You're a chained-up dog fenced in a yard
Don't see much, you can't go far
Pace and froth, you're getting sick
Run too fast and it'll snap your neck – The Dead Kennedys

Several weeks had passed.

Jet was playing Go, ostensibly by himself. Ein was actually manipulating his moves, yet Jet didn't notice the presence of Ein in his thoughts. At the same time, Ein was trolling cyberspace and found an interesting medical article regarding stroke victims and the use of nano-technology chips to aid in recovery. By recreating electrical synapses lost in a stroke, the chips sped up healing and helped the patients regain fuller motor function. Ein went deeper and found the specs for the chips themselves. They were by the same creators of his data processes, and they were extremely compatible. That would mean that I could communicate with Spike. He's too stubborn to work on his own recovery, and Faye and Jet more than likely wouldn't able to help him, either. They're completely out of their element on this.

But why would I want to? This is outside my programming too. Why the hell would I want to help this human regain his physical properties again, when he had nothing but disdain for me? And anyway, communicating with humans was taken out of the data dog codex long ago. For good reason. Ein shuddered with the idea. He was suddenly overwhelmed by his exhaustion, and he withdrew his thoughts from the computer and found his favorite corner, where he fell almost instantly asleep.

The terrier formerly known as Poppet swayed back and forth in his box. He idly brought up one rear paw to scratch at his head, but the paw never made contact, waving pitifully in the air next to his ear. He sniffed at the air, the scents of different dogs, the vague mustardy smell that rolled off the large black dog in the box next to his, and death.

Death was not an unfamiliar scent to him. Neither was blood. On long nights, he'd remember with awful clarity the day before he came here. Mistress, oh, mistress, how beautiful she was. Long hair that shone in the sun and a kind lilt in her voice that he'd always, always obeyed. The cookies she offered, how good they were, but how much better it was to lick the scent of her off her hands, warm and sweet, like the scent of the sunshine on her hair. So gladly he would walk with her, he'd walk with her off the very edge of the Earth, if only to be by her side.

Walking. They had been walking. Walking to see Sister of Mistress, another lady, nice enough, but not as nice as Mistress. The ground was wet and cold, but he was with Mistress, and nothing else mattered. But the air was filled even heavier than normal of the scent of the cars, low and dense. The noise they made, the squeals and the pitches. But then something round suddenly rolled off one of the cars, so near to him that he jumped, frightened, and Mistress didn't have a tight grip on the leash. He'd pulled free, stumbled off the curb and into the path of the cars. Mistress shrieked and came after him, and then there was the horrible squeal, the shouts of other humans, and the series of thuds when the car hit Mistress.

And oh, Mistress, how he'd begged Mistress to move, to hug him and scold him so he could smell the sunshine on her hair, but her hair was filled with the scent of something else, the blood had overpowered the sunshine, and the taste of the blood was coppery and salty and harsh on her skin, not the warmth and sweetness that had always been there before, and a new pair of hands, filled with fear, grabbed his collar and pulled him away from Mistress, and he heard the shriek of Sister of Mistress, and he saw the fear and rage in her face, but how he pulled, pulled to get back to Mistress, and then he couldn't breathe, and he fell to the pavement while the other pair of hands held him down and the other humans came for Mistress and he could no longer smell the sweetness of her skin or the sunshine in her hair, only the fear and the blood and the death.

The next scent he remembered was the scent of frightened dogs, packed tightly in a dark moving truck, and then the smell of the antiseptic. Mistress was gone.

The terrier twitched again, waving his head, misshapen from the machinery that rose from his skull. He raised his snout, taking in the scent of the room. He didn't find what he wanted, and he lay down and stared at nothing.

Spike lay in his hospital bed, counting the holes in the acoustic ceiling tiles above his head. He had gotten up to four thousand, six hundred and thirty-seven when he heard someone come in the room. He shifted his focus to see that it was Thompson, thankfully not in the wake of that miserable bastard legally known as Barleigh. This girl seemed like a nice sort, why she'd subject herself to having to tolerate Barleigh's misogynistic behavior was beyond him, a thought that amused Spike as he had previously thought that he was a misogynistic one himself. With an effort, Spike pulled his mouth shut so he at least wouldn't look like a drooling moron in front of her.

Flashing Spike one of her beatific smiles, she asked, "How are you feeling today?" Spike raised his right hand and made a see-saw motion: comme si, comme sa. "You're doing much better. I think we'll have to get you up and out of that bed soon." Spike rolled his eyes as Thompson removed the splint that held his left arm. Immediately, the arm tried to draw up, but not as much as it had before. Thompson smiled again, made some notes in her chart, and then began to massage the arm. Spike's eyes drifted closed, thinking how if this girl would only speak Esperanto and wear a diminutive costume and then fling herself into a vat of green gelatin to wrestle with another similarly dressed female once she'd finished massaging his arm, then all would be right with the world.

"And how is our favorite slugabed today? Still enjoying taking up space where a really sick person could be?" Spike opened his eyes to see Barleigh lounging in the doorway. With a frown, working his mouth in order to keep it closed, Spike gave the lame doctor a right-handed one-finger salute. Barleigh scoffed and said, "Now if you're going to be nasty, at least do it right. Use your left hand." Spike ignored him. Barleigh came forward and smacked the splint on Spike's left leg with his cane, making Spike wince. "Use your left hand!" Spike glared at the doctor.

"Barleigh . . ."

"Hush, little grasshopper. Do not interrupt the Master. Flip me off with your left hand, you reprobate, or I'm dumping you out of this bed."

"Barleigh!"

"Good God, no one pays attention to a word I say. I could be reciting Uncle Tom's Cabin and no one would ever notice. You, doctor, hush. This is my patient. Now you, patient, make your statement." With every ounce of effort Spike had, he rolled his left hand over, and managed to make his middle finger stand a little bit prouder than the other ones, and Barleigh's expression softened. "Very good. It's a start. You'll be playing the violin again in no time." Spike slapped the bed and shook his head. "Not the violin, then?" Spike brought up both hands to his chest and did a fingering motion – the right hand did scales perfectly, while the left hand barely made a motion. "Clarinet?" Spike blinked. "Figures. Only the Nancy boys played clarinet. Thompson, reduce his morphine and let's get him on Percoset so he won't be so drugged out all the time."

"Percoset? Not Vicodin?"

"Leave the Vicodin for me, silly girl. Percoset for him." And Barleigh stumped out of the room.

The large black Newfoundland, who called himself Fang, was dumped unceremoniously into a small stainless steel room. He knew where he was. He'd been here before. Barking did no good and only made his ears ring due to the echo. He began to breathe in large lungfuls of the fresh air to attempt to ward off whatever the coats would do to him now. But he'd beat them. He would. He was too tough to die. And he was looking forward to the day when they'd slip up, and he'd have a chance to show them who was boss. Like he did to Mac.

Mac had not called him Fang, but instead called him "Dog." Dog's purpose in life was not to be a pet, but to work. His job was to protect the scrub-and-brush chain link yard for Mac. And Dog did that well. Any four-legger who mistakenly wandered into the yard was quickly dispatched. All bipeds were greeted with snaps and barks, which continued until the biped either fled the yard, or Mac came out and shortened the chain. For a reward, he might be fed table scraps, or warm beer would be poured in his dish. It was one of these bipeds that suggested to Mac that he would be a sure-fire bet in a new "sport". Mac concurred with the idea, and soon Dog was eating better than ever before; however, Mac stepped up the whippings, and brought four-leggers for Dog to chase.

Finally the day came when Mac shoved Dog into a large carrier in the back of a rusted-out pickup truck. Dog was then driven to this yard out in the middle of the desert, where there were no houses, but there were many trucks around an old paddock. Mac dragged the carrier off the tailgate, and Dog was pushed into the paddock. Many other bipeds were around, yelling and throwing things, and then Dog realized that he'd been put into a paddock with a large boar, and it seemed that the bipeds wanted Dog to kill it. So he did.

This activity continued for weeks on end, it seemed to Dog. The boars got bigger and meaner and harder to kill. Mac beat Dog even more mercilessly, withholding food to make Dog more vicious. Someone told Mac to feed Dog gunpowder as well, which made Dog sick. But he was more afraid of losing to a boar.

And one day, it happened. Dog was unable to bring down a large boar that had defeated many other dogs. Mac lost a lot of money in a bet, and Mac took out his losses on Dog. And Dog turned around and leapt on Mac and bit out his throat, in front of all the other bipeds.

Dog had expected to be shot in the head. He'd seen that happen to other dogs that had been injured too badly by the boars. But he didn't care. He didn't want to be hit anymore. But the bipeds loaded Dog into his carrier, and a different biped drove Dog to a big white building. Dog never saw what became of Mac.

Since then, his enemy was no longer Mac, but the coats. They'd implanted something in his back and his head, something that sent painful shocks whenever they dumped him in the room with the gas. He'd hold his breath as long as he could and once he'd fallen over, the coats would run in and attach more things to his head and body and hit lots of buttons on some electronic box. And then he'd go back to the Plexiglas box where Ranger and Blood were. The other box recently had a little dog dumped in it, a mere morsel for something as big as him.

But he waited, bided his time. Maybe there would be more gas or maybe there'd be boars or maybe there'd be something else for him to conquer. He began to call himself "Fang" when Mac was done. Perhaps, when he got a chance to finish these coats, he could give himself another name.

Another day in the hospital. Jet was visiting, as he did nearly every day. Sometimes Jet would talk, asking questions, and trying to decipher Spike's hand gesture answers. They had established a few hand signals, one for each Bebop crew member, ones for "water", "television", "nurse", "pain", and even one for "Barleigh", which was Spike pushing up the end of his nose and scowling, which made Jet laugh every time he saw it.

Spike signed, "Faye," – which was Spike holding up his hand and making a breast-squeezing gesture. Jet didn't think that one was so funny.

Jet shook his head. "She's chasing down another bounty. The truth is, I haven't seen her a lot lately. Hasn't she come to see you at all?" Spike shook his head. "I don't know what to tell you."

Spike knew, and he understood. I wouldn't exactly relish having to visit . . . But before he could complete that thought, Barleigh and company swept into the room. "Oh look, Daddy's here!" Jet harrumphed, but Barleigh ignored him and pointed his cane straight at Spike's nose. "You. My nose does not turn up at the end as much as you think it does. However, I am here to send you off to PT with the ducklings. Pour yourself into the perambulator there." Barleigh flipped back the blanket covering Spike's legs. Jet couldn't believe how thin the man had become in such a short time. It almost looked as if his body was eating itself from the inside out. He looked away, unable to watch Spike struggle his way into the wheelchair. He could only make it partway, and Stevens and Kennedy had to help. As he was being rolled away, Jet grabbed Spike's hand and squeezed. Spike simply closed his eyes. It was all the fight he had left.

Barleigh did not leave with his team. He remained in the room, silent, looking at Jet. Finally, Jet growled, "If you call me 'Daddy' one more time, I'm shoving that cane right up your ass."

"Oh, you'd enjoy doing that far too much. Look, I don't care if you're his brother or his lover or both; I need to talk to you because you're his power of attorney."

"What is it?"

Barleigh tapped his foot for a moment and then looked down for a moment before returning his gaze to Jet. "I don't think he will be getting much better." Jet wilted. "However, there's something I want to try. There has been some nano-technology developed that might be able to bridge the broken synapses in his cortex. With a particular set of implants, the electrical pulses may be restored, which would bring back his motility and speech skills. He'd still have to work at physical therapy, but if it worked, he'd stand a better chance."

"How is this implantation done?"

"I take my cane out of my ass, where you so thoughtfully stashed it for me, and shove it up his. Brain surgery, of course."

"Is it complicated? Or dangerous?"

"Depends on what the definition of 'dangerous' is to a bounty hunter."

Point taken, thought Jet. "Could he get better?"

"He could."

"Could he get worse?"

"He could."

"Could he die?"

"He could."

Jet took a breath. "You don't have a goddamned clue if it might work, do you?"

"The technology has worked well so far in dogs."

"Dogs. You're telling me that this has never been tried on a human?"

"Look, it's an obvious risk. However, you and I have both been watching him on a downward spiral of despair. I know you think I don't give a rat's ass, but I care about whether he leaves here on two feet or in a body bag because he did himself in. And don't say he wouldn't consider it, because you don't know where his mind is. I have a slightly better knowledge of thoughts like that." Jet took a fleeting look at the man's cane. "Although I dare say he might have higher spirits if Little Miss Hot Pants showed up on a more regular basis. No, wait, it actually would just benefit me more. Sorry."

"Have you talked to Spike about this?"

"Little Miss Hot Pants? No."

"Her name is Faye, you son of a bitch, and I was talking about the surgery."

"I wanted to talk to you first. Perhaps you could help him see the possible benefits." Jet nodded. "Now," Barleigh continued, "Tell me how in the world a guy gets half-eviscerated like that. My soap opera doesn't come on for an hour."

Faye was, in fact, on a bounty, one worth a quarter-mill, not too shabby. She stood in the shadows of a smoky bar, waiting for the show on stage to begin. Faye knew who her target was, and she wanted to wait until the group got a little more liquored up and a whole lot sloppier. She'd already spotted at least two bodyguard-types who could be trouble. Perhaps I'll just wait for the second set, Faye thought. I don't want to bring down the whole party for the cover-paying crowd.

Just then, the woman on the stage opened her mouth and sang with a voice that had been strained through decades of unfiltered cigarettes and blended scotch whiskey, a voice that grated on the nerves yet still made the listener search for a partner to take home that night, to sweat into each other to the soundtrack of this woman who sounded like a hung-over angel. If I could sing like that, my debt would be gone, mused Faye. Christ, if I could sing like that, then maybe Spike . . . but the only image of Spike she'd been able to muster these days was the sight of him laid out in that hospital bed. She'd cried herself to sleep, seeing the lunkhead so completely decimated like that. She'd been to visit him only a couple of times since then, but hid out of sight until she knew that he was asleep. If she only looked at his closed eyes, then she saw the Spike she knew.

Faye took another slug of her cheap blended whiskey, looking over the crowd for her target, and letting the rumble and rasp of the female singer vibrate into her muscles. Faye allowed herself to think briefly of Jet, and the night they'd shared her bed. Unfortunately, once she got the image of Jet in her mind, there was no shaking it, and the guttural tremolo of the singer wasn't helping. Oh, just go and bitch-slap your bounty so you can go home, Faye thought to herself. The singer reached the end of her song, and Faye slid off her barstool and sashayed over to her mark.

"Hi, sailor," Faye purred as she leaned over her mark's shoulder. He turned his big, bushy head and leered down her body.

"What can I do for you, darling?" sneered the bounty.

"Undressing me with your eyes? How uncouth." And with that, Faye slammed the butt end of her pistol into the mark's head and he went down like a bag of rocks. Sighing, Faye slapped on the cuffs and called the cops.

The singer on stage never missed a single beat, but she caught Faye's eye and gave her a thumbs-up. Faye picked up the mark's half-finished drink, raised it in a salute to the bourbon-burned pipes of the woman on stage.

The big shaggy dog shook his head, hard, making his ears flap. My story? You want to know the story behind how I, Blood, got here? My story is the simplest of all. I lost my owner. I was left behind. I was rescued. Rescued to this. To here. Fuck.

Even the most helpless can find a way to be manipulative, as Spike discovered. One way was to simply hold his breath. This eventually sent up so many bells and whistles that half the staff came running. The other method was to become dead weight whenever Barleigh or anyone else tried to get him to move. It made Barleigh the angriest of all, because Spike was simply not well enough to be anywhere else, to be someone else's thorn, at this time. The couple of times that Barleigh had actually gotten his recalcitrant patient up and moving, stitches broke loose and there was internal bleeding, resulting in more surgery.

Finally, this had driven Barleigh (or more precisely, his subordinates) to research what could assist in this man's recovery and effectively get him out of his hair. Stevens had found the information about the nano-technology, which was something good and proper, especially since Stevens was the neurologist. But Kennedy had found even better information: the story behind Spike's financial benefactor that was paying for all this nonsense.

Barleigh limped into Spike's room and slammed his cane on the top of the bedside table, making a horrible clang. Spike opened his eyes and looked at Barleigh. "So you're the heir of the Red Dragons?"

Spike hadn't expected this, and frankly, he didn't know what Barleigh was talking about. So he blinked in the affirmative.

"You, my friend, are not getting better, and I don't see a chance for improvement. Hence, I am strongly recommending surgery for . . ." Barleigh went on, but Spike stopped listening after he heard that he wasn't improving. Christ, thought Spike. What the hell did I do to deserve dying as a lump in a fucking hospital? I must be living because only life can play a cruel joke like this.

"If I told you the surgery has a real good chance of killing you, would you pay attention?"

Spike slid his eyes over to meet Barleigh's.

"I don't want to bore you with my own stories of quiet desperation as I lay in a hospital bed, but I also know for a fact you've been palming your meds. Let me tell you something, there is neither dignity nor glory in dying, whether you hose yourself on meds, flat line in the OR, or get half-eviscerated by an old school chum over a leggy blonde."

Spike glared at Barleigh with all the hate he could muster.

"You may be the heir of the Red Dragons, but right now, you can't even take a piss without a Foley in your pipe. I think that makes you my bitch, mister."

No response.

"Your body is much smarter than you are, and your body wants to live. But if you don't go ahead with this surgery, that life is going to be reduced to you remaining almost motionless and forcing yourself to control your drooling. And because we have fancy shiny instruments and lots of drugs and machines that we know how to use, that could be for, oh, another sixty years or so. Or you could have this surgery, and you can die on the table, as I said, or you can get better."

Spike closed his eyes. He'd been trying to find out if he'd been alive or dead, only to end up doing both at the same time. Spike opened his eyes to see Barleigh standing over him, leaning on his cane, with an expressionless face. Spike blinked his assent, and he thought for a moment he saw something in Barleigh's eyes that could have been relief.

"And here we are again," said Faye. Jet grunted. They were in a surgical waiting room, but since this was the neurology division and the surgeries tended to be much longer, this room was exceptionally comfortable. Faye sighed for what seemed like the ninetieth time, and said, "I could be doing something else."

"For once in your life, do what's expected of you," snapped Jet.

"It doesn't make sense to sit here for ten hours when I could be bringing money in. Even you can't deny that."

Jet rubbed his face and then leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "No, I can't. And I thank you, Faye, for working as hard as you have."

This might have been one of the kindest things Jet had ever said to her, and she bit her lip as she looked at Jet. Then she saw a tear falling straight from his eyes to the floor, and she turned away. "It's going to be okay."

"Everything will be different."

"Different can be okay."

Jet chuckled at that, and rubbed his face again. Looking at Faye, he said, "I need some fresh air, and I'd like some company."

Faye smirked. "You're asking for my company?"

"Sure, why not. Different can be okay."

Spike was dreaming again, dreaming again of the Esperanto speaking women in diminutive clothing. He still couldn't tell if they were complimenting the chef or requesting the three-way, but he really hoped it was the latter. But this time was different. It seemed that the Esperanto was getting louder and louder, and a deep base thrum was being emitted under the Esperanto, which was not only getting louder, but also higher in pitch, to the point that the language was now unintelligible. The decibels grew higher and higher and the vibration of an invisible sub-woofer got stronger and stronger, and the entire cacophony reminded Spike of a very very old song by the Grasshoppers or the Beetles or some band named after a bug, he couldn't remember. The recording was called Sgt. Pepper or something, and the last part of the last track sounded like a violinist caught in a turbine, while someone tuned a bobcat nearby.

The noise reached a fever pitch, and Spike's eyes flashed open.

The noise stopped immediately. Spike, sweating and shaken, breathed hard as he tried to orient himself again. It looked like a hospital room. Again. Still. Always.

Spike got completely startled once again when the grizzled face of Barleigh leaned over his. "Hello again," said the doctor. Spike lay silent as he continued to try to control his breathing. "It's rude not to respond, Spike. I said hello." Spike blinked. "Not like that. Use your words." Spike began to work his mouth for a moment when he realized that he had more control over it. He didn't have to struggle to keep it closed, and it seemed that the bottom lip, which had fallen into a droopy sneer before, was now back where it should be, evenly against his upper lip.

With a great effort, Spike forced his tongue to move. "Lo."

And Barleigh smiled in return.