FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

:// 2106, City of Minneapolis, University of Minnesota.

*

His spit tasted tasted like acid. Not quite acid, no. The ph-controlled disinfectants they used to wash his mouth and throat out with, during endoscopy. He could nearly feel the obscene little twitch of something cold and metal halfway down his throat, even though it'd been fifteen years.

"So what we are saying, Troy, is that you do not have very much by way of results, hm? Impressive results, but..." Professor Lowell tilted his head slowly with an indulgent smile.

Troy glanced down at his hands. He wanted to be here, out front in the disused classroom the faculty had loaned him for his doctorate interview. He'd begged and pleaded and spent years working at it.

He carefully worked at ink smeared underneath his right thumbnail, curved and clawlike, with his left hand's fingernails. The false black furred hand looked like it was natural, but prosthetic's fingernails were too hard. They scratched out white curls of keratin from underneath his thumbnail, rather than just the ink.

It just marked him as different. More different than he already was, standing in front of the three humans, his long naked mouse's tail twisting with stress behind him.

"Uhm." Troy swallowed at the spit. He lifted a hand to wipe across the side of his snout, try and get the itching in his fur to go away. He frowned a little, bowed his head again. He'd wanted to be here. He thought he'd be okay with an audience of just three. He'd gotten up and spoken in front of more people before, but this was worse.

This was worse because they talked back, stared at him, evaluated him. Like doctors performing an examination. Even though that's precisely what they were doing, in a way of speaking. He tried licking his lips, but the dampness felt clammy after a second. Like a layer of grease.

"Well. The thing is, with the results. Uh." He gestured back at the screen, with the diagram he'd prepared. "The, uhm. The thing is, that there's only been one successful test burn of the reactor, as the other eleven failed."

"Failed?" Prof. Lowell cocked an eyebrow, turning over a stylus in his hands slowly.

"Well, uh." Troy's gaze flickered between Lowell and the other two. Dr. Fanner and Professor Rochester weren't saying anything. But then again, they didn't have a fraction of Lowell's academic clout.

Troy cleared his throat, dragging his fingertips over the presentation table in front of him. "The, uhm. The prepared fuel mix didn't match the simulations. It took longer than expected to fix, so there's only been the one successful burn."

The silence was heavy in the air. Lowell laughed. "A common mistake, the simulations are perfect, an ideal condition, you cannot expect reality to match them without the most precise engineering possible. I remember when we wrote them, the physical capacity to match them was barely in its infancy-"

"Yes, but, uhm." Troy couldn't look up. He could only stare down at Lowell's feet, poking out from behind the empty student's desk. "Since the results, uhm," he waved a hand, felt the fur waft back and forth with the movement, his clothes chafing, "didn't match, I, uh. I recalculated it, and then the results worked out."

Lowell nodded, flipping through the smart paper copy of his thesis, pulling parts of the text along with his stylus. "Yes, so, you improved on the production method? That's not really my speciality, Fanner?" he asked, turning his head.

Fanner shook his head slightly. "The recalculations were elsewhere, if you'd care to look." A phenom in the field of nanoscale structuring. Troy'd borrowed a lot from his work to produce the fuel mix's pellets, the onion-skin of layers that broke down to release fuels at the precise rates. "Section five, appendix seven," he added uncomfortably, hunching his shoulders and slumping back in his chair as if to hide.

Lowell moved through the index, scrolling the pages back and forth, checking between one sheet of smart paper and the next. "So, ah," he went on as he read, "it says here..." He creased his brow, made his fleshy pink skin look like a sinking crescent wave, glossy and oily underneath the classroom's neon lights. The frown cascaded down until the sides of his mouth came down, his flabby jowls tugging at them like lead weights.

Troy cleared his throat again. "By rewriting portions of the simulation to match the experimental data," he babbled, "we... well, I found that I could. Achieve the fission chain which led to a fusion buildup process resulting in Unbiquadium, sparking off-"

Lowell held up a finger for silence, glaring down at the smart paper in his hands.

Rochester cleared her throat, glancing across at Fanner. "What I found of particular significance was the optimisation method you used, Mr. Salcedo. Why Germanium and Iridium?"

"Well, uhm, that was sheer luck actually," Troy pinched at the fur under his lip, crushing his left hand into a fist, trying to release tension, but the polymer muscles just tightened to their precalibrated limit and stuck there. "You see, uh, funny story, I was uhm, just doodling while waiting for someone, and, uh-"

"Excuse me, ah," Lowell's frown seemed deeper. Angrier, making the creases in his forehead deepen into trenches. "How is it, that, ah, modifying the PENCOS simulator software to match your initial results, rather than carefully investigating where the fuel mix failed, ah." He waved a hand. "How do you call that anything but sloppy work?"

"Well, you see, Professor Lowell, uh, the uh, simulator's radioactive decay model just didn't make sense in relation to the first reactor test burns, uhm... but when I rewrote it-"

"He had to rewrite the damn sims to match his results," Lowell laughed mirthlessly, glancing at Fanner, lips drawn back in a tight grin. "What the hell are you doing? Do you have something to prove, mister mouse? They have withstood all experimental data for six years. Six years, and you are saying you have found something new? You are saying you have found some new principle by which the laws of physics act that were unknown?"

"The, uh, the end results," Troy tried, "though, uh, I'm sure you'll agree are pretty good."

Lowell shook his head, eyes shut lightly just a moment. "No, no, I'm sorry. With these changes to the mathematical models, you are talking in terms of fantasies. The basis behind radioactive decay has been set in stone for hundreds of years. You are a chemist, boy, not a phycisist."

"The, uhm, the relative stability, uh. Uhm, the rapid breakdowns provide a new, uhm..."

"I understand you want to justify it, but this is not the way." Lowell's smile was almost fatherly. "You see now?"

Troy blinked, his eyes felt raw. "I'm sorry. Justify what, exactly, Professor?"

"You. Your background." Lowell grinned a little. "This is absurd. I'm sorry, but you are here at twenty six, trying to do what, exactly? You are somebody's lab mouse, trying to live up to expectations? Trying to make a name for yourself by tearing at established science? No. No, this is pointless," Lowell said, flipping the sheaf of smart paper over. "The results are interesting, but the methods, barely pseudoscience."

Lowell shook his head, getting to his feet. "I am sorry, I really don't understand why the university asked me here."

There was the click of chairs as Lowell struggled out, tucking the back of his shirt down as he left the room.

Fanner glanced down at his screen, scratching at his throat with the back of his stylus. He glanced up briefly at the clatter of the slamming door.

Fanner cleared his throat. "So, uh. Professor Rochester. You were just asking Mr. Salcedo about his optimisation method."

Rochester tore her eyes from the room's door with a shudder. "Ah, yes. Yes I was, ah..." She adjusted her spectacles, the lenses leaking greenish rays of light from the displays for a moment while they refocused. "You were saying there was a bit of a story behind that, Mr Salcedo?"

Troy pinched the bridge of his nose. He forced in a breath. He could breathe, if nothing else. "Ah, yes. Uhm. Funny story, I was just doodling at a remote interface while waiting for someone, uh. You know how it is, and, uh, it must have timed out, so, ah..."

*

Troy's apartment was small. Empty. The door slammed shut behind him. He got his keys and wallet onto the end of his old workstation before his phone rang. Again.

"Fuck."

He reflexively wrung it out of his pocket, thumbing over the screen to accept the call. "Hello?"

"Mister Salcedo, do you have a response to Professor Theodore Lowell's harsh comments?" His workstation bleeped into life, a messenger interface spinning up on the surface, the caller asking him to accept a link.

"Wrong number," Troy spat back, thumbing his phone off. He stared at it a long moment. It started ringing again almost immediately, the messenger window popping up on his workstation showing a Reuters address. "Fuck!"

Troy declined the call and slumped down onto the ground, back against his desk, naked pink tail grazing against the drawer handles. "Oh fuck," he breathed, covering his face with his hands.

The phone rang. Again.

Troy nearly declined it without thinking, but he risked a glance at the caller icon. A crucifix. He accepted the call.

"There's something on the newsfeeds you should probably see," a tense voice chirped. Troy's own voice, almost. His brother, Turin.

"No shit?" Troy replied, grinning despite himself. The phone bleeped another incoming call. He pulled it away from his ear a moment, leaving it on speaker. He adjusted his privacy settings and set the phone down on the ground next to him.

"I take it you've read it, then?"

"No, I haven't. I gather it's bad. Greg's not returning my calls and the media's after me. What's in it?"

"Summary. Lowell's stopped bitching about religion, media, advertising and all that trash's impact upon the minds of our youth, and has switched over to pseudoscience and cranks, citing one T. Salcedo's thesis as a prime example of where muddied thinking gets us."

"Wow, I guess you're in some kind of trouble, Turin," Troy joked a with a helpless giggle.

"Me? I thought I was going to palm this off on you."

"Gee. Thanks." Troy shook his head. Found his grin slipping away. He rubbed his palms over his eyes lightly.

There was a moment as Turin licked his lips. "What happened? He's saying you're a free quarker now?"

"The PENCOS sims didn't match the reactor test burns. So, I, uh. Wrote a couple of algorithms to modify the half life timing."

"Radioactive decay is, uhm. Pretty much worked out, Troy," Turin said uncertainly.

Troy gestured vaguely at the ceiling. "That's what I thought. But, in relation to high speed exotic material breakdown... Well. I don't know what the hell's going on, but changing it got the simulator to match our results much more closely. Not perfectly, but, closely."

"Fuck. You pissed on Lowell's simulators. You know he's hanging his claims that he's got unified field theory in the bag on those things."

"Well I've got the data to back it up... sort of." Troy sighed. "So he's calling me a free quark advocate?"

"Yeah, that's how he interprets the changes you made. He's comparing you with that crack, Ferdinand."

Troy pulled himself to his feet, lurched over towards his bed. "I didn't think about it like that. I just hacked together something to get things to match up enough I could work out a solution for the fuel mix, you know?"

"He really shouldn't be quoting your thesis anyway, it's not actually released until after the review, is it?"

"That's never stopped him before. God damnit." Troy reached his bed. Stared down at it, turned, just paced the eight feet or so he could in his tiny apartment. "Christ. I don't want to think about what this means."

Turin sucked in breath through his teeth, Troy could hear the hiss. "Bright side. This might be it, Lowell's gone too far this time."

"Bad side. Who the hell's going to back my thesis? Who the hell's going to give me a doctorate now?"

"The University of Minnesota's not going to leave you in the lurch, Troy."

"Yeah? I can't get my calls returned. They've dropped me. Have to have. If they link themselves to some whackjob furry their grants are going to dry up, Turin. They won't back me. Nobody will."

Turin hesitated. "It's just a piece of paper."

Troy shook his head. "You know that's not true as well as I do."

Turin met that with silence. A long one. He'd had his dissertation on optics accepted last year. Old Fred Rodney had led the toast. The first doctorate of many to come, he'd cheered. Fred'd put them back on their feet, shown them that they could excel if they put their minds to it. And Troy had. He'd tried so damn hard...

It felt like a silly dream now.

Turin swallowed. "Uh. You got your privacy settings on? Dallas is trying to get through to me, so's Orleans."

"Yeah I do," Troy winced. "I'll send everybody an E-mail in a minute. I just don't want to think about this right now."

"Yeah," Turin agreed. "It'll turn out okay, somehow. You still coming back down here?"

"Yeah. Might as well." Troy sighed. "The tickets are already booked. Look, I'll talk to you later, alright?"

"Sure."

Troy let go of a harsh breath before picking the phone up and ending the call.

He paused only a second before hitting the only speed dial icon on his phone's desktop. Jennifer's.

It rang once. "Troy? How'd the thesis thing go?"

Troy hesitated a moment. "Not so good."

"What happened?"

Troy swallowed, putting his free hand across his snout. "I'm not really sure. I'm just sure I... I just don't want to know right now."

She wasn't silent long. "Want me to pick you up from the airport?"

"No, uhm. You've got your theatre thing. The Island of Doctor Moreau."

"Sweetie." Her voice was gentle. "You gonna be okay?"

He hesitated again. He tried to form some word, any word. "Yes?" He squeezed his eyes shut. "No." A breath. "I don't know."

"Do you need to stay there? I mean... I could come and visit you there."

"No, uhm. I don't want you to miss your show. You've been looking forward to the production for awhile now."

This time, Jennifer paused. "You're more important to me than that, Troy. You still flying here, then?" They were meant to be celebrating tonight. It was meant to go smoothly. They were meant to have had a lot to celebrate.

Troy wet his lips. "I'd prefer to get out of here, to be honest. So yeah."

"Well. That's good. I made your favourites," she teased.

"That crunchy stuff? with the nuts and, uhm..."

"Yeah." Her voice was soft. She could barely manage to choke down a bite of the cookie-ish lumps she'd worked out how to bake 'on impulse'. Too much fibre and nut husks for her.

She'd claimed to have been struck by inspiration and just whipped it up one day a couple of months back. Not like she'd ever have nearly that much by way of peanut butter and nuts laying around for a baking project.

Not that she seemed the type to embark on baking projects, either. Troy leaned his back against the one clear patch of wall in his apartment, closing his eyes and remembering what it felt like to have her lean against him. Her gentle little hands around his back when they hugged.

"Troy?"

"Mmm. So tell me about something," he said, snapping out of it. He blinked down at the floor.

She paused, amusement ringing clear in her voice. "Something about what?"

"I don't know. Something about anything." Troy sagged back. "I like hearing your voice." He bowed his head. "I need a friendly voice."

"Hmm," she mused. "Well I can tell you about the play. Again."

"Uhm... It's that obvious?" Sometime Troy's mind wandered. She'd told him about the play a few times before, but always... always there'd been something more important to think about. How beautiful she was, how close they'd come to giving up on something wonderful. How many ions he could fit into a given solution, relative particle velocity. The sparkle of her eye.

"You get a little look on your face," she mused. "You'll watch one thing for a long time. Makes me wonder what's going through your mind."

Troy shifted a little. "So. The story."

"You're actually listening this time?"

Troy laughed. "Yes! Yes, I'm listening."

"Okay," she chuckled. "Well, it's about this guy called Edward Prendick, who miraculously survives the sinking of a ship called the Lady Vain..."

***

//: City of San Iadras, Spirit of '67 adult club/theatre.

*

There was an archaic little sign in the Spirit of '67s waiting room for the Largest Theatre. That wasn't a relative term, that was its actual name. There was a Littlest Theatre, too.

The sign read, 'please remember to switch off your cellphone'. Now this was interesting, because the term 'cellphone' was originally the term for a kind of wireless telephony system with something like a dumb console you carried around with you. The end result after the dumb console got smart - which was really just a phone - would pick up by its location whether or not it was in a 'quiet zone' and modify its privacy and sound settings accordingly.

It took Troy awhile to realize that the sign was referring to phones, from a period in time when they didn't moderate themselves. And then he realized what a good idea it was. So he switched his phone off, so that instead of flashing with 'rejected call' every few minutes it just had the default background texture. And then he'd gone into the Largest Theatre and watched the Island of Doctor Moreau.

*

Edward Prendick fled, his strides carrying him far, feet slamming into the beach sands and driving up plumes of it as he raced for the ocean.

The effect was achieved quite beautifully, between projectors and the watery sheets of plastics that waved and rolled, glistening like water.

A spotlight snapped on and illuminated a stage platform on the left, dressed as though it was a nearby hill. "What are you doing, man?" Cried Montgomery, Moreau's partner in crime. A pair of 'beast men', a couple of wolf furs from the Allbright line with their fur dyed this colour and that, charged past him, bounding off the platform and into the aisles. Montgomery raced after the beasts, down the aisle, past the audience and towards the 'beach'.

Prendick glanced over his shoulder and waded deep into the faux plastic waves. "What am I doing?" He laughed hoarsely. "I'm going to drown myself."

Dr Moreau, a somewhat aged figure, strode up after Montgomery, whilst Montgomery stared out at Prendick, waving the beast men back.

"Why?" Moreau called, curiously, confused.

Prendick seemed wild, 'wading' deeper. "It's better than being tortured by you!"

"I told you so," Montgomery stage-whispered to Moreau.

Moreau shook his head with a half-mutter. He cupped his hands about his mouth to call to Prendick, all the way across the stage, "what makes you think I will torture you?"

"What I saw, and those, yonder," Prendick said, nodding his head in the direction of the beast men now prowling. On the left stage platform, half blanketed by darkness, were the other 'beast people'. Silhouetted against a vague jungle-pattern, there they stood, taking on inhuman postures, knuckle-dragging gaits and standing overstretched toes. Troy could make Jennifer out on the left, her short, blunt tail very different from those of the other furs acting tonight.

"Hush," Moreau snapped, holding a hand up, as though to silence poor Prendick.

"I will not!" Prendick yelled. "They were men, what are they now?" he wailed, pointing again at the 'beast men'. "I at least will not be like them." Heaving for breath, he waved a hand up at the left stage platform. "They were men - men like yourselves, whom you have infected with some bestial taint! Men whom you have enslaved, and whom you still fear." He took a step up the beach, against the surging waters of plastic. "You who listen!"

Prendick turned to the assembled beast men, crying forth, " do you not see these men still fear you? Go in dread of you? Why then do you fear them, you are many-"

Montgomery, suddenly panicked, waved his hands to try for Prendick's attention. "For God's sake! Stop that, Prendick!"

A moment later Moreau joined in the shouting, as if they were trying to drown out Prendick.

And the beast men stared from their little patch of stage, postures almost, but not quite human, and Troy felt a chill go down his spine. When Prendick knew the truth - that the beast folk had been vivisected from animals, not men, his tune would change. He only cared because he thought men had been reduced to beasts, didn't he?

Those were the facts of the world. The wails of one of the animals, half-heard from Prendick's hut earlier in the play, said it all. Their suffering wasn't real to Prendick, was it? It wasn't real to anyone. The average man in the street, when seeing a fur, did not sit down and wonder about the process that went into making them.

Thank God the wails hadn't been too realistic. Troy knew cries of pain all too well. Most furs didn't. Most hadn't been under the knife in the research programmes.

Troy shuffled about uncomfortably for much of the play. Yes, it got his mind off his latest set of problems, but it reminded him of an old set.

He was pleasantly surprised, though. Prendick sympathised with the poor 'beast men', in time. In principle, Prendick was a scientist. He did not mind pain, or causing suffering, if that was to an end that would lessen it. But this, this was evil, Prendick found. Moreau didn't seem to have any goal beyond humanising, seeing how far he could twist an impossibly advanced Victorian era surgical technique into making men from beasts. It benefitted no one. Worst of all was the way Moreau controlled the beasts, with some kind of dangerous pseudo-religion, placing him as a kind of god.

The story progressed, until chaos began to reign. Montgomery and Moreau were killed. And for a heartbeat, all seemed well. The rudimentary lab was destroyed, and as Jennifer's character had crooned at Prendick, 'the house of pain is gone.'

But it wasn't gone... Even though the character she'd been portraying suddenly knew a freedom from her own house of pain, a place of vivisection and torture, Troy knew he wasn't free of his. Not in his dreams, anyway.

He shivered, forced his mind back onto the play.

Things fell towards absolute chaos. The beast folk had tasted blood, slowly began to revert, losing their humanity. Some died, pouring gaudy fake blood across the stage. Shot by Prendick, killed by one another.

Jennifer's character was one of the last to die, torn at by an actor with mismatched dyes on his fur, representing the parts of different animals he had been impossibly built from. The violence was only fictional, but Troy's heart stopped for a moment.

The way Jennifer fell and lay twisted screamed of hurt and pain, tore an aching pain into his gut. But Prendick came forth and, in a melee Troy wasn't really paying attention to, shot the beastly murderer. Troy hadn't really noticed it. He'd been too busy staring at poor Jennifer, still and lifeless, but for the merest suppressed flutter of breath. It was fiction, he reminded himself. There was nothing wrong with fiction. It wasn't real.

As the stage lights dipped briefly for a scene change, Troy wrung his hands together. He swallowed down air, looked down at his hands. She'd left the stage during the lights down, but he could still see her in his head. Wrapped in the weird white clothes of the beast folk, torn and ragged. Her canine snout flat against the ground, her jaw a little limp, her long red hair straggled and dirt encrusted, pooled around her head like blood.

Maybe the worst part was the way her tawny yellow fur had pressed against the stage floor. Pressed down and flaring out, away from the weight of her body. Individual hairs creeping out over the perfectly flat surface, their tips clinging to the moisture in the fake blood, almost sucking the hairs down.

Real blood did that to fur too, on surgery tables.

Finally there was the resolution. Prendick returning to civilisation, maddened by his experiences on the island. Looking every which way, at the hard working class of the stage's Victorian England and seeing instead thuggish brutes of doggish beast men. At fine aristocrats and seeing cats, human actors trading places with furs in the artfully choreographed crowd on stage.

The ending was happy, in a sense. There was always solitude, for Prendick. solitude, away from men and beasts both. There was always solitude.

***

:// City of San Iadras, 'Furry' District.

Florence and Dallas's place was comfortingly out of the way. Just a few cramped rooms in the back of a residential canyon, a carved out stretch of real estate underneath street level. It wasn't a great one, the lower levels had long ago flooded, were full of floating bits of trash that only got cleaned out once in two months. Rain, dirtied by San Iadras's smog, poured in from the dark skies above. Storm water drains gouted out sprays of greyish water to splatter into the murky water.

On the bright side it was cheap. And there wasn't any rent to pay off, because between the two of them Dallas and Florence had actually managed to pay off the mortgage in just under five years. And it was homey.

Florence, marked by an almost too-clean white shirt, opened the door before Troy and Jennifer had even reached it. "Troy!" Florence stepped out, barrelling into Troy with a sudden, tight hug. "I'm so glad you're here, it's pandemonium in there."

"Missed you too." Troy patted Florence back lightly, tail curling a little. Christ, it felt good to see his brother. He glanced up with a smile at Jennifer, who offered a wink and a smile, shifting her covered baking tray in her grip.

"Let me take that for you, Jennifer," Florence offered hurriedly. He frowned a little. "Uh, what is it?"

"Sort of, uh. Biscuits, really. I know Troy likes them."

Florence bobbed his head quickly. "Thank you. Uhm." He took the tray from her and hurrying inside. "Shoes, uhm, shoes..." He waved a hand awkwardly before ducking into the kitchen.

Troy stepped just inside, holding Jennifer's hand lightly while she stepped out of her high heels with a slightly bemused expression. She grinned up at Troy. "What does Florence do, again?"

Troy struggled out of his own pair, glancing around. "He teaches geotechnical engineering."

She left her high-heeled shoes neatly beside a long row of rain-dampened shoes, most custom made for the unique feet of their owners. "Mmm. I thought it was geology. I was going to make a little joke about him not wanting other people to bring his work home with them..."

Troy couldn't help snickering, looking back at the mud and damp smeared doormat, the door shutting itself behind them. "Oh, uh. Well it's close enough to geology."

Florence and Dallas's was white-walled, fastidiously clean between the two of them. Florence popped out of the kitchen a moment later, brushing his hands down his front. "Everyone's here," he said, leading them through to the living room.

A couple of tables had been pushed together, the styles mismatched, forming a dining table of sorts, mismatched chairs all around. Philadelphia was still dressed as though he'd walked out of an office, a pair of spectacles hanging from his breast pocket. He was playing chess with Turin again, who looked so serious, so very serious in his tattered old 'The one eyed man is king in the land of the blind' sweatshirt, a little tight now that he'd grown up.

Dallas - it had to be Dallas - was sitting on an inflatable love seat pulled up to the table with his tail curled up around his knees, doodling equations in spilled salt while Nadine, a slim grey tabby femme, curled around him, watching lazily.

Saigon leaned across the table, pushing aside one of the plates to make space, sprinkling more salt out. He reached up to flip a fringe of artificially white hair back, almost phosphorescent under the bulbs. That was new. But the way he encouraged Dallas wasn't.

Anne, the woman Saigon had married, edged around the cramped table with the neck of her guitar in one hand, her tattooed fingers already arrayed along the strings, grinning viciously and ready to strike as soon as she got behind her husband.

Florence waved his hands frantically, shaking his head. "Not again!"

"Uhm." Saigon glanced back. "Honey?" He gestured at the salt on the table, cringing.

Anne sagged, jaw slack. "Aw come on, it was going to be priceless."

Dallas glanced up only briefly, snuggling back under Nadine's arm. "So, uhm. That's uhm... that's why they twinkle." He bit his lip, looking at the sketchily formed equations. "I think the math's kinda pretty. Simplified abstraction, but pretty."

Nadine just hugged him, even though Dallas was curled up in a tight little ball. "How's it pretty?"

"It's, uhm." Dallas frowned. "It all evens out, but it doesn't. It's chaotic, like weather, it always changes, uhm..."

"Rook blocks the mate," Philadelphia offered distractedly, glancing along the table. He grinned, suddenly, white teeth bright against his black fur. "Hey Troy! When'd you get in?"

Turin didn't look up immediately, hand poised over the board, fingers twitching in protest, whatever masterstroke he'd had now all too efficiently ended.

"God, why didn't you just get a screen?" Florence picked up a napkin and swept at the salt.

"It looks like a nice kind of pandemonium," Jennifer whispered in Troy's ear.

Sure it was cramped, and it was a little difficult to squeeze in everybody around the table. Sure Florence griped about the salt and Anne drove Saigon crazy with little pranks. Sure the meal was a little too dry, and the filter jug spilled all over, and they ran out of fruit juice too fast.

Sure it wasn't perfect. That's exactly why it was.

*

"No, no." Troy shook his head, leaning over the chess board. "In this situation you want a fork, rather than a skewer." He moved his empty coffee cup aside and propped himself up over the table with an arm.

Dallas's nose twitched. He scratched it. "But the rook's worth five points, to the knight's three."

"Don't listen to them, honey," Saigon advised, rubbing Anne's shoulders as she stared at the board. "Castle the king."

Dallas straightened in his seat next to Nadine. "But then she's gonna-"

Saigon waved a hand frantically, putting a finger to his lips.

Anne twisted around, glancing back at him with narrowed eyes. "Are you sabotaging me?"

"No. Never." Saigon pulled back, folding his arms as though offended. "How could you think that? Huh?"

Nadine merely flicked her tail. "You guys have been arguing about this for fifteen minutes. Anne, are you going to move or not?"

"I don't know!" Anne frowned at the board. "How do I castle?"

Philadelphia suppressed a yawn. "The rook moves next to the king's square, the king hops over the rook towards the board edge."

Troy tubbed at his chin. The situation on the board was interesting. It lacked focus. Missed opportunities in the earlier turns had led into a situation where any one of a number of profitable moves could be made, by either side. "How come we don't play games like this anymore? Look at this board!"

"It's a mess." Turin flicked at crumbs on his sweatshirt. "Look, last turn what you should've done, Nadine, is move the knight back there, for about three turns it offers the best payoff, in terms of game theory."

Nadine frowned a little. "Game theory?"

Turin took another bite of the biscuit, crunching at it. "Like, uhm. Math," he offered, mouth half full, chewing heavily.

"I'm not a mathematician," Nadine offered levelly.

"Oh, uhm. Well you've got your payoff grids and, uhm..."

Dallas snuggled down against Nadine's side, watching the board carefully. "It's a way of working out what solution's best in terms of payout. And in terms of what your opponent's going to do. It's got a lot to do with statistics."

Turin blinked a little. "Yeah. Oh, hey Jennifer! These're really good." Turin paused to look at his half-eaten biscuit. "What are these, again?"

"A secret recipe," Jennifer replied, stepping in so smoothly beside Troy his first realization she was close was the soft touch of her breath on the side of his face. "How's the game going?" She slowly put her arms around Troy's stomach, leaning over his shoulder to observe the progress.

"Well, uhm..." "It's kind of even, but..." "The trade of bishop for knight..." "You know castling might not be such a bad idea."

Anne scrutinised the board as Saigon showed her how to castle. Again. "I can't believe somebody hasn't computerised this yet. All these rules. Sheesh." She rubbed at her temples.

Saigon laughed. "Oh, uhm. There's a lot of computerised versions, honey. Philly used to write AI for it as a hobby."

Philadelphia straightened, nodding in agreement. "Cobalt Blue's still ranked four in the type one computational limitations division."

"You write competitive AI for it?" Anne spluttered. "You automate it to the point of not needing to play at all, and you still use physical media to play it with?"

"It's, uhm. Traditional?" Philadelphia shrugged awkwardly, slumped back down.

Troy had his eyes shut. He didn't really care that much about the conversation. He cared about the soft movements of Jennifer's breathing as she clung to him. The way he could see her smile from the corner of his eye when he turned his head a little.

"You're not going to try and teach me, are you?" Jennifer asked quietly.

"Not if you don't want me to. I guess it's a pretty archaic game now."

"Mmm," she mused, a throaty reverberation Troy could almost feel through his back.

Dallas had leaned around Nadine, tail idly twitching. "Uhm, Jennifer? I don't suppose there are any of the biscuits left?"

"Sorry Dallas, that was the last plate."

"Oh." Dallas glanced around. "Florence!"

"Florence's on the can," Turin pointed out.

Dallas wriggled his nose. "Oh," he offered again, before edging off the love-seat carefully.

"Where you going?" Nadine asked, tail sagging.

"I think we got some cake for dessert," Dallas said, scratching at his cheek lightly, edging through to the kitchen.

"Cake?" Philadelphia straightened again. "There's cake?"

"What kind?" "There was cake and we were just sitting here?"

Saigon abandoned his wife, calling, "I'll get the plates!"

Jennifer trailed around Troy, sinking back down into her seat. She cocked an eyebrow at him. So. Explain."

Troy settled down, flicking out his tail as he reseated himself on the foot stool. "Explain what?"

"Cake."

Troy smiled. "That's a long story."

"Short version."

Troy turned a little to face her, while the chess game struggled on and Saigon whipped around with empty plates, laying them out across the sides of the table.

"Well. Padre Munez, the father at the orphanage we were put in after the labs shut down. He thought it was ridiculous that this pack of young men, he always called us young men, were so stern and serious much of the time."

Troy shifted aside a little, making space for Saigon to put a plate down. "So he said that if we watered the garden, he'd reward us. We were still all used to doing pretty much anything anyone told us to, so, we didn't give it much thought.

"We were scared we didn't do it right, that we spilled water all over, all that. But that evening, when we were all tired and a little scared." Troy smiled. Shook his head. "The Padre came out, and..." He picked up the empty plate, set it down with great ceremony and care. He grinned. "Cake."

"Cake," Jennifer repeated. Her eyes smiled.

"Mmhmm. Cake." Troy took her hand lightly.

Dallas set the box down on the table, picked up a knife to slash it open.

Florence wandered back in, hitching his pants higher around his waist. "What's going on?"

"Cake," Philly cheerfully informed him.

"Uhm, no, Dallas!" Florence pushed ahead, taking the knife from Dallas's hands. "I've got to fix that..."

"I. I didn't know." Dallas had backed away from the open box. His tail wound through the air behind him, stressful twitches.

"No, I can fix it," Florence sighed, lowering the knife towards the cake uncertainly.

"Hang on, you might..." Saigon grimaced.

"What's the problem?" Troy got to his feet, leaned forward.

Florence just looked frozen. "I." He dry swallowed. "I can fix it."

Troy felt his gut go first. A burning kind of clawing feeling, a cramp that seemed to tear from the inside. Like indigestion, but worse.

He fell back, made the footstool's springs clank. He paused a moment, before laying a hand over his stomach. he realized he wasn't breathing, then. He pulled in a breath through his nose. Let it go. It didn't really help.

"I don't want to ruin the icing," Florence said.

The icing didn't fucking matter.

Philadelphia bit his lip. "Just. Just slice it out. I'll eat it," he offered.

They didn't have to shelter him. They didn't have to do all this.

Troy ground the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to smear away the tears before they'd finished forming.

And while he did, Philadelphia smeared out the words the bakers had printed in a corner of the cake.

"We all know Lowell's wrong," Turin said after a long moment.

You did it, Troy! Congratulations!

Troy hunched his back, opening his hands and covering his face. He curled his tail in around the footstool, hunched his shoulders back.

Saigon shrugged. "The whole thing's... uhm."

"Bullshit," Anne said. "I don't see how he gets away with it, even if he's the fucking greatest physicist in the land."

"Well, uhm." Troy dry swallowed. Pulled his hands down to his lap and looked up. "I mean. It's." He shrugged a shoulder, tried to smile. Found his face quivering. He could feel himself crumpling away. "It doesn't matter," he choked out.

Congratulations Troy! You fucked it up!

"Sweetie?"

Troy sniffled into the back of his hand. "Look, uhm." He glanced back at Dallas and Florence. "You guys have any sedatives lying around?"

***

:// City of San Iadras, 'Uptown' District.

*

"I'm sorry we had to leave early." Troy glanced back down the hall outside Jennifer's apartment. The human was still visible, walking leisurely down to his own apartment.

Troy'd remained silent on the elevator, and Jennifer had given the fellow a pleasant nod as they rode up to the top floor in silence. He'd reminded Troy of one of the research interns from when Troy was a kid. It was ridiculous. The interns would've been older by now.

Maybe that's why Troy had been reminded of the interns, Jennifer's neighbour was a fairly young guy. Or at least apparently young. If he lived out here he could probably afford plastic surgery.

"It's okay." Jennifer paused to thumb her key against the lock. She reached out to him as the door opened, settling her soft hand on his shoulder.

Troy bowed his head a long moment. "I think I'm kind of tired," he offered meekly, stepping inside. Her hand slipped down his back.

She sighed a little, trailing in after him. She rubbed at his back gently, glancing to check that the door had shut itself properly. "You okay, Troy?"

He shook his head slightly. He wanted to look up at her, see her pretty face, maybe kiss her. But all he could do was draw in a shuddery breath. The sedatives had helped a little. calmed him, tired him out. But his stomach was still queasy.

There was the damp warmth of her tongue on the side of his face, and she embraced him tightly. She lapped at him softly, warm licks trailing up into kisses in the soft skin of his ear, and finally he sagged against her, clutching at the back of her jacket.

"I screwed it up. I screwed it all up." The tears came all too easily, seeping out from his tightly shut eyelids.

"Shh." She guided his head to her shoulder, hugging him close. "Shh."

"It's all gone wrong," he whimpered, breath shuddering. "Lowell's dragging my name into the dirt."

She shifted her shoulder a little, rolling his head enough for her to lightly peck at his cheek. "I'm sure it's not that bad. Have you even read it?"

"I haven't," he admitted. "I'm scared, but..." Greg wasn't returning any of his calls. Lowell had a whole damn pack of followers, internet communities dedicated to him, picking over his every word and trying to make something of it. They'd all drag out the references to him, discuss Troy's failures, find new ones, pounce on every little thing, harass him like the press used to...

"Shh." Jennifer stepped back. "You're all worked up." She lightly ran her hand down his ear, onto his neck.

Troy took a sharp breath, nodding mutely. He squeezed his eyes shut, ran the back of his wrist over his eyelids.

"Once upon a time, there were four little rabbits," she explained in sing-song tones, "and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter." She lightly kissed his forehead. "And they lived with their mother in a sand-bank, under the root of a great big fir tree..."

*

Troy wiped at his nose. He folded the tissue again, blew his nose a second time. His tail was a little cold. He flailed it back over the bed, wedged it underneath the pillows whilst he sat on the edge.

"You haven't even gotten undressed," Jennifer chided, slipping into the bedroom, juggling a couple of steaming mugs and a plate.

"I was thinking."

"About?" She settled them down onto the bedside table, settled down beside him.

"Weren't shoes expensive back then?" Troy stared at the palm of his left hand. He shut it, flexed it. It never felt right. "I mean the story's set around nineteen hundred. Surely his mom would've been angry if he lost his shoes? She didn't punish him or anything."

"No," Jennifer confirmed. "She just put him to bed. Sometimes that's the best cure for a day that went badly." She picked up the plate, offered it to Troy.

"I thought you told Dallas there weren't any more." Troy looked up at her, smiled a little.

She smirked. "Well I would say that, wouldn't I?"

He picked up one of the biscuits, chewed at its edge a little. It crumbled with a warm nutty flavour, though he had to gnaw at it. He shuffled back a bit on the bed, trying to slap the crumbs off the sheets. "Sorry. I, uh. I probably shouldn't eat on the bed."

"I've got a hand-vac." She set the plate down.

Troy edged back a little more, pulled up his legs and crossed them. He settled his elbows on his knees and held the biscuit in both hands, grinding his teeth on it.

It was easy, it was manageable. He could feel out the stress points in the biscuit, wet them with saliva, edge his teeth into them until they broke. Then he could chew, and chew, and forget himself in the flavour for a second.

She smiled at him, got up and headed towards her closet. She peeled off her clothes easily, dropping them into a hamper. Nothing but the soft rustle of cloth and fur for a moment, then the snap of her bra clasp.

Her nude body was beautiful. She was beautiful. She smiled a little when she noticed he was watching. Twisted in a dance-like step playfully, putting a hand to her hip, across the line where her tan fur went white on her belly. "I don't suppose I can distract you this easily, huh?" her sultry smile faded a little.

Troy glanced away, lowering the biscuit. "I don't really feel too, uhm..."

She perked her eyebrows for a second. "Sexy?"

"Something," Troy agreed. He put the biscuit on his thigh and leaned over to pick up one of the mugs. "What is this? Milk?"

"Soy," Jennifer agreed, bending over to push her panties down, a sleek black pair. She got a white pair form her dresser, pulled it on with a quick snap of the elastics. "My foster-mother felt it fixed everything. Or she tried to make it fix everything, I suppose."

Troy took a careful sip, before settling it back down on the table. "The Padre was like that." He smiled a little. "Food makes it all better."

"It's just, you know." She smiled a little, padding back to the bed. "A way to show we care," she smiled, picking up the half-eaten biscuit from Troy's thigh and offering it to him again.

He bit down on it lightly, took it in his hands and gnawed a little.

She unbuttoned his shirt for him, nimble fingertips working through each button with a snap. "And you, Troy, need a lot of caring for right now."

"I don't mean to be a burden." Troy shut his eyes lightly.

"You're not one." She ducked her head forward, kissed his nose. "So don't you even think it for a second."

He looked up at her. Her eyes were gentle. "You're so good to me."

She peeled the cloth of his shirt down off his arms, paused to let him pass the biscuit from hand to hand. She set his shirt aside, reached around his back to get the button of the tail loop open. She nuzzled his neck gently. "I'm glad."

Troy let his arms slip around her. "I love you."

He could feel her smile, the way the muscles in her face shifted her skin, making her fur rustle against his. She kissed his shoulder softly, and helped him out of his trousers.

She kissed him gently, her lips against his. Their teeth clanked together. She didn't tilt her head to press her mouth in against his. She simply kept her lips on his and teased his mouth open, making an open arch form between their snouts, so that their breath mixed, warm and damp.

Jennifer had never said that she loved him. The words didn't come easily to her. But instead she pulled the sheets over their bodies and clung close to him, biscuit crumbs grinding itchily in their fur as they embraced.

They made love anyway, pushing aside underwear to softly grind against each other in the dark. Somewhere there, between the damp kisses and ebbing pleasures, the way he whispered her name and she whispered his, Troy didn't need her to say the words.

*

"I don't want to have this dream anymore. I want to wake up."

"What dream?"

The bonesaw felt heavy somewhere through the surgery interfaces. The alien feelings of the interface went through his body like spiders on his skin. The crawling of spiders that turned to tastes and smells and temperatures.

In a second he'd put it through Berlin's ribcage and the saw would throw clouds of blood up to gently settle down, leaving tiny white specks across the whites of his dead brother's open eyes.

"This dream. I don't want it anymore."

He was in the labs. The doctors had killed Berlin and claimed it was Leukaemia, wanted to see if Troy would notice that he didn't have it. That they'd just killed him so they could make Troy dissect him and see what happened.

But the under the saw wasn't black. It was a pretty kind of tawny yellow.

"Why do you think you're having a dream, Troy?"

The curves of the body weren't childish at all. They were womanly.

Let it be a dream let it be a dream oh God please let it be a dream...

"It's not a dream."

And the saw went down and-

*

His face was wet and warm and covered in blood and his heart was shuddering but he couldn't breath there was a weight on him and he flailed his arms grabbed out at anything and and and-

There was a gasp of confused breath, and the weight on top of him came to life, was warm and soft and yelped out "Troy? Troy are you okay?"

His face wasn't wet with blood. Just tears. Troy pulled back, getting himself to sit up, tearing down breath after breath.

She reached out and dragged a finger over the frame of her lamp's slider, turning the world from an empty black to a warm melange of yellows and oranges and dim fuzzy shadows that weren't all that dark.

She blinked at him owlishly, her green eyes wide.

Troy bowed his head, dragging his chin against his chest and wiping at his face with the backs of his hands.

She frowned a little, ears lowering, and she pulled at a box of facial tissues, pushed one into his hands so he could blow his nose.

"Sorry," he whispered, folding it carefully, dabbing at his eyes, his dampened hands. He sagged back down and shifted his leg a little, dragging his tail aside so his weight wasn't on it. The night air was cold, kind of crisp. He pulled down another lungful before shutting his eyes. "Just a nightmare." He lay his head back down on the unevenly rumpled pillows.

Jennifer kissed his chest softly before settling her head back down against his sternum, rubbing her ear into his fur. "Need me to get anything for you?"

"No, I'm okay."

"Okay." She shifted her arms to gently hug herself to his body. Reached out to turn the lamp down.

Troy lifted his head a little to kiss the top of her head before settling down again.

Her breathing was even, regular. More than his, after a few minutes. He opened his eyes tiredly and stared up at the ceiling of her room. The city lights poured in through the open window, along with a slight breeze. A faint murmur of traffic.

"What was it about?" She asked sleepily, prying her fingertips underneath his sides, shifting her shoulders to crawl a little more of her torso over his, a pillow stuffed in against his side to help her lay across him comfortably.

A truck droned, and for a moment the ceiling was a little brighter, perfectly clean white plaster, perfectly flat and even.

He lightly shifted his thumb, rubbing against her back, letting her fur ruffle back and forth. "Bad things."0

She pushed her ear against his chest tighter, as though listening to his heart.

Troy sighed out his breath, took in a slow one so he didn't jolt her.

"One day you'll have sweet dreams, Troy." She gently squeezed her arms in tight around him. "Lovely dreams. And you'll leave it all behind."

Troy squeezed her back softly.

"Everything that happens to you will be nice." She took a slow, sleepy breath. "You'll find someone who loves you, and it'll be happily ever after, Troy. Everything will be perfect."

Troy flattened his hands over her naked back and felt her every breath as her chest rose and fell against his. Slowly, bit by bit, after minutes that felt like hours, she softened in his arms. Her breathing slow and perfect.

He gently lifted his head to kiss her. But she didn't respond, she was already fast asleep. He waited a little longer, to be sure, before whispering into her hair, "maybe you already do. I hope you do. I don't mind about the rest so long as I've got you."

*

A shadow flashed across the bedroom window. It blotted out the burning white of the reflected sun from the frame, disappeared in a heartbeat. The raucous laughter, ha ha ha, of the gulls at play. Morning. And not an early one, either.

Jennifer stirred groggily, sleep-drunk, hairs in her fur flicking as they straightened after being slept on all night. She patted the bed beside herself, rolled halfway over to glance back over her shoulder. She frowned, just slightly, passing her hands over the empty space where he'd slept. "Troy?"

She was so damn pretty. From the black tip of her nose to the dark point of her tail. There was so much colour and life between them. A reassuring weight and warmth during long nights, the softness of her body. The unique sound of her breath, whispery and rough.

There was hurt there too, sometimes. It wasn't all just softness. She had her secrets, her own mysterious ways. But whenever he needed her she'd be there, arms wrapped around him. When she showed some tiny part of her own pain, it just made him hold her all the closer.

Sometimes it felt like sex made up most of their relationship. But like she'd said, once. Sex and love are very related, when you do them right. Was that all love was? A gentle, warm body next to yours? A rhythm, a rising pleasure, shared breaths and moans?

Did love have to be more? Did it matter if it wasn't? Did he ache for her underneath him, breathing fast and whispering contentment, because he loved her? Or just because he wanted to forget every damned thing that had ever happened to him and sometimes, writhing in the dark, he could forget everything in his life that wasn't her?

She lifted from the pillows, looking about the room. She swept her hair away from her face, frowned when she spotted his tail.

The pink tip twitched idly as he sat huddled between the corner of her room and the chair he'd dragged in beside him. His knees drawn to his chest, his briefcase leaning against his exposed toes, papers spilled out. He drew it a little closer, wedging it straight against his knees.

"Troy?"

She wasn't dressed. At some level he wanted to uncurl himself, reach out to her, make love with her. At some level he wanted to fall asleep at her side while she told him children's stories. At some level... at some level he wanted so many things. But what he ended out doing was cowering in the corner.

She slipped from the bed, pushing back the covers. Just two steps until she crouched next to him, sweeping her hair behind her shoulder. Almost panicky in the way she reached out, touched his arm. "Troy? Are you okay?"

Troy looked down at her hand. Her perfect hand. "No." He ducked his head, lifting his arm just enough to catch a glimpse of the white fur at her wrist. "My phone won't connect."

She moved like a perfect marionette, guided by his touch. And then, all in a moment, she became heavy in his hands. She found the phone, laying on the floor amongst a scattered sheaf of papers. She picked it up and stood, turning her back on him. Her tail swatted side to side as she bowed her head to squint at the screen, touch it lightly with the pads of her fingertips.

So Troy let his head fall back against the wall, and he stared up at the blazing white window frame again, the way the sunshine turned a few motes of dust and dander into tiny stars, curling in the air, bright against the dark curtains.

"It says your communications account is cancelled." She frowned. "I don't recognise the server. Who's your provider? Let me call their billing department for you."

He watched the window. If he blinked he'd miss it, the passing shadow of a bird. It couldn't be very probable. The surface of the building's side, so large, the bird passing precisely by the window like that. If one took it in terms of all the birds in the world and all the space in the world, and compared it to this small window. Tried to calculate that. It might as well never happen. Like being struck by lightning, or winning the lottery.

"Troy?"

"I, uhm. I don't get bills. The university provides communications accounts free of charge to students and staff."

She looked at his phone for one long moment. She pulled the chair away, naked body leaning aside to move the heavy chair. Then she crouched down beside him, and then he was the marionette, being pulled into her arms, his nose against her shoulder.

She smelled like sunshine and hot sand and sweat and kisses. Her dry fur felt like soft cloth, the curves of her body were familiar, reassuring. "I love you, Jennifer."

Her breath caught in her throat, and he hated himself for wanting her to say it back, just the once. She tensed and sank in beside him, snuggling back against the wall, sitting on his tail, nuzzling at his neck with the tip of her nose.

"The gulls are playing," he whispered shakily.

She looked up at the window, spotted one of the wheeling white birds. She bit her lip, looked down. She picked up one of Troy's hands, held it gently. Laced her fingers with his. "It'll get better, Troy. I promise it'll get better."

Ha ha ha, the gulls cried. Ha ha ha.

***

:// City of San Iadras, 'Furry' District.

*

The table was empty, now. The loveseat was in another room, the other table that Florence'd dragged in to get enough seating room for everyone was wedged in a corner with Florence's workstation folded up on it, leaning against the wall so it could charge. Last night there had been people sitting there, and drinks and... and a cake.

Troy settled his elbows on the table and dropped his chin into his hands, pulling forward on his chair until he could push his tail through the backrest.

Dallas padded in, his socks thumping against the carpet. "Here you go," he offered, laying out a wallet full of tools, an old data screen.

"Thanks." Troy sighed. He glanced back at the apartment console. "Uhm. Has Jen called?"

Dallas bit his lip and pulled his phone out, checking it, to be sure. He shook his head. "Nope. No calls," he said, sitting across the table.

Troy thumped his tail on the carpeted floor. "Okay. Maybe she'll be back soon." He pulled the wallet over, zipped it open, fumbling his own phone onto the table.

"Uh. She's only been gone like ten minutes."

"Should've gone with her," Troy mumbled, slipping out a screwdriver and taking it to the plastic shell of his phone, twisting open the screws.

Dallas watched quietly. He reached out to sort the screws as they popped free. "Shopping centres are all pretty crowded. It's lunch hour."

"Well, should've. Waited, then. For deliveries. Could've just ordered it online..."

"Troy." Dallas sighed, tapping the screws around on the table with his fingernail. "Don't be so hard on yourself."

"My girlfriend is out running errands for me because I'm too much of a big baby to just calm down enough to wait it out for a delivery guy to get a new Comm-ID token here." Troy looked up shakily. "Or to just. Just deal with something normal like going into a crowd. I don't see how I can feel great about myself here, Dallas."

Dallas didn't reply to that. Just kept scooting the screws over the table surface, not quite looking up to meet Troy's gaze.

Once the back was off his phone it was easy enough. The security seals warning that there were no user serviceable parts were already broken. He'd done that when he'd gotten this phone... what. Last year? Was it the one he'd gotten when he'd met her?

Troy bit his lip and turned over one of the few hardstate electronics wafers in the phone. The data transfer contacts were already scratched open. He remembered doing it at the coffee table while she'd watched quietly, maybe impressed a little.

Troy sighed and picked up the data screen, looping out a spare bit of cable and just holding it in place.

Dallas picked up one of the wire clips from the wallet, held it out.

"Thanks." Troy sighed, wedging the cables down.

Dallas shrugged a little. "It's no problem." He resumed tapping at the screws, watching them intently as they rolled.

Troy just went through the buffers, pulling down what data he could. He'd need to talk to the hard storage facility at the university to get the rest of his personal stored data out, but he could make a start now.

"Uhm. do you..." Dallas frowned. "Do you kind of. Sometimes forget? That, uhm. Not all humans are like that?"

The fur stood up on the back of Troy's neck. "Like what?"

Dallas shrugged a little. He scratched the side of his snout. "The doctors and interns and everybody? Remember, uhm. Doctor Lewis?"

Troy felt heat pour into his face. "I remember."

"Sometimes I think I spot her in crowds. You know. Pretty much any big blonde lady, but I guess Doctor Lewis was just average height." Dallas idly picked at his arms.

Troy set down the data pad lightly. The bitch. That fucking bitch.

"I mean if I'm concentrating and don't let my mind wander much, y'know. I'm sort of okay with crowds, but." Dallas bowed his head, pinching with his fingernails, at the skin beneath his fur. "I just kind of wondered if it's the same for you."

Troy watched his brother's fingers move. He reached out, almost by reflex, gently pulling Dallas's hand away. Like he had so many times before.

Dallas looked down, almost tired. He guiltily pulled his hand free, started picking at his fingernails instead.

"It doesn't heal if you pick at it," Troy whispered.

Dallas's tail thudded side to side, slapping on the carpet behind him. He looked away, at a print on the wall. He always looked away.

Even during eye exams.

Which was why Doctor Lewis had picked up the cautery tool.

The bitch.

The goddamn bitch.

"Sorry about last night." Dallas picked up the screws, one by one, setting them on their heads. "I should've just let Florence handle the cake. Then, uhm. Things would've gone better."

"I had a nice night on the whole. It was nice being with family." Troy looked back at his phone. Started browsing through the short term memory. "Don't beat yourself up over it."

Dallas bit the inside of his lip, scraping his toes against the carpet. "So, uhm."

"Uhm?"

"How come you can, and I can't?"

Troy glanced up briefly. "What?"

"How come you get to be all mopey because Jennifer helps keep you sane, but I can't be mopey because I did something stupid?"

Troy squinted. "Keeps me sane?"

Dallas shrugged. "Well, that's what Nadine calls it when she does it for me."

Troy flexed his ears out, ducking his head to work on his phone. Even though the transfer was automated by now.

"Seriously. How come?"

Troy bit his lip. "I don't know."

"Uh huh. So. So... either we're both allowed, or neither of us is."

"Equal through and through, huh?"

Dallas nodded. "Yeah."

Troy sighed. "Okay. Let's be mopey. I don't know what the hell I'm doing with my life anymore, Dallas. Up until yesterday I was a post-grad finishing my doctorate." He forced on a smile. Lost it in a shrug. Put the phone aside. "I sort of thought that today I'd be thinking about next week with the reactor fuel mix. Maybe look at research units somewhere else once I had it locked down perfectly."

"Okay." Dallas nodded a little

"Now, uhm. Now I'm running out of money, and my salary is probably going to end up frozen. Maybe the university is going to say I screwed up their research and I'm liable for monetary damage." Troy looked up at the room's lights. "Uhm. I'm really scared. And I don't know if Jennifer's going to..." He trailed off, shaking his head.

"Gonna what?"

"Going to put up with all my bullshit." Troy grimaced a little. "I mean have you seen the guys she usually dates?"

Dallas frowned. "I didn't know she dated other guys."

"Well you know I'm not always around, so." Troy threw up his shoulder in a half shrug. "I don't want to hold her to anything. But, uhm. Jesus, Dallas. She dates actors and executives and guys with money. And... then there's me. This. This fucked up guy who wakes her up at night and freaks out on her every other visit."

Dallas just stared. Eyebrows coming together. Concern, shared worry. Sympathy.

Troy bent his head to stare at the data transfer. "I really love her, but, uhm." He grimaced. "I think one day she's going to wake up and realize just how much of a screw-up I am, Dally. Or if she doesn't I'm just going to be this lump in her life. This crying baby who sends her out on stupid errands because I'm too selfish and stupid to just suck it up like a man."

Dallas's hand came down over Troy's own, flattening it against the data screen. "You aughta move down here," he said. "You really aughta. Then you can-"

"Then I can what? Turn her whole life into this glorified 'be concerned about Troy' thing?" Troy shook his head. "I don't want to do that to her."

Dallas remained silent a long moment. "You haven't called me Dally since we were twelve."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to make fun." Troy pulled his hand away. Wiped at the sides of his eyes with the back of his wrist, one after the other.

"I know you don't." Dallas picked up one of the screws, bit his lip as he tapped it on the table.

Dallas shook his head. "Equal through and through," he said.

He pulled back a moment. Stretched so he could get at the pocket of his jeans, pulled something out that tinkled on the table.

Troy leaned forward a little. A gold band. A tiny diamond, set simply on its edge.

"I saved up, y'know. Florence even loaned me some money. I decided on it right after Saigon got married." Dallas nodded to himself. "Ever since then every morning I've told myself, okay. Today's the day you ask Nadine if she wants to marry you."

Dallas poked his finger down on the table beside the ring. "Every morning it goes into my pocket, Troy. Every morning. Like four months now. I still haven't. Because every day I just start thinking I'm all selfish and stupid and I screw things up so she has to fix them for me."

Dallas tried on a false smile. It looked better on him than it ever would on Troy. "I'd be such a big burden on her, you know? And we haven't even been together a whole year yet. Maybe it's too soon. There's like a million reasons I peck at myself with, Troy. Millions of them, for breaking up with Nadine."

Troy picked up the ring uncertainly, turned it over carefully. "Yeah? But, uhm. I guess there's that one reason you don't just pack it in, though."

Dallas nodded. "Yeah. Exactly. So if we're both doing it." He shrugged. "Y'know. We should write this off as genes or being screwed up in the labs somewhere."

"Guess we should." Troy offered back the ring.

Dallas took it back and slipped it back into his pocket, patting lightly to make sure it was secure. "Exactly. Equal through and through. So don't worry about being a burden on Jennifer. This is just... us being paranoid."

Troy nodded a little. "I guess that helps. Kind of."

Dallas nodded again, so fast his ears flapped. "Yeah."

"I don't think Jen's the marrying type, though." Troy tapped the table lightly.

"So are you going to think about moving back down here now?"

"I don't know." Troy bowed his head tiredly. clutched at his face.

"There's always stuff happening. Like Saigon's thing tonight."

"Saigon's thing?"

Dallas nodded. "Yeah. Anne's got him singing now as part of the band." He glanced up with a slight smirk. "We've all seen it, he's, uhm. ... Pretty good I guess."

Troy frowned. "What kind of music?"

Dallas shrugged. "This kind of loud angry thing. Death punk or something. You should go."

"I don't know. I think I just want a quiet night alone, you know. Maybe... get a book or something," Troy sighed, clutching his hands together.

"Well, we're all here for you if you need us." Dallas shrugged a shoulder again, hunching back up over the table.

"If you need us?" Troy glanced up.

Dallas dry swallowed, waving a hand uncomfortably. "I'm just. I'm just thinking about how it is with everybody being off on the other side of the world and. Lagos and Osaka were alone a lot, and-"

Troy frowned. "What do you mean alone a lot?"

"Well before they died... I mean Osaka just stopped answering mail and Lagos was the same and Nash..."

Troy looked up sharply, skin crawling under the fur. "Nashville got run over, Dallas. It was a drunk driver."

Dallas shook his head miserably, glancing away. "Dubai's part of the United Arab Emirates, Troy. They don't have manual driving anymore."

"Goddamnit, it was a fucking drunk driver!" Troy's yell was almost desperate. And Dallas cringed, staring away, back and to a side.

Troy dragged his hand off the table gingerly. He hadn't realized he'd hit it so hard.

Dallas cleared his throat.

"All I'm saying is, he didn't talk much to anybody either, and after he died I really regretted not hanging out with him more." Dallas didn't look up, letting his head hang low.

Troy didn't reply, staring at Dallas. "I haven't been answering my calls because of the media calls. And now I need a new account."

Dallas nodded mutely.

"And. ... I'll go to Saigon's thing."

"Okay."

"I'm not going to die or commit suicide."

Dallas's ear twitched guiltily. "I didn't mean to imply that."

"But I'm not. Okay?"

Dallas nodded, just a tiny bit. "Okay."

Dallas looked up warily. "Will you move back down here?"

"I don't know," Troy sighed, settling his elbows on the table and holding up his head. "Maybe. You going to propose?"

Dallas shrugged a little, picking at his fingernails. he smirked a little. "I'd probably flip out or something I did. Do I look crazy to you? No way. Not yet."

Troy forced on a smirk. "Well actually you do..."

***

:// City of San Iadras, 'Midtown' district, Hallman Towers.

*

Troy hauled his phone from his pocket again. Checked the display. Thumbed over to the new account's mailbox. A couple of test messages from Dallas, registration information from authentication services Jennifer had recommended.

Troy had never used one before. But they provided added security, Jen said, and more crucially better privacy protection. Ten nudies a year. He'd have to recommend it to his brothers.

And he'd also have to stop compulsively checking to see if Greg had finally picked up any of his text messages or had tried to call in the last five minutes, or whether or not any of his feeds had updated, or once again making sure he'd gotten enough of his personal settings off his buffers so that he didn't have to rebuild all the profile options on his services.

Troy grimaced and shoved his phone back into his pocket, looking up at the numeric counter. Should've taken the faster express elevator, straight to the hundred-and-fiftieth floor.

Of course, that one was crowded. The smaller side elevators weren't.

Jennifer pursed her lips, staring into the mirrored wall of the elevator. She lightly ran her fingers over her hair, setting a few errant strands back into place. "You think I look okay? Is it too much?"

"Uhm."

She'd used a temporary spray to darken her hair, turning it into a kind of rusty blood colour where it wasn't black. The black lipstick matched, since it wasn't quite black, rather a sort of oily surface that was a thousand different whorls that hinted green and red.

The high heels she'd pulled on had studs that looked almost like spikes, the skirt kind of frayed off into broken twists midway down her thighs. The black rose on a silver chain around her neck dangled down into the low cut of her shirt.

"Is it too much?" She looked up from black-lidded eyes, glancing up at him earnestly.

Troy dry swallowed, glancing down at himself.

The black jeans were a bad idea.

"Uhm. I think, uhm."

They didn't even have any rips in them.

Troy kicked the elevator floor with the toe of his sneakers. "I think, uhm."

She watched him silently for a moment. Slowly, slowly, a smile creeped up on her. "Don't rush yourself."

Troy chewed the inside of his cheek a second. "Well, uh. I, really like it." He chewed his lip, threw his head to the side with a shrug. "I mean, I think it's sexy, but... I don't really know how you're meant to dress for these things."

"Aww." She lightly smoothed out the collar of his T-shirt, letting her hands slide over his shoulders. She cocked her hips, dangled her arms from around the back of his neck. "You're nervous."

Troy shook his head almost childishly.

"Don't worry sweetie. You're all black. Black fits in everywhere. Even hate-rock concerts." Jennifer smirked. "Especially hate-rock concerts."

"It's just a bar gig." Troy glanced down at himself. "The shirt's too much."

She looked down concernedly. "Mine? I could take it off."

Troy couldn't help snorting out a breath of laughter. "No! Mine."

"I could take that off, too," she teased. Jennifer absently tugged at the shirt's collar, pulling it flat against his chest. "I think it's very appropriate."

A severed hand dripping blood on a black background, clenched in a defiant fist. The middle finger flicked up. It cycled through other gestures, including some Troy hadn't known were obscene.

"Saigon told me to wear it." He dry swallowed. "It's not even mine, it's his."

"Well I think it's very kind that you're coming. Imagine how he must feel. He's got to go up on stage, even." Jennifer let her hands drop to her sides, and glanced up at the floor counter.

"Yeah." Troy nodded a little. "Gotta support my brother."

"Mhmm." Jennifer nodded too, glancing down. She caught his hand, gave it a squeeze. "Don't be scared."

"I'm not."

"Okay." She nodded again, eyes shut just a moment before she looked up at the counter again. "Nearly there. It's a pretty long elevator ride, isn't it?"

"Yeah, sorry about that." Troy glanced down at the flooring.

Jennifer smiled in a weird way, tilting her head slightly. "That's okay. Look. Hundred and forty-fifth."

Troy swallowed at his spit again. "Uhm. We don't have to dance, do we?"

"Not if you don't want." Jennifer shrugged a shoulder.

"If we could find somewhere to sit down first thing, that'd be pretty good."

"You're nervous."

"Maybe."

Jennifer leaned forward suddenly, kissing the tip of his snout. "You'll be fine."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

He could hear the music, all hard smashes and guitars, just faintly, when they got up to the forty-ninth. And when the doors opened, it only took Jen a second or so to get him to pull his hands away from his ears.

*

It wasn't what Troy had expected. Not at all.

The announcer hadn't even gotten up on the stage, not even a microphone, instead just screaming over the audience up next to the stage.

"Bitches and bastards. Give it up for Bergschrund!"

They didn't even bother switching the stage lights on. The only real illumination was from the windows at one end of the bar,

Anne was on stage first, lifting up her guitar to a ragged round of abuse and cheers. One of Anne and Saigon's friends from the antarctic research station pulled up a seat, checking a pad before picking up his drum sticks, a fairly new pair that apparently didn't need bulky sliders to simulate impacts.

Then there was Saigon, back still to the audience, almost invisible in the dark.

Anne lifted her guitar, strumming out surprisingly warm tones. A rumbling purr, each one, and each one she killed with a mocking twang, shaking the guitar's neck lightly. A neat row of three rings through each ear matched those of her husband, her clothes were just as ragged, though she was unlike him in almost every other way.

Saigon grinned. "Ohhh, where's my head?" He tore his eyes off his wife, and turned them on the audience. There wasn't much light in the bar, but Saigon didn't need a spotlight to stand out. His eyes simply glowed with biophosphoric compounds. A mouse, just a shade under five foot ten, black furred, a mesh shirt of black and white slashes. He crooned at the microphone, ever so gently. Almost sweetly. "Is it on the shelf? Is it on the wall? Is it in the gutter? Oh mother..."

His face turned hard. "Oh mother," he repeated, a harsh whisper. "Oh mother of mercy!" he screeched, a shocking wail Anne followed with tearing chords on the guitar, backed by pounding beats. "You beheaded me and my kind, tore our beating hearts free." Saigon pushed his bleached white hair back from his eyes. Black lights came on, turning his hair and his eyes and the slashes on his clothes into blue and green and purple flames. "My blood's on your son's hands, and his has never redeemed the sins against me!"

"Where's your fucking mercy? Somewhere in hell? Somewhere in the hearts of men? In your church?" He pulled back from the stagefront slowly. "I've been barred from those places," he purred. "Because I've been alone, laying with the whore of Babylon. I am her beast, since every other path is denied to me."

Backed by a heartbeat-like pounding of chords, Saigon fell to his knees, clawing at his face, tail flailing out behind him. "Where's your mercy, mother? Where's your mercy?" His voice lost its anger, grew desperate, wailing as he plead for mercy, only to get on his feet a moment later, clenching his hands into fists as he spat out the words rapid-fire.

"Cut up and broken I lie at the gates of paradise and Peter spits on me and my kin because we were never given souls, oh no dear mother mercy where is the mercy in your heart for those with no mother no father to honour?"

He hauled one breath into his burning lungs and yelled, "I have no saviour! I am to suffer under the knife forever! Where is your mercy now, bitch? Why do they suck the fat from my broken bones and laugh?" Saigon's body shook in fury, his eyes almost demonic with the glow of dye. "Why do they laugh, bitch? Are you their whore? Do you offer them your teat and let them suck you dry?"

The lights rose, finally, as Saigon settled back, his countenance calming almost instantly. He tilted his head slowly, the throbbing music ebbing to nothing but a pulse. "Where's my head, mother mercy? Give me head, bitch, because you seem to be sucking off everybody but me."

Saigon lifted his fist with a snap, and flicked up the middle finger as the music finally died. The lights beat away the last of the shadows, and the eerie glow around him faded with it.

The audience, mostly kids in their late teens, waved wildly, cheered, cursed, whistled so sharply that Troy wondered if his ears might start bleeding. If his brother's screeching hadn't already half-deafened him, anyway.

*

"That was, uhm. Weird."

"Anne's idea. It's not even my shirt, it's hers." Saigon looked down at himself, pulling the mesh shirt away from himself a little, slashlike swatches of fabric stretching. "I don't think this counts as crossdressing, though."

Troy took a sip of his drink. The back room was nice and quiet. Anne and Toby - the drummer and fellow researcher from Antarctica - were eagerly poring over blogs and feeds, trying to see if a performance barely an hour old had made any impact.

Jennifer was bemusedly holding loops of cable for Saigon as he untangled it. She tilted her head a little, smirking to herself. "Anne's idea? I think it looked pretty good."

"Uhm, thanks." Saigon flicked an ear. He bowed down, pulling up another tangle of cable. "Fricking stage hands... they don't know how to unwire a stage."

Troy cleared his throat. "Not the shirt. I mean. The lyrics."

"Uh. Kinda sacriligeous, I know" Saigon bowed his head a little shamefully. "I got a little carried away, is all. Padre wouldn't be happy about it."

"Isn't that kind of part of growing up?" Jennifer asked, tilting her head a little. "Rejecting your parents?"

Troy frowned. "The Padre. ... Padre Munez wasn't really like a foster-parent to us. More like, an, uh..."

Saigon's nose twitched. "No, he was pretty dad-like. It's just, uh. With twenty one of us, it was a little difficult. He didn't get much help with us. Church basically made him into a cow herd."

Troy squinted. "Cow herd?"

"Okay, it's a bad term."

"You're still sore about the bishop, aren't you?" Troy asked.

Jennifer quirked an eyebrow. "Bishop?"

"Are you guys talking chess or about that Ragno asshole?" Anne peeked up from the consoles.

Saigon winced. "Ragno, but he wasn't an asshole. He was the diocesan bishop, honey. You shouldn't call an ordained bishop an asshole."

"Yeah you fucking should. That turd."

Jennifer cleared her throat. "What happened?"

Troy licked his lips. Took another sip of the alcohol. It only bit a little. "Uhm. We were in the orphanage, and, uh... It was Catholic. And we don't have souls, because we're animals. So. We can't be saved. And, the diocese Bishop ordered us thrown out when we were sixteen."

Saigon nodded. "Yeah. I, uhm. I always wanted to get angry about that. Like you did, with those auditors." He gestured at the music equipment laying around. "Anne encouraged me, and, uhm. Came out a little venom-soaked I guess."

"Auditors?" Jennifer blinked. "I haven't heard this story."

"Well," Saigon said, taking the cables from Jennifer and packing them carefully in plastic bags. "That's a long story."

"Fuck, the auditors..." Troy sighed.

"Tri-Corp auditors were investigating Estian's cloning practices," Saigon explained. "This is how we all got out of there, Jennifer. They were getting shown around the labs one time and we were lined up like good little kids and they were all talking over our heads about the great results they were getting. And Troy had the balls, thank God, Troy had the balls to say 'they're making that all up. They broke Kiev.'"

"Broke Kiev?" Jennifer's eyebrows came together in a deep frown.

"Yeah." Troy dry swallowed. "The cybernetics they stuck in his spine screwed up. Left him paralysed. He died a week or two later. I don't think it took balls. It was just fact."

"Oh, no way." Saigon shook his head. "Betchett looked pissed. Like she was going to do that knuckle thing, with the filing drawer?"

Jennifer's eyes were all too wide. Even Toby was staring. "What the fuck? You never told us about this."

"What was I meant to do? Bring it up over sardines at the research station? Hey guys, seen how cold it is outside? Man I hope they can get a plane in through the weather. Oh yeah, me and my brothers were brutally abused by the quacks working on us." Saigon scrunched up an eye. "I don't think it would've made good dinner talk."

"Fucking hell."

"Anyway. Troy had the guts to talk back, and thank God he did. The Auditors launched a fuller investigation. Pulled up us in front a board trying to decide why all our little crayon pictures we made with the shrinks were bloody." Saigon shrugged, hunching his shoulders. "Y'know. Are clones predisposed to unjustly thinking they're treated badly. My God Troy got pissed off."

"I wasn't pissed off..."

"Yeah you were. What'd you say? Something like, 'They keep surgery more sterile for actual lab mice than for us.'" Saigon swatted his tail side to side. "Fuck, though. 'I don't actually count as legally able to have an opinion, do I?'" He glanced up at Jennifer. "He just sassed them, like that. Ten years old."

Troy felt himself blushing. His ears hot, his face hot. His guts all churny. "Yeah, well. They'd been running us around unable to decide if they had to use doctors or veterinarians to check our health. They'd taken off my damn arm, torn out Turin's eye. Fucking hell, they were pumping you full of sedatives and cutting you up to see if they could mess with the healing cycle via the central nervous system."

Troy grimaced. "And, and, and. They needed to dick around trying to figure out what kind of person they needed to tell them if we were being treated inhumanely? What kind of idiots were they?" He was met with silence. Troy ducked his head, sipping from his drink. "Yeah, I was pissed off."

Saigon bit his lip a moment. "I was just scared. So Goddamn scared. I always admired you for that, Troy. Getting angry about it. I never managed that."

"Those bastards." Toby shook his head. "Fucking bastards..."

"You got angry." Jennifer's voice was soft. She lay her hand on Troy's knee.

Troy shrugged sheepishly. "Something."

"Yeah." Saigon looked up. "Anyway. I just. Just wanted to know what it's like to do that. I never really said anything about it at the time, but. When Bishop Ragno said that. Well I mean he was just trying to keep to canon law, but..."

Anne had stepped up behind Saigon. Kissed the top of his head. "He was an asshole, honey. You have a soul."

Troy snuffled a little against the back of his hand. "Technically not, Anne. We're animals. Furs are derived from modified gene-stock that's entirely non-human. That's why it was legal to make us in the first place."

"Shut it." Anne hugged Saigon's head to her body, flattening his ears against her stomach. "My little mousey is perfect in every way."

"Uhm... Honey..."

"Oh God, not this again!" Toby started laughing.

Troy smirked a little, glancing at Jennifer. She was smiling too, a bit.

Anne pulled Saigon's ears gently, wafting them back and forth. "He has floppidy-ears an I wuv him so much. He's perfect-wonderful and he can have a soul if I says so," gushed the death-metal hate rocker, with a fish-hook through her navel.

"Honey," Saigon whined, trying to keep his ears from getting pierced on her jewellery.

It was kind of funny, how well Anne knew Saigon. How to torment him, just so, and derail his train of thought.

"How about we go get some more drinks?" Jennifer squeezed Troy's hand. "I want to talk to you about something," she added quietly.

"Alright, uhm..."

"Catch up with you later," Toby offered easily.

Saigon lifted a hand briefly, as Jennifer pulled Troy to his feet. "Uhm, Anne... would you stop?"

"Precious mousey has toes and a tail and you're trying to tell me he doesn't have a soul too?" Anne left a black lipstick mark in his ear. "I say you have a soul. Are you saying I'm crazy?"

"Uhm. ... Yes?"

*

The wind caught at her hair, her fur, the frayed ends of her dress. It was hot. An equatorial night mixing with the building's shedded heat, air-conditioning fans rumbling on the other side of the roof garden. Jennifer had set her drink on the stone lip at the roof's edge, was leaning over it, rushes of air whipping her hair up.

She grinned a little, shifting an almost bare shoulder before pointing out into the night. "I think that's my apartment block!"

Troy edged up next to her, put his drink beside hers. He had to squint into the wind, flatten his ears a little against it. "What, there?"

"No, further up the hill." She bumped his shoulder against his lightly. Paused to pull up the arm of her shirt.

A white building, terraced in layers up the hill so each floor had its own set of balconies, like steep stairs. A tiny dot, far away on the hillside where spotlights kept the greenery green even at one AM. Past skyscrapers and in the midst of a dozen other blocks like it, only noticeable because they were so high up. The coast glittered with light pollution, made all the waves glow as they broke.

Troy found himself moving his hand over Jennifer's. She curled her fingers in against his. They weren't the only couple up here. They were the only furs, though. Inevitably they got stared at, just a little. Curious glances, like the ones you got from behind clipboards and over data screens.

He squeezed her hand gently. "You wanted to talk."

Jennifer nodded, turning around and sitting down on the edge, flicking her tail out over the edge. She patted the stone next to her, picking up her fizzy blue drink.

"Uhm." Troy leaned out a little, glancing over the edge. Christ, it was a long way down...

Jennifer laughed, a delightful, tinkly kind of sound. "It's safe! There's nets. What, you think the property owners want to pay the insurance if some drunk knocks their glass over the edge and kills somebody?"

"Guess not." Troy cleared his throat and sat down, curling his tail around his thigh, tip curling around his shoes.

Jennifer grabbed the side of his tail, pulled it. "Oh come on, live a little!"

Troy hunched up. "Okay, okay!" He swept his tail over the side. Felt it thump against the concrete and glass. He plucked up his drink, some kind of cloudy dark green, apple-tasting liquor. Took a tiny sip.

It wasn't as scary as he'd expected. His tail, swaying back and forth, occasionally grazed Jennifer's shorter one, her fur grazing him.

Jennifer edged up a little closer, sneaking her shoulder underneath his arm while she sipped at her drink, kind of wriggling against his armpit until he put his arm around her. She dipped her head, slender muzzle marked by a smile. "Okay. Now. You got angry."

"Kinda."

"I didn't know you could get angry." She tilted her head a little. "Why did you?"

"I don't know." Troy slumped his head, shrugged a little, leaning into her, while gusts fluttered against his back.

"Troy. You've... you've had a rough time, sweetie. And I'm worried about you."

"I'm okay."

"No you're not." She nuzzled his face softly, her lips still a little moist from the last sip of her drink. "You've been through so much, Troy. So much. And now, because your phone screws up. Because some jerk pulls some backstabby bullshit, you fold up?"

"Uhm. It's not backstabby. It's just, you know, academia-"

"Oh come on." She drew back, eyes half-lidded dangerously. "I've worked in offices most of my adult life, Troy. I know a hatchet job when I see one. That Lowell guy, he didn't even do a very good one."

"You read it, then."

She nodded slightly. "Yeah. Sweetie. You're so much stronger than this. I mean I remember that night I met you. You made that speech, you remember?"

Troy settled his elbows on his knees. Shrugged a shoulder helplessly, eyes shut against the world. "It was just. Y'know. Stating fact."

"You were challenging corporate policy, Troy. You basically called the Tri-Corp idiots, in public, to the faces of half the most influential shareholders." Jennifer leaned forward, putting her hands in his. "And even if it was all true, it was still really brave."

"The fund just needed someone to speak. They wanted one of us because of the tabloid stuff when we were kids, you know?" Troy grimaced a little. "I, uhm. I didn't want to put any of my brothers through that."

"Sweetie. You've been through so much in your life. Don't tell me some prick is going to ruin it by getting you fired."

"It's not getting fired!" Troy pulled away. "He's saying my work's no good. Jennifer, this is like being told you don't know shit about relativity by Einstein. That's practically who Lowell is, Jen. His word is taken like law. I. I don't have a career anymore." He sighed. "Maybe I never did."

"Are you telling me that this guy gives you nightmares?" Jennifer tilted her head. "Are you telling me that guy is even a tenth as bad as the stuff that happened to you as a kid?"

"No?" Troy took a panicky breath, pulled his hands away. "I don't know."

She reached up, set her hand on his back. "What's wrong, Troy?"

"I don't know what's going on anymore." He shook his head. "When I was a kid. It was so easy to just tell them to go fuck themselves because..." Troy gestured back at the stairs to the bar. "I could get angry about it because there wasn't anywhere to go. I thought I was going to die."

"And now?"

Troy bit his lip. "Now I can just. I don't know. Hide." He sagged. "I can just run away. Stick my head in the sand. Or try to, anyway."

"I mean, you don't think you're going to die. So what do you think is going to happen?" She lifted an eyebrow a little.

"I'm going to suffer. And, I'm going to screw everything up and. Everything's going to go wrong and there's nothing I can do about it." Troy shrugged. "That's how my life works, Jennifer."

"You can do plenty about it, Troy." She ducked her head slightly, leaning into him, pushing at his side. "Don't fold up like this, or you really will screw things up in your life. Everything will go wrong, if you let it. I don't know much about the science, but you're stronger than that."

"It's all my fault. Why else would all of this happen to me?" Troy pulled in a soblike breath. "There has to be something wrong with me."

"No, Troy. Nuh uh." Jennifer shook her head just a little. "There's something wrong with the doctors who did everything to you in your childhood. There's something wrong with that bishop guy. There's something wrong with this Professor Lowell." She caught his eye. "You. Are perfect."

Troy glanced down. He pulled in a breath, staring down at his shoes.

Bit his lip.

She rubbed his back lightly.

"You're not going to start pulling on my ears, are you?"

"If that's what it takes." She poked her snout in behind his ear, kissed gently.

"So what do I do?"

Jennifer stroked the side of his face. "Something. Anything. Get angry if you have to, Troy. But if something bad happens... for God's sake, don't run off into the ocean and drown yourself just so you can hide from it."

"I'll try." Troy quirked an eyebrow for a moment. He smiled, shook his head. He bit his lip lightly. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

Troy licked his lips. "I'm not that great a guy. Why do you. You know. Put up with me?"

Jennifer's eyes flicked wide and open. "Put up with you? Troy. You are the sweetest guy I have ever met." She kissed his nose, as if to drive the point home.

"I'm not perfect."

"No, but am I?" She flicked an ear. "Nothing's perfect, Troy. I..." Her voice hitched a moment. "I think you're wonderful, Troy. You're nothing but considerate. You fix my door, you forgive me when I do horrible things. You don't just say you love me, you." She took a heavy breath, glancing away for just a moment. "You make me feel that you love me, Troy. And I never actually had that before. I thought I did, but, I didn't."

Troy slipped his arm around her shoulders again, hugged her lightly. "I do love you," he agreed with a whisper.

"And I feel very strongly about you." Jennifer leaned her face in against Troy's. "I hope you know that."

He caught her chin with his fingertips. Pulled her lips up against his. She tasted a little sharp, between the unfamiliar lipstick and the liquor she'd been drinking.

He liked the way she blinked her eyelids when he was done, loved the little sparkle in her eye. So he kissed her again, wrapping his hands around the back of her head, while he barely registered her doing the same.

Tiny little pecks, bigger ones when her hot mouth opened to his. Laps of tongue to tongue, a tiny little nibble at her lip. A self conscious pulling back, a gasp for air. Pushing his nose into her hair, even though it smelled like solvents in the dye she'd used tonight.

"That answer you?"

"Kinda," she whispered. "Could you repeat that?"

***

:// City of San Iadras, 'Midtown' district, Hallman Towers.

*

"This is so not my scene." Troy sucked in a breath, glancing around the bar. It was mostly emptied out. Toby was talking with someone from another band. Well. Talking wasn't really the right word. You couldn't talk with someone's tongue in your mouth.

Well. Not exactly.

Saigon straightened out his shirt, a home-made three phase print of a glacier tearing open a crevasse and spraying ice shards everywhere. "It grows on you. I never got to pick the music at the research station."

"Grows on you how?" Troy squinted. "Like a tumour?"

"Ha, Ha. Ha?" Saigon lifted an eyebrow. "Very amusing?"

"I put it on real loud when we fuck," Anne slurred happily, slipping her arm around Saigon's waist. "It's a Pavlovian response." She swung up a finger. "Ding!"

Saigon abruptly looked like a deer in headlights. A slaughtered deer in headlights. "Honey..."

"Hey. I'm a physiologist. Just like Pavlov." She wagged a finger.

Jennifer smirked, far too amused. "Wasn't Pavlov a psychologist?"

"Ivan Pavlov did a lot of things," Troy offered with a slight sigh.

"A plant physiologist," Saigon protested, edging up off his bar stool. "What does that have to do with this?"

"It's all wood," Anne deadpanned, before pouring forth giggles.

Saigon rolled his eyes, looping an arm around her and patting her side. "Uhm. I think it's time for us to go home, honey."

"Yeah, okay." Anne grinned, pulling the strap of her guitar's bag over her shoulder. "Hey, Toby! You coming?"

Whatever Toby's reply was, it was kind of muffled. He waved a hand dismissively.

Saigon dry swallowed. "Coming?"

Troy looked up. "Uh..."

"Last dance?" Jennifer piped up, lifting her eyebrows hopefully.

"I, uh. I don't really know how to dance?..."

She paused. "Really? I'll teach you sometime. How about a last drink?" She tried, shifting a shoulder alluringly.

"Uhm..."

"See you around," Saigon chuckled, leading Anne away.

Troy watched his brother go, before edging his arm around Jennifer. "Is there any particular thing you want to stick around for?"

"Not really, just, uhm..." Jennifer shifted awkwardly. "Something I wanted to do, and, uh." She glanced after Saigon. I don't think there's ever going to be a better opportunity."

"What?" He pulled back a little, arching an eyebrow.

"This is awkward."

"I'm listening."

"Uhm. Oh geez." She bit her lip with a huff of breath. She leaned close, stuck her nose in his ear and whispered. "I've always had this fantasy about having sex in an elevator, and, uhm... maybe if we got that slow one to ourselves..."

*

"This is insane. There are cameras, building security..."

Jennifer patted his shoulder rapidly, glancing down the mostly deserted hallway to the club, and the express. "No, no. It's all automated, building management systems don't put it in front of anybody unless, like. You pull out a gun."

Troy dry swallowed and threw his shoulders back playfully. "I thought that's, uh, what you were gonna-"

She slapped his shoulder with a heavy thwap. "Shhh," she hissed, putting a finger across her lips. She glanced down the hallway again, before pushing him up against the wall, next tot he cherry red light of the call button. "I've been thinking about this a lot. You can't hit the emergency stop button like in the movies, because then someone gets called to look at the screen."

Troy settled his arms around her, watching the hallway behind her. "So, uh. What if someone gets on, midway?"

"It's one AM! Who else is in the building? Nobody."

Troy blinked. "Janitors?"

Jennifer sagged back, biting her lip. "Shit. Maybe we shouldn't."

"Well, maybe..." Troy pulled her a little closer, her hands bunched up between them on his chest. His heart lurched. "I mean, we'd only have, what, five minutes? And I mean, how would we actually... you know."

"More like four. I thought I could pull up my skirt and, we could do it like in the shower when you push me up against the wall and I, uh," she squeezed a hand free, wriggling a finger back and forth. "Lift my leg up, and you hold my knee?"

Troy blinked at her. "You've been planning this."

"Maybe?" She edged her thigh in between his legs, put her weight against his crotch. The jeans hadn't been that tight, had they? There was the patter of feet down the hall.

"Ohmigodohmigodohmigod," Jennifer babbled into a harsh whisper, straightening out and stepping back slightly, brushing at her hair self consciously.

Troy huffed for breath, leaning back against the wall. He glanced down. "Oh Jesus," he hissed, turning to face the elevator. His face burned as a couple of humans walked by, deep in slurred conversation.

"So I says... so I says, you can't do that to a girl." "Yeah, poor thing, be like getting locked up with the devil." "No kidding, she, she's gotta break out... heh. Break up with him."

Jennifer's eyes tracked them as they went past, all the way to the end of the hall.

He whispered, "did they even see us?" Troy's tail curled tensely.

"They looked pretty drunk." She stepped closer, one of her feet between his. She settled her fingertips on his collarbone, rubbing lightly through his T-shirt. "You don't have to, I mean... Mmm."

Troy's hands had just kind of found their way to her rear. He could smell alcohol on her breath, not much, but enough. He'd had more than one or two drinks himself. "You are insane."

She rolled herself back against his hand, tail lightly swishing side to side. "Mmm... So?" Her eyes widened abruptly. "It's here it's here it's here!"

The doors pinged open. The elevator wasn't anything special. The walls were mirrored above waist level, low key plastic nearer the floor, an air grate near the top. Surprisingly, the mirrored walls flexed like plastic when Troy pushed Jennifer back into them.

She was like a giddy schoolgirl, his lips grazing over her neck, her hands swatting across his back. "Oh my God, oh my God!" She started laughing suddenly. "Troy!"

He squeezed at her breasts through her shirt, breathed hot against the dampened fur on her neck. "Well you want so little from me, I can hardly refuse..."

"N-no, no! Troy, you have to close the doors first!"

"Oh." Troy glanced over his shoulder. At the open hallway. "Shit!"

"Push the button for ground floor, quick!" She gulped in a breath, dragged at his arm as he reached out. "No, wait, wait, what if we're not finished? Second floor, No, third!"

"Jesus. Okay, okay!" Troy carefully thumbed in zero zero three on the elevator's panel and glanced up. "You're sure about the cameras."

The doors slid shut. Almost. "Fuck! Ow!" They bounced apart.

"Ohmigod your tail!" Jennifer clawed at his shoulders, pulling him forward, against her, against the wall, with a thump.

The doors finally closed, and there was a slight lurch as the elevator began to drop. Troy blinked at the abrupt tears of pain. "Ow..."

"Okay, okay," she gabbled, grinning suddenly, ears perked high. "We gotta hurry..." She started hitching up her skirt, dragging up even the raggedy trails until they were all around her waist.

The thin clips in the band of the underwear marked the panties as a pair she usually wore as part of one of her stage acts...

"You did plan this..."

She stared at him with her jaw slack. "I thought there might be an opportunity, okay?" She shrugged rapidly, hauling her dress up higher. "Are you going to fuck me or not?"

"This is crazy!" Troy glanced down and pulled open the button on his jeans. Pushed them down till they hung off the tail loop.

Jennifer grinned fiercely, wedging her thumbs underneath the clips. "That better be a yes." With a synchronised pair of snaps, the band fell open over her hips. The seat of the panties hung a moment between her legs, pressed together tight, the stark red of her dyed in pubic hair in shocking contrast to the tawny white of her belly. She parted her legs a little and the panties dropped away entirely, landing on the floor like a discarded bow tie.

His boxers slipped down easily enough. Jennifer didn't waste any time, grabbing his erection in her tight little fist. Troy bit his lip, staring down for a moment. "Oh boy..."

"Come on, we've gotta be quick." She flattened herself against the elevator wall, lifting up her leg, knee crooked. One hand flat against the elevator's wall, trying to balance on her high heels. The other pulling him by the member.

Troy collided with the wall, with her, his hands to either side of her head. But there was the insistent tap of her knee against his thigh and he reached down, hooking his elbow underneath.

She lost her grip on him for a moment with the impact, took a moment to squeeze the head of his shaft against her vagina. Shifted a little awkwardly until suddenly a tight, wet heat flowed around him. "Mmmf," she grunted, eyes shut tight.

The wall made a twanging sound when he thrust into her the first time. He couldn't pull back too far, he had to hold her up. She took some of the worry about that away, wrapping her arms around his neck, writhing against the elevator wall as he shoved her up against it a second time.

She hopped awkwardly on the one leg, hesitantly lifted it, curled her legs around his back. Held onto him as he ground himself into her with pants and groans. "Oh God," she purred. She took a mouthful of his shirt and yanked at it with her teeth, the rhythmic thudding of her wagging tail in counterpoint to their thrusts.

"Jennifer," he wheezed, clutching at her, grinding her into the elevator's corner, where the walls made less of a noise. It was all heat and a tiny bit of slick contact and kisses and a kind of spasming wet heat...

She started licking at his face, then, breath hot and quick and wheezy. "Mm, Troy. God." She tightened her grip around his neck, buried her face in his neck.

Troy pulled back a little, let her find her feet. His gaze flicked up at the floor counter. Fifteenth. He kissed her forehead, because that was closest, squeezing her buttocks in his hands. "Sorry, I, uh..."

"I just got fucked in an elevator," she chirped in a sing-song way. She pressed her legs together a little, bending over to pull her skirt back down. She grinned, tip of her tongue between her teeth. "Fucked, in, an elevator," she drawled out, syllable by syllable, breath hot and wet.

Troy swallowed nervously, pulling up his pants and boxers, hitching them over his sensitive penis.

Jennifer bent over, reclaiming her panties, shutting the clasps. She glanced up at the floor counter, hurriedly tucked the underwear down her shirt.

He straightened, fumbling with the button when the doors opened. The third floor hallway was empty. Troy swallowed down a nervous gulp of air. "Uhm. I don't know, if, I, uhm. Satisfied you, uh..."

"Troy. Sex is fun, even if you don't get off." She slanted her hips heavily, thighs grinding against each other. "Okay?"

"Okay," Troy nodded hesitantly.

She sighed dramatically. "Furthermore, if that's how you really feel about it," she trailed off, tapping one four nine into the console. The doors slipped shut. "Did I leave my purse upstairs?"

The elevator gave a little lurch as it started to rise.

"Oh Christ, you are crazy."

"Mmhmm."

***

:// City of San Iadras, 'Uptown' District.

The ceiling was dark, but Troy knew a truck was coming. A slight rumble in the still, pre-morning air. A change in its crisp edge. He pulled his hand from the covers, held it up in front of his eyes, and gestured idly at the ceiling, as though running an interface. Calling the truck.

He heard the drone a moment later, a kind of reedy growl of flywheels and tyres on the road. The ceiling flashed bright, just a moment, as the truck crested the motorway access ramp. Drove on, maybe going thousands of miles away. Somewhere else in Central America. Maybe all the way north, to Mexico where the US national highway grid had been extended, from there up towards Canada. Maybe even a ferry across the Bering Straits, down into China, get loaded onto a freighter. The whole truck, not just the container. Driverless, just like the freighters. Just move the whole thing halfway around the world.

Be a truck just like that he'd put all of his things to move them back here, eventually. His belongings would fit in, easy. Not that he had many. He could probably fit everything he owned into the back of a decent sized car, if he sold his bed and desk.

He never liked his desk. It had uneven legs, knocked up against the wall, wobbled sometimes if he had to type something out.

"Jennifer?"

"Mhm?"

She rolled over, bit by bit. First glancing around, tip of her muzzle looping up, followed by her shoulders arms and shoulders, a little twitch of her hips, until she'd snuggled herself in against his side.

"What do I do with my life?"

"Mff. Big question." She reached down briefly, shoving the blankets pinched between them down. Felt across his body for his left hand, pulled it over his chest. She lightly put her hand over his, idly stroking at the fur that mimicked his so well. "What do you want to do with your life?"

Troy lifted the phone he held, clutched in his right hand. The screen brightened when it saw his eyes. "Well I'm not going to be a doctor of nuclear chemistry. So. Need a new goal."

Jennifer shifted, leaning on her elbow. She tilted her head, blinking sleepily at the display. The terse severance notice from the university. "Oh my God... How can they do that, Troy?" She reached for the phone, and Troy gave it to her.

She settled back against the pillows, sitting up a little to read it. "Why didn't you say anything? This thing bleeped at you an hour ago."

"I was trying to get angry about it."

"Angry?" She frowned. "Baby, I-"

"It didn't really work," he said, cutting her off. "But it got me thinking."

Jennifer hesitated. "About?"

Troy rolled his head to the side a little, looking up at her lazily. Between the truck lights from the road and the light pollution, the room was a slight off-blue colour. Her ventral fur looked almost sea green rather than the usual off white, the curve of her naked breasts throwing fuzzy half-shadows on her stomach from the phone's light.

He slithered over the sheets, kissing her side. Slipped his arms around her, buried his face in her stomach. "Why the hell am I so scared to lose long hours spent doing... something only four or five people in the world really care about? For nearly no money?" He kissed her navel. "Having to spend my life thousands of miles away from everybody I care about. So I can achieve something that won't even really make the people I care about happy."

She lightly reached down, stroking behind an ear. "What about... you know. Fighting this? I thought you wanted to be a Ph.D."

Troy shrugged a little. "An expert in physics says my science isn't any good. Fine."

"Fine? What do you mean fine?" She shifted a little, her ears flattening against her sleep-mussed hair.

"I mean, that's fine. He can have his opinion." Troy dipped his head a little, feeling around on her back for where the curve of her spine became her hip. He nipped lightly at the fur on her hip's arch, grazing his teeth against her skin. "That's okay. Universities are funded based on popular opinion nowadays. So that's great. I love popular opinion."

She sat bolt upright, ears flicking up, tips tense. "What are you talking about, Troy?"

"Professor Lowell's opinion is important because he's got this mass of sycophants and fans who hang on his every word." Troy kissed her tenderly, shifted up a little, breathing into her stomach. "So he's got one of those voluntary anti-privacy things that record his every word." He licked her gently. "Every word." Troy stuck the tip of his nose against her body, slickened fur bending under his snout.

Jennifer's eyes widened, reflections of the phone's screen glittering green.

"So there's this thing." Troy paused, nuzzling his nose up over her stomach. "This thing that he said." He kissed the curve of her breast. "This uncomplimentary thing, about how I am trying to justify my background..."

She shifted underneath him, set the phone down. "Troy." She reached down, cradling his face with both her hands along the length of his snout. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Well it turns out that there are a lot of people online." Troy shrugged a little, propping himself up on the bed. "A lot of people who are interested in furs. More than people who are fanatical about physics professors, apparently." He smirked. "So I got in touch with some news services to confirm that, yes, he really said what he said, and yes, I am shockingly offended."

Jennifer tilted her head slightly. "And given that universities are funded based on popular opinion?..."

Troy let out a sigh. "This probably won't get me back into the Ph.D programme." He shrugged his shoulder slightly. "But we'll see what happens. Maybe I can go back and finish the project I was on, publish my results anyway. But I don't know yet."

She smiled. "Be good if you could. You put a lot of work into it."

"I did." He returned it. "So. Any ideas about what I'm going to do with my life?"

"Well." She glanced down, releasing him and settling down onto the bed. "You could pick up where you left off? If you want." She shrugged a little, smiling a little strangely. She tapped the underside of her left breast. "'Bout there?"

"Oh God, Jennifer! I've had these high expectations of myself all my life," Troy sighed. "Can't I set my goals a little lower?"

Her giggles were delightful. Her moans were, too.

***

:// City of San Iadras, Downtown.

*

"And that's, uhm." Saigon covered his mouth with a hand for a moment, tail flicking side to side. He pointed at the tree again, its bark scaley, leaves brownish even in equatorial heat. "That's. That's an, uhm. Well I don't know what kind it is, but it's our tree."

"Your tree," Troy repeated, squinting up at it.

Saigon nodded quickly. "Landlord said we can do whatever we want with it, even though it's got branches over the neighbour's yard." He leaned back, stuck his hands against the small of his back, flexing out his tail. "I wonder if you can genedye a tree?"

"Probably." Troy scratched his head, glancing back at the building Saigon lived in.

A little four storey house, split in the middle with the fire escape converted into a balcony and stairway entrance for the top two floors, made into one apartment. The bricks on the exterior looked a little raw, but they hadn't been painted for God knew how many years. It was probably among the first residential buildings to go up in San Iadras. Old enough to have a sattelite dish and some antennas rusting, bolted into the walls up nearer the roof. The downtown district, or at least this part of it, resembled nothing more than a suburb surrounded by skyscrapers in midtown and uptown. And every few weeks, another piece of it got bought up and brought into one of the redevelopment schemes.

"Anne'd like it better if it was genedyed, I bet. Pink and purple." Saigon squinted a little. "It probably needs watering, though. I should rig something for it."

Troy flicked an ear slightly. "So who lives on the bottom floor?"

"Don't know." Saigon shrugged.

"I, uh. I meant the bottom floor of your apartment." Troy pointed up. Saigon and Anne were in the uppermost floor, splitting the rent with a couple who had the third floor.

"Oh. That's Samantha and Sandy." Saigon frowned a little. "I haven't met them much."

Troy nodded a little, glancing down at the grass.

"Thanks for coming." Saigon glanced down too, scraping his toes into the turf. "I mean. I'm sure you've got more important stuff to be doing than helping me out with fixing the place."

"Jennifer says I need something to keep my hands busy." Troy stuck his hands in his pockets.

Saigon looked up at Troy lopsidedly, absentmindedly sticking his hands in his pockets too. "You okay?"

Troy drew a heavy breath, shrugged with a smile anyway. "My membership in the International Chemistry Researchers' Society lapsed."

Saigon stiffened, side of his mouth pulling aside in a half grimace. "What?"

"It's been awhile since I got in touch with them." Troy shrugged a little. "I mean I guess it's just book keeping."

Saigon's eyes wandered back down to his own feet. "Crappy timing."

Troy stuck out his thumbs and twisted his hands in his pockets, watching the way the fabric on his jeans pulled tight. "Yeah."

"So what's happening with, the, uh."

Troy sighed, staring up at the sky. "Greg's keeping me on the research team as a consultant. I can keep doing my research for now, and I can publish, but I'm not getting my Ph.D. It's gotten political."

"That's pretty harsh."

"Yeah."

"Well. I, uh. I guess this isn't really fixing anything. I guess we aught to start with the garage, while Anne and Jennifer have the car out of the way."

"Trouble with the charger?" Troy nodded. "Where's the garage?"

"No, uhm." Saigon folded his arms uncomfortably. "Start with the garage, like, uh."

Troy lifted an eyebrow. "Uh?"

"Like, uh." Saigon gestured vaguely at the yard. "Like, we need to start building it. Anne's sick of parking in the open and going into town to charge it. She's said she wants a garage in the yard."

"Okay. So what are we building it with?"

Saigon scratched at his cheek. "That, is a real interesting question."

"You have tools, right?"

"Uhm."

"How about a plank. One plank."

"Uhm."

*

"So, uhm. Where's the garage?" Turin lifted an eyebrow, glancing over the browning grass.

"It's getting built." Troy lifted his sunglasses, squinting up at his brother from the folding chair he'd appropriated. "Over there."

"Uhm." Turin backed up a step, staring down at his shoe.

"No, not there." Troy picked up a beer can, took a swig, and set it back down. Pointed across the yard. "There."

Turin squinted. Set between the slight scuffmarks of the tyres from where Anne and Saigon's car parked, was another can of beer. Empty.

"The beer can."

"It's a pretty big project. We've only just started."

"Saigon, Troy's flipped."

Saigon was edging down the fire escape, a shrink-wrapped block of cans in his arms. "No, no, it's genius. Here you go," he offered, tugging a can free from the block and handing it over, setting the rest down with a thud.

Turin bit his lip. "You guys are going to build a garage out of beer cans?" He cracked the beer open, took a careful sip.

Troy nodded, pulled the sunglasses back down. "If you say so."

"That's not going to work."

"No?" Troy asked, lifting his eyebrow sharply.

Saigon covered his mouth, hiding a grin as Turin shook his head.

"Uh-uh. It's going to over-heat, I mean unless you guys had proper airflow and- uhm. I think I better call Florence. He'll know about this."

*

Florence kicked the bag. It clattered away from him, sagging in a cacophony of clanks. "Where did you get these?"

Saigon bit his lip, grinning. "Drank 'em."

Florence rolled his eyes, pulling it open and staring inside. "You don't have enough."

Turin was laying in the shade of the tree, head propped up against it. "Yeahhh... that's relative."

Florence blinked, staring at Turin. He glanced up at Troy, pointed at Turin, looked back, and whipped his gaze between the two. "Is Turin... are... Did you get him drunk?"

Troy shifted a little on the fold out chair, lifting his sunglasses. "Maybe."

Florence bowed his head, shook it. "What the heck are you guys doing?"

"Troy's a genius," Saigon offered.

Florence rolled his eyes. Plucked his phone from his pocket. "I'm calling Dallas. We need to get organised."

"I was gonna do that," Turin blurted. "N'then they... Explained."

Troy rolled over, pushing himself up off one of the arm-rests. he stuck his finger over his lips. "Shhh!"

Florence's eyes flicked from brother to brother. "You guys are crazy." He turned his back on them, strolling away. "Dallas, I'm over at Saigon's, they're... yeah, no-"

Saigon yelled after him, "tell Dallas to bring a trash can! That really big one you guys have."

Florence frowned. "What?"

*

"I heard you guys were building a garage?" Philadelphia asked, squinting up out of the rolled down side window of his car.

Troy, leaning against the car's side, nodded. "Indeed we are."

"Out of beer cans," Dallas explained concernedly.

Philadelphia pushed the door open, pocketing his keys while it shut itself behind him. "Oh. I get it." Philadelphia settled back to lean against the car's side, next to Troy. "This is because I own a car."

Dallas glanced between them. "Me and Florence have a car too," he protested, pointing at where he'd parked it in the yard. Next to where Philadelphia had parked his.

Troy nodded. "It is because you have a car."

Dallas shoved his hands up on his hips. "We have a car too," he repeated.

Philadelphia glanced back at the cars. "You know, I had plans. Just because it's a Saturday..."

Troy grinned. "What plans?"

Philly's ears drooped. "Uhm. I was gonna watch TV."

Troy nodded knowingly. "Mhmm. Thought so."

Dallas tapped Troy's shoulder. "Why is it important that Philly's got a car and not me and Florence?"

"Philly doesn't have to drag his recycling down to a collection point. He can drive it."

"Yep." Philadelphia looked down at his feet. "I can drive it every Saturday."

Dallas's flattened as he frowned over this. Then, suddenly, they lifted. He blinked. "Oh. But..." He stared at the beer in his hand. "Oh."

Saigon grinned. "Yeah."

"This is really stupid," Dallas grumbled.

"That's why we got the sensible ones drunk, first," Troy explained, glancing back at the tree. Florence had passed out next to Turin, a few more cans stacked up beside them.

"I'm not sensible?" Philadelphia asked, squinting at Troy.

Troy tilted his head, just so. "Well you actually came out here."

Dallas glanced at Saigon for support. Saigon just shrugged.

"This really is crazy," Dallas complained. "And what about all the beer cans?"

"The thing about the beer cans," Saigon explained, "is that most of them are empty."

Dallas just blinked unhappily.

"As official spoilsport you can go buy more. Here's forty nudies," Saigon added, pulling out his wallet and tapping in the transfer of New Dollars. "Get snacks and stuff too. And invite Nadine!" He held it out expectantly, gave Dallas an encouraging nod.

Dallas sighed, pulled out his own wallet and swiped it past Saigon's. They beeped, confirming the transfer. "Fine." He scowled at Saigon. "But this is stupid! It's not gonna work!"

Philadelphia set off towards the folding chair, grinning idly. "I don't know. I think if we all play along..."

*

The sun was on its way down, turning the sky a kind of orange. A late afternoon insect buzzed along in the slightly damp warmth of one of San Iadras's evenings, twirled around Troy's head and buzzed off in the wake of the car slowing past with hushed clicks, the rustling of the browning grass under the wheels. The squeak of the brakes, applied a little more sharply than usual, to stop the car before it reached its accustomed parking place.

The doors opened with a clank. Hissed aside, and almost immediately Anne was out and on her feet, sweat marking her skin, pasting her shirt down to her body. "Saigon!"

Jennifer glanced back over her shoulder as she got out of the car, edged away, tucking her handbag over her shoulder.

Anne squinted at the dark bodies laying around the tree. "Saigon!" She left the car behind, stomping along to see just whom was laying there. Florence, Turin and Philadelphia squinted up at her. A pad marked with chess notation was laying on Turin's chest, Philadelphia's phone was unfolded next to it, a chessboard glowing brightly.

"What the fuck is going on here?!"

Turin belched.

Florence tugged at his shirt collar awkwardly. "Uh..."

Philadelphia took a last sip from his beer can and hurled it over-arm at the trash can, sitting between the two rough scuffmarks of the tyres treads, where Anne and Saigon's car was usually parked. Where the beer can had been. Where a week's worth of recycling had it piled high.

The can hit the rim, tumbled off and landed in the grass. Rolled to a halt.

Anne stared. "What are you guys doing?"

"Helping Saigon," Philadelphia replied benignly.

"Where is my husband?" she enquired sharply.

Florence pointed at the house. "He's bringing snacks."

"Snacks? Saigon!"

The folding chair creaked under Jennifer's weight, as she settled herself onto Troy's lap.

"I don't know if, uhm, it's strong enough for the weight."

Jennifer blinked sharply at Troy. "Are you saying I'm fat?"

His ears splayed helplessly. "No..."

"Good." Primly she ground her butt back against Troy's lap until she got comfortable, her tail sticking out over the arm rest.

"So, uhm." Troy dry swallowed. "How was the shopping trip? You guys are back late."

"It was pretty good," Jennifer replied with a nod. "We found a book store," she said, pulling a packet out of her bag, holding it up. "This is for you. Is everybody here?"

"Nah. Dallas took off with Nadine." Troy took the packet and unfolded it from around the card wallet. He squinted at the title printed on the data card. "Who's Hebert George Wells?"

Her tail wagged slightly. "An author. He wrote that play from the other night." She settled her back

"Thanks. The island of Doctor Moreau?"

"Mhm. It's got all kinds of versions of it. Like an audio drama, and of his other stories too. You seemed to like the ending."

"Kinda. But I figured something out there."

"Oh?"

Saigon came back downstairs, pointing at the trash can with a bag of pretzels. "But that's what you wanted right?"

"Garage. Garage!" Anne snorted, pulling herself along by the railing. "They don't even sound the same!"

"I'm sorry, what'd you say honey? I can't hear you, between the music last night and that thing with you keep doing with the guitar..." He paused on the stairway, lifting up a finger to wriggle in his oversized ear melodramatically. "It's right where you wanted it!"

"Garage! Garbage! Not remotely the same words!"

Saigon cocked his head. "Hm? Did you say something? Guess not." With that he turned around and continued on down the stairs.

Troy tore his eyes off the two, looked back at Jennifer. "You know happy endings?"

"Mhm?"

"Solitude's not a very happy ending. It's a tragic ending."

"Mmm. So what're you thinking about?"

"Trucking."

"Huh?" She squinted.

"Yeah. I think I'm going to move back down here when I finish up in Minnesota. Trucking. Move my stuff."

Jennifer shifted closer, made the chair creak again as she sidled her face up beside Troy's. "Ohhh... trucking. I didn't hear you too well."

"Uhm."

"I thought you were thinking about what we were gonna do later tonight." Theatrically she reached up, wriggled a finger in her ear. "But if you wanna go trucking instead..."

"Uhm. Well now I'm thinking about something else."