The Sum Of Good Things
This story was based upon a dream that my friend Jiro had. It still makes me cry.
The Sum of Good Things
by
Vixyy Fox
"Stay still Sum and don't try to communicate," whispered an electronic voice in the darkness of a near total power failure, "Your transmissions cause my radio to squeal and that's a dead giveaway." There was a small chuckle. "Literally. Just lay still and I'll be back to you in a Fox minute. I got the can opener."
Sum wanted to respond, but knew better. If Corky told him not to, then it was not to for a reason. She was his Off Armor Handler... his smarts... his guard... she always had his back. He was tied to her like his head was tied to his body.
Settling in for the long haul, the body tanker slowed his breathing using the techniques learned back in MPA (Metallic Powered Armor) training. England, he reflected, was so very different now than it used to be. That was to say, what was left of it.
In the slowed state of breathing, relaxation came, and a dream like state ensued. His mind remembered and replayed; it had all happened so quickly.
There were explosions... great earth shaking, sky hiding, weapons of mass destruction explosions.
The red warning lights flashed, accompanied by the 'annnntttt annnntttt annnntttt' of the hanger warning klaxons. Soldiers were running everywhere, trying to get to stations that had already disappeared. A few of them, Sum included, took out their pistols and began shooting at the annoying alarms to silence them. It wasn't like they didn't know what was happening.
"SUM!" he heard yelled in his ear com. It was both a command, and a call from his handler Corky. He stopped shooting at the alarms and looked for the O. A.G. She was the smarts to his brute like form both in armor and out. Where Sum was full human; Corky was an anthro Fox. She was very pleasing even to his human eye, but he never crossed her nor tried anything since it was against regulations. He also knew she was more Fox than human and sharp as a razor. Secretly he was a bit afraid of her.
"Yeah boss?" he called back, the radio system automatically keyed by his voice.
"What in God's name are you doing!"
"Silencing sum alarms."
"Stop it and come to me now!"
He looked around and finally, across the armor hanger saw her standing next to one of the MPA's. "That's not mine," he replied, as he began trotting towards her, "That's Captain Crossman's. He'll be sum pissed if I strap it on. Sides... he's sum smaller than me."
"Crossman is dead," was the reply in his ear. He could see her prepping the armored body suit for him. "We can't get to your suit, and you'll fit in this one if you squeeze."
Corky ignored her operator, hurrying to do what she could to enlarge the interior of the MPA. Sum was right, Crossman was a lot smaller, and since the MPA's were custom fit, this was going to be a squeeze. At least the operating systems were the same so there wouldn't be a problem there; the machine would adapt to Sum's thought processes.
Just as she had the final strap out and ready, the big human thumped up behind her and immediately stripped naked. Void of all clothing, he plopped into the MPA as he would normally have done in his own armor. The crotch cod came up with a whirring sound, found resistance and whirred back into its sheath.
"Tuck yourself in," Corky told him, reaching out and adjusting his scrotum and penis for the fit.
"I'll do it!" he told her tersely, pushing her paw away. "You know I don't..."
"We don't have time for what you don't like," she countered, and went right back to work. Holding him off to one side, she touched a lit spot on the loading screen and the crotch cod whirred back up again encompassing Sum's manhood with her assistance.
"That's tight!" he complained.
"Think of it as the hand of God," she told him, "And if you don't strap in and get activated on the double, He's personally gonna squeeze your nuts until they're purple."
Sum blinked, digesting the thought, and then said, "He wouldn't do that... would he?"
"We're under attack, Sum, if he doesn't, then someone else is going to."
The sounds of gunfire finally ceased, as the other armor types left the area in search of their controllers.
"Why are you here?" the MPA driver asked her.
"I had to pee."
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"I was in the can when the controller's barracks got hit. They knew what they were after. I'm guessing this place will get hit next, but that's going to take larger weapons and more smarts if any of the other MPA's got suited up." Checking the rest of him quickly, she asked, "You ready?"
"Confirmed," he replied. "Activate."
Corky touched the lit screen again, and with a whirring sound, the suit closed up around him. She heard his complaints as his skin was pinched here and there, but after wiggling around and pulling in as much as possible, the outer green light flashed and went out indicating he was ready to go.
Moving behind him, she put a foot on the rider's mount and climbed up onto his shoulder.
"Rise," she commanded, and he stood. The Fox was now a good ten feet off the ground. Scanning the area, she saw they were the only suit activated. Her soft curse didn't escape Sum's attention, though he didn't respond. From here on it was battle talk only... no radio banter."
There was another explosion, and the underground building rocked.
"Move!" the Fox commanded, as she finished strapping herself on. "Exit the hanger, emergency speed!"
Without conscious thought, Sum began to run like some medieval mount charging the windmill his master thought to be the enemy. The display lit up in his mind and he was standing in a virtual field of normal vision. His mind commanded infrared and the scene turned black with splotches of color. Picking the brightest that indicated an opening of some sort, he locked in the coordinates and switched back to visual, adjusting his course as required.
"That's the entrance," Corky informed him, "Slow down when you get there and arm your weapons. I want a full sensor display up. I'll be on foot. You make damned sure you mark my scent!"
"I hate marking scent," he grumbled. "Fox scent stinks."
"You can't smell me Sum, you know it's just an electronic plug into your brain. If we mix it up, it's the only positive ID you'll have on me. Confirm scent activated."
"Confirmed."
Her slightly Skunk like scent surrounded him and without thinking he held his breath. This did no good however, and in a moment there was a beep in his ear to inform him the suit's monitors had detected the occurrence.
"Better breath Sum before the suit sticks you with a needle."
"I hate needles," he grumbled as he exhaled.
"Then breath," she yelled as she unstrapped and climbed down the mount rungs. As he slowed to a walk, she hopped off and darted off and into the dark side of the tunnel.
"Sensors reading heat signatures," he told her softly. There was no need for him to raise his voice as the radio controlled the volume in all situations.
"Ident?" she asked.
"Soft targets, three each, one hundred feet to your right, walking crouched."
"Weapons loose," she whispered, "Sound the identify signal first."
Sum thought, and it happened. A horn reminiscent of an eighteen wheeler lorry blasted up the tunnel. The figure in the lead stood straight and brought up whatever it was holding in a firing position. Sum's right arm cannon was already tracking and with a zippp sound, ten rounds of twenty millimeter dissolved the threat.
"Move, move, move," Corky yelled at him and began springing up the tunnel towards the opening. "And save the twenty millimeter. Use the 4.5 high velocity on the soft targets."
Sum grunted his reply, knowing she was right. Just once he wished she would simply thank him for protecting her ass.
As big as the MPA suit was, things were still finite due to size. He wasn't some huge main battle tank, he was a one man anti-personnel weapon. His max load of twenty millimeter shells was a paltry one hundred rounds. To counter this, especially since his armor allowed him to get in close with no real harm from small arms his left arm was loaded with 4.5 millimeter high velocity mini-cannon. He could, and did, carry a gazillion rounds of the little bullet, but the rate of fire was so tremendous, he could literally cut through a concrete walls and body armor with it.
His threat indicator flashed and he switched to heat index. That showed him what appeared to be a light bulb at the end of the tunnel. At the same moment his ears picked up a pop and sizzle on his radio.
"Cork! COMEBACKCOMEBACKCOMEBACK!" he yelled.
The MPA began firing off flares in the small confinement of the tunnel in an attempt to make the incoming rocket second guess the actual target, but there was no way the Fox could have made it back through this flaming shower alive. With a simple thought, he shut the gizmo off and knelt. With his left hand up he opened fire with the 4.5 putting up a virtual wall of brass jacketed lead bullets. As the first rocket came in, it exploded near the entrance. His weapon's system automatically attempted a lock on the second, but it was coming in simultaneously with a third and the computer suddenly couldn't make up its mind which to shoot at. Sum over rode the system and blasted away at the one most likely to hurt his Controller. That one whanged out, and flipped into darkness without exploding; but the third struck the MPA with a vengeance.
Sum was blasted backwards and that was when the darkness enveloped him.
When he came to, he automatically checked himself using the 'Downed MPA' mantra floating through his head. 'Spectacles (head), testicles, (quite literally), watch (heart) and wallet (MPA). It came from a very old joke, when there actually were large groups of different religions in the world. The Rabi had explained to the Priest, after a train accident, why he had made an apparent sign of the cross on his body, which was a blessing the priest was familiar with.
'I am checking myself, old friend, not blessing," the Rabi explained, "Though blessings to God that we did survive the crash.'
'Checking yourself?' the Priest had asked.
'Certainly; Spectacles, Testicles, Watch and Wallet.'
"Power up," Sum told the suit, but there was no answer.
"Emergency Power," he softly commanded when that didn't work. The darkness he was shrouded in seemed to become that much darker. "Emergency eject," he commanded, but nothing happened. His brain screamed at him that the worse had happened, and he was trapped inside his own coffin... TRAPPED! ... and then he heard her calmly talking to him.
"Sum... Sum old fella, you still in there? Do I need to get a can opener?"
Can opener was their slang term for an emergency extract tool.
"I'm all right," he growled, "Except for my nuts which are pinched tighter than... yes... punch the restart Control. If that doesn't work a can opener is a good idea."
He heard a whining sound as the hydraulic pressure came up and then faltered sounding like a broken violin.
"No good" she told him, "Stay here; I'll be back."
"Corky?"
"Yes Sum."
"What happened?"
"Neo-noids," she told him flatly. These were a racists human radical group that was violently opposed to any cross over between animal and human; though anthromorphics had been around long enough to be recognized as a race and even given rights, though limited. Scotland had fallen to them the previous week, and they were working their way south.
"They must have really come across some really really good hardware. My guess they were trying to capture some MPA's."
"Are they still out there?"
"We'll find out. I've got to go that way to get the can opener."
"Don't do it," he told her.
"And leave my brain dead best buddy to rot inside an MPA? Not likely."
And then she was gone, and he was left in the darkness.
That was then... now was now... and he heard her yip in pain. Over the radio, there was the voice of a neo-noid yelling 'tally ho' to his comrades. He had 'a Foxxxxxx Fuckerrrrr' and they should come enjoy the kill.
Then there was the 'rip' of an automatic weapon.
Something inside Sum's mind snapped, and all of his thoughts narrowed to one small red circle that focused in the very center of his darkened screen. A small light began flashing, and in three seconds it steadied. A second after that, emergency power snapped on which was enough for him to eject, but there were other things the guts of this MPA needed to do which over powered his need to live.
"Power up," he commanded softly.
His definition screen came to life and the battery indicator began in the center, showing the charge. It then slid of to the side out of his working vision range; remaining in the peripheral. In a moment, hydraulic pressure was back on line and he was able to stand.
He whispered, "I'm coming for ya Corky," as he took his first tentative steps up the ramp.
When he reached the opening, he saw a group of twenty Neo's standing around her body laughing. His immediate rage caused him to bellow like a Bull seeing a red flag. This translated through the suit to the friend or foe identifier and his horn blasted out one long terrifying note which they all turned to. In the space of time it took the Neo's to se and almost react, Sum raised his left arm and cut them down in a bloody spray of the 4.5 mm high velocity.
When they were dead, he stormed to the spot and kicking the bodies aside, found what was left of Corky. As he looked down at her, his armor began sounding like a tin roof in a hail storm. That was fine with him...
"Multiple targets close distance," the computer told him. The battery indicator had crept lower, but Sum ignored it.
"Firing solution with priorities," he told his electronic counterpart.
Multiple green dots appeared on his screen, with one dot remaining red. His vision narrowed as he thought it, and turning to the red dot, he raised his twenty millimeter, and pasted it with three rounds. The red dot winked out and was replaced by the next, and then the next, and the next and the next, until the twenty millimeter red empty indicator flickered.
"Close in," he spoke, and the remaining green lights turned into forms with ranges underneath them. Again, the one in red was the closest.
"Vision," he spoke, and his display lit up giving him an eerily green and red shadowed view of death and destruction.
"Battery critical," the computer told him. "Ejection in ten seconds."
"CANCEL EJECTION!" the soldier yelled as he moved towards the first red form. When the range was right, he sprayed it with the high velocity and it went out. The next targets were grouped together, and he killed five at once. The red indicator flashed showing that the next closest was behind him. As he spun to find and kill, the form aimed something and a light bulb brightness lit his screen.
It was too close to counter and the light bulb enveloped him.
"SUM!" he heard yelled into his com, except that he no longer wore the ear piece. It was both a command and a call from his handler.
"Corky?"
"Walk forward ten steps and stop," he heard in his ear.
Without question he began walking, mentally counting off the steps. By step eight, he had regained vision as well as the rest of his senses. He was not in the MPA, and he was naked.
At step ten he stopped walking. Corky was standing right in front of him, her Fox form was wearing nothing more than a smile.
"What just happened?" he asked her, "And why are you naked like that?"
"You're naked too silly," she told him raising her paws palm outwards to him.
He blinked, and then raised his hands in a like fashion... palms outwards.
Corky placed her paws against his hands and the feeling of them overwhelmed the large MPA jockey with emotion.
"I always wanted to crawl into bed with you," Corky told him, "And jump your bones until you cried for mercy."
Sum smiled. "I always wanted that too," he admitted, "But we weren't allowed."
Pressing close, and standing on her tiptoes, she kissed him lightly on the lips and then whispered, "Watch what we can do now."
Pushing forward, she let her form completely dissolve into his until they were virtually one together. In his body he felt an incredible tickle that began to build until he felt nothing but the ecstasy of it.
In his mind, he heard her voice, just as he always had when wearing the MPA. It had tones suggesting that she was feeling exactly the same feelings. "And how's that feel to you my love?"
"Sum good," he managed to answer, before they were brought into something even larger.
Forever together
Forever in love
Forever in Love's presence.