Wolf 3.0

A Private Funeral

Talleyrand as a wolf cub is taken back in time, disguised as a puppy, and memory almost entirely wiped.

I am in a room with the pack that has a giant thick glass window looking out into space with a panoramic view of the planet Earth filling the frame. Synthesized choir music starts to play and the lights dim like this is a bum's-rush automated process. The remaining wolves of the pack have been left in the room alone, out of respect for their religious tradition. There are no humans present.

There's a large oblong black box of some plastic-like form, sealed, at the front of the room, with handles on each side. It is Mentor's coffin and has just been delivered into the room.

I look at Cassandra. I sort of know what this is, seen it on television, and all the other wolves seem to recognize it.

Cassandra telepaths to me: This is part of the Wolf 3.0 programming. We're going to work with humans more closely now. On Earth I mean.

They are going to release Mentor's coffin into space. I will hold the forcefield wall, which will be penetrable by – and only by – the coffin. There is a shuttle mechanism for this as part of the Replacement campaign.

Talleyrand, you are new and can choose his song.

I am now the closest wolf to the music control mechanism. I probe the control-bot with telepathy.

Do you have a universal catalog?

Yes

I say the first thing that pops into my mind from my own time as something that sounds elegiac and mournful, a slow song called Everybody Hurts that my master used to like.

The music starts as the coffin is loaded into the mechanism. Cassandra erects a force field that holds back our area but allows the coffin through. It shoots into space and slowly drifts end over end into the cosmos, with the whole pack heads up, eyes following Mentor's last journey. The singer sounds the last note "Hold on –" and the room goes silent, as we gaze out at the panorama of Earth.

Cassandra does something and a mirrored version of the big room appears inside my head.

She telepaths to me on a private channel. Talleyrand, there's something we need to show you. I am going to project it onto the glass. I know because I was the Wolf 3.0 experimental prototype, and there are many capabilities that come with that.

She disappears and I am now in the big room alone. I hear her voice, spoken.

There used to be another wolf cub that I played with when I was little.

A 2.0? I ask.

The gigantic window is masked by the image that Cassandra is projecting. It shows Cassandra as a cub playing with another wolf cub, and it shifts back and forth between her point of view and the other cub's point of view.

I'm whispering How can you do that? Cassandra says Shhh. Watch.

In the image, an adult wolf recognizable as a younger Mentor comes into the room. He is beckoning at the other cub in a familiar manner..

Come here, boy! Come here! We're going on a little trip! It's going to be all right!

Bye! The cub Cassandra is saying in the image, addressing the other cub with an unfamiliar name.

Beckoning with his head for the cub to follow, the younger Mentor moves toward something I cannot see.

The little Cassandra is frozen up, waiting , concentrating on the adult wolf and the other cub.

Looking at the screen, I start to say something and the adult Cassandra goes Sssshhh.

As the little Cassandra keeps concentrating, a time gate appears, and summoning the other cub, Mentor runs in and the other cub follows him. There's a flash cut to the two wolves hurtling within the time stream, which I recognize from my own experience.

What is this? Where are they going? I'm asking.

Shh. Cassandra's voice sinks to a whisper. Talleyrand, that's the last Wolf 2.0 we talked about.

Mentor?

No, the other one.

I'm staring at the cub. Where are they going?

You'll see.

The cub is changing, blurring, becoming another animal, turning darker. Mentor is turning into an adult human, with clothes from the early 21st century.

You're kidding, I'm saying, This is not for real.

The black hair on the puppy – yes, he's now a puppy – is curling. The two of them are still hurtling through the time stream.

No. Wait a second! I'm saying now. Where did you get this?

I collected it from your memory of the scene at the time. I could do that then, says Cassandra. This is the way it happened, Talleyrand. Her eyes stared into mine. This is the real deal.

No, I'm saying now and shaking my head. I can't believe this. I don't remember it. No way.

Yes, says Cassandra. Watch what happens next. This is you.

I watch Mentor in human form bring the baby Talleyrand poodle into the Humane Society.

We deported you because we knew The Replacement would happen someday, explains Cassandra in a whisper.

The rest of the wolves are back in the room, in suspended animation.

As of now, you are now the last Wolf 2.0 left alive, which they don't know. You know humans, you can read, and you are now the senior male wolf present, which means you are our secret weapon. Officially, Mentor's position will be unfilled, and I will run the pack. Unofficially, and secretly, you will be the alpha leader on the male side. Do you know what comes with that, in terms of wolf culture? She's staring straight at me with tears, a slight smile, and otherwise a hard-to-read expression on her face. Her eyebrows slowly rise expecting an answer.

I look back at her and try to imitate the expression but it's not working. I think so but I'm not sure. I don't want to say it, not now and here.

She sends me a telepathic image of Mentor as a young lion, playing with the cub Cassandra as she plays tricks with her telepathy, and then suddenly it is gone. The adult Cassandra is looking directly at me. All I can say to her is even and careful, I'm new to this, I'm new to wolf culture and you are going to have to let me know what you mean. I manage a smile.

It will be unmistakable, she says, maintaining her gaze as she releases the room and the rest of the wolves start moving again.

The ceiling lights up in a massive pane of something like glass and Joe and Rory and the rest of the humans open the door and come in from the atrium outside. . They herd us like sheep into the telepathic training facility next door which is a room [the size of a small convention hall] with videos running and a flashing sign overhead WOLF 3.0 EARTH SUPPORT TRAINING FACILITY.

Joe beckons us into a large room with technological holding pens for this pack and others, set up with deceptively light wireless headset fittings for the wolves. The pack files into five adjoining ones in the near row. Joe puts on the wolf headsets and sinks in intrusion needles through the holes in the headset. I cannot feel the needles after the initial sting, and neither can the others] and each rig starts "mmmmm" in the head, carrying the telepathic training gently in like an electric current

One by one, we absorb the subconscious programming as dim scenarios flash through our heads, finalizing the updates. A tiny portion of me stays awake, tracking the descent of the data as it lodges in my psyche.

It is after we have all returned to the den and are settling into an unexpected sleep that an image flashes across my mind, not from the training: a mortar rocket arcing up and hurtling down, somebody's underneath but I cannot make him out, the image vanishes so fast.