Kaiden came down the front steps and out across the gravel with Aria a half step behind him, and the whole west side of the lot watched them go.
Forty meters out, the sixth assessor had stopped alone in the flat white afternoon, rangefinder in one hand, clipboard under his arm.
Pebble had lifted his head off the foundation and put all six eyes on him.
"Species code," the assessor read aloud, to nobody, flatly, having found a problem he could not staple.
There was no species code. The field was mandatory. He tried it a second time in case a second pass produced an answer.
"Boss." Doug had come out onto the top step behind them and stopped there. "If Pebble decides that man is a threat..."
"He's a good boy. Don't worry."
"One paragraph. Hazard to non-awakened personnel, and every dog law in this country gets rewritten at him."
Kaiden had known that since the man started walking, which was why he was out here.
