IT WAS A BUSY MORNING AT the clinic, and Devon was drawn into the usual hubbub of sick animals and concerned own ers as soon as she walked in the door. She immediately turned Ned over to Hugh Dalks for his exam and didn't have a chance to pop her head into his examining room until the morning was almost over. "How's he doing?"

"You say that he was just operated on day before yesterday?" Hugh shook his head. "I'd never guess it. The tissue is almost completely healed. The stitches are almost unnecessary. I'm tempted to take them out."

"He must have good genes," she said lightly.

"Extraordinary genes." He was rubbing Ned's belly. "Did you know he has an ID microchip in his neck?"

"It doesn't surprise me. That's not so unusual. He's a valuable dog."

"Since you said his own er had disappeared, I thought you might want me to decode it and try to find the address. It wasn't easy. First, I tried the Vera chip RFD reader. Nothing. Then I tried the Avid remote. Still nothing."

"Weird, those are the two most frequently used microchip ID companies."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Then I tried that old Sentar reader that Nick used years ago when they first started to microchip animal. It gave me the code number, but when I typed it into the computer the screen went blank, then it flipped as if it was going to another Web site."

"And?"

"Some kind of text came up, but it was all screwy."

"Screwy?"

"It's as if the chip was for another dog. Even the name is different. Not Ned. It's Paco."

"It must have been a tech error when they entered the information."

"I'll say. They've got everything wrong. Name. Date of birth, and the rest of the text isn't even in English."

"Really? Do you still have it up on the computer?"

"Sure, I thought you might want to see it." He went to the shelf and pressed the button. "There it is."