family, all right. Counselor hates everybody.” As if to prove this point, the dog stops licking me for a moment to throw a contemptuous bark at Baldy. “He was just a pup when I got him,” Alabaster goes on. “He’s an old man now, with one foot in the grave—not that I’m anyone to talk. But he remembered me, even after fourteen years in the can. Half licked my face off. Almost took out all these tubes and wires and contraptions.” The dog is sliming me big-time, and he doesn’t smell so great either. I’m afraid to twist away though, because the old gangster seems to think this is proof we’re related. Right now, I might be the only person in the world who knows that a dog can’t tell the difference between you and your clone. So, in your face, Project Osiris. You may be the scientists, but I scooped you on this. Nobody had any pets in Happy Valley, except for the occasional lizard or scorpion in a bottle. That never struck me as weird until this minute. Maybe Osiris felt that animals would interfere with their precious experiment, like being slobbered on by some mutt might bring out the criminal mastermind in your personality. Baldy finally comes to my rescue, grabbing the dog by the back of the collar and pulling him off me. Counselor nearly bites his head off. “You’d think he’d be a little more
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