he was showing me what he could do to me... but I'd only be spending a week, at most, as an Evolved Species, and then I could return to normal. I'd never done it before, but others had, and they seemed none the worse for wear.

Just grin and bear it, right?

Ansel Hartmann was in his office when I arrived, and from my hesitation he knew exactly what I was there for. He had a genial face, with bushy eyebrows that made his chosen profession -- mad scientist -- seem particularly inspired. "You are joining Unit 13, yes? Oh, how delightful. Please, sit!" At his own joke, Dr. Hartmann giggled. "Don't worry, we will not be saying that often."

I hoped not. Unit 13 had been created three years before, as the result of what, we had been told, was decades of research -- research that other countries had also been undertaking. The United States was not the first to deploy uplifted anythings. What's that, you say? Take a step back and explain what I mean by "uplifted"?

Let's just say I don't mean that it buoys your spirits.

See, sometimes you need somebody for a special assignment -- you want them to be expert trackers, superlative marksmen, world-class helicopter pilots, whatever. You know, to take the baddies down. You could try to train somebody to do all of these... or you could try to cook up something new. And ever since the Finns showed it off in '81, that's what we've been doing.

The recipe, in American, goes a little like this. Take one part ordinary human being who has signed release waivers to the Agency absolving them of any responsibility for his wellbeing. Add one part donor animal -- in our case, almost always a cute little puppy dog. Blend using one slightly insane German scientist with a murky past ("ach, bitte! I vas Austrian!" sez Dr. Hartmann) to grow one new body. Inject some appropriate memory engrams and bake at four hundred degrees for one hour. Remove from oven and it's ready to serve immediately.

The best part is that the Kokkola Process is entirely reversible. When you're done with the mission, just plug their brain into the machine and suck out their thoughts. The sophisticated computer filters out what needs to go where, you dump it into the human you have in cold storage, wake him back up, and incinerate the hybrid body.

Not sure why this isn't a plum job?

Yeah, me either. "Director Park has requested you be assigned to Unit 13 to track down a potential spy, mm? Oh, very good." Hartmann's teeth were unnaturally white when he smiled. "We can making you a nice new body, Agent Clarke!"

He stood, and shook my hand firmly before guiding me down linoleum tiled halls to another elevator. This opened out into a room that was filled with the blinking lights of mainframe computers. Some of the stations were manned; a pale, wiry man at one of them glanced up at us, and then waved: "Fresh meat for the grinder?"

"Dr. Sirling, this agent here is called Thomas Clarke; Agent Clarke, Dr. Monte Sirling." Hartmann spoke with the pride of a father introducing an accomplished child.

Monte shook my hand firmly. "Hey, Mr. Clarke. I've been working with the good doctor since just outta school -- super exciting work!" He had long, disheveled hair and big glasses -- the effect was to remove a decade from his age, which I didn't think could be more than thirty anyway. "Dr. Hartmann, should we start the process immediately?"

"Well, he needs to be ready until his flight tomorrow morning," Dr. Hartmann shrugged. "You must not wait for my approval. Go on, set him up." Yeah. A setup, that was basically what had happened.

Monte showed me to the next room, in which a surgical bed hulked, surrounded by ominous looking machines. The vinyl was cold, even through my slacks, but I sat as ordered. Dr. Sirling stood before a computer monitor that flickered with rows of amber text.

"Have you done this before?"

I shook my head. "No. I didn't want to do it this time, either. It wasn't my idea."

"Pissed somebody off, huh? Well, it won't be so bad. It's a prestige job! Just look at the president. You better believe they're volunteering for that one..." Kokkola hybrids were more perceptive than humans, and they had better reflexes. They're pretty common in the Secret Service, for the duration of a guard's assignment there.

"That's a bit special."

Monte grinned. "Weight of the world on your shoulders, yeah. But hell, Mr. Clarke -- if we'd had hybrids back a couple years ago, maybe Ronnie would still be alive."

Could they have saved Reagan? Well, I didn't know. But I wasn't going to be guarding the president, anyway. I was going to be tracking down some miscreant like a glorified bloodhound. "Yeah, maybe."

"Okay. Looks like we've got your file all ready, here. You have a preference?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well. Right now we've got hybrids in husky, Rottweiler, dobie, Dutch shepherd and poodle."

"Does anybody pick that last one?"

Monte laughed. "Well, they don't always have a choice."

"I guess..." I trailed off. I didn't have any opinion on such matters. "Husky is fine."

"It's a malamute, really," Monte corrected. "Just letting you know."

I didn't care. I really didn't. I knew that the assignment had been meant as punishment, but it was simple enough -- so I would finish it, go back to my desk, and not give Park the satisfaction of thinking that he'd beaten me. "Sounds great."

Monte Sirling pulled open a cabinet and retrieved a floppy disk from it. He pushed it into his computer, and while the machine noisily read in the data he picked up the phone. "Yep, we're ready. Why don't you bring 17 in? Thanks."

The door opened two or three minutes later, admitting a muscular, serious-looking guard and the big black and white dog whose leash he held. It had a fluffy tail, and perky ears, and it made good use of both when it saw us. The guard unclipped the leash, and the dog trotted over to me, licking and nuzzling at my hand.

"Heh," Sirling said. "Looks like you're compatible. Calm down, okay?"

"Calm down?" Before I could ask for further clarification, glass doors dropped from the ceiling, trapping the dog and I in the area around the bed. I heard a hissing sound from below us, and when I took a breath I tasted chemicals.

"Breathe deep and easy," Monte said, through a speaker somewhere near the bed.

The dog looked up at me, and then lurched unsteadily. I leaned down to pet it between the ears. "Kind of a dog's life, ain't it, boy?" He collapsed a few seconds later, and I found it was getting harder and harder to think. Everything was fuzzy; everything took just a few seconds too long. I opened my mouth to protest -- and then toppled over backwards, onto the bed.

I guess I don't know what I was expecting. Pain? Bright lights? Vivid dreams? Instead I opened my eyes again to discover Monte Sirling looking down at me with a smile. "You doing okay there, big guy?"

"Yeah," I said. My mouth felt dry, and my voice sounded peculiar.

"Cool. Sit up -- slowly."

The bed no longer seemed as smooth and cold as it had before -- it actually didn't feel like much of anything. I looked at my hand -- and then started in surprise, falling flat onto my back. My hand was gone; in its place was a broad, claw-fingered paw, covered in white fur.

"Oh. Yeah, don't worry, we've got some exercises to help with that." He put a hand around my wrist and pulled me to an upright position. "Welcome to the elite ranks of Unit 13."

"Thanks," I muttered, and did not feel particularly welcome. "I feel a little sick to my stomach. Is this procedure safe? No side effects? No lasting damage?"

"Perfectly safe," Monte assured me.

"How come you guys don't do it, then?"

He snorted. "Are you kidding me?"

As answers go, it wasn't particularly reassuring. Monte had other things he wanted to do, though. Helping me to my feet, he led me to another room, where one of the walls had been replaced with a giant mirror. It was here that I got a look at myself for the first time -- tall, wolflike, with fluffy, black fur. Monte asked me to touch my right paw to my nose. Then my left paw to my nose. My right paw to my left paw. My right paw to my right foot. My right foot to my left knee.

It all seemed a little silly but, watching the strange-looking monster in the mirror follow my commands, I realized what he was doing -- getting me to understand the new form, and to internalize it as my own. I was happy to discover that I moved easily, and my new body seemed to be a great deal stronger than my old one. Although...

"Am I, ah... a woman?"

"What? No. Why the hell would you think that?"

I glanced in the mirror again, looking between my legs, where there seemed to be nothing but an expanse of snowy fur. "Well... just..."

"Oh. Yeah, okay, white on white -- guess your vision hasn't really settled in. It's covered in fur, but it's all there, don't worry. We kinda..."

"Kinda what?"

Monte held his hands out, palms facing each other. Then he moved them further apart, and gave a wink. "You know. Anyway, you'll figure it out later. Come on, up on your left foot again, why don't you? And touch your muzzle with your left index finger..."

I stayed at the hospital overnight, practicing. The next morning, I followed Monte through the corridors -- then suddenly found my progress arrested, and a sharp, painful tug at my rear.

I turned to find my tail caught in one of the swinging doors; Dr. Stirling was less than sympathetic. "Oh. I forgot," he muttered, pushing the door open and allowing me to retrieve the heavy thing. "That does happen."

It wasn't much more convenient to keep it tucked between my legs, and I had a few more narrow escapes that made me suspect Dr. Hartmann had not really considered the ergonomics of his hybrids' bodies.

On the other hand, one of the nice things about this gig is that when they send you places, they send you business class -- turns out you make people uncomfortable enough they don't want to see you mingling with the proles. The morning flight to New York was nearly empty, and the pleasant Northwestern flight attendant showed me to my seat early.

"We see a fair number of you," he said. "But the first couple of times, it was really jarring..."

"Try seeing it in the mirror."

"I imagine, sir. Can I get you something to drink?"

I had been given a small informative pamphlet from Dr. Hartmann's office, which covered the things I was and was not allowed to do. Alcohol was proscribed, although it was a bit early in the morning to start on that anyway. Coffee was banned too, though, and that was going to hurt. "Orange juice, please."

The slender steward bowed and danced off, returning a few minutes later with a glass -- I mean real glass, here -- of orange juice, and a cloth napkin. Serious dedication, that. "Are you with the secret service? Guarding the president and all?"

"Nope. Just a regular working dog."

"Bet it's still pretty exciting..."

I lapped at the orange juice, and looked up at him rather balefully -- muzzle still buried in the glass. "Yeah? You want to trade?"

When Concorde pushed back from the gate I felt the movement in my inner ear, and as we began our takeoff roll from Stapleton I began to appreciate just how keen my senses had become -- the advantage of being an Evolved Species, I suppose. But I found that I could almost anticipate the movements of the aircraft -- as surely as if I'd been up in the cockpit. V1... rotate... V2.

Rotate? The point in speed at which we angled ourselves up to become airborne. But when had I learned that?

An Agency suit met me at the airport, and ushered me silently to a waiting black car. Once I was safely inside, he took the seat next to me and slid the dividing glass closed. "Good afternoon, Mr. Clarke. My name's Kitchin. How was the flight?"

"Uneventful -- fast. Are you the one who can tell me why I'm in New York City? Or why I'm a dog?"

"Both, of course. We needed to put our best people on this -- unfortunately, our best people are currently sorting out some unpleasantness in the Middle East. So you're it -- but it's easier to select the right skillset when we can just plug it into your brain, right?" The man had a grin that I disliked immediately -- too toothy. He smelled of poorly chosen cologne. "And we last saw our quarry headed for New York. They're supposed to meet up with their contact here..."

"Their contact being?"

"Avery Maddock was an engineer at Lockheed who seems to have enjoyed only two things: airfoils and Atlantic City." Kitchin opened a leather portfolio, pulling out a picture of Maddock -- a tall, muscular looking fellow; the picture showed him holding a massive swordfish. "And the finer things in life, like a sport fishing trip that cost at least eight hundred dollars."

"More than he should've been making as an engineer?"

"Well, when you're six figures in the red, yeah. Maddock ought to be insolvent. When we went to check up on him, though, we found out that all his debts were canceled two weeks ago -- not paid off, canceled. Then he disappeared, and so did a dozen floppies with drawings for a new aircraft they've been working on."

"Who's buying?"

"Saddam, we think. There's been some buzz on the wire about a possible new acquisition, and they'd like a prestige project. The war with Iran's been getting all the press. We intercepted a cable directing one Tarik Nasser -- alias Steffan Horton, posing as a West German spice merchant -- to meet with an unspecified 'American businessman' here in New York, three days from now. We haven't yet been able to track down the exact spot for the rendezvous."

I leafed through the portfolio, skimming it for any information that jumped out at me and being disappointed. "And naturally you wanted to go with something inconspicuous..."

"You're not going to be doing the investigating, Clarke, you're going to be doing the apprehending. We don't need someone inconspicuous, we need someone competent -- in case something happens, right?"

I lifted an eyebrow, and felt my ears perk. "In case something happens?"

"Right. Why bother with anyone less than superlative, in that case? Besides, we needed someone who could speak a few different languages. This could prove to be pretty interesting. Sometimes, I envy you guys..."

"Volunteer for it."

Kitchin snickered. "Yeah, I don't envy you that much."

Wasn't that a surprise? I rolled my eyes, and leaned back into the warm leather of the Crown Victoria. "What's so important about this damned plane, anyway?"

"That's classified, naturally. But it's vitally important that it not be allowed to leak into foreign hands -- nobody can know about it."

They put me up at a hotel on Madison Avenue, in a room with no television or telephone or alarm clock. Presently another suited, grim man appeared, installing a phone and a clock -- Agency property, he explained; wouldn't want anything to be contaminated electronically.

Then he left me alone, and I sat cross-legged at the edge of the bed, blinking at the hole in the wall where the upscale hotel might once have put a television to entertain traveling businessmen. The phone rang and, with a resigned sigh, I picked it up. "Yes?"

"Thomas Clarke?" The new voice was a woman I didn't recognize.

"Yeah."

"Come down to the lobby, please."

Everyone in the City was dressed so damned well. They'd given me a sportscoat, but I wore it over a button-down shirt and denim jeans, a look that reminded me rather uncomfortably of Jimmy Carter. The jeans, in particular, were troublesome -- they had provided a hole for my tail, but it was too small by half. I wound up using a butter knife to widen the gap until it no longer pinched.

To be honest the effect would not have set the world on fire. The Agency operative in the lobby, by contrast, looked quite professional in a rather snappy skirt and blouse. Helpfully, the man with her seemed roughly as out of place as I did, in a suit that had clearly been cut for someone else.

When he saw me, he snorted, and shook his head. "Funny."

"It's nothing of the sort," the woman said. She nodded to me. "Mr. Clarke, I'm Beth Warrick, and this is Mikhail." Mikhail, unlike Beth, did not shake my paw. "Mikhail, Thomas Clarke is one of our finest. He's been tasked specifically to this assignment..."

"Of course. I always expect the finest from you, Ms. Warrick." Mikhail's English was impeccable, with the hint of a British accent to lend it a class betrayed by his ill-fitting blazer. We followed Beth as she led us into one of the meeting rooms, guarded by a tall man who nodded mutely.

"Mikhail," Beth explained, "is not Agency. But we do maintain some ties with his... business."

"Which is not, of course, the GRU?" I asked.

Mikhail smiled thinly. "Naturally, it is not."

Beth started up a slide projector, and an image of my quarry greeted us again -- but this seemed quite recent, snapped through a telephoto lens. "We took this yesterday," she confirmed. "Or, well, Mikhail did, at a café in Greenwich Village. We think that he was intending to meet his contact here, but nobody ever showed. Perhaps they were trying to feel him out -- in any case, he'll be trying again. He's traveling under the alias Andrew Miller, and speaking with a halfway decent Londoner accent -- in which guise he's reserved a table at two different restaurants tomorrow for lunch."

"This will be your chance to retrieve him," Mikhail said. "It seems that the Iraqi intelligence ministry has activated some of their assets in your country, so if he is allowed to negotiate a contract, he may acquire... protection. That would be unclean, I believe."

"But you do mean 'retrieve' as in 'arrest'?" I asked. Beth was clicking through other slides -- more telephoto images, a hotel receipt in the name 'Andrew Miller,' a photo of a black Mercedes sedan with heavily tinted windows.

"That would be ideal. If not..." Beth pulled out an attaché case, flipping it open and sliding it to me. Inside were several passports -- not all of them American -- and some paper currency, neatly stacked. Also, I saw, an M1911 pistol, with two magazines. "You're authorized to use whatever it takes."

"I presume that means the same in your country as it means in mine," Mikhail said. "He must not be allowed to hand over anything sensitive."

"I thought that Iraq was an ally?"

Mikhail's dark eyes fixed me piercingly. "Iraq is an ally, yes, but they have... unfortunate... designs. Saddam believes that he is larger than the Middle East. He is pursuing a nuclear weapons program, as you know. He maintains a space agency -- not as capable as ours, perhaps, but aiming to be as capable as yours. And he believes that it is in his interest to develop a domestic aviation industry, rather than relying on the superlative work of Mikoyan and Gurevich."

"I see," I said with a nod, taking the attaché case and closing it again.

"It's in our best interests to cooperate," Beth explained. "Diplomatically, both of our countries must respect Iraqi sovereignty. But it is best for both of us if they are kept on a... well, on a bit of a short leash, don't you suppose?"

Mikhail put it more simply: "In Soviet Russia, you control your puppets."

"Naturally."

"My business will, of course, also provide some assistance to you," he went on. "We also have assigned an operative to this task. Irina Voronova is the best in the business, absolutely -- Beth and I have already briefed her. Perhaps it's best that you two meet now?"

I nodded once again. "I'm ready when you are, sure."

Beth stepped outside, and exchanged words with the guard. When she returned, she smiled at me. "It would be best if you prepared yourself, I think."

"For?"

Irina Voronova, best in the business, turned out to be a wolf. I might've said 'dog,' but there was something rather more ferocious in the way that she looked at me, then glared at Mikhail, then curled her lip in an irritated snarl. This was also when I discovered that I knew Russian, because she had told him to go to hell.

"The Americans," he explained, also in Russian, "have the same intentions as we do. Calm down."

Irina's yellow eyes narrowed on me; her canine teeth were still bared. It was a pretty good effect, and one I resolved to try myself as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Her paw shot out in a forced handshake, and when I took it I found she had a crushing grip. "Irina," she introduced herself.

"Thomas," I answered in kind, and tried to shake her paw. "Zdrastvruitye."

Her lip uncurled, slightly. "Vy govorite po-Russki?"

I nodded. "Da, ne bespokoytis'."

"Hmph," Irina grunted, and let my paw go. "Appreciate the gesture. Speaking English as well, of course," she said, for Beth's benefit -- and, I supposed, also to show off to us Americans. Her English was heavily accented, but I had no illusions about my mastery of Russian, so what was that supposed to matter? "Comrade Mikhail, we are ready?"

"Yes," he said. He glanced to me, and I gathered that my knowledge of his language had proved to be slightly irritating, for he looked as though he wanted to say something else. Instead, he stuck to English. "Good hunting, comrades."

I took the attaché case and followed Irina outside, to a waiting black van. She got into the driver's seat; I took the seat next to her. It was worn, with weak springs that took my weight as though they had long ago given up on the task of support. The engine coughed irritation at the starter motor, and finally sputtered into rumbling life. "They really went all out for us this time, I see..."

"Is inconspicuous," Irina shrugged. She struck the gearshift lever with her paw to drop the van into first gear. "We go scout out our locations, now, yes?" When I asked why, I discovered that she had a rather more aggressive approach to our operation: she wanted to know lines of sight for snipers, and escape routes, and where a helicopter could be brought in to land...

"It's New York City, for god's sake. You think they're gonna let you land a helicopter here?"

"There is only doing your job with perfect thoroughness," the wolf said curtly, "and doing it wrong. I will not be letting this fool escape us."

Fair enough. As the van grumbled its way along 52nd Street, I lapsed back into silence. Irina had sharp, striking yellow eyes, and when I opened my muzzle to say something she turned to look at me piercingly. "Uh... nothing, I guess. I was just going to ask if this is your only assignment in this body."

"What?"

"The Agency, they're only supposed to keep us as an Evolved Species for as long as it takes to finish one assignment. But I guess it's so expensive that they've been keeping them longer, up to a month at a time... for me, this was like punishment or something."

"Punishing? Hmph. Americans," she grunted -- both at me, and at the taxi who had come to an abrupt stop before us. "How it is punishment?"

I was thinking about it the wrong way, of course -- of course she was right, I should've been thinking about it as nothing more than another of my duties. "Well... I mean... it's a bit different, right? Suddenly having to be... well, like this..."

"An honor." Irina had strikingly silver fur, ticked with a darker grey along her arms. It had the effect of making her look surprisingly regal -- as though she fundamentally believed what she had said. "It's an honor to be assigned to this section. We do not give it up."

I paused. "You mean you choose to stay this way?"

The wolf glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. "Yes, of course. There is no choice in the matter. Once you decide to give yourself to the Motherland, there is no turning back. This is difference, with you Americans -- you only think you understand what it means to become true patriot."

As the van trundled along, I mused on this way of thinking. It must, at least, have given her a very different perspective. All the things that I found troublesome -- like the way all my clothes pulled against the grain of my fur, or the way New York positively reeked of human habitation, or the bothersome weight of my tail -- she must've found ways of adapting to.

I was not about to, ah, "become true patriot." But I resolved, in any event, to treat the new body as less of an imposition, and I tried to consider what it would be like to live inside it permanently. It had some advantages: at least New Yorkers seemed willing to give me a wide berth, which made it easier to navigate the crowded streets.

Having looked at both restaurants, Irina and I agreed that the first we had visited was not a good meeting place for anyone even remotely paranoid -- the entrance was narrow, and there was no outdoor seating. The second was a bistro with tables near the sidewalk: ideally suited, we decided, for jumping into a passing car and making a quick getaway.

That night, in the wolf's hotel room, we made plans with the maps that we'd drawn. The Agency would provide someone to watch the other restaurant, while Irina and I staked out the bistro. I would remain in the van, parked on the street in front of the restaurant. She would position herself on the top floor of the building opposite, with binoculars and, I finally got her to admit, a sniper rifle. Irina would not promise to use it only on the tires of any prospective escape vehicles, which put a greater burden on me to apprehend Avery before he made the attempt.

"Just don't aim for the head, alright?"

"Do your job before I have to aim for anything," was her curt reply. And then she ushered me out.

I ordered room service, and briefly considered the entertainment value of tearing into the steak with my bare claws. Even without this bit of savagery, I went after the strip in great big bites, and did not find myself particularly sated. When the second steak arrived, the uniformed man eyed me skeptically. I tried Irina's lip-curled thing, then felt guilty and tipped him a twenty.

It was getting on midnight, so I set the plate outside my door and eyed the bed warily. Had I been human, I think, it would've been very comfortable. As it was, my thick fur coat made sleeping under blankets unbearably hot. I settled for lying flat on my back, up into what passed for darkness, where my keen night vision flicked to every shadow cast by passing cars on the streets far below.

I don't remember what I dreamt about, only that as dawn shoved its insistent nose into my hotel room I recalled the opening lines of a novel I'd read in high school: As Gregor Samsa awoke from uneasy dreams one morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous creature.

Yep, pretty much.

The shirt they'd given me was too small. It was appropriate for a human being of my size, but it pulled and tugged at my fur in a way that made me itch. I considered dispensing with clothing altogether, but I suppose there are appearances to be kept up, after all. Besides, the blazer was just long enough to cover my holster, which made me... well, a bit less conspicuous, at least.

Irina was waiting in the hotel restaurant, and from the empty plates I gathered she had an appetite as large as mine had been the night before. Thinking about it, I decided I was slightly peckish myself. Half a dozen eggs, a dozen strips of bacon and two waffles later, we set out for work. Beth produced a two-way radio, which was designed to be inconspicuous -- a little like a hearing aid. It didn't fit, of course, so she snapped the retaining clip off and taped the tiny speaker to the inside of my ear. A dog's life, it was turning out, was not one of particular comfort.

The owner of the bistro seemed a bit taken aback by us, but I flashed my Agency badge and he quickly decided that discretion was the better part of valor. This netted me a table just inside the window, where I could watch and see who was coming and going. Irina was a barely visible lump on a building across the way; only the occasional glint of her binoculars indicated her presence.

My earpiece crackled. "American."

The microphone was threaded into the sleeve of my blazer. I lifted it to my muzzle and tried to look normal -- a bipedal Alaskan malamute, talking to himself in an upscale Greenwich Village café. "Yes?"

"They tell you what kind of car to look for?"

"No."

"Not myself either."

I thought about this for a moment, then took a bite of croissant. "You know, if I was him? I wouldn't use a car. Lot of taxis in this city -- even aerial surveillance would have a hard time tracking one..." Aerial surveillance which we didn't have, Irina's affinity for helicopters notwithstanding.

"Dermo," she grunted. This is not a polite word. "Good point."

"Don't start shooting at cabbies just yet."

Her reply was not particularly polite, either.

By noon, I was starting to get a bit edgy. I had been on assignment in the past, staking out drug deals and the like. The stakes were a bit higher now, and I practically willed our quarry to reveal himself. No such luck. Twelve became twelve-thirty, and then one, and as the place filled up the café owner drifted over to hint that I might consider moving on. This time, I didn't feel guilty about growling.

Avery's reservation had been for twelve thirty. An hour later, polishing off my fourth orange juice, I had the sneaking suspicion that we'd been had. As if on cue, the pager in my inside pocket went off: payfon out frnt 5 min. I told Irina and then got up to pay the bill. When I left the bistro, the wolf was hopping down the fire escape a flight at a time; she leapt from the first floor to land in a crouch on the sidewalk, and then nonchalantly jogged across the street, ignoring the horns of surprised drivers.

The payphone rang. I reached for the handle, but Irina beat me to it, snatching the handset in tightly clenched fingers. "Slushayu vas. What?" A beat, and she tried English instead. "Hello? Yes, this is dog." She listened carefully for a few seconds -- then her ears flattened, and her bared teeth seemed very, very sharp indeed. "How? What? No, I will not calm -- suka! How you Americans..." Her ears flicked, and she shut up. I could hear muffled speech from the other end of the line. It was slightly quieter than Irina's growled "fine," and quite a bit softer than the clash of plastic on plastic as she slammed the receiver back into its cradle.

"Got away?"

"Heading to Italy. Flight left this morning."

"Son of a bitch..."

"I say this too," she scowled. "But you Americans just want to make excuses."

"Well, come on." Irina raised an eyebrow. "Let's go," I clarified, and stepped into the street, flagging down a taxi. I waited until the wolf had joined me in the back seat to speak -- rumors abounded of cabbies who would flee rather than take an airport fare. "How long to get to JFK?"

The cabbie shrugged. "In afternoon traffic like this? An hour? If the Van Wyck is --"

"We're on official government business," I cut him off, and then got out my wallet, snapping off a hundred dollar bill with each word. "It's. Very. Important. Now -- how long to get to JFK?"

Twenty-five minutes is how long it takes, if one is not particularly concerned with red lights or one-way streets. Irina left to find tickets, and I called Beth from a payphone. "We don't know how -- nobody ever showed at either place, but his passport shows up on a TWA jumbo to Rome."

"Flag it for Interpol?"

"I can't get approval. We don't want to alert the authorities yet... apparently. Can you get to Italy?"

I rolled my eyes. Fucking bureaucracies. "Yeah. My partner's on it."

"How's working with her going?"

"Well, I haven't been bitten yet."

Beth chuckled. "Don't screw things up too badly, Tom. This is important for international relations. We'll have more for you in Italy, alright?"

Not a whole lot of clarification, there. But the short phone conversation was apparently enough time for Irina to have found a solution to our travel woes, because when I turned around from the phone she pressed a ticket into my paw. "Aeroflot 364. New York to Moscow, stopping in London."

"Best we can do?"

"What you mean, 'best we can do'?" she glared at me. "Is Aeroflot. Twenty minutes. Come."

Not enough time for a bite to eat. We just barely made it through security -- it's easy to cut in line if you're seven feet tall and have sharp claws. At the gate I found another Concorde, or what looked it anyway -- painted in stately Aeroflot blue. "Welcome aboard," the flight attendant nodded. I thanked him in Russian, and he smiled, gesturing to a seat near the front of the cabin.

The seats were nice and spacious. It was a little surprising to think that there was a "first class" on a Soviet airliner, but I suppose supersonic travel was not one of the opiates of the masses. I buckled in, and then turned to the wolf next to me. "I didn't know you flew Concordes."

"Concorde?" Irina sniffed derisively. "Second-generation Tupolev 144, thank you. Bigger than the Concorde. Faster."

Noisier, as well. I pitied the unfortunate souls in "rocket class" at the back of the plane. But the Aeroflot attendants were very friendly to Irina and I, much as the Northwestern stew had been. I passed on the first round of vodka, and noticed that Irina seemed to have no such compunctions. Well, they do things different on the other side of the Iron Curtain, I guess.

Dinner, served at just over two and a half times the speed of sound, was sumptuous. Incredibly delicious borscht, some dark Russian bread, and pelmeni -- boiled lamb dumplings doused in enough sour cream to kill any ordinary man. The flight attendant didn't bat an eye when I asked for seconds, and my willingness to immerse myself in her cuisine cheered Irina a little. Her tail was wagging when she got up, after dinner, and went forward to knock on the door of the cockpit.

She was gone for three or four minutes, and offered me a less-than-characteristic grin when she sat down again. Shortly thereafter, Captain Pyotr Kulibin came over the intercom. "Hello comrades. Due to reasons of state security, we will stop in Rome instead of London. Thank you." Several seconds later, he started again in English. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I must announcing to you a slight change in our flight plan. We have been diverted from London Heathrow and will land temporarily in Rome, Italy instead. I apologize for the inconvenience; Aeroflot will providing you with additional assistance at the gate. Thank you for your understanding."

It was rather more wordy, but I guessed that the Soviet passengers were more used to such things, and therefore less in need of being reassured.

They darkened the cabin lights as we sped on through the evening, and I let myself wander on to different senses. The rumble of the engines was low, growling under the hiss of air rushing past the supersonic airliner. My sense of touch was less than keen; the thick pads on my paws were far less sensitive than my human fingers. I could still taste a bit of sour cream, but for the moment I was no longer hungry.

I could no longer smell the lamb, only the typical odors of an airliner -- recycled air, and cleaning products, and machinery. And something else... a more organic scent, slightly musky. Not human, for I'd been well oversaturated by their smell and could mostly ignore it. I sniffed a few times, and tilted my head at my companion. "Are you wearing perfume?"

Irina turned to me. "What?"

It was not something I could place, exactly, but it was rather pleasant -- working its way through my nose to gnaw at my brain. I leaned fractionally closer, and sniffed again, to find that it was mostly definitely stronger. "Yeah, you're --"

The wolf gave me a shove. "Don't mock me."

Chastened, I settled back in my seat, and flattened my ears submissively. "What do you mean? I didn't mean anything by it."

Her fiery eyes narrowed, and the wolf's lip lifted. "It's not funny. You wouldn't like it if you had to deal with it..."

"With what?"

She swore, under her breath. "You don't know?" I shook my head, and she switched to English. This time her tone softened. "I am..." her ear flicked, and she worried her tongue between her teeth thoughtfully. "In heat. You would say."

I was mostly familiar with this term as it applied to housepets, and I wasn't certain if I'd understood. "You mean, like a d --"

"Yes," she snapped, and it appeared to take an effort for her to settle down. "Like a dog. It's unpleasant. This is my third. Not much easier than first. Will go away in a few days."

I didn't really understand the physiology, but I could see how a powerful mating instinct would be difficult to deal with, in her line of work -- not that it seemed to stop James Bond. Anyway it put her short temper into context, and I splayed my ears further. "Sorry. I, uh, didn't mean anything by it, then. I really don't know these things... like I said, they... don't keep us this way for very long. It's different, in America."

"Different," she grumbled. "Yes."

Then she was quiet, and I leaned back in my seat. Sleep would do me good, but it proved to be elusive. And now that I knew what it was, I couldn't help smelling the wolf, even though I tried to breathe through my nose. Did Dr. Hartmann know anything about this? Murmuring impulses nudged my brain, tingling down my spine. I mean. Irina was sort of elegant, in her own way. I thought of Monte, giving me a wink as he spread his hands out to indicate my endowment...

I shuddered, and forced myself to stop thinking about it. Nothing good could come from such things. This was not, after all, what Beth had meant by "international relations." But it took all my willpower to avoid dwelling, and so I had obtained no sleep at all by the time we touched down in Rome. Dawn was just barely thinking about making something of itself.

A grim-looking man was waiting for Irina and I; he handed me a telex, which explained a little bit more about our situation. Avery had already landed; they were trying to track him, but the Italian police were not being cooperative. Monte Sirling had been put on an Air Force charter flight, and would be arriving by noon -- I dreaded to think what that might imply.

There was nothing to do but wait. I found Irina and I a hotel, left its address with the Agency man, and settled into the hotel restaurant for a late breakfast. I was resting by the pool, letting the sun warm my fur, when someone tapped my shoulder. I turned, and Dr. Sirling grinned down at me. "Enjoying yourself?"

"I was. I thought I was hiding..."

"Yeah, you're pretty conspicuous. Come on, we have some work to do."

Several large crates were stacked on the bed of his hotel room, and the machines that had lived in them were plugged in and whirring on a table. Blinking lights dominated the scene, and I could make absolutely no sense of it. "What's... going on?"

"Doing some reprogramming quick. Don't worry, it's painless." He set a heavy metal band on my head, and a sharp electric jolt made me yelp. "Well, almost. Looks like we've got a good link..."

"Link for?"

"Your brain, pup," he chuckled, and carefully unlatched a plastic box, pulling one of the new three and a half-inch floppy disks from it. "And this is the key." At my expression, Dr. Sirling grinned wider. "The encryption codes and the organization of the link process are stored on this disk -- we need it for any operations on your brain. Installing new things, recovery, anything like that." Sirling had a portable computer set up on the desk, and he slipped the disk into the side. "Alright, let's see what we've got here..."

"You have my mind stored on that thing?" The thought was a little unsettling.

The young scientist waved a dismissive hand. "No, no. Like I said, just the codes. Some sequencing that tells us how to write to your brain, that's all. Ready?"

"For?"

Another electric jolt at my temples was followed by a soft buzzing. It wasn't particularly pleasant, but it wasn't unbearable, either. Ten or fifteen seconds later, it stopped, and then Monte pulled off the headband. "Upgrading your marksmanship skills to the latest version, and teaching you how to fly a helicopter. They told me you might need to get around quickly."

"Right."

He pulled the disk out again, and put it in a protective plastic sleeve. "How's life as a dog going for you, anyway, Agent Clarke?"

Well, thinking about it, it wasn't really as bad as I'd feared. I seemed to have a lot more energy; my brain worked faster, and the race through the terminal at JFK hadn't even left me winded. "It's not as bad as all that. I won't be too unhappy when it's over, though."

"Sure, sure. Be good to be back in your own body, I know."

"Can I ask you a question, doc? Do hybrids, uh... can hybrids breed?"

Dr. Sirling turned around, and gave me a queer look. "They said your partner was a lady, but I didn't think you'd be so eager..."

"I was just curious. Apparently she's, uh, in season."

"Kinky. I guess nobody knows for sure -- shit, definitely nobody knows what the Russkies are up to. Maybe theirs can. We don't keep anyone hybridized long enough for it to be an issue. If you want my advice, I'd keep it in your pants."

"Get your mind out of the gutter," I told him. Maybe a little too quickly, actually. "I wasn't planning anything, I just wanted to know. She made it seem real uncomfortable."

"Probably is," he shrugged. "Anyway, you don't have to worry about it -- so don't. Just control yourself." He was packing up his equipment, and I watched the floppy disk he'd used earlier disappearing back into its box.

"Hey. You'll be careful with that, right?"

"Of course."

"My mind your talking about..."

Dr. Sirling rolled his eyes, and then pulled the plastic case out again. "Fine. Tell you what," he said, and slipped it into his pocket. "I'll keep it on me. Wouldn't want housekeeping to walk off with the secret to your immortal soul."

It was easy enough for him to say; he wasn't a talking sled dog. When he let me go, I sought out Irina's company; she was in her room, and had disassembled a submachine gun on the sheets of her bed. Guess you can never be too thorough. The MP5 I'd been provided with -- high-quality West German steel -- was stowed in my own room.

"Any news?" I asked.

"Nothing. They say he went north, but nothing else."

She was better prepared than I was -- not just with the silencer for her gun. The GRU had seen fit to deliver topographic maps of the area, and we scouted out possible hiding spots where one might arrange a clandestine rendezvous. I left for the evening feeling confident that we knew the environment.

It was three in the morning, New York time, when Beth called -- sounding chipper as ever. They had a fix on Avery, on an island near the edge of Irina's maps. He had departed Rome with a ticket for a boat rental and a case of computer equipment.

"Monte says he taught you how to fly a chopper. We've found one for you, so head out to the airfield as soon as you can. And take Dr. Stirling with you -- don't know what Avery's up to, but I want somebody who understands computers on your team."

The helicopter, a tired-looking UH-1, seemed to have been manufactured sometime around the Civil War. Her owner's yellow-toothed grin indicated either confidence or a desire to be rid of us once and for all, but I supposed we'd have to take what we could get.

Monte, still looking a bit nervous, climbed in back. Irina took the left seat, and I settled into the right, packing my tall frame into the uncomfortable chair. My feet settled on the pedals, and suddenly I knew -- or remembered -- that they were called anti-torque pedals, that they controlled the battered Huey's tail rotor, and that I knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

The wolf had pulled down a clipboard and was skimming it, even as I started checking the circuit breakers and the inverters. Check the DC power control panel. Throttle to idle. Batteries on. Starter switch on.

Irina didn't seem surprised by my aptitude; she flipped the checklist to the next page calmly. "Governor?"

"Auto."

"Fuel switches?"

They clicked solidly beneath my fingers. "On."

"Engine start..."

I pushed the button in and held it, as the turbine whined itself awake. The gauges responded smoothly; the controls felt right and natural beneath my paws. When the engine had settled down I brought the throttle up, and was rewarded with a quickening thump from the big rotor above us. "Got the map?"

"West. Find water."

They cleared me for takeoff without demur, and I gave the helicopter some collective, anticipating her every move as we started to gain altitude. Dip the nose forward, check the trim... and then we were away, at a steady hundred miles an hour, the Italian countryside blurring beneath us. I decided that maybe Dr. Stirling had a point in his computer trickery after all.

When we reached the Mediterranean, Irina directed me northwards. The sea was relatively calm, and I dipped us lower -- skids skimming just a few feet over the tops of the breaking crests. This was properly exhilarating -- the sense of speed was immense, and I reveled in the way the old helicopter shifted smoothly to every control input. Hey. A dog could get used to this...

We swept over the lagoons of Monte Argentario and I could see heads turn to follow the helicopter's noisy progress. "There." Irina pointed ahead of us, towards an old stone tower, well in the distance. "There's the island, to the west of Punta Ala."

I kept us to the clean white beaches for as long as I could, then pulled up at the last minute in a maneuver that shoved my stomach down through my lap. We arched up, long enough for me to pick the only open space on the tiny, rocky island that Irina had indicated. Then the helicopter settled down, so cleanly I could barely feel the skids digging into the rocks.

The MP5 felt no more alien than the Huey had been as I unpacked it from its case in the rear of the chopper, thumbing the safety off. "Stay here," I ordered Monte. "Until we call for you."

The tower had been built some centuries before, and was somewhat decrepit, but a wooden door still blocked easy access. Every bit of information we had told us our prey was just inside. The door was locked, no doubt -- but its locks had been designed to foil mere humans. "On three?" I asked the wolf softly. She nodded. I held up three fingers. Then two. Then one.

Between the two of us, the door never stood a chance. It buckled inwards, and I swung my submachine gun up, pointing it into the dusty interior. Two figures -- one, hunched over a computer; the other, seated against the wall, hands bound.

"Freeze! Hands up!" I shouted.

Avery Maddox turned from the computer, looking at us without particular concern. Then he kicked something at his feet, and neither Irina nor I could move before the net dropped over us both. It had us well immobilized; there was nothing we could do -- she growled at him, but he deftly disarmed us, and set the guns carefully out of our reach.

"That's three," he said. "You guys aren't very good at this. Well, anyway, it's a bit late now."

He tugged on the rope that had suspended the net, and the webbing drew tighter, pushing me close against the wolf. She growled again. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into."

"I know perfectly well," Avery shrugged. "But as I said, you're too late."

"We've reported your location," I told him. "They'll interdict anybody coming to pick you up."

"You think in such physical terms," the man said, and returned to his computer. "They don't need me personally. All they need is the data, and that's going in a much faster way..."

"Satellite," said the figure bound on the floor, who sounded like another American to me. "He's going to negotiate an uplink with a communications satellite. It dawns in fifteen minutes."

Avery laughed. "Somebody's done their homework. Yes, yes, exactly right of course. This computer here is connected to a rather powerful transmitter. And then, what happens? You arrest me? My benefactors can bribe a lot more than these useless Italian police. Although... two Kokkola hybrids? Interesting that they're bothering to send the Secret Service. Well, not that it matters."

"Does anything?" I asked. "Treason, for example?"

"Oh, come off it. What's there to be treasonous against? Some damned 'American ideal'? Don't be an idiot. President Bush was a war-loving fool. President Hart hasn't been any better. The country's going down the tubes -- I'm loyal to the one damned thing you can count on." Here he rubbed his thumb and fingers together, counting out imaginary money. "What does it mean to be an American, anyway?"

I didn't have a particularly good answer. Neither, besides a low, intermittent growling, did Irina. Crushed up against her, her scent was filling my nose again, and this was yet another distraction I didn't really need. I tried to work my claws against the robes, but they held fast, and my teeth were too awkwardly positioned to get any purchase.

"There we go..." Avery muttered, and began tapping away on the computer he'd set up. "Link up... got it. Authenticating... what did I tell you guys? You're too damned slow. It doesn't matter anymore..."

"No," said the man on the floor. "It doesn't."

Something in his tone made Avery stop. He turned, peering at the figure. "What do you mean?"

"That transmitter of yours. The ramp power to negotiate the datalink, it's very high, isn't it?"

"Well... yes. It needs to reach orbit..."

"High enough for an orbiting aircraft to lock onto quite easily."

Avery glanced at his computer, and started to type something on the keyboard. "I suppose. But you wouldn't do that. Firing at Italian soil would be an act of war..."

"Oh, yes, if it was a missile." The man's voice was very calm. "But a highly directed electromagnetic pulse, enough to completely destroy any electronic equipment in, say, a ten meter radius... well, that might not even be noticed. Except by you -- you do have backups, don't you?"

"That misdirected 707 I picked up on the radio... it wasn't an airliner, was it?" The man on the floor said nothing. Avery began to type frantically -- then suddenly froze, and toppled to the floor in a heap.

I couldn't quite figure out what had happened, but then our fellow prisoner stood up -- the binding fell away easily, and I gathered that he must've slipped from them quite some time before. He held a tranquilizer gun in his right hand; holstering it and producing a sharp knife, he walked over to us and sliced open the net. "Are you alright?"

"Quite," I said, and slowly got to my feet. Irina growled something that indicated mild agreement. "Who are you?"

"Isaac," he answered, and when he had put the knife away he shook our hands. "Disappointing it took the Agency so long to get here. You are both American, right?"

"He is," Irina spoke before I could. "I'm from Soviet Union. And we would've been here faster -- but New York is further away than Tel Aviv."

"Mossad?" I felt my ears perk. "How far does this go?"

"Far enough," Isaac shrugged lightly. "We all have common interests. It would not have served to allow Mr. Hussein to get his hands on the American Air Force's brand new toy..."

"Which is what, exactly?"

"You don't know? An aircraft impervious to radar -- a low-altitude strike fighter that nobody would be able to detect. Very interesting technology. Almost magical, if true..."

I'd heard the rumors, of course. "I suppose it must be, if you're here."

"Comrade Isaac knows they're already flying them at Groom Lake," Irina smirked.

"At where?"

Irina started to speak, but the Israeli shook his head, and put a finger to his lips. "Come now, don't spoil the surprise for him."

I had had more than enough surprises already, but the two seemed to have something of a rapport, and they didn't seem inclined to cut me in. "Were you bluffing, about the electromagnetic thing?"

"We don't bluff," Isaac said simply. "In about a minute, Mr. Maddox's computer will send a signal to start the datalink. A second or two later, the EMP will fire. Don't worry -- it's completely harmless to people. Or hybrids, for that matter. The only thing it'll affect are electronics, and we're targeting it with a very narrow range. Even your helicopter outside won't be harmed."

"How did you get here?"

"Parachute. One way trip, for me. Maybe you can give me a ride." Isaac strolled over to check the monitor of Avery's computer. "Good. Fifteen seconds. Ten... five..."

Then a shadow appeared in the door, and Monte Stirling poked his head in. "Guys? It's been like... twenty minutes, are you --"

A terrifying thought stabbed into my brain as conversations replayed themselves at high speed. Electronics. Electromagnets. Monte had a very important floppy disk in the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. "Run!" I shouted at him. "For god's sakes --"

Before I could finish, the computer sparked and died. Isaac looked at me. "What was that about?"

My ears were flat against the back of my head. "Monte. That disk of yours. It's impervious to electromagnetic pulses, right?"

"N... no? Of course not."

I swallowed heavily, and wound up repeating Isaac's question. "But you do have backups, don't you?"

The flight back to Rome was exceptionally silent.

Room service brought me some spaghetti bolognese, which I pecked at -- and then, on my request, a bottle of chianti. Wineglasses are not made for dogs; I wound up tipping the bottle into my muzzle, which allowed me to get most of it.

The phone rang and, setting the bottle aside, I picked it up with an Irina-inspired growl. "Thomas Clarke."

"Mister Clarke!" the German-accented voice was far too cheery. "I hope you're feeling okay?"

"Fine."

Dr. Hartmann let silence hang on the line for several seconds. "There should not be any... unpleasantness, yes? About this little inconvenience?"

"You trapped me," I snarled into the handset, "in the body of an Alaskan malamute. That's not exactly a little inconvenience."

"Well... yes, yes..." he agreed. "But you will, um... you will agree to say publicly that it was your choice, yes? Yes?" When I didn't answer, he prodded a bit further. "Hearing about this could... could put the entire Unit 13 program in jeopardy. It would be most..."

Unfortunate? Well, shit. "I really could give a damn about your program, Doctor Strangelove," I hissed, and hung up the phone. He didn't call back. I stared at my plate of spaghetti, picked up a breadstick, and then hurled it at the wall as hard as I could.

Fucking Hartmann. Fucking Hartmann, and Park, and that slimy little asshole Avery Maddox, locked in an Italian jail somewhere. What did Hartmann know about little inconveniences?

I turned off the lights and stared wordlessly at the wall. My pasta had grown cold by the time there was a knock at the door. Room service, in their obsequious way. "Go away. I'm busy."

"How busy?" Irina's voice asked. I sighed, and padded to the door. She was wearing a nightgown, and it struck me that I had been shut in the room for nearly six hours. It was dark outside.

"Sorry for being... curt."

"Is no problem," the wolf shrugged. "You hear back from your scientists?"

"They said they don't keep backups. Reasons of... national security. So I guess it's permanent." I wanted to say that I was stuck that way, trapped, but caught myself at the last moment. After all, so was Irina, and I didn't need to imply that there was something horrible about her condition.

I sat on the bed carefully, mindful of my tail -- I was going to have to get used to that, after all. Irina sat next to me, and together we looked out from the room to the twinkling lights of the city. I had slid the plate glass windows open, to reveal the balcony, and the warm night air was still and calm.

"Any news on Avery?"

"Everyone unhappy," she grinned. "Iraqis unhappy, Italians unhappy, Avery very unhappy. We did good. Very good flying, you know. You're talented."

"Thank Monte for that."

"Skilled American engineers," she agreed.

Not so skilled that they could fix me, of course, but I guess you couldn't win every battle. I took a deep breath, and once again I felt Irina's characteristic scent seeping into my muzzle, reminding me of baser instincts I had not requested. I gritted my teeth. "Something like that."

"It's not all bad, you know," she offered. When I looked at her, she turned to me, a movement that brought her an inch or two closer, and disturbed the air enough to carry her scent a bit more thickly. "You're stronger than a human now. Faster, smarter. Take advantage of it..."

"Advantage?"

She held up her arm -- powerful, downed with fur that glowed like platinum jewelry in the light. "These muscles. These claws. They were given to us so that we could take what we wanted."

But what did I want?

I sort of wanted to be human again, but on balance I didn't know why. Denver wasn't anything special. My career wasn't particularly rewarding. My family was distant. My relationships -- well, let's not mention that.

The answer snapped into place heavily, and then it became simpler. Everything I wanted was sensory. I wanted the thrill of that helicopter ride again. I wanted to feel the strength of my legs carrying me on a bounding run. I wanted my spaghetti to be warm and fragrant and spicy on my tongue. I wanted...

When I met Irina's eyes, there was something burning in that yellow gaze. I growled, and pounced her back and into the bed -- she fell with a grunt, but her leg had hooked around my back, pulling me closer, and her grin was feral and very, very understanding.

"What took you so long, American?"

Her nightgown was loosely tied, and my paws pulled it apart easily. The fur beneath was white and soft, and she growled her pleasure as my fingers ran through it.

Dr. Hartmann had gone for functionality. But the Soviet hybrids had to live with their forms permanently, and their creators had taken a far greater care. Naked, Irina's fur was lustrous in the moonlight that filtered from the open window, and it covered supple curves that I explored with eager paws.

Perfect. Her breast yielded to my fingers and the wolf rewarded me with a purring moan. She was becoming more pliant: shivering, gasping when I bent down to nip possessively at her collarbone -- and just where had I gotten the idea to do that from?

Her toned belly pressed up into my muzzle as I dragged it lower -- she had no navel, of course, nothing to break that snowy white pelt as I slipped from her grasp, down to where the spicy aroma of her heat grew more and more enticing.

Leaving the bed I slid between her thighs, feeling damp warmth on the underside of my muzzle, marking me. The wet folds of the wolf's cunny glistened a little, in the moonlight, but I was guided by my nose. Her heat filled my muzzle -- heady, overpowering, ensnaring me...

My tongue darted forward almost of its own accord, and her rich moan filled my perked ears. I lapped hungrily, and the fierce, snappish wolf melted before me until she was shivering with her need.

The salty tang of her arousal spread over my tongue as I devoured her, kissing her as best I could, working in broad strokes over that soft, inviting flesh...

But I needed more. I worked my tongue into her -- dogs, I discovered, have nice, long tongues for a reason -- and her hips began to buck. I held her down forcefully, and caught the sound of a plaintive whimper.

Then another. And another. Her muscles were straining; her silver thighs tense. I slipped my tongue as deeply into her as I could, and then drew back to lap and nuzzle at her firmly.

My sharp muzzle nudged forward, parting her lips, and when my nose bumped against her clit Irina jolted and arched her back deeply -- pushing my snout a half-inch into her. I could feel her quiver and spasm, and as she gasped and panted her breath left her in rather unprintable Russian.

The fur of my muzzle was drenched, whiskers dappled with her juices, and I licked myself clean as best I could while I gave the weak heap of wolf on my sheets time to regain her wits.

I was of course not sated. The primal desire that had made me pin her in the first place was unanswered, and the fabric of my slacks was uncomfortably tight. As I stood, I slipped the pants off, and my erection bobbed freely.

I had never seen it at full arousal before, and found myself fascinated. At least seven inches long, a fierce crimson, thick at the base and tapering to a point. Irina had propped herself up on an elbow and was looking at it with an arched eyebrow.

Monte had not exactly exaggerated. A human woman might not have been able to take it comfortably. But a wolf... Irina got the idea as soon as my paw grasped her hip and started to tug, rolling onto her belly obligingly for me. She got up on her knees, spreading her legs wide and hiking her tail up invitingly.

As soon as was I was behind her I felt my cock find its mark, prodding her wet folds. A single, firm thrust drove me deep inside her, surrounding me in exquisite, liquid heat that had me snarling in pleasure.

No sooner had I pulled back then I thrust in again, just as quickly, bucking into the wolf's thick-furred rump swiftly. Our growls met and mingled, and as I plunged into her wetly my paws grasped for leverage at her hips.

The bed creaked and the headboard thudded into the wall as I pounded into her, but we were both beyond caring. She was as needy as I -- pushing back into my yearning thrusts, her spine arched and her ears splayed.

I leaned forward to catch her swaying breasts, groping hungrily at her as she pawed and raked at the sheets. The curve of her rear fit perfectly to my hips, and I could feel the warm glow of building release spreading through my throbbing cock as she ground back and into me.

Dogs have the right idea, I thought. Irina was trembling as I rutted into her heedlessly, her claws gripping a pillow in futile tightness. This is how it's supposed to be done. Feel how well your two bodies mesh.

My arms encircled her waist now, tugging her back, into me, holding her so that I could bury myself to the hilt each time, withdrawing only an inch or two. It was a rather feral need that I couldn't fight off -- and now she was stiffening up, her teeth gritting, her limbs locking...

Howl, I willed her. I was still trying to thrust, but it seemed that I was locked within her, and silken heat clung to every rigid inch of my cock. My sac was drawing up tightly, preparing me to fill her with my seed. Howl for me, my little bitch.

And she didn't disappoint. A shudder, the sound of tearing fabric as the pillow succumbed, and then she clenched tightly around me. A wailing cry escaped her clenched muzzle, filling the room for a glorious second until she stuffed her nose into the bed to muffle it.

I had no such options. One final time I pushed my hips against hers, and when the white-hot pleasure gripped at my spine and coursed through me I gave voice to it in a roaring snarl. My body jerked as I pumped the hot spurts of my cum into her, and I clutched her hips possessively as I filled the wolf's womb.

Irina slumped before I did, but with a grunt I followed her anyway, falling atop her back. My earlier suspicion had proven to be accurate -- I was somehow locked to her, unable to pull free. But then, I was a little too spent to want to.

"See," she murmured into the sheets. "Is not all bad, this life..."

No, perhaps not. I encircled her belly with my arms, and when I rolled onto my side she followed, snuggling into my chest. "You've got a point..."

The phone rang, and I groped for it, ready even to be conciliatory to Dr. Hartmann. Instead I found myself speaking to the front desk of the hotel, who wanted to know if we were quite done disturbing the other guests.

My noncommittal answer seemed to amuse them more than anything else -- then again, we were paying for very nice rooms, and maybe they were willing to indulge us on those grounds. "Room service?"

"Maybe later." I hung the phone up, and Irina twisted around to look at me. "They wanted to know if we wanted dessert."

"In a bit." The wolf grinned, and there was a lascivious glint to her eye. She licked her lips slowly, and glanced down towards our joined hips. "I already know what I am having, though..."

Yeah.

Yeah, I think I'll manage.