Chapter 2. I've Got the World on a String!

While the Casanova Dogs prepare for their operation in Moscow—to locate and destroy a certain biological weapon while reducing the number of Russian communists—Sabrina Smut continues to live her finest life in the quiet and prosperous town of Pussydale.

The flowering, God-blessed state of Illinois sinks into the darkness of Saturday evening, the second of May. Sabrina and her friends Prudy Drye, Cherry Bush, and Lovely Butts are only at the beginning of their pajama party in Sabrina’s house. The occasion is Sabrina’s acceptance into Pussydale College.

“So today you simply read the letter and began jumping about with words of thanks to your father?” Cherry asks thoughtfully, lying on the floor with a sheet of paper, Eagle Prismacolor colored pencils, and a photograph of Eddie Fisher beside her. The girl tucks a strand of her long red hair behind her ear and studies the singer’s face carefully, so as to render him as faithfully as possible on her drawing in the likeness of a muscular, noble pirate-lover.

“Every single second of it!” Sabrina giggles, spinning in a slow circle while wearing pink silk babydoll pajamas that flutter against her thighs. The fabric clings to her curves in a way that would make Alberto Vargas drop his paintbrush. “I was so happy I thought I might actually float right up to the ceiling.”

“And I still find the entire culture of female education in this country laughably limited,” Prudy interjects, wearing blue tailored pajamas and sitting cross-legged on the couch with her arms folded. Her gray eyes narrow with academic disdain. “The question isn’t whether you got in, Sabrina, but whether the college curriculum even acknowledges the inherent inequality of the domestic sphere.”

Lovely Butts doesn’t look up from her hardcover novel. She pushes her thick black-framed glasses higher up the bridge of her nose, her voice soft and melodic. “I think it’s wonderful, Prudy.”

Sabrina stretches slightly, turning her face away so that Prudy can’t see her rolling her eyes.

“Wonderful that she’s going to college,” Lovely adds.

“Indeed, but not wonderful enough,” Prudy huffs. “Sabrina’s education will remain incomplete so long as the entire institution of womanhood is framed around marriage and childrearing. Pussydale College may teach her basic arithmetic and literature, but it will never equip her to understand the political mechanisms that limit her options.”

Sabrina tilts her head at Prudy, biting her bottom lip to keep from laughing. “Oh, Prudy, you say the nicest things.” She kneels down beside Cherry and peers over her shoulder at the drawing. Cherry’s rendering of Eddie Fisher is undeniably swoony—all broad-shouldered swashbuckler with a pencil-thin mustache and bedroom eyes. “That’s very good, Cherry. Are you thinking of framing it?”

“Hmm… Say, that’s a good notion,” Cherry answers Sabrina, then glances toward Lovely, who sits in the corner of the room upon a great pile of enormous pillows. “My, you’ve built yourself quite a mountain there! What are you reading? Any handsome fellows in that book worth drawing?”

Lovely shifts position on her nest of pillows, the movement causing the fabric of her modest pajamas to strain slightly over her hips. She holds the book carefully, fingertips tracing the edge of the page. “It’s a ghost story from England,” she murmurs, her dark brown eyes bright behind her glasses. “But the protagonist is quite charming. He’s a young lord with a tormented soul and remarkable foreboding.” She glances at Cherry with a gentle smile. “Though I doubt he’d look as good as a pirate.”

Prudy rolls her eyes dramatically from the couch. “Charming lords and tormented souls—exactly what the patriarchy feeds us to make servitude seem romantic. Honestly, girls, we’re supposed to be celebrating Sabrina’s intellectual liberation, not fantasizing about boy-toys.”

Sabrina giggles, flopping onto her stomach beside Cherry.

The two girls exchange a swift, knowing glance and giggle.

“Don’t you fret about us, Prudy!” Cherry waves a pink pencil in the air. “Sabrina and I shall certainly earn our M.R.S. degrees by finding solid, respectable husbands. And we wish you happiness as well in your science, your politics, and all the rest.”

Prudy lets out a sharp, scoffing sound, leaning back into the cushions. “’M.R.S. degree.’ How quaint. I’ll be far too busy dismantling the systemic constraints of the 1950s housewife to worry about whose ring is on my finger.”

Sabrina, still lying on her stomach, kicks her feet back and forth in the air. “I just want someone who looks at me the way the boys do at the soda fountain,” she admits with a dreamy sigh, her blue eyes staring up at the ceiling. “Someone strong… and kind… and maybe a little bit mysterious.”

“Careful, Sabrina,” Cherry teases, glancing up from her pirate-Eddie. “With a face like yours, ‘mysterious’ usually translates to ‘dangerously obsessed.’”

Sabrina’s face in this moment wears the look of the Cheshire Cat. “Well… yes. Dangerously obsessed. Dangerously obsessed with me.” She sighs in theatrical fashion. “But only in a grown-up, responsible way. Not like the boys from our school. Incidentally, girls, do you happen to need any paper for kindling? This house and my parents’ house alike will soon be drowned in letters of the sort ‘Sabrina, your eyes are like a wild ocean…’”

“Careful, Sabrina,” Cherry giggles, waving her pink pencil in the air. “You’ll have us burning the whole county down to save us from all those declarations.”

Lovely Butts stirs on her mountain of pillows, lowering her book slightly. “Sabrina,” she says softly, “have you heard anything from Dick… Um… Richard today?”

The mention of Richard makes Sabrina’s smile waver just slightly. She presses her hands against the floor and pushes herself up to sitting. “I’ve been thinking about him all day.” A soft, wistful note creeps into her words. “I’m still not allowed to see him. We can only communicate by mail. But his mother said he’s too weak from all the shots.”

Prudy sits up straighter on the couch. “That poor boy,” she mutters, speaking with genuine sympathy. “Weak from shots?”

A silence falls over the room.

“Medical conditioning,” Prudy continues, her brow furrowed. “Those establishments operate on the premise that bodily functions are moral failings rather than biological imperatives. It’s not treatment; it’s systematic psychological warfare against the adolescent body.”

Sabrina lets out a heavy sigh, her shoulders drooping. “I don’t know about warfare, Prudy, but it sounds awfully lonely. He’s always been such a sweet boy.” She looks down at her hands, her expression clouded with a mix of guilt and longing. “I wonder if he hates me. Because of… you know.”

“Hate you?” Cherry snorts, setting her sketchbook aside with a decisive thump. She stretches her arms overhead, the motion causing her pajama top to ride up. “Sabrina, darling, you’re deader than a doornail in the water on that one. Boys don’t hate girls who make them feel like that. If anything, he’s probably got a shrine to you built out of stolen handkerchiefs and longing.”

Lovely adjusts her glasses, her voice a gentle murmur. “Cherry is right, in her own… colorful way. Richard has always adored you, Sabrina. The clinic just amplifies everything. He’s not learning to hate you; he’s learning to survive the thought of you.”

“That’s exactly my point!” Prudy interjects, gesturing emphatically. “This is the romanticization of suffering! We’ve conditioned young men to believe that pining and repression are noble virtues.” She gestures toward Sabrina.

“Look at her, sprawled here like a fainting couch come to life, and all the poor boy can do is wither away in a clinic, dreaming of what he can’t have! It’s toxic! It’s destructive!”

Sabrina blinks, taken aback by Prudy’s passion. She shifts her weight, the movement causing her pajama shorts to ride up slightly. “Well… I never meant to make him suffer, of course. I just…”

She trails off, biting her plump lower lip. Cherry lets out a dramatic sigh. “Sabrina, honey, you can’t spend your whole life feeling guilty because Dick became obsessed with you. You didn’t ask him to, and you certainly didn’t send him to that clinic.”

Prudy simply explodes at Cherry’s words. “Have you all gone mad?! There’s some sort of Middle Ages going on here, and you…!”

Cherry cries out. “FUCK! What the hell can we do, Prudy?! The fellow’s parents are a pack of fucking Baptist fanatics! Maybe stop laying everything at Sabrina’s door, as though she’s to blame for half the boys in Pussydale being packed off to places like that to be cured of masturbation! Sabrina’s already miserable—she’s been friends with Dick since she was five!”

A silence falls over the room.

The silence lingers, heavy and thick, broken only by the distant chime of a grandfather clock in the hallway. Sabrina looks down at the carpet, her blonde hair falling like a curtain around her face. She doesn’t want to fight; she just wants the world to stop being so complicated.

“I just wish he could come home,” Sabrina whispers, her voice small and fragile.

*

At the same time, Moscow.

The first rays of Sunday morning sun fall across the capital of the USSR. In the stairwell of a building on one of the side streets of Old Arbat, footsteps pound upward.

“The city’s already a bit paranoid and it’s morning, for fuck’s sake! You should’ve dug around less, Relaxatus!” one man whispers irritably to the other as they climb the stairs.

Both agents are in the guise of handsome Russian men in their thirties. They’re wearing double-breasted dark-gray Boston suits. Creased trousers, black ties mandatory, brown leather briefcases in hand.

“Relax.” Relaxatus answers, running a hand over his short black hair. “I still can’t get used to this form. These apes have bodies more or less like ours, but the heads… Feels like someone flattened my snout and ripped my ears off.”

They reach the third floor and stop in front of one of the apartment doors.

“You sure this is the right kennel, Diligens?” Relaxatus looks around at the Soviet stairwell. “There are about five million primates in this city. My head’s splitting from all of them. This is telepathic abuse of brain cells. My brain cells. I don’t know about yours—maybe you enjoy it.”

“No, I don’t enjoy it.” Diligens sighs. “When we get back you can take all your complaints to Libidus about the wisdom of dropping twenty agents into a five-million-strong nest of leftist apes.”

He rings the doorbell.

“All right, Relaxatus, get ready. Our target’s in there—their professor—and… I can feel two more. Yeah, looks like his wife and daughter.”

“From the feel of it they’re not exactly on good terms.” Relaxatus smirks, also scanning the space behind the door telepathically. “They seem pretty relaxed, but better stay sharp. Grab all three as soon as the door opens. Go easy on the females.”

Footsteps sound behind the door—male, by the sound of them.

“Oh, shut up.” Diligens whispers, staring straight ahead and focusing his mind.

“Who’s there?! Oh, it’s you, Pyotr… One moment.” A man’s voice comes from behind the door.

While the professor works through the stack of locks, Relaxatus whispers. “At least that communist’s death did some good. Still, your face is ugly as hell, Diligens.”

The moment the professor opens the door, both agents stop risking mistakes and lock him down with a full telepathic hold.

The professor, a nondescript man in his forties, freezes with his eyes wide, unable to move. The agents step inside in silence and close the door behind them. A quick scan shows the inside of the door is lined with aluminum and copper—probably the rest of the apartment too, under layers of plaster and wallpaper.

“Good thing we didn’t try establishing a telepathic hold through the door. I could barely make out what was behind it. I thought I was just feeling everything poorly… Turns out it isn’t only brain fatigue from the mental noise of five million primates. Wonder how much of the city is shielded like this.” Relaxatus says with satisfaction as he takes control of the professor’s wife and daughter in different rooms of the apartment. He limits their movements telepathically while calming them at the same time to keep them from panicking.

“No traps, as far as I can tell…” Diligens says slowly, taking over control from his partner and herding all three humans into the living room. “There’s a lot of shielding in here.”

While he seats the whole family on the sofa, reading their emotions and scanning the apartment at the same time, Relaxatus contacts Magnificus through a strange device on his wrist that looks like a watch. The connection is poor.

“Hey, commander, you reading me? Shielding metals everywhere. I’d guess the whole city’s full of this shit. Hate to think how much we missed during the remote scans. We’re going to need stronger equipment. Definitely can’t pull off a full combat operation on this planet without reinforcements.”

“Easy, Relaxatus. Even if this race hasn’t reached space, they’re watching it closely.” The operation commander’s voice comes through. “We can’t reveal ourselves too early, which is why you’re playing this masquerade. All the information’s already been sent to headquarters, but this sector of space is too remote, so we’ll have to wait.”

His partner steps up to Relaxatus. “This is Diligens. I’ve scanned the entire apartment of this professor Molchanov. He mostly worked on chemical weapons for their primitive machines like the BM-14. Don’t get me wrong, but are we sure we’re not wasting our time here? Did that Poodlenus from the lab mix something up? Either we’re not actually the first in this sector and someone already passed them technology. Or we really are the first, which means this race is clearly incapable of creating anything serious right now—whether the normal ones or the leftists.”

Magnificus’s voice crackles through the wrist-device. “Do not underestimate the primitives, Diligens. A species that spends as much energy on ideological purges as they do on rocket fuel is unpredictable. Secure his. We need to know exactly how far their research has progressed.”

“His wife and daughter are here too. The daughter’s about eighteen. Her brain isn’t infected with leftism. From what I can tell, none of them are particularly happy with the regime.” Diligens says, looking at the people.

“Then we’ll take all of them. I’m expanding the operation and sending twenty more fighters…”

“Almost everything here is shielded. The apartment we’re in is lined with terrestrial metals except for the walls between the rooms. Seems like those are what’s blocking the radio waves and, by extension, our telepathy.” Diligens cuts the commander off. “It’s entirely possible all our targets’ apartments are like this. Given the way the city’s built, we could lose a lot of time.”

“We’re wasting a lot of time on empty talk.” Magnificus answers at once. “Establish communication with the professor and his family. Don’t leave the apartment. Wait for further instructions.”

Once the connection ends, Relaxatus gives his partner a sly look and says, “Listen… This is all your fault. It’s because you laughed at Libidus back when he threw that fit. ‘The whole planet’s nothing but communists, let’s nullify the entire thing!’” Relaxatus spreads his arms, mimicking Libidus. “And then some pampered prince who just joined us puts him in his place in front of everyone. Command doesn’t like that. Command likes to think it’s the smartest thing around, even when they’re complete dumbasses.”

“Oh, let it go.” Diligens rolls his eyes. “Unfortunately our telepathy doesn’t read thoughts. So search the apartment for any information. I’ll talk to the family in the meantime.”

He walks over to the trio sitting on the sofa and slightly loosens his control, saying, “Easy. No one’s going to hurt you. But I’m afraid after our conversation we’ll be taking all three of you with us. Do you like dogs? Well, that’s what we are.”

The professor’s eyes dart frantically toward the door, his breath coming in shallow hitches. His wife clutches her daughter’s hand, her grip white-knuckled. Diligens doesn’t need to read their thoughts to sense the tidal wave of sheer, paralyzing terror crashing over them. It is a thick, sour emotion that fills the room, clashing with the clinical coldness of the agents.

“Dogs?” the professor manages to choke out, his voice a thin reed. “What… what is this? Who are you with? The Americans? The British?”

Diligens immediately sends telepathic waves of calm over all three of them.

He notices that the women are very beautiful. The professor’s wife has a slender waist, fair skin, brown eyes, and long chestnut hair pulled into a ponytail. She’s wearing a blue sundress. The daughter looks a lot like her, only with two braids and more modest curves in the chest and hips. She’s wearing a yellow satin dress. The professor himself, with short dark hair, is dressed in darker tones—ordinary gray trousers and a shirt of almost the same color.

Diligens sighs. “We’re on our own side. I understand this is hard to take, but we’re what you people here call aliens. Well… In short, your science fiction isn’t entirely fiction. Professor, we need to know everything about the biological weapon you’re developing. Believe me, this is very important.”

For a few seconds he takes his true form, showing them his Doberman head before returning to the human guise.

“See? I’m neither British nor American.”

Despite the brief transformation, the trio wasn’t frightened by it, thanks to the telepathic influence exerted on them.

The professor holds his breath. The wife grips her daughter’s hand tighter. Diligens watches them—against his fears that he’d have to expend too much mental force to suppress their panic, the family remains relatively calm. Diligens senses their heightened… curiosity.

“Biological weapon.” Diligens repeats. “We already know about the BM-14. We scanned the premises and found scraps of mentions of the BM-14 among your papers. Yes, don’t be surprised—we can do that. But we can’t read the specific thoughts of beings. Still, I noticed gaps in your… mental picture, so to speak. Looks like your memories were erased and you’re worried about it. Did they do this often? When did you figure it out?”

The professor swallows. “You… you’re really from space?”

“Yes.” Diligens answers. “Race Canis Amatoris. I’ll answer all your questions, but first I need to know about the biological weapon. We scanned your planet from orbit and learned a lot about your civilization, but our instruments aren’t very powerful—we didn’t expect to encounter an intelligent species in this sector of space at all. Our mission was supposed to be a training exercise, not…”

At that moment the entire building they’re in shudders slightly. A small but noticeable jolt.

“What the hell was that?!” Relaxatus’s voice comes from the other room.

“Strange. There aren’t any…” Diligens says, and then another jolt hits—stronger than the last, knocking the agent off balance and sending him to the floor. “…earthquakes.” he finishes, getting up.

At that moment a terrible roar comes from somewhere below.

Diligens rushes to his briefcase and pulls out something metallic, which, after striking the floor, unfolds into a strange flat circular metal vessel several meters in radius. He strengthens his control over the human family again, forcing them to position themselves on it.

“Relaxatus! If the building starts collapsing, we’re flying out!” he shouts.

His partner looks into the room, holding a blaster pistol.

“Some strange sound. This…” Another powerful jolt hits, stronger than the previous two. The entire apartment literally jumps.

The terrible roar comes again, sounding… like the powerful squeal of an enraged pig. An enormous pig.

Getting up from the floor, Relaxatus carefully approaches the apartment’s front door and looks through the peephole.

Silence falls.

The seconds drag on as if they were eternity.

“Relaxatus? What’s out there?” Diligens’s voice cuts through the silence. At the same time the metal disc on which the trio of humans is sitting begins to hover above the floor.

Relaxatus doesn’t answer, still looking through the peephole.

“Relaxatus?” his partner repeats.

“Um… There’s… a pig.” Relaxatus answers calmly and very quietly. “Fuck. It’s standing on two legs and it’s huge. There’s someone’s torn-off hand in its mouth. It’s looking at me. I don’t think it should be able to see me through this peephole… But it might hear.”

Silence falls again.

From behind the door comes the sound of chewing—the pig is gnawing on the torn-off hand.

A moment later the front door is smashed inward with unimaginable force, bringing down the adjoining walls. Relaxatus is thrown like a rag doll, disappearing into the chaos of rubble and dust.

Diligens jumps onto the disc just as the enormous pig forces its way into the living room. Scraps of human clothing hang on the monster’s pinkish body. Given the huge corkscrew penis between its legs, there is no doubt this is a male. The blood-smeared creature lets out an inarticulate, deafening roar.

The disc, with the humans and Diligens sitting on it, is covered by a transparent dome and shoots out through the closed apartment window, shattering it into splinters and shards.

The accelerating pig finishes demolishing the apartment and the building begins to collapse. The monster leaps toward the craft but misses—the evacuation vehicle is too fast. Instead the roaring multi-ton carcass, moving at several miles a minute, slams into the neighboring building and nearly levels it.

*

A little earlier, the lunar base of The Casanova Dogs.

Libidus walks into the office of Commander Magnificus. More accurately, he bursts in.

“Oh, so they did suspend you?” Magnificus smirks, looking up from the screen of the portable terminal on his desk.

Libidus sits down in the chair across from him. “Yeah, they suspended me until the end of the whole expedition. Listen, it’s… I just lost my temper, okay? I wasn’t actually going to blow up the planet! You know me!”

“You didn’t just lose your temper. Singular nullification is one of the most terrifying attacks. You don’t even joke about that. It nearly rips a planet apart. We only use it in cases where a race is already hopelessly infected with communism and risks reaching space. But Earth isn’t that case.”

Magnificus nods toward the wall, where a pin-up poster of a long-haired brunette in a provocative pose is printed.

“Besides, their females are quite attractive. Though I believe you prefer hairier ones.” Magnificus smirks again. “Looks like Grand appreciated theirs too. Like me. He’s been telepathically crawling around that planet for several days already. By the way, I appreciated his nerve: putting you in your place in front of everyone even before I did it myself.”

Libidus scowls, leaning back in the chair with a huff. “The boy is arrogant. He thinks because he’s a favorite of the ladies and the 72nd in line for the throne, he can lecture me on morality. He’s a child playing soldier.”

“A child who successfully argued for the preservation of an entire biosphere and intelligent race,” Magnificus counters, his voice smooth. “And a child who perfectly embodies the moral values of the Casanova Dogs.”

Magnificus turns on an audio recording on the terminal. Music plays.

“And their music is excellent too,” he adds. “We’ve got the world on a string, Libidus. We need to approach this responsibly. I think we should play gods less. Although, given our technology, we are certainly that to lower races. But what if, in a few billion years, we ourselves catch something vile like communism, and some more powerful race starts considering our destruction. And such a race certainly exists. Over the billions of years of our existence, we’ve become almost certain of one thing: this universe is clearly eternal and infinite in every respect.”