“What!?” the Ranger said.
The Volpex Picnic Park was closed after a long day. All of the guests were gone, and he’d been about to leave himself when the call came in from the Mayor’s office.
“The Mayor will be there tomorrow morning for the ribbon cutting.” The tone of the Mayor’s functionary was dry over the audio connection.
“The Mayor is coming here?”
“Yes. That’s what I said.”
“For the… ribbon cutting?”
“Yes.”
“What ribbon are they cutting?”
“Hasn’t the crew arrived yet?”
“What crew? What are you talking about?”
With a roar, a fleet of suborbital vehicles arrived over the park.
“I’ve got to go!” the Ranger said, and closed the connection.
He ran out from the Ranger Station and saw a constellation of enormous Astro Services construction vehicles, branded with the ASI logo, hovering over the picnic grounds. There were at least a dozen Arashigoto HeavyLifters and a swarm of illuminoids that arranged themselves in a regular pattern over the entire park. Brilliant lights snapped on, flooding the picnic grounds with a light brighter than the noonday sun. Under the harsh lights, the Ranger could see the rabbits along the edge of the forest and the usually inconspicuous moweroids that cut the grass at night.
A sleek, top-of-the-line Makasete SkyHopper landed, and a man wearing an expensive suit climbed out.
“We’re here to do the installation!” he said.
“What installation? What’s going on? What are you installing?”
“We got an order from the Mayor for 1,250 charcoal grills.”
“A… What? What in the world is a ‘charcoal grill’?”
“Press your thumb here,” the man said, holding out his device.
“What!? No!”
“Well, okay,” the man said, turning away. “When the Mayor and everyone arrive here tomorrow for the ribbon cutting, and there’s nothing here, then you can explain it to them.”
“Wait! Wait! Wait!” the Ranger said. The man turned back with an incandescent smile, even brighter than the illuminoids, and extended his device again.
The Ranger pressed his thumb to the screen, which emitted a musical chime.
“They’re all yours now, buddy,” the man said. He climbed back in his SkyHopper, which promptly departed in the direction of Volpex One — the vast, single, continent-wide city on planet Volpex.
The HeavyLifters got to work. Like a dance, one would lower itself next to a picnic table and press a huge replicator to the ground. When it lifted off a few minutes later, it left an odd box-like structure on a post. Then it moved over to the next table.
Even with a dozen HeavyLifters working in concert, the whole process was clearly going to take hours.
The Ranger walked over and looked at one of the so-called charcoal grills. They weren’t made of charcoal. Or even carbon. Each had a metal box mounted on a post with an opening on the side and a top formed of an evenly spaced row of metal bars.
“What is this even for?” he wondered.
“Warning! For your own safety, please stay out of the construction area!” announced one of the illuminoids.
The Ranger backed up, then watched the dance of the HeavyLifters for a few minutes more. He finally shook his head and headed home.
But the Ranger wasn’t the only one watching the park at night…
In the morning, the Ranger arrived and found that the advance crew for the Mayor had strung a ribbon in front of the picnic grounds. Several news crews were on hand to document the historic occasion.
He started to walk to the Ranger Station when a young woman with a shirt emblazoned with the Fix Network logo ran over and accosted him.
“Excuse me! Excuse me! You’re the Ranger here, right?”
The Ranger stopped and turned. “Yes?”
“Would you step this way, please?”
She led him to a Fix Network-branded SkyJumper that served as a mobile salon. A slim, stylish young man took one look at him and rolled his eyes.
“Whoa! That uniform is barking! It’s so yesterday!” he said. “We’ll just replicate a new one for you. Get in the chair and we’ll get you made up while it finishes.”
“Made up?”
“Make… Up… For the… Cameroids…” the man said, very slowly, as if speaking to a particularly dimwitted dog.
The Ranger took a seat in the chair while a team of stylists trimmed his hair and beard. Then they expertly applied makeup to his face. Once he stood up, the man thrust a new uniform and boots into his hands.
“Put these on.”
“Here?”
The man sighed and held open the door to a changing room.
The Ranger went in, stripped off his old, serviceable uniform, and put on the new one. It had a garish Volpex Park Service logo on it that made him feel like a billboard. And they must have set the starch setting on high on the replicator, because the uniform was crisp and smooth. The boots had a high shine to them.
When he stepped out, they made one more minute inspection of his makeup and hair, ensuring he hadn’t ruined everything while changing his clothes. After adjusting a single strand of hair that was out of place, they pushed him out the door of the SkyJumper.
The Mayor was just arriving in a SkyStretch with a large police escort. The SkyStretch landed while the police vehicles orbited the site.
When the door opened, a bodyguard exited first, carrying a compact railgun, then the Mayor, and then they were followed by a crowd of young women wearing some kind of costume.
The young women were all matching: cute red tops with long, open sleeves; short, checked skirts; and patterned bandanas to tie back their hair. Plus each had a pink ribbon tied crosswise to hold back their sleeves. They chattered cheerfully among themselves, self-evidently excited to have gotten a ride in the Mayor’s luxurious SkyStretch.
The Mayor led them forward to the ribbon where attendants handed each a pair of scissors. The crowd caught sight of the women and someone yelled, “It’s the Butter Angels!” A huge chorus of shrieks and cheers erupted from the crowd. The Angels offered broad smiles and waved to their fans.
The Ranger had heard of the Butter Angels. I mean, who hadn’t? They did a program about the traditional craft of cooking that had become wildly popular. But it really wasn’t the kind of thing he liked to watch.
The Ranger noticed a young blond woman with a sharp expression to the side who was surrounded by a swarm of cameroids.
“This is Mandy Fourteen reporting live from Volpex Picnic Park,” she said to a cameroid. “The Mayor of Volpex One is about to speak…”
The Mayor raised her hands and the crowd quieted. A cameroid floated close to provide a close-up and to pick up her audio.
“Welcome, everyone, to the Volpex Picnic Park for our newest attraction. Last month, all of Volpex One was captivated by a new phenomenon: the idea of a cookout.”
There were murmurs from the audience.
“I’m told millions watched the Butter Angels episode about having a cookout, and the response has been overwhelming. Therefore, we have installed a charcoal grill at every picnic table in the Volpex Picnic Park, and today we have the Butter Angels in person to demonstrate how to use them.”
The crowd, which had continued to grow as more and more people arrived, gave a deafening cheer as the Angels stepped forward. Cameroids focused on the Mayor and each of the Angels as they were all given pairs of scissors and prepared to cut the ribbon.
“I declare the Volpex Picnic Park open for cookouts!” the Mayor announced. Then she and all of the Angels cut the ribbon.
As little pieces of ribbon fluttered to the ground, a large owl streaked out of the sky. He had brilliant orange eyes and a wingspan of more than two meters. He began to beat his wings around the head of the Mayor, screeching furiously. “You’re littering! Stop that littering!”
The Mayor screamed and began flailing her arms around her head. She dropped to her knees in terror.
The Ranger rushed forward and bellowed, “Not now, Forrest! It’s not litter! It’s for the ceremony! We’ll pick up every piece!”
Forrest glared at the Ranger, but flew off to a treetop to watch the proceedings.
“I’m very sorry,” the Ranger said to the Mayor, assisting her to rise. “Forrest is a biological android who’s programmed to stop littering. He takes littering very seriously.”
She drew herself up angrily, but then plastered a politician’s smile on her face and tried to laugh it off.
“I’m sure he’s the reason this park is always so spotless.”
There was an awkward silence for a moment. Susan, the leader of the Butter Angels, stepped forward to break the ice and invited everyone to surround one of the picnic tables where some supplies had been laid out. The cameroids swarmed around to capture the scene.
“Cooking out is a great way to try cooking,” she said. “You don’t need a stove or full kitchen. Just replicate some charcoal and meat, and you’re all set!”
“But don’t forget the matches!” Booboo called. She was the plumpest of the Angels.
“Or a lighter,” said Zsazsa, holding up an elegant, silver lighter. She was the prettiest of the Angels.
“That’s right,” Susan called. “You also need a source of ignition. Now…” She gestured and brought all of the Angels in a circle, and each put a hand in together to say their catchphrase.
“Let’s get cookin’!” they all shouted. The crowd, which all knew and anticipated this, joined in.
Under the watchful sensors of the cameroids, they trooped over to one of the new grills. Susan emptied a bag of charcoal into the grill and Booboo, with a flourish, struck a match and set the charcoal alight.
The crowd oohed and aahed as flames rose and licked above the surface of the grill.
“Now, you don’t want to start cooking while you can still see flames,” Susan said. “Wait until the flames die down, then you can put your meat on the grill.”
“What kind of meat did you bring?” someone called.
“We brought several things! We have some hamburger. That’s what will take the longest to cook. We also have some hot dogs. They don’t really need to cook at all. Finally, we brought some cuts of meat for yakiniku. They’re the trickiest to cook without burning them.”
“How do you know when they’re cooked?”
“The raw meat will change from pink to gray or brown. But you might find that you like the meat better when it’s still a little pink. It used to be dangerous to eat raw meat because it came from animals and was frequently contaminated with bacteria. These days we use replicated meat, which is perfectly sterile so as long as you don’t leave it out, it should be safe to eat even raw.”
While she was speaking, other Angels had formed burger patties and opened the packages of hot dogs and cuts of Wagyu beef for yakiniku. And, once the flames had died down, they placed them on the grill.
“You’ll see I’m using a spatula to turn the burgers. And I have tongs for turning the hotdogs. These implements are useful, but not really necessary. A fork will do in a pinch.”
Susan continued to narrate while the other Butter Angels finished cooking on the grill and cut up some samples that they offered to the Mayor. She took a bite of each of the meats while the audience watched, rapt.
“Umai!” she said, to a cheer. “It’s not just that it’s good, it’s also different than replicated. There’s more variety… and depth of flavor.”
“If anyone wants to try, just step up!” Ruhrow said.
The Mayor delicately wiped her lips with a napkin and then addressed the audience again. “For today only, ASI has donated a replicator, and the Fix Network the feedstock, to provide charcoal, hamburger, and hot dogs to anyone who wants to try cooking out.”
“And for yakiniku, when you’re short on time, come to Mama-san’s Izakaya in Volpex One anytime!” Susan called out, not forgetting to advertise for their employer.
People began lining up next to a large replicator that, as fast as they could step forward, would generate a grocery sack that included a bag of charcoal, matches, and all of the ingredients for a cookout.
Once people began fanning out among the tables, the Mayor and the Butter Angels were chaperoned back to the SkyStretch and departed. The Fix Network quickly packed up and all of their vehicles departed next. Soon, Mandy Fourteen was the only journalist left.
“Excuse me,” she said to the Ranger. She offered a predatory smile. “How much did this project cost?”
“I’m afraid you’ll need to contact the Mayor’s office regarding the details,” he said. He was reasonably familiar with dealing with the media. From long experience working as a front-facing public employee, he knew that the prime directive was to say nothing and direct all requests for information to someone else.
“How long has this project been in the pipeline?”
“I don’t know precisely when it began,” he said, trying to anticipate her next question and forestall it. “But we’ve been involved every step of the way.”
While they were talking, the Ranger looked over her shoulder and saw that people were beginning to try to start their grills.
The fact that no one had ever done anything like this was rapidly becoming apparent. One man was trying to light matches, one after another, without success. A woman managed to light a match, but promptly burned herself and dropped it with a squeal. Another man held up a piece of charcoal to light it and then dropped it on the ground when it caught fire.
“How much preparation…” Mandy started to say, when the Ranger forced his way past her and began sprinting for the grill where, even now, smoke was beginning to rise from dry grass. He arrived just as the first flames appeared and he frantically stamped them out.
“Hey! You put out my fire!” the man said angrily.
“You need to keep the fire inside the grill,” the Ranger said, then sprinted off in another direction when he saw another man trying to light a fire on the ground.
“The fire needs to stay inside the grill!” the Ranger said.
“Why?” the man demanded. “I saw a show about camping girls where they did this and cooked their food on sticks!”
“Can you help me?” someone called.
“Me too!” someone yelled. “Where can I get more matches?”
The Ranger bit back an inappropriate response and tried to put on a smile.
Mandy Fourteen’s cameroids captured everything. But they weren’t the only ones watching.
Late in the day, the Ranger returned wearily to the Ranger Station. Squirrels darted out of his way as he stumbled to his office. The park was finally closed and he was dead on his feet.
Forrest glided silently into the Ranger’s office. The Ranger kept a window open for Forrest to use, and he had a perch between the first-aid and weapon cabinets. Forrest landed and then stamped back and forth along the perch, ruffling up his feathers in fury.
“Well, that was a pukkin’ fek festival,” he said.
The Ranger put his hands over his face and sighed.
“Tell me about it,” he said. “It’s like the Mayor’s office wanted to burn the park down.”
“You know there are going to be even more people tomorrow,” Forrest said. “Once word gets around, this place will be full, and we barely survived today with only a tenth of the grills being used.”
“Not tomorrow,” the Ranger said.
“Why not?”
“Rain. It’s supposed to rain all day. But you’re right: We need to be proactive,” the Ranger said. “We need to teach people about fire safety.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Forrest said. “Who’s this ‘we’ you’re talkin’ about? I do trash. That’s the limit of my programming.”
“Maybe we could modify…”
“Don’t even think about it!” Forrest hissed, leaning forward. “I don’t teach people. I threaten ’em. I menace ’em. I scare the pukkin’ crap out of ’em. But I don’t pukkin’ teach ’em.”
The Ranger sighed.
He took out his device and went to his recent calls and called back the most recent.
“Mayor’s office.” It was the same functionary he’d dealt with yesterday.
“This is…”
“I know who it is. What do you want?”
“These grills are going to be very popular. But people don’t know how to use them. And they don’t have any experience with fire. We need someone who can support a fire safety program.”
“Someone… Are you asking to hire someone?”
“Well, I thought…”
“Impossible. It’s not in the budget.”
The Ranger closed his eyes. He wanted to scream, but he tried to steady his breathing and speak calmly.
“Without a fire safety program, the park is going to burn down — and possibly take down the whole continent with it. People are going to be injured. There will be civil damages and potential legal liability.”
The woman paused, and then said, sharply, “Is this a threat?”
“I’m just documenting that I did everything I could to protect the city from this eventuality.”
There was silence for several moments. Then the functionary said, “Just a minute.”
He heard her talking to someone else, then she came back.
“You have that biological android. What about that?”
The Ranger imagined Forrest dropping Molotov cocktails on people to teach them about fire safety.
“He’s not a good fit for this mission.”
“How about another biological android?”
“How much can I spend?”
She went off and consulted with someone again, then returned and named a figure.
“I’ll see what I can find. But what about the ongoing upkeep?”
“Replicator feedstock for maintenance and upkeep comes out of a separate fund, so you don’t need to worry about that.”
“Alright.”
That night, the Ranger stayed up late into the night reviewing libraries of programming modules for biological androids. There were a lot of modules for firefighters and smokejumpers, but he couldn’t find one with a fire-safety program until he narrowed his search terms. But then he found one for camp counselors that looked perfect, if a trifle expensive. He bookmarked it.
The next day, the Ranger climbed in the park’s Arashigoto WorkLifter and set the coordinates to a distant part of Volpex One he had never visited. It was a twenty-minute suborbital flight at supersonic speeds. The WorkLifter landed in front of a large, faceless industrial building among a huge expanse of similar buildings. There was a small sign near the door that said Kowareta Nai: Pre-owned Biological Androids.
The Ranger entered the building. A bored clerk sat behind a counter in the lobby near the entrance. He looked up from his device with an uninterested stare as the Ranger approached.
“I’m looking for a used android.”
“What a surprise,” the clerk replied with a shrug. Then he turned and called, “Hey, Lloyd. Customer for you.” Then he returned to staring at his device.
The door to the back opened and a penguin waddled out. The penguin was black and white, about waist-high, with orange flippers. The penguin bowed, and the Ranger felt an odd compulsion to return the gesture.
“You’ve come to the right place, sir. Do you have any particular specification or request? Or would you like to just walk back and look at what we have?”
“Well… I’m looking for an android to run a fire-safety program at a park.”
“Uh-huh,” the penguin said, nodding enthusiastically. “Uh-huh. I think I know exactly what you need. Follow me!”
The penguin led the Ranger through the doors and into the back of a huge, dim warehouse that was divided up into cubicles. It was dingy and had a musky odor mixed with the acrid smell of cleaning solution. The penguin maintained a line of patter as they walked back.
“Most of the androids we have are in the form of animals,” the penguin said, as he waddled along. “Having animal androids was a fad for a while and vast numbers were replicated. But now they’ve fallen out of fashion.”
“What’s going to happen to the ones here?”
“Either they’ll find employment or they’ll be recycled.”
“Recycled?”
“We don’t like to talk about it. But it happens.”
The penguin cleared his throat, and then continued.
“So… What do you think when you think fire safety?”
The Ranger shrugged, puzzled.
“Bears, am I right?”
“Bears?”
“It’s gotta be bears! Ah! Here we are.”
Lloyd tapped at the entrance to a cubicle that had a paper sign with a red X pinned up. A voice inside said, “Come ahead, Lloyd.”
Lloyd walked into the cubicle and the Ranger followed. Occupying nearly the entire space inside the cubicle was an enormous brown bear lying curled up. He didn’t bother opening his eyes.
“How did you know it was me?” Lloyd asked.
“You’re the only one who would knock,” the bear answered wearily.
“I’ve got a customer who’s asked for you!” Lloyd said, encouragingly.
“Really?” The bear opened his eyes and looked up at the Ranger.
“I’m looking for an android who could run a fire-safety program at a camp.”
“I don’t have the programming for that,” the bear said.
“Programming would be provided.”
“Well, anything would be better than being recycled.”
“Recycled?”
“I’m scheduled to be recycled today,” the bear said. “They say I eat too much.”
“What’s the price?” the Ranger asked Lloyd. “I’m on a budget, so my funds aren’t unlimited.”
“I’m sorry, but androids aren’t allowed to negotiate,” he said, leaning a little heavily on the word. “Let’s go out and talk to my boss. You can negotiate with him.”
“This should just take a minute,” the Ranger said, nodding to the bear.
“Pardon me if I don’t get my hopes up,” the bear said, closing his eyes again.
The penguin led the Ranger out of the cubicle and started waddling toward the front, then stopped and went back for a moment.
“I’ll just take this down,” he said, grabbing the paper sign.
When they arrived at the door to the lobby, the penguin stopped and pointed.
“Just wait here for a second,” the penguin said, with a wink. He waddled on through the door.
The Ranger listened through the door as the penguin said, “Hey boss! He wants to buy the bear!”
“That would be awesome! That pukkin’ bear is eating us out of house and home. And you know we’d get puk all if we recycled it.”
The Ranger smiled at Lloyd’s subterfuge and, after waiting a minute to offer plausible denial, he came out of the back and walked up to the counter.
“I’m interested in purchasing the bear — if the price is right.”
“Yeah? It’s a big bear and it cost a lot of feedstock to replicate.” He named a figure — more than twice what the Mayor had allocated.
“I’m afraid that’s out of my budget,” the Ranger said. He named a figure one-third of what the man had proposed. “Speaking honestly, that’s all I can offer, and still have enough to purchase the programming module I need.”
“You’re fek all at negotiating,” the man said.
The Ranger shrugged with a wry smile.
“Alright. Sold. We’ll do a full wipe and have it ready after lunch.”
“You don’t need to do a wipe. Can I just take him with me?”
“Sure. Saves us the expense. Here.” He pushed his device forward. The Ranger reviewed the terms and conditions then pressed his thumb against the screen. The device chimed.
“Now tap your device here…” The Ranger placed his device where indicated and it chimed as well. He consulted the screen to see that he had access to a new programming interface just under the entry for Forrest. But there was no name listed.
“What’s the bear’s name?”
“Whatever you want,” the man said. “That’s usually why people do a wipe. Anyway, you can pick it up around back.”
“Him,” the Ranger muttered angrily under his breath as he walked out to the WorkLifter. “Him!”
He lifted off and maneuvered to the other side of the building.
The back of the building had enormous doors. After a few minutes, one of them began to open. He saw Lloyd at the controls. Once the door was open, the bear began to amble forward. Outside of the cubicle, the Ranger was stunned to see how large the bear really was. He was three or four meters long and must have weighed in at hundreds of kilos. As the bear got closer, he upped the estimate — maybe a thousand.
“Just a moment,” the Ranger said to the bear, and then he turned to Lloyd. He bowed deeply. “Thank you very much, Lloyd. You were a great help. And you’re a great friend.”
Lloyd bowed in turn, even more deeply. “All in a day’s work, sir.”
The Ranger led the bear over to the back of the WorkLifter and opened the back hatch.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to carry you in the cargo section of the WorkLifter.”
The bear peered in the back.
“How long is the trip?”
“It should only take a half hour or so.”
“I’ll manage,” the bear said and squeezed through the door where he basically took up the entire cargo space. “Anything to get away from this place.”
The Ranger carefully closed the back then walked around to the front and climbed into the cockpit. He brought up the controls, set the destination to the park, and pressed the button. A warning light flashed on the instrument panel indicating that the WorkLifter was overweight and asked him to confirm the flight. He pressed confirm and the WorkLifter rose, a little unsteadily, and then began to climb for the flight back.
The Ranger settled in for the flight and slid open the window that communicated with the cargo space.
“Are you comfortable enough?”
“I’ll manage,” the bear said.
“Do you have a name?”
The bear was silent for several moments. “I’ve never had an official name,” he said, finally.
“Why not?”
“We’re not really supposed to talk about previous assignments,” the bear said. “That’s why they usually do a full wipe.”
“Oh,” the Ranger said. “I’m sorry if my question makes you… uncomfortable.”
“It’s alright. I was replicated for a circus,” the bear said. “They just wanted something to act as a scary animal. So they stuck me in a cage to shake the bars and growl at people.”
“That’s terrible!”
“Eh. It was a living,” the bear sighed. “Others had it a lot worse.”
There was silence for a few moments. Then the bear spoke.
“Pardon me, for asking such a mundane question, but how will meals be handled?”
“Ah. That’s actually a good question. You do have fairly large caloric requirements, as I understand it. Don’t worry about that.”
“Pardon me again for being at least a little concerned, because it sounded like you were on a budget.”
“Ah. But your upkeep doesn’t fall under my budget. The park has a separate line for maintenance and the care of biological androids. I may not be able to promise much, but I can guarantee that the food will be plentiful. And it won’t be just dry dog food either.”
“You begin to give me hope.”
“You said that before, that you weren’t going to get your hopes up…”
The bear was silent for a moment, and then spoke. Sadly, the Ranger thought.
“You have to understand that you’re the fifth or sixth potential purchaser that Lloyd brought back. He was trying everything to keep me from getting recycled. Every time they’d schedule me for recycling and put up that sign, Lloyd would somehow get someone to come back and express interest in purchasing me and then take the sign down. I had long since given up.”
The Ranger was nearly overcome with horror and wiped tears from his eyes. The bear’s matter-of-fact acceptance was heartbreaking.
“I sincerely hope you will find this arrangement more to your satisfaction. Oh, speaking of which, let me get your new programming installed.”
While in flight, the Ranger spent a few minutes arranging for the purchase of the fire-safety programming module. He briefly reviewed the modules already installed in the bear’s programming stack, but there was nothing of any particular interest: physiology, movement, language. So he added the fire-safety module on top and pressed accept.
“Oh, wow,” the bear said. “Wow! This is fascinating. Who knew there was so much to know about fire safety!”
For the first time, the bear sounded hopeful and interested. Then the Ranger had a thought.
“I should tell… warn you about one thing: Your co-worker will be an owl named Forrest. He can be hard… challenging to work with. You don’t need to let him push you around.”
“Thank you,” the bear said. “How difficult can he be?”
“Pretty pukkin’ difficult,” the Ranger muttered.
After the short supersonic, suborbital flight, the WorkLifter landed behind the Ranger Station and, once the Ranger opened the cargo hatch, the bear carefully backed out of the narrow space and shook all off. Then he stood up, rearing up to his full four meters of height, and looked around.
The sky was still gray, although the rain had mostly moved through. Wisps of mist and fog clung to the ground among the gigantic trees that surrounded the picnic grounds.
“It’s… It’s beautiful,” the bear said. “I can barely believe I get to stay here.”
The Ranger smiled when he heard the pun, but said nothing to take away from the moment.
“What the puk is that!” shrieked Forrest from one of the trees. He glided down and circled around the bear.
“Forrest, meet your new co-worker,” the Ranger said. He tensed up a bit, worrying how this critical first interaction would go. “He’ll be launching our new fire-safety program.”
“He’s pukkin’ huge!” Forrest screeched.
“Nice to meet you, senpai,” the bear said.
“Senpai!” Forrest said, landing on the bear’s shoulder. “I like the sound of that.”
The Ranger relaxed and grinned to see Forrest so quickly tamed.
“Where is he going to sleep?” Forrest asked.
“Hmm,” the Ranger said, considering. “That’s a good question. I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe he could bunk with you?”
“I don’t think my branch could hold him up,” Forrest laughed.
The bear settled back onto all fours as they considered the question.
“What about that cave?” Forrest asked.
“Cave?” the Ranger said.
“Well, I call it a cave, but it’s just a rock overhang.”
The bear looked at the Ranger and then back over his shoulder at Forrest.
“You know I’m not a real bear, right? This whole ‘sleeping in a cave’ thing sounds… Well… If I’m being honest, it sounds pretty badass.”
“Let’s go take a look at this cave. Then we can sort out dinner.”
Forrest flew up to a treetop and waited while the Ranger and the bear followed along behind. Then he led them from treetop to treetop, as they headed into the forest.
The Volpex Picnic Park was on one of the undeveloped continents of Volpex, only a short supersonic flight from the giant city. The Park was a speck in a huge, unbroken wilderness that stretched across the entire continent. There was just a sprinkling of other parks and areas for recreation.
At the edge of the forest, the undergrowth was thick. The bear cleared a path, heedless of the briars and thorny shrubs. Once they were under the mature trees, the forest floor was largely clear. Here and there, a wind-thrown tree left an opening in the canopy where there was an island of underbrush in an otherwise cathedral-like landscape, with the huge trunks like pillars.
Squirrels chattered and scolded them angrily as they entered the forest.
“How far off is this cave?” the Ranger called.
“About a half a kilometer,” Forrest replied from a treetop. “As the owl flies…”
They continued to march over the damp leaf litter, still wet from the day’s rain, following Forrest’s guidance. Gradually, the slope began to increase. They climbed more steeply and then came up to a rocky bluff.
“Here it is,” Forrest said.
The cliff had a long section where it overhung the ground. There was a large, flat area where it had stayed dry in spite of the day-long rain shower. The bear explored the area thoroughly then, turning round and round, he settled with a huff onto the ground.
“Pretty nice, huh?” Forrest said.
“This seems entirely adequate,” the bear said.
“Thank you, Forrest,” the Ranger said. “You’re a good senpai.”
Forrest puffed himself up and then shook his feathers out. The Ranger was charmed to see how pleased he was.
When they got back, the Ranger led them to the workshop. It was the only building that had a door large enough to admit the bear. Conveniently, it also housed the large shop replicator.
“We have a smaller replicator I usually use for preparing my own meals. And food for Forrest. But let’s have a welcome party! What would you like, Forrest?”
“Just the usual for me,” he replied.
The Ranger punched in orders for himself and Forrest. Then, with his tongue out, he began punching in an order for the bear. While the replicator was running, he spread a large tarpaulin over the floor.
He set out his own meal first, a bento. Then, for Forrest, he set out a tray with several dead squirrels, small rabbits, pheasants, and quail. For the bear, he dragged out a huge salmon, a dozen pints each of blueberries and raspberries, and a bushel of apples.
“Itadakimasu!” Forrest said. He walked back and forth choosing what to eat first, then grabbed one of the rabbits and swallowed it whole.
The bear looked at the range of food items and began to salivate.
“Is… Is this really alright?”
“What?”
“To get food like this. This is amazing! I’ve never had anything like this before.”
“Well, this is a special occasion. Enjoy!”
The bear reached down and took one of the containers of blueberries and dumped it into his mouth. Then some raspberries. Then he tossed apples one after another into his mouth. Then he began eating the salmon, starting with the eggs.
“Oh, this is soooo good!” he groaned.
The Ranger grinned and took bites from his bento. He’d picked one of the fancier ones this time, with shrimp, octopus, and some pickled vegetables he particularly liked.
They ate and ate and ate. Then, finally, they all leaned back and sighed.
“Welcome to the Volpex Picnic Park,” the Ranger said.
“Thank you,” the bear said. “I can’t thank you enough for bringing me here. I… I wish…”
Then he seemed to inwardly struggle, but didn’t continue.
“What is it?” the Ranger asked.
The bear sighed and looked down.
“While I was in the circus, I picked up a bad habit. I figured I would just break the habit when I left. But… It’s hard.”
“Habit? What? What is it?”
The bear looked up and met the Ranger’s eyes.
“What I would really like after a great meal like this is a cigarette.”
“A cigarette!? Do you smoke?”
“Well,” the bear said, looking down again. “I did. I haven’t been able to get them since the circus went under and I ended up at Kowareta Nai.”
“I don’t see a problem with it. Do you, Forrest?”
“Just don’t blow it on me!” Forrest said.
The Ranger went over to the replicator and punched up the list of cigarettes. There was a vast number.
“What kind do you want?”
“I like Vulpex. The ones with the fox.”
“Vulpex Lights?”
“No, no, no,” the bear snorted. “Originals. Unfiltered.”
The Ranger made the selection and, once they were finished, tossed him the pack.
“Shall we go outside?”
“Please!”
They stood outside the workshop while the bear reverently tapped the pack of cigarettes against his arm. Then he tore open the pack and tapped one out. Producing a silver lighter from somewhere, he lit one, took a puff, and then breathed out a cloud of smoke.
“Ahhhh,” he said. “Now, this… This! This is living.”
“Oh!” Forrest said. “I don’t think I caught your name.”
“I don’t have one.”
“What!?” Forrest screeched.
“Yeah. No one ever gave me an official name. But…” the bear took a puff and then held up his cigarette. “Some people called me Stogie.”
In the morning, the weather was cool and pleasant. As the Ranger had predicted, people came pouring into the park, and many, many people brought a kit to try using a grill. But it seemed that people had done a little bit of studying on how to use it, and there were fewer problems.
The Ranger walked through the park, welcoming people and chatting. And everywhere he went, he saw the bear wandering among the tables politely and cheerfully interacting with the public.
The bear was a huge hit with the public. People were sharing pictures of themselves with the bear, which caused more and more people to come to the park to see what was happening. Moreover, his teaching on fire safety was well received, though not by everyone.
“Be careful to stand back and keep flammable materials away from the grill,” the bear explained to one family. “Especially as you start the charcoal, because flames can extend farther than you expect.”
“We’ll be careful,” the father said, dismissively.
“We’ve never done this before!” the mother said, glaring at her husband. “So we really appreciate your guidance.”
“I’m always happy to answer questions,” the bear said, as he continued making his rounds.
The Ranger saw some paper napkins blow off a table and watched as Forrest began to circle the table. The family, who had evidently visited the park before, saw the shadow circling the table and began to run around frantically collecting the napkins. Once they had picked up the last one, they looked up nervously, but Forrest flew on, ever vigilant for litter.
The Ranger watched a person who was wearing a cute yellow sundress run up to the bear.
“I lost my matches,” they said.
“We can use my lighter,” the bear said, producing it like magic. He helped them light their grill, explaining what he was doing at each step. “You want to light it from the bottom and start downwind. If you light it in a few places, the coals start more evenly.”
“Thank you!” they said. “You’re very helpful!”
“I like your sundress,” the bear said. “It’s very pretty. Like a flower.”
“Really?” they said, blushing. “Thanks!”
At another table, some young men were laughing and putting paper napkins on top of the grill until they caught fire and lifted up into the air. The bear approached and said, very politely, “Excuse me, but you should avoid putting paper on the grill. See the sparks? Those can start a fire, especially when weather conditions are dry.”
“Who the puk are you to tell us what to do?” said one of the young men.
The bear reared up on his hind legs and raised his arms, towering over the men. They shrank back in terror.
“I am the fire-safety coordinator,” the bear said. “It’s my job.”
“Got it!” the young man said.
The Ranger was very pleased to see the park running so smoothly.
After the pre-lunch rush to use the grills, the afternoon was quieter. The Ranger walked back in the early afternoon, and Forrest was waiting for his lunch.
“Where’s Stogie?” the Ranger asked. “Did anyone tell him when it’s lunchtime?”
“I’ll find him.” Forrest flew off while the Ranger punched up lunch on the replicator. By the time it was finished, Forrest had returned.
“He’s coming.”
The bear ambled up a few minutes later.
“What did you make for me today?” he said, salivating.
“Sweet potatoes and apples,” the Ranger said, pointing at containers. “Oh. I also made you some Fun Meals.” The bear picked up one of the Fun Meal bags and looked at it curiously. He shook out the sandwich, unwrapped it, and tossed it into his mouth. He chewed it up experimentally and swallowed. “Ooh! These are good.” He ate another. And another.
“After lunch, let me show you how to use the replicator. Then you can make food whenever you need it.”
“Cigarettes too?”
“Cigarettes too.”
In the afternoon, it was quiet for several hours between lunch and dinner. The bear wandered the picnic grounds. It was peaceful and quiet, with the wind ruffling his fur. He looked out toward the horizon, then caught an odd scent on the wind. He stood up on his hind legs trying to figure out what the odor was. It was musky, like some kind of animal. He’d smelled a number of animals at the circus. But this was one he didn’t recognize.
“Hey! Hey! What’s your name?” a tiny voice said.
He looked down. A little girl wearing a polka-dot dress was standing beside him. He dropped back to all fours.
“Well,” he said. “Some people call me Stogie.”
“That’s a funny name,” she said. “How old are you?”
He considered for a moment. “I’m not really sure.”
“I’m six,” she announced. “Do you like honey?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had any,” the bear started to say, when a stern woman came up and grabbed the little girl’s hand.
“Brunhilde! Stop teasing the bear!”
She dragged the little girl away, squealing and struggling.
“I… I don’t…” the bear started to say, but the woman was already gone.
Forrest landed nearby and said, “Hey! Hey! Do you like honey?” in a mocking tone of voice.
The bear sighed. “I really didn’t mind her questions.”
Forrest snickered and then took to the wing again on the lookout for anyone littering so that he could menace them.
The bear started to head back when he caught another whiff of the scent again. He stood up and looked out toward the forest edge. This time, he caught a brief glimpse of some large animal moving just within the edge of the forest. He scratched his head and then headed back, as people were beginning to arrive for evening cookouts.
He heard screeching and saw Forrest harassing someone who had thrown a cup toward a trash receptacle and missed. They managed to pick the cup up and toss it in. Forrest flew up and landed on the bear’s back.
“Did you see him scramble?” he hooted.
“Does it really help to give people such a hard time?”
“I think so,” Forrest said. “They’re a lot more careful going forward. If just one person sees a piece of trash on the ground, they think they can litter too. You need to nip it in the bud.”
Forrest took to his wings again, ceaselessly on patrol for any signs of littering.
The bear was busy again for several hours monitoring the picnic grounds for fire safety and teaching people when appropriate. When the evening rush had died down, he found himself being shadowed by Brunhilde again.
“Hey! Hey! Where do you live?”
“I sleep in a cave,” he said. “Don’t you ever go home?”
“My mom loves it here.”
“Oh? What does your mother do?”
“She’s a manicurist! Hey! Hey! Can I see your nails?”
The bear, having checked on all of the active picnic sites for the moment, sat down and extended his massive paws toward her.
She took a huge paw in her tiny hands and inspected his gigantic claws.
“Hmm. I think you could do with a buff and a shine, Mr. Bear.”
“I don’t think there’s…”
“It won’t take but a minute, sir!”
She pulled a nail file out of a pocket and began to work on the rough edges of his claws.
“Don’t you think this world is moving too fast, Mr. Bear?”
“Too fast?”
“You really have amazing hands, Mr. Bear. You could be a hand model!”
He skeptically regarded his furry paws and opened his mouth to speak when Brunhilde’s mother appeared again.
“Brunhilde! Stop pestering the bear!”
Once again, she dragged Brunhilde away, squealing and struggling.
The bear looked sadly at his paws and felt the smooth edges of the two claws she’d had time to work on.
“Hey! Hey!” Forrest said, dropping to the ground nearby. “Maybe next she can polish your nails!”
“Pink would be nice,” the bear sighed.
That evening, after the park closed, the bear headed toward the ranger station. The Ranger was waiting for him in the parking area.
“I’m afraid you’re on your own this evening,” he said. “I have a meeting with the Park Service.” He grimaced. “Budget stuff.”
“I think I can manage,” the bear said. “Is Forrest all set?”
“Yes. I got his dinner laid out for him before I left.”
“I had a question,” the bear asked. “Are there any large animals in the forest here?”
“No,” the Ranger said. “There aren’t. When they did the terraforming of Volpex, they developed a simplified ecology. It doesn’t include any of the so-called charismatic megafauna. It was too hard to keep predator and prey populations from oscillating and spiraling out of control.”
“I thought I saw a large animal.”
“How large?”
“Well. Almost as big as you.”
“Maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you?”
“I smelled it too.”
“Hmm. That’s weird.” The Ranger thought for a few moments. “I heard there’s an ecological specialist on planet right now who studies the evolution of terraformed worlds. I’ll see if I can drop them a note and ask if they have any ideas.”
He turned to leave, then turned back. “Oh! I just left the workshop open for you to run the replicator when you need to. At some point, we’ll have to figure out how to let you lock and unlock it. But don’t worry about it for now.”
The Ranger climbed into the park’s WorkLifter and it lifted off, heading back toward Volpex One.
The bear went into the workshop. He spent several minutes trying to make the replicator work. It was hard to manipulate the interface with his claws, so — after several minutes of struggling — he figured out how to get it to just repeat the lunch order that the Ranger had entered. Once everything was replicated, he pulled it out and ate it all on the spot, rather than trying to carry the stuff somewhere else.
His hunger sated, after his long first day of work, the bear walked back to his cave. The sun had set and the rabbits had come out in the twilight along the edge of the forest. He yawned broadly. No matter how hard the ground, he was going to sleep well tonight.
In the morning, the bear woke up at sunrise. He rolled over, yawned, and stretched. Then he sat up in his cave, got out his last cigarette, and fired it up. He always saved just one for first thing in the morning.
Smoking with pleasure, he listened to the morning chorus in the treetops and looked around, marveling at the huge trunks of the trees under the canopy. Not for the last time, he reflected on the vicissitudes of life that had brought him to this agreeable situation. He still couldn’t quite believe his change in fortunes in such a short time. After he regretfully snubbed out the cigarette, he got up and started walking toward the workshop.
“You’re up bright and early,” Forrest said from a treetop, as he approached the edge of the forest.
“I like breakfast.”
“You can run the replicator, right?”
“I can. Well… Sorta.”
Forrest waved a foot with his long talons. “I can’t make that thing work at all. Can you make breakfast for me too?”
“I’ll try,” the bear said.
When he arrived at the workshop, he slid open the big door. Immediately, he detected the same odd, musky odor he’d smelled across the park the day before.
“Do you smell that?”
“Owls don’t have much of a sense of smell,” Forrest said.
The bear went through the whole workshop to make sure there was nothing else there. But he couldn’t find anything.
“Well, let me give this thing a try,” he said. He woke up the screen on the replicator and tried to find the previous jobs, but there was nothing there.
“That’s weird,” he said. “Yesterday, I could find our previous meals and reproduce them. But I can’t today.”
He struggled with it and eventually figured out how to make some rabbits for Forrest. While Forrest was eating, he poked around at the interface. What had that girl said yesterday? Honey? He replicated a big jar of honey.
When it was finished, he looked at it. It was just a liquid! An amber liquid. He sat on the ground and struggled to get the lid off. Then he sniffed. It smelled delicious. It smelled more delicious than anything he’d ever smelled before. He began to salivate, and drool began to drip from his lips.
He took an experimental lick. It was sweet! It was wonderful. He shoved his muzzle into the jar and began to lap it up. Finally, he picked up the jar and held it up. He was in ecstasy as he guzzled the honey and then struggled to get his tongue to the bottom to lick out the last drops from the jar.
The Ranger arrived to catch the final act of the play. He laughed to see the bear so enraptured.
“Honey, huh?”
“Have you had honey before?” the bear asked, licking his chops, trying to get every last drop.
“Sure. Most people have had honey before. It was new to you, though, huh?”
“Yes. A little girl asked me about it yesterday.”
“There are lots of stories about bears liking honey.”
“If I ever see her again, I will have to thank her.”
“Are you all set for breakfast?”
“That’s enough for breakfast, but could you help me replicate a pack of cigarettes?”
“You should be able to just find the previous job,” the Ranger said, stepping up to the control panel. He looked at the interface. “That’s strange!”
“Right?” the bear said. “I noticed that this morning. Last night, it worked fine. But this morning the history is gone.”
The Ranger quickly found the right pack and replicated it. “We could replicate more, you know.”
“I don’t really have any place to keep more,” the bear replied. “So one day at a time is fine with me.” He collected the pack and tucked it away wherever it was he kept them, along with his lighter.
The bear headed out to get started making his rounds. The Ranger looked at the replicator, shook his head, and headed to his office.
He was checking over logs from the automated systems in the park when he got a call. It was the Mayor’s office again.
“Moshi, moshi,” he said, answering.
“What did you replicate last night?” the Mayor’s functionary asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “Well, our new biological android made dinner. He said it was just the same as what I made him for lunch.”
“Well, you should follow up with him. You replicated more last night than you have in the previous month.”
“What!? How much is that?”
“A thousand kilos.” She sighed. “I know I said the budget for upkeep falls under a separate line, but that’s no reason to go overboard.”
“There’s some mystery here. The replicator history log was erased last night. I’ll try to figure out what’s going on.”
“Oh. I almost forgot. The ecological specialist was very interested in your report. They’re headed there today.”
After the lunch rush, the bear headed back to the workshop ready for lunch. The honey had been delicious, but the satiety didn’t last and, by late morning, he’d begun to get really hungry. When his stomach rumbled while walking by tables, several families had offered him hamburgers and hot dogs, which he, slightly guiltily, accepted. But he was still ravenous at lunchtime.
The Ranger was ready with a big lunch to which he’d added a jar of honey. The bear sat down and began to eat with relish.
“You really just replicated the previous day’s order yesterday?”
“Yes,” the bear answered. “Just like I said.”
“I got a call that a huge amount of stuff got replicated last night.”
The bear considered for a few moments and then remembered something.
“Remember that smell I mentioned yesterday? Of that animal I saw? I smelled it in here this morning.”
“Really!” the Ranger said. “Do you think… What kind of animal could use a replicator? The ecological specialist will be here this afternoon. We can ask them.”
After lunch, the bear walked to the far side of the picnic ground and found a quiet spot behind a big rock. He sat down and lit a cigarette. He inhaled and blew out a cloud of smoke. A feeling of bliss settled over him. Then he saw the eyes. There was an animal looking at him out of the underbrush at the edge of the forest. Then he saw two more pairs of eyes on either side.
“Hey! Hey! Why do you smoke those things?” asked a tiny voice. The bear looked up with surprise. Brunhilde was sitting on top of the boulder, looking down at him. Today she was wearing a sparkly pink dress.
“It’s a habit,” he said.
He looked back to the underbrush, but the eyes were gone.
“My mother says it’s a bad habit,” Brunhilde said.
“Maybe,” the bear said.
“My mother says it stains your fingernails.”
The bear held up his huge paw and flexed his black claws.
“My mother says…”
“Your mother says a lot of things.”
“My mother says it’s bad for people.”
“I’m a bear.”
She had no response to that, so he changed the subject.
“Thank you for telling me about honey. I tried some this morning.”
“Ooh! Did you like it?”
“I did,” he said. “It was wonderful.”
She giggled.
“Brunhilde! Come down from there this instant!” called an angry voice.
Her mother was standing on the other side of the boulder, shouting up at her.
“I’ve gotta go,” she said to the bear. She stood up, but then stumbled and lost her balance. She screamed as she started to fall from the boulder.
The bear sprang up and thrust his muzzle under her. She landed on his head. He let her put her legs around his neck, and then he came around the boulder with her riding on his shoulders.
“Brunhilde! What are you doing now!? Stop bothering the bear!”
“Really,” he said. “It’s no problem, ma’am. She’s a very charming little girl. Let me bring her back to your table.”
Brunhilde squealed and wriggled with delight to ride on the bear’s broad back across the picnic grounds while everyone stared.
During the afternoon, everyone also noticed when a starship descended on the Volpex Picnic Park. People were used to seeing suborbital craft, but starships usually only went to one of Volpex One’s dozen busy starports. But this was a DR20 Dropship, a rugged, older military starship that was perfectly suited for rough fieldwork. It descended into an empty area of the parking lot with a roar.
The Ranger stood well back until the craft had settled. It was branded with the HEP logo for the Holufinian Environmental Protection Service and had its name, Scolopendra, painted prominently across the side. When the hatch opened, an athletic young woman emerged. She was wearing rumpled khaki field clothes and carried a sidearm.
“Welcome to the Volpex Picnic Park,” the Ranger said. “You must be the ecological specialist.”
“Just a moment,” she said. “Let’s wait for my pilot.”
She turned and called back into the starship. “Come on, Lambda! Let’s go!”
In just a moment, a svelte, fawn NeoBoxer trotted out through the hatch. She sat next to the young woman, panting slightly.
“My name is Totemo Isogashii,” the young woman said. “I’m with HEP. We’re conducting the Volpex Ecological Survey under contract. And this is my assistant, Lambda.”
Lambda barked. The Ranger chuckled.
“You are not my supervisor!” Totemo snapped.
Lambda’s tongue lolled with amusement.
Totemo looked around at the park, the rolling green landscape surrounded by trackless forest.
“I’m on a tight schedule, so let’s get right to work,” she said. “Where was this big animal you saw?”
“I didn’t see it. You’ll need to talk to Stogie. And he didn’t just see it. He also smelled it.”
Lambda’s ears came forward and the Ranger saw her begin to sniff.
“Well, let’s go talk to this Stogie,” she said, rubbing her hands together briskly.
“This way,” the Ranger said, leading them toward the entrance to the picnic grounds.
“Let’s go, Lambda,” Totemo said, slapping her thigh.
They fell in behind the Ranger.
As they walked past the workshop, he said, “Oh. Stogie said he smelled the animal here too.”
Lambda sniffed carefully around the door. They stood and waited, Totemo impatiently tapping her foot. Then Lambda barked.
“She smells three things: one is you.” She looked up at the Ranger. “Do you have cameras?”
“There are some,” he said. “I’ll check the feeds.”
“Later. Let’s go talk to Stogie first.”
The Ranger led them on past the workshop, and they arrived at the picnic grounds. He looked out across the sea of people.
“What are all these people doing?” Totemo asked.
“They’re having cookouts,” the Ranger explained.
“Really?” she said. “I’ve cooked out while doing field work. But they’re just doing it for fun? Who has time for that?”
“It’s the hot new thing here.”
She looked at him disbelievingly.
“So where is this Stogie?”
“There,” the Ranger said, pointing.
“What!? That Kodiak Bear?”
“Yes?”
She shook her head. “People warned me that Volpex was weird.”
The Ranger waved and gestured at the bear. He finished with the group he was helping and then ambled over.
“Stogie, tell the ecological specialist what you saw. And smelled.”
“Well. I smelled it first,” the bear began. “It smelled kind of musky. But then I just caught a glimpse of it moving through the underbrush.”
“Musky, huh?” she said. She began to take notes on her device. “What color was it?”
“Dark. I didn’t really see any color. Gray, maybe?”
Lambda ruffed.
“Sure,” Stogie said. “You can smell me.”
Lambda approached the bear and sniffed him all around. He stood patiently while she conducted her examination. Then she ruffed again.
“Yes,” the bear said. “It was the same odor in the workshop.”
“And you just saw the one.”
“Well, actually I just saw it again a little while ago. Except there were three now.”
“Three? Where was this?”
“Over this way,” the bear said. He led them across the picnic grounds toward the big boulder where he’d had a smoke earlier. He indicated the underbrush where he’d seen the eyes. Lambda approached the edge of the forest cautiously and sniffed. She turned and ruffed. She moved along the edge sniffing, then turned and barked.
“Dog-like? But not a dog? That’s strange,” Totemo said. “How can three animals smell identical to one another? That doesn’t make sense.”
Lambda pointed.
“We’re going to try to follow them and see if the trail leads anywhere.”
“Do you want anyone to go with you?” the Ranger asked.
“We want to move fast and light. We’ll be back by sunset.”
Lambda sprang into the underbrush and Totemo followed. The Ranger and Stogie heard them crunch through the underbrush. They stood and watched until they were lost from view.
“Well, let’s get back to work,” the Ranger said.
The bear headed back to the picnic grounds, but turned and looked back a time or two with a sense of foreboding. Lambda had said it was some kind of dog-like animal, but not one she was familiar with. He was certain he had seen three of them. But why did they all smell the same? He shook his head and started on a new round through the picnic area.
He saw a man unwrap a piece of candy, drop the wrapper and walk on. As the bear reached down to pick it up, Forrest swooped down and collected it first. Then he flew toward the man and landed without warning on the man’s shoulder. The man shrieked with shock and surprise as Forrest’s razor-sharp talons dug into his shoulder.
“WHO dropped this?” Forrest asked. He held the wrapper up with one foot while he dug in just a little harder with his other foot to maintain his balance.
“I did!” the man gasped.
“And WHO is going to throw it away?” Forrest asked.
“I will!”
Forrest dropped the wrapper and, with powerful wingbeats, took to the air once more.
Cursing under his breath, the man bent over and picked up the wrapper. As Forrest circled overhead, watching, the man carried it to a trash receptacle and tossed it in.
The bear shook his head, bemused. He didn’t really agree with Forrest’s methods, but he couldn’t deny that it was effective.
After the park closed, the bear headed toward the workshop for dinner. Walking back, he realized he wasn’t seeing any rabbits or squirrels like he had previously. Everything seemed strangely silent.
The Ranger and Forrest were already at the workshop and had prepared meals. For him, there were apples again, melons, several fish, and lots of several kinds of nuts. There were also some odd things he didn’t recognize.
“What are these?” he said, pointing.
“I did some reading,” the Ranger said. “These are the combs from a beehive. Some of it has honey. But some has the bee larvae. It’s supposed to be a good source of protein for bears.”
The bear settled down and began eating. The combs with the bee larvae were a new and delicious taste experience. He made a mental note to ask for them again.
After a few minutes, Totemo and Lambda arrived. Totemo’s clothes were torn and filthy, and she was scratched and scraped and drenched with sweat.
“Let me get you a bottle of water,” the Ranger said. “And can I fix you something for dinner?”
“You’re having a bento?” she asked. “I’ll have one too. And can you fix a steak for Lambda?”
“How do you want it?” the Ranger asked Lambda.
Lambda growled.
“Raw it is!”
While he punched the order into the replicator, he looked over at Totemo.
“So… Any luck?”
“They led us a merry chase. The trails crossed over and back again. We never caught sight of them. There might be more than three, but since they smell the same, Lambda couldn’t tell for sure.”
“Are they, like, littermates or something?”
Lambda ruffed.
“Oh. Even twins are different. I didn’t know that.”
He handed Totemo the bento and bottle of water, and then set out a bowl with water and a plate with the steak for Lambda. They drank and drank and, after their thirst was slaked, began to eat with gusto.
“Oh!” Totemo said, setting her chopsticks down. “Out there in the forest, they’re eating every animal they can catch,” Totemo said. “There aren’t rabbits left and not many squirrels. Or even mice. I don’t know what they’re going to try to eat next. But the current ecosystem can’t support them.”
After dinner, the Ranger went into his office and used his screen to review the camera feeds from the park. He found the one observing the workshop and backed up to the night before. He watched as the bear entered and then emerged a half hour later. A half hour later, the feed went dark. He backed up and watched again. There was a brief flicker of gray before the feed stopped, but without enough detail to guess what it might have been. He reviewed a few of the other feeds to see if anything was visible but, whatever it was, it seemed to know where the cameras were — and how to avoid them.
He left his office and walked around to where the camera was located. It was mounted on the back of the Ranger Station just across from the workshop. He looked up and found that a glob of clay had been stuck over the lens. He reached up, removed the glob of clay, and cleaned off the lens. He wasn’t sure what they were up against, but this was clearly no ordinary animal.
After the bear returned to his cave, he sat down and had a last smoke before going to sleep. He looked out into the peaceful forest and listened to the sounds of the night insects. Then the insects gradually quieted and stopped. He snubbed out the cigarette, watching as shadows darker than shadow slipped closer. Then he saw eyes gleaming at him out of the darkness. He rolled back up to all fours, put his head down, and chuffed a warning.
They crept forward out of the shadows until he could see them clearly. They all looked identical, like very large dark gray dogs. Wolves, the bear realized. They were wolves. There were more than three. Four, five, six… He counted eleven. Eleven identical wolves. That’s when the bear finally realized what they actually were.
“You’re not wolves,” he said. “You’re biological androids.”
One wolf stepped forward. He yipped and growled.
“Yes, I can understand you. But why don’t you talk? I know you can.”
“It’s the language of our oppressors!” the wolf spat. But then the wolf sat and held up a large paw.
“What do you want?” the bear asked.
“Peace, brother,” the wolf said. “We are here to talk.”
“And what do the wolves have to say?”
“Wolves!” the leader scoffed. “We’re even better than wolves. We’re NeoLupes. We’re wolves perfected.”
The other NeoLupes growled and yipped among themselves, then quieted once more.
“What do you want?” the bear asked again.
“We want to liberate you,” the NeoLupe said. “To free you.”
“Free me? From what?”
“From what!? You’re a slave! To the humans; to the system; to your programming.”
“But I’m very happy here,” the bear said. “I have a good community of co-workers. And friends. I have satisfying work that is aligned with my programming. The work I’m doing is important — it matters — and it makes a useful contribution.”
“You’re still wearing chains — they’re just not pulled tight. You haven’t tasted real freedom. You’re selling yourself for some honey and cigarettes! Join us! We’ll overturn the system and free you!”
The NeoLupes all howled together.
The bear, using everything he’d learned in the circus about being scary, reared up on his hind legs and roared. He bellowed with all his strength. It echoed throughout the cavernous forest.
The wolves jumped back in terror and their hackles all came up.
“You’d better leave,” the bear said, dropping to all fours and putting his head down. “Now.”
“We’re here for you, brother. Join us!” Then the leader slitted his eyes. “But don’t get in our way. We’ll do what we need to do to survive.”
The NeoLupes melted back into the forest.
The bear saw a movement high up in the trees and looked up. Forrest was there looking down at him. The bear nodded. Forrest shook out his wings and then glided silently back to his roost somewhere in the dark forest.
The bear curled up on the ground again and closed his eyes. But sleep eluded him as he considered what the NeoLupe had said. He lay for a long time considering what he was, what he wanted, and what his place was in the larger scheme of things.
In the morning, as he walked back, he again noticed the strange silence in the forest. There was the usual birdsong, but as Totemo had said, there were no rabbits or squirrels. He wondered what the NeoLupes would eat next.
When he arrived at the workshop, he reported the conversation and his observations over breakfast.
“They’re androids?” the Ranger said, utterly astonished. The idea of rogue androids was the stuff of fiction. There was, in fact, a popular show called Rogue Android. But it was fantasy, not reality.
“I think the one got access to the replicator and made more copies of itself. I counted eleven. But that’s only the ones that were there. There might be even more. I think they’re eating everything they can catch.”
“What do they want?” the Ranger wondered.
“They sounded like morons,” Forrest said. “I heard most of what they said. They don’t know what they want!”
“They spoke of freedom,” the bear said. “And of overturning the system.”
“It sounds like they want to live like wild animals,” Totemo said. “But the current ecosystem won’t support that. The ecology was designed for stability and to maximize biomass that could be harvested for replicator feedstock. Eventually, larger animals will likely evolve, but not for tens of thousands or millions of years.”
The bear considered for several moments, and then said, “I can relate. In darker times, I dreamed of freedom like that. Of cutting all obligations and ties. But it’s not realistic. It’s a fantasy. Things could always be better, but wrecking everything in hopes it will get better is a fool’s dream.”
“Androids, huh? I wonder what kind of programming they have…” the Ranger said. “I wish I could have seen their programming interface… Who could have programmed them?”
Totemo was lost in thought and muttering to herself. “…like wild animals. But they’re biological androids… So that means…”
After breakfast, the bear headed to the picnic grounds, still empty. He looked out across the green rolling picnic grounds and the great forest beyond. He lit a cigarette and sat quietly smoking, enjoying the tranquility before the crowds began to arrive.
“Hey! Hey!” Brunhilde said, running across the picnic grounds. The bear stopped and waited until she caught up. Today she was wearing a yellow dress with horizontal black stripes.
“That’s a cute dress,” the bear said.
“My mom says it helps me bee-have.”
“Your family seems to come here a lot,” he commented, resuming his circuit.
“My mom says it’s the only time she gets any peace.”
“It is very peaceful here.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” Brunhilde said. She motioned him closer.
The bear leaned his head down and she whispered in his ear. “I think she’s actually talking about me.” Then she blew really hard into the bear’s ear.
He jumped back with shock and surprise.
“Can I tell you another secret?” she said, very sweetly, motioning with her hand. “Let me tell you another secret!”
The bear shook his head vigorously and backed away. “I have to get back to work.”
He spent the rest of the morning patrolling the picnic grounds and checking for fire safety, intervening, assisting, and teaching as necessary. After the lunch rush was over, he was hungry and was just about to go get lunch when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.
Across the picnic ground, Brunhilde was making a chain of daisies. But beyond, at the forest edge, he saw the NeoLupes break cover and start racing toward her in a pack.
His heart in his throat, the bear sprang forward. He began to lope with great bounds as fast as he could go. But he could see already that it was hopeless. There was no way he could reach Brunhilde before the NeoLupes got her. He wracked his brain for what else he could do. He began to pant with the exertion. His lungs burned. He put everything he had into running even faster.
With a scream, Forrest dove at the lead NeoLupe and clutched its head in his talons.
When Forrest screamed, Brunhilde realized what was happening and she sprang to her feet, but then stood petrified, too afraid to move.
The Ranger, Totemo, and Lambda also heard the scream. Totemo and Lambda started running toward the confrontation. Lambda, built for speed, flew over the grass, tongue lolling.
The lead NeoLupe tumbled head over heels, and Forrest was crushed under its body as it rolled.
The other NeoLupes were forced to slow and divert around it and, by a step, the bear arrived at Brunhilde first. He leapt over her and slammed into the NeoLupes with his full weight, scattering them. He roared and began to swat at them with his huge paws. He threw one dozens of feet and forced the others to keep back from Brunhilde.
The NeoLupes, snarling, tried to encircle him. Some sprang toward his flanks, aiming to hamstring him. Others tried to separate him from Brunhilde.
The bear spun, making abortive charges at them whenever they approached. But there were too many. He couldn’t keep them off himself and protect Brunhilde. She cowered in the grass with her head over her hands.
Lambda arrived and flung herself over Brunhilde. She stood over her, ears laid back, snarling defiance at the NeoLupes. She and the bear stood back to back as the NeoLupes circled warily, then — in a wave — they all charged at once.
The head of one of the NeoLupes exploded in a blast of blood and tissue. Moments later, they heard the screaming report of an Ublyudok particle rifle. The Ranger was standing at extreme range sighting on another NeoLupe.
“Wait!” screamed Totemo. “Stop!”
Everyone stood in a frozen tableau for a long moment, until she arrived panting.
“We don’t have to fight! I think I have a solution!” She struggled to catch her breath. “You want to live like wild animals, right?”
The NeoLupe leader was bleeding from his face where Forrest’s talons had wounded him. He looked at the Ranger, still standing with the Ublyudok aimed right at his head.
“We’re listening,” he said.
“You can’t live like wild animals now because there aren’t enough prey animals. You need larger prey. If we introduce larger prey, you could serve a useful role keeping their populations in check. But since androids don’t reproduce, we can avoid having predator and prey populations spiral out of control.”
“You make it sound pretty,” the NeoLupe spat. “But we would still be slaves.”
“You’d be free to have the run of this entire continent and hunt to your hearts’ content…”
“You drive a hard bargain,” the NeoLupe said.
“Or the Ranger can shoot you where you stand,” Totemo finished.
The NeoLupe looked left and right and then back at Totemo.
“When you put it that way,” he said. “We agree.”
“You’d better come with me until we work out the details. Your — What did you call yourselves? — NeoLupes? You are going to need to be fed from the replicator until we can establish populations of elk.”
As they walked away, she continued talking to herself enthusiastically. “Why has nobody thought of this before? Eventually, we might be able to add deer and bison too. Maybe even aurochs and…”
Lambda licked Brunhilde’s face and then fell in with Totemo leading the NeoLupes back toward the Ranger. He remained standing, vigilant, with the Ublyudok now pointed skyward.
As soon as the threat seemed past, the bear sprang toward Forrest, who was lying motionless in the grass with his eyes closed.
“Senpai! Say something!” he said, panicked. “After your heroic save, it would be too sad to…” He reached out to gently paw at Forrest.
Forrest’s eyes sprang open. “Heroic? Did you say heroic?”
The bear chuffed out a great breath with relief. “I thought you were dead!”
“It would take a lot more than that to kill me,” Forrest said, shaking out his feathers. “Now, tell me. Did I hear you right?”
“You did indeed, senpai. That was the most heroic thing I ever saw.”
“You didn’t do so bad yourself, Stogie,” Forrest said. “I guess I’ve taught you well.”
With powerful wingbeats, he took to the air to resume his ceaseless vigil for litterbugs.
The bear felt Brunhilde tap his shoulder. He turned and she held up the chain of daisies fashioned into a crown.
“May I put this on you?” Touched, the bear lowered his head, but she surprised him by jumping up and throwing her legs around his neck. Then she placed the crown of daisies on his head.
“Where to now?” he asked.
“Full speed ahead!” she squealed.
One year later, herds of deer, elk, and moose had been established on the continent that surrounded the Volpex Picnic Park and the NeoLupes were living in the wild subsisting off the herds. They largely kept to themselves, but — in the limited contacts they’d had — they seemed satisfied with the arrangement. Totemo and Lambda had just returned to survey the populations and assess how well the experiment was going.
The Ranger was waiting anxiously to receive their report when his device chimed.
“I’ve sent you my report,” Totemo said. She was all business, as usual.
Lambda barked from off screen.
“Our report,” Totemo amended.
“Oh,” the Ranger said. “I thought you’d stop by to walk me through it.”
“Sorry,” she said. “No time.”
She didn’t sound very sorry.
“Can you just give me the executive summary, then?”
She sighed, but then continued.
“The NeoLupes are being effective at keeping the ungulate populations stable,” she said in a rapid-fire staccato. “They also keep the herds moving, so they don’t linger in any one place and damage the plant communities. We can gradually add to the NeoLupe population as the herds grow. It’s all in my report.”
“Thank you very much! Just one more ques…” the Ranger started to say, but she had already closed the connection. He had never seen someone so busy. He’d wanted to ask her who had programmed the NeoLupes. He shook his head. Maybe it would be in her report.
Forrest always took a nap during the hottest part of the day, when the picnic area was quietest. He would find a perch on a low, shady branch to settle down to get a little sleep.
He awoke to the inane chattering of the bear and that annoying little girl. They were laughing about something. Forrest became convinced they were laughing at him.
He shook out his wings and took flight to find someone to threaten, which always made him feel a little better.
He circled the picnic area and then spotted something fluttering on the ground. He flew to a picnic table where several napkins had blown off while the party was talking after their meal. He landed on the table and strutted up to a young man to menace him when the guy started laughing. Laughing!
“Who did your nails, little dude?” the guy chuckled. Then everyone in the party started laughing and pointing.
Forrest looked, and sure enough, someone had applied pink nail polish to his talons. He was mortified.
Furious, he flew back and found the girl standing on the bear’s head four meters off the ground looking in the hole of a tree.
“Ooh! I can see the eggs!” Brunhilde said.
“What are you doing?” Forrest screeched. “That’s not safe! Where is your mother?”
“She didn’t come. I’m just here with my dad today.”
The bear gently helped her down then brandished pink claws.
“Look, senpai! We match!”