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//: City of San Iadras, 'Midtown' district. Troy didn't walk. He ran. He ran until his legs ached and his feet were tender. He ran so he didn't have to think about much more than how much his feet hurt. Feel the way the air flapped his rounded ears back with each lurching stride, feel the pain when his hairless tail smacked the concrete because he hadn't held it high enough. His shoes, dumb old mass produced sneakers he'd bought off a street vendor a year or two back, weren't really made for his feet. The soles clapped into the ground with a jarring pain, squeezing down across his toes and pinching the collagen implants that gave him heels, something resembling a human foot shape. He wheezed for breath at street crossings, grabbed the walkway rails and pulled himself downstairs through an underpass. The huffing of his breath filled his ears and the dumb slap-slap of his shoes echoed off the concrete walls. People stared at him, all out of breath and wheezing. He tried not to notice, just stared at the rapid flashing of the adverts he ran by, trying to make the pictures in his head go away. His legs ached, his tail hurt enough that he'd wondered if he'd fractured the tip, but he didn't stop running until he reached the stairs on the other side of the underpass. He doubled over when he reached the top, sticking his hands on his knees and sucking down breath after breath, heart hammering at his ribcage. Every breath was painful. He hadn't run like this for years. He blinked at his shadow, its goofy rounded ears, the tail sticking out the back of his pants. The sunshine was bright today. One time she'd told him her favourite part of the beach was the sunshine. She'd smiled. Her scent had been dry and dusky, uniquely her. He'd been afraid to kiss her, uncertain of how, whether or not he should. If she'd reject him or not. She kissed him first, nuzzled her head into his shoulder, put her arms around him. Took all his fear away. And then she'd found someone else. His tears hit the concrete and dried away to nothing. Troy turned around and practically fell, sitting on the steps, slouching over to put his face in his hands and weep, quiet as he could. Maybe the pedestrians going by and staring, almost all human, would think he was just out of breath. Maybe by some miracle they wouldn't see how much it hurt. Troy remembered when he'd met Jennifer. She was kind. Accepted him into her life, into her bed. Made him feel good about himself, made love with him. He'd had a nightmare, woke up unable to do more than scream and wail and throw up. And she'd put a towel to his face and wiped away his vomit, held and told him sweet stories until he stopped shaking and held her again. Then she'd gotten back onto that stage she danced on some weekend nights, took her clothes off and sang a little, or exposed herself to a crowd, or went so far as to masturbate while talking about crazy things like love and how a guy could touch her in some magic way and it'd make her all soft inside, like she was a girl in a fairytale and she'd found out what it meant to live happily ever after. "Why can't I be the happily ever after?" he asked himself, staring down at his shoes. His shoes that hurt. He noticed the shadow cast over his shoulder, then, and looked up. The cop in the uniform shrugged. "Maybe it's the section two drugs," he said, stuffing a bulky sniffer unit back onto his belt. "Identification, please." "Uh..." Troy blinked up at the police officer in his corporate logo embossed uniform. He clutched his hands together and let his head fall. "Troy Salcedo. Individual number eleven," he replied, getting out his wallet slowly. The cop slapped it down on top of his wrist console. "Okay. And why were you in contact with opiate derivatives, Mr. Salcedo? You've had four charges for temporary possession of section two drugs previously. Do you have some kind of explanation?" Troy squeezed his eyes shut. "It hurts." "You're using painkillers? Do you have a prescription?" "No." His breath shuddered, thinking about Fred. Fred and his goddamn stripper. "I don't. Are you going to arrest me this time?" "I'm afraid so." "Turn left." Troy did, shuffling around in his goddamn shoes that hurt, eyes fixed to the floor. "Look forward," the officer said, flicking a light pointer against the wall. He lifted his head, stared at the institutional blue wall. The camera snapped, like one of the automated medical examiners from his childhood. "Face front," the officer told him, and Troy turned to face the camera. His wrists hurt in the cuffs they'd shoved on him. More the right wrist, though. The left one didn't hurt all that much. He twisted his hands while waiting, staring blurrily at the camera lens. Small and shiny. Like surgical eye protection. Another snap. Another turn, another snap. Troy looked down, expecting the hiss of pneumatics for his blood to be taken, like when he was a kid in the labs and they'd given him a medical exam. But that at least didn't come. Not immediately. The officer's hands were unfriendly, covered in latex gloves. No kind explanation of what was to come. No concern for his rights as a sentient being. No nothing, just rough hands on his face, tugging at his lips. He struggled half-heartedly, backing up against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to make it go away. Trying to think of something other than medical exams as dry gloved fingers probed his mouth, pulled his lip up and dragged him back in front of the camera, dragged him back there so they could all see the tattoo on him, the letters etched into his mouth because he wasn't one of them, wasn't human. Was an animal. The animal they dragged back out of the photography room when they were done prodding him, only for them to start up again in the search area. They took away his wallet, his phone, left him standing in the tight plastic cuffs while they looked him over in a backscatter camera, trying to find drugs he didn't have. He could see his image reflected on the window, amorphous surfaces that made him look like he was naked on there. Except it was more than naked. The fuzz of his fur was stripped away to leave the coloured melanges of scars, all the goddamn scars his fur hid. Sharp cuts across his torso from surgery, over his throat and good hand and feet where they'd helped remake him out of the genetic specimen they'd started with. It revealed all the scars. Even the memories of pain and screaming and blood and the way the cold, cold disinfectant showers stung. "Hey, look at this," one of the cops said, pointing up at the screen. Someone shoved his shoulder, turned his face to the wall while they stared at the circuits under his skin, through his back and spine. The circuits they put into him at the lab, cutting into him without anaesthetic so they wouldn't miss which nerve they spliced the wires into. Actually they had used anaesthetic. On his larynx, so he couldn't scream. He didn't scream now, though. Not even when they tugged at his left hand, found the catch and pulled it away making his stomach spasm, made the god awful sick feeling come into him in one electric jolt. They pushed him against the wall again and hurt his shoulder while they cut open the cuffs, took his hand away, left him a stump of pink scars and sockets. He didn't scream, though. He was proud that he didn't scream when they stuck needles in his arm and pulled out his blood. Didn't make any noise at all. At least not on the outside. He didn't answer them when they wanted to know where he'd come into contact with drugs. He couldn't. Or Saigon would find out about Fred. Fred who'd helped pay for the wedding. Kindly old Fred and his crooked teeth. They told him they'd scanned him and found raw opiate particles on his fur, not just scents. Threatened him with all kinds of felony charges. But there wasn't anything in his blood, and he didn't say a thing, so they couldn't charge him with more than temporary possession. Eventually they gave him a phone call. Shoved him in front of a console with his contact list, the names of all the people he worked with and cared about ripped out of his phone and put on the screen. "If you know someone who will sign your bail for you, Mr Salcedo, now is the time to call them," the officer advised, pointing at the list. A cross for Turin. A steer for Dallas, an icon for each of his brothers who he couldn't let know, because they'd work it out about Fred. About Fred who they admired, Fred who they could still look up to. There were the contact codes for some of his co workers, one of the students back in Minneapolis. But he didn't look at those long. Because her face was there, in this awful place. Her beautiful smiling face, a tiny icon on the console. He couldn't help touching her face. She looked so far away. "This is Jennifer." He pulled away in shock at the sound of her voice. "My phone's off, so, you know what that means." What? What did it mean, that she'd learned to switch off her phone when her new guy was asleep? Or that she was busy with him already? The tone beeped and Troy squeezed the tears out of his eyes. That's all it meant. It meant he had to leave a message, that's all. Nothing else, please, let it mean nothing more than that. Troy pushed his forehead against the console, tears slipping down his fur. "Jennifer, I'm, uhm. I'm at the midtown police station, and, uhm." His chest shook. "I've been arrested. Saigon can't know, or it'll fuck up his wedding." He leaned his good hand against the top of the console, rubbed at it with his thumb, like she always touched his hand. "I'm sorry. I just need someone to sign bail for me." He took a spluttering breath, shook his head. "You don't have to deal with me or anything I just..." The cop tapped his wristwatch. Troy slumped against the wall beside the console, eyes squeezed shut. "I just need you, Jen. I need you." And then the cops switched off the line. Shoved him into a cell. Left him there. Alone. Troy craned his head back, stared up at the tiny barred window. He couldn't see much, laying on the cell bench. Probably be a camera or two somewhere, watching him. He rolled over onto his side, bowed his head, scraping his ear against the wall. Pulled his knees up close with his good arm, held his bad one against his body. When he'd been a kid there'd always been cameras. Watching, judging. The doctors knew everything, knew how to make him hurt by sticking their fingers in his mouth and putting needles in him. The cops knew everything too. They were almost as good as the doctors. They'd taken his phone, stripped out his contact list. They were probably going through the rest of his life now. They'd find most of his notes boring, except maybe the ones he kept buried in the middle of his physics reference files. All the love letters he'd tried writing her, never finished. Never deleted. Did they have the rest of his data? His research notes? The copy of York's suicide note? Paris's unfinished book? The pictures of Jennifer she'd asked him to take one intimate morning when she'd opened the curtains wide, lain naked in the sunlight, gesturing for him to come closer, closer until she pulled him down on top of her and kissed him and made him promise he'd never forget her? Would they figure out why the phone shook so much in his hands while he was taking those pictures, or would they just go and jack off, maybe ask her to give them a little show if she came to help? What about that silly little picture of the note she'd left on her fridge's screen? 'Buy peanut butter, Troy's coming tomorrow.' He couldn't help taking a picture of it. Her handwriting was so beautiful. Maybe the words meant something more than that she was out of something to put on toast. Maybe it just meant he ate all her peanut butter and she wanted extra. Maybe it meant something that she'd never told him. That she loved him. Could they make sense of that, looking at her notes to herself? Troy scraped at the wall with a fingernail. Would they know? Just know, like the doctors had known, what to take away from him so he'd hurt? Would they come into his room at night and take away the folded pages recording all the chess moves he'd made with his brothers? What about his sanity? Could they take that away like the doctors had, telling him that he was helping his brothers even while he cut open dead Berlin? Or would they take Troy away this time instead of Berlin? Anaesthetize his voice so he could only make horrible wheezes when he screamed, so it didn't hurt their ears while they cut him open and made him scream until he died and could scream no more? Would any of that hurt more than the way her voice had sounded, so gentle, so caring when she'd said, 'Go back to sleep, Andy'? He was tired. And he hurt. So he closed his eyes. Just for a second. "I did it because of Fred." "What do you mean you did it because of Fred?" The face was black furred. A mouse. Almost his mirror image, except for the wide eyes in shock. "Why's Fred on heroin? Why are you making him heroin, Troy?" Dallas's fear. Full of Dallas's fear. "He's in pain. Cancer." "But he was good to us, he was..." Dallas shook. "He's not dying is he? Why's he making you do that, Troy? Fred's good, he's nice, he's..." "He's just in pain. It's okay, I... I don't mind doing it. I mean, I shouldn't. It's so he's not in pain." "He's fucking you over, Troy." Dallas shook his head. "He's the one guy, the one guy who did anything good for us, and..." Dallas reached into his jacket. Put the package on the table. Neon orange. "Dallas?" York ripped the package open with his teeth, shaking his head. He spilled out the contents, tablets like pink candy. Licked the pad of his finger, stuck it down over one of the little pressed tablets so it stuck to his saliva. Put it to his mouth. "York, that's rat poison." "What's the point? She fucked some other guy," Saigon said, laughing. Like it was a joke. "Was fucking him when I was on the phone with her." He stuck another in his mouth. Blood started trickling from the tip of his nose, drooling down his snout. "Can't believe I loved the bitch." "Saigon that's not true, Anne wouldn't do that, you have to stop!" "Who said we were talking about Anne?" Troy asked. He pinched his nose, swallowed down another and another, so he could bleed, bleed like he was on a surgery table, let blood pour out his mouth and eyes and ears. He screamed without anybody hearing when they put the knives in. He howled in pain, wailed for them to stop and they just asked for suction to take the blood out of his mouth so that he wouldn't gurgle while- He screamed. He opened his eyes and screamed because the ceiling was white, the walls were blue, he could see the cameras in the ceiling and he hadn't grown up, he hadn't gotten out, he was still there, still there in the labs and they wanted to hurt him. But they couldn't hurt him, because her hands were on his chest. "Shh, baby. Shh." Her beautiful beautiful hands. "You okay, Mr. Salcedo?" Jennifer looked over her shoulder sharply, face stern as she looked up at the policeman. "He's okay. Would you give us a minute?" "Sure thing ma'am." Troy tried to sit up, found his trembling hand on hers, held it tightly over his shaking heart. She slipped her arm around him, held him close. "Are you okay Troy?" "No." He squeezed his eyes shut. "Please, make it stop hurting." Jennifer leaned her head against his, rubbed at the side of his hand with her thumb gently, ruffling the fur. "Okay."