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FOX Academy - The New Breed

Chapter 3 - New Kid on the Block

Silver left W's office and walked down the corridor that separated the executive suite from the senior agent's offices. Coming to a grey steel door that resembled a bank vault he dialled the combination by heart. Five paces inside, his progress tracked by a pair of video cameras, there was another door, with a sensor and keypad. He held his ID card against the sensor until it beeped acknowledgement and then entered his personal code. Another five paces and another solid door, this one with a small pad at waist level. Placing the pad of his left thumb on it activated a scanner. A hollow voice asked "Password" from somewhere above and Silver replied with this month's codeword "Asparagus". The door swung open. Silver walked past the urinals to the sinks and began daubing at the lipstick stains on his pants, wondering why they needed this level of security on the staff washrooms in the first place. Maybe W was right; maybe they were stuck with a cold-war mentality and bureaucratic hierarchy. Maybe it was time to change things up.

As he left the washrooms and headed down the hall toward his office Silver began to whistle Tchaikovsky's 'The Nutcracker Suite'.

* * * * * * * *

Marcel studied the area he planned to shred, three six-sets with a double kinked rail; he was going to bust this trick. He checked to make sure that the Doughnut shop on patrol in this area hadn't doubled back. The area was clear, just some old dude leaning on the bus station, looking up the street.

Marcel put his foot on his board and pushed off, pumping to gain speed before the drop leading to the stairs. He ollied up onto a low wall and back onto the walkway, slapping the "No Skateboarding" sign as he passed. Grabbing some air as the board left the ground over the first set he brought it down on the rail and rode it to the first kink. Pushing back, flipping over with only a wish keeping the contact between board and shoes, he soared over the second set to alight on the landing before the third. Reversing direction and giving two quick pumps he kick-flipped up. The board came to rest on the double rail with a set of wheels on each side, and Marcel landed with a foot on each end, starting the last slide to the end of the rail and the last kink. Now came the hard part, landing a 360 front flip with a 360 twist without suffering a severe wood wedgie. He'd mobbed it the first few times he'd tried, and still had the scabs on his face from the last attempt a week ago.

Timing the push for the sweet spot between the rail's final kink and the end he launched into his move, rolling his body forward and simultaneously twisted clockwise. Legs tucked up he reached down with one paw to guide the board around with him as it traced a helix in the air. Eyes open but unfocused, he saw the end of the rail fall behind before his head whipped back up and forward and he began to straighten, felt the wheels all touch down at once, leaned left a tad and pressed down with his goofy foot to straighten his line, swayed, swung his tail and shot his arms out for balance and zipped across the road. Smooth, another street trick slaughtered by Mister M.

Popping up onto the opposite sidewalk Marcel heard a sound from the bus stop. The old dude leaning against the shelter he was tapping his paws together slowly and loudly "Bravo, bravo."

Marcel made a show of ignoring him, but studied him out of the corner of his eye. A black fox with silvery hairs around his face and ears, tall, broad shouldered, dressed old school in loafers, slacks and a jacket. Unconsciously Marcel slumped, dropping his shoulders and bending his knees to disguise his diminutive stature as bad posture. Being 5'4" and stocky in a world where tall and slim were the ideal had sensitized him to his height. Dressed in recycled skate shoes, cast-off jeans that barely hung on the edge of his butt, boxer shorts pulled up 6" higher than them, and a dirty tee-shirt, Marcel at least felt that he was better dressed than the stranger.

Marcel decided to head back to the den. Until a few days ago he had shared the basement storage room of an abandoned store with a variety of other street kids, but things had gone bad a week ago and the Doughnut shops had come and cleared the place out, catching the pack in the early morning before they hit the streets for the day. Marcel had escaped custody because he gone out early that day to practice this shred before the working class arrived.

Marcel had been on the streets for over six years now. By the time he was 12 his widowed mother had wed a loud, gregarious Ukrainian wolf. Lonely, needing to be wanted, she felt that he would be good for her boy. "Uncle" Yurgi liked the young fox; he liked to send him for beer and slap him when it wasn't cold enough, he liked to have him clean the apartment and beat him when it was messy, and he especially liked to come at Marcel with his belt in one fist, swearing at him in Ukrainian but thoughtfully providing a running translation.

By 14 alcoholism had cost his mother her day job, and Marcel began to spend his evenings on the street rather than face Yurgi's ever increasing violence. Hanging with the local gang for security, he learned how to fight and became proficient with the knife. One night Yurgi came at him with his belt off but with something else in his paw. Marcel palmed open a flick-blade, left him clutching his ruined balls, and never looked back.

Marcel spent the next three years thumbing from place to place before setting in Ottawa, working wherever he could for whatever he could get, begging and then stealing when desperate enough. Surviving was his profession, skateboarding was his release.

The Doughnut shops had sealed up the Den but Marcel still had a secret way inside, so he turned up the street and headed that way.

Even now at 20 Marcel still had the stature and the looks of a young teenager. The look attracted a certain class of person, the kind Uncle Yurgi would have gotten along with, and a good deal of his time and energy since hitting the streets had been spent fighting off the more aggressive paedophiles and sadists that roamed the alleys and cruised the highways at night. So he wasn't all that surprised to find the old dude walking along the sidewalk beside him between him and the street.

"You're pretty handy with that thing." The stranger said, pointing to the skateboard.

Marcel walked faster.

"I hear that you're quite handy with other things too."

"Back it off man" Marcel replied under his breath as he slumped even further down, jamming his hands deep in his pockets and fingering the handles of the knives hidden there.

"I have a proposal for you"

"Yeah I'll just bet you do!" he retorted as he took off in run, ducking down the first alley he came too. Marcel knew this alley would take him around behind the old Bank of Montreal and into another alley that lead to the den. If the old dude was crazy enough to run after him, he could keep going or turn the other way and lead him on until he lost him, and then double back. But he didn't hear the sound of running feet behind him.

Following the alley as it made a sharp left turn; Marcel suddenly came to a halt. What should have been an eight-foot wide-open space was now occupied wall-to-wall by the ass end of a cargo truck. Marcel looked under but the ramp had been lowered to block that route. He looked up but the truck was at least 12' high with no handholds. Now he could hear the sound of approaching footsteps coming up the alley at a walk.

He turned and the old dude came around the turn 10 paces away and stopped.

"Surprised?"

"You did this?"

"I thought that you might bolt, so I took the precaution of blocking the most likely route. If you had run the other way I would have visited you in your den later. More private there, but it's not polite to barge in, is it?"

Marcel pulled a wicked black dagger from his right pocket and held it up for the stranger to see. "You are some crazy, dude. Now back off before you get hurt."

"Oh dear. A knife" The old fox said with mock concern as he stepped forward.

"That's it you piece of chode, you had your chance." Marcel hurled the knife...and missed. The fox seemed to stand still for far too long, and then he stepped back and around just as the dagger whizzed past to bounce of the wall behind him.

Marcel pulled a six-inch buck knife from his other pocket and advanced.

Most of the stranger didn't move. The part that did moved so fast Marcel couldn't follow it. There was a flash and a "phutt" and the buck knife was ripped from his hand. Smoke trickled from the black tube attached to the gun that the stranger now held pointed at Marcel's face.

"So, what you wanna talk about?"

"You ever see the movie 'The Magnificent Seven?'"

"Uh, ... no."

"Based on 'Shichinin no samurai', 'The Seven Samurai' by Akira Kurosawa. There's an entertaining scene where James Colburn, a knife fighter, duels against a cowboy with a six-shooter, and wins."

"What's the deal here man." Marcel asked, perplexed. "You watch me, you stalk me, you almost take my paw off and now you wanna play Ebert and Roeper? What gives?"

The old fox lowered his gun but did not put it away. "You think that I'm looking for sex?"

"Well, yeah. It's kinda the only reason we see your type down this way."

"You shouldn't make assumptions, at least not without considering all of the factors. Take a closer look." The older fox stepped forward.

Marcel looked him over carefully. Shoes clean but worn in the heels from a lot of walking. Slacks shirt and jacket of good quality but cut to fit loose for unrestricted movement. Scar tissue on the back of the left paw, one crooked finger there. Cold blue-grey eyes that didn't blink. Small vertical scar in the left brow. Facial fur more grey than silver. The look said some kind of cop, but the silenced gun said trouble.

"Like I said, I never saw it, that movie." Marcel shrugged, not sure how to deal with this.

Gun still pointing at the ground, the stranger walked up and past Marcel to stand by the truck. Lifting the gun he tapped three times on the door and it slid open to reveal a number of chairs and workstations lining the walls of the cargo bay. The only live screen was a large flat panel display mounted at the cab end. A frozen image of two cowboys was displayed there.

"I just happen to have a copy handy;" The old fox smiled. "And if you have a few minutes?"

Stunned into silence, Marcel began to climb into the truck.

10 Minutes later the stranger turned off the screen and turned to Marcel. "Here's the deal Marcel."

"How did you know my name?"

"The same way that I know about your step-father Yurgi, who died by the way, from drinking, not from your attack. The same way that I know about your den and the kids that you have taking care of ... don't protest..." Marcel hadn't realized that he already opened his maw to deny it. "You took them in, protected them, feed them."

"I didn't do such a smooth job, they're all gone now"

"10 days ago you cut up a Bison who was after one of your kids. Seven days ago he woke up long enough to blame your pack for the attack. The police tracked some of you back. They are still looking for you."

"That Buffalo wouldn't get off man!" Marcel's anger rose with the memory. "He nearly broke her nose and was already rippin' her clothes off when I found them!"

"Calm down. I said that they were looking, not finding. Here's your choices: One - you thank me for the movie and leave and you are on your own, maybe you will make it out of town, maybe not. I don't care at that point. Two - you come to work for me. I'll see that the kids get placed in good homes. We'll teach you to take even better care of yourself and put you to work where you can make a real difference."

"What about the buffalo?"

"If he dies the police will find a body very similar to yours, dead of an overdose, with enough evidence to convince them that it's you. If he lives I'll see that the focus of the investigation switches to files that he thinks are safely encrypted on his home computer. What do you say?"

"Well, I always wanted to be a cowboy like that James Cobden."

The old fox sighed and rolled his eyes to the ceiling "Colburn, Marcel. James Colburn." Then he held out his paw. When had he put the gun away, or where for that matter?

"Call me Silver."

* * * * * * * *

Most cities are notable for a lack of urban farmland, but Ottawa is the exception. Located off Baseline Drive and Prince Of Wales boulevard is Canada's Central Experimental Farm. Once on the outskirts of the tiny city it is now surrounded by suburbs, offices and strip malls. The grounds are open to public access. The cool green Arboretum, the gardens and the quiet laneways between the fields attract thousands of tourists yearly, hundreds of joggers daily and one highly secretive espionage agency permanently.

"Why did you set up here?" Marcel asked the first day. "Isn't it a bit too public?"

"See those Joggers over there?" Silver pointed to a group warming up in the parking lot.

"You mean the ones with 'I am not a Canadian Spy' sweatshirts? What about them?"

"Do you think they work for our agency?"

"I dunno. I see those stupid shirts and others like 'I am not an Assassin' or 'I am not a Porn Star' all over town, so I guess not ...but maybe...I dunno."

"That's the point. When the tourists ask why they can't go into certain buildings the guards say that is because of the top secret Canadian spy agency housed there; then they laugh and the tourists laugh and the guards say that it's just the farm's administrative offices and everybody goes away chuckling. Of course if they try to get in anyway, we shoot them."

The first stop was the documentation section.

The Foreign Operations eXecutive (FOX) Documentation section was run by a ring-tailed lemur named Joel Grigori. As far as Joel knew, he was a Russian orphan raised in Canada by Russian émigrés. His real parent's names were unknown, and he refused to use the name of his adoptive father, as much as he loved him, as his patronymic. So instead of being addressed as Joel whoever-ivich in the polite Russian fashion, he was just known as Joel the Lemur. But Silver knew better.

One of his first solo assignments, the one that had got him designated as Silver, a senior FOX agent allowed to work individually and to kill if he judged it prudent to do so, was to bring out a pair of Russian missile scientists, ring-tailed Lemurs. Only Silver, W and the Chief of Staff knew the full story behind Joel's birth, the fate of his parents and the secret behind his names. The memory of that frozen night in Finland 21 years ago and his failure to save Joel's parents always made Silver sombre. One day, he vowed, he would tell Joel the true story of his birth.

It was not so strange that Joel had ended up working in close proximity to Silver at the FOX Academy, as his adoptive parents had been employees also. When they discovered his talents for digital manipulation they quietly steered him into an apprenticeship with the academy's master forger, before the RCMP could catch him producing his own $20.00 bills. Now Joel spent his days creating the unofficial official documentation that was essential for the modern agent's freedom of movement.

"Morning Joel. Let me introduce Marcel." Silver gestured to the young fox. "He needs academy ID in his real name and Canadian ID in a cover name."

"Too simple. No Challenge. Get Wally to do it." Joel had the image of an elderly hound on his screen. As he tapped various buttons on his keyboard and manipulated the mouse the appearance of the dog changed to resemble a young Labrador.

"You fakin up some ID?" Marcel asked, peering over his shoulder.

"No, I'm making signatures for an anthropomorphic porn forum...what else would I do with all this government hardware? Where did you find this one Silver?"

"Behind the Bank of Montreal, actually. Listen Joel, just do those for today, but later I'm going to need something special."

"Special?" the Lemur's eyes widened.

"I'll need you to research and copy any documentation used by whatever passes for an international skateboarding association. Then you'll have to break into the local paper's archives and plant a few stories and pictures about how local fox whatever-we-end-up-calling-him has impressed the sponsors and hit the big time etc etc. Think you can manage that?"

By now Joel was doing a happy-wiggly Lemur dance and pulling Marcel in from of a camera. "No problem Silver. Take a while though. How's the day after tomorrow for you?"

"Sure, that's fine." Knowing Joel, he would probably be finished by the end of the day. "I'll leave him with you for now." Silver left them alone.

"Kid" Joel grinned, "I am going to make you a star."

* * * * * * * *

Early the next morning Silver collected Marcel from the cottage he had been assigned. Silver looked him up and down. Marcel still wore the dirty baggy clothes, sneakers and backwards ball-cap that Silver had found him in.

"I see that you have decided to ignore the clothes that we purchased for you."

"Your taste in clothing is lame dude. You shouldn't let your mother dress you in the morning; nobody wears those styles anymore."

"I'll defer to your expertise on this occasion, since we want you to blend into a different milieu; but you could have at least washed them."

Walking out of the cottage and across the lawn toward the main administrative buildings Silver explained "First I'm going to introduce you to our combat instructor. He will teach you some unarmed combat moves that may save your life. In addition, he is an expert on turning ordinary things into deadly weapons. Since we want you to maintain your cover you won't be able to go around with a gun or obvious weapons. Rusty will show you why it's important to always have a fresh sharp pencil on you, and what to do with it."

"Rusty? Is this guy, like red-furred or just a hick?"

"There you go, making assumptions again." They entered a large building that looked like a barn from the outside but which was equipped like a gymnasium inside. At one end of the room, beside a rack of martial arts weapons stood a tall fit doberman pinscher in shorts and tee shirt. "Morning Rusty. This is Marcel, the special student I told you about. Show him why you're called 'Rusty'."

The Doberman leaned forward and brought his snout within an inch of Marcel's eyes, and then he grinned, showing his teeth and fangs. Although he intended to hold his ground in a show of indifference, Marcel stepped back a half step when he saw that the teeth were stained brown like rusted, or bloody, steel.

"Red-dog chewing tobacco." Rusty said. "My only vice, that is if you don't count the poor students that I've had to bury out behind the gym." He tilted his head back and forth so that Marcel could get the full benefit of the view and held out a paw.

"Um ... nice ta meetcha." After a squeeze that made bone grind Rusty released him.

"Go wait over there by the mats." Rusty instructed. "You work in street clothes since that's what you'll be wearing if you ever need to fight." Marcel slumped off, paws back in his pockets, and stood absently kicking at the mats.

"This one need a lesson in humility Silver?" He enquired of the agent.

"Daily."

* * * * * * * *

By the end of the first week Marcel had discovered why one should always carry a fresh sharp pencil, and why one should NOT carry it in the pocket of their baggy low-slung jeans. "That's going to leave a little black dot like a tattoo when it heals." The doctor said after examining his thigh. It wasn't his last trip to the infirmary, as Rusty was proving to be a very thorough instructor. In subsequent weeks Marcel learned about operational security, how to interpret facial expressions, lock picking, anti-terrorist techniques, weapons handling, improvised sabotage techniques and emergency communications.

"So you mix your urine and the sugar to these proportions and you use the notch you made in your claw like a quill, see?" Silver demonstrated.

"Aw, piss on this, will ya. When do we get to go to the 'field' and kick some ass?" Marcel complained.

"Soon. You are almost ready, but we want the right mission. We go too big too soon and blow it and that will be the end of this little experiment. If we can't show steady progress and success the whole academy is likely to be shut down."

Marcel wasn't sure if he cared about the fate of the academy. For the first time in his life Marcel had identification and a bank account, hell, he was even getting paid, but he had lost his freedom. He had been kept in isolation, only glimpsing the agents in training on occasion. As far as they knew he was just some punk that worked in the tourist part of the farm. What you need, he thought to himself, is a night on the town.

That night, after a final round of blindfolded target practice, Marcel put the skills he had been taught to practical use. Picking the lock on the cottage window he slipped out. Moving through the shadows and keeping to the low ground he mad his way off the farm. Having noted where the cameras and other intruder detection devices were from inside, he avoided them on his way out. Once he was far enough away he followed Prince of Wales to Dow's Lake, where he found the two things he needed now: an ATM and a bar.

Settling down with a beer, age of majority confirmed courtesy of Joel the Lemur's excellent ID, Marcel looked the place over. There was not a lot of trade this time of year. A weasel sat by the door staring into an empty glass. A couple of felines played pool and commented on the hockey game being shown on the big-screen TV. Then from out of the female washroom came one good-looking Skunk.

She was slim and taller than Marcel, wearing a Daisy-Mae blouse and denim short-shorts that could have been painted on. Open-toed shoes with enough heel to sculpt her long legs completed the ensemble. Her fur was sleek and combed back, her tail up and twitching as she surveyed the room. Ignoring the weasel, who didn't even look up as she passed, and the pool players, she wove her way to the bar and sat two stools down from Marcel. Fishing a cigarette out of her purse she turned to Marcel. "Got a light?"

"Uh .. you can't smoke in here." He said, trying not to stare down her blouse.

"Lets go out on the deck then." She stood and moved toward the exit. Stopping halfway, she turned back to him. "Coming?"

"Almost." Marcel muttered under his breath. He grabbed his beer and followed.

On the deck she leaned against the rail overlooking the lake and lit her own cigarette. "Saw you come up the road from the farm." She said. "Thought it was closed this time of night."

"Oh, well, yeah. I work there. In charge of security. Keep the squirrels out at night. That sort of thing." It sounded lame even to him.

"Fascinating." She blew smoke into the air. "What's it like? Working there I mean? Must be lonely, just you and all that grain." She leaned in to him, and the light shone on the curve of her breasts as they strained against her blouse.

Marcel did his best to improvise, drawing on his experiences as an intruder on private property in the past and snippets of gossip he overheard during his training. The skunk seemed to be really interested in it all. Her name was Cindi, with an 'i' and she was new in town. Excusing herself after several minutes she returned with two margaritas, one for each of them.

"Cheers Foxy." She saluted with her glass and drained it in one long sip. Not to be outdone Marcel followed suite. Congratulating himself on not choking as the strong liquor burned its way down.

"Its dead here." Cindi chirped. "What say we head over to my place for some, umm ... intimate conversation?"

"Sure, why not." Marcel stood and swayed a bit. Must have drunk that last one too fast. "How do we get there?"

He stumbled a bit as Cindi led him down the stairs and outside. He saw that the cats were still watching hockey inside, but there was no sign of the weasel now. In the parking lot across the street sat a lone car. At least Marcel assumed that it was a car. Long and square and solid it looked like its mileage was calculated in litres per minute. Tumbling inside he discovered that the front had a bench seat wide enough for the two of them to lie head-to-head and still keep their feet inside. "'76 Pontiac Parisian." She commented. "My home away from home."

Putting the vehicle in drive she swung out of the parking space and circled the lot. Ignoring the exit she headed for a shadowed secluded area under the pines at the back end. Rolling to a stop under the trees she put the transmission in park, killed the engine, turned the radio on to an oldies station and tilted the steering wheel up. Turning to Marcel and putting a paw on his thigh she said, "We're here."

Leaning in to bring her mouth to his she kissed him slowly and deeply while she rubbed his thigh. Her paw found the handle of one of his knives, hidden in an inner pocket of his jeans. "You got a shiv in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" she asked. Then her paw found something else just as hard and long and she squeezed her newfound toy.

"Both." She answered herself.

Marcel reached around her with his left arm and cupped her left breast. With his right he rubbed her stomach where it lay exposed between blouse and shorts. Cindi continued to rub with left while her right undid his belt buckle. Marcel let his hand slip lower, seeking the edge of her shorts. Finding it, he slid his fingers under to discover two delightful surprises: there was plenty of room for his paw inside and she was wearing nothing else underneath. He felt her respond to his fingertips stroking the downy outer lips by sinking her tongue deep into his maw.

There didn't seem to be any buttons on her blouse, but he didn't have to search long, she paused, leaned back and pulled it over her head, tossing it into the rear seat. Rocking onto her back, almost snapping Marcel's wrist in the process, she hocked her thumbs into her shorts and pulled them off as well. She posed on her back, just visible in the dim light from the parking lot, one arm across her ample breasts, the other caressing her vulva. She ran her tongue slowly around her open mouth. Marcel leaned down but she pushed him back upright. Swinging around she knelled on the floor in front of him and jerked his pants and shorts down to his knees. "Can't do it like this in a Focus now can you?" she grinned, and bent down to engulf his protruding member.

Warm wet and smooth one second, hot and rough as her tongue rasped along his length the next. One hand underneath fondling his balls, the other crawling through the fur on his chest, little claws extended, dragging down to his crotch before skittering up under his shirt again.

Just when he thought that he could take no more she stopped, squeezing the root of his shaft tight until the urge to cum went. Smiling at him she rose and began to lick his snout and around his eyes, mewing in short gasps. Placing her knees on the bench seat she raised up her hips, rolled her pelvis forward, and trapped the tip of his member in her humid hole. With a sign she eased down to take its full length inside her.

Marcel grasped her rump and helped to lift and lower her, slowly at first, then speeding as her breath quickened. He was feeling euphoric, way mellow for only two drinks, but it had been a while and he was never a heavy drinker. He felt like he could keep this up all night, literally, but her enthusiasm was driving him closer to his own orgasm. Her paws on his shoulders began to squeeze, her claws came out again and dug into his flesh. Faster and faster she rode up and down, slick and hot and tight, almost lifting off him at the zenith, slamming down on the base of the shaft at the nadir.

Throwing her head back, arching her back she froze for an instant, as she sucked air through her teeth before letting it out in an explosive gasp and ground her self against him in a flood of warmth. The sensation was enough to make Marcel loose the last of his control and he came as well, wrapping his arms tightly around her as he shook and shuddered until he was drained.

Easing herself off him she knelt on the floorboards again, resting her chin on his knee. She caressed his flaccid member as he lay back against the seat and let the night air cool him off. He was feeling so good! So mellow! He could tell the world, if anyone cared to ask.

"Wow. That was ...that was great."

"Oh, think nothing of it sweetie." She smiled up. "So you work at the central experimental farm? Agriculture Canada owns all those buildings?"

A strange topic for après sex he thought, but the need to talk about something was overwhelming; and what she was doing down there felt sooo good.

"Well, not all of them actually." He began, but before he could continue the dim light from outside was suddenly cut off completely.

"Damn it" she snarled and he thought that she would pull his cock out by the roots when all four doors of the car flew open simultaneously. Fumbling for his knives, forgetting that they were now tangled in his jeans around his ankles. Shaking his head to clear it as he was pulled from the car. Kicking and biting, Cindi was being pulled away towards a dark van. Marcel reached out as if to grab her, but they were too far away, and he fell to his knees, supporting himself with one arm while the other remained stretched toward the retreating figures.

"Pick him up and get him dressed." a new voice commanded. Looking around Marcel saw that the voice belonged to a German Shepherd in police riot gear. The letters RCMP embossed in black on black across his body armour. Two smaller Shepherds pulled his shorts and pants up, but left him holding them together.

"Whatta fuck was ... who are... where?"

"Relax. You've been drugged." The RCMP officer was examining Marcel's cover ID. "And by the serial numbers on these I'd say that Cindi caught a live one. How is Joel the Lemur these days? Still cruising yiffy porn sites in his spare time?" The Shepherd tuned to someone behind him, the weasel from the bar. "Good work George, we've got her cold this time; and the commissioner will love it when he finds out it was with one of the Academy's finest."

"Weasel ...works for you?" Marcel managed.

"RCMP watcher. Surveillance squad. Everybody who applies but fails to get in because of physical defects, too little, bad eyes, too slow, too heavy, flat feet, whatever; but who shows promise on the aptitude tests gets recruited by the watchers. People are always expecting Dudley Do-right undercover, they never suspect Peewee Herman. They have been following that polecat for months, watching her work her way closer to the Academy until ... Bingo! She found someone with his guard down."

Oh god, Silver's gonna kill me Marcel thought, but said "Polecat? I thought she was a skunk?"

"Crossbreed actually. Eastern European polecat for a daddy, North American stripped Skunk for a Mommy. Polecat-Skunk cross makes her a Punk." The officer chuckled.

"You mean" Marcel sighed, "I got Punked?"

* * * * * * * *

The next morning Silver was opposite W's desk bright and early, having his ass handed to him after a suitable chewing.

"God's blood Silver! What was he thinking! Sneaking out, getting drunk, seduced. What came over him?"

Silver, who had watched the surveillance tapes while a delighted RCMP liaison offer provided a blow-by-blow playback, knew full well what, or rather who, had come on Marcel, but he held his tongue.

"This is very embarrassing Silver, I don't need to tell you. The clerk of the Privy Council was ready to shut us down completely, barely talked him out of it. As it is, there is a price to pay."

"You will have my resignation by noon. Sir."

"Oh no, you don't get off that easy. No more waiting for the perfect mission. No more easing him in. You take your show on the road tonight. I have been given a little task in the Mediterranean that the other agencies are unable to action, for reasons that will become obvious when Tanner briefs you. If your boy comes back successfully you will be allowed to continue. But your program only lasts as long as it has continued success; at the first sign of failure we close it down and pretend that we never heard of you. Got it?"

"Yes sir." Silver stood "May I go now?"

"Off you go Silver; and don't take this too hard. I seem to recall an embarrassing incident involving a drunken young fox with a power booster and a bootleg copy of the soundtrack from 'Apocalypse Now' that we survived in the early days. Off with you now, there's a good chap."

Silver left W and stood in the outer office, usually occupied by W's secretary/bodyguard, the French-Canadian Poodle Mademoiselle Chienne-Caniche. A noise was coming from her private washroom and soon she backed into the office, carrying a large steaming basin of water. The ancient intercom on her desk sparked to life at the same time. "Miss Chienne-Caniche, I'm ready for my sponge bath now." W's voice disappeared with a decisive click.

"Sponge bath?" Silver enquired, raising one eyebrow.

"Mai Oui, of course." The Poodle replied. "He is a walrus, thousands of kilometres from his native oceans. It is necessaire for his skin, no?" She shouldered past Silver and disappeared into W's office.

That doesn't explain the French Maid's costume and the crotch-less panties Silver thought, but who was he to judge. Whistling Tchaikovsky softly, he went to see Tanner for his briefing.