FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

10: A Crack in the Armour

"It means a lot to him, and, Christ knows why, he wants you there." Vick sighs, scowling into the archaic phone. She could have had Kal call her directly, route the call through the network mods jammed into her skull, but that felt far too invasive. Vick needs to keep her ex at a distance, wherever possible.

"Kal, this month is just... not a good time," she replies, glancing over one shoulder. Around her doctors and nurses scrubbed up to their eyes scurry back and forth, waving sheets of paper, struggling to hear anything over the cacophony. Between them orderlies push little trollies with racked IV bags, emptying out bedpans and slotting vat-grown sludge into the lunch cubbies. They're like schools of fish expertly navigating a dense reef, the cliques holding together despite the anarchy. All the advancements in the last hundred years, and still hospitals were staffed almost entirely by flesh-and-blood people.

Vick is sure that said something about priorities.

"Yeah, it's never a good fucking time, is it?" Kal snaps, and for a moment Vick is sure he's going to hang up on her. She almost wishes he would. "Look I don't have the time, or frankly the energy anymore, to pick up your pieces. Whatever happened between you two last time, you need to make it right, Victoria."

Vick glances down as a lean panther in hazmat gear storms by, before discreetly slipping through a fire exit. She pauses inside, waiting for an alarm, but none comes. Hugo did his job, as always.

"Nothing happened." It's a lie, but she's not going to tell Kal if Ricky didn't.

"Tell yourself that," Kal practically growls it. "I'm sick of this, you can't just come and go as you please, always leaving me to pick up the pieces of our son. He's a person, a teenager, not some pet you just forget about until it's convenient for you. His counsellor agrees - Rick needs more stability in his life. I can't fix whatever it is you do, though I'm sure you'd be more than happy to let me."

Vick bares her teeth, heels clicking as she begins ascending the concrete steps through the emergency stairwell. She swallows the anger back down, letting it simmer in her gut. Her off paw digs acrylic nails into her palm hard enough to hurt. "Since when did he get a counsellor? He doesn't need therapy, Kal."

He needs a father who isn't a complete prick.

"He does." Her ex-husband's voice has gone cold, and Vick knows she's about to lose him. "Maybe you'd know that, if you actually bothered to pay attention. I don't care what you have to do, call your son and tell him you'll take him to the expo, or don't, and I'm taking this back to the courts."

"Kal, you sonova-" but he's already gone. Vick sucks in a sharp breath, stopping on the landing and tilting her head upwards. "FUCK!" She screams suddenly, doubling over and letting her head hang near her knees. She does not have time for Kal to make this problem hers. He always worried too much. Was it so hard to understand why she had to work this way? Was it really so difficult to understand the concept that she couldn't get out, that her payments were what kept the two of them living such a comfortable life?

So ungrateful. Kal always had missed the forest for the trees, all he saw was her with money, and he got jealous. When she was young Vick always told herself she didn't have time for petty men, for small-dicked pricks who couldn't stomach the idea of a woman earning more than them - and then she'd gone and bloody married one.

Why didn't Ricky tell me he was in counselling? She pushes the thought far away, straightening the front of her suit (grey DJ&CO with black accents, looks phenomenal against her silver fur, and the whole thing cost more than Kal's car) before heading up the last flight.

So many liabilities in the world, Vick thinks as she considers the fire escape. Ostensibly it's there in case of some gigantic blaze, intentionally designed with few locks or countermeasures to keep people out. Normally the doors were alarmed, but a few shorted circuits in the sub-basement had taken care of that. Cameras and armed guards were all very good and well, but all you needed to rob the world of their security was a few government-mandated safety codes.

But what's the alternative? Let the sick and wounded perish, in case of fire? Vick mentally shrugs. Not like they were doing much else anyway, even though she doesn't really believe it.

On the top floor she slips out onto the floor, giving one glance back down the hall to the security checkpoint Northpoint have sponsored for their guest. There's one guard, barely any chrome on him, and he's practically asleep. She probably could have batted her eyelashes and walked right through, come to think of it.

_Better safe than sorry._And she turns, heading for the other direction.

She angles her head down as a gaggle of nurses pass by, before looking up to check the names on the sheets outside each room. Most of the rooms hold between two and four patients; since this is the Complex Treatment Ward space is at less of a premium than the lower levels, no fourteen-patient multiwards here, thank fuck. Still, the one Vick finally settles holds only one, a Northpoint Industries logo embossed next to his name, a brand that says 'he's ours'. She palms the small poker-chip sized termite drive against the digital lock, putting her head on swivel for any nosey nursing staff. Most of them are at the end of the hall near the station, sipping coffee or scrolling through feeds, there are very few general public members (or management) up here and so they don't have to work as hard to look busy.

Deciding she's clear, Vick returns her attention to the door. The termite drive is hot against her pads now, and after a brief sputter the lock clicks open. Vick lets out a sigh of relief, then pushes into the sickroom.

The air inside is dead. Vick resists the urge to put a paw out as if she's wading through it as the door closes behind her. After a brief hesitation she approaches the bed, raising her nose as if to protect it from the stench of sweat and antiseptic.

Vick knows the man is a badger, but it's almost impossible to tell beneath the bandages and burns. His chart says 'MALE: BADGER', but it's almost impossible to tell beneath the mâché of bandages and burns. What little meat of him is exposed is porous and wet, sickly yellow-green droplets of pus collecting around the edges of his stitching. It's easier to think of him like meat, rather than flesh or fur or skin, he's not really a person anymore - he's just meat wrapped around bones. His sunken yellow eyes flick to meet Vick's as she stops by the side of the bed, but there is otherwise no reaction. The man's snout is imprisoned within a small ventilator, corrugated rubber tubing spilling out to snake into the steel lungs set behind the bed. Each breath itself is a hollow, mechanical clicking noise that sends shivers through Vick's abdomen, it's faintly wet, like a bubbling sink wheezing as it clogs.

Vick forces herself to stare into his eyes, reading nothing in the blank expression. Just another interrogation. Not a person, just a job, meat and bones.

"Can you speak, like that?" She asks, cocking her head.

The breathing machine stutters, and then a heavily layered voice echoes out of the mask's front. It reminds Vick of little kids talking through a storm drain. "I can, but it hurts." The voice is scratched and haggard, the words coming slow and forced. "Everything. Hurts."

Vick turns her attention to the badger's lower half, reaching down and raising the sheet. His right leg is souring despite the bandaging, but his left ends below the knee.

"Not doing you any favours here, huh?" She asks, finally looking back to his eyes. They could have fixed him, they've chosen not to, not_yet_. "That Northpoint's doing then? Wanna thread you along a bit, right?" She keeps thinking of him as elderly, but the chart puts him at only thirty-seven.

Younger than Vick.

"You're the Mayor of Arborvale, right?" She feigns a wince. "Sorry, you were. I know about the fire, the riot, the assassinations," Vick continues. "I don't care about that, I want to know what Northpoint wanted your town for."

Strickland stares back at her. Is his expression this vacant because his nerves are too fried to work properly, or does he really not know? "Ah... assassination?"

Vick sighs, trying her best to look bored. "The longer we draw this out, the more it's going to hurt you, and that's without me intervening. After they burned the restaurant down, your village people chased the other contacts out of town and executed them. In cold blood." Vick couldn't say she shed any tears for Yuri Kisaramoto, by all accounts the man was a vile old dinosaur stuck in his old ways. But, Northpoint would probably thrive now thanks to the pruning, and that was bad for Rextrom, which meant it was bad for her.

"Nobody... told me, that." Strickland's breathing machine hitches, then staggers through another exhalation. "That was never... the plan."

The plan? So you were in on it? Vick's estimation of the man raises slightly. He burned for his convictions, probably not on purpose, but there is something to be said for that. Unfortunately though, not much. You're disabled for life and Northpoint already owns your little backwater. What was the point?

"Northpoint's contacts are both dead." Why is she telling him this? It didn't matter to her questions. Still she feels he ought to know, their situations aren't so far removed.

"What about... the other one..."

Vick frowns. "There _was_no other one. Just Kisaramoto, and his underling, right?" She quickly pulls up the dossier she has on the case, a pried out file from Northpoint's own fixers. "The ferret, Bryce-something."

"No. A kid, there was... a young man." Strickland's eyes wander. "A fox, from Japan, or not... no... a panda, but a red one. I think." The machine interprets the pulls of his throat muscles as speech, but it misses all inflection or tone, leaving Strickland's voice flat as iron.

So somebody else was there. Northpoint had done a good job covering up this disaster - Vick had yet to see a word of it even hinted at in any of the gossblogs. She could only assume this was why they moved Strickland out of Nova Scotia and carted him all the way to Anchor City - they wanted to keep an eye on him.

Where's he gonna go? Vick wonders, glancing to the sheet covering his stump. If Northpoint was anything like Rextrom, Strickland would never be leaving this hospital alive.

"The kid, what was his name?"

"Something... something French," Strickland coughs it out, like it's a fishbone wedged in his throat. The machine turns his coughs and sighs into clicks. "Mercer. Or, no, fucking machine. Mercy. Er."

"That a first or last name?"

"Not... sure."

Vick bites her lip, that didn't matter. Mercier was probably enough to go on, maybe he knows something Strickland doesn't.

"And the purchase?" She leans in close one paw on the sickbed guard rail. "Companies like Northpoint don't buy entire towns out in Old_Canada_ for no reason. Now tell me. What. Were. They. Doing?"

Strickland's eyes dart away, then snake back. "They didn't... tell me... anything." Liar. "Ask... Chester..."

She checks the file. "You mean Chester Tavish, the arbitrator?"

Strickland gives out two meek breaths before he replies. "He's dead, isn't he?"

"Arborvale police conveniently didn't manage to document anyone they arrested that night either," Vick explains. "You're the only loose thread, and Northpoint's got you up here in their faraday cage. You know what's gonna happen?" Strickland only wheezes that horrendous noise. "Option one they string you along a bit longer then kill you. That's the mercy. Option two, they jack you up like a psychonaut, fill you with so much chrome you'll piss electricity. It'll all be top of the line, bleeding edge stuff from Strandtech's vault that won't go to market for another two years. They'll escalate your debt, higher and higher, until you're so buried beneath their bookkeepers you can't move without owing someone something. Your eyes and sensory organs will stream to them twenty-four-seven, you'll never be alone again. Then they'll keep you around as a pet, give you to one of their top-tier fixers probably, someone like me, an example that shows what happens to people that make it out alive."

Strickland looks away. There are tears pooling in his eyes, though it's impossible to tell whether those are from Vick's painted scenario, or the pain of his wounds.

"They've already started, haven't they?"

"The machine is a stand-by." He clicks out another few breaths, and Vick simply waits. "They... removed my lungs. I need this while more... are grown."

"I'm sure they told you it's optional, that it's your choice."

"I don't want to die." Strickland looks back at her, and now Vick knows for certain where the tears are from.

She leans down close, the scent of rotting flesh and antiseptic stinging her nose. "Tell me. What were they doing? It's not much, and you probably won't see anything come of it, but if you do it'll hurt them, I promise you. What happened in Arborvale is a crack in Northpoint's armour, and the people I work for will find it, and when they do they'll ram a fucking dagger straight into it. This is all you have, this is the last moment of autonomy you've got. Stab them in the back, one last time."

Strickland turns away, staring at the hospital window. It's got a view that just peaks over the seawall and into the Black Bay, a rash of ads and click-bait articles projected across the smart-glass.

"They didn't... tell me much." His voice is even fainter now, distant, and Vick can tell each word hurts. "But, before the visit, I spoke with their contact, one of... Yuri's men, a fox named... oh, Thatcher." Vick makes a mental note. "He couldn't stop bragging, he was new... eager... to prove himself."

"And he let something slip?"

More clicks. "Sort. Of. He was distracted, he sent me a proposal that hadn't yet been redacted. He deleted it, quickly after, but I saw what was inside. Only a few minutes."

"Cottonmouth." Vick can't stop herself.

Strickland's eyes widen. "You knew?"

"I needed to be certain," she replies. "What does it do, how ready is it? What kind of timeline does Northpoint expect it on?"

"I didn't see much," Strickland says. "It's almost ready to... start, testing. That's why they wanted Arborvale. They were going... to cordon it off, test their weapon there."

"And this man, Thatcher, he knows about it?"

"Some. He had... the dossier." Vick makes a quick note to tell Hugo about this.

[Nearly done here, get the car onto the roof.] She texts the alligator, before exhaling sharply.

"Is there anything else I should know?"

"There were, two strains," Strickland wheezes. "Northpoint's techs were... having trouble making it... less lethal. It kept killing their lab rats."

That troubles Vick. If what Hector said about Cottonmouth was true, that it was being developed as some genetically programmable assassination tool, why would Northpoint want to make it less lethal?

"Thank you," she eyes the machine that's keeping Strickland alive. It would be a true mercy, she knows, to unplug it now, to let him die in the bed here and now. He said he wanted to live, but everyone does when they think they have no choice. If Vick was in his place, she'd want someone to do the same for her - even if she didn't admit it.

She leaves without touching anything.

It doesn't take long to find some stairs leading to the roof, where Hugo has touched down in the aircar. A small red display on the dash lets Vick know she's racking up fines by parking it there, but she doesn't care, Rextrom's footing the bill.

"Get what you need, boss?" Hugo asks, as the car lifts off the helipad. Around them, ambulant VTOLS swarm like flies, landing on the many pads when in stand-by, delivering patients to mid-level platforms when urgent.

"Sort of," Vick replies. She should keep following up on the Cottonmouth investigation, but something is nagging at her mind. "Let's go see our friend at the Bay - I think he's been waiting long enough."

"Roger that," Hugo replies, dipping the aircar southward.

"Also, find intel on two of Northpoint's people for me," Vick adds. "Fox that goes by the name Thatcher, worked under Kisaramoto before he got iced. Probably some kind of extended liaison working in the property acquisition team. The other will be harder, looks like Northpoint wants to scrub him - a kid named Mercier, young, red panda I think, but might be a fox too."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Mercier was on the trip to Arborvale, he was there and Northpoint kept it outta the books." Vick pauses, looking out the window, one paw pinching her chin. "He must know something, or they're worried about him being a loose end. The name isn't familiar so he's not a big player, probably an underling to Yuri's underling, the ferret."

Vick stays quiet for the rest of the journey, simply watching the city rush by as they pull down to the dark warehouse out near the Black Bay. Like Vick herself, it's a place owned by a chain of nine shell companies based out of Eastern Europe, but if someone was diligent enough to follow all the tricks back to the source, it would of course come back to Rextrom.

"Want me here, or in there?" Hugo asks, as the car goes silent.

"Wait here, but keep an ear out if I need you."

Hugo gives her a nod, and then Vick is off. She lets herself into the warehouse, finding the small room at the very back. Punching in the code, she steps into a dim room where a deer is sat on a chair.

He's entirely naked. His arms are stretched up and out, secured by ropes like a big Y. His legs are spread forward and similarly tied, and there's a sanitary box beneath his seat. Two tubes hover right next to his mouth, one that delivers water and one that delivers protein.

He shudders awake as Vick opens the door, recoiling despite his restricted movement. The room smells of urine and sweat, but the deer seems otherwise unharmed.

"It's a relief you know, chasing down people like you," Vick says nonchalantly. "I mean, usually I'm going after important people, business owners, crypto yuppies, even other fixers. Lots of these people have contingencies, or bodyguards, or nosey family members. Someone like you... well, you probably don't know it, but there hasn't been much of a stir since you went missing." The deer swallows a lump. He's been here for little over twenty-four hours now. Perfectly healthy, monitored by several drones, simply restrained and embarrassed.

"What the hell do you want?" The words are angry but he says them like a plea. He's frightened.

Vick approaches slowly, smiling, letting her silver tail wag gently behind herself. "I'm merely pointing out that I can do whatever I want to you, and there won't be any consequences."

"What's new?" The deer asks.

"Tell me about Leviathan."

"I don't know what that is."

"Oh, Erin." Vick steps forward yet again, right up close now. She reaches down and squeezes his penis, fingers tight around his sheath.

"Ah, what the fuck!" He cries, squirming. She isn't pulling hard, just holding it in place.

"I could cut this off, you know."

"What is wrong with you?"

"Or these, perhaps," she says, releasing his penis and grabbing his balls. "I'm not just here to assault you, but I know the kind of person you are. I know you like to think of yourself as a revolutionary, a subversive. I also know you like to scam old Italian refugees out of their pensions. I know you wrote several low-level AI masks that talk just like the IRS. I know that while you worship Ahab and his organisation, you're not like them."

"Fuck you."

"You steal from the elderly and call yourself a hero, because you claim to hate capitalism. Well fucking done, Erin, everybody loves a hero that punches down."

"What do you want?" Vick releases his testicles. The guy is in his early twenties, he's a bit of a scumbag but she has no real interest in torturing him conventionally.

She has better ideas.

She seizes his sheath again, and begins to slowly stroke his penis. Just gently moving the fur up and down.

"What would your friends at the Neodox Church think, if they knew the real you?"

"Ah, what, what is this?"

"Erin," Vick says, waiting until she feels the deer's cock tighten beneath her fingers. It's not his fault, it's biology, and she's very good at giving pawjobs. "When is the next Leviathan meeting? What are they doing?"

"I don't know, I don't know!"

"But you've been to meetings, right?" He's half-hard now, sheath pulling down as his thin pink prick stretches up. He's gritting his teeth, but there's still a slight panting behind it.

"I... have, agh, stop," he breathes it, and Vick slips one finger inside his sheath, pushing deep. He groans. "This is so weird."

"I have a bit of a thing for tied up men." He's getting firmer every second. "And I know you have a thing for being tied up."

"I've been to meetings! Fine!" He gasps, a slight moan in his voice.

"You're also very high up in the Church subscription chain, and I know your mother is old Russian-Catholic. A rare breed these days, but less so outside the states."

She's pumping his cock hard now, and he's breathing heavily, grunting. "Ah, fuck, fuck." Quickly, Vick stops, retrieving a studded leather collar from the nearby table and securing it around Erin's neck. She straightens, sanitising her paws with some quick-drying spray. Erin is panting, and a thin drop of precum slides from his tip and rolls down his length. "Is that your plan? Jerk me off until I tell you what you want, then you let me cum?" Is he excited by this prospect, or just afraid?

Maybe both.

"Oh, please." Vick rolls her eyes. "This isn't some left-paw written smut story, Erin, think bigger." She takes a step back and the room is violently illuminated by a blinding flash. "I could cut off your cock, your fingers, I could beat you... I used to have this big speech even. But I'm trying to get creative these days."

When she steps closer again, Erin is blinking, his erection already beginning to wilt.

"What... what was that?" His voice is trembling.

"That was a camera, you're familiar, yes?" Vick gestures behind herself. "I can take more, if you like. But I think one is enough, especially if we add a ball-gag to your mouth, or maybe drizzle some Photoshop-cum across your chest. Yes, I think that would be plenty, just enough to convince everyone what kind of degenerate you are. Can't overdo it."

He laughs, but it's hollow. "Bah, the Neo-Orthodox Church doesn't care about that."

"You'll still be embarrassed," Vick shrugs. "And while normally that is true, I happen to know that your little chapter likes to pray of the evils of pornography, isn't that right? What is it your forum is called... The Laws of Lust, or some equally droll title?"

Erin is completely flaccid now. He's finally realising how in control Vick really is. This was an idea she'd been toying with for a while, as a viable form of interrogation. For the right person it could likely be just as effective as any other, and it was more elegant than bruises and broken bones. And it left less evidence.

"Not to mention, your poor mother."

"It won't matter," Erin says quickly. "I'll just tell them the truth, I was forced into it, it's only a biological response."

"And what is everyone more likely to believe?" Vick asks. "That you're secretly a ne'er-do-well that likes to be tied up and pissed on? Or, that a corpo fixer kidnapped you to extract information about a socialist insurgent group you don't even belong to? We can always add more in post-production, you'd be amazed. Maybe a feral dog licking at that little prick of yours, maybe something even weirder." She turns away. "But, if you think all that won't work, guess I'll just let you go..."

"Wait."

Vick smiles. They always break eventually.

"The meetings have slowed down, they're being more careful." Vick turns back, silent, waiting for him to go on. It's an old trick, people hate silence, they always rush to fill it. "There's... there's rumours on the chats that someone new is joining Ahab, I don't know - something is happening. They're only letting select groups in for the next few meetings. You need an invite."

"Are you one of them?"

Erin looks away. "No."

"I need to get to one of those meetings. But if you can't help me..." She makes to turn again, but Erin cries out.

"No, don't!" He swallows. "Look, I don't have an invite, but I chat to some people that do... I could... ask them if they can get me in."

"I only need their names and IP addresses, I'll do the rest, thank you."

"So you'll let me go?" Erin asks, craning his neck. "And you won't... y'know, share that?"

"Not yet." Vick heads for the door. "Someone will be along shortly to let you out. I mean, probably."

"Wait, wait you can't just leave me tied up! HEY! Hey, bitch--" He's silenced as she shuts the door and steps out into the overcast light.

It feels like she's disobeying by being here. Hector said to forget about Leviathan and focus on Cottonmouth, but surely he couldn't complain if Vick did both.

There's something about Leviathan that troubles her. Something about the way people talk about it online, the way the wannabe members act around it. Leaving Erin alone and naked for more than a day should have been enough to break him, and yet he still tried to resist.

Funny.

More of a plan begins to form in Vick's head, the early shape of it taking stage. She would get to this Leviathan meeting and see what it was all about. Then she would 'meet' with Thatcher, and (assuming Hugo can track him down) this kid Mercier.

It's obvious that whatever Northpoint is doing with Cottonmouth is beyond a simple thought-experiment. It might not be as far along as Hector fears, but it's not nothing either. They must feel confident if they were willing to turn a whole town into a secret blacksite just to test it.

It's a lot. Hector had been sending her messages every other day, demanding progress updates, hassling her. If she took too long to do this Rextrom would find someone faster, that was how it worked, and Vick would be out on the curb. If they burned her she'd be finished here, and even if they left her alive, 'secret corpo fixer' couldn't exactly go on a resume.

And in the middle of all that, there was Kal, and Ricky. Much as she hated to admit it, the bastard has a point right. She needed to patch things up with the kid, make it right. Moving towards the idling aircar, Vick gets her AI helper to dial up Ricky's contact.

Chase down the secretive insurgent group Leviathan, keep Rextrom off her back while she investigates one of Northpoint's biggest secret projects, and find time to take her son to the fucking Strandtech Expo.

Easy.