FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Okay, partial chapter for today - Things got busy, sorry.

No porn in this one, but be warned of incoming violence. Also sweltering, crappy Brazilian summer weather.

Critique is VERY welcome.

Chapter V - Sao Paolo Ugly

Ugh, two days in this heat and still nothing.

Tamra sat under an umbrella that seemed to help not at all at a street-side café, sipping from bottled water that had long since gone from being icy-cold to tepid and then to what felt like it ought to be tea. She was bathed in sweat, which she kept having to wipe off of her face just to be sure it stayed out of her eyes.

The mercenary team hadn't yet managed to find their target, though it was hardly surprising. Sao Paolo's metro area was nearly twenty million furs, and while they could eliminate large swathes of the city, that still left millions of people for their quarry to hide in.

Tam withdrew a compress from her pocket and snapped it open to glance at her face in the mirror.

I look like shit. Why the hell do people come to this god-awful place?

Underneath the mirror, in stead of anything for powdering, there was a photograph. Shot from a high angle, it nonetheless showed the face of their target. He was a skanky-looking Capybara...Basically a jungle rat, she figured, and he looked the part. The male in the photo was wearing ripped jungle camo pants, a cargo vest, and a machete, and looked both like he'd been doing too much cocaine and like he'd enjoy gutting someone.

Tam shuddered and snapped the compress shut, wondering if all jobs went this way.

Six months in training and they send me along on this. Can't be too bad or they wouldn't've sent a rookie...Right?

Glancing at her watch, which she kept having to shift to prevent getting a rash from the sweat accumulating under it atop her rather thin calico fur, she reached for her cell to call in her search pattern as clear.

"Rangefinder one, this is Rangefinder three," she spoke in a near-whisper sotto voce into the throat mic attached to her cell, "Negative on contact...Wait, hold one."

Out of the corner of her eye, she'd seen something suspicious...A black car, beaten and cobbled together out of other vehicles, had pulled up to the last stretch of broken sidewalk at the edge of the Rocinha - Sao Paolo's largest favella. The whole purpose of her spot was to monitor entrance and exit of the enormous shanty town from this street.

"Rangefinder one, I see the vehicle our contact described. Cobble-together, mostly black...Uh, license matches too...I see four silhouettes inside..."

Tam's heart jolted in her chest, racing, as she realized her luck and the danger she was in. Pulling out the compact again, she turned away from the car entirely, and watched in the little mirror as three burly, mangy canids emerged from the vehicle with AK-47's slung over their shoulders quite openly. A few seconds later, after they'd looked around and entirely failed to notice the local-looking girl amidst the cafe crowd, one of them reached back in and dragged a form from the car.

Whoever it was, he was bound at the paws with rough hemp, and with a filthy sack over his head, impossible to immediately identify. But the body type was right...Capybara rodent, ropy muscle, manky fur where it was visible, and the clothes were an exact match to the photo. In the back of her mind, she really hoped those weren't the only clothes he ever wore. They'd have to stink to high hell.

"One, I have a possible on the target. He's bound and being dragged into the Rocinha by three canids armed with AK's. I'm following. Over."

She waited, sipping her water, until the three canids dragged the apparently half-conscious Capy past the heap of garbage that blocked the road and marked the entrance into that massive slum. As she hopped up to follow, her ear bud finally gave her a response in Captain Buck's voice.

"Rangefinder four, you need to wait for backup. The inside of that shanty town is totally inhospitable. Respond."

Tamra shook her head and followed the canids calmly, as she talked with as little jaw motion as she could manage.

"Negative, four. He'll disappear again if I don't follow, and there's a quarter million people in there. If the locals kill him before we do, nobody gets paid. Out."

With that, she hung up the call. Sure, he could call her back if he was determined, but she had all the surety of youth that she was right. She also tried hard not to think about the yelling-at she was going to get when she got back. Probably something about 'disobeying protocol' or 'taking unnecessary risks.'

It was hotter in that hood than he ever remembered being. And he'd lived all his life in Brazil, running drugs and guns through the jungle since he was barely big enough to see over the steering wheel.

He could smell the favela. The tinge of rusting metal, stagnant water, unwashed bodies were compounded by the scents of fear and desperation and gunpowder. The place was a barrel of the stuff, just waiting to go up.

It made him smile a snaggle-toothed grin as he was hustled along by the three canids down the so-called 'street' of the shanty town, if it could indeed be said to have one. Really it was as much a maze as a town, packed with people who were skittering out of the way of such heavily-armed types. Above his head, the favela rose in irregular levels of stacked tin and iron and cloth homes, made literally of scraps.

After ten minutes of being frog-marched, his captors pulled him inside a rusty shack and set him down on a chair whose legs rested in fetid water he could easily smell. Then finally they spoke, in the strong accent of local Portuguese.

"Keep your mouth shut and don't try to run. When all of this is done, you'll be released and paid as agreed. Got it?"

The capy gave a positively serpentine smirk, and rolled his shoulders in a relaxed shrug quite at odds with his situation - tied up and captive - and responded.

"No problem. Easiest thousand I've ever made."

Okay, this was a mistake...

Following men with guns wasn't usually all that hard for the nimble calico. Her feline instincts, graceful pace, and skills with disguises had served her well in life. Also, men with large guns - or, well, amateurs with guns anyway - tended to rely on the guns to get their point across, and were less likely to keep good vigilance directly behind them.

However, her cell reception had gone from all bars to none within a minute of entering the favela...And now she was deep inside, deep enough she wasn't entirely sure which way was out.

Though she could easily pass for a local in the streets of Sao Paolo in her rumpled, sweat-stained and faded clothing, there was no way she'd pass for being so destitute as this.

These furs weren't even like the beggars she was used to seeing in poor countries - Though the company hadn't used her for field ops before, her work as a contract negotiator and interpreter for the company had led her such places before. These furs were unwilling to approach her.

Tam tapped her earbud again when she could duck into a corner, and took a quick glance across the street to the caddy-corner where she'd seen the canids enter a building with their captive. Redialing the phone produced nothing useful, which made her grimace and turn to look for a way back out.

Time paused in her mind, as she tried to figure out what she was looking at. The heat and humidity was affecting her, slowing her mental reactions. Thus, the black bit of metal on the rifle butt that was speeding towards her head resulted in confusion rather than fear that might have helped her with an adrenaline rush.

A loud 'whap!' reverberated through her perceptions as her head snapped backwards, bouncing off the crumbling concrete wall she'd been using as cover, her whole body sagging backwards from the sheer force of the blow, slumping against the wall as her ringing ears and watering eyes added to the confusion of heat exhaustion and the dizzy spinning of the world around her.

Numbly, she scrambled for her pistol, for anything she could use to defend herself. Blood ran from her nose, killing even her sense of smell. A second loud noise, from her left side, and she was smashed up against another wall...Then sliding down into what felt like black, warm water...

"Four, respond. Can you hear me? Motherfucker." Buck growled deep in his chest, and fiddled with his cell, calling back to the headquarters.

As soon as it was picked up, he spoke before any greeting could even be uttered.

"Blacktiger, Goza, rendezvous with Sword and Shield teams at rally point Bravo, I repeat rally point Bravo. I have lost contact with Rangefinder four and have a probable on the target. Bring the radio sets, I think she lost cell reception in there. Over."

Through the phone, Sato's smooth, collected tenor responded.

"We copy you, Rangefinder one. Shield two and I will be at Bravo in ten minutes. Shield one out."

Buck dialed then for Sword team, getting their leader on the second ring.

"This is Sword one, go ahead," rumbled through the phone from the Gecko corporation lion.

"This is Rangefinder one, Rangefinder four needs extraction. Rendezvous with Shield team at rally point Bravo. We have a possible on the target, and expect moderate resistance."

The lion snorted into the phone.

"That's what you get for bringing rookies and women into a war zone, one. I hope that 'possible' is good. Not really interested in risking my hide for some dumb newbie bitch."

The stag narrowed his eyes, then took another look through his binoculars, from his perch over rally point Bravo. It was a simple café with a residential second floor he'd managed to bribe his way up onto, nothing special except that it looked out onto one of the entrances into the Rocinha.

He didn't like what he was seeing or hearing. The place was a maze, full of drug runners and the desperate, and it reminded him all too much of Hue City on its worst day.

"I don't give a fuck what you're 'interested' in, Sword one! All it takes to get you thrown off this job is a ten second phone call to your boss, and don't you fucking forget it! I'd go in there for one of yours too, you piece of shit, so you listen to me!" The captain paused to take a breath, lowering his voice to a deadly quietness. "We are going in to get her. If the target sticks his head up, we blow it off for him and go home. If not, we get out of the favela as fast as we can, understood? And if you fuck me on this, don't bother finding tickets home. You'll never make it that far."

The voice Buck used might well have made Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore of Apocalypse Now happy. Or frozen the testicles right off a less arrogant ass than the lion on the other side of that phone.

"Sure, fine. I'll be there in five."

Buck hung up the phone and went back to scanning the favela for signs of activity through his rangefinders. Not nearly so subtle as the calico, nor as local-looking, he had to rely on magnification and altitude for scouting, rather than her stealth and subterfuge.

Sato and Arlen stepped out of the pedi-cab, putting on their gear packs and grabbing their duffel bags as they went.

"God its hot in this shit," Arlen groused. The Kevlar and trauma plate couldn't be hidden so well under light clothes, so he'd had to toss on a rain slicker to get anywhere close to concealing them. Even so, the bulges of his grenade belt and pistol harness would be fairly obvious to anyone who cared. Luckily the cabbie hadn't wanted to know.

Sato was traveling more lightly, with a light backpack of demolitions equipment, a single holstered pistol on his left leg, and a pair of long knives strapped to his sides. Still, even the well-groomed silver wolf was starting to feel the heat, mouth slightly open in a pant.

"Perhaps they will have air conditioning in the favela." Clearly facetious, his common tactic for dealing with bad situations he knew were going to get worse.

Arlen's rebuttal was cut off by Buck's wave from the café. He'd descended into the main level, and had found time to change into his 'urban infiltration camo'...Grey and black t-shirt under a trauma vest with a button-down shirt over top in the same colors, and simple grey jeans. He had a bag slung over his shoulder that couldn't possibly be anything but a rifle.

"Good, you're here. As soon as Sword team arrives, we go in. I've got a general idea of where to find her."

Buck held up what looked like some kind of GPS, though it wasn't showing a map. Just a fuzzy arrow pointing generally northward into the favela.

Arlen raised both eyebrows.

"A tracking device? You chipped her?"

Buck nodded and tossed the thing to Arlen, who caught it handily and started looking the thing over.

"Your job, Blacktiger. And yes I fucking chipped her. I chipped both of you, too."

Sato quirked an eyebrow and looked himself over, noting the only thing he was still wearing from before they left Stateside were his boots.

"Yeah. Its in the boots, smartass. Don't take them off or fuck with them. This shit's expensive. We have five minutes till Sword gets here." Buck moved back inside the café, and the two younger mercenaries followed.

A few minutes later, Sword team showed up, and dressed for bear at that. Not one of them was making an effort to conceal his presence, in their tactical armor and urban camo. Their leader, the lion from the plane, hopped down as soon as they'd stopped and walked up carrying his M-60 pointed towards the ground.

"So, time to go get your pet rookie. How're we gonna do this?"