by P.A. Cornell
As I enter the lab carrying the animal, K-23A9 turns his head, directing his visual receptors toward me and I know what he’s going to say even before he squints them in imitation of human annoyance.
“What is this, K-44B1?”
“Canis lupus familiaris,” I say, but I know this isn’t the answer he’s looking for.
“A dog,” he says, the synthetic skin of his brow creasing. “I sent you out to find an organic with higher brain capacity. Even if this creature met the criteria, it looks barely alive.”
K-23A9 is correct. The dog is old and injured. He drifts in and out of consciousness. But when I found him in the ruins, I couldn’t leave him behind. I place him on the table and proceed to clean and trim his fur so that I can find his injury.
“If it bites you and damages your circuits, you’ll be repairing yourself,” K-23A9 says and leaves, likely going in search of a more promising test subject.
With much of the matted fur trimmed away, I can see the injured leg where another creature has bitten him, and that this animal is starved, evidenced by the bones so clearly visible beneath his skin. Throughout my examination, the animal never moves, save the subtle rise and fall of his chest with each breath. I dress the wound and start an intravenous nutrient drip. I need him stable if I’m to prove to K-23A9 that it wasn’t a waste of time to bring him here. While he’s unconscious, I implant the circuit just behind his left ear. Then I wait. My visual receptors record his appearance. His fur is the colour of honey in sunlight. He’s a handsome animal. Breed indeterminate. What humans would have called a mutt.
After a while, he wakes whining. This is a good opportunity to test the implant.
“Don’t be afraid,” I transmit.
The implant doesn’t transmit words, exactly. Most lower order organics don’t use language in the way humans did, nor could they comprehend code like we do. Instead, it’s a type of translator. I transmit code and it converts it to an impression, of sorts. If the animal responds, it again interprets what the dog feels and comprehends back to me in code. At least that is how we intend it to function. This is the first test, and if K-23A9 is correct, this animal’s cognitive function will be insufficient for communication to work. And yet, I have seen humans speak to dogs countless times in the archive footage. So I wait.
The dog stares at me for a while, then a low growl forms in his throat as he comes to greater alertness. Then, I receive a transmission.
“You’re not human.”
I feel something humans would have called “relief.” I also feel surprise at learning that he didn’t immediately know I wasn’t human. But as I look into his eyes, I see the rheumy glaze that’s robbed them of their sharpness and with it the ability to note the synthetic qualities of my skin and hair. Doubtless his scent is no longer acute enough to easily detect my machine smell either.
“I’m a robot,” I say in response. “I was created to physically resemble humans, but you are correct, I’m not one.”
“How can I understand you?”
“I implanted an experimental technology in your head. It allows digital information to flow between us.”
I don’t know how the dog will receive and interpret this information. Even with a translation of sorts, is it possible for him to comprehend ideas like technology? This is where the implant is truly put to the test.
But the dog does not respond to that in any case. He doesn’t ask for elaboration or explanation. Instead he says:
“Do you know… if there are any left? I haven’t seen a human in so long.”
He punctuates the query with a low, drawn-out whine.
“We haven’t detected a living human in years,” I tell him, modulating my voice to mirror the sadness of his whine. “The plague seems to have rendered them extinct. It’s for this reason we devised a way to communicate with other species. But you—you remember humans?”
“I had a human once,” he says, shifting his position. “She called me Charlie.”
“I never met one in person.”
“But humans made you, didn’t they?” He sniffs deeply. “You smell of something human-made.”
“Yes. But I wasn’t brought online until after they were gone. All I know of them comes from archival footage and our collective memory. I prefer to learn about them from those who knew them.”
The dog tries to stand but is unable to put weight on his injured leg. I remove the IV and lift him gently off the table. I carry him outside and sit on the grass, placing his head on my leg as I’ve seen humans in the archives do. Then I raise my body temperature slightly to keep him warm. I imitate a gesture I’ve seen humans make and stroke the fur on his head in the hopes of giving him comfort. My touch receptors record his softness, the thickness of each hair, his temperature. He closes his eyes, but I know he’s still awake.
“Humans made us too,” he transmits, after a while. “Dogs also have a collective memory. We were wild once. We lived in packs, hunting together, and protecting our own. We avoided humans. But then a few of us took a chance on them. We formed a new kind of pack with them. We helped them hunt and they shared the catch. We kept them safe and they protected us too. In time, they even called us their best friend. Over generations they bred us to enhance skills or features. They made us who we are, just as they made you.”
“It’s a shame there’s nothing left of them now but ruins and digital information.”
“You’re wrong,” Charlie says, opening his eyes a little. “You helped me when you could have left me to die. You saw in me what the earliest humans saw in my ancestors—the possibility of something more. I’m an old dog, and I don’t have much life left to live, but what remains is better because of you. So maybe the humans put some of their best parts into your programming, the same way they bred certain traits into us.”
I look toward the ruins of the nearest human city and consider his words.
“They may be gone, but they live on in the collective memories of dogs and robots, both of which are immortal.”
I scratch my new friend just above the implant and his tail wags.
“Tell me more about your human, Charlie,” I say.
P.A. CORNELL is an award-winning Chilean-Canadian author whose short fiction has appeared in numerous speculative fiction publications. In 2022 she published her SF novella, Lost Cargo. When not writing, Cornell can be found assembling intricate Lego builds while drinking ridiculous quantities of tea. For more on the author and her work, visit pacornell.com.
The Collective Memories of Dogs and Robots can be found in Augur Magazine Issue 6.1.
