Hearts and Minds (and Eyes)

As Told by Joey, the Bulldog.

I’m a bulldog. Name’s Joey. One eye, four teeth, and a snore that registers on seismographs.

I wasn’t always like this. Once, I ran with the wind—until the wind ran faster. Now I mostly supervise. And fart. I live with a human named Sam.

Sam’s a good egg. Scratches behind the ears. Keeps my bowl full. Doesn’t complain when I drool on his bootleg mattress. He used to laugh a lot. But then came the day he sold his eyes and his heart.

You’re wondering how a man does that. Me too. I’m a dog—I eat shoes. But even I know there are some parts of a man you shouldn’t sell. Eyes and heart? That’s basically the whole GPS. Sam said he did it for the kids.

Two small humans: Lena and Milo. Sweet things. Gave me belly rubs. Shared their crusts. Used to sing to me when the food printer broke again. We lived in a place called Zone D, which is where hope goes to sweat and die.

The rich lived in the towers where the clouds were filtered and the rain didn’t sting. They had things like sunlight and clean socks. We had alley pigeons and a vending machine that spat insults instead of candy. Then Sam entered The Donor Lottery. He told me, ‘Joey, it’s either my eyes or their future.’

I tilted my head. I do that when humans say dumb things. Next thing I know, Sam’s on a stretcher, being wheeled into some surgical dungeon while a bot in a tuxedo reads him terms and conditions no one ever survives. They gave him a clause.

One clause. He could call it off. Ask for his parts back. But only before the duel. Because, you see, this wasn’t just about organ donation. It was for a duel.

Yes, the rich had started dueling. Like in the old days, only bloodier and with better lighting. Death was fashionable again. And I.Am—the richest meatbag on the planet—wanted Sam’s eyes and heart for his next deathmatch.

Sam, the idiot, agreed. He was in a chamber now. Kept alive by tubes and machines and probably caffeine patches. I wasn’t allowed in. But no one told me why I couldn’t get in.

So I got in. One thing about being a bulldog in a high-tech world? People assume you’re just decoration. They don’t know I’ve chewed through more security wires than a rogue AI.

I found Sam inside a bio-pod that looked like a burrito made of hospital bills. He wasn’t quite awake, but his brain was humming. A slow, sad buzz. Like an unplugged fridge that still remembers being cold. I barked once.

His fingers twitched. He was still in there. So I did what any loyal dog would do. I found the clause. It was inside a contract vault shaped like a Fabergé egg and guarded by a holographic lawyer that looked suspiciously like a ferret in a powdered wig.

I had to distract it. So I peed on it. Don’t look at me like that. Desperate times. With the ferret-lawyer glitching out, I triggered the clause. That’s when the alarms went off.

That’s when I.Am screamed like a child who lost his favorite yacht. That’s when the headlines changed from: ‘I.Am’s Death Duel Set for PrimeTime!’ to ‘Donor Calls Clause! Duel Delayed! Blood Fans Riot!’ And that’s when Sam came back.

They shoved his eyes and heart back in. Sloppily, if you ask me. But I’ve seen worse at the vet. He woke up like a man pulled from a grave. His first words? ‘Where’s Lena? Where’s Milo? Did you eat the last biscuit, Joey?’

Yes. Yes, I had. We got out. Not with style. Not with dignity. But with family. Lena ran to him and cried so hard I thought her lungs would come out. Milo tried to be tough but hugged Sam like he was made of marshmallows.

Even I cried a little. Don’t tell the mutts in Sector 7. We walked home, slow and tired and a little stitched together. Sam had his heart. His eyes. His kids.

I had three crusts, a limp, and one hell of a story. You ever see a man hug his kids so tight you think his new heart’s gonna explode? Sam did that. Right there in front of the detox shelter they now called home.

It smelled like soup that lost a fight, but it had a roof and a working bug zapper. In Zone D, that’s basically a gated community. We hadn’t been there ten minutes when the first drone arrived.

Buzzed in overhead, humming like an anxious wasp. Stamped with the logo of Channel 9: All Gore, All the Time. It projected a hologram of a news anchor so synthetic she made toasters seem warm. ‘BREAKING: The Donor Has Reclaimed His Body.

Billionaire I.Am is devastated and demands reparations.’ Sam shielded the kids. I peed on the anchor’s glowing foot. It was holographic.

I have no regrets. Another drone dropped something wrapped in gold foil: a cease-and-desist from I.Am’s legal team. Sam didn’t read it. He just kicked it into the trash.

Good man. Poor kicker. I’ll work with him. We ran. Word spreads fast in the Zones—especially when someone screws the system. Sam had become a folk tale. ‘You heard about the guy who took his own heart back?’ ‘His bulldog hacked the clause.’ ‘They say he barked a contract into oblivion.’ Half true.

Half better that way. We found shelter in an abandoned amusement park rebranded as a bio-waste reclamation center. Smelled worse. Looked the same. Sam lay awake, watching the stars and the blinking red of corporate satellites.

‘Did I do the right thing?’ he whispered. His daughter mumbled, ‘You came back.’

That shut him up. I nudged him once. That’s bulldog for Yes. Then I farted. That’s bulldog for Go to sleep. We were found the next day. By misfits.

Rebels. A greasy group of organ-trade abolitionists calling themselves The Organik Rebellion. They wore trench coats made of shredded NDAs and spoke in slogans like: ‘Meat is not merch!’ ‘No soul sold whole!’

They fed us, let Sam talk, and let me chew a drone battery down to the wires. I call that Tuesday. They begged Sam to go public. He said, ‘I didn’t do it to be a hero.’

‘Exactly,’ said their leader, a man named Dave who had the energy of a motivational poster caught in a hurricane. ‘That’s why you are one.’ Two days later, the price on Sam’s head went up to 12 million credits. Alive. Fully intact. No substitutions.

Posters popped up on screens, walls, urinals—everywhere. Sam’s face, glitching and grainy, next to a quote: ‘The Man Who Broke the Game.’ Underneath, a blurry outline of me. With a lower bounty: 750,000 credits, plus chew toy.

I was flattered. I’ve never been worth that much outside of emotional support. They came for us at dusk. First was a bounty hunter disguised as a noodle vendor. I knew he was trouble the second he offered me pork that wasn’t even warm.

I bit his wrist. Hard. His glove lit up with the word: EXTRACTION MODE. Sam swung a rusted chair leg like it owed him money. We got out. Again.

Now we’re deeper underground—literally. An old maglev tunnel, long since collapsed, now wired with solar kettles, hacked sat-links, and smells that defy description. Sam’s planning a message. A full broadcast. A call to action. The rebellion’s nervous. I.Am is quiet. Too quiet.

Somewhere, someone’s cloning something. Probably giraffes. I hate giraffes. But we’re ready. Me. Sam. The kids. And one wisecracking, gas-powered bulldog with a contract history.