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Jake got himself ready and hurried out of his dorm, heading to meet Janice at hers, but he barely got outside the building before a familiar voice caught him off-guard.

"What's your hurry?"

He stopped short and turned around to find his rabbit friend smiling back at him, "Well, I've got to meet this girl and we're going to the city," he joked.

"Oh? Is she pretty?"

"Very. She's a beautiful bunny with a mind that could fix the world, a heart ready to do it and legs to kick ass all the way there."

She laughed, "Sounds like a handful."

"Every sexy curve."

"Think you can handle such an amazing rabbit?"

"As long as she wants me to."

"I'd say she does."

He stepped up and hugged her and she laughed, hugging him back.

"So, are you ready?"

"Ready as I can be. I even dressed up."

She glanced down at his long tan pants and button front blue shirt, "I see. Do I look presentable?"

He took the opportunity to admire her body from her toes up, dressed in dark pants, a solid white smock and a dark dress jacket that accented her pale fur and every curve, "You look beautiful."

She smirked, "I was trying to look professional."

"You look very professional."

She tugged her jacket down, "Good. I don't want to be distracting. This is your meeting, after all."

The bus ride downtown took them an hour and a half, then they walked a block from their stop to a four story building.

"So, where are we supposed to meet him?"

"I ... didn't really clarify. His email talked about the office, then said he'd meet us there around one."

"So, do we go in and find the door or wait for him out here?"

"I'm not sure."

"Do you know what he looks like?"

"No, I don't."

"Do you know what species he is?"

"We didn't discuss that."

"Do you know if he's really a he?"

"Now don't get snarky. I found him for you."

"But does he_know how to find _us?"

"There's a good possibility," a voice from behind made them both turn quickly to find an old fox smiling back at them. He offered a paw, "I apologize for not being more specific in my email, but it seems we found each other anyway. I'm Crandall Griffin. I assume you are Janice and that would make you her friend with a future."

"I'm Jake," he took the paw and shook it.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I mentioned your name. Things just happened so fast," Janice flustered, her ears drooping.

The fox laughed, "I got a little excited when you contacted me about the program. It's good to hear that somebody is taking interest in it again."

"They still talk about it in classes. At least three that I've taken mention it and they all think the program shouldn't have stopped." Janice seemed to be flirting with the fox,

"I agree with them, but nobody has stepped up to run it."

"Why didn't you?" Jake finally got another word in.

"I'm not very tech minded and the servers need babying. Gary handled all that himself. Sorry, Dr Twinnings. Did you know he got both his doctorates after he started with the program? He almost had a third before he died. He talked me into getting a degree for office management. My forte is organization and planning. I can keep the office running, but once you start talking about lotta-bites and giga-twats, I'm..." he swung his paw over his head.

"I think you mean yottabytes and gigawatts," Jake looked quizzically at the smirking fox.

"Great, you're hired," he grabbed Jake's hand again and shook it with a grin and a laugh.

"Wait, what?" now Jake was even more confused, though Janice was beaming beside him.

Crandall laughed and turned to the building, "Let's go inside and see what shape the ship is in."

Janice had to tug Jake into motion, but he followed the fox inside and up the stairs to the top floor to a clearly disused door with a gray plaque beside it that read:

|

Genetic Morph Ancestry Library Director, Dr. Gregory Twinnings

|

Crandall ran his fingers over the name, then pulled out a set of keys and swung them to one that slid right in the lock in one smooth motion. He paused a moment and smiled, "I did that every day for forty-two years. It's amazing the little things that can take you back." He sighed, then turned the lock with a loud clunk and click. He pulled the key out, flipped to another and slipped it into the handle. He gave them a sly smile, then pushed the handle down and opened the door.

Lights came on around the edge of the ceiling, illuminating the small room. Assorted soft chairs lined the wall and a well-worn cushioned bench sat in the middle of the floor. The fox walked around the bench with an annoyed glare, as if facing off with an old foe, and sat behind a desk in front of a row of file cabinets against the opposite wall. He looked over the empty surface, then opened a drawer. He smiled and pulled out a dust rag, which he used to wipe off the top, then turned on a lamp on one end of the desk and smiled across the room at them, "Welcome to the Genetic Morph Ancestry Library. How can I help you today?"

Janice looked at Jake, then smiled and walked across to the desk to play along, "We're looking for someone."

"Then you've come to the right place. We are all about connecting people. Who are you trying to find?"

"It's actually an old girlfriend of his," she gestured back to Jake, who walked up to the desk, banging his shin on the bench.

Crandall shook his finger at the offensive piece of furniture, "You'll learn to hate that thing."

"Why not get rid of it?" Janice asked the obvious.

"Gary liked it. He said it gave the room a 'strong center.' He never hit it once. After he was gone, I just couldn't make myself move it." He shook off the nostalgia and looked under his desk to flip a switch with his foot. A soft buzz of electricity was followed by a screen lighting up on the end of the desk against the wall. The old fox pulled a keyboard from underneath it and watched as the icons popped into place. He tapped a magnifying glass with a DNA double helix inside and a box appeared with lots of options, "So, what's her name?"

Janice leaned in before Jake could say anything, "Christy Harstlein."

The fox got three letters in and froze, looking up at Jake, "Old girlfriend?"

Jake wasn't sure how to answer, but his rabbit girlfriend spoke for him, "It's a long story."

Crandall finished typing, "I can tell you exactly what's in here. I added her to the database when she was born, myself. Her mother is a very close friend of mine. Does she know you're looking for Christy?"

Janice still had his voice and Jake wasn't sure he wanted to stop her, "We haven't spoken with her parents..."

"Don't." He sternly cut her short, "They're struggling with losing her. I've spent hours with Ginger. I'm glad Alfred is a good person. Something like this can tear a marriage apart, but he is sticking by her. Whoever took Christy, _ I _will tear apart and there are plenty of others that would like a piece. If you find her, you will be the hero of all morphs. I will personally pay whatever reward you want for the rest of your life and kiss your feet and anything else you want."

Janice was finally speechless and Jake found his own words, "Um, forget all the rewards and punishment, I just want to get her back with her family. I won't be bothering them at all."

"You're a good man. If I were younger, I'd take you home."

Jake and Janice glanced at each other nervously.

"Don't worry, I don't fish anymore. Now, here's what the database has for her." He turned the screen to face them, "Her parents, Alfred and Ginger Harstlein. Ginger's parents, Timothy and Marie Conner. Alfred's parents, Yancey and Trinnae Harstlein. You can follow the Harstlein line back with Yancey, Tristan and Grant to M0 and Dr Harstlein, himself. Christy is 6th generation straight from the top."

He knew her family was important, but not really why. Her parents did something with a morph charity, but he never knew what. "So, what does that mean?"

The fox looked at the human with a smirk and a chuckle, "If you don't care about such things, not much, but for most morphs, she's like royalty. No real power or anything. It just kinda gives you a good feeling knowing they're there."

"Like a kid's favorite plush toy?"

Another laugh from the fox, "I guess. They're like a taproot into history. As long as that family line continues, It's something to unify all morphs, no matter the species or origin. Unless I'm just biased being a fox, myself." He looked to Janice for confirmation.

The rabbit realized she was on the spot, "No. No, they're important and they do good for morphs, too."

"Yep, Ginger has always had her paws in helping other morphs and Alfred is currently chief director of the Morph Origin Recognition Fund. It's the Harstlein family's heritage. They use it to support anything and anyone that benefits morphs." He brightened, "You know, it probably would be a good idea for you to meet them. They don't need to know your motives, but I think they'd be happy to meet the people that are bringing back the registry."

Without waiting for a reaction, he pulled out his phone and with two taps and a breath of a moment, "... Hello, Ginger. ... Yes, it's Cranberry. ... No, nothing's wrong. We're still go for Thursday, but guess where I am. ... Um, no. ... Ha, not today. ... I'm at the office. ... The G-Mall. ... Yes, I did retire. ... Well, I met some friends ... Not those kind of friends. ... Heh. These are students that are looking to see what it would take to get the registry running again. ... Yeah, I know. ... I thought you might. Today? ... ... And Alf? ... Great. ... Oh it's no problem. We'll check things out around here and see you then. ... I love you too, sis."

"She's your sister?" Janice barely gave him time to put his phone away.

"Well, not genetically, but ... It's ... a long story." He stood up and started around the desk. "Let's take a look at the engine room, then we'll be meeting the Harstleins for an early dinner. Oh, you did say you were making a day of this, right? Nothing you have to rush back for?"

Janice understood the importance of meeting with the Harstleins, "Oh, yes, our schedule is clear all day."

Jake still had something else on his mind, "Well, I do have a reservation at The Green Briar."

Janice gave him a surprised glance.

"Ooo, good choice. I love their Captain's Chicken. I'll let Ginger know and she can have them amend the reservation for all of us. We'll make a date of it. Jake, right?"

"Cohen." Jake was doing his best to keep up with the fox.

He pulled out his phone again and grabbed the knob for the other door, but it wouldn't turn, "Oh, that's right. Silly me." He walked back to the desk, poking at his phone, grabbed something from a drawer without looking and walked back. A final tap and he put his phone back in his pocket with a smile, "There. She'll make sure we're all set for tonight. And with this," he held up a ring and slipped it on his finger, "we're all set here."

He grabbed the knob and paused as it beeped softly, a moment of memory threatening his demeanor. With a breath, he pushed inside. The room was decorated with pictures of different families of different species on the walls, shelves of books and a desk with a couple screens on it. Everything was covered in a layer of dust.

"I left everything the way Gary had it. Just couldn't make myself clear it out, since nobody needed the room." He walked past the desk and looked at the chair for a moment, then turned to a door in the corner. He grabbed the knob and it beeped, then he opened it to reveal rows of lights and a cold draft. The fox leaned in for a closer look, "Wow, that Simons really was a good buy. It's the oldest piece of equipment in here and still running. Looks like a third of the drives have stopped responding. Fortunately, Gary liked redundancy. And we're down to just two lines. Good thing it's not being used heavily. I know how to replace what's broken, but I'm just not sure what to buy now."

He looked at Jake and the human shrugged, "This is a lot more than my computer at home."

Janice elbowed him, "You can figure it out."

"Yeah, I probably can."

The fox smiled, "You're still in school. Take a class."

The rabbit got excited, "Yeah, you can major or minor in computers."

"Oh, still trying to decide? Take some history and genetics and psychology and server management. Those will all be useful here. People expect you to be an expert in a lot of things you won't technically need. Some want you to know the history of their family just by looking at their DNA. Some want you to tell them how to talk to the families they haven't met. Most need you to explain how DNA really works. But a lot of your time will be babysitting the system. The hardware usually goes a while between disasters, but you'll constantly be tweaking the software and data to fix little oopses. Gary was a natural with people. I didn't have the patience. I was happy to play dumb and pass them off to him. I wish now that I had taken more classes, but I wasn't expecting to have to take over everything." His eyes filled with tears, but he took a breath and moved to the desk, trying to change the subject. "Let's take a look at the account and see what you have to work with."

The old fox sniffled away his memories as he woke up the computer on the desk. He poked through to the bank, then logged in and had to answer some verification questions, "It's been a while. Glad they didn't lock me out completely or we'd need to take a trip to the bank. Here we go. Oh." Crandall stared at the screen with a stunned expression on his face.

"What's wrong?" Jake expected to hear that his plans were now in the toilet.

Mr Griffin didn't move, he just stared, "Oh my."

Janice stepped up and looked over his shoulder, then she too was frozen, "Wow."

Jake sighed and looked over the fox's other shoulder. The account total seemed high, but he had no idea what was needed to run the project. "That's a lot of money, isn't it?"

Crandall laughed, "That's an understatement. Nine years of automatic budget payments and interest."

Janice stepped back with a distant smile, "We could retire on that and I haven't even had a job, yet."

Crandall looked over his shoulder at her, "If you get caught spending any of that outside this project, you'll be retiring to prison."

The rabbit snapped back to reality to defend herself, "Oh, I know. It was just a thought."

"Thinking like that could get you in a lot of trouble. They don't kid around about money." He scrolled through the history for a while, then nodded and closed it. "Well, no worries there, especially if you're a frugal shopper. I can show you all the places we found good deals and where to avoid. But first," A couple taps and up popped Grimley's menu. He quickly made his selections, then leaned back and turned around, "What would you kids like for lunch?"

"Oh, we brought some things to eat, but thank you." Jake tried to be polite. He didn't want to seem greedy and was a little frustrated as the last of his plans for the day were brushed aside. This was definitely not what he expected to happen.

The fox gave him a mocking smirk, "You can't tell me that anything you have in that bag on a student's budget could be better than a toasty fresh sandwich from Grimley's.

Janice leaned between them and tapped in half an eggplant hoagie, then realized she was awkwardly in front of Mr Griffin's face and froze, glancing over at him.

He smiled, "You like eggplant?"

She nodded and slowly stood up as he changed her order to a full sandwich and added an order of fried eggplant sticks, then looked to Jake, "Are you sure you don't want something?"

Jake gave in and ordered a lamb sandwich.

Crandall added extra meat and extra sauce on the side and finished the order, then looked around, "Let's go back to my desk." He stood up and pushed between them, walking out the door.

They followed and found him staring at the wall of file cabinets behind his desk.

"This is everyone we've helped, Well, most."

They walked up to him and Janice asked, "Why use paper, when you've got the database?"

He smiled at her, "One, redundancy. Two, you can't digitally store this." He stepped up and grabbed a handle. The drawer opened with a soft beep and released a puff of fog. He looked through the contents and pulled out a card with plastic bubbles along the side. He ran his fingers along the bubbles, then turned around to show it to them. There was a picture of an old ferret and his name, Gerald Francis Twinnings, along with a physical description and two generations of family before and one after. The bubbles held samples: a tuft of fur, a small pouch of blood and a clear pouch labeled saliva.

"He's a ferret." Janice blurted out the obvious.

Crandall looked at the picture, "Of course he's a ferret. What else would he be?"

She tried to backpedal, "I don't know, I guess I was thinking he was a fox."

He gave her a sly smile, "Foxes don't run everything, deerie. Not yet."

Jake had another detail on his mind, "He has kids."

"And grand-kids, though he missed the first one by two months. Really wish he was still around. He would love his granddaughter. She is so much like him it's scary. The boys are great, full of energy and have to be best at everything, but she's a genius, with everything: computers, puzzles, games, even people. It drives them nuts, but I've watched her let them win and pretend to be sad to keep them happy. At six years old, she's already figuring people out. Gary and I used to play chess. He beat me the first few, then I started to win some. When I caught him making a foolish sacrifice to give me the upper hand, I told him that if he ever let me win again, I was going to stop playing with him. I never won another game."

Janice caught on to Jake's point, "But, he was married?"

"That's generally what people do when they fall in love."

"But what about you?"

"Oh, I was married to this job."

"What about Dr Twinnings?"

Crandall smiled and put a paw on her shoulder, "It's okay. My love wasn't completely unrequited. He never said anything about it and acted oblivious, but he was the best friend and partner I could have ever hoped for. His wife got his body and his love, but he cared about me and gave me the part that turned me on the most: his mind."

"Wasn't she jealous?"

He turned and put the card back in the drawer. "Oh no, Jeandra is a wonderful person. She lives with me now. All her kids are grown and she just couldn't stand living alone after Gary died. I offered and she said she didn't mind accepting, because I'm family." his eyes teared up again, then there was a knock on the door. The fox got flustered as the door opened slowly, "Oh, what timing, and I'm such a mess." he started looking in the desk drawers, then Janice handed him a tissue from her bag, "Oh, thank you." He dried his eyes as a grey rat came in. "Grim! Did you get demoted in your own restaurant?"

The rodent laughed as he crossed the room, "Oh no, but when I saw this order come through, I just had to find out for myself if it was you. What are you doing back in town? I thought you retired south."

"Well, these kids are doing a report on the people behind the registry and managed to dig me up for an interview, so I'm giving them the deluxe tour," the fox lied.

"Oh, I guess that includes me. Did you ever order anything other than the super chicken?"

"Sometimes. Special occasions." His mind seemed to drift again.

"Well, it's good to see you again. Here's your food." The rat put the bags on the desk and opened them.

Crandall helped him unpack, then caught Grim's arm. "I left you a good tip."

"I saw that. Thank you." The rat hugged the fox, then headed out.

When the door was closed, Janice spoke low, "Why did you lie to him about us?"

Crandall sighed, "Well, we're not officially reopening and I didn't want to get his hopes up. His brother disappeared a couple months before I retired. I was watching to see if he had a kid and registered it, but now nobody's watching." He sat down at his desk and poked at his computer for a couple minutes while they stared in silence, "Nope, no matches. Come on, grab a chair and lets eat."

Jake pulled a couple chairs to the desk, they sorted their food and started eating in relative silence. A few bites in, the fox broke it, "So, what got the two of you interested in the program. I mean, it's not much help for finding Christy, or I would have already."

Janice took the lead again, "Well, we were thinking that if the program were reinstated, then people would need to get re-registered and when she did, we could notify her parents or something."

"Well, it doesn't quite work that way. Registration is more of a procedure than a requirement. There is no punishment for not being registered and there never should be. The hospitals and such just do it out of habit. I wonder..." He put his sandwich down and turned to his computer, poking and typing for a bit, then gave a chuckle, "Over two hundred thousand new records since I left. All from outside, so probably lots of cleanup to do. And that's probably not even half of the births and we don't even get data from countries that don't participate, like America. The registry is a good idea and has done a lot of good, but it is nowhere near a complete record."

Jake had ideas running through his head, "Instead of forcing registration, maybe you should put that database to work; give people some benefits to registering."

Mr. Griffin was intrigued, "What sort of benefits do you have in mind?"

He struggled to squeeze his vague thoughts into words. "Uh, you could ... You have species information, maybe you could connect to a job board to let people find someone that can do what they need and help people get work."

"People already sign up with the job boards when they're looking for work. Why bother the ones that aren't?"

"Yeah, okay." Jake tried to think of something else to offer.

"Relax. There's no rush. Enjoy your sandwich."

Janice took over, "So, what does the registry do?"

The fox stuffed the last of his sandwich in his mouth, chewed and swallowed before answering with a sigh, "Just sits there right now. When we were here, we helped people connect with family and learn their heritage. We helped with some different types of research. We also helped the police when they didn't have a record. I guess that's the biggest hit when I left. We handled requests manually. So with nobody here, there are probably a lot of mysteries unsolved."

"That's a good reason to get it running again. There are a lot of people to help," she tried to keep the conversation positive.

"Yeah, I hate to think that they've already found Christy, but haven't been able to identify her."

"No. She's still alive and we can do something." Jake wasn't going to let himself think she was dead.

"You're right and you'll find her." The fox gathered his trash and stuffed it in the bag. "Why don't we get out of here. It's too quiet."

Janice looked at him as she was chewing the last bite of the first half of her sandwich then looked at Jake about to start the other half of his.

"Just wrap those up and you can take them back to campus with you. Don't want to spoil your appetite for The Briar."

He scooped up their leftovers and put them in the last file drawer behind his desk, "I kept that drawer empty just for lunches. Come on, it's a nice day outside." He headed for the door and held it open for them. Downstairs and out into the sunshine, Crandall took a deep breath and sighed, "The air seems better up here." He looked around and smiled, "Or maybe I've actually missed this place. I lived and worked here for so long, I think I grew some roots."

They stared walking and Janice asked, "How did you get started with the program?"

The old fox laughed, "That'd be over fifty years ago. I was looking for something to keep me fed until my acting career took off. You see how well that turned out. At the time, I thought I could be the next Marcus Amber."

"Who?"

Janice put her paw on his shoulder, "Marcus Harstlein. He was a son of M0 and the first morph in movies. He made over three hundred in his 43 year career as an actor, a director and a producer, including Out Foxed and Far Gone."

"Wow, the rabbit knows her stuff. May I call you Jan?"

She glared at him sternly, "No you may not."

The fox took a step back from her bruskness, but Jake smiled at him, "Don't worry, I got the same warning."

"Well, as long as it's universal."

Janice tried to apologize, "I'm sorry. I've just had some bad experiences with that name that I don't want to revisit. My name is Janice and that should be good enough."

Jake put his hands on her shoulders, "It is. We're friends."

She put her paw on his hand and sighed, "I know. I'm sorry." She looked at Crandall and apologized again, "I'm sorry. So, is it a difficult job?"

He smiled, "It took some getting used to. I had done some reception work before with a temp agency, but this was so much more. Gary had only been there a couple weeks when he hired me, so we were both learning together and I think that helped. Dr Vangeld stayed for a month to make sure _Mr_Twinnings understood everything and Daisy, um, yeah, Harper, Mrs Harper stayed a couple weeks beyond that to make sure I had everything under control. She was such a sweet vixen. Did you know that my position had been filled by all foxes all the way back to the beginning. Though I think only the first was in M0's line."

"See, foxes are trying to take over the world." Janice teased.

"From what I hear, it's the rabbits that are trying, while the foxes just keep inheriting piece by piece."

"Hey, I was just kidding."

"Hope humans haven't screwed it up too bad for you," Jake threw his two cents in.

"Nah. Can't fault you for previous generations. Technically, they're as much my ancestors as they are yours."

Janice seemed surprised, "You're more generous than some."

"I figure, as long as we're still alive, it's our job to do our best to make the world better and we're not doing that by fighting over who's to blame."

"That's a good philosophy," Jake wondered how much better he was making the world.

"You'll be doing a lot to make the world a better place by getting the GMAL going again."

He looked at the fox in surprise, could he read minds?

"Seriously. You're not just a historian. A lot of this job is helping people learn, not just where they came from and who they are, but who they can be and how connected we all are. I always hoped that we would get everyone registered and find out the whole world is related. Maybe with some real proof, people would stop hating each other for looking different."

"That's a big thing to hope for." Jake recalled his own thoughts from just the previous year and what it took for him to change his mind. He jumped when the fox put his paw on his shoulder and they stopped walking.

"It's hope that keeps us all alive, whether we know it or not, and gives us something to work towards. If we could get people to stop fighting over species, there are a lot of more important issues to solve."

Jake focused on Mr Griffin's words and tried to forget his hateful past.

"Even if you grew up believing one species is better than any other, you only have to decide to make today better and tomorrow will follow. Now, come on, I want to see if Tizzy's is still open."

Crandall started walking again and Janice gave Jake a concerned glance, but all that passed through his mind was to wonder again if the fox was psychic.