No doubt about it, Creek was playing catch-up.
"New one for you," Brian said.
Creek blinked; it'd been several hours since Brian had come up with the initial list of ranches. Creek wasn't aware he was still plugging away at it. "Where?"
"Falls Church," Brian said.
Creek blinked again; Falls Church was two towns over from where he was. "Not the usual place for a sheep ranch," he said.
"It's not a sheep ranch," Brian said. "It's a pet shop. 'Robin's Pets—Unmodified Pets Our Specialty.' You'll want the owner, Robin Baker."
"Send the address into my communicator, please," Creek said.
"You're not going to call?" Brian said.
"No," Creek said. "It's drivable. And I want to get out of the house. All those dead sheep on the other end of the line are getting to me."
"All right," Brian said. "Just keep an eye out."
"Something I should know about?" Creek asked.
"Someone's been trying to hack into your system all day long," Brian said. "I've been fending it off, but they're pretty sophisticated attacks, and they've been constant. I don't have any doubt as soon as you go out of the house they'll be following you around. Whatever you've gotten us into, it's not just about sheep DNA."
Robin's Pets was a modest store in a modest strip mall, nestled next to a Vietnamese restaurant and a nail boutique. On the door was a sign: "Unmodified Pets Our Specially." Right below it, a second, smaller, handwritten sign: "No more kittens! PLEASE!" Creek grinned at that and went in.
"I'm in the back room," a woman's voice said, as he came through the door and activated the bell. "Give me a second."
"No rush," Creek said back, and looked around the shop. It was in all respects an unremarkable local pet shop: One wall was filled with aquariums filled with various fish, while another wall held habitats for small reptiles and mammals, mostly rodents of varying degrees of furriness. In the middle of the shop was the counter island, with a cash register and various last-minute purchase items. At no place in the store was there even the hint that a sheep might be located somewhere on the premises.
"Swell," Creek said, out loud.
The woman came out of the back with a hair elastic in her teeth and stood behind the counter. "Hi, there," she said, through fabric. "Excuse me a second here," she said. She grabbed her voluminous head of curly, slightly damp red hair and rather severely constricted it, slipped it through the elastic, twisted the elastic, and slipped the hair through again. "There we go," she said. "Sorry about that. I was cleaning out one of the hamster cages and one of the boys decided to pee in my hair. Had to give it a quick rinse."
"That'll teach you to put hamsters in your hair," Creek said.
"We know each other five seconds and already you're sassing me," the woman said. "I think that may be a new record. I was putting the fuzzball in another Habitrail on the top shelf. It was just bad luck on my part and good aim on his. Honest. Want a hamster?"
"I don't know," Creek said. "I've been led to believe they've got bladder control issues."
"Chicken," the woman said. "All right What can I do for you, then."
"I'm looking for Robin Baker," Creek said.
"That's me," she said.
"I was told you might have a particular variety of sheep I've been looking for," Creek said. "Although now that I'm here I don't see how."
"Wow," Robin said. "Yeah, we don't carry large animals like that. No space, as you can see. What kind of sheep are you looking for?"
"It's a breed called 'Android's Dream,'" Creek said.
Robin scrunched her face in, and suddenly she looked much younger than the late 20s Creek was guessing she was. "I don't think I've ever even heard of that breed," she said. "Is it genetically modified in any way?"
"I'd be guessing yes," Creek said.
"Well, that would explain why I've never heard of it," Robin said. "This shop specializes in unmodified pets and animals. If you were looking for a Faeroes or a Hebridean or even a Blackhead Persian, I might be able to point you in the direction of someone who could help you. But I wouldn't even know where to begin for one of the genmod breeds. There are so many. And they're all proprietary. Who told you that I would know where to find this breed?"
"A friend of mine who I would suspect should know better," Creek said.
"Well—" Robin cut herself short as the door buzzer went off and another customer came through the door. "Can I help you?"
"Yeah," the man said. "I need a lizard. For my kid."
"I've got lizards," Robin said. Creek turned to look at the guy. He was swarthy. "Is there any type you have in mind?"
"One of those that can run across the water," the guy said.
"A Jesus Lizard?" Robin said. "Yeah, those have been extinct for a half a century. Something about people turning its habitat into condominiums. But I've got a tokay gecko your kid might like. They can stick to walls through the magic of van der Waals forces. Kids love that."
"Fine," the guy said.
"I'll have to sell you a package," Robin said. "That's the gecko, a terrarium, some live food, and a book about geckos. That's about sixty dollars total."
"Okay," the guy said, and came up to the counter with a credit card. Robin took it, glanced at Creek to let him know she hadn't forgotten about him, and went to go collect the gecko and his toys.
"Kid likes lizards?" Creek said.
"You know kids," the guy said, in a tone of voice that said don't talk to me anymore. Creek took the hint.
"Here you go," Robin said, placing a small terrarium on the counter. "You need to tell your kid that even though the gecko is really cute, it's also a living thing. This is an unmodified animal. If it gets played with too much, it'll get sick and die, and then you'll have a dead animal, an upset kid, and a terrarium with nothing in it Okay? Sign here." She pushed the credit card slip through a pressure reader and handed the contraption to the guy; he took out a pen, signed the receipt, grabbed the terrarium, and went out the door without saying another word.
"Fun dad," Robin said. She put the pressure reader away and then reached for something on the counter. "And look, he left his pen. Nice, too. Mine now. What were we talking about?"
"Sheep," Creek said.
"Right," Robin said. "I've never stocked large animals here. I can arrange to get a pet I don't stock, of course, but since I only deal with unmodified animals, I only work with people who breed and sell unmods. What do you need a sheep for, anyway?"
"I need one for a ceremony."
Robin frowned. "Like a sacrifice? Is this some sort of Old Testament thing?"
"No," said Creek.
"And it's not some sort of marriage thing, is it? You and the sheep."
"Really, no." Creek said.
"All right, good," Robin said. "I mean, you don't look like a freak or anything. You just never know."
"Why do you only sell unmodified animals?" Creek asked. "I'm just curious."
"I've got a PetSmart one shopping center over," Robin said. "All their animals are genmod. I couldn't compete. But they hardly sell unmodified pets anymore because unmodified pets die too easy. Genmod pets are designed with six-year-old boys in mind, you know."
"I didn't know," Creek said.
"It's true," Robin said. "I think that's kind of like defining deviancy down. You should be teaching a six-year-old that you need to respect living things, rather than making pets so they can survive a mallet attack. So, economics and morals. That's why. People who come in here respect animals and teach their kids manners. Well, usually," she said, signaling to the door to indicate her last customer. "You have any kids? Are you married?"