FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

-Drip... drip... drip...- the sound of the dripping water from a nearby gutter due to the recent rainstorm gave Gunter a white noise, which he could use to clear his mind. He was slightly jet-lagged from the trip he took from New York to get here, but it was only a three-hour difference, which was nothing he hadn't experienced before. His left ear was tilted in the direction of the sound of the dripping gutter, eyes closed, head tilted slightly upwards. Few in his position practiced meditation, but the CIA's Experimental Espionage Services didn't really mind, so long as it affected their agents positively to get their respective jobs done. It helped Gunter's mind rest and relax, and usually cleared out anything in his mind that could negatively affect him.

After a few minutes, some footsteps nearby caused his ears to tilt in the direction of the steps. Swiftly, he pulled out a large, dark sheet from a pocket on his chest and pulled it over his body, but left his head exposed. He rested his head on the ground, and curled his body up. To the average passer-by, he was simply a stray dog. That was exactly how the passer-by in this situation, a ragged, bearded homeless man, saw Gunter, and hardly looked twice, not even bothering to stop, and kept moving along. Gunter kept one eye open and kept it on the man until he was far enough away. Without any hesitation, the anthropomorphic German Shepherd Dog sprung to his feet and stuffed the blanket back into the pocket as he quietly sprinted away. The old homeless man turned around, but to his aged eyes he only perceived a figure with a strange hat running through the alley, making a sharp turn around a corner, disappearing from view.

Gunter ducked under a window on the building to his right and pressed his back against the wall and put two clawed fingers to the earpiece in his right ear. "One-Four, One-Four," he whispered, "this is Fourteen Twenty-Five, do you copy?"

"We copy," a female voice replied through the earpiece, "what's up?"

"Has the target moved?"

"...Not yet. His car's still in the parking lot."

"OK, I'm right across the street from his destination. Is everyone else set up?"

"We've got a sniper covering you from that building to your right."

"Sounds good," Gunter replied, "Let me know when the target starts moving."

"Roger that,"

"1425 out."

Gunter lifted his fingers off the earpiece and stood up. He ran a quick check of his equipment by feeling down his bodysuit and all of its pockets. Silenced 9mm pistol: Check. Knock-out gas concealed in watch: Check. Dark concealment sheet: Check. Four battery powered camouflaged video cameras: Check. Nickel-sized smoke bombs: Check. Small-caliber revolver at ankle: Check.

_ _

All where it should be... Gunter thought to himself as he checked his pistol to make sure it was loaded fully. He cocked it and holstered it on his leg. He got down in the prone position near the side of the alleyway and threw the sheet over him, but this time covered his head to make himself appear as a homeless man sleeping. He slowly lowered his infrared goggles over his eyes and clicked them on, and seeing nobody, he clicked them off and closed his eyes to meditate while he was waiting.

The sound of a car's engine approaching slowly, the squeaking sound of the brakes, and the engine suddenly shutting off snapped Agent 1425 out of his trance. He clicked on the infrared goggles again and saw a man stepping out of a vehicle. It was slightly blurred because the engine was still giving off heat, but the shape of a man was still easy to make out. "That's the target," said the female voice through the earpiece, "Make sure you get those cameras in place, and remember, don't kill anyone unless you have no other choice, all right?"

"Understood," Gunter whispered. Once the man unlocked the door to the building and walked in, Gunter pulled the sheet off of himself and stored it, clicked his goggles to the night vision setting and got into the crouched position. He flicked his tail to the side and sprinted across the dimly lit street, crossing it in mere seconds. His black and tan fur coloration wasn't exactly concealing by nature, but his black bodysuit and vest did help a lot. He didn't bother with the door but rather climbed up a ladder attached to the outside of the wall that served as the building's secondary fire escape route. After a peek in through a window near the ladder, and seeing nothing, he continued climbing to the roof. Upon reaching it, he snuck through the roof access door, which was miraculously unlocked, and crept down the stairs. He could walk extremely quietly, but his shoes provided by the EES helped dampen the sounds even more, rendering his footsteps almost completely silent.

Gunter came to a stop at the bottom of the staircase and pressed his back against the wall opposite the staircase next to the closed door right in front of it. He tilted his head and listened in to the sounds coming from inside. The man was alone, so all that could be heard was footsteps and his breathing. Gunter pulled a camera out from his pocket and waited. After a few minutes, footsteps exited the room and Gunter opened the door as quietly as he could. The door opened without so much as the soft sound of metal gears in the doorhandle scraping against each other. The hinges, however, were not quite as well-oiled as he expected, but the slight squeaking sound they made didn't seem to bother the target, likely mistaking it for the usual creaking you are likely to hear in an old building when there is little other noise going on that would have otherwise drowned it out. The anthropomorphic agent closed the door as quietly as he had opened it, and moved quickly. The room, a kitchenette connected to the living room just inside of the front door, was lit with multiple floodlights in the ceiling and provided him with no way of concealing himself if the target inexplicably came in. In one of the seemingly under-used corners of the room, he placed the camera and clicked it on. He used some artificial lint and dust to conceal the camera, as well as some of the dust that was already there. It wasn't a perfect disguise, but it was an unremarkable thing that didn't attract much attention. At worst, it might accidentally get swept up into a dustbin and thrown away. That, however, was why Agent 1425 was given multiple cameras just in case. After finishing with the first camera, he hid himself in a closet, which, judging by the smell was probably a pantry. Using his nose, he could also recognize the scent of the target. Before being deployed, he was given a shoe that the target wore as he was being chased away by federal agents, and the agent was able to get the scent of the target and recognize him more easily. No matter how much plastic surgery someone gets, the scent remains the same. It's why the CIA decided to go in the direction it did with the EES; Human intelligence combined with the natural acuteness of canines. Presently, however, Gunter could smell the target's scent getting stronger and stronger, meaning that he was getting closer. He wondered if the target had heard the pantry door close, and perhaps he hadn't been quite as quiet with it as he intended. He drew his silenced pistol, a Beretta 9mm, and held it pointed upwards near his body, ready to aim and fire if he needed to.

The footsteps stopped directly in front of the pantry. Gunter aimed the pistol at the door, slowly clicked off the safety, and kept his eye fixed through the sights. He slowed his breathing down, resisting the urge to start panting and possibly give away his position if it wasn't already compromised. Suddenly, a knock at the door saved him, and the footsteps resumed towards the front door. Quietly, he opened the pantry door and placed a camera just outside of it, aimed it at the front door, clicked it on, and retreated back into the pantry. He put two padded fingers to his earpiece again. "One-Four, One-Four," he whispered, "patch me in to that camera I just placed, I wanna know who's at that door."

"Roger that," replied the female voice, "patching you in."

Gunter removed his fingers from the earpiece and a small arm extended from the earpiece and pointed at the door in front of him. With a few seconds of warming up, the eyepiece's tiny projector projected the image the camera was capturing onto the surface in front of him. Gunter watched intently as the target opened the front door, revealing a figure, coupled with a surprisingly distinct human scent, unfamiliar to him. "Who's that?" Gunter whispered, mostly to himself, but loud enough to be picked up by his earpiece.

"I think... yeah, it's the local kingpin," the female voice replied, "The local police and FBI have been after him for years but they have yet to get any solid evidence on him."

Gunter kept watching. He saw the kingpin hand over a briefcase. "Another order of drugs... that's the third one this week," he noted, as Gunter had previously observed this target ordering crack-cocaine from dealers under this particular kingpin, "but how and why's he getting drugs directly from the kingpin this time? This guy's definitely not selling this stuff on the streets..."

"Maybe drugs aren't the only business deals going on between them. Try and listen in."

Gunter pricked his ears in the direction and listened intently. He heard some mumbling about some sort of "event" and heard the kingpin say "it's all gonna get real, and I'll have you to thank for it!"

Gunter noticed the target shrug his shoulders. "It's the least I could do," he said, holding the briefcase horizontally and opening it up.

From the angle the camera had, Gunter couldn't see what was in it, but he suspected it was either money or crack. The target took a moment to look over the contents, and once satisfied, he closed it and shook the kingpin's hand.

"It looks like we'll be the best of friends from now on," the target said as he shook it.

The kingpin let out a hearty laugh, "And what a friend to have! Please, feel free to come by my place if you need anything, from a cup o' coffee, or anything bigger than that. You'll always be welcome!"

"We could kill two birds with one stone if we just waited for the target to go to the kingpin's place..." Gunter noted.

"Negative, negative," the female voice countered, "save that for a later time. Find out what this guy is up to, first. The kingpin is the FBI's responsibility."

"Understood," Gunter replied, grudgingly. As much as he wanted to think so, there wasn't enough evidence to give this guy the time in jail that the CIA was looking for. The CIA was concerned that this man was a threat to the entire country for reasons far more dangerous than just drugs. They just didn't know what those reasons were, yet. That's what Gunter was there to find out. Still, there was a small idea as to what was going on in this rather unassuming downtown residence; shipments of steel, multiple large shipments of firearms and ammunition from Texas, shipments of larger weapons from Eastern Europe, and a few shipments of uncertain contents.

The kingpin didn't stay to chat for too long, and left. The target was now alone and turned around to return to whatever he was doing beforehand. Gunter kept his pistol at the ready in case he decided to go back to investigate the pantry, but fortunately, it was not needed. The target simply walked on by to a room near the back. Gunter clicked off the projector, which retracted back into his earpiece, and quietly opened the door once again. He took some time to set up another camera in the corner of the ceiling facing the direction that the target was headed towards, and then headed in the direction of the target, using his nose to follow the trail the target left. Soon enough, he came to a closed door. He could hear the target descending a staircase just behind the door. The basement. As far as anyone was concerned, only the ventilation system and the water heater were down there, but you never really know with people like this. Once he heard the footsteps hit the solid ground, and not the stairs, he slowly opened the door and peeked out. This was definitely what the CIA was looking for; an entire warehouse of weapons, including automatic rifles, pistols, pipe bombs, grenades, and what looked like pieces of artillery. "Oh no... " Gunter whispered to himself, and slowly crept down the steps. He went slowly to close the door behind him, making sure he didn't accidentally close it on his tail, and began the descent. He couldn't help but wonder if this guy was just a crazed man who was simply preparing for the apocalypse, even though doing so in this way was probably breaking a few federal laws. The only thing missing from this was a stash of freeze-dried and canned food. But what could one man be doing with such an arsenal of weapons? Gunter thought to himself.

"Agent 1425, come in," said the voice in the earpiece. Gunter almost jumped up in the air, but managed to control himself to put his pads to the earpiece.

"What's up, One-Four?"

"You've left the range of the sniper outside. We're going to assemble a strike team for backup."

"Yeah, you're going to need something more than just one team... you should see how many guns he's got down here."

"How many?"

"It'd take all day to count, maybe more. He's converted his basement into an apocalypse warehouse. Get all available local SWAT Teams on standby as backup for your guys... they're going to need it if things go bad down here."

"Copy that, 1425. Just give the signal and we'll send them out."

"Over and out."

Gunter clicked his earpiece and pulled out his silenced pistol. If this man was doing as many drugs as he thought he doubted the target would go down without a fight. He quickly navigated down the stairs and hid in a dark area. It didn't take too long for the target to show himself; He turned on a few computers, which illuminated the room, and then turned on a few incandescent light bulbs. It didn't brighten the agent's hiding spot too much, but enough so that the dark sheet would just look silly and lose all effectiveness. Folding his ears back so as to not stand out, he looked over a crate of AK-47 knock-offs and watched intently. The target worked on the computers for a while. Gunter put on his goggles and zoomed them in to the screens. On one of them, it looked to be some street maps of the city with a few different waypoints on them. It slightly resembled a wartime strategist's map.

Gunter scratched his head. Was the target really planning a military operation in Deer City? The nearest National Guard station was less than four hours drive away, and the nearest Air Force Base was an hour's drive away, which is just minutes in flying time. It would be a fool's fantasy, but one that could nonetheless cost many lives even if it did fail. All Gunter needed to do was to get the target away from the computer long enough so that he could copy those files to a USB drive he had in his pocket. He pulled out a small coin from his pocket and tossed it into the distance. The light "ping" sound it made when it hit the floor was loud enough to catch the target's attention. He walked towards the direction of the sound, leaving the computer open and his attention directed to a place away from the agent's position. Gunter managed to maneuver a quadrupedal crawl silently to the computer and plugged in his portable USB drive and commanded the computer to copy as many files on the computer that could fit into the drive. The computer estimated that it would take approximately five minutes to complete the transfer. That was four minutes too many, as the target was not likely to be distracted for that long by a single coin. Knowing this, he produced another coin from his pocket and threw it to another side of the room. "...The fuck?" the target wondered aloud and picked up a gun from the nearest crate; a pistol of some kind, and approached the area where the coin made the noise. Gunter only had one coin left, but he used it anyway to get as much time as he could.

"All right," spoke the target, "come out, come out, wherever you are..." he said in a mock playful tone. Gunter looked at the screen. Three minutes left. There was only one thing to do. On all fours, he crept alongside a crate near the pathway the target was walking, holstered his pistol, and took out a small cell phone-shaped device from his pocket.

"Come on, I won't hurt ya..."

As soon as the target was in the appropriate position, Gunter moved a part of the phone, revealing two metal contact points, the unmistakable features of a stun gun, leapt over the crate and jammed the contact points into the target's back while pressing a small button on the device. With a rapid, low-pitched clicking sound and some spastic flailing of the target's limbs, he fell to the ground, unconscious.

"Agent 1425," spoke the female voice in the earpiece, "status update, what just happened in there?"

"I had to incapacitate him. He's still alive, but unconscious. He didn't see me at all," he said into his earpiece.

"Let's hope so. I don't want our existence getting out on the news headlines."

"Believe me, neither do I... though I still can't help but wonder what they would say..."

"Stop that!" she said in a playfully annoyed tone, "Don't get any ideas, mister!"

Gunter laughed, "All right, all right... I'll upload the files to the secure server once I get the chance. You think the team can get me a ride home?"

"Certainly," she replied, "just go out the fire escape from the second floor and call out your number."

"Roger. Over and out." Gunter clicked the earpiece off and waited for the file transfer to complete.

Once it was complete, the USB drive was removed and Agent 1425 headed up the stairs, trying to be quiet but not quite as quiet as he had in going down, seeing that the target was not in any position to notice what was going on. After quietly closing the door behind him, Gunter ascended the main staircase to head out of the building via the second-floor fire escape. As soon as he closed the door behind him, he descended the metal beam stairs casually, sounding like just some random resident in the building was out for a normal stroll. Upon reaching the pavement below, he took no more than two steps before he felt the barrel of a gun on the back of his head. "Identify yourself!" a voice hissed.

"1425," Gunter replied, calmly, "you can lower your weapon now, soldier."

The cold metal was lifted away from the back of his head and Gunter turned around, seeing a small human squad in the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team attire. "Don't worry," he explained, "the target's unconscious in the basement, and he'll stay that way for a couple hours. In the meantime, where's the transport?"

Silently, the squad surrounded the agent and walked at a brisk pace. Gunter kept up with them, keeping his head low so nobody would see his distinct ears and general profile that easily distinguished him as a dog. He was about half a head taller than the average human, largely due to necessity during the operation that converted all the canine EES agents to their anthropomorphic forms. Vast amounts of complex muscles had to be added in order for the digitigrade hind legs of canines to be able to support the entire weight of the body and balance on just those two legs. Therefore, to prevent overly bulky legs that could impair movement, they simply augmented the length of the legs, which resulted in all the dogs used by the EES to be considerably taller than they would be if one were to simply stand a quadrupedal dog on its hind legs. In the case of German Shepherds, their anthro forms became taller than most human beings. Gunter, therefore, was used to ducking down in the middle of an escort like this.

The team made a left turn, onto the street, where a black, unmarked, nondescript van was waiting. The back doors opened and everybody who could fit, including the anthropomorphic agent, jumped in quickly and quietly. One remained outside to close the doors behind them, and once he took up his position in the front seat of the van, the engine whirred to life and sped off.

The ride to the airport was for the most part silent. Part of it was due to how secretive Gunter's mission was, but it was also because the men were probably not sure what exactly to say to the humanoid canine that they weren't allowed to talk about outside of a very closed circle in the CIA. After driving for a half-hour, stopping at a security checkpoint to allow the van to actually drive on the runway, and a few minutes on the tarmac, the van angled up and slowed down considerably, until it finally stopped. The two HRT members nearest to the doors opened the doors on the back of the van without hesitation and everyone filed out quickly, Gunter included. He headed around the side of the van to find a command center filled with computer monitors, blinking lights, and maps. A team of both humans and anthropomorphized German Shepherds akin to Gunter manned all of this. This was Section 14's mobile command center. Section 14 was so named because there are fourteen letters in "German Shepherd" thus denoting the breed that would be a part of this particular section of the EES. There were three other sections consisting of anthropomorphized versions of the dog breeds and breeds that were already proven in their non-morphic forms to be useful to police and military applications; Section 12, consisting of Border Collies, Section 10, consisting of Bloodhounds, and Section 8, consisting of Dobermans.

Gunter walked up to a table in the CP where a female human was checking a map. He pulled out the flash drive from his pocket and offered it to her on the palm-pad on his hand. "I believe this will certainly prove useful, Ma'am."

She looked up, took the drive, and examined it. "It certainly will, Agent," she replied as she proceeded to press a couple buttons on the table. A panel opened, revealing a USB port, into which she plugged the drive. One of the blank computer monitors flashed to life and displayed a list of the filenames of each file that was contained on the drive.

"I filled it to capacity," Gunter explained, "but I couldn't get everything. Though I expect it'll provide useful information as to what this guy is planning."

"Are you sure it was worth the cost of revealing yourself to an already paranoid man who could be Hell-bent on whatever disastrous plan he has in mind?" she questioned, "Do you realize that you could have spurred him to act much sooner than normal?"

"First off," Gunter began, "with all due respect, I was behind him when I stunned him!" he explained, "He was out cold before I laid him on the ground! Second...!"

"That's enough!" a familiar female voice replied from behind the woman. Both Gunter and his human superior turned towards the direction of the voice.

Standing there was a slender, female German Shepherd anthro wearing business-casual attire on her body, and a headset hanging on her neck, as she wasn't using it at the moment. "He's my direct responsibility, I'll talk to him."

The woman sighed. "Go ahead, then. Just make sure he understands the consequences of his actions."

"Understood. C'mon, Gunter," the femme said, motioning for him to follow her.

Gunter followed more than willingly. If nothing else, she was far more pleasant to talk to than most of the humans that usually worked around here. Mostly because he was more comfortable talking with his own kind. The femme, named Sandy, lead the agent towards a small private room with a table, a screen on each side of the table, and two chairs for two people to sit and face the screens. As they entered, a voice clicked on over the intercom. "This is your captain speaking, please fasten your seatbelts, secure all loose items, and remain seated, we will be taking off shortly, thank you," the voice said.

Sandy and Gunter took up the seats in the room and clicked on the seatbelts on the chairs. They could feel the plane begin to taxi out. "Well," Sandy began, "she won't admit it, but the general perception is that everyone's glad you managed to get this intel. Even the much higher-ups."

"Good thing," Gunter replied, chuckling, "besides, even if he tries to go public about me, nobody will believe him because he doesn't have any evidence!"

"In addition," Sandy added, "if he's really got a diabolical plan on his mind, he wouldn't want to go public about anything. Especially with something as paranoid-sounding as yet another government conspiracy claim that could get him on a police watch list or sent to a mental hospital. For his plan to work, he has to rely on the idea that this plan is secret and nobody but those planning it know it's happening."

The plane began rumbling. It was taking off. Gunter clutched his ears with both hands, pulling them down. Liftoff always made him feel light-headed and dizzy, and sometimes pulling down his ears helped. This time, it did. He got a bit dizzy, but he got over it in a few minutes. "You know," Sandy said, "you look like a scared little puppy when you do that..."

"I know, I know," Gunter answered, "but nobody really sees this..." he paused, "...aside from you, I guess," he said, grinning a bit.

Sandy smiled, "It's actually kinda cute," Sandy said, "I know the humans don't say that, but I'm pretty sure they all think that."

If Gunter could blush, he would have at that point. There wasn't a specific rule against relationships when it came to the anthros in the EES, though the anthros themselves were told to be cautious about it, as it could interfere with their performance. Gunter was actually almost blushing because he and Sandy were already good friends, having worked together with her guiding him while he did the spying ever since he completed spy training. She was without much doubt the one female of his kind that, if he had to choose, he would be with. He wasn't sure if this was something he wanted to pursue or not, but he thought it would be in his best interests to show her that he reciprocated. "Well," he said, trying to smile without looking nervous, "thanks. I mean... uh," Gunter trailed off, unsure as to what else to say.

Sandy giggled a bit. "Chill out, Gunter. We've got a long way back to Langley, and I wouldn't want you passing out on me."

Gunter bit his lip but tried to remain calm and cool. "All right, all right. So, what's the plan from this point onward?"

"Well," Sandy began, punching in some things on her computer's keyboard, "the first thing we're going to do is process the information you've gathered from that guy's computer. The next thing we're going to do is, once it's completely processed, go and move on the guy," she explained as she pulled up things on the target, which simultaneously showed up on the screen facing Gunter.

"Did we gain any information on what exactly he's planning to do? I didn't exactly get to look at the files I was copying back in his basement..." Gunter inquired.

"Well, according to what we've looked through so far, it's something along the lines of a biological attack," Sandy explained, "The guy's perfect for the sort of thing, based on his background; he graduated top of his class in pharmaceutical school and was a PhD candidate in biology until he dropped out due to financial reasons."

"...Which was shortly after he started buying all those drugs. Maybe he's working out something that'll be beneficial to the kingpin," Gunter speculated.

"He'd probably limit the range of the effects to Deer City," Sandy agreed, "we just need to make sure that, at the very least, this doesn't get into the hands of other kingpins or drug lords, here or south of the border. Whatever this thing does, if it gets into more hands, it'll escalate the drug war to the likes of which nobody's ever seen..."

"We'd have to bring in the full force of the border states' National Guards, and possibly the Army, too, to quell that kind of fighting," Gunter mused, "we gotta get to stopping this soon. Why can't we do this pre-emptively?"

"Because we haven't been given clearance. We have to at least wait to submit the information to HQ before we can carry out anything against this guy," said Sandy, "I know it's hard to grasp, but even we have to follow human laws."

Gunter put his fist on the table. "Well, they can't blame me if this whole thing goes bad."

"At least," Sandy agreed, "but that doesn't mean we can't prepare you for the inevitable mission to come!" she exclaimed, anxiously typing something into the computer. Immediately, on both computer screens, a suit showed up. "This," she explained, "is the suit you'll be wearing. The guys in Section 12 created this biohazard action suit for just such an occasion as what we're probably going to face. It's got all the personal protection capabilities of a HAZMAT suit but it allows for much greater freedom of movement at the same time."

Gunter examined the 3D rendering of the suit. It basically resembled a gas mask that was modified to fit a canine head; the suit was designed to cover almost the entire head except for the ears. The muzzle section, where, on the left side and center, was the filter, was slightly larger than the actual size of any dog's muzzle to allow him to talk, and the muzzle had small holes in the nose area that, according to the specs, could be opened and closed in case there was a need to track someone down or any other reason to use smell. The bodysuit part of it was much similar to the bodysuit Gunter already wore, except the head was already integrated into it, to prevent any sorts of leaks. The tail, too, was covered with polyester such that it made a minimal amount of noise. "Looks good, but I think the head section is too restrictive to movement," he commented.

"Not to worry," Sandy said, "The neck area is made of relatively thin rubber so you can turn your head to its normal extent."

"What about the ears? They look exposed..."

"That was tricky, but the guys at Section 12 installed some fiberglass cones that will extend out and cover your ears. They'll reduce your hearing, but it'll be the best protection you'll be able to get with those on," she explained, "though I don't think you'll need them a whole lot, since there are few biological agents that can be administered through the ear, unless the guy decides to start releasing corrosive chemicals."

"...But better safe than sorry, I guess," Gunter added, chuckling a bit at how ridiculous he might look in that thing especially with the "ear cones" on.

"Exactly. None of us are really sure how we'd react to biological agents like that, and quite frankly, none of us want to find out. Plus, these suits have been custom-fit for every single agent of our kind in every section, including you and me. So we should be ready for whatever hits us," Sandy said, "but right now, we've long passed out of Deer City airspace. We're in the clear for the time being."

The rest of the flight went without incident, and the plane landed at Langley AFB about two hours after it took off, and unloaded all the vehicles, most of which contained the anthro canines to be hidden from any unauthorized eyes that might be watching. The vans drove to the HQ of the EES, located about ten miles away from the AFB, a seemingly nondescript building labeled as a warehouse for the Virginia National Guard. There were some guardsmen there, but they were only a diversion from the actual operations going on. A small ramp heading down into what looked like a garage was guarded by a small guard post with a couple visible cameras and a guardsman attending it, fully armed and in combat attire. It was only after a quick check of identification that the guardsmen let the caravan of black vans with heavily tinted windows pass through. The guardsmen in the warehouse were aware that there was a secret CIA base down there, but they were not informed of what exactly went on, just for safe measures.

In any case, the EES remained a well-guarded secret; it had a small contingency of soldiers as the first line of defense, the rest of the Virginia National Guard on call just in case, and very highly trained personnel on the inside for a worst-case-scenario. Even the intelligence officers and handlers who sat at computers most of the time were very good shots. When added with the structure and other mechanical security features, the place was virtually impenetrable. Naturally, all forces, both human and anthro, felt refreshingly safe here. Once the door in front of the vans opened, and the caravan of vans swiftly moved in, a wave of relief overcame the anthros present. Here, they didn't have to worry about being seen or discovered, as there was practically no chance of unauthorized entry. Much like Area 51, this base was one of the most well guarded areas in the country. Unlike Area 51, almost nobody knew about it.

Once the vans came to a stop, everybody exited the vans casually and began removing their armor. It had been a long week of work for everybody who just came back from the recon mission in Deer City, and they felt relieved to finally be at what most of them called, "home." All of the anthros took up permanent residence here, but some of the humans who did not have families to return to or for whatever other reason, took up permanent residence here, too. They provided some interesting companionship to Gunter, especially, since he was at times curious to understand what the human world was like outside of the malicious targets he had to pursue and often eliminate. It interested him greatly, knowing how humans behaved normally, how the legal system worked, how relations between humans and the non-anthro animals functioned, and things like that. If nothing else, it helped him better understand human behavior for his spying/tracking missions so he could discern normal human behavior from suspicious behavior.

Once Gunter entered the barracks for the anthros of Section 14, he fell back on his bed and relaxed. Sneaking around without being seen or discovered in any way, and being really close to being caught took a lot out of him, and he needed to rest. Plus, he was never really too fond of airplane rides, as he could never fall asleep on one, and being on solid ground and on a soft surface like his cot was something he really missed during the past week. His eyes soon closed and he went to sleep for the night.

When he awoke the next morning, he found that the room had filled with some of the more burly German Shepherds of Section 14. This section did primarily specialize in military-style Black Ops, so they were relatively commonplace. That's not to say that Gunter was the sole exception; this section did have an exceptional espionage and intelligence branch, of which Gunter and Sandy were members, but with the physical attributes of German Shepherds as a breed, most involved in Section 14 were more predisposed towards the military Black Ops branch. Section 14 was really the all-around player of the sections, though, much like the dog breeds they are: They're intelligent, strong fighters, and good trackers and sniffers. The other sections, though, played far more specialized roles. Section 8, made up of Dobermans, specialized entirely in the military Black Ops branch. Since very few of them were in the intelligence branch, they always had the help of Section 12 to be their source of information. Consisting of Border Collies, Section 12's intelligence branch was so good that they were even called in to indirectly assist some overseas missions of the U.S. Military. Section 12 is also the only section that works on creating gadgets such as the suit Gunter viewed a model of on the airplane. A very select few of the Section 12 members were very skilled as military operatives, but since there were far too few of them to make up even one unit, they were unofficially integrated with the units of Section 8. The same happened with the Intel Dobermans in Section 8, as they were unofficially integrated with the Intel branch of Section 12. In fact, there was a pending order to officially merge the two groups into a proposed "Section 1208." Section 10, consisting of Bloodhounds, existed exclusively for pinpointing the locations of missing VIPs, dangerous fugitives, terrorist leaders, and the like.

Gunter's current mission, in fact, was mostly based on the tracking done by the members of Section 10, as they had managed to track down and find the residence of the man who was Gunter's current target. In fact, most missions done by any of the other sections most likely started with Section 10 tracking down some person of interest, whether he was a missing person that needed to be rescued from hostage-takers, or, as in Gunter's case, someone in hiding who was planning something extremely destructive to a major U.S. city. For now, Gunter put his focus on the Section 14 Black Ops members who now occupied the room with him.

"Gunter!" one of the agents greeted, "how was Deer City?"

Gunter smiled, "Like you'd expect; pretty drab, boring, and run-down. Except this one guy... he's stockpiled so many guns it's not even funny!"

"Wow," another mused, "is it that guy who's addicted to crack?"

"Yep," Gunter replied, "though I think this is something more than just a crack-induced fantasy or paranoia. I might need you guys the next time I go down there..."

The first one saluted casually, "We'll be there for ya, man."

Gunter saluted back in the same manner, "Great to hear," he replied, "it's always nice to my own kind has my back, ya know?"

The second one patted the back of the first one, "Yep. Us shepherds gotta stick together!"

"True that," Gunter replied. He and the others that lived in this particular barracks loved to use popular phrases that were being used outside of the EES; it helped them feel as if they had their own small-scale version of human social interaction down here, even though they were not allowed to reveal themselves to normal humans unless it was unavoidable.

Gunter got up off the bed and stretched. "So where did you guys come back from?"

"Training," one of them answered, "they managed to get us fully private access to one of the training courses the Marines use in Texas and man, sometimes I envy how humans don't have fur..."

"Wow, it was that hot?"

"You've got no idea," he replied, "99 degrees! No air conditioning from when we got out of the van in the morning to when we got back into them last night! But still, we at least got accustomed to staying level-headed in that kind of heat. I hear it gets hot in Deer City this time of year..."

"It sure does," Gunter replied, "but I got lucky. It had just rained the day before yesterday and it was significantly cooler. But every other day, yeah, it's hot AND humid. But it's probably still a bit cooler than Texas!"

The others laughed, "Let's hope so!" one of them said.

Gunter grinned and sat up on his cot, stretching. "Well, I'd better go check with Intel to see how the case is going," he said, "We might be needed back in Deer City sooner than we think..."

The others nodded, "We'll be ready when we are needed," one assured him.

Gunter quickly saluted the team and headed off to the Intelligence Wing of the subterranean compound. After passing canines and humans from all the various sections of the EES, and traversing half the width of the compound, Gunter arrived at the Intelligence Wing. Its defining feature were the four massive monitors that displayed a background with a number corresponding to the section it belonged to, images of people of interest, summaries of important missions that were coming up in the next week, notable agents within each section who received some form of commendation recently, and maps showing areas where each section was performing operations.

Gunter walked through the room and casually greeted some of the others that he walked by from the other sections as he made his way toward the area reserved for Section 14. Once there, he greeted one of the intelligence officers, a human named Michael. "Officer Michael," he said, saluting.

Michael turned around and nodded, "Gunter!" he said, "I'm glad you came. I take it you've come to ask about the info on that USB drive?"

"Yes, sir," Gunter replied, "Though I recall seeing on the computer screen, while the target was using it, a map of Deer City with waypoints on it... did that fit on the drive?"

"As a matter of fact, it did..." Michael explained, "It points out every major hospital in the metropolitan area. He seems to be very focused on them, by the notes he's typed up with this."

"Do you think he's planning on taking over the city?" Gunter inquired.

"As crazy as it sounds, yes... according to another file on the drive, he's going to pay mercenaries to do a vast portion of this. Not only that, but according to his bank records, he recently withdrew all of his money in cash. He's definitely serious about this..."

"But you can't rely on just mercenaries, can you? Especially when you're within spitting distance of the US Military!"

"I don't know..." Mike replied, looking through the files on the computer in front of him, "it looks like the file that explains why didn't make it onto your drive..."

"All right, I get it," Gunter said, "I'll pack up. When do I leave?"

"One hour."

"On it, then."

"Wait!" exclaimed Michael.

Gunter stopped. "What is it?"

"You'll need this..." he said, pressing a couple keys, which caused a panel on the floor to slide open, and a clear Plexiglas case containing the canine biohazard suit, with a few modifications to fit Gunter's body and his spy equipment, rose from the floor.

Gunter examined it, looking impressed. "Aw, you shouldn't have..."

"Gunter, this is serious," snapped Michael, "some of the documents indicate that this guy's got some serious biohazards in his possession. The head of Section 14 insists that you use this for your mission. In fact, he won't even allow you to go unless you take this."

"Point taken," Gunter laughed, opening the case and removing the bodysuit. It apparently was put on and taken off via a heavy-duty zipper on the back that reached from the base of his tail to the top of the head between the ears.

"I know it looks like bondage gear but you'll thank us when he releases toxic fumes in the air," Michael assured him.

Gunter wasn't entirely sure what he meant by "bondage gear," but from the sound of it, it wasn't something one would wear in public. But either way, Gunter would rather be seen as being a publicly indecent human than the unusual creature that he really was, and bring unwanted attention to the CIA. Gunter conveyed this notion to Michael, who laughed a bit in reply.

"Yep," he said, "anything is better than blowing your cover, I guess."

"No kidding," Gunter agreed, and headed off to the barracks to change.

Part 2:

Before long, Gunter was riding in the van taking him back to the airplane to take him back to Deer City once again. He had everything he needed to take with him packed up in a suitcase between his legs on the floor and was accompanied by four human guards just to be safe. Gunter himself had his usual 92fs holstered at his side, as well. He didn't make a habit of talking to the human guards very much unless they approached him verbally, first. He really did wish he had something to say to them, but he couldn't really make out something that wouldn't just end in an awkward silence. Fortunately, though, one of the guards did bring something up. "So is it really true that this guy's planning on releasing a chemical bomb in Deer City?" the one directly in front of him asked. He looked the same as the others, though granted, all the humans in the back of this van were wearing helmets and balaclavas over their noses and mouths, leaving only their eyes exposed. Despite the intimidating look, Gunter was used to it, as he had ridden similarly multiple times, and he welcomed the attempt at conversation, and gladly took it up.

"Apparently so," the canine replied, "Though I don't think he'll be able to do it. Some of his plans are really flawed and would require for some far too specific circumstances,"

"Like what?"

"Well, let's see..." Gunter pondered, " One would be his assumption that the National Guard won't shoot a guided missile or a tank shell on his house,"

The guards laughed a bit.

"And then the assumption that he'll be able to take over relying solely on the help of the local drug ring," Gunter added, hoping that it would add to the pleasant experience.

At this, the others laughed much harder, some of them bending over, one of them getting watery eyed. Even to them it seemed entirely ridiculous. However, it still was placed in the responsibility of the EES branch of the CIA to get this guy out of the picture to prevent it, even if the odds of his success was slim to none.

The trip felt like it lasted surprisingly short, but Gunter was glad that he was out of the rather cramped back of the van for now. Outside of the van, he saw the familiar interior of Section 14's airborne mobile command center. There, he met up with Sandy once again, to get the scoop on what exactly he was supposed to be doing.

"Before I tell you anything, get that biohazard suit on, Gunter," she pointed out, carrying a very serious tone, "this guy could be spreading stuff into the air, and believe me, we need that nose of yours!"

Gunter was taken aback a bit, as this serious tone wasn't normal for her, even during typical missions, but he didn't hesitate to get into the changing room.

The jumpsuit really wasn't as hard to put on as he anticipated, though getting his head in was awkward and he at first felt as if he couldn't breathe, but when he pressed the indicated buttons that opened the openings around the nose and mouth, he felt fine. He did, after all, need to save the can of clean air for when he really needed it. Moving around was a challenge, especially with every part of his body being covered, but after only a few tests of its limits, he realized that it was really only a set of pants, jacket, shoes, and gas mask that was simply all attached together and allowed for practically full body movement. Zipping it closed, however, was another matter. No matter how he turned, and twisted his arms, he couldn't get to the zipper, so he did the only logical thing to do, and walked back to Sandy to have her do it for him.

"Yeah," she commented, "these damn things really do require a helping hand to get on and off..." she mused as she pulled the zipper up, sealing in the important facets of his body. She also helped Gunter deploy the small polyester bag at the backside of the suit that, when unfolded, was used to cover up the tail snugly, yet still allowed for free range of movement. The zipper of the bag was located on the top side and, like the main zipper for the bodysuit, was zipped with a small plastic band to take away the potential jingling noise that a typical zipper can make. The "ear cones" were yet to be deployed, as there wasn't an immediate need for it just yet, but there was a simple button he could press that would cover and deploy those at a moment's notice on a control pad embedded in the right forearm of the jumpsuit. The only really new feeling was an audio-only earpiece in his ear, as the microphone part was built into the inside of the gas mask to allow him to speak to Sandy and whoever else was at the other end. The Plexiglas eye shields, when activated, could display video and serve as a built-in eyepiece.

Once Gunter was suited up, he felt as ready as ever to take on this guy, as simple as it sounded. The flight still had another three hours left, and Gunter needed to occupy his time until then. He discovered that he would be skydiving into Deer City, which came as a surprise to him. "Yep," commented Sandy, "they don't want to be stuck on the ground and go through all those long takeoff procedures at the airport if something goes bad. Not that they don't have confidence in you, of course," she added, patting Gunter's shoulder.

Gunter couldn't help but smile. "I appreciate it," he said.

"No problem, soldier," she replied, "you've been trained for this, I'm positive you'll do well."

After the brief exchange with Sandy, Gunter headed back to the command center to get the full scoop of the mission at hand. The female human from his last trip on this plane was there to brief him. She did away with the formalities and just went straight into it. "Agent 1425," she began, "we have intel that indicates our target has brought a multitude of people into his house the night after you left, and haven't left. You need to find out what's going on, there. But considering the things you found on his computer indicating his biological warfare plans, we need you wearing that suit."

"Understood," Gunter replied.

"We have a couple ideas as to what the biological agents consist of, and we found that it has something to do with cocaine and spreading it through the air. We've put the Missouri National Guard on alert, and they've got their chemical warfare gear ready to go just in case the worst happens. They're our fallback plan, however. We'd be more privy to bringing in all of Section 14's Black Ops force and even that of Section 1208, if we need to. The National Guard is our very last resort, do you understand?"

"Yes, Ma'am!" Gunter replied, saluting, "but with all due respect, isn't the National Guard more numerous and able to secure the city without worrying about people seeing them?" he asked.

"Sending in the National Guard to quell what's essentially a small-scale invasion would put the entire country, perhaps the entire continent, in a frenzy. There would be mass hysteria and paranoia of chemical terrorism, and maybe even actual biochemical attacks independent from this guy," she explained.

"I see... so we want to take this guy out without causing too much fuss?"

"Exactly," she concluded, "You'll have the Black Ops branch on standby just in case. We'll be parked at the Air Force base and we can send them in via chopper. ETA would be approximately half an hour."

"Got it," Gunter said, nodding. "Speaking of ETA... what's ours?"

"A little less than two hours. You'll be skydiving out into a sparsely populated area of Deer City, and you should find the vehicle we left for you within the area. We've programmed a map to where we left it in your suit's computer so you can find it. From there, it'll give you driving directions to the target's place if you're still drawing a blank on that."

"Oh man, I've gotta drive?"

"If you'd rather walk, then go ahead. We still need to drop you in a less populated area to draw less attention, but it'll take you at least two hours to get to the target's house if you walk."

Gunter sighed and rolled his eyes, "Point taken, I get it..."

Gunter never really liked driving, nor was he terribly good at it. Most of the canines in the EES were average drivers at best. They were trained to drive, but at least 85% of the time, the driving was left to the humans. The canines could obey typical street laws, but Gunter always knocked over at least one cone in the driving course. What really scared him, though, was the thought of getting pulled over by police officers. They never gave them specific instructions as to what exactly to do if they were being tailed by a cop with his lights and siren on except to "avoid being seen in whatever way possible without killing him."

Gunter shook his head, getting the thought out of it. Suddenly, a large backpack was put in his arms.

"This is your parachute," the female head of Section 14 said, "Once you hit the ground with this, take it off and get out of there. It will biodegrade within 12 hours, by which time it'll look like somebody dropped his backpack there. Sandy will help you out the rest of the way. Understood?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Gunter replied.

"We'll contact you when we're ready to make the drop. Dismissed."

Gunter spent the rest of the time in a meditative trance. He needed every bit of it that he could for this mission that could keep or break this city. This entire city was relying on him, and this wasn't a time to get cold feetpaws. For the next two hours, he was in a calm state of mind, a trance state that allowed him to gather up energy for the upcoming mission.

This state was abruptly interrupted by the clicking on of the speaker of his earpiece, "Gunter," spoke the voice of Sandy, "it's time to jump. You ready?"

Gunter pressed two fingers to his ear and replied in the affirmative. Standing up, he stretched at the same time and jumped a bit to get his body ready for the intense physical stress of what he was about to do. Then, he headed back to the cargo bay, where a few of the German Shepherds and a couple humans were waiting for him. He greeted them and they proceeded to do a safety check on his parachuting equipment and the jumpsuit he was wearing. Once it was all done, the cargo bay opened just enough for him to walk to the edge without hitting his head. "Good luck, soldier," one of the humans bade him. Gunter turned his head to face the man, gave him a casual salute, and bounded for the edge.

With a final push from his digitigrade legs off the edge of the platform, he was immediately in freefall. The sound of wind rushing past his ears filled his head with a rather unpleasant noise, although the freedom of being in completely open space was something he really enjoyed. There was something about just being able to move about without worrying about hitting anything with a false move from an arm or a tail or something. It was a liberating feeling, and something that he tried to enjoy to the fullest before a small alarm in his suit's built-in computer went off. He pressed a key on his mask that illuminated the computer's monitor on the eyepieces. The computer indicated that he was in the lowest possible altitude for him to safely parachute to the ground. Without hesitating, not wanting to accidentally break a leg on an important mission like this, he grudgingly pulled the chord.

As he parachuted down, his built-in eyepiece indicated via a system of arrows and outlines of areas where his intended drop zone was and where the vehicle he was supposed to get to was located. Pulling the chords of his parachute accordingly, he managed to navigate towards the surface. Fortunately, it was in the middle of an empty construction site where an office building was to be constructed. Deer City was always expanding, and according to what he'd heard, forty years ago, the area where he was landing was the "No-Man's Land" of Deer City. Without so much as a few cars driving by on a nearby highway in the dark night, nobody seemed to take notice of him. It was dark, after all, and Gunter's parachute was black. It wasn't too long before he safely hit the ground, whereupon he discarded his parachute and followed his computer's prompts to get to the vehicle he was to use. The vehicle was a nondescript black SUV, and, according to his eyepiece, equipped with lights and sirens. Didn't expect that... he thought, but I guess it'd help in a traffic bind.

About five minutes after he had landed, Gunter was in the SUV and once again, following his eyepiece's directions towards the target's home. He was tempted to flip on the sirens just to get there as fast as possible, but he knew that it could spook the target very easily, and perhaps prompt him to set off his device before he got there. Plus, he didn't want to wreck the only vehicle that was given to him. If he did, he'd have to steal a car, and while that was relatively easy, considering that he was trained to do so and didn't leave fingerprints or human DNA, he didn't want to do that unless it was absolutely necessary and he couldn't avoid it. The one thing a spy at the EES was taught more than anything was to do everything in one's power to avoid being detected by the general populous. Stealing a car, for instance, was for emergencies, only.

The road was quiet, as was normal for late at night in the distant suburbs of Deer City. The few cars that did pass him in the other direction didn't take notice, fortunately. And, as long as he followed the street laws, there was no chance that Gunter would be pulled over. Gunter followed the highway, keeping the car on cruise control at the speed limit until he arrived at the exit that would take him directly to the target's house. He took a moment to radio back to Sandy. "One-four, one-four" he said as he clicked a button on the side of his mask.

"Copy, Agent 1425," replied the familiar, soothing female voice of Sandy.

"Just took the 14th street exit. ETA to target's house is about five minutes," he explained.

"Roger," said Sandy, "let us know what you find when you get there."

"Over and out."

Within minutes, Gunter arrived at the house, but drove by to find a more discreet parking space. The drive-by showed very little out of the ordinary since he was last there, except for a single man standing outside of the door lighting up a cigarette. Gunter figured it was just some random guy and took little notice of it as he proceeded to find a parking space.

Before long, the EES Agent had parked his car a couple blocks away near a burnt-out street lamp, and exited through the passenger side of the vehicle, just in case someone was driving by as he was getting out. Upon exiting the vehicle, he locked it and dashed across the street once he saw that the coast was clear. Rather than taking a back alley approach, he decided to minimize the risk of being seen even by a bum in the back alleys and took the fire escape ladder of the nearest building to the roof and jumped from roof to roof until he reached the one in which the target resided. From there, he activated most of the airtight seals on his suit except the ones on the nose. The fiberglass cones extended up from the mask and clicked together, sealing it shut. He was now almost entirely sealed from outside air. All it took was one voice command to seal off his nose from the air and begin use of the gas mask filter, if needed. Once ready, Gunter pulled out his silenced pistol and quietly opened the door.

The top floor was empty. It was apparently being used as an attic, as he did not encounter anyone on this particular floor. However, the next floor down was different. He could smell the presence of one person down there, and the faint scent of others on other floors. After he descended the stairs, he looked to the right around the first corner. There was a living room sort of setup with a man sitting on a couch facing away from Gunter, watching the television. The problem was that he had to get across that room to get to the next set of stairs down. Fortunately, he still had some of the nickel-shaped smoke bombs in his pocket. He quickly maneuvered himself to the other side of the opening into the room, and took another view to it. There, he saw a perfect opportunity. The doorway into the kitchen was just to the right of the man watching TV. He remembered one of the humans back at base saying something about the oven catching on fire at his home and smoke filling the room, and it gave Gunter a great idea. After arming one of the smoke bombs, he crept as slowly as possible towards the couch and crouched behind it. The man was so close Gunter could hear him breathing, even through the Plexiglas cones around his ears. Not wasting any more time, he tossed the smoke bomb into the kitchen, where it made a light "ping" sound as it made contact with the tile floor. It immediately grabbed his attention, but what kept the attention was the smoke that started billowing out from the doorway to the kitchen. "Ah!" screamed the alarmed man, "Damn oven... Boss'll kill me if I damage his place..." he groaned, standing up and storming off into the kitchen. Gunter immediately took the opportunity to vault over the couch and dash for the stairs. The man didn't even notice any noise behind him as he angrily looked around for a fire extinguisher.

The anthropomorphic agent quietly crept down the stairs to the second-to-the-bottom floor. This, however, was worse. He could smell a large contingency of men, for a floor this size. He also detected the distinct scent of cigarette smoke and alcohol. He poked an eye around the corner and saw six other men playing a card game. There was practically no way he could get anywhere near the next set of stairs without being seen. Plus, to make matters worse, he could smell the presence of three others, not including the faint scent of the target, considering that this was his place. Gunter thought hard and fast. Did he have anything that could deal with a situation like this? He looked around again. To his great relief, he saw another passageway further down the hallway he was taking cover in. He looked back at the men playing cards and waited for an opportunity. Before long, someone was bringing something in from another room that caught the attention of everyone at the table, and he took his chance to duck and roll across the entryway and creep into the other entrance. The passageway, it turned out, was a bedroom set up with a large bed facing a small TV with a bedside table to the left of the bed. Staying crouched, Gunter crept towards the doorway at the far end. Halfway there, however, he smelled the scent of someone approaching. Footsteps approaching the doorway behind him confirmed it. Quickly, he dashed to the far side of the bed and log-rolled under it. His heart started racing as he waited for the man to leave the room. To his great dismay, the man got on the bed. Gunter swore to himself. He really wished that he could just fire his weapon through the bed and be rid of this severe annoyance, but he knew that the EES would have preferred that he not shoot anyone unless they were alerted to his presence, especially since it would arouse too many questions as to why one of the suspects was already shot dead before the police arrived.

Then, he realized what kind of danger he was really in when he heard the clattering of what could only be a gun on the bedside table. It dawned on him that, in all likelihood, all of these men were armed, and there were probably more weapons in here than just one pistol per person. He went to the control pad on his wrist and quickly typed a message as the man above him turned on the TV. He told HQ that he was stuck in a bit of a stealth-based bind and discovered that there were at least eleven other men in this building that were armed and probably dangerous, and recommended Section 14's Black Ops team. The reply text was negative, they would instead send in SWAT once Gunter had neutralized the target. Gunter rolled his eyes and figured that they'd only send in the Black Ops when there really was no other option but to engage a large number of opponents in armed combat. Perhaps the EES figured that the local police could handle it. Gunter certainly hoped so.

In the meantime, Gunter clicked his eyepiece on and it outlined the figures of the men in the room next to him and the man above him, along with electronic devices present. He noticed there was a telephone on the bedside table next to the bed he was currently under. When his eyepiece displayed the make, model, and telephone number of that particular phone, he got an idea. He typed in a command into his wrist's keypad to call that number. Sure enough, the phone rang, and the man shifted his attention to the telephone. Gunter hoped that he'd pick up the phone despite the caller ID showing a private number. Unfortunately, the man only looked at the phone and disregarded it, mumbling something to himself. Gunter sighed. Guess I'll have to do this the hard way... he thought to himself.

Gunter dialed the number again, and as the phone began to ring, he rolled out from under the bed as the man turned his attention towards the phone once again. In one swift movement, he got to his feet, stood up, leaned over towards the bed and clamped two gloved paws over the man's eyes and mouth. With a few swift movements, he leapt onto the bed and constricted the throat with his knee enough to prevent any loud noises, but still enough for the knockout gas to enter his system through the nose via the watch device on Gunter's paw that was covering the man's mouth, and the gas managed to work its magic. The man's body went limp, and his friends in the other room would believe he fell asleep. Plus, by the time he woke up, he would be in the middle of the SWAT raid that would befall this place once he had finished taking out the target, and the fact that he was put into a drugged sleep would be inconsequential.

Once the adversary was in the dreamless sleep, Gunter crept out of the room and managed to quietly vault over the railing of the stairway and down, out of sight of the other men playing poker in the room before anyone could have had time to look up. The only thing that bothered him was that he now knew he had a time limit. He had only drugged the man on the bed long enough to keep him asleep for about fifteen minutes, saving the rest of his gas supply for the target if he managed to take him alive. Normally, he'd take all the time he could to study the movements of all the foes present, but he knew that now, if the man woke up and conveyed to his friends that he had been attacked from out of nowhere, the rest of the building would probably raise an intruder alert, and cause the target to flee, or maybe even commit suicide. Gunter pressed on, keeping these things in the back of his mind.

The bottom floor was certainly different from the last time he was there. This target was by no means a very organized man, but somehow this time the room he entered as he went down the stairs was far messier than normal. Gunter looked through the sights of is pistol and scanned the room quickly. Although nobody was present, he stayed alert. He checked all the other rooms and, as he thought, nobody was there. Once again, he went down to the basement. He wanted to call in a team to back him up, but he knew he had to keep this mission on the down low. The agent slowly descended the staircase. He had already picked up the scent of the target but down here it was especially strong. It was the kind of strong that could only mean that the target was there at that very moment. It had that "alive" sensation to it. Surprisingly, the lights were on in this basement, and it allowed him to more clearly see the entire setup the target had down here. Aside from the crates of guns and ammo, there was a small lab setting where Gunter figured was where the target was setting up whatever biochemical weapon he had. What shocked him, though, was that all the test tubes, beakers, centrifuge vials, everything, was empty and cleaned out.

The target had finished the chemical agent and, likely, was ready to use it.

Gunter crouched behind a crate and peered over it. A door opened. Gunter ducked back down, but he didn't need to see who it was. The scent of the target filled his nostrils and signaled his brain to rush adrenaline into his veins and increase his heart rate. He clicked the safety off as quietly as he could and peered over the crate just one more time to see who it was.

The target's face was looking straight at him, but it immediately displayed a shocked expression at what he saw. Gunter pointed his weapon at the man and stood up. "Hands up!" he shouted, "By order of the Federal Government, you are under arrest for planning to carry out a chemical attack on U.S. soil! Now get on your knees and put your hands behind your head!"

The target was shaking with fear at the sight of this strange, gas mask-clad creature, but still managed to draw a gun from the back of his pants and point it at Gunter. Gunter quickly fired a shot into the target's shoulder, causing blood to spray out from the area just below the clavicle and for him to fall backwards and drop the gun. Gunter quickly made his way over to the downed target and kicked the gun out of the target's reach and kept the target pinned to the ground via a foot on the chest. "Where's the weapon?" the agent demanded.

"I-I... I already deployed it..."

Gunter pointed his gun mere inches away from the target's face. "WHERE DID YOU DEPLOY IT?" he demanded.

"A-aaahh...! At... at the water treatment center!" he shouted quickly.

In one swift motion, Gunter once again positioned his watch at the man's nose and released the last of his knockout gas into it. The target went limp. Gunter clicked his earpiece. "One-Four, One-Four," he said.

"This is One-Four."

"Target is unconscious. He told me he deployed the weapon at the water treatment center. I don't have time to take him in, can you send a squad in to pick him up and take care of the mercenaries on the higher floors?"

"We're on it. Notifying local SWAT and uploading directions to the purification center on your eyepiece," Sandy's voice assured him, though her voice was tense. They both knew that if the weapon was already dumped into the water supply, the city could be doomed.

"Thanks," Gunter replied, "you might want to get the mayor's number ready. We might need to have him issue a boil order. How big of an area does this serve?"

"Lemme pull up the schematics of the water system here..." Sandy mused as Gunter could hear the faint sound of her keyboard. "...Holy... that serves about 80% of the metro area of Deer City! I'm going to need to give the Missouri Governor a call... there are too many municipalities and counties in this area to call all the mayors in time."

"All right. Just make sure you get this guy taken care of. I don't want him waking up and getting away," Gunter said.

"Already taken care of," Sandy assured him.

Gunter smiled, and was subsequently further reassured by the sound of police sirens in the distance coming closer. Without further hesitation, he sprinted up the stairs and out of the building's side door. He spared the sneakiness and simply sprinted towards his car. After unlocking the door, he opened it, got in, and his eyepiece displayed the directions towards the water treatment facility. Flipping on the lights, he immediately sped away. It was actually exhilarating, being able to drive almost any way he wanted and have everyone moving out of his way.

Gunter barreled down the highway and major roadways, staying dead focused on the road in front of him. Driving as fast as he could pushed his relatively low driving skills to the limit, as he found that actually, on highways, even this late at night, required a bit more attention than normal. He had to make sure people were actually pulling over for him and plan out his path in front of him. Fortunately, his eyepiece's computer did a lot of that for him, but occasionally he had to correct it, as the occasional car made an erratic move that he had to account for. Plus, as much as the anthropomorphic agent wanted, he didn't have time to look at the individual drivers to see if they actually saw him. Though, odds were that they didn't. His windows were tinted heavily, and at night, unless the interior light was on, seeing into the car would be practically impossible. Plus, it would've violated one of the strictest, and probably most obvious code of the EES.

Before he knew it, the secret agent took the exit and navigated some back streets that some of the humans he had known back at HQ had described as somewhere they wouldn't go at night." Gunter didn't get that feeling here, though he could tell the place was relatively run-down compared to the rest of Deer City. If the target had hired someone to take the weapon to this place, he probably managed to get someone willing to do it for relatively cheap. Gunter kept his cool as he kept the lights and siren on until he got to the empty, walled, and fortified exterior of the vicinity of the water treatment center. The first thing he noticed was that the main gate was already breached, and the security guard present was dead; his body was slumped against the wall of the security post with multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, his eyes still open as if telling Gunter to get back at the ones who killed him. Gunter killed the lights and the siren and drove through as far as there was driveable space. Unsure as to where to go once he came across an abandoned truck with nobody in the immediate vicinity, he clicked on his earpiece.

"One-Four, come in."

"This is One-Four," came the familiar voice, "don't worry, we've got your GPS coordinates at the treatment center. We're directing you to the most likely place for them to be."

"Where is that, anyway?" Gunter inquired as he got out of his car and drew his pistol.

"The pipes directly after the disinfection tank. That's the last stage of the treatment process water goes through before it's safe to be consumed. It's really the only surefire technique to make sure a toxin gets to as many people as possible and is as effective as it was intended to be," Sandy explained.

"Couldn't they just pour it into any old water pipe on the street?" Gunter once again asked as he began following the directions on his eyepiece.

"It wouldn't get to nearly as many people. The treatment center is the best place to make sure it affects the maximum number of people in this area."

"OK, thanks. 1425 out!" Gunter said as he clicked off his earpiece and sprinted in the direction indicated on his virtual map.

Within a couple minutes, Gunter arrived. As he thought, there were three men dressed in dark jackets and armed with what looked like submachine guns standing next to a very large pipe. Gunter's eyepiece outlined and identified recently used welding equipment on the ground next to them. Gunter got behind cover near them and aimed his weapon. His eyepiece zoomed in to the three men, and he could see that they had set down a large cooking-sized vat and were picking up another. There were a grand total of five vats in a line behind them. They were working on picking up one on the end.

He was too late. But that didn't mean these men couldn't still pay for what they had just done. That, and make the chemical at least a little less concentrated in the water supply. Gunter fired a silenced shot into the shoulder of one of the men lifting the vat. He dropped the vat and its contents spilled all over the ground around them. The other two raised their weapons and immediately began to search for where the shot came from. Gunter fired a shot into the chest of the one closest to his position, and the perpetrator fell to his knees with a scream, and used what was left of his strength to point directly at Gunter. The other picked up on this and immediately opened fire on him. Gunter quickly took cover and removed the silencer. Gunter's ears picked up that the remaining henchman was simply walking in his direction, occasionally firing a burst of shots in his direction. Gunter quietly shifted his position to the far end of the large crate he was hiding behind and remained there until the man walked around. Clearly, these men were not necessarily the best-trained mercenaries that money could buy.

Sure enough, the man jumped out from around the corner, and aimed right at where Gunter was a minute ago. Gunter aimed and fired his weapon, hitting the gunman square in the forehead, and he fell to the ground without a sound. Gunter returned his attention to the man he shot in the shoulder and saw that he was still there, clutching his wound. Gunter jogged towards him with his weapon pointed straight at the fallen gunman. "Stay still and I might let you live." Gunter said gruffly.

The man looked up, but seeing how dark it was, wasn't able to see that the figure in front of him was unlike any other being he had ever known existed. Rather, he addressed Gunter as if he was just another cop. "You're too late..." he groaned as he clutched his shoulder, "we dumped forty gallons in already... that's more than enough to screw over the whole damn city!"

"Doesn't mean you won't get screwed over, yourself," Gunter concluded.

He turned around and picked up the weapon that the man used to have on his shoulder until it was shot. The agent picked it up and examined it with the help of his eyepiece. It was an MP5 submachine gun with some sort of illegal modification made to it. He removed the clip and dumped out its contents before hurling the weapon and the empty clip far away in opposite directions. He then clicked on his earpiece.

"One-Four, this is 1425," he said, with an urgent tone, "the toxin's already been dumped into the water supply! Have the boil order issued! There's no time to waste!"

"Copy that, 1425," Sandy's voice replied, "getting on it. Contacting all local authorities."

"Also, have the police come over. I've got two neutralized henchmen and one with a shoulder wound," he added, looking over at the gunman he had just talked to, "And send someone else over to test the toxin. Some of the toxin has been spilled."

"Roger that," Sandy assured him, "we'll send out one of our chemists to run some tests on it."

"Sounds good. But get on that boil order before anything else!"

"Already on it. Over and out!"

Part 3

---

Gunter spent the rest of the night sleeping in the trunk of his car parked off the side of a highway in a mostly out-of-the-way highway in the outskirts of Deer City. He much preferred to have gone back, but the EES deemed it necessary for him to stay there for at least another day just to make sure that things had been sorted out with the boil order. He was asleep when a call came in.

"1425, come in," said an unfamiliar male voice.

As much as he wanted to ignore it, he didn't want the EES thinking he was dead. With his eyes still closed, he clicked the earpiece on and replied. "I'm here. What's up?"

"You need to get back to downtown Deer City immediately. The hospitals are filled beyond capacity with patients exhibiting severe symptoms," the voice explained, "they think the boil order isn't working."

Gunter's eyes popped open. He froze. His heart sank. How could the boil order not work? Wasn't that supposed to get rid of whatever was thrown into the water supply? "Who knows this, just you, or you and the local authorities?" he asked.

"Just us," the male voice replied, "our guy we sent out to run tests on the substance you recovered discovered that the toxin is even more widely effective as a gas..."

"...which is what water becomes when you boil it..." Gunter finished, "Cancel the boil order! This guy's more clever than we-"

"That wouldn't do anything, Gunter," the voice on the other end argued, "the other tests our resident chemist ran showed that it was still toxic to drink, boiled or not."

Gunter got up and climbed his way over to the driver seat, "so what do we do?"

"We need to shut off the water supply, but our calls to the people there haven't been answered. That's where we need you to go; to the headquarters of the water company," the voice on the other end explained.

"Wait," Gunter pondered as he started up the car, "they control the water supply to the entire city?"

"Not just Deer City, but half the state and pieces of the adjacent state. Get over there and try to find out what's happened, we'll talk you through the rest."

"Before I do," Gunter said as he released the parking brake, "who am I talking to?"

"Agent 1252, Andrew," he replied.

"What happened to Sandy?" Gunter asked.

"She needed to sleep. She was up all day and all night, Gunter. We wanted to let her sleep. Besides, the EES has made this a multi-branch operation and assigned me to be your handler. 1208 has a strike team on standby for you just in case," Andrew told him.

"Ah," Gunter mused as he began to drive, "so that order to merge sections 12 and 8 finally took effect?"

"Yes, sir!" he replied, "Oh, and before I let you go, we've sent in another agent to try and find more information on what exactly this whole thing is supposed to accomplish and who, aside from the target you took down, was behind it."

"Who is he?"

"Agent 1296, Daniel," she said.

Gunter nodded. He hadn't heard of this agent before, but practically all of the Border Collie spies were excellent at their craft. They were generally much lighter and more agile than their German Shepherd counterparts. They weren't necessarily superior, but Section 12 generally had the better reputation when it came to spies.

"Sounds good. 1425 out!" Gunter concluded and clicked off the earpiece. He was still wearing his suit, but he had found a way to detach the head so he could breathe comfortably while sleeping. The earpiece was still in his ear, though, as he always kept one in his ear just in case HQ needed to wake him up. He put the gas mask back on his head before he began to drive.

Once again, Gunter hit the lights on his car and activated the siren. If the water company wasn't responding, he had a likely explanation as to what was probably going on, there. Gunter clicked on his earpiece's radio verbally while he was there. He got a local station that was broadcasting local news. He was hoping that alarm wasn't raised too much.

"This just in," the announcer said, "Deer City SWAT has apprehended a suspected terrorist downtown on 14th street after a brief firefight with armed gunmen in his three-story converted apartment complex. Five gunmen died and seven more surrendered after the police flooded the building with tear gas. One SWAT officer was injured and is reportedly in critical condition. In addition, evidence of a firefight was also seen at the major Water Treatment facility on the North End. Two bodies were recovered and one man was injured but alive after apparently dumping something into the purified water. This prompted the boil order issued just hours ago. Police say they have no leads on who exactly these three perpetrators were fighting."

Gunter breathed a sigh of relief.

"In other news," the anchor continued, "hospitals are piling up with victims of the apparent contamination of the water supply, despite a boil order being issued for the entire metro area. Doctors are uncertain as to why it is still affecting people, but research is being done by local police, who are reportedly teaming up with scientists at Deer City University to determine what exactly the contaminant is and why it still seems effective despite the boil order. More news, after this."

"Disengage radio," Gunter commanded. The radio went silent. "HQ," he called, "can you get me surveillance footage at the water company offices where I'm headed?"

"Negative," said Andrew, "all cameras went offline right as communication went off. Though, we have been monitoring what they're doing... apparently they're sending a message to all security guards at every other water treatment station that served every urban and suburban area in Deer City to expect a delivery. Looks like 80% wasn't enough for them."

"Maybe once I get into the building, I could shut off the water supply entirely..." Gunter suggested.

"I don't think it's that simple... but we can try. Just get in there and see if you can access one of the computers in there."

"Roger. 1425 out."

Soon enough, Gunter arrived near enough to the facility for his eyepiece to recognize it, but stopped about three blocks away. He shut off the lights and siren and pulled over to the side of the road, and thought over the situation. If nobody was getting through to these guys, what did that really mean? Especially if the security cameras weren't working, would it really be a good idea to go in sirens flashing, guns blazing? He left the lights off and casually drove on past the building as if nothing was happening. Nothing, fortunately, did happen, but Gunter did manage to get a good look into the windows and clear glass doors of the building. His eyepiece built into his gas mask managed to pick up at least five weapon signatures. It was early in the morning, and the sun was, in fact, only just rising at this point, but it was still dark enough to the point where the naked eye couldn't really pick out too many things, especially through tinted glass. The weapons his eyepiece picked up consisted of light machine guns and assault rifles, which could only mean that they were prepared for a full-out assault. Fortunately, though, that's why a spy like Gunter was sent in. After getting a good idea of what he might be up against, he pulled his vehicle up around the back of the building, parked it, and exited. He radioed in to Andrew.

"Andrew," he said, "get that 1208 strike team on their toes, I may need them. The building's infested with hostiles. I'm going to try to sneak through, but if anything goes bad, send the team in to sterilize this place."

"Understood," replied Andrew.

"And I'm going to need radio silence. All communication is going to be through text from here on out."

"Got it. Oh, before you go, check the trunk of your car and look for the spare tire. There's something in there that could help you," he added.

"Sure thing," Gunter said, walking around the back. He clicked the button on the key, opening the trunk. There was a compartment built into the bottom of the trunk with a symbol indicating that a tire was supposed to be there. Upon opening it, he immediately noticed that it was too empty to have a tire in there. But once fully opened, he saw that inside the compartment was a P90 submachine gun, a silencer, and five additional clips of ammo. It also had a shoulder strap for ease of carrying it, or not having to put it down when doing something else. He quickly picked up the weapon and pocketed the clips of ammo in any pockets that had enough space to carry them without causing any clinking noise.

"Oh, and before you go in there," Andrew added, "You won't need your gas mask, first off. We've detected no signs of the toxin in the building."

"That's a relief," Gunter said, removing the mask and putting on his traditional eyepiece.

"Also," Andrew added, "you're going to want to find a computer on the top floor. There's a USB device in the pocket on your left shoulder. Plug that into one of the computers and it should give me full access to it. From there, I'll try to break into the system and rescind the message from going out if the packages haven't gotten there already."

"Understood. I'll let you know when I get to one."

"Good luck in there."

With that, Gunter proceeded to the building, around back. He fixed a silencer to his P90 and searched for a doorway. It wasn't too long before he heard the unmistakable sound of a metal door opening. He hid behind a low wall and poked his head around the side. A mercenary was sitting on a chair having a cigarette. Before he could debate with himself on whether he should go up and snap his neck or shoot him, the mercenary put earbuds in his ears. Gunter had seen some of the humans use them back at HQ. They apparently listened to music with those kinds of devices. Gunter himself wanted to try them out, but they weren't exactly built for canine ears and never fit him or any of his canine comrades quite right, but he still managed to get first-hand experience at just how much those things could block out.

Gunter vaulted over the low wall and headed to the door, the entire time aiming his P90 at the guard. He slowly opened the door nearest to the guard's chair, his heart rate pounding. He quickly took a look behind him to check for additional hostiles that might be actively patrolling. Seeing none, he kept his eyes fixed through the sights of his weapon until the door gently closed. It made a low-pitched clicking sound, but nothing too loud. Apparently the guard's music was playing loudly enough to the point where the click was inaudible over it.

Gunter quickly turned around and crept towards another door in front of him. The area around him was a loading dock for tractor-trailers to load and unload supplies, and was very empty. The door in front of him was one of those push-handle doors where you had to use your body weight to open the door. These doors posed a problem, since they often made loud noises. Gunter reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a camera cable, and plugged it into the appropriate outlet on his eyepiece so it would display what the camera saw. Gunter mouthed a swear word at what he saw. Apparently, a guard had thought it necessary to stand right in front of the door, and lean against it, no less. There was another guard in the area, but he walked through another door and closed it behind him. Gunter put his P90 on the floor and drew his silenced pistol. Standing next to the door, he lightly knocked on it, and then aimed his weapon with his right hand, and prepared to grab with the other hand.

The door opened. A head poked out and looked Gunter straight in the eyes. Gunter fired one shot that went directly into the forehead, killing him instantly. Within seconds, the agent yanked the body away from the door and closed it as quietly as he could before hastily dragging the body over to a ditch meant for the trailers of the tractor-trailers and tossed it in there. He quickly holstered his pistol and went over to pick up his P90 when the door opened again. Gunter slid his body into the prone position and aimed his weapon at the door.

"Fred?" a voice called out.

Gunter held his breath and switched his weapon to semi-automatic mode.

"Fred, you there?"

Gunter, being dangerously close to the door, observed a pair of boots exit the doorway, and the door closed behind them. Gunter waited for the boots to walk a considerable distance away, and when they did, he quietly crawled backwards, away from the doorway. At the same time, he looked up to see what this person was doing. He observed a single guard enter the area. His eyepiece picked up a pistol being carried in a holster on the guard's hip, much like a police officer. He looked around, but not very thoroughly, and began to turn around. Gunter curled up into a ball so that only the black of his suit was visible, which was helpful considering the low lighting in this room allowed him to easily be mistaken for some discarded trash bag. His ears picked up the footsteps walking towards the door and the door closing. Gunter breathed a sigh of relief, uncurled his body, and holstered his weapon. Then, to his horror, a walkie-talkie on the dead guard's body crackled to life, and requested a status update on "Fred" as his name apparently was.

"Fred, report in," the voice said.

In a desperate attempt to keep his cover, Gunter quickly dashed towards the body and hopped into the ditch, fumbled for the walkie-talkie on the dead guard's body, and clicked it on. "Don't worry, he's out here with me, having a smoke," he said into it, "he's fine."

"Copy that," said the voice on the other end, "just checking."

Gunter breathed a sigh of relief, and then thought a minute about the situation. He could raise an alarm on a completely different area of the building to get the guards to go there instead of wherever they already were. He used his eyepiece's computer to get an idea of the floor layout. Unfortunately there wasn't a sizeable basement to get most of the guard personnel to go to, and the first floor, as he gathered from his drive-by, was already crawling with guards. But he did get an idea that would work, but just not now. He put the walkie-talkie in one of his pockets and turned the volume knob all the way down, and climbed back out of the ditch. From there, he slowly opened the door and headed down the hallway in front of him.

The hallway was lined with doors, so Gunter made sure to check every door to see if it was unlocked as he went along, just in case he had to hide in one of the rooms. His concealment sheet wouldn't do him any good here, as the hallways were clean and illuminated by very bright fluorescent lights. Soon enough, though, he got to a stairwell at the end of the hallway near the door to, according to the floor plan, the lobby. Quietly, the agent ascended the stairs until he got to the second floor. To his right, there was the door to the main floor. On his left was the stairway up to the third floor. He quickly took the stairway up to the third floor, and then positioned himself in the corner across from the doorway into the third floor offices. He covered himself with the concealment sheet, as the stairwell was considerably dark and lacked windows, and pulled out the walkie-talkie. "Guys, help me out over here, I'm taking fire from the other buildings at the loading dock! I think it's the cops!" he whispered into it, but loud enough to make it sound more legitimate.

"Roger that, sending reinforcements!" the voice at the other end replied. Immediately, he could hear lots of footsteps and shouting approaching the door next to him. He curled up into a ball and waited. The door was pushed open, and armed men flooded out and down the stairs. Gunter waited a while until he was certain that there weren't going to be more coming out. Once the sound of footsteps faded as they went further down the stairs, he removed and pocketed the sheet, removed the batteries from the walkie-talkie device, and readied his P90. Quietly, he opened the door and peered inside. The enemy presence was minimal, now, in this cubicle-filled office space. His eyepiece identified four guards total. He remained crouched down and crept through the doorway and took cover under the desk in the nearest cubicle. The actual computer component to this particular desk's desktop computer was located below the desk, right next to where Gunter was hiding. Quickly, he opened the pocket on his left shoulder, removed the USB device, and plugged it into the desktop computer's USB port. The computer buzzed to life. He quickly made sure to unplug the speakers from the computer to make sure it didn't suddenly make any loud noises. Suddenly, he heard the walkie-talkies of few guards in the area click to life.

"All units, there's nothing out here, and we found Fred's body in the loading bay. Everyone on your guard, we've got an intruder."

Gunter got up from under the desk and shut off the computer's monitor, which was displaying the computer working seemingly on its own. He quickly typed a message to Andrew asking what the status was.

He got a reply stating that the message had already been sent and deliveries had been made to all but two of the locations, and any interference now would be relatively pointless.

Gunter gritted his teeth in frustration. He replied to rescind the message, anyway, and to also send in the 1208 Black Ops team, and other teams to watch over the other two locations, just in case. He was going to need the 1208 team now that the entire building was aware that there was an intruder. The agent quickly exited from cover and proceeded towards the nearest guard as quickly as he could while remaining silent. The guards had all drawn their weapons by now, but Gunter managed to sneak up behind one and vented his frustration at being too late by yanking the guard down to the floor by the head with his paw over the mouth, and chewed on his adversary's neck until he bled out. It was a brash move that was generally frowned upon by the EES, as it was far too conspicuous. Even military teams who had attack dogs didn't usually allow dogs to kill adversaries, especially in that manner. Fortunately, since an occurrence like this rarely happened from an agent of the EES, the Department of Homeland Security and the CIA would be able to convince the public that one of their teams' attack dogs got out of hand and had to be subsequently put down for safety concerns. Unfortunately, that didn't help him much right then and there, as apparently one of the guards had heard the noises Gunter had made and began to investigate. Gunter had enough time to draw his weapon and dispatch his foe and the two other guards in the room after he stood up and was able to have a full range of vision about the room.

By the time he was finished with that, he began to hear gunfire from the first floor. He sat down on the nearest office chair and waited for the gunfire to die down before he heard footsteps coming up the staircase. Gunter removed the silencer from his submachine gun and wiped the blood off of his muzzle with his sleeve.

Suddenly, four guards burst in, but immediately turned around to take cover. They were clearly fleeing from the Section 1208 operatives, but they weren't expecting to see another anthropomorphic, armed canine on the top floor where they were fleeing. Gunter stood up from the chair, and with a few controlled bursts from his submachine gun, Gunter eliminated the last pockets of resistance. Shortly afterwards, the five-member 1208 team burst through the doors and brandished their weapons around the room. Gunter put his weapon on one of the desks nearby and raised his paws.

"Woah, woah! Don't shoot! I got it taken care of up here!" he exclaimed.

The five Dobermans lowered their assault rifles. One of them called out "Clear!"

"You ready to get out of here?" one of the other Dobermans asked.

"Yep," Gunter replied, "how'd you hold up down there?"

"Just fine," the same Doberman explained, "Got hit a couple times, but nothing our armor couldn't handle."

Gunter nodded. "You make sure you got everyone down there?"

"Double-checked each one," said another, "all targets have been neutralized."

"Good," the spy replied, "let's get back to HQ."

Before long, the team and Gunter were sitting riding in Gunter's SUV back to the temporary CP of the EES. It was largely in silence except for listening to the local news broadcast to listen in on what was happening around the city, for anything important. As they feared, more people were getting sick from the contaminated water, even if they were boiling it. What struck their attention was that the symptoms resembled highly the symptoms of severe withdrawal. Not knowing exactly what that was, one of the agents contacted HQ about it. Over all of the agents' earpieces, the response was that withdrawal was what happens when one suddenly stops using an extremely addictive substance; something usually found when smokers try to quit by just deciding to not smoke anymore, or, more likely, drug addicts suddenly trying to get off the habit by simply not doing it anymore.

Something was starting to click in Gunter's head, but he wanted to talk it out with one of the human agents who were more familiar with this concept than he was.

As soon as the agents outside of the walled "crime scene" waved Gunter's vehicle in, the agents were cleared to remove their protective gear as soon as they parked their car and got out. It was a huge relief to Gunter, as he felt considerably freer to move than before. "Ah, that's better..." he said to himself as he removed the gas mask portion of his suit. He opened his maw as wide as he could just so he could remember that it was possible. The others behaved similarly. He was asked to go to a changing room to finish the process, but to his relief, he found Sandy there, waiting for him.

"Need help there, agent?" she asked with slight smile.

Gunter grinned and motioned his head towards the door to a changing room. There, she helped him remove the rest of his suit and get some regular clothes on. His off-duty dress was, like Sandy, business casual; a white button-down shirt, a red tie, and long khaki pants with a belt. As he was finishing getting dressed, Sandy helped him tie his tie, something Gunter always had trouble with. As she finished, Gunter put a hand on hers. "You sleep well?" he asked.

"About as well as you can on an airplane," she replied, "I hope Andrew didn't throw you off too much."

Gunter smiled and put her hand in his, "Nah," he said, "but I did miss your voice. I guess I got so used to it after so long, it's kinda weird not hearing you in my ear all the time."

Sandy smiled and lightly nuzzled him. Gunter bit his lip, but he enjoyed it for the time being. She tended to show him this mild affection whenever he just got out of a very dangerous situation like the one he just went through.

The moment was interrupted when a voice on the intercom requested that all agents of Section 14 assemble in the meeting area. The two shepherds broke the embrace. "Well," Gunter began, "I... I better get going."

The meeting covered most of what Gunter already knew: Section 14 was teaming up with the other sections to tackle this problem, Agent 1296 Daniel was still out there searching for ways to stop whoever was behind this, they had captured the man who had made the toxin that was dumped into the water, it was still potent even if the water was boiled, and they were working on making an antitoxin. However, there was new information. The toxin, as the chemists back at Section 12 figured out, was simulating severe withdrawal, particularly the kind of withdrawal one experiences after attempting to quit a cocaine addiction. It became obvious, then, that the severe withdrawal symptoms are probably intended to get more people buying the kingpin's drugs, as crazy as that sounded. They also found out that drinking the water without boiling the water was fatal. In essence, the speaker concluded, the kingpin, who they deduced was the man most likely behind this huge plan, is giving people two bad choices: death or cocaine addiction. The symptoms of withdrawal come from cocaine being released into the air around the person boiling it, and thus being inhaled by the person, more likely than not from breathing through the nose, as most people did, thus having a similar effect to using cocaine, which was typically taken through the nose.

Once the audience was dismissed, one thing was on Gunter's mind:

"I really need to meditate."

Part 4:

Gunter went to his private quarters in the makeshift facility. He was taught things about meditation by some of the humans back on base who were parts of an unspecified spiritual movement, which included a few "tricks of the trade" so to speak. Within minutes, Gunter was kneeling on the floor, with his lower legs crossed, and his arms crossed in front of his chest, his hands clenched into fists. He imagined a tune in his mind that, with little effort, could easily be "edited" so as to last indefinitely; it would only last as long as he wanted it to. The tune was something one of the humans had him listen to, and since then, he hadn't forgotten at least the base line and the basic melody.

Slowly, he rolled his eyes in sync with the beat to the tune. His head swayed lightly to the beat. It was all he needed to help induce the state of trance he desired. Before long, his mind began to experience a state of trance. Suddenly, the things that were unimportant to him fell from his immediate, conscious mind. His mind began to perceive that he was travelling through an alien, highly organic tunnel made of very unnatural colors. This state was the last step towards the full immersion into his subconscious. Finally, utterly unaware of anything his body was doing or anything about his surroundings, the end of this "tunnel" in his mind's eye opened up.

There, a vast world was revealed to him. It was a conglomeration of what he perceived the human world to be like; based on the information he received from others and what he had studied on his missions. He pictured average human beings, walking crowded streets, going into stores, offices, businesses, homes, and doing normal things; sleeping, eating, and doing work. It was as if he was floating above the city, and could direct his body's movement to float to any place in the city with but a thought. He lightly descended in a suburban area not unlike where the makeshift base was currently located. There, he saw a small grouping of humans. He knew a grouping like the one he saw in front of him was called a "family" and it consisted of two mated individuals, and their offspring. They weren't doing anything spectacular, just eating, and then getting up to go and do unidentifiable tasks involving computers, pencils, paper, and books. No particular facial expressions, no speech. He didn't know how such social groups interacted with each other, just a basic understanding. Nothing more. He ascended again and swiftly headed into downtown, but then it got complicated; he spotted a canine. Not like him, but a typical quadruped canine. Suddenly, his memories flashed back to his earliest memory; before he was the way he was.

At a year old, he was kept in the pound, as he learned it to be called. The specific events flashed quickly, but he saw himself simply sitting around, waiting for his next meal or his next drink of water. Flash forward, and a small child was teasing him as he sat back in the corner. He wanted to approach the child, but he knew from experience that these kinds of humans could be cruel. Flash forward, and men in coats and ties lead him out of the building, and then onto an airplane. The change in air pressure hurt his ears, and he felt slightly motion sick. Flash forward, and his last memory before he became the bipedal creature he now was: he was being taken into a metal-lined facility in an underground structure. Suddenly, he was brought onto a table and injected with a sedative, and then everything went black after a breathing tube was put in his mouth.

Flash forward, and he was awake, and examining his hands, and his strange new body. Again, and he was learning how to communicate to humans, and then how to fight, and his first meeting with Sandy, and then his first exposure to the outside world and areas he had never had a chance, nor been able to visit as a non-morphic canine.

He snapped out of the memory, but he remained in the dream state. Now, though, it was only as if he was watching video clips. He saw the Kingpin receiving untold amounts of riches from his illegal trade, all while depraved bodies, dead from intense withdrawal or from the effects of the drugs collapsed around him. He then saw non-anthropomorphized canines beside his seat of power, wearing armor akin to what he had witnessed the Kingpin's mercenaries wearing. Cut, and he saw a large barbed-wire fence surrounding Deer City, labeled with the biohazard symbol, and then a loud blast, blinding light, and a flaming mushroom cloud.

The shock of the image woke him up. He found himself lying on the floor, and his lower legs entirely numb. Apparently, he had fallen over in such an odd fashion that parts of his legs lost circulation. Gunter rolled his eyes and fixed his legs so that they lay out straight, in order to get blood flowing to them. Humans curiously referred to this phenomenon as a particular appendage "falling asleep." That didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to him, though. Why say they're falling asleep? What's so hard about saying that they lost circulation?

As he waited for his legs to get back in proper working order, he thought over what he saw. Clearly, the stress of the previous day and what he had been told at the briefing had turned his normally peaceful meditation into more of a nightmare. He scratched his ears. What did any of it mean, really? Or did it mean anything at all? Probably not, he concluded, as it didn't really tell him anything he didn't already know.

After some debate with himself on whether or not he had time, he decided to try again.

This time the results were much more relaxing. He felt as if he was free-falling back when he was deployed via skydive into Deer City. Peaceful, total freedom of movement, and a light breeze, to boot. He didn't see anything clearly, this time. It was simply a pure state of bliss and without worries of any kind. To him, it was kind of like how he felt when he was a stray dog, but if he didn't have to worry about finding food, water, or shelter each day: free from responsibilities and boundaries. Not to say he didn't particularly enjoy his position as a spy, though. At first, the job felt like taking out his anger on some of the humans that had tormented him on the streets by throwing rocks at him, but that got old, rather quickly, and once caused him to kill a target, even though he had been asked to simply arrest him. He realized that he was in the position he held not to go out and vent his anger, but because the good people, the rare kind he witnessed on the streets who anonymously left him a dish of food or water or who took dogs home from the pound, needed him to keep them safe. It was as much for their safety as for the safety of his fellow canines. It was why he remained here for as long as he did. That, and he didn't exactly have anywhere to go if he was to run away, either. Plus, knowing he was doing a service to people, and that even if some civilian found out about his existence, they would look up to him as an example of service to the greater good, and perhaps treat Gunter's fellow canines with more respect and compassion than he had witnessed. Of course, that's not to say he wasn't well treated at the EES. He was treated like another human being because, having the same intelligence capabilities as them, and being more able-bodied, in some ways, than humans, they deserved respect.

The wave of positive feelings about what he did finally ended with a memory about Sandy, when she gave him a long, emotional embrace after he came back from a mission in Southeastern Europe. It wasn't particularly dangerous or anything, but his earpiece had short-circuited that time, and nobody was able to contact him until Gunter could get to a computer at a local cyber cafe. He had learned that everyone thought he was KIA until he managed to send the head of the EES an e-mail explaining his situation. There was probably the biggest "welcome back" celebration as he'd ever seen for any agent, with a few exceptions, for him. And it began with Sandy running up to him and embracing him tightly. He remembered how fondly he felt of her even before then, but of course, after that, he felt much closer to her than he had before.

Suddenly, a light tap on the shoulder slowly brought him out of that trance. When he finally came to, he found himself still lying on the floor, with Sandy standing over him. "Hey, soldier," she greeted him, "you enjoying dreamland, there?"

Gunter laughed, "You've no idea," he replied.

She smiled, "You've gotta teach me to do that some time."

"How about when this mission is over?"

"Deal," she replied, "now get up, we need you out there."

Gunter arrived at the deployment room suited up in his more typical mission attire. There, he was given just a gas mask, but not with an entire suit attached to it. "Since we've identified that the chemical threat comes only from gasses that are only harmful when inhaled, you won't have to worry about the entire suit. You just need the standard canine gas mask. Nothing fancy except the built-in eyepieces and earpiece. It still works like your typical earpiece, though, but you'll see video on both eyes," the deployment officer explained, "but otherwise, far more freedom of movement than before! And we also put in a chemical detector into your regular eyepiece so that you know when to engage the gas mask."

Gunter nodded, "Sounds good," he said, as he took the mask and held it in his left paw.

"Talk to Jessica before you leave. She'll tell you what you need to do," the human officer concluded. Jessica was the woman who was usually the top authority on the airplane of Section 14, to whom he had given the USB drive with information.

Gunter nodded and headed in her direction. Just next to the SUV he was about to take, she waited in front of the driver door. "Gunter," she said, "you're going to team up with Agent 1296 Daniel. You two are going to infiltrate a compound that we have identified as a place where, for some reason, some of the sick people are going. Most of them have left treatment at hospitals to go here, and to a couple other compounds much like it. It's huge, but I don't want to bring in the Black Ops. I don't doubt their abilities, but there's just too big a risk that delirious civilians will be caught in the crossfire. You two need to sneak in and plant some microphones, cameras, and listen in on whatever you can, too. Find out anything useful. And don't gnaw anyone's neck, this time around. We can only afford to make up one story about a rogue attack dog every few years without arousing suspicion."

Gunter saluted, "Yes, Ma'am."

"You'll meet up with 1296 at a suburban high school. It's called 'Weatherfield College Prep.' And don't worry, school's been called off today, so nobody but maybe a few security guards and maybe a cleaning staff or two will be there," she said, "and I don't think school security should pose too much of a problem for spies of your caliber, should it?"

Gunter laughed, "No, Ma'am. I'll do my best to not arouse any attention."

"Good. Move out!"

With that, Gunter got into the car, started it up, put his gas mask in the passenger seat, turned on the flashing lights, and drove out once the garage door opened. The security personnel outside made way for him and directed him onto the road. His eyepiece directions took over from there, and he followed them to the high school where he was to meet the Border Collie spy. Although it was midafternoon, the streets were surprisingly empty. Curious, Gunter turned on the radio.

"...and despite the calls for Missouri Governor Ron Jakovan to declare a state of emergency, he has not done so. Until the Governor declares a state of emergency, the Missouri National Guard cannot be sent in to take order. The Governor's office has refused to comment on the matter.

"In addition, some people are actually leaving hospital treatment, despite the still prominent threat to the health of the general public. We managed to get a reason why from one man we managed to get a short interview with."

The audio changed to a recording from streetside. "Why are you leaving?" the reporter asked.

"They're going to cure us much faster than the hospital... they've found a streamline cure..." the man replied in an almost monotone voice. It sounded to Gunter a lot like how someone would talk while he's still feeling the effects of certain drugs, or perhaps brainwashed. Maybe this isn't the effect of Cocaine, but maybe a drug that makes people more susceptible to persuasion despite logic. Clearly, that's what was happening. Something was really up, here. Gunter clicked off the radio and contacted the base.

"HQ," he said, "have you listened to the local radio news?"

"We just heard it, ourselves," Sandy replied, to Gunter's great relief. Sandy's voice always calmed him to some degree.

"We're looking into it. The guys at Section 12 are thinking that there may be a small amount of another drug we overlooked in testing. We'll get back to you on that."

"Thanks. 1425 out."

Soon, Gunter reached the general vicinity of the high school. Surprisingly, there was practically nobody outside. He remained wary, though. He had a feeling that the streets around here wouldn't be so quiet so long as the threat remained out there. He pulled into the parking lot of the school, and found only three vehicles in the lot. One of them, as Gunter expected, according to his eyepiece, had lights and a siren equipped. His eyepiece also revealed that the license plate indicated that the vehicle belonged to the federal government. Upon closer inspection, he saw that there was a life form inside. The eyepiece indicated it was an EES agent. Just to make sure, he clicked on his earpiece. "Call 1296," he commanded it.

His eyepiece displayed the message "Calling Agent 1296" as he heard the other agent's earpiece ring. Daniel picked up without much delay. "Is that you who just pulled in?" he asked.

"Is that you in the car?" Gunter countered.

"I guess that answers both our questions, then!" Daniel replied in a slightly joking manner, "pull up and we'll talk. I don't want either of us to risk being seen in broad daylight."

"Got it," Gunter replied. He maneuvered his car so that his driver's window was next to that of Daniel's car. He rolled it down, and the other car's window rolled down, too. Inside, as he expected, was a Border Collie anthro, who seemed to be rather young for an agent, but he at least struck Gunter as capable.

"You must be Gunter," he said.

"And you must be Daniel. Nice to meet you." Gunter replied, nodding.

"Likewise," Daniel said, "listen, I get the feeling that this is beyond the Kingpin just trying to get more people to buy his drugs..."

"Why's that?" Gunter inquired.

"Think about it! Do you really think that any impurity in the water will affect everyone in the entire city? I mean, I've observed these people, and everyone's been buying bottled water and jugs of distilled water from grocery stores and street vendors to last them until the water's been cleaned up. In fact, I've heard that some people already had water stored in their homes just in case something like this happened! The general public is considerably smarter than we seem to have given them credit for. The only people who were affected were those who didn't watch the news or hear it from others that the tap water was contaminated, and that was only about 20% of the people who live in the area that's within the contaminated water district. That's a considerably larger buying circle for the Kingpin, but not all of them are going to start buying his drugs. Drug rehab enrollment was out the door once it was announced what the effects of breathing the water vapor from boiling the contaminated water was."

"So... you're saying he's trying to accomplish something else with this?" Gunter asked.

"Maybe... or it could be a distraction. I don't know what, but that's what we're going to find out at this facility."

Gunter nodded. "Lead the way. Keep your lights on until we get to the facility. Should help us with traffic along the way."

Daniel nodded in reply. "Let's get moving then!"

Immediately, the two were off. Gunter followed at a reasonably close distance behind Daniel's much smaller compact car that more closely resembled a standard undercover police vehicle. Both cars kept their lights and sirens on as they moved about. The facility they were heading to in question was actually an abandoned ice rink. It had fallen into disrepair after the previous owners failed to pay the rent on the building and they were subsequently evicted. It was, however, so far out in the country that nobody wanted to buy it, so it was just left there. Gunter had heard that a sports team of some kind used to practice at this particular rink. A sport was played on such a slippery surface as ice was a bizarre concept to Gunter, but he felt that such an athlete would be far more fit and have far more finesse than even some of the spies of the EES. He used his onboard computer to tell him all it could about the place. What limited information it could provide (the computer only provided bare essential details and floor plans, and saved space for more pressing and practical software and information) told him that it was once reserved for public use, telling him that typical humans were fully capable of sliding around on ice through bladed shoes called "ice skates." Apparently it was a possible, but not terribly easy task as long as one had a sense of balance.

His stream of thought was cut when Sandy's reassuring voice came over through his earpiece. "Gunter," she said, "why are you looking up ice skates on your eyepiece computer?"

"Just trying to find out how people navigate ice without the assistance of ice picks and sawtooth attachments on boots, that's all. It made me wonder, really. I was curious, you know? I never see normal humans to much of a capacity, and really, I'm not doing anything else until I get to the facility, am I?" Gunter explained.

"OK, OK, then, I'll let it go," she giggled, "just know that you're only two miles from your destination, and try to pay more attention to the road."

"But I am paying attention!" Gunter protested.

"Yeah but we all know that driving isn't your strong point, Gunner," she pointed out, "we wouldn't want one of Section 14's better agents getting a crippling injury in a car crash, that's all."

Gunter huffed. "Gunner" was a teasing name some of the drill sergeants gave him back in training. He usually didn't take very well to it, largely because it was often used as a demeaning name. Even though the drill sergeants were supposed to use an agent's number in basic training and beyond, they were known for sometimes making up nicknames that were either easier to pronounce or were mockingly tame names when compared to what they were being trained to do. But for some reason, Sandy saying it didn't bother him nearly as much.

"Point taken, Sandy," he replied, "over and out."

Within a couple minutes, the two agents could see the building after rounding a bend in the highway. They immediately shut off their lights and sirens and took the appropriate exit. It was starting to get dark; the sun was beginning to be in a more westerly position and the shadows were getting longer. Within a couple more hours, it would be about the time when most homes and businesses would turn on their lights. They parked their vehicles in a back street behind a couple empty office buildings to wait for that time. Although they much preferred to do things in the daylight, darkness all about them was essential for their stealth. Unlike human spies, they could not blend into a crowd or don a disguise to make themselves appear as one of the criminals or hapless civilians who were for whatever reason being drawn here, in addition to the fact that all of the anthropomorphic spies in the Experimental Espionage Service were forbidden to consciously reveal their existence to anyone unauthorized unless they were either intent on killing that individual or had no other choice. Therefore they had to rely on predominant darkness. If an agent was in a position where he had to reveal himself to an innocent bystander for the safety of that civilian, the agent(s) would take the civilian to the EES HQ or mobile HQ for decognition, or "DeCog" as it was called. Few really understood what the process was that caused someone to forget that they had seen such a top-secret government agent, but all that mattered was that they weren't killed, they remained the same person they were before, and it did what it was supposed to do.

While the two waited for night to roll around, they took a power nap in their vehicles and told their respective handlers to wake them up when it got dark outside. Gunter wanted to meditate, but he decided to sleep, not wanting to start feeling tired and yawning during what was supposed to be a strictly surveillance mission. Still, sometimes his dreams had a similar effect to meditation, although he was far less conscious in sleep than in meditation, and therefore had little to no control over what came to his mind.

By the time Gunter was awakened by the always-soothing voice of Sandy, he had no recollection of what he had dreamed. Again, another reason why he preferred meditation to sleep; you don't always forget what you experienced in meditation so quickly. Gunter rolled his eyes but took a swig of water from the refrigerated glovebox in his car to get his mind focused on the upcoming mission. He opened the door to his vehicle and strolled up to the side of Daniel's car, from which Daniel emerged, rubbing his eyes and taking a very large swig of water from his own water bottle. Gunter took a bit to examine what Daniel was equipped with. At first sight, he looked to be armed and armored exactly the same way as Gunter, except for having two identical pistols in holsters on both of his thighs. However, he also noticed that he wore fingerless gloves on both paws, and also carried a knife in an ankle sheath. This probably meant that he was in the force longer than Gunter originally thought.

He put those thoughts aside and just told himself that he was far better prepared for the mission than he had anticipated, as Gunter had originally anticipated a relative rookie.

"You ready?" he asked as he tossed the bottle back into his car.

"As I'll ever be," Gunter replied, locking the doors of his vehicle through a keypad on the passenger door.

Andrew smiled and donned his gas mask. Gunter did the same and motioned his head in the direction of the ice rink.

For speed, they both crouched into a quadrupedal position and bolted. The espionage agents often liked to do this to gain speed and to reduce the likelihood of anyone taking a second glance at them, except maybe dogcatchers. That, and being a bit more used to that kind of running than bipedal running made it a considerably faster method of getting from place to place on foot.

Before too long, they reached the ice rink. It didn't immediately strike him as something in such a state of disrepair, but it had been abandoned for about 10 years, and if the mercenaries here were using it for whatever purpose, it would be likely that they would keep up some sort of repairs to this place.

The two agents reached a side door, and stood up from their quadrupedal stance into a bipedal stance. Gunter's eyepiece registered that there was the toxin from the water supply in the air, so he dialed in the order to his gas mask from his wrist's keypad to seal up. Immediately, he could hear the material of the gas mask seal up around his nose and mouth. His eyepiece flashed the message "Gas mask now in use. Filter at 100%"

Gunter looked up at Daniel, who had apparently done the same. The two then pressed their ears to the door next to them and listened in. With their senses of smell being really cut off, they had to rely on sound and sight more than usual. Both of them drew their silenced pistols and quietly opened the door once they did not detect a presence in the immediate area. They immediately split up to go in different directions. Gunter, in addition to thinking about the best way to complete the mission at hand, also wanted to see this agent's skills at what he could do espionage-wise.

Gunter scanned a back hallway, which was some sort of maintenance passageway when it was still in use back when. He pressed his back against a wall and slid along it until he got to a corner. He poked his head around it and looked around. Seeing nothing, he continued onward. The agent began to notice that this was a perfect place to use his concealment sheet, as it was dark on the inside except for a few scattered fluorescent lights, and most of the areas were about the same color in the limited light as his concealment sheet. With proper placement, he could conceal himself and likely be mistaken for a discarded trash bag. Suddenly, he heard a loud noise that resembled an alarm but sounded far less urgent. He shrunk back to a corner and concealed himself with the sheet and turned on his heat vision goggles. He saw a guard appear, armed with, to his surprise, a legitimate AK-47, according to his eyepiece. Gunter listened closely, but heard nobody else approaching, so he took the liberty to position himself at an angle so that he could see what the guard was doing. Once at the position, he concealed himself again and observed.

It quickly became clear that someone was knocking at the door. Gunter quickly typed out a message to Daniel telling him this, and then kept a close eye at the door, and angled his ears towards the door. When it opened, he could hear the voice of a human who seemed to be under the influence of an illegal substance. Marijuana, maybe? Ecstasy? Perhaps LSD?

"I came for the cure..." the man said, sounding a little bit dazed. Gunter wondered if they found anything in the substance dumped in the water supply that might cause this. He sent a quick text message to HQ asking a question to this effect and then kept watching. He could tell that there was something up. The civilian, who was now being led into the compound, was looking around, possibly confused. Was he expecting more people to already be there? Moreover, why was he here in the first place? Didn't he trust the doctors enough at the hospital to provide treatment and a cure? And if that was the case, why weren't there huge masses of people outside the front door waiting to get in?

Gunter waited for the two to pass his position. He sent a message to Daniel saying that they were probably headed towards his position and to keep an eye on them. Gunter was going to investigate the rest of the area.

Gunter checked the blueprints to the building through his eyepiece. It showed that Gunter was now in an area where the actual ice rink used to be. Clearly, it had been ripped out and replaced with concrete. He figured that points of interest might be within the small administrative offices and locker rooms. It didn't seem as if the mercenaries were using the large expanse that used to contain the ice rink. From the looks of it, there were either very few mercenaries here or they were all in the back rooms.

Gunter removed his concealment sheet and crept through the area and headed towards the locker rooms. With his sense of smell effectively cut off, he really didn't have much of an idea of what exactly he was going to be up against, or if anyone was in the locker rooms. Once there, he saw two: One for the male population, one for the female population. He wasn't sure what to make of it, but his heat vision told him that there was more heat being emitted from the male locker room. The entrance to the locker room was set up so that there was a very winding walkway into it, eliminating, effectively, the need for a door. This made the agent's job much easier, as he simply crept along the wall and peered around corners to see what was there. In relatively little time, he saw the civilian and a few mercenaries sitting in a room. These mercenaries were lightly armed, only with pistols in holsters, but their heavier assault rifles were leaning against the wall. Gunter drew his pistol and took a deep breath. In one swift motion, he laid himself flat on the ground and threw the concealment sheet over his body. The agent reached around the corner and placed a small camouflaged camera akin to the ones he used back when he was surveying the original target's house, and placed it just at an angle so that he could see everything that was going on in the room. He sent a text message to Sandy to patch both him and Daniel in to the camera's feed, and then moved quickly into a crouched position so that he could more easily be mistaken for a trash bag. He watched the live feed on his eyepiece as he waited.

Both agents witnessed that a man in doctor's scrubs was finishing giving an injection to the civilian that came in. Gunter figured that it was the "cure" that some of the people had been promised. As Gunter suspected, it was looking more like a ploy. The civilian, a man in about his late 30s, was asked for his bank information. He gave it up with a harsh slur in his voice.

"Only so we can get your payment securely so that the doctors around here don't find out that we're doing this. You know, government conspiracy and all."

"Yyyyaaahh..." groaned the man.

"Now," continued the doctor, "we're going to give you another injection. This is more of a painkiller than anything, but trust me, you'll feel a lot better."

The man nodded and held out his arm. Gunter watched intently, interested to see what this injection would do.

Surprisingly, the man seemed to feel extremely better. After a few minutes of fidgeting in his chair, he fell asleep. The only way Gunter knew that the man wasn't dead was because he could still see him breathing. That, and the doctor took his pulse and confirmed that he was still alive. They then plopped him into a wheelchair and wheeled him into a room further back. Probably the rooms with the actual toilets in them, Gunter figured.

He sent a text message to have Sandy track the banking information the man had given and see what they were doing with it, even though he already had an idea. Within minutes, Sandy got back saying that they had cleaned it all out, all $15 million, checking, savings, stocks, everything he had in every kind of place one could store money. This wealthy, well-to-do stock broker's own house had a water filter that would have cleaned out the impurities that were dumped into it, but he had been at a friend's house that did not have such a filter and got sick after boiling it, as per the instructions of the boil order. He vacated the hospital without clearance from a doctor and hadn't been seen or heard from in hours. Gunter guessed he probably bribed some of the nurses and hospital staff to get out of there, and the drugs in the vaporized water contributed to the delusion that these guys had a cure, and he was perhaps given other drugs during his time in the hospital that altered his perception of reality.

Gunter also got a transmission from Daniel saying that the doctors from Section 1208 told him that the man, after getting the second injection, was showing what usually happened to someone on heroine for the first time. Gunter laid himself flat on the ground and thought to himself, still under the relative safety of the concealment sheet. What exactly were they going to do with this guy? Why didn't they just kill him after he gave up his bank information? They can't use him as leverage, since he doesn't have any more money, and Gunter seriously doubted that they'd use him as a soldier that they'd pay with more cocaine or heroin, since this man was not the kind of person that could make it through basic training even if he tried. He contacted Daniel telling him to try and find where the man was being taken. At the same time, he got a message from HQ. "1425," said Sandy, "we did some digging, and I found out that the only people that have left the hospital were people who have a whole lotta money stashed away."

"So they're only getting rich people to come here?" Gunter typed back.

"Yep," Sandy concurred, "they seem to have a list of high net worth individuals in Deer City and visitors to Deer City, somehow convince them to come to these remote locations, and drain their assets via wire transfer once they get there, and that's the last piece of any kind of paper trail we've got on any of them. Looks like they've found a relatively easy source of income that'll keep whatever they're trying to do running for quite a while... and maybe even hire more mercenaries."

"How many people has this happened to?" Gunter typed.

"I've found evidence of this happening to fifteen high net-worth individuals, but more could be on the way. Most of them are stock brokers, others are heads local banks or local chain restaurants. In total, these guys have drained almost $150 million in the past 12 hours. It's been wired to one bank account in the Cayman Islands, one in Russia, and one in Switzerland. They've certainly found a way to fund this operation for at least another year, according to my estimates," Sandy explained.

"Not if I can help it," Gunter typed in response.

With that, he got up, crept out, and moved out of the locker room area to a secluded corner near where, according to the blueprints, the bleachers for the ice rink used to be. Here, at least, he could whisper.

"But why would they keep them here? They don't have any more money they can access, it doesn't appear to me that they're in any condition to fight, even if they are under the influence of drugs... what more could they want?" Gunter wondered, "what could they be worth now?"

"I don't know..." Sandy began, but was cut off.

"Shields," Daniel interrupted, "human shields."

"What?" Gunter and Sandy exclaimed, at the same time.

"I'm here right now, looking through the ceiling," he explained, "this place is in total disrepair. 1208, patch them into my camera."

After some static, Gunter could see that five men and two women were sitting on a bench, arms and legs tied together with duct tape, in front of a video camera on a tripod. Three armed and masked gunmen stood behind them, displaying their assault rifles prominently. "If any of you... ANY of you, even try to stop us, we've got hundreds of these innocent little bystanders," one of the masked men said, pacing the back of the bench, motioning the muzzle of his rifle at the heads of the hostages, "who are so drugged up the ass they won't even know they're being shot by their own government! So unless you want to be known as ruthless bastards of a country who don't give a shit about the lives of their own civilians, you'll all stay out of our way!"

"Daniel," Gunter urged, "take those guys out! I know I'm not your authority, but if they broadcast that tape..."

"Negative," said an unfamiliar male voice, "there are too many civilians present that can get hit in the crossfire."

"Who're you?" Sandy demanded.

"This is the head of 1208," the voice replied, "I can't risk civilian lives like this. Besides, the tape can help the rest of law enforcement know what they're up against."

"Actually," Daniel replied, "I've got a better solution."

A slight clicking sound, followed by a "pew" noise could be heard. Through the video feed, three small objects flew into the room, and then the room was filled with light blue light and electricity arcs, and then smoke. Gunter instantly recognized what it was; the "Section 12 Paw-Mounted Non-Lethal Grenade Launcher," a specialty invention of the section that they were relatively proud of. It launched any potential combination of three non-lethal grenades; smoke, tear gas, flash-bang, EMP, stinger, or sleeping gas, all shaped like coins akin to those Gunter carried, in one shot, out of three slots mounted on the back of a fingerless glove, whose trigger was a button on the palm of the fingerless glove. It could fire five times before needing to be reloaded back at HQ. Still technically a prototype, it was nonetheless standard issue on all spies of Section 12, but limited access to the spies of other sections. They could fire either just one of the grenades, two, or all three, depending on the calibrations made to it before the mission. In this case, Daniel's fired a smoke grenade, a sleeping gas grenade, and an EMP grenade, as all communication went down, even Gunter's eyepiece flickered out.

Smart idea to prevent communication with reinforcements, Gunter figured, but it still cut him off from the EES. Fortunately, their vehicles were far enough away so that the communication devices there would still work. At least the EES would figure out sooner rather than later that their agents weren't killed. Gunter immediately removed the concealment sheet, put it away and crept into the restroom area. It appeared that the mercenaries in the room were also the ones in the video feed, and the doctor must've gone elsewhere, as the locker room was empty.

Inside the restroom area, Gunter found Daniel removing the tape from the camera.

"Hurry," he said, "we need to get back to our vehicles before they think we're dead!"

"Don't worry," said Daniel, "we'll get out in time. Plus, my filter's getting low, so I wanna get out of here just as much as you do. But what are we going to do with these people?"

"Honestly," said Gunter, "we can't carry them out. Or at least not all of them... I can't carry more than one person."

"Neither can I," Daniel mused, "what should we do?"

"Let's take one and make it look like he managed to escape," Gunter suggested.

"As much as I don't want to... I think it would be best to let them think they still have an upper hand. If they think that the government is on to them, this could escalate really quickly," Daniel said, "I really don't want to put these guys' lives in danger any more... but these guys were right; these hostages are drugged like I've never seen before. I think it's a combination of the drugs they're injecting into them and the drugs in the air. They are totally in their own world; they didn't even scream at the giant flash of my EMP!"

Gunter crouched down and used his teeth to remove the duct tape from the hands of one of the hostages, and took a knife from one of the mercenaries' belts to cut the leg bindings, and left the knife on the floor. He hoisted the hostage onto his shoulder in a fireman's hold and nodded at Daniel. "C'mon," he said, "my filter's getting low."

They used a back door to get out and ran like the wind. It was almost pitch black, now, so even if they were being followed, whoever was following them would have to use night vision to see them. Once they got to their respective vehicles, they removed their gas masks, to their great relief, and drove back to the EES HQ. Gunter left the man he had freed in the back seat of his SUV. Both agents contacted their respective handlers via cell phones in the glove boxes of their vehicles. Gunter made Sandy aware that he was taking in a civilian that could be useful in stopping this whole ordeal.

It wasn't too long before both agents got to the makeshift HQ for Deer City and were waved in. By that time, the former hostage was starting to stir, so paramedics located inside the base rushed to him and got him into medical care. Gunter couldn't help but wonder what would be done to the hostage now that he was, for all intensive purposes, an unauthorized person inside a highly secure facility. Perhaps, he figured, they would just get him a civilian ambulance once they determined how drugged up he was and what drugs exactly they used. Once inside, Gunter shook paws with Daniel and the two parted ways for the time being. This relatively short mission was likely not going to be their last together.

Gunter spent the next half-hour in a meditative trance. After getting past the pre-trance stage of going through a tunnel in the mind's eye, he saw himself racing through Deer City as a ghost that nobody else could see. But this Deer City was different; it was Deer City if the EES did not interfere with whatever was going on here. A war zone. He had been through war zones before on missions in the Middle East and Africa, but to see it in a zone such as a suburban area of Deer City, in the United States, was scary. Not all of his mind trips were happy experiences... nobody can really predict what will happen when you let your mind free from restrictions, even if only for a short amount of time. Similar to LSD, meditation to Gunter was a way of looking into his own mind and subconscious. Sometimes it led him to answers that he may not have reached with his conscious mind alone.

He suddenly awoke with a paw on his shoulder. He looked up and saw Sandy, and smiled. "Hey," he said, "how're you holding up?"

She gave him a hug. "Doing much better. I think they're on to something."

"What do you mean?" Gunter asked.

"As in, what purpose all this is supposed to serve? This guy's totally lost all reason, but he still kept his intelligence. The video Daniel recovered explains it all," she explained, helping him up.

"Well, that's always good to hear," he replied, "but... partly because it means we'll be out of here and out of harm's way," he added, caressing the side of her muzzle.

Sandy's ears folded back shyly. "Gunter..."

"Listen, Sandy... I've just been thinking... we've been a team for so long... I just can't imagine working any mission without you in my ear. I guess the humans would say I've grown attached to you... you know?" he explained.

Sandy put a hand on Gunter's shoulder. The two agents looked each other in the eyes. "They'd also say it could interfere with our jobs..."

"...Or it could improve our compatibility in future missions to come... they know how human interaction can interfere, but do they really know canine interaction like this?" he countered.

Sandy gave a one-syllable laugh. "In that case..." she began, and then gave the Section 14 spy a brief peck on the end of his muzzle.

Gunter shivered.

"...let's at least wait until Deer City's finished and done with. We'll have less on our mind, then." She concluded with a grin and a hand on Gunter's cheek.

Gunter blushed. "You make a point, there," he concurred, "but, will you at least come with me to the briefing room, or wherever they're showing that video?"

Sandy nodded. "I'll show you where it is, ya little horn dog," she said with a laugh.

Gunter rolled his eyes. She did enjoy making jokes, and that was a big part in what he liked about her. He liked someone who could make him laugh.

Before long, the two arrived at the appropriate room, where some Section 1208 and Section 14 agents were assembling to watch the video in its entirety. Apparently, they had already shown it to the strategists of the EES and were just now showing it to the appropriate agents to get an idea of who and what they're dealing with. Gunter and Sandy sat down at the only two open seats left. Gunter sat next to two burly Doberman anthros, and could see Agent 1296 Daniel across the room, sitting between a male Border Collie anthro and one of the German Shepherd anthros who was on the Black Ops squad Gunter had spoken to back at the permanent HQ in Virginia.

A human in business attire, but with CIA credentials displayed on one of the pockets, was standing in the middle of the circle of tables with a projector on a rolling cart. He looked around. "OK, guys," he began, "After all your hard work, all your sacrifice, we found out what's going on here. First, watch the video that Agent Daniel, here," he explained, motioning to Daniel as he spoke, "recovered from the old ice rink."

He clicked a button on a remote control, which displayed the video of the hostages on a long bench and three armed, masked men standing behind them, with one more talking and pacing behind them. He rambled on and on about how the United States is too oppressive and inefficient as a government and how their leader can make a place that will be everything that the United States can't be. By a certain point, Gunter wished he could just pull out his gun and shoot the talking guy, he was being so annoying, but he grit his teeth and kept listening.

What caught his attention, though, was that the guy pulling the strings was actually really smart, and apparently had tons of resources if what the guy was saying was really true. Then he got to the part about how they were going to use people like the hostages in the video as human shields if the government tried to stop them. It wasn't just those rich guys, though, it was also the masses of people that they said they had held in the hospitals all around the city. Everyone's heart dropped. There was no incident in any of the Deer City hospitals.

At that point in the video, Daniels' grenades could be seen in the camera and then the camera went to static.

"In a nutshell," the human at the center said, "the kingpin of the area let his power over the local authorities and ease of evasion of the federal authorities get to his head. He wanted to create his own country as a show of defiance to how much he can outwit any legal body. We also think he may also be suffering from a severe grandiose delusion, where he believes that he's invincible in every single way. The guy operates like a cult leader, but he's smart enough to know he can't get his own country by blind obedience alone, hence why he's hired so many mercenaries with the money he got from being a high-ranking mob boss and the money he's drained from the hostages' accounts. He's going to use human shields as a way to keep us from stopping him."

He paused.

"What about the hospitals?" the Doberman next to Gunter asked.

"We've sent local SWAT and State Troopers to all of the hospitals in the area to guard there. The hospital has too many people present for any of us to go in. If things do get out of hand, the governor will call in the National Guard. Fortunately, we can either prevent or lessen the impact of that by taking down the Kingpin."

"So," Daniel explained, standing up, "he used the chemist that Gunter took down earlier to drug as many people as possible, but specifically targeted the richest civilians of Deer City to drug even more and steal their millions to fund the operation and the founding of his own country. The water also contained Ecstasy and a few other mind-altering chemicals to make the argument to leave the hospital and go to a remote facility more appealing. From there, the Kingpin's people would find the richest people in hospitals, drug them even more, pitch the idea, and once the drugged millionaires were convinced, he would be driven to the location where they would drug him with truth serum to give up his bank information. Then, they'd be thrown into storage for future use as human shields just in case the time would come. Plus, with how he's mapped out all the hospitals in the metro area, he also planned on the influx of patients in the hospitals to use them as unknowing human shields to use just in case things really got out of hand for him."

"Correct," the human replied, "And with the human shields surrounding him, he feels like nobody can touch him. He figures that nobody in his right mind would risk civilians getting executed and do anything about it. He still feels that he has the upper hand."

"So what're we going to do?" Gunter asked.

"We," the human said, "are going to go straight to the top, and remove the head. Without their employer, the mercenaries are likely to surrender. They are, after all, in this for the money. Section 10 is working on tracking down the Kingpin's location so we'll know where to find him, and to have a more specific plan of attack. Dismissed."

Part 5

---

Gunter finished loading bullets into the fifth and final clip of ammo for his Beretta 9mm pistol before he secured it on the holster on his right thigh and placed the clips into one of his chest pockets. He wasn't going to go in the full biochemical suit this time, since the location of the facility where the kingpin was staying was deemed to have no gas presence by Section 10. But he, and the rest of the infiltration team, had a specialized canine surgeon's mask that they could wear just in case. Not a solution for heavy chemicals, but good enough for light chemicals and fine powder. Gunter also took a minute to check his small caliber revolver he kept on his right ankle. While he did this, he felt a paw suddenly on his shoulder. He didn't need to turn around to know it was Sandy. He put his paw on hers. "Hey Sandy," he said, "come to wish me luck?"

"In a way," she replied.

Gunter turned around, trying to look casual to hide that he was actually really nervous. He wasn't sure at all what she was going to do. He'd been nervous before when he was in firefights and sneaking around a place with armed sentries who would shoot him without question, but no amount of training would really prepare him for the emotional sort of situation he felt between himself and her. But before he knew it, Sandy leaned in and placed her lips onto his. Gunter's eyes widened, and tilted to look directly at what he could see of her face. Her eyes had closed. Feeling guilty, he closed his as well, and angled his head a few degrees clockwise to a point where it felt more... "right" as it were, and returned the gesture as best he could. He interlocked his right paw with her left paw, both of which still were at the level of their hips.

Although it easily felt to Gunter like a half-hour, only a couple minutes had passed before the intercom crackled to life with the order for the infiltration team to assemble in the garage. Slowly, the two shepherds parted lips. Gunter and Sandy both slowly opened their eyes. "Be careful out there, Gunter," she said, "I wouldn't want to lose you. You're valuable... but not just in the way the EES would put it."

Gunter smiled and embraced her tightly. "I don't go out there to disappoint, Sandy," he replied, "I'll be thinking of you," he whispered.

He broke the embrace and gave her a peck on her forehead, which was relatively easy, since he was a bit taller than Sandy. Gunter gave her a smile and jogged off to the garage to assemble.

He quickly fixed his eyepiece on his head as he ran, and by the time he arrived in the garage in front of the two vans that were to transport them to the destination, he adjusted it so it fitted his head like he was used to. The two vans, Dodge Sprinters, were relatively unassuming, black, and had one-way windows on every window. In front of one was a fresh Section 14 Black Ops team. In front of the other was Agent Daniel and a squad of Section 1208 Black Ops, all but one of which were Dobermans, while one was a female Border Collie. She was, unsurprisingly, shorter than the Dobermans, but Gunter was no less confident in her abilities. Daniel stood at the front, equipped in similar armor to Gunter, but with two pistols in cross-draw holsters at his waist and the wrist-mounted non-lethal grenade launcher he had used earlier.

Gunter took his position with the Section 14 Black Ops team as a well-dressed man stood before them. "Soldiers," he began, "this man is on a power high. He believes he is invincible. Be prepared for heavy resistance from both him and his guards, he will not go down without a fight. Go in quiet and try to attract little attention for as long as you can. The spies here will serve as leaders for their respective sections' team to achieve that end. The spies will clear the way for as much as they can by themselves, while their respective teams will follow them in until they cannot conceal their presence any longer. Watch for security cameras, too. This is the age of the Internet, and we don't want video or pictures of you guys winding up on YouTube! Destroy all cameras on sight, do you understand me?"

"Sir, yes sir!" replied everyone in unison, standing at attention.

"Very good! Let's bring order back to Deer City! Move out!"

Everyone saluted, and when the man walked away, everyone went at ease and loaded up into the vans while two humans got in the driver and passenger seats, dressed in police tactical gear. Once everyone was loaded up, the doors closed and everything inside the back of the van went dark. The engine of the van and the other van containing the Section 1208 squad whirred to life and after a few minutes of idling, the garage doors opened and the entire team could feel the van begin to move. Gunter scratched his ear and took a deep breath.

Suddenly, his earpiece clicked to life with the voice of Sandy. "This is one-four, can I get a roll call?"

"Agent 1425 Gunter, reporting in," Gunter replied.

"Agent 1439 Emily, reporting in," said one of the squad members in front of him.

"Agent 1412 Rex, reporting in," chimed a squad member with a deep voice to the far right.

"Agent 1455 Paul, reporting in," replied the agent directly on his right.

"Agent 1443 Amy, reporting in," said the agent across and to Gunter's right.

"Agent 1422 Kurt, reporting in," replied the last agent.

"Roll call taken," Sandy replied, "I'll keep in radio contact with all of you for the duration of the mission. Be careful out there!"

"Roger that, Sandy," Gunter replied.

Over a few bumpy roads and what was probably a worn-down street that hadn't seen proper maintenance in years, the van finally arrived at its destination after performing a quick 180 turn, the sure sign that they had arrived and it was time to get out, and fast. "Hold up, stay in the vans," Daniel spoke over the comm. link, "I want our communication to still work after I do this."

Gunter waited rather impatiently as he heard a light sound outside, and then saw a bit of a blue flash through the small gaps in the doors of the van. It became obvious, then, that Daniel had just single-handedly dealt with all of the security cameras by using his paw-mounted grenade launcher to launch an EMP charge to take out all electricity to the facility. All vehicles employed by the EES had been outfitted with safeguards against EMP attacks, so nothing inside the vans were affected by it.

"Clear," Daniel spoke over the link. Gunter and Emily, the agents closest to the doors of the back of their van, reached for the handles and opened the doors, whereupon they both leaped out of the vehicle and made room for the other members to get out in a similar manner. The vans couldn't stay there for long, so they had to get out in as quick a manner as was possible, and that was usually jumping out. Gunter drew his pistol and scanned the area. Daniel and his team had also exited their van. Once everyone had exited their respective vans, the vans sped off away from the scene. They were now on their own.

Gunter used his eyepiece to immediately scan for external security cameras. He found two that were facing in the direction from which they would enter. They were entering through the back of a large, abandoned public storage facility. The agents at Section10 managed to find evidence of the Kingpin's presence when they noticed that electricity was somehow being supplied to the facility through illegal means, and the presence of multiple people and vehicles when the place was supposedly abandoned. Of course, now that Daniel had detonated an EMP, that wasn't the case anymore.

Both of the spies led their respective teams to a doorway on the opposite ends of the building, and everyone engaged night vision on their eyepieces. Gunter took the right side of the building and Daniel took the left side. Daniel had drawn both his pistols and Gunter had drawn his own. Quietly, they opened their respective doors and entered. Gunter immediately took out two mercenaries immediately in front of him with his silenced pistol. He clicked his comm. link to signal his team to follow in after him, which they did with haste. They formed up inside the hallway as Gunter went ahead into the dark building.

In the other end of the building, the Border Collie spy swiftly moved in, and performed an acrobatic stunt where he ended up hanging upside-down by his legs bent around a metal beam in the ceiling, a position from which he used his two silenced pistols to take out four guards in the hallway with great efficiency and without anyone being able to see where the shots were coming from, as none of them looked up.

Daniel dropped down, landing on all fours, and signaled for his team to enter. As the team formed up in the hallway, Daniel walked forward into a three-way intersection, with one hallway to his right and the hallway continuing in front of him. To his right, he could see Gunter and his team entering a similar intersection on the other end of the building. Gunter made hand signals indicating that they would continue down that hallway, towards each other. Silently, they made their way towards each other, checking the doors nearby to make sure nobody would come jumping out of them as they did.

Once they met in the middle mark of the hallway, they found another three-way intersection in the middle, with a single hallway to Gunter's left/Daniel's right. Both teams stacked up on each side and peered down. They could see two guards milling about the area, but the end of the hallway lacked a door to the outside like the two hallways on either side of the building. Gunter counted down from three on his paw, and once he got to one, he broke cover and shot the furthest guard in the back of the neck. At the same time, Daniel followed suit and opened fire on the nearer one, who tried in vain to ready his own weapon before his chest was riddled with holes. They both fell to the ground without so much as a light groan, and the two spies led their teams down the hallway, where they began investigating the actual storage units.

Most of the actual storage units turned out to be empty barracks, though two of them actually contained mercenaries who were apparently either getting ready for the night shift or just coming out of the daytime shift. They were quickly dispatched with had-to-hand combat on the part of the two spies. Once all the storage units in the rear of the building were cleared, the two spies used their eyepieces to take a look at the blueprints of the building once again. The reason why the hallway down the middle of the rear didn't extend to the front was due to there being a staircase to the second floor in that area, and the front entrance was just in front of it. The two hallways on either side of the building led from the front to the back of the building. Though there was likely a way to get to the top floor through the ceiling, it suddenly appeared that they may have lacked the time to do that. They could hear footsteps approaching their position. They could see flashlights illuminating the area. Either someone was trying to fix the electricity or they were suspecting intruders. Both teams formed up by taking cover in the storage units as best they could. As they did so, Daniel and Gunter got into the same storage unit near the back of the hallway and tried to find a way up to the top floor as fast as they could with the time allotted to them.

The two managed to find a way through the ceiling, but encountered a problem getting through the floor of the second level. Gunter and Daniel quickly solved the problem by placing a small device on the surface above them, a small plastic explosive charge disguised as a stick of gum, just in case they accidentally dropped it. They each dropped down to the floor and readied a flash grenade and a smoke grenade, as Gunter was about to detonate the charge. Suddenly, they both heard commotion in the hallway.

"Hey! Who are you?" went an unfamiliar voice.

POW POW POW went three different guns from the EES side.

Their cover officially blown, the teams could immediately hear yelling and masses of footsteps above them. Gunter and Daniel removed the silencers from their weapons. Once the footsteps passed over on the second level, Gunter detonated the charge, and Daniel, the more acrobatic of the two, leaped into the air and pulled himself through the resulting gap in the ceiling, leading to the floor above them. After a few seconds, he tapped his pistol on the edge of the gap, signaling that it was clear. Gunter readied himself, and jumped up, with the assistance of some objects in the room. The ceiling wasn't exactly very high, so it wasn't too hard getting up there, but German Shepherds were typically heavier than Border Collies, which lent Border Collies to being more agile and able to jump higher than their German Shepherd counterparts. Daniel lent a hand to Gunter to help him up, which he took gladly. Within seconds, both agents were on the second floor. Together, they crept down the hallway away from the direction the earlier footsteps were headed. Neither agent was provided with a scent of the kingpin, but Gunter recognized a smell he faintly recalled from the home of the earlier target. There was a relatively distinct scent he experienced when the Kingpin first entered the target's house. It must've been the scent of the kingpin himself! Though, this time it was coupled with the smell of cocaine and heroin.

"Daniel," he whispered, "smell that?"

"You mean the smell of drugs?"

"No, the smell of a human that's still up here," Gunter explained, looking through the sights of his pistol.

Daniel closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. After a couple seconds, he opened his eyes. "I smell it. And a few others, as well."

"Must be his personal bodyguards or something like that," Gunter mused, "let's get in there before they try to evacuate him."

Without another word, the two agents used their keen senses of smell to locate the particular room where the Kingpin was. The unfamiliar scent led them to a room in the back, yet still in the middle enough to be away from any windows. Their sensitive ears picked up the breathing of at least four individuals inside. They also managed to hear comm. chatter from three different walkie-talkies inside. Daniel readied his two pistols and Gunter pulled out his camera cable and attached it to his eyepiece. He lay on the floor in the prone position and stuck it under the door. Immediately, he could see the Kingpin and three of his bodyguards. However, what he didn't expect to see was that the three bodyguards were holding three hostages, likely three people in similar predicaments as those that he and Daniel found at the abandoned ice rink, as human shields in front of the Kingpin, who was pacing behind the wall of human shields.

"Careful," Gunter whispered as he disconnected his camera cable, "we've got a wall of human shields in there. Counted three. They're acting as a giant shield in front of the Kingpin. I think if we burst in there, they're going to execute them."

"Looks like we'll have to go the less-lethal approach," Daniel mused, "Tear gas?"

"Nah, they might start shooting wildly," Gunter countered, "Plus, the gas is a bit too slow. They'll probably know what's going on before it starts to affect them. I'd suggest flash, unless you've got a better idea."

"Nope, flash it is," Daniel agreed, producing one of his own coin-shaped flash grenades from one of his own pockets, and held his two pistols in one hand while he prepared to deploy the grenade with the other.

"OK," Gunter explained as he set up the gum-shaped plastic explosives on the door, one stick on the door handle and another on the biometric fingerprint lock, "slide it under the door, and once it goes off, I'll open the door. We'll then take out all the guards and subdue the kingpin. Do you have something to cover his eyes with?"

"Got a small burlap sack made just for this purpose," Daniel replied, crouching down to get a good shot at the door.

As the gunfight below the two spies raged on, Daniel counted down from three and once he hit zero, he slid the grenade under the door. It sounded exactly like a coin, and when it stopped in the middle of the floor, the three guards didn't make any audible noise, but Gunter's noise picked up a mild scent of apprehension just before the grenade detonated. Both spies could see an apocalyptic flash emanating through the openings of the door that were wide enough to allow light through. As soon as Gunter saw it, he immediately pressed a switch on his paw and the plastic explosives detonated, throwing the inward-opening door open. The two spies immediately entered the room. Gunter immediately managed to take out the center and right guards with a shot to the head, as they somehow still managed to remain standing behind the hostages even after the light temporarily destroyed their vision. Daniel found the other guard, on the left, further away from the hostage, clearly and severely disoriented. With a single leap, Daniel pushed the guard to the ground, landed on his knees on the guard's chest, pointed both his pistols at either side of the head, but angled them to create an X-shaped trajectory through the cranium, and fired. It created a sticky mess on both sides of the head, but Daniel didn't take any time to notice it, although it did get his fur to clump together and become sticky. Immediately after, though, both agents pointed their weapons at the Kingpin. The entire ordeal took no less than 30 seconds, and the Kingpin was likely only just now getting his vision back. Gunter noticed a gun on the desk next to the Kingpin and unloaded the clip and removed the bullet from the firing chamber.

"By order of the United States government, you are under arrest!" shouted Daniel.

"Fuck you!" retorted the Kingpin, "I'm more powerful than your petty little government ever- AGH!"

Gunter pistol-whipped the Kingpin's bald head in mid-sentence. His skin was relatively pale, probably from sitting in this room for a good deal of time, only leaving to talk with people like the target from earlier, or make deals with others of high authority or capabilities in his plan. As Gunter proceeded to handcuff the man, he noticed a satellite phone on the desk as well. This was probably how the Kingpin made most of his dealings with the mercenary group and potentially others.

Daniel quickly put the burlap sack over the Kingpin's head and the two lead the prisoner out of the building, down the stairs. The firefight was in the waning stages, with all but one of the Kingpin's personal security force killed. Daniel quickly shot up the last one, who was taking cover behind a corner, and didn't see the pair with the prisoner coming.

"All clear!" Daniel called out.

"Copy!" replied the female German Shepherd.

"How'd you guys hold up?" Gunter called out.

"We lost Kurt," she replied solemnly, "Other than that, two injuries."

Gunter radioed in to Sandy, "One-Four, One-Four, this building is secure. We've captured the target, but we've got three casualties on our end. All hostiles have been eliminated. Also, send in a squad to evacuate three civilians. I don't know if they saw us or not, but you'd better make sure."

"Copy that," Sandy replied, "we're sending in medics. In the meantime, head outside. We've got a transport for the prisoner waiting."

"Roger that," Gunter replied, "over and out."

The two spies escorted the prisoner outside, where they found a heavily armored SWAT truck with the Deer City Police logo on the sides. Inside, there were two human EES agents armed with MP5s who sat him down inside with him talking about how he'll find a way out of this among some other crazed ramblings that were cut off when the doors to the back of the trucks were closed. Soon after, helicopters landed in front of the building. The two agents headed back in just in time to see the two wounded soldiers, one from the Section 14 team and one from the 1208 team, out. The dead body of Kurt had already been carried off. After holding a moment of silence for their fallen comrade, the two teams filed out of the building, where their leaders lead them to the vans that had arrived to take them back to the temporary HQ.

The ride back was silent, at least in the Section 14 van. Whenever they lost one of their own, as it was a somewhat rare occurrence, a wave of mourning befell the entire anthropomorphic population of the EES. There was usually a funeral proceeding that would happen once the temporary HQ was removed and everyone was moved back to the permanent HQ back in Virginia.

They arrived at the temporary HQ to find a surprisingly hurried environment. People were rushing from wherever they happened to be at the time towards the control room, and almost nobody acknowledged their arrival. Confused, Gunter and Daniel went to the control room while the rest of the teams began removing their armor.

Inside the control room was chaotic. It was no wonder there hadn't been much comm. chatter during the mission to take in the Kingpin; half the people were facing the giant screens depicting an ongoing firefight that had simultaneously broken out at all the major hospitals; St. John's Mercy, Missouri Baptist, St. Mary's, Deer City Municipal Hospital, Deer City University Hospital, and others. Fortunately, local SWAT teams and State Troopers had been on standby near them all, and National Guard troops were en route, so they hadn't had a chance to harm any civilians, or at least, not yet. News of the Kingpin's capture must not have reached them mercenary groups, or he ordered them to attack just before he was captured. Gunter swore under his breath. Perhaps he should have acted more quickly in taking down the Kingpin so that this wouldn't have happened. Gunter immediately went up to a random person with a ranking patch on his arm and grasped his shoulder. "When did this happen?" he asked, urgently.

"Shortly before you took down the Kingpin," the man replied. A quick look at his nametag revealed that he was Section 1208 commander.

Gunter bit his lip. "What's the intel look like?"

"The DCPD is outnumbered by far, and it's rush hour; traffic is too congested for the National Guard to get to any of those places in the downtown area," he explained.

"What about the suburban hospitals like St. John's?" Daniel added.

"They've got those covered. They're more spread out and there's more room to maneuver and avoid having choppers carrying reinforcements from being shot down out there. In fact..." the commander pointed up at the screen.

The screen now depicted Army National Guard helicopters flying over and opening fire on the attacking mercenary army at the Missouri Baptist Hospital parking lot, just before the main entrance. Some others were landing on the roof of the building and dropping soldiers who looked like they were carrying sniper rifles. Cheering erupted from inside the control room, something Gunter and Daniel joined in on.

"Hey!" a voice from behind the two shouted. Gunter turned around. It was the unmistakable black goatee-sporting commander of Section 14. Gunter stood at attention and saluted.

"Sir!" he replied.

"Congrats on capturing the Kingpin alive," he said, "It'll sure make up for you mauling that one guy at the offices."

Gunter laughed a bit but quickly changed to a serious tone, "Thanks, sir," he said, "but is there anything we can do to help take care of this?"

"Afraid not," the commander replied, "there's too much media coverage. There's too much of a chance for you to be seen."

"I have to agree," the Section 1208 commander added, "you guys are practically phantoms when it comes to evidence left behind, but you're not invisible to a camera or the human eye."

"But sir," Daniel countered, "the hospitals downtown are going to become shooting galleries by the time the National Guard gets there! We have to do something!"

"They're right," another voice agreed. All four of them turned towards an anthropomorphic bloodhound. A rare sight to see outside of HQ, even on missions where Section 10 was required, they were only sometimes sent in to physically track down people of interest. Generally lacking the stealth capabilities of their German Shepherd and Border Collie counterparts, they were more often than not kept inside.

The bloodhound continued, "My team and I managed to scope out the entirety of the enemy's positions around each of the major hospitals. Though, since the suburban hospitals are under control," he mused, looking momentarily at the video screen, which was now showing mercenary armies at St. John's surrendering in front of helicopter gunships and tanks, "we can focus on the three big urban hospitals downtown."

He produced a remote control from his pocket, clicked it once, and one of the screens changed into three different satellite images overlaid with street maps.

"OK, the Kingpin was essentially their commander-in-chief, but he seems to have told the individual force commanders who attacked each hospital to fight on even in the absence of his orders. What we can do is take out each of the remaining three commanders, and odds are that once they find out that their commander has surrendered and that they definitely won't be getting paid any more, they'll surrender wherever they are," he explained, circling all the maps with a laser pointer.

He first started at the map at the top-right corner. "Deer City University Hospital is a bunch of bottlenecks, which is why none of the mercenaries have penetrated into the building itself, or at least not yet. The DCPD and State Troopers have managed to force them through the bottleneck entrances, and it's easy pickings. Figuring out that situation should keep them occupied long enough for one of you spies to sneak in here," he pointed the laser pointer at a smaller building on that map near the hospital. "I managed to figure out that their wireless communication devices all receive signals emanating from this evacuated storefront. That, and I've noticed some occasional use of the water system, which is unusual not only for a storefront that's supposed to be empty, but also if this place was just a relay station for a signal from a more central authority."

"I can do that," Daniel volunteered.

"Good," the bloodhound said, and moved on to the picture on the top-left corner.

"This is the Deer City Municipal Hospital. It's a giant cluster-fuck, with enemies going in at multiple easily accessible entrances via the two attached parking garages on either side. However, they're all taking their orders from this tractor-trailer in the loading bay," he explained, "It's below the parking garage, and my scans have indicated no additional enemy presence there, so it should be clear and devoid of cameras, other than the preexisting security ones, which my section has managed to hack into and deactivate for the time being."

"I'll send in a small strike team," the 1208 commander said, lifting up his cell phone even as he said it.

The bloodhound nodded and then focused on the last map, on the bottom-middle of the screen. "This is the St. James Hospital. It's a mess, with multiple buildings taking up six blocks with connecting walkways over the streets and the like. This made it difficult, but after I found out that this guy smoked 2 packs a day, it got really easy!"

Gunter chuckled. "So, where did your nose lead you?"

"Right here," he replied, pointing to a strip mall across the street from the hospital. "All the shops and restaurants here have been evacuated, but even if a junkie wanted to go and get high without getting bothered, not even they would go somewhere this close to automatic rifle fire! The scent of smoke is really strong in the café at the west end of this mall. The place is totally empty except for this guy and maybe a few aides."

"I'm on it," Gunter replied, "but the traffic's jammed, how're we going to get there?"

"Not to worry," a familiar voice said from behind him. Gunter turned around, and there was Sandy, holding that all-too-familiar gas mask. "You'll look strange, but at least nobody will suspect you're really a dog!"

Gunter strode over to her and gave her a big hug. He wanted to go and kiss her, but he decided not to in front of his superiors, just to be safe. "Plus," the Section 14 commander added, "we've got a motorcycle waiting for both you and Daniel. They're easy to maneuver even in thick traffic."

Gunter's heart stopped, and he turned around. "Wait!" he protested, "nobody ever taught me how to ride a motorcycle! Now you expect me to use one?"

The commander patted him on the shoulder. "Of course not! You'll be riding on one driven by someone who actually knows how to use one!" he explained, smiling, "and believe me, these guys know everything there is to know about motorcycle safety. I personally made sure of it!"

Before Gunter knew it, he was riding with his paws wrapped around the waist of a human driving an extremely fast and sporty motorcycle. Complete, of course, with all the police lights and sirens necessary to avoid being pulled over. As much as Gunter wanted to see how many heads he was turning with his mask on, he couldn't. They were easily going 45 miles per hour on the shoulder of a very congested downtown street. Gunter held on to the driver for dear life. He had never ridden a motorcycle before and every passing second felt like another chance for him to fall off and have horrific injuries inflicted upon him by the road, the sidewalk, parking meters, telephone poles, other vehicles, or whatever else that could be fallen on. He couldn't bear to close his eyes, either, for he wanted to be sure that he at least knew where he was going to fall and how to properly shield his head should he actually fall.

But soon enough, he noticed that the motorcycle sped through a police blockade. Apparently the police here were notified ahead of time of their arrival, and didn't exactly look too hard at the person riding on the back of the motorcycle. Gunter wondered if they knew exactly what he was going to do, but then the driver nudged him with an elbow. Gunter looked straight ahead. Before him was the massive complex of a hospital, with decorative signs for each particular building, entryways to each building, and even the buildings themselves were built with decoration in mind when designing the exterior. If nothing else, they would easily provide a more welcoming feeling than most hospitals. However, the motorcycle quickly stopped before the main thoroughfare for the hospital. "This is the place," the driver said. Gunter pressed his back against the wall and peered around the corner. He could see the strip mall indicated on the map. His eyepiece pointed out his target in relation to where he was, which was on the other end of the strip mall.

Gunter turned around and gave the driver a casual salute. "Thanks," he said.

"Good luck out there," the driver replied, and with that, he slowly turned his bike around and sped off, lights flashing and all.

Gunter turned around and looked for a fire escape, which he found soon enough in the form of a ladder, which he climbed quickly. Upon reaching the roof, he drew his pistol and ran. The sun was beginning to rise and Gunter set a sort of pacing for himself, that he get this guy taken down before the sun fully rises above the horizon and the potential for someone to videotape him and put it on YouTube. Invigorated with this new challenge, he dashed forth. Immediately, he detected the unmistakable scent of cigarettes, which he followed. Suddenly, he saw a figure get up from the prone position about 50 yards in front of him. "Hey!" he shouted, and began to discard what looked to be a sniper rifle and lift up a smaller sidearm.

Gunter's eyepiece quickly scanned the individual for anything indicating an ally, like a police badge or a National Guard patch, but upon finding none, it instantly flashed the word "HOSTILE" in red above the enemy's head. Without skipping a beat, Gunter raised his silenced pistol and fired three shots into the torso. He fell down, and the agent's eyepiece read, "NEUTRALIZED" in place of the previous indication.

Gunter quickly moved along, encountering no other resistance along the roof, as predicted. He could hear the distant cracking of automatic gunfire from the hospital. He pressed on, determined to put an end to all this.

Upon reaching the roof atop the indicated storefront, he scanned for entryways with his eyepiece. It quickly pointed out the front door, a few windows he could break through, and the back door near a dumpster. Gunter quickly opted for the back door, and jumped down.

He landed on all fours directly in front of a plain metal door that could only be opened from the inside. At least, opened from the inside when used properly. Gunter pulled out the last bit of plastic explosives left over from the mission to take down the Kingpin and placed it on the door handle. Once he moved himself a safe distance away, he detonated it, and a gaping hole remained where the handle used to be. Gunter wasted no time prying the door open and dashed inside, looking through the sights of his pistol.

Gunter immediately found himself in the back room where the dishwashing took place. A mercenary was there, trying to recover from the shock of the explosion when the German Shepherd fired two rounds into the torso, and he crumpled over.

He quickly moved his way into the dining area of the café and immediately took cover behind the doorway, as three additional mercenaries in the actual café area opened fire on him. He used blind fire to hopefully cause some damage as he waited for his opponents to stop firing to reload or something. He waited and waited through the hail of gunfire that whizzed past his ultra-sensitive ears and hit the tiled walls of the area, creating small clouds of white dust and pockmarks all over the walls. He removed the silencer from his pistol and then finally, during a break in the gunfire, Gunter broke cover and managed to fire off five shots, which downed one of the enemies before he had to take cover from another burst of gunfire from the remaining two. He had only one shot left in the current clip, so he reloaded and dropped the empty clip case on the floor before another break in gunfire allowed him to down the remaining two with a few shots that were far more controlled and accurate, especially once he figured out that the mercenaries were taking cover behind the very ineffective cover of metal wire chairs and similarly designed tables. Once his eyepiece confirmed that there were no more living hostiles in the room, Gunter took a whiff of the air around him and could smell quite strongly now the smell of cigarette smoke. It was almost too close.

Suddenly, there was something solid and cold at the back of his head. Gunter raised his paws in the air. "Who the Hell sent you?" the voice asked as he clicked the safety off, "the local-?"

Before the man could finish the sentence, Gunter spun around to his right, faced the arm holding the pistol, grabbed it with his left arm, pushed it away from him, and dropped his own pistol to grab with both paws, bring it towards him, and chomp on the man's arm, causing him to drop the Colt Revolver. The gun went off, but off in a completely different direction, and created a bullet hole in the bottom of the glass door in the front of the café. The man grabbed a hold of one of Gunter's ears, causing him to scream out in pain and release the man's arm from the grip of his jaw. Gunter threw a punch at the man's face, which hit him straight on the cheekbone. The commander whirled around with his left arm and threw a punch at Gunter as he let out a furious scream before Gunter could react. It hit Gunter square in the middle of the right side of his muzzle. He could feel his lip begin to bleed in that area immediately. It soon became clear that this man was no stranger to boxing. He let off punch after punch to Gunter's head in such rapid succession that he began to have quite the headache. He started to stumble back, and bumped into a light metal chair. His eyepiece built into his gas mask was cracked and not working anymore. By now, it was useless and only impairing his vision. Gunter feigned being beaten by grasping on to the chair behind him, slouching a little bit, and panting heavily, which spurred his foe to wind up for a much bigger punch. It gave the anthropomorphic agent time enough to lift the chair and swing it at his opponent. It hit him hard enough in the head to cause him to stumble back. Enough time to allow Gunter to take his mask off, revealing himself. He was a bit bloodied and bruised, but bruises after all don't show too well through fur. He tossed the mask away, where it landed on the floor.

Once the man shook off the hit enough, he looked up at his revealed opponent. "So..." he said, "they're sending in dogs to do a man's job... what is this world coming to?"

"A world without you in it!" Gunter retorted. Without warning, Gunter charged the man and let loose a wild punch. The commander blocked it. Punch to the right, blocked. Punch from the left, blocked. Uppercut, blocked. However a punch to the gut went unblocked, causing the commander to double over. The secret agent took full advantage of this and grabbed his enemy's head and brought it down as he also brought up his right knee. It easily gave him a harsh bruise, and perhaps a minor concussion. The commander recoiled, but went after Gunter with renewed ferocity, although still relatively inaccurate. As Gunter managed to block punch after punch aimed at his face, he began to hear the sound of a helicopter approaching.

He blocked another punch aimed squarely at his nose and quickly managed to grab hold of the fist, whereupon he spun himself around, and brought down the man's arm to where the elbow was pressed against the canine agent's shoulder. Using laws of leverage, Gunter easily bent his opponent's elbow in the wrong way until it snapped. A cry of pain emanated from the commander as Gunter wasted no time in hurling the man's entire body over his shoulder, throwing him flat on his back on the tile floor in front of him.

Gunter sighed and wiped some blood off his vest as he turned around to face the cashier's counter of the café where computers and electronic equipment was set up. He could see a microphone that was clearly being used to communicate with the mercenary troops in the area, and he immediately headed for that. The sound of the helicopter was becoming very loud by now, and Gunter wanted to hurry up and get this fighting over with before more innocent lives were lost. Before he managed to get there, however, Gunter heard a noise behind him, and turned around. The commander was getting up. And not only that, he was reaching for something on his back!

Hurriedly, Gunter lifted his right leg straight up and drew his small caliber revolver from the holster by his ankle. He aimed at the left shoulder and fired. The shot went a bit off to the right and hit more of the man's pectoral muscle, which was good enough. Both arms rendered essentially useless, he simply stood there, but for some reason began to approach Gunter with clearly angered grunts and curses sent his way. Gunter approached the man and gave him a solid punch in the nose before grabbing him by the neck and leading him out the door of the building, the glass door already weakened by the stray bullet going through it. In one swift motion, with the commander resisting as best he could without any useable arms, the anthropomorphic agent pushed him through the glass door, which shattered, and the commander stumbled out, but barely remained standing. By now, though, Gunter could see the helicopter approach behind his opponent. It was almost within firing range, by the looks of it. Gunter aimed his small revolver at his opponent's uninjured shoulder and put a bullet through it. The reaction must have looked to the helicopter pilot like a reach for whatever weapon was behind his back, and the flying machine opened fire. In a mess of flying blood and gore, the commander was decimated. Gunter fired one more shot into the partial corpse that had flopped to the asphalt and quickly moved to the microphone at the cashier's counter, pressed a button on it, and began speaking into it.

"All units," he said, "this is the Missouri National Guard. Your commander is dead. I repeat, your commander is dead. If you want proof, his corpse is on the street in front of the café from which he gave orders! All units in the St. James Hospital complex lay down your arms now! You have nowhere to run!"

Atop the abandoned storefront, an old, run-down convenience store, Daniel had found the opportune entry point. He had only to wait for the all-clear from the 1208 commander, indicating that there was nobody in the vicinity who would see him. Soon enough, the call came in, and Daniel went into action. He took hold of the edge of the roof and leapt off. Using his momentum, he swung from the edge and used his feetpaws to smash the window in front of him. The nearest thing inside, a shelf containing cheap copies of movies and personal supplies, is what Daniel landed on and pushed over. A mercenary who was standing next to it, without time to react, was pushed to the ground and his back broken. Daniel quickly reached down and snapped the man's neck before drawing both pistols. To his left, there were refrigeration units containing cold drinks. To his right was the cash register and a small plastic window to where hot food was being kept hot over a grill. In front of him were more shelves, but he could see the heads of at least two other mercenaries standing between them. Daniel kicked over the next shelf and waited.

Sure enough, as he predicted, the shelves created a domino effect that flushed the mercenaries out of what could have made ideal cover. But due to the weight and momentum of these shelves, they could have crushed them if they remained where they were, and thus they ran out. Daniel, without hesitation opened fire and eliminated all of the mercenaries that exited the cover of the shelves. Some of them returned fire, but only could do so in the frantic manner of someone desperately trying to find cover, and missed. Before long, Daniel had eliminated all four mercenary foot soldiers in the store.

Daniel stood in the fluorescent-lit, tile-covered interior of the convenience store, both pistols drawn and smoking, with bodies of the mercenaries who defended their commander, their blood easily visible on the white tiles on the floor. Errant bullets broke the glass of some of the doors of the refrigerators, the windows, and the screen of the ATM in the corner behind him. The commander of the mercenaries at the Deer City University Hospital was far less headstrong than the one Gunter had encountered, as he was audibly whimpering and cowering behind the counter with the cash registers. Daniel raised his right leg, pivoted on his left foot to turn and face the commander, and then set his right leg down. He then reloaded, cocked, and pointed both of his pistols in the direction of his final opponent. "Tell everyone to lay down their arms now," he demanded.

"W...will you let me live?" a voice came from behind the counter

Daniel ran and leapt up to the top of the counter in the crouched position and aimed both of his pistols at the commander's head. "DO IT!" he shouted as he clicked off the safety switches.

"AH! OK! I'll do it! I'll do it!" he whimpered as he reached for the microphone to command his troops.

"A-all units," he said, "lay down your arms!"

"Tell them to go outside and surrender to the National Guard outside," Daniel urged him, hearing the sound of helicopters outside.

"A-and go and surrender to the National Guard out-" BANG!

Daniel holstered his pistols, then turned around to leave the corpse of the commander behind, as he jumped down from the counter and headed out the back door.

The strike team crept through the bottom level of the parking garage to the Deer City Metropolitan Hospital towards the semi tractor-trailer.

"All clear, we're moving in," the team leader spoke into his comm. link.

"Roger that," the 1208 commander replied, "Proceed with caution."

The team, consisting entirely of Dobermans, rushed up to the tractor-trailer and did a quick sweep of the perimeter. Finding nobody, they formed up on the entrance to the cargo hold of the trailer, one member took out a pair of heavy-duty pliers to break the padlocked entrance, and two other members opened the doors as the first member tossed the pliers to the side and joined the others in entering the trailer, weapons raised. Inside were three mercenaries, including the commander. They all immediately raised whatever weapons they had in defense, but were quickly gunned down by the three Dobermans in a long burst of automatic and deadly accurate gunfire. Once all mercenaries inside were confirmed dead, the lead member of the team picked up the communication device and spoke into it.

"Attention all mercenary fighting units at the Deer City Metropolitan Hospital complex! This is the National Guard! Cease fighting immediately! Your commander is dead! I repeat, your commander is dead! Lay down your arms now!"

"Our top story today," the afternoon newscast went, "the last remnants of mercenary troops, who had been fighting police and the National Guard at the St. James Hospital downtown have surrendered reportedly after their commander had been killed. It is not yet clear who, if anyone, hired these mercenaries, but there is speculation that it was linked to the contamination of the water supply two days ago. It is the first time fighting on this scale has happened on American soil since the Empire of Japan fought American soldiers on the Aleutian Islands of Alaska in World War II. More, after this."

Sandy pressed a few keys to turn off the screen showing the newscast. It was about to be packed up, and there wasn't a whole lot of time to do it. She got up out of her chair and turned around. There, at the doorway to the room, was Gunter, leaning against the side of the doorway, dressed in his military business attire. He, along with Daniel and some others, were about to receive an award for their actions in the immense mission at Deer City. She quickly picked up her laptop computer and walked over to Gunter, where the two embraced.

"Ready to go home, Sandy?" Gunter asked.

"I guess..." she replied.

"Why do I sense hesitation?"

Sandy giggled, "Well, it's really the first time I've ever really travelled with you," she explained.

That was true, as every other mission he'd been on had Sandy stay behind back at HQ in Virginia, aside from occasionally being on the Section 14 mobile command center, which was only really put to use when a mission was almost over or just beginning.

"...and to be honest, aside from the time in Southeast Europe when we lost contact with you, I never really felt as strong a connection to the mission until now," she continued, "I mean, it's pretty hard, sometimes, to realize just how much of an effect I have on a mission when I'm a few hundred miles or more away from where everything's actually happening, you know?"

"I thought they would teach you that in training," Gunter mused.

"They did," she replied, "but the true gravity... well, never really hit me until now."

Gunter gave Sandy a light squeeze. He wasn't sure what to say, but what she said made him feel closer to her.

Back in Virginia, the EES base was silent. For the most part, empty. Aside from a few handlers in the control room, advising agents on the other side of the world, all were gathered in a back room. The crematorium. Due to the immense secrecy of the EES, the remains of deceased agents had to be cremated so nobody would accidentally dig up skeletal remains of the anthropomorphic canines.

Agent 1422 Kurt, who was killed in the operation to capture the Kingpin, was laid out in a cardboard coffin used for cremations, dressed in his ceremonial attire. Anthros didn't share a specific set of religious beliefs, but they all had heard about the "Rainbow Bridge," so most of the anthro agents, including Gunter, stuck to that. Gunter stood in the front, next to Daniel, on his right, and Sandy, on his left, along with the rest of the two teams that fought alongside this fallen comrade of theirs when he died.

"Present, ARMS!" shouted the commander of the EES, who was present, but off to the side. In unison, everyone stood at attention and saluted. They held the position as the technician of the cremation device pulled a lever next to him. The conveyor belt under the cardboard coffin began to move towards the furnace. The speaker system in the EES began to play Taps. Everyone remained silent, eyes fixed on the fallen soldier. While they were all sad that one of their own was gone, they kept in mind that he was now in a much better place, one without the need for fighting, where he would spend an eternity being content and at peace, where his services would be recognized and honored by all, and without a need to hide anymore.

Once the coffin was fully positioned inside of the furnace, a slow chain mechanism closed the furnace door. Everything waited for the playing of Taps to finish, and once it did, the furnace erupted into flames. For the next ten minutes, only the sound of the flames inside the furnace could be heard.

Then, when the order was given, everyone went at ease and went about their business. Some left the room, others, like Gunter and Sandy, stayed. Sandy grasped his hand, and Gunter returned the gesture by resting his head on her shoulder. As the fire raged on inside the furnace, he could feel that Sandy was shivering. She didn't need to tell him why; it could easily have been him in there. He was no stranger to this notion, but at times like this, he felt it in his core.

Gunter crashed on his cot. EES medal ceremonies weren't as elaborate as some of the humans and the numerous recipients of medals might have liked, due to how the organization was given such a high level of secrecy. Therefore they weren't given access or allotted a lot of time to do a medal ceremony as elaborate as those given to the standard armed forces. At the EES, it was really a procession of the head of the EES, the heads of the sections who had agents receiving awards at the particular ceremony, and two flag bearers, one human, one anthro, who each bore a US flag, to symbolize that humans and anthros alike in the EES fought for the same country. It was symbolic, yes, but not very eventful, outside of the head of the EES giving the speech before the medals were presented. Not that he didn't feel humbled by the medal that was given to Daniel and him. The Medal of Action was one given to those anthro agents who risked their lives by going on a mission that was never part of the greater plan of the larger operation, but benefited the operation in a way that could not have been done otherwise, given the circumstances. It was usually given to spies or a single squad of Black Ops anthros who went out on a self-assigned, self-planned mission as a last-ditch attempt to accomplish something, and succeeded. In this case, he and Daniel had done the missions to take out the field commanders to cause the fighting at the hospitals to stop much more quickly than if they had just let things unfold themselves. Plus, it was not something that any of their superiors had ordered them to do. It was something conceived of and planned by them, with the help of the Section 10 agent. Since the Section 10 agent was not the superior of either of them, and their actual superiors only gave the plan the go-ahead, they were awarded the medal.

Gunter unpinned the medal from his ceremonial uniform and examined it. It bore a white star on a blue background with the profile of a German Shepherd in front of it, indicating a Section 14 recipient. Below that was an image of two crossed pistols, indicating that this was awarded to a spy.

He flipped it to the back, which had a small bit of text which read, "For courage born from a desire to protect the citizens of the United States and going beyond the call of duty to do so, this Medal of Action has been awarded to Agent 1425, Gunter."

Gunter smiled and pinned it back on his uniform. He heard something, and looked up. The familiar figures of the burly German Shepherds who served in the Black Ops branch of Section 14 who shared this room with him had opened the door and were flocking to his bed to congratulate him. If nothing else, it made Gunter happy that he had such supportive and friendly roommates. They told him all about what they had heard throughout the duration of the mission in Deer City, how they were put on standby to drop in just in case the mercenaries decided to take the more visible landmarks of Deer City like the train station or the sport stadiums, how they were thinking all about how he was doing and what Gunter might have really been doing to change events as they were covered by the civilian news agencies. Gunter filled them in on specific details of what he did, like how he took down the mercenary that was blocking a door he had to go through, and managed to infiltrate a building crawling with armed guards and how vast the abandoned ice rink was.

Suddenly, they were all interrupted when the door to their barracks opened again. Gunter looked up. It was Sandy. Gunter smiled. Technically, the sexes were supposed to be kept separate, and Sandy wasn't technically allowed to be here, but those rules were loosely enforced at best. "Sorry, am I intruding on the boy's club, here?" she joked.

The males chuckled. "Hey, our 'club' was never one to discriminate by gender, right guys?" asked Gunter.

The Black Ops Shepherds laughed in agreement.

Sandy did, too, "Well, I hate to break up your congratulations party, but I gotta talk to Gunter for a bit, is that OK?"

"Go ahead," one of the Black Ops Shepherds said.

With that, Gunter got up and walked out of the room with Sandy. Just as he was about to say something, Sandy pushed and pinned Gunter against the wall. "Well," said Gunter, his heart racing, "I didn't expect this forceful of a congratulations!"

"Really?" she asked in a sort of sarcastically quizzical manner, "what kind of congratulations were you expecting from me?"

Gunter grinned. He knew where she was going. "Well," he said, pretending to think up a long-winded explanation of what he was expecting, "I was expecting something more like... oh, let's see..."

Gunter paused, pretending to think, while Sandy stared at him with an "I already know what you're thinking" look.

"Well, you see, I was expecting something li-" Gunter began to speak but was cut off by a peck on the lips from Sandy. He smiled and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back.

The kiss lasted some time. It was quite a relief, in fact, almost akin to how he felt during a typical meditation session. When the kiss broke, Sandy looked at him, smiling, and caressing his face. "Congratulations, agent," she said, "Take that as a little personal token of appreciation for keeping your sweet ass alive out there," she added, laughing a bit.

Gunter chuckled, "Then I'll keep this token in a special place," he replied, pressing his nose against hers. He then gave her nose a lick.

Sandy smiled genuinely and gave him a big hug. "Make sure you show me this special place once we have some time off together, all right?"

"With pleasure, Sandy," he replied.