Echo: A Dystopian Science Fiction Novel

My name is Bitefighter.  I am a 10 lb. Terrier Extraordinaire.

“Okay Muttocks, see how this table shakes if you jostle it?”  I push my side against it to demonstrate.

I am on a mission.

Muttocks nods.  “Yep.”

A mission for NOMS.

“So we’ve tried this before, right?  One of us banging against a leg gives the table too much time to recover.  But BOTH of us doing it one right after the other—”

His fur-ringed eyes light up.  “The effects will amplify, the table will tip, and the pizza will fall!”

I grin.  “Exactly.  Wanna try it out?”

He looks around the park, specifically at the birthday party kids who this pizza belongs to.  They’re all playing tag or beating the piss out of each other in an adderall-induced haze.  My Two-legs pet Kent Wayne is chatting up some buxom soccer mom, smiling buffoonishly and flexing his torso in an asinine display of strength.  I sigh, then shake my head in disgust.  I love Kent, but he can be such a moron.  I glance around at the park’s other occupants.  Some sleeping labs, a few pit bulls…none of these dogs seem to be interested in the glories that lay on top of this foldout picnic table.  I shake my head in amusement and disbelief; it’s their loss.  More pizza for your favorite terrier Bitefighter and his best terrier buddy Muttocks.

I set myself a few feet away and turn to Muttocks.  “Ready?  As soon as I sprint, you wait a split-second and then follow; that way my collision will be fed by yours.”

He nods.  “Got it.”

I scrabble my little paws against the grass and charge toward the table.  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Muttocks doing the same.  Right before I hit, I tuck my body into a little furry ball.  The table leg shivers, and then I hear a little grunt from Muttocks as he impacts an instant later.  There’s the scrape of cardboard box against table cloth, and then a dull thud as the pizza hits the grass.

A kid yells, “MOM!  The dogs are getting in the pizza!”

Some human female comes racing up to us, trying to shoo us away, but me and Muttocks both grab a slice of pepperoni and start scrabbling off.  I look directly at the oncoming mom and manage to shout around the slice:  “MINE”

Her face twists in anger and—get this!—she has the fucking GALL to mock me!  She flips her hands at me and goes,  “Yeah yeah—arf roof arf rowf; GET OUT OF HERE YOU LITTLE PESTS!”

I trot happily off with Muttocks.  It’s not really standard practice for me to let humans have the last word, but I’ve got pizza to eat!  This is gonna be freakin’ delici—

“ARF!”  Two labradors whiz by and snatch mine and Muttocks’s slices right out from our mouths!

“HEY!” I scream.  “WHAT THE MILK BONE DO YOU TWO IDIOTS THINK YOU’RE DOING????”

They lay the slices down and grin at us, wagging their tails.  The one on the left says, “You think you can take them from us?  We’re a thousand percent heavier than you are.  You might as well be cats.”

Muttocks charges at them, screaming, “WHY YOU—“

But I grab him by the tail and stop him in his tracks.  He gives me a puzzled look and I say, “There’s a better way; let me handle this.”

I race over to Kent Wayne, take a flying leap and—Terriers Eternus!—snatch the eReader from his pocket.  I click it open to Echo.  Magic flash.

Suddenly I see a stone in front of me with a glowing rope toy half-buried in it.  My jaw drops in utter astonishment; this is a weapon that dogs speak of in hushed whispers, a weapon that once beat back legions of felines before they’d morphed into house cats, back when they were lions and panthers.

Rexcalibur.

I dart over to it, snatch it up with my teeth (it slides easily from the stone), and charge at the labradors.  Their big stupid faces are frozen in fear as I spin, jump into a triple aerial twist, and blatter them across their jaws with the rope toy to end all motherfucking rope toys.  A shower of eldritch sparks erupts from the contact, and their eyes close in pain as they go tumbling back in slow-motion.  I land in an anime style crouch, one knee and paw touching the ground, the other paw extended behind my back.  Rexcalibur remains clenched firmly between my teeth.

I take a note from my Two-legs pet Kent Wayne and rasp out my next words in a Batman voice.

“Had enough?”

They run off, whimpering and crying.  Muttocks and I exchange grins, high fives with our tiny paws, and get to maowing down on some delish pizza.  Who says that just ‘cos you’re little, you can’t wield the extradimnesional power of a magically imbued weapon and fight off some low-down pizza-thieves?

I know it’s highly unlikely, but what if YOU incarnate as a little terrier and start jonesing for some bomb-ass NY-style pepperoni?  In that case, I’ve got just the thing!  Get Echo Vol. 1 on Kindle here:  Vol. 1 on Kindle.  Vol. 2 on Kindle here:  Vol.2 on Kindle  Vol. 3 on Kindle here:  Vol. 3 on Kindle  #kindle #kindleunlimited