Tip wore white to the final test. A vintage 1930s day dress, low neckline,
open sleeves. Possibly a Vionnet. As he'd hoped, the bias cut flattered his
slim figure. With it he wore a lace cap, short mesh gloves, and a simple
string of pearls, just enough to set off the clean, classic silhouette. He
felt strength spread through him as he walked, seeping into his skin through
the delicate linen. If he'd picked the right pair of shoes, it just might be
enough.

He didn't know where they'd taken him this time, but it was a long way from
the sound of the highway. The young officer who'd accompanied him in the
back of the sedan -- Lt. Shapiro, according to his badge -- led him down the
overgrown path of what looked like it might once have been a garden.
Occasionally they passed a rusted, vaguely Oriental lamppost or a little
ceramic idol, chipped faceless. A forgotten park? A long-abandoned beer
garden? An old Buddhist temple? The federal government picked up some odd
pieces of real estate. Tip had to assume the area was highly classified,
but, as he clutched his skirts and picked his way carefully around mud
puddles, he didn't think it looked too impressive. Maybe that was
deliberate.

Lt. Shapiro stopped. They'd come to a small pagoda-shaped building,
something that might once have been a teahouse. A few strips of faded red
and gold paint clung to its sagging wooden frame. Lt. Shapiro saluted. Tip
returned the salute. He walked in alone, concentrating on the soft swish of
white linen against his calves.

He'd been through so many tests. Intelligence tests and aptitude tests,
loyalty drills and background checks. Blood tests. They'd hypnotized him
once. And done some kind of probe he tried not to think about. It had all
been impersonal, very professional but somehow shabby. Whatever this battery
of tests was, he was getting the low-budget version.

Tip understood. He was aware that he wasn't being singled out as exceptional
in any way, just slotted, through a mostly automatic process, into the
position he fit best. He was a very oddly-shaped peg, and that meant he
could only go into a very oddly-shaped hole. If anything, he had to commend
the system for making the effort to find a place for him. His CO in Kabul
had sent him home with an honorable discharge and a recommendation for CIA
training, and the CIA had passed his name along to a group of people who,
officially, didn't have names. Not important people, necessarily. Just
people who did their work very, very quietly.

On the other hand, it wasn't like his superiors could do anything else. He
wasn't crazy and he wasn't gay, so it was hard to get rid of him. This whole
convoluted process was easier, in terms of paperwork, than just discharging
him. And they'd wanted him out of the way ever since he'd started dressing
well. Tip thought it was a shame that so few military personnel appreciated
his sense of style, but he didn't think seriously about getting rid of his
wardrobe, any more than he thought seriously about getting rid of his arms.

Tip's fists clenched for a moment, tightening in their mesh gloves. Better.
He breathed out and let his eyes adjust to the dim light inside the pagoda.

The room contained a single folding table, bare except for a sheet of paper.
Three men sat behind it. Two wore Army dress blues with no identification.
The man between them wore a faded black suit. Not a bad cut, actually,
thought Tip. Clothing aside, they looked similar: broad-shouldered,
salt-and-pepper-haired, authoritative but otherwise forgettable. It wasn't
the first time Tip had stood before honest to goodness Men in Black, in some
cases dressed in blue or green, but it always unnerved him a little.

"Captain Dennis Wilkin?" said the man in the suit. He looked Tip up and down
with the expression of a man wearily hoping he was wrong. "Or do you prefer
Doctor?"

"Actually, you can call me --" Tip shut up. He'd only started being Tippi
recently, and mostly in his head, and it occurred to him that this might not
be the best opportunity to break out the new name. It'd be a heck of a thing
to get kicked out for saying the wrong thing just before the final test.

Besides, he wasn't sure about the name. He wasn't sure about being a woman.
He wasn't sure about being a man, either, which was the whole problem. There
was only one thing he could be sure about, which was that he looked
fantastic. He clung to that sole certainty like a man, or possibly a woman,
clutching a rock in a storm.

"Whichever you prefer, sir," said Tip, and saluted just to be sure.

"At ease, Captain," said the man in the suit automatically; he was probably
Army, too. He read from the paper in a practiced monotone. "When you are so
ordered, you will pass through the door behind me. You will not return to
this room. Further instructions will be provided at the conclusion of the
test. Should you fail the test, you will be dismissed from this training
sequence immediately. You will not be provided with further information. You
may not request further information. Anything you see or hear during this
test is strictly classified and is to be considered a matter of national
security. Discussing the content of this test with anyone is to be
considered a treasonable offense."

Tip listened politely. He'd gotten similar briefings before the last five
tests, so he must have passed into genuinely classified territory. He didn't
think he'd seen anything top-secret, though. He'd been grilled on his
background and patriotism while hooked up to a lie detector. And done
another psych test, this time with a soft- faced woman who had pressed him
about his favorite childhood books, his imaginary friends, whether he'd
liked windup robots or cuddly bears. And gone through what had looked like
one of those tests for ESP, cards with squiggles and stars. And talked about
his doctoral thesis. And done chin-ups. It hadn't been much different from
the first round of tests, except for the warning label.

The man in the suit leaned forward. "Captain, why do you want this job?"

This was a new one. "Sir?"

"This is not a prestigious post, Captain. It is not important or exciting.
Frankly, Captain, it's a low-level civil service desk job which just happens
to be very secure and require certain uncommon skills. The pay is mediocre
and there's no opportunity for promotion."

"Yes, sir. That's been explained to me." Tip had often wondered, over the
past few months, exactly what uncommon skills he possessed. Military
experience. Doctorate in psychology. Few close relatives, that was probably
attractive from a security standpoint. He was smart, but he'd be the first
to admit he hadn't done much with his smarts since burning out in grad
school. But maybe that was what they wanted: a bright person without
ambition. Somebody who would do a strange, specialized job without
complaint.

What kind of job? He found his gaze drifting to the door at the far end of
the room. Under the linen, his skin prickled.

"Then why, Captain? Why are you here?"

"Why?" Tip fingered his pearls until his hand stopped shaking. No reason to
be nervous. The worst they could do was... well, erase all evidence of his
existence from the face of the earth, but they probably wouldn't do that. At
least, they might not. Unless they got really annoyed.

What was behind the door?

"Captain?"

Tip took a deep breath. "Well, sir, I can't say I'm not curious. So there's
that. But I get the impression that whatever this job is, I might be one of
the only people who can do it. Am I right?" Gray stares. "If I am, I kind of
feel a duty, sir. That's why I joined the service. To help people with
whatever skills I've got."

"A laudable sentiment, Captain," said the man in the suit, his expression
blank.

"Also, I was told I wouldn't have to wear a tie."

"Through the door, Captain," sighed the man in the suit.

The door was an exit. Tip stepped onto a weedy lawn ringed by cherry trees,
their petals brown and curling this late in the spring. A white dog trotted
up to him: one of those curly tailed sled dog types, a big one.

"Captain Wilkin," said the dog. It had a rough but unmistakably feminine
voice. "Or do you prefer 'Doctor'?"

Tip felt a huge crazy grin spread across his face. "Actually, you can call
me Tip."

"Fine by me. You can call me Sweetheart. What's with the look?"

"I'm sorry. I can't help it."

Sweetheart's ears folded back. "Is something funny?"

Tip tucked a stray lock behind his ear. It was amazing how much easier it
was to talk to the dog than to the men. "Oh, well, I don't want to offend
you or anything, but I've spent so much time wondering what terrible secret
the govenment had hidden under all these layers of security, and... and now
I'm here, and it's not terrible at all, is it? It's wonderful."

Sweetheart looked at Tip in silence, her head cocked in a very doggy way.
Finally she said, "Do you want this job, Tip?"

"I do."

"You've got it." She trotted away, turned back to Tip, and jerked her head,
motioning for him to follow.

"Just like that? That was the test? Just answering those questions?"

"No, the test was whether you could hear them. About twenty percent of
humans psychologically block things they consider impossible. They can't
hear me. If you were one of them, you'd be useless for this job, not to
mention annoying as a co-worker."

"We're going to be co-workers?"

"Looks like it." Sweetheart led Tip down a path through the trees. "I'm
field commander for Project Skin Horse. You're not on the field team, but
we'll see each other. Don't ask me anything else about the department. I'm
sure someone will send you paperwork and Gavotte will fill you in on
Monday."

"Monday? I start immediately?"

"You bet. We haven't had anyone to make copies or water the orchids in
weeks." Sweetheart stopped and looked back at Tip. "Just 'cause you asked,
you're one of eight people who could've done this job. Four dropped out, one
failed this test, and I didn't like the other two."

"Did you hear me talking in the...?"

"I'm a dog. I can't help hearing things. Gavotte said you'd be the one we
went with. She's eerie sometimes."

She really was, thought Sweetheart. Gavotte had been right about Unity too,
and no one else had held out any hope for Unity. It wasn't that Unity had
been created as a weapon. They'd all been created as weapons, if it came
down to that. At least Sweetheart and Moustachio had. Nobody knew what
Gavotte's deal was. The problem was that Unity was a weapon that worked, and
as much as Sweetheart hated touchy-feely jargon, she had to admit Unity had
issues, and issues weren't good things for a killing machine to have.

Unity was the product of a government supersoldier project. Not one of the
better ones, as far as Sweetheart could see. She was necrotic, with parts
that could be replaced on the battlefield with some sturdy thread, a
bonesaw, and whatever materials might happen to be lying around. Her
patchwork body was strengthened by the chemicals that flowed in her veins
instead of blood, manufactured in whatever softly purring thing had replaced
her heart. Only her brain was technically alive. Years ago some mad
scientist had sold the defense department the DNA of a perfect assassin, and
Unity's brain had been grown from it in a dish. She'd been trained by heavily
scarred men with thick accents and unclear ties to any existing government.

A lot of interesting people had made Unity, and then when their funding had
been cut they'd abandoned her. As far as Skin Horse could reconstruct, Unity
had bounced around various halfway houses for nonhumans until she'd gotten
to be too much trouble to keep around, then she'd gone feral, which was
apparently a design flaw in that particular model of brain. Skin Horse had
cornered her in a cornfield in Omaha, clubbing people with anything she could
get her hands on. Mostly other people.

Two members of the field team, Plasma Adam and Agent Blue, were killed
taking her down. Sweetheart, the sole survivor, hadn't exactly been
enthusiastic when Gavotte had suggested hiring Unity to replace them, but
she'd been right.

Sweetheart hadn't thought about Agent Blue in days. Heck of a woman, Agent
Blue.

She stole a glance back at Tip Wilkin, still grinning like an idiot. He
hadn't been Sweetheart's first or second or fifth choice. Most of the
applicants looked better on paper.

Only on paper, a renegade thought smirked. He wasn't within a lightyear of
Sweetheart's type, but even she could tell he was a startlingly handsome
man, dress or no dress. Younger than he had a right to be with his
credentials. Sweetheart recalled from his file that he'd been something of a
prodigy: very high IQ, never really lived up to it, muddled through several
colleges, joined the army, was invisible until he started the drag thing in
Afghanistan. Typical convoluted human junk.

Sweetheart wasn't any kind of species warrior, but she couldn't help
thinking, as she watched Tip pick his way delicately around a fallen branch,
that humans really did live differently. Here he was joining them in
spotless white linen and lacy gloves, plucked gently from the ranks of other
clean-cut apes, to do his little job. He wasn't like Unity, shackled and
snarling and covered in mud and twigs, or Moustachio in the file photos
Sweetheart had seen, salvaged from a junkyard with his head knocked half off
his rusted, dented body, or, if she was going to be honest here, Sweetheart
herself.

She cringed inwardly as she remembered a younger dog - barely more than a
puppy, really - throwing herself against the wall of the kennel, almost
foaming with rage. She wasn't the only dog doing that, but she was the only
one shouting, "A phone call! I demand a phone call! I know my rights!"

The 16th Street SPCA had two animal care attendants on duty in the dog
kennels that night. They stared at Sweetheart through the plexiglass.
Finally one of them shouted, "How are you talking?"

"With my mouth! Are you stupid? Bring me a phone!"

As she calmed down, Sweetheart regretted speaking to them. She'd been
flustered and angry, getting caught by Animal Control after weeks of
surviving on the streets. She'd hiked all the way down through Oregon and
into California without running into any trouble more serious than the
occasional homeowner chasing her away from the trash cans... and now this.
And in San Francisco of all places: mush-minded hippie central. It was
embarrassing.

The attendants stepped into the kennel, still staring. Their nametags
identified them as Mitchell and Six. Mitchell was the woman. Sweetheart
already hated them.

"We can't bring the phone into the kennel," said Mitchell. "The cord doesnt
reach."

"I have a right to a phone call! If you can't do that, you'd better release
me, pronto!"

"We can't let you go," said Mitchell. "You were turning garbage cans over."

"I'm not saying anything to incriminate myself. If that's your game,
nobody's got any evidence against me."

Six and Mitchell looked at each other. 

"You're not in jail," said Six. "You're a dog."

"Are you trying to tell me I don't have the right to a phone call?"

"Er, no, you don't. You're a dog."

"So it's execution without trial, is it?"

Mitchell was scandalized. "This is a no-kill shelter!"

"You can use my phone," said Mitchell, quickly. She dug a cell phone out of
her pocket. "What should I dial?"

Sweetheart was taken aback. She'd had the idea of calling home using the
line in Captain Bram's old cabin that the pack kept live for emergencies and
ordering pizzas, but now it seemed less appealing. Let Buddy and Princess
laugh at her. She buried her head in her paws. "Forget it. Just let me go."

"I'm calling the Chronicle," said Six.

Sweetheart refused to talk for the reporter, causing hilarious and
satisfying humiliation all around. She only spoke when alone with Mitchell
and Six. This, she was pleased to see, drove them nuts.

Still, she knew she was getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop. Lying in the
admittedly posh kennel all day, exercising with a bunch of ordinary dogs,
was mind-numbing. The shelter had a mascot, a tortoise-shell cat named
Cinnamon, who patrolled the halls and usually stopped to lick herself in an
indelicate area right in front of Sweetheart's plexiglass. Sweetheart knew
she was losing it when she started to look forward to seeing Cinnamon.

On Day Eight, Sweetheart was awakened from an afternoon nap by a voice
outside the kennel. "That one. That's exactly the dog I'm looking for."

"We call her Marshmallow," said Grace, another of the attendants. "Her
personality profile and list of shots are right here."

Okay, she hadn't counted on this.

Mitchell was on duty that afternoon. "You can't adopt her," she cried,
bursting into the room where Sweetheart and her prospective new owner were
supposed to bond.

"Why not?" he asked, ruffling Sweetheart's fur. "She seems friendly. Samoyed
mix, right? Lots of personality."

Sweetheart allowed herself to be scritched. It had occurred to her that this
was the perfect opportunity to escape. Once she was out of the shelter,
she'd have no trouble ditching this bozo, then she could get the hell out of
the city and to... well, she hadn't worked that out yet. Anywhere had to be
better than this.

Mitchell hovered over them, hopping nervously on one foot. "You don't want
this dog. Seriously, we've got a ton of great dogs."

[six said grace in her warning voice 

this dog seriously weve got a ton of great dogs]

"Mitchell," said Grace in her warning voice. "What have we discussed about
getting too attached to our guests? Marshmallow was cleared for adoption two
days ago."

Sweetheart shot a nasty toothy grin at Mitchell.

"I'm just making sure that he's ready for the commitment of a large dog. If
he lives here in the city, that's reason enough to recon--"

"No, no. I have a little house in Berkeley," the man said, cheerfully. "Park
around the corner--" 

"For your kids?" Mitchell pounced. "Because we don't recommend that families
with small children--"

"I'm gay."

"Ah..."

"And, much as I enjoy children, I see plenty of them at school."

"School?"

"I'm a schoolteacher. Leaves evenings free for walkies and quality time.
Right, Marshmallow?"

For just a moment it seemed to Sweetheart his friendly open smile flashed a
hint of wicked amusement.

Mitchell sputtered for a moment, then barked, "Choke collars?"

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"Obedience training?"

"I've contacted the Lucky Puppy Academy in Rockridge. I understand it's
fairly prestigious."

"Unsafe dog food from China?"

"You know, I was thinking of making my own. It's the only way to be sure
you're getting organic, don't you think?"

Mitchell stared miserably. 

"I'm [sorry," said the] man, looking up with warm innocent eyes devoid of
any hint of calculation. "Is there some reason you don't think I'm good
enough for this dog?"

"That's enough, Mitchell," hissed Grace urgently.

Sweetheart wasn't attuned to the subtleties of human culture and she
literally didn't see color. But it suddenly occurred to her that Grace and
Mitchell were white and the man with his arms around her was black. Oh, and
gay, apparently. Delivered by liberal guilt. That was a hell of a thing.

"I'll draw up the papers," said Mitchell.

Half an hour later Sweetheart left the SPCA with her new master. She trotted
obediently at his side until they rounded the corner, at which point she
lunged at the leash with every ounce of her considerable sled-dog strength,
broke free, raced down an alley, and vanished into the shadows of the city
forever.

At least that was the plan. What actually happened was that she lunged at
the leash with every ounce of her considerable sled-dog strength and
collapsed on the sidewalk, gasping for breath, as the man with the leash
turned out to be both unexpectedly alert and even stronger than he looked.

He squatted beside her. "Sorry about that, but, I assure you, I'm here to
help. Of course, if you'd really prefer that I let you go, just say the
word." He smiled that infuriatingly friendly smile and brushed a stray
dreadlock out of his face. He didn't smell human. Sweetheart couldn't
believe she hadn't noticed it before. Oh, the smell was mostly right,
probably enough to fool humans, but down at the bottom was a dry
small-animal musk smell. The smell of prey.

"What are you?" Sweetheart asked.

"Genetically-engineered chimera. Not unlike yourself." He stood up. "I'm in
a local transgenic rights organization. I got a call asking me to bail you
out."

"From who? Mitchell? That reporter?"

"Cinnamon. She's been keeping an eye on you." He smiled down at her. "See?
You're not alone."

Sweetheart snorted. 

"Come on. I know a coffeehouse where we can talk without being bothered. I'm
Artie, by the way. And I'm going to assume your name isn't really
Marshmallow."

"Of course not. Marshmallow? That's nauseating."

"Indeed."

"It's Sweetheart."

Artie was as good as his word: no one at the coffee shop gave them a second
glance. That was San Francisco.

Over coffee Sweetheart told Artie everything: how the pack had gone to hell
after Captain Bram died; how she'd gotten kicked to the bottom of the
pecking order after losing a power bid against that rhymes with bitch
Sparkle; how she'd eventually decided to hell with it and struck out for the
States, where they appreciated rugged individuality and anyone had a chance
at top dog.

And Artie described the small but dedicated network of volunteer groups that
funneled nonhuman sapients like Sweetheart into places where they could live
with some degree comfort and dignity.

"So I'm supposed to live off handouts?" said Sweetheart. "That's the way you
[..] the Land [of] Opportunity?"

"It's not handouts. We're just trying to pool our resources so everyone gets
a fair share of-"

"So you're socialists, too?"

Artie looked affronted, then laughed a little sadly. "You're right. You're
absolutely right. We're fighting for the chance to contribute more to the
larger society, but there are a lot of factors that must be considered
before-"

"I don't want to be beholden to anybody," said Sweetheart. "I want a job."

"All right. What sort of job?"

"I want to do what you do."

"Really? Well, it requires a masters and certification, and some say
teaching is more of a calling-"

Sweetheart rolled her eyes. "Not that. What you're doing now with me. I want
to help people like that."

"Ah." Artie's expression softened. "But what I'm doing now is volunteer
work. It's not a job, per se."

"Aren't there people who get paid for doing stuff like this? It's not all
charity, is it?"

"Well, there's Skin Horse. That's the federal department dedicated to
nonhuman sapients. But I don't like Skin Horse. I mean, I think the
individual members mean well..."

"Why don't you like them?"

In the weeks that followed, crashing at Artie's perpetually-under-construction 
Craftsman, Sweetheart got to know him a little better. He was, among other
things, the product of biochemical intelligence experiments, and behind his
disconcertingly pleasant, disconcertingly human face was a mind that ran
easy laps around any apes. 

During her time at his house, she followed him into the city on foggy
weekend afternoons and waited while he played the chess hustlers on Market
Street all at once, walking up and down the line. She saw his classroom
syllabi with the dense charts reminding himself where to stand, which eye to
catch, how to inflect his voice to maximize his students' retention. He had
the only first-graders in the district who could do calculus. And she
listened to him gripe about his creator - he had one of the famous ones, the
last of the infamous Narbon clone line - and what a fiendish manipulator she
was, apparently unaware that he had the same skill, focused and amplified
along the uncracked seashell curves of sane genius. 

Sweetheart was relieved to move out. She liked people who spoke on one level
at a time. But, for years after, she would try to remember Artie's face at
the moment she asked him about Skin Horse. Because he must have known. He
must have suspected. And at that moment his unnatural brain must have
spooled through possibilities and statistical likelihoods and considered
that, if certain eventualities came to pass, it would be useful to have an
old friend in Skin Horse. And how long after that had Gavotte added her name
to the roster, as certain about Sweetheart as she would later be about Unity
and Tip? It had probably all been decided by forces beyond her control
before Sweetheart had even signed up. She hated that.

Artie sipped his black coffee. "They're not really progressive enough for my
tastes."

Sweetheart wasn't good at reading human faces. She was good at reading human
smells, but Artie didn't smell human. "How do I join?" she asked.

Unity bounced in her seat. Bounce, bounce, bounce. She could hardly wait to
meet the new agent. The office had felt awfully empty lately with just her -
and nice old Moustachio and Gavotte, of course - but Gavotte wasn't the kind
of person you could play with and have a good time. She just dissipated.
Unity liked having people to play with. Somehow this tended to lead to fewer
people eventually for reasons that were a little blurry in Unity's memory.

But never mind, it was fun to make new friends. Unity hoped Captain Wilkin
would be friendly. Bounce, bounce. Before Skin Horse, Unity used to have
trouble making friends. The Anasigma super-soldier facility hadn't been
friendly at all. There were always people looking at you from behind glass
at Anasigma, taking notes and whispering to each other and sometimes
throwing up a little if you did something really interesting. And no one had
a sense of humor about a person escaping from the enclosure just to run
around a little