My ‘list of what I published this year” and my “most recent publication” list happen to be identical, so…
“A Working Dog”, published by Analog Science Fiction and Fact in the January/February 2021 issue (which came out in December 2020).
Megan had programmed the autonomous collective units to used bird flock dynamics. She’d intended to keep the rabbits from get- ting destroyed by coyotes or cats without in- juring whatever wildlife was in the area.
The rabbits danced. They weaved together in complex patterns, broke apart in two or three groups, came back together, and sepa- rated again. They flowed like a liquid.
Keith ran after them, following program- ming of his own.
A feral cat or a coyote would’ve quit when it got tired. They had the sense to know that burning too much energy on a failed kill left nothing for the next attempt.
Keith was not that kind of hunter.
Other stuff
If you’re more of the User Experience or Design wonk, you may be interested in my list of posts on The Interconnected, where I’ve published numerous articles on UX, Design, and being a human in the internet age.