Faster, higher, stronger. A couple of seconds—and you're already over the fence. You got damn lucky: there was no barbed wire here, or, say, a fence sending a thousand volts. Otherwise, you wouldn't have just scraped off a patch of skin; you'd have exploded into burnt pieces. In this blind spot, there were no cameras—or rather, only cheap dummies hung there. The smell in that spot was so bad that the guards found it easier to lock themselves in their shack, only occasionally and lazily shining a flashlight toward the barking dogs. Right now duty was the last thing on guard minds: a match of handball was happening (forgive me, but you can't call this sport anything else, and the word "foot" was clearly added just to mock people). The security guard had a treat today—a sandwich with grilled pork, a few slices of lettuce (strictly for decoration), three tiny tomatoes for a snack, and tons of mayonnaise leaking onto the control console.
Four mission troopers moved toward the target under the cover of night. They tried to be quiet, though with the constant barking of a thousand hounds, it was unlikely anyone would hear their footsteps or even an accidental rustle. But that was where the danger lay: a sudden movement could change the sound of this canine chorus. The constant barking could shift into a rhythmic howl—a sure sign of an alarm.
The First showed the order of steps. First, they pulled out wire cutters and cut the locks on the cages where the "quiet" dogs were held. These dogs looked at their saviors with a strange, deep kindness, making not a sound. One by one, they were carefully lifted over the fence. They finished the first group quickly.
"Damn, now the rest," the First whispered, adjusting his mask. "Who among them is the calmest?"
"Naturally, ain't nobody," the Second said sharply. "It's the high-kill shelter they smellin' death."
"Are they crazy doggy, bruhg man! Maybe then, thould we just forget it? Is it worst taking them to the no-kill shelter?" the Third said.
"And what the hell you suggestin'?" the Second moved in on him. "They more deservin' of life than any of us!"
"Damn man! Chill-chill! And how exactly do you expect us to take them over?" the Third wouldn't let it go. "They'll tear us apart the second we reach out a hand!"
"Get ready, I'll settle this right now," the First said, and in one leap, jumped over the fence.
"Oh man, fucking nice! While he's 'settling' things," the Third took the lead, "I'll take the next one."
The Third has his sights set on the one calm dog. At least, that's how it seemed: it didn't bark, but simply backed into a corner and growled lowly, looking angrily from under its brow. If he hesitates, the rest of them will swoop in to grab calm doggy, leaving him with nothing but the mean ones. It's like he just laid eyes on a pizza topped with a massive slab of meat, he knows he has to grab it. Deciding to show some care, he opened the cage and held out an "smelly bone" the kind that sends hounds into a trance and makes a human's stomach turn. But the dog didn't appreciate the great food. It continued to growl, baring its teeth. The others were pushing from behind, and the Third, losing his patience, simply reached out for it. In that same second, the "little terror" bit down on his palm with lightning speed, nearly biting it off at the wrist.
At the sound of a loud human scream, the guard fell out of the shack. He was so shocked that, in a panic, he pressed his phone to his ear, the right move. Then pushed it out in front of him as if he were holding a loaded Magnum, a questionable decision.
"Freeze! Freeze, or I'll shoot! Hands up!" he screamed, keeping them in the sights of his phone.
"Don't just stand there motherfuckers! Get this beast off me!" the Third shouted, completely ignoring the threat of 'execution by phone.'
"Will, Grand, dammit, why are you just standing there?! Help!"
"I'm Bill! And Grand slipped away somewhere!" the Fourth replied, his mask having already slid sideways.
The guard, seeing this comedy unfold, suddenly broke into a mean smirk. "A-ha! I keep in mind you lot! So it's Billy and Willy... and you," he pointed his phone toward the Third, "you must be Wonka?"
"Actually this is Trevor!" the Fourth blurted out, completely blowing their cover and selling out his partner in crime.
Will lunged forward, grabbing the dog from behind in a death grip and lifting it above him, while Trevor stared in horror at his bloodied palm. Bill stood frozen with his hands up, desperately winking at the others—as if to say, surrender, or the guard will open fire. The guard still had them at gunpoint with his 'Magnum.' Judging by the way the device was blowing up with notifications, he was already laying into them with machine-gun fire. At that moment, a loud crash. A truck burst through the shelter's wooden fence, moving fast in reverse at full speed. The First leaped from the cab and, ignoring the frozen scene, flung open the rear doors of the van.
"Seriously, Willie? You picked a hell of a time for your ritual dances. Stop lugging that dog around like a tambourine and shove him in the cargo hold." He barked.
"Take 'im" The barking dog was about to spring right out of Will's hands.
The First snatched the struggling hound and, after shoving it into the cargo hold finally assessed the scale of the catastrophe. Trevor was bleeding out, Bill was already mentally writing his confession, Will was looking himself over, while a shaking guard stood with a gun leveled at them... my bad, for a heartbeat that's just what Grand thought he saw. It was a false alarm, it was just a phone. So, he simply walked up to the guard, snatched the vibrating phone from his hand, and hurled it into the darkness of the bush. When the poor man reached for a real weapon (a rubber baton), Grand gave him a generous face-full of pepper spray.
"The crew, what are you standing around for?! You, with the arm injury follow me!" Grand barked.
"Grand, that's Trevor!..." Bill corrected him, but he was cut short by a backhand to the lips..
"No names!"
"Why'd you call him 'the one with the arm'? I thouht you forgot him..."
"Because you're with trauma too. You the one with the head wound."
"Aaaah! It burns!" the guard shouted, rolling on the ground.
The guard and Trevor were shrieking, the dogs were barking their heads off, and Billy, who was starting to stand a freak. So Grand hauled the guard up off the ground, snagged Trevor, gave Bill a swift kick on but, and barked an order at Will:
"We're going to go wash up and patch these wounds. You guys get the dogs loaded in the meantime."
"Oh, typically. We get all the dirty work," Bill grumbled.
"Billy-Wonka," Will commanded, grabbin' a net, "stand at the doors and open 'em when I bring the next mutt!"
"Actually, he's Willy-Wonka!" Bill shouted after him. "And by the way, did you know the rat from Ratatouille wasn't named Ratatouille? His name was Remy! And Ratatouille is a vegetable stew!"
This was officially the most ridiculous secret operation in the history of eco-activism. While Bill continued to say a stream of useless facts about Ratatouille and other old cartoons, Willy worked like a well-oiled machine on an assembly line. He didn't waste a second on arguments: bolt cutters, lock, dog-catcher, van. Thanks to the streamlined process, they managed to load all the hounds in record time. Meanwhile, Grand finished his "field surgery" and dragged Trevor—bandaged hand and all—and the guard, who was still rubbing his pepper-swollen eyes, back toward the truck.
"Grand, fuck! Let's stop at a damn hospital..." Trevor groaned, shaking in pain, only to receive a sharp jab to the lips from Grand.
"Why don't you just broadcast our exact coordinates while you're at it, you our second genius..." Grand snarled, checking the mirrors.
Bill, unable to help himself, threw in his two cents: "Yeah, why not just tell him we're the eco-activists from 'Green Future'! Idiot!"
"Bill, mother of God, shut up and stop ruining our job!" Grand was at his breaking point. "This is a serious crime! We just entered city property illegally!"
"Grand, I specifically didn't say we're heading to the 'Kind Paws' shelter or that we're dropping Trevor off at St. Elizabeth's Hospital!" Bill's eyes went wide, genuinely confused as to why Grand immediately boxed his ears?
The guard, who had been listening intently despite the burning in his eyes, let out an awkward laugh. "I was starting to forget your names..." He nodded toward Willy. "And what's called him?"
Willy, realizing Bill was about to provide not just a name but likely a social security number, didn't wait for the next secret. He simply clamped his hand over his friend's mouth.
"Dang Zian, i'm from East!" Willy barked. "Enough. We've stayed here too long. To the vehicles!"
He practically pulled a struggling Bill toward the cab. The truck roared to life, belching a cloud of smoke as it began to move out of the ruined shelter.
"Guys!" the guard screamed after them, searching with his hands through the darkness. "Help me find my phone! I don't have a spare! Come on, before I forget your names! I'm gonna get fired! Guy-y-y-ys!"
But the truck had already vanished around the bend, carrying away four "misson troopers," a pack of dogs, and a mountain of evidence that Bill had helpfully spoken out loud. The activists pulled off their masks only once they reached the backroads, racing toward the shelter. When the truck—smelling strongly of wet dog—finally stopped suddenly at the shelter gates, dawn was barely breaking. The sleepy workers met them with very little enthusiasm. A massive truck full of barking "surprises" is not the best way to closed a shift. Will set the record straight immediately. He'd had enough of the hell in the "killer sheld." While Grand was off "handling things," Will had been wrestling struggling dogs all by himself into the cargo hold, risking his fingers. Now, the roles were reversed.
"I loaded 'em while you was out for a stroll. Now it's yo' turn, Grand," Will snapped, jumpin' down to the dirt. "Take Bill and unload this group. Then, scrub Uncle Trevor's truck—it can't be smellin' like this.
"I hear you, I hear you. We've got a democracy going on here, not Grands dictatorship." He held out a fist for a bump.
"For the record, I pitched in too..." Bill tried to cut in.
"Listen, my dear rear-end friend, Will actually made it happen, he didn't screw it up." Grand turned his attention back to Will. "Take Trevor and get him patched up right. See? I'm not opposed to sharing power. You just have to speak up."
"No doub!"
While Grand climbed into the van with the grumbling dogs, Will took Trevor to the hospital. Trevor was admitted instantly. A deep bite, an unclear history—the doctors immediately began talking about signs of early-onset rabies. Will spent the rest of the morning in the lobby, staring at a flickering television screen. He felt sick. Not from the leftover scent of the shelter on his jacket, but from the realization of what kind of world they had turned their planet into.
He didn't want this life—a life where you had to go to war for an animal's right to exist. He was disgusted by people who took pets in like toys and then thrown them away like broken plastic. He was tired of fighting the Hydra of industrial capitalism. For a tiny cent of profit, factories were ready to turn the world into burnt dust. What would they buy with their saved capital? A thousand servings of ice cream? No, they would reinvest in new production, increasing the digits in their accounts while destroying the environment. Where there used to be a green square where birds sang and you could breathe in the scent of fresh grass and a mix of fragrant flowers... now stood a luxurious, cold, giant building. They said half the apartments were bought up by Eastern merchants. They flew in once or twice a year to close a deal and vanished again, leaving behind dead concrete honeycombs. In that past green squar, Will had rested every single day. That was where he had shared his first kiss with Malfred... He wondered how Malfred was doing now. Did he even remember that park? Now, there was no one there but a lonely doorman in an empty lobby. Lights flickered in only a few windows likely rented out as photo studios to film a fake life against the backdrop of cold glass.
But Wilder didn't give up. Even feeling the world around him shrinking to the size of an elite gated community, he kept fighting, hoping the Hydras would finally lose their heads for good. Will's eyelids finally closed; it had been an exhausting night.
"I want to watch my show!" complained a female patient sitting in the corridor where the television was blaring.
"Who cares about your soap operas? Just get a subscription and stop embarrassing yourself; your son left you a tab," replied a man with his head wrapped in bandages.
"Tablets have special waves—they interfere with brain activity! I am defending my interests!" The old woman didn't back down.
"Look, you old hag, nobody's going to care about your soaps in a minute..." The man pointed to the TV screen hanging from the ceiling.
Breaking News! And no, it wasn't about another crazy post from the President. Though there was his oppinon about this news of course, but even his usual stupidity paled in comparison to what had unfolded overnight. Astronomers had detected a comet screaming in from the direction of the "Ringed Planet." The object's velocity was off the charts—a mass that size could easily turn the "Blue Planet" into a burnt desert, just like what happened to the dinosaurs.
The man with the bandaged head suddenly smiled widely. "Well, great! Back then the giant lizards died off, and the little guys like me survived. Short king is a power and future!"
"Mr. dwarf, turn my show back on this instant!"
"How dare you call me that? That's an insult to my dignity!" the little guy shrieked.
"Only Dwarves have kings like that. Put on my show and you'll see!"
"Did you know that in that series, the dwarves weren't even played by little people? They were afraid of offending them," another patient chimed in.
A new round of debate ignited in the corridor: they moved on to the difficult lives of little people, who already have it rough in the modern world. Someone noted that, in an effort to avoid offending "small-statured individuals," film studios had taken away countless classic roles, replacing them with CGI. The argument instantly turned quickly into a discussion on whether this was a new form of discrimination"heightophobia."
The news of the potential total destruction of their planet was tossed into the information trash heap. Just the media selling panic again, they figured.