FSE

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Jacob awoke with a groan, everything hurt, hurt more than normal. His vision was blurred when he opened his eyes. Slowly everything began to slide into focus, metal bars, a grimy linoleum floor, and... a morph. His sluggish half awake mind thought he was back at the collective farm back in California, everything that happened had been an awful dream. The morph was a German shepherd, it looked like Daniel from the farm. Daniel was the best friend he'd ever had, he had managed to make life bearable at the collective...

"They roughed you up pretty good." The shepherd said. That definitely wasn't Daniel, the voice was all wrong. "The first few times are the worst."

Jacob found his face pressed against the linoleum floor, his muzzle matted with dried blood and his mouth wet with a coppery taste. He rolled himself over onto his back and spat the blood to the side. He pushed himself upright, his sore arms protesting. "Where am I? How long was I out?"

"The Pound, they keep us here when they don't need us." the shepherd said before adding, " You've been lying there for the whole night."

Jacob dragged himself over to the wall with a groan, his whole body stricken with sharp pain as he went. He leaned back against it and closed his eyes, grateful for the slight relief from the pain that came when he ceased movement. "What the hell is going on?" he breathed.

The shepherd was quiet for a moment. "The humans set up a colony here decades ago, hidden from travelers and with enough firepower to defend themselves from raiders that get too curious. From listening to the way the Warden talks it sounds like he's hellbent on reclaiming the world for humanity." he gave a humorless laugh.

So Jacob was right, a town of nutcases. He peered down at his paws and wriggled his fingers, none broken, that was good. That was when he noticed he was naked, stripped down to his bare gray fur. "What the hell..."

"They say animals don't wear clothes." the shepherd predicted his thoughts. Jacob looked at him, indeed the shepherd was as naked as he was. "My name is Joshua."

"Pleasure." Jacob said as he realized just how terrible Joshua looked. He was badly malnourished, if it weren't for the fur Jacob was sure his ribs would be showing. And his fur...Jacob was by no means clean, having been traveling for miles, but Joshua...it was awful. Patchy in places, thin and dull and dirty throughout. "What the hell did the do to you?"

"They use us for labor, work us to death. Give us little food and water. Don't worry though, they hand out beatings often enough." Joshua gave a dark laugh.

"Us? How many..." Jacob asked, starting to get worried.

Joshua counted off on his fingers as he stared up at the ceiling. "Twenty-three, now that Jim and Buck are dead."

Jacob didn't want to ask what happened to Jim and Buck. He laid his head back against the wall, staring forward through the bars of his cell and to the wall opposite, 14 or 15 feet away. The place was dimly lit by a shaded window in the opposite wall. A slight glint on the floor to Jacob's left caught his eye. The shattered remnants of a mirror that had hung on the wall lay on floor. He carefully picked up a large piece and examined himself silently, light gray dusted his dark fur, too much gray for someone just approaching 30. He looked down at the rest of himself, thankfully all still there.

He set the shard of mirror down and thought. They had taken his boots and with them his hidden stiletto and lockpicks, he was in a jam now. He couldn't break out through these bars, and even if he did manage to give the humans the slip there was no way he could climb those walls. "If there was a way out I would have found it by now." Joshua spoke, again predicting what Jacob was thinking. When Jacob didn't say anything he continued. "What's your story?"

"Heading east from Junktown." Jacob stated simply.

"East?" Joshua said quietly. "A wanderer. People don't leave the NCR..."

"Speaking of the NCR." said a familiar sharp voice sounded from the hall beyond the bars of Jacob's cell. He turned to see the Warden setting a wooden chair down before the bars, flanked by Twitch, who wore his usual sadistic grin, and another man Jacob didn't recognize. The Warden sat and folded his hands in his lap, peering through his horn-rimmed glasses at Jacob for several long moments before speaking again. "I will give you one chance to tell me everything you know about the NCR. If you comply, I will see to it that your clothes are returned to you and that you are given more pleasant quarters, a respectable amount of food, and less arduous tasks. If you do not, well, mister Twitch here has just been dying to meet you again."

Twitch gave Jacob a little wave as he grinned widely. Jacob didn't want to "meet" Twitch ever again. "Fine." Jacob said with a shrug.

The Warden's eyebrows went a little ways up his long forehead but then smiled. "Excellent, excellent. So then, tell me about your little scouting mission."

"I wasn't on a scouting mission. I don't work for them." he said. To Jacob, the idea of working for the NCR government or military was laughable.

The Warden's eyes darkened. "I find that difficult to believe. As this...creature stated: nobody leaves the NCR for the wastes. You were well equipped as well, I find it doubtful that anyone outside the NCR's Rangers."

Jacob did laugh this time, making him wince as his ribs twinged. "Me? In the Rangers? That's a good one. Wouldn't I be in uniform anyway?"

"A disguise perhaps? A Ranger traveling the wastes alone might draw unwanted attention."

"Well it seems I got your attention just fine." Jacob retorted. "All I could tell you about the NCR is the collective farm I worked on."

"A likely alibi." the Warden frowned. "Take a look at that creature over there." he nodded towards Joshua, who sat silently in the shadows. "You could look like him, or you could have clothes, food, and a bed. One more time: what is the mission of your scouting party?"

"I'm not part of any scouting party!" Jacob snarled in frustration. "I was alone!"

The Warden was quiet as he peered at Jacob over his glasses for seemingly a whole minute. "Mister Twitch, would you kindly provide our guest with some incentive to share his information?" he said quietly.

"I don't owe the NCR any favors!" Jacob yelled at the suited man as Twitch unlocked and threw open the cell door with a loud clang. "It doesn't make sense! Alone? Disguised? You're paranoid!" Jacob and the other man were advancing on him now, clubs in hand. He got to his feet and flexed his claws, he wouldn't lay there like a pup and take a beating.

_____

The day was hot, not as hot as the southern California desert that Jacob had fled into from the Vault five years ago, but hotter than normal for a summer day on the outskirts of Junktown. He was thirteen now, he'd been at the collective farm for scarcely a year. He had wandered through the desert with the other survivors, watching a few of them die from exhaustion or brutally killed by raiders or the strange and deadly creatures that roamed the waste. A couple had simply disappeared into the heat and sand of the desert, never to be seen again. Most stayed at the Hub, the first civilization they met. Jacob went his own way though, heading north towards Junktown.

He swung it hoe down into the dirt from which he and the other farmers of the collective tried to pull their food-crops. His paws were callused with healed blisters from long days working the fields, his muscles ached, and he panted from the exertion. It was the hottest part of the day, and Jacob was thankful that he would get the evening off today.

"How does going into town to grab a cool drink after we're done sound?" Daniel was some ten feet away to Jacob's side tilling his own row of soil.

"Sounds like an excellent idea." Jacob said between swings of his hoe.

The day passed agonizingly slowly, but it was a relief when the time finally came for Jacob and Daniel to stow their tools in the shed and head back to their barracks. Jacob stripped down and washed the dust out of his fur in the washbasin in the small room he shared with Daniel. He straightened to see Daniel in the mirror, leaning against the doorframe with a smirk on his face as he heard a loud appreciate whistle behind him. With a grin on his face Jacob picked up his balled up dirty clothes and flung them at Daniel, who barely dodged them. "Hey now, just admiring the view."

They bantered the entire time they got dressed and headed into town, laughing at each other's jokes. The sun was lower in the sky now, Jacob noted; they would have to hurry up to make sure they got back to the farm before darkness fell. As the walked along the row of shops that flanked the main street through Junktown they failed to hear over their teasing the raucous group of voices that had burst out of the tavern behind them.

"Well what do we have here?" a loud drunken voice made Jacob's ears swivel round behind him. "Some'a those little brats that struts around like they owns tha place."

Jacob and Daniel turned around to a group of morphs behind them mere feet away, all clad in NCR army uniform with rifles slung over their shoulders. They began to take a few steps back, but the soldier that had spoke, an intimidatingly tall and muscular tiger, had already leapt forward, grabbing them by their shirt collars. "Oh let 'em go Jeremy. They're just kids." one of the other soldiers behind the tiger spoke, a lanky looking weasel, who sounded slightly more sober.

"Oh no, these kids are always giving me trouble!" the big tiger growled menacingly down at two small kids. Jacob shuddered as he looked up at the tiger's array of sharp teeth.

"We haven't done anything! We work at the farm down the road!" Daniel cried as the tiger lifted them both into the air effortlessly. Jacob looked around for help, but everyone was moving away quickly, throwing fearful looks over their shoulders at the heavily armed NCR soldiers. Suddenly he was thrown sideways into a shadowed alley between the rickety metal walls between two buildings. He tried to scramble away with Daniel, but the other NCR soldiers had surrounded them. There was no escape.

"Les' teach 'em a lesson not to mess with us!" the big tiger yelled and began to kick at the two viciously. The other soldiers cackled as they scrambled back into their boots, trying to avoid the tiger's powerful kicks. Then the rest of the gang set upon Jacob and Daniel too, kicking and beating them wildly.

Jacob could hear Daniel shouting for help as he himself hurled insults at the soldiers, trying feebly to fight back. Before long they could only grunt as they took blows to their sides and heads, and not long after that Jacob remembered nothing at all.

_____

"Get up, you two. You got a long day ahead of you." Jacob groaned quietly as the sharp twang of something hitting the bars of his cell hit his ears. He opened his eyes to see the water stained ceiling above him. "I said get up!" He pushed himself upright to find the sandy-haired girl, Sarah he thought her name was, standing in front of his cell glaring down at him, a billy club clutched in her hands. "You're working on the perimeter trench today until sundown."

Jacob wanted to make a snappy remark, but the throbbing in his muscles as he got to his feet made the words die in his throat. Instead he just followed Joshua down the hall, led by another human guard in front of them, Sarah behind him, keeping her rifle trained on him the entire way. Jacob stepped out into the feeble light of early morning, the sky was colored with deep purple, the sun hadn't yet crested the horizon. They were led through the encampment, quiet at this early hour, through the main gate, and up a narrow dirt path that wound up the cliffs that surrounded Fort Adams.

As Jacob walked up the path he studied the Fort below him. The walls completely circled the encampment and were topped with razorwire, the buildings were set too far away to provide any chance of making it over. He noted several heavy machineguns interspersed on the walls and the searchlights mounted in the guard towers, manned by men with scoped rifles. A few small dugouts covered by tarps fluttering in the breeze ringed the heights surrounding the Fort, each with a man with binoculars scanning the horizon in every direction. These people may be crazy Jacob thought, but they sure knew how to defend a position.

When Jacob and Joshua finally got to the top of the heights he saw what he would be doing all day. A trench extended from the nearby dugout to about halfway around the semicircular little gorge that the Fort sat in, it seemed most of the morphs were already at the end of the trench, digging through the dry earth with shovels and pickaxes. Sarah prodded them forward and they walked along the trench until they reached the others. Chief was standing there, his rifle in hand, watching over the morphs; when he spotted Jacob and Joshua he threw them each a shovel. "Dig." he said simply, pointing to where the other morphs worked.

Jacob took his shovel and trudged over to the group of laboring morphs. Indeed the were all just as naked as he was, emaciated and their fur matted with dirt like Joshua. They were silent as he approached, ignoring him completely. He stood next to a wiry jittery looking rat and shoved his shovel into the dirt as Joshua sidled up next to him, setting to his work as well. They all worked in silence for a long time, the sun slowly rising above the horizon and into the sky, quickly beginning to bake the dry earth and make the air stifling hot. Chief had retreated the the shade of the tarp that covered the nearby dugout while Sarah had returned to the Fort, leaving Chief and the couple other men at the post to watch the morphs. When the sun was almost directly above them one of the men in the dugout turned on a scratchy radio.

"I don't want to set the world on fire..." Jacob couldn't suppress his smile as the familiar voice drifted to his ears. "I just want to start a flame in your heart..." He remembered the time he had sung this song to the girl of his dreams years ago. "In my heart I have but one de-sire..." She was such a cute girl...

_____

"...And that one is you, no other will do..." Jacob echoed the radio sitting on the bar counter against the wooden wall. "I've lost all ambition for worldly acclaim..."

"Oh Jacob, you don't seem the type to want to be famous." the vixen standing on the other side of the counter said teasingly. She wore a pretty blue dress, like the other waitresses that worked at the little Junktown saloon, over her sleek orange fur, the soft white fur that ran from the bottom of her muzzle ran down her neck and disappeared under her dress where there was the slightest hint of cleavage. It was down this path of soft white fur that Jacob had gotten lost when she giggled and swatted at him playfully with one of her dainty black paws.

Realizing his eyes were wandering again he quickly recovered, bringing his gaze up to meet her lovely emerald eyes. "Elizabeth, come now, you know my greatest dream is to be President of our serene republic."

"Oh Jacob, whatever will I do with you?" she said coyly.

"Well you see, I know this place up on the mountain that has the most spectacular view." he said smoothly with a smile. "It's quite private."

"Oh!" she gasped in artificial shock, pressing a black paw to her chest, once again drawing Jacob's eyes down to her shapely breasts. "Propositioning a woman in such a way! The nerve!" She said as she returned Jacob's smile.

Jacob checked the clock on the wall. "Tell you what babe, why don't you sleep on it? You could even do it at my place." he said smoothly with a wink as he stood. He took a couple caps out of his pocket and flipped them with his thumb, sending them into the freshly polished glass in the vixen's paws with a clink. "For the excellent service. Have a pleasant evening my lady." He turned and exited the pub, taking in the dry air. Yes, he would definitely enjoy his time upon on the overlook with Elizabeth.