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Gnawed

In pre-fracture America of the early ninteeth century when a white man entered an establishment that catered to minorities, typically colored, they were viewed as interlopers; a disruptive influence generally expected to be up to no good. Slumming the lower castes for one unpleasant activity or another.

Thus, in the Union of Western Remnants, when a white man or black man or any human at all entered an establishment that catered to non-humans it was as much a cause for suspicion among the patrons. Cold case detective Ramsay Merchant knew that before he ever reached the door, passing the queue outside to approach the door handler, a Kodiak brown bear standing nearly seven feet tall, directly.

He was met with an angry, low-browed scowl from the bear. "Where do you think you're going, skinjob?" The ursine bouncer growled, powerful white teeth gleaming behind his loose lower lip. His voice was a basso rumble from deep within his barrel chest, little changed from the natural gutturals of his species despite the addition of vocal cords and lips capable of forming words. Not a small man by any means, Ramsay was dwarfed by the huge barrier of fur and muscle standing in his path.

"Inside." A thin skein of beaded water clung to his gray trenchcoat like dew. The floor of the outer vestibule was similarly wet owing to the normal thick fog that infiltrated the small space. The short queue behind him shuffled uneasily, bestial voices muttering at the temerity of a human passing them all up to attempt entry without the foggy wait they had to endure. Unfazed by the fog do to their own thick pelts, they watched curiously to see what would happen to the trespassing human.

Although humans were not, by law, barred from any Alt operated business they were not in the least welcome.

"Why?" Intransigent, the bear did not move, his dark ursine eyes narrowed and beefy arms crossed irritably.

Ramsay merely shook his head with a long suffering heavenward roll of his eyes. "For a drink, why else? I'm not here on the clock, furball." Not exactly, anyway. He was not there on official police business though he was brought by it. He took a step to one side only to be stopped when the bear shifted his bulk to block him from passing.

"Your kind is not welcome here, skinjob."

"So?" Ramsay glowered up at the bear, raising one eyebrow challengingly. "What are you going to do, toss me out?"

"I could."

The detective sighed. "You could try. But then, who's going to bail your ass out for assault on a human, if a soft-hearted judge was kind enough to offer bail terms since you compounded the first charge with an elevation to assault on a peace officer?" Shrugging out of his trenchcoat he gave it a couple of shakes to dislodge the dew. The polished brass of a badge glinted from his belt a few inches away from the clearly visible holster of his service sidearm.

"You said you were off the clock." The bear groused, but finally yielded and stepped aside.

"And I am." Ramsay strode past the bear, glancing up to the side at the towering pillar of fur-swathed danger. "Off the clock, but never off duty." Pushing the door open he stepped out of the foggy northwestern night and into the harshly lit lobby of the dance club. To one side was a coat room attended by a slim spotted feline sporting a glaring pink dress shirt and garish red tie. Despite being a somewhat rusty orange color the addition of more red hues were not complimentary. To the other side was an entry arch that lead into the club proper where dance lights flickered. Silenced by sonic discriminators the music beyond was muted to an indistinct rumble that he could feel through the soles of his feet and throbbing against his chest rather than hear.

The tabby Alt blinked at him in myopic surprise as he approached, one hand dropping to draw the charge pistol from its holster, coat draped over one arm. With an ease borne from two decades Ramsay disengaged the charge and dropped the pack into his palm. He laid the pistol on the countertop alongside his coat, slipping the charge pack into his pocket.

"Anything else you need, sir?" The cat asked in a timorous purr, eyeing the pistol warily.

"Just let it dry." With a nod the cat took up the pistol and coat, locking the first away in a strongbox behind the counter and briefly withdrawing to the coatroom beyond. A few moments later he returned and handed him a valet chip. That joined the charge pack in his packet as Ramsay turned and wandered into the main floor of the club.

Like dance clubs the world over Hightails was laid out in a familiar arrangement. A huge dance floor dominated the center of the spacious converted warehouse with a complex array of speakers, lights, lasers, and holograph projectors suspended above. High powered discriminators lent the dancers a subtle, mirage-like shimmer that pulsed in time with the music that distorted the otherwise invisible sonic barriers.

From his vantage at the entry the human felt it through is breast and feet, the volume damped to a comfortable level by numerous screens. Small tables were scattered about the periphery for tired dancers to rest between bouts of exertion. The seating areas were elevated a couple of steps from the dance floor to define its limits. Beyond those, on either side of the club, mezzanine levels rose several feet upon which larger tables and couches were arranged. Along the entire length of one wall was a bar and, beyond that, a kitchen. The opposite mezzanine was set aside for gaming tables and a smaller bar.

The presence of a human, and the gleaming bronze shield on his belt, sent a visible ripple through the club. Propagating outward from the tables nearest heads turned, unheard conversations ceased, and animals vaguely resembling humans in their bipedal bearing, clothing, and hands shifted uneasily. Many on the dance floor staggered into frozen poses of open-muzzled, panting surprise and suspicion, tails tucked. A human in an Alt establishment often meant very few things; trouble first and foremost. The prominently displayed badge only added to the expectation of trouble, screaming 'raid' without anyone uttering a word.

In combination they garnered a swift response.

Only his perceptions, blunt and simple human olfactory senses, called the thick miasma of animal odors a stench. The musk and fur and pheromones his nose could not pick apart were as clear as newsprint to the acute noses of the Alts. Ramsay took it in, blinking away the tears and fighting down a burning need to sneeze, purposely breathing through his nose until his brain shut out the excess stimuli.

Animals with something to hide began to move, some openly fleeing toward the back of the club while others tried to be surreptitious. No doubt many would be hitting the fire escapes to disappear into the foggy darkness. Ramsay's eye missed none of them but they were not his concern. .

He had other business.

Wandering from the entry he mounted the mezzanine's broad stair and made his way toward the primary bar. Behind it a boar leveled a glare at him that, had it been a weapon, would have reduced him to ashes in an eyeblink. The other barbacks, two cats, watched suspiciously but did not cease their work. Ramsay ignored the stares and bestial expressions of anger and fear, the wrinkled snarls of indignation at his intrusion. Canids predominated, though there were numerous felines, mustelines, and pryconids mixed throughout the crowd as well. Being that Hightails catered primarily to the labor classes, that was not an unusual aggregation. A few domestic herbivores mingled here and there but were in a distinct minority.

Labor definitions had begun to erode with the freedom of employment act five years before but the old classification system was still firmly entrenched.

The barkeep, also the club's owner, met him with a furious porcine glare when he reached the bar. "What the blazing fuck are you doin' here?" The boar hissed angrily, his voice deep but with the typical porcine shrillness cutting the edges of his words. The nearest barstools emptied quickly as their residents relocated, leaving a wide swath of empty seats for Ramsay to choose from. Sliding onto one at the furthest corner of the bar nearest the wall he leaned one arm on the bartop so he could turn and keep an eye on the crowd.

"Like I told your doorman; getting a drink." He quipped laconically, raising an eyebrow to give the livid boar a glance.

"What?" Small eyes in a flat skull narrowed to dark slits, upthrust silver-capped tusks gleaming. "No!"

"No?"

The boar threw an arm back toward a sign posted prominently above the liquor shelves spanning the back wall; 'Proprietor reserves the right to deny service at any time.' Below that someone had taped an addendum; 'So don't piss me off!'

"We're open, g'damnit!" The boar rested both blunt-fingered hands upon the bar and leaned over it, though not uncomfortably close. "Why th' fuck are you comin' here when we're open?"

"Window shopping." Ramsay shrugged. "Can't do that when you're closed. Coffee?"

"Window shoppin'" The boar's flat brow beetled in irritation. "Window shoppin' fer what?"

"Inspiration." The detective shrugged. "My gut, gnawing at me. I'm trying to figure something out, Seth, so ease off. I'm not here to shackle anyone out." With a nod toward the back he smiled with one corner of his mouth. "And all of your peddlers just slipped out the back, anyway."

"They're not mine and you know it, Merchant. Runnin' them out is the only good thing you've done tonight. And, on top of that, you run out payin' customers, which ain't so damn good." Indeed, since his arrival, a steady stream of patrons had been making for the door. The poor coatroom cat had likely gotten quite busy rather quickly. With an irritated snort the stocky boar turned away, wringing the cloth on his belt as if he wished it were Ramsay's neck, and began barking orders at the two barbacks. As he passed beyond the immediate screen his tirade cut off abruptly.

While set went about preparing a cup of coffee Ramsay leaned back against the wall at the end of the bar to survey the crowd, what of it remained. The sheer size of the club, and its location having few other options, meant that the exodus of patron and peddler had little impacted the number remaining. The perturbation of his arrival had, for the most part, passed. Dancers had resumed their wild gyrations and those not dancing had gone back to their previous distractions. Most paid him little more head beyond the occasional glance or snarl.

His attention fell to the canid types, mostly. Wolves were the most common, with a smaller smattering of domestic dog breeds, foxes, or coyotes. Rarer were cats, due to their less gregarious nature, and omnivores like raccoons. A lone hyena of the striped genus, sharply dressed and ringed by a throng of sycophants and toughs, pinned a baleful stare on Ramsay from the far mezzanine.

"Okay, here's your joe." Seth grumbled as he returned, setting a large mug of steaming coffee at the detective's elbow. "Now, are you gonna tell me why you come waltzin' in here, in full view of everyone? Aren't there for joints closer to monkey town than my place to go slumming at?"

Ramsay leisurely picked up the mug, taking a moment to savor the full bodied, subtly spiced aroma of the boar's coffee. It was the genuine stuff, not the bitter biocaff that most places served. He smiled through the steam curling up from the mug. "None of them can do coffee like this, flat-head." He gave a small salute with the mug and took a slow sip to savor the smooth robustness of the Tiefort range bean. "Or, at least, the only thing they're going to offer up gratis is some doctored up biocaff."

Seth grunted acknowledgement, wiping his hands habitually on the towel looped over the front of his belt. "Hell of a drive just for a mug of the real stuff, Merchant." Ramsay nodded as he savored another sip. As always the boar's mix was perfect; robust but not overpowering, with a subtle spice hint and sweet cream. "If you're not here to walk someone out by the elbow, why come?"

Ramsay shrugged a shoulder and drank slowly before answering. "Because here's where I knew someone would listen before they bite." He gave a small salute with his mug, briefly matching gazes with some manner of feline at a table near the dance floor. The cat glared and gave him a very animal hiss before getting up and moving away. "Two corpses turned up at Wild End today. Chewed up pretty badly." He set his mug down and leaned a little toward the porcine barkeep. "Eaten." Wild End, or just the Wilds, was a heavily forested stretch of unpopulated land that bordered one end of the old Enclave. It was popular with Alts gone 'back to their roots' to become quasi-feral, as well as criminals trying to hide.

"Humans?"

Ramsay took a swallow of coffee and nodded, offering the boar a sardonic glance. "You think the department would move if a couple of poor Dolls got munched?" Dolls, or Dollys, was a derisive term given to domestic class sheep Alts, typically females. They were also often just called disposable fucktoys. Finding a dead Dolly, chewed or just carved ear-to-ear, hardly raised a stir half the time.

Finding any alt brutally murdered seldom raised a great deal of concern. Alts had a relatively limited number of legal rights and, as little more than property belonging to Xenogenetics, killing one would only get the perpetrator sued if they were caught. Humans seldom faced charges if caught, though they would face a steep civil lawsuit leveled by the corporation that 'owned' the deceased. The company had a frighteningly huge legal department that had made a lucrative business out of suing those responsible for property destruction.

An alt convicted of killing other Alts faced the highest possible punishment; 'humane' euthanasia. As a precaution against an unknown anomaly within the production cycle, the entire line could face euthanasia for the actions of a small number within the line.

"Doubt it." Seth admitted with a shrug, shaking his head morosely. "So what're you thinkin' that brings you down here during operatin' hours? You're goin' to give my fine establishment a bad name. Human friendly doesn't exactly help business, hereabouts." Picking up a discarded whiskey tumbler the boar wiped it with his towel, though it would end up going through the wash before returning to service. "So what're you thinkin'?"

"Sliced, dumped, munched by wild animals. Big wild animals." He swirled the coffee lazily in the almost empty mug and caught the barkeep's beady eyes with a brief sidelong glance. "Big animals not native to Wild End. Likely not native to this region at all."

"Who were they? I mean - if you can say."

"You won't like it, flat-head." Ramsay said with a slow sigh, finishing his coffee with a last swallow. "You know of the Hawkes?"

Seth's brows shot up his flat porcine brow and he stopped moving, hands caught in the act of wiping themselves on the towel. "Oh, shit." He hissed, ears pricking forward and then flattening back. "You're saying the Hawkes are dead?" The boar sighed and dropped his head, looking at the floor for a moment. "Aw, shit, this is goin' to be a big pile of shit." When Ramsay set down the empty mug the boar snatched it up, dropping it to the towel and rubbing it with violent strength.

The Hawkes were popular, moneyed socialites well known throughout the northwestern Remnant States. They stood among the elite cadre of people who were outspoken proponents of Alt rights with their human creators. Proving that they had been predated by the very Alts they strove to liberate would set the rights movement back decades. "Fuck." Seth sighed with a frown pulling his inhuman face even more drastically toward his genetic forbears. "Fuck all, this is going to be a huge damn pile of steaming shit." Despite the mug being as clean as it would ever be without the scalding of a wash cycle he continued to rub it vigorously with his bar towel. "And you think Xenos did 'em?"

Ramsay shook his head, "That's the rub. I'm only sidelining the investigation, but the primaries are stuck so deeply into a single track that they're not looking at other possibilities."

"They're letting you investigate their case? I thought you did old stuff."

"I'm still in Cold Case." Ramsay affirmed with a long scan of the crowd, though nothing notable caught his policeman's weighing examination. "But half the department's investigating, and the other half is helping out." He shrugged helplessly and looked back at the morose boar. "With evidence material moving all over the sphere it's not difficult to not look at it, especially when one piece is dumped specifically in your box."

"You don't think a Xeno's part of this?"

"Concerning one piece of evidence all but thrown at me, I - have my reservations."

"They're letting you in on this?"

"It's not in my department, so I'm not assigned." Leaning against the wall behind him Ramsay gave the boar a flat stare, letting some of his intensity show through. "But this is personal; they were friends." Unconsciously he rubbed his thumb across a rough circle of pale flesh on the back of his right hand, rays radiating outward from it like a starburst. On the palm of the same hand was a similar scar.

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"The Hawkes were friends of yours?" Seth snorted, short ears pricking up and jaw hanging slightly. "Damn, man. You never let me know."

Ramsay shrugged slightly, "Why should I have?"

"Damnit, detective, they were the only good voice we had among you humans!" Seth rumbled with his shrill-edged voice. "They could've come in here and been treated like royalty rather than the angry snarls you got."

"They weren't the only ones speaking for you, flat-head. They were just the most visible." Ramsay frowned and let out a sigh. "But now they're gone. Your advocates, my friends. It may be out of my division, but I'm not going to let this lie." His eyes came back to the boar. "And I'm not going to let it get run off the rails by prejudice."

"At least you've got that, Merchant, a bit of honor." Seth shook his head and leaned on the bar, turning Ramsay's empty cup between his strange hands. Like all modified animals he had been given just enough structure to make his digits useful, but nowhere near as dexterous as those of a human. "So, what do you have, then?"

"An autopsy holograph that doesn't - well, doesn't exactly sit right with me." Standard evidentiary collection made during high resolution post mortem scans and subsequent autopsies, all of which reinforced the opinion being pushed as rote; that an Alt killed and then consumed the Hawkes. The mere fact that it was being so firmly pushed, from the highest levels of the department, rankled Ramsay to no end. Even cursory review of the evidence he had seen pointed to a more broad range of possibilities. "And it was pushed at me directly, for some reason."

"What're you lookin' for here, then, if not a scapegoat like everyone else?" Seth waved off one of the barbacks who approached with a curt flick of his hand, letting the orders the feline did not know how to prepare build up. Ramsay noticed that they had a number of watchers among the crowd. Many were merely curious at the presence of a human among them who was not there slumming while others were furious at the intrusion into their sanctuary. That the boar, who owned the place, was amiably chatting with the invading human irked still more who embraced the separation between human and Alt.

Ramsay mulled the question over as he leaned back against the wall behind him, one arm propped on the bar, fingers idly drumming the polished surface. His eyes never settled in one place for long, not even the person he was conversing with. "Inspiration." He said at length. "Dental distinction, how the muzzles of Alts differ from unaltered wild animals." With one hand he flicked an index finger toward a fox sitting at a nearby table, "So I came to the source, as it were."

"Hah!" Seth slapped the bar smartly, giving Ramsay a slight start at the unexpected motion. "You're in luck, then, skinjob. I got just your inspiration." Taking a laser pointer from his apron pocket with remarkable dexterity considering his clumsy looking, blunt fingered hand, he neatly pinpointed a beer bottle across the dance floor. Upon striking the bottle, held in the hand of a pale colored wolf Alt, the laser refracted and reflected from the glass and its contents, making it glow like a light bulb. The brilliant gleam immediately caught the attention of the wolf holding it, the others seated at the table, and at tables nearby.

There were only wolves at that table, Ramsay observed, a pack of eight looking momentarily startled and then warily angered. The one holding the illuminated bottle set it down slowly and turned to say something to his companions. Most of them made vigorous negating gestures and heated words were exchanged. One of them, not the largest at the table but certainly impressive for his specie, actually caused the targeted wolf to lower his head and lay his ears back momentarily. Seth's laser flickering at his muzzle brought the angered wolf's fierce words to a halt as he turned to snarl in the boar's direction. The wolf glared across the room at Seth and mouthed a few choice words before sitting back down. With a curt wave of one hand he released the summoned wolf.

Where the alpha was stocky, broad shouldered, and the typical gray of most wolves and five of the others at the table the one Seth pointed out was taller, more slender though hardly weak in appearance. His fur was white shot with bluish gray highlights of the Arctic phenotype. Not a terribly uncommon breed turned out by Xenogenetics, but certainly one of their more striking wolf archetypes. He wore only a light safik drape to cover his midsection loosely leaving much of legs and upper body bare. Like most Alts he wore no covering on his feet.

The Alt's walk bespoke his great irritation at being singled out and separated from his pack; his shoulders squared and body drawn up in an aggressive posture with the long white tail held horizontally behind him. The fur across the wolf's shoulders was bushed giving his already solid physique a sense of excessive mass. Even with many of their animal genes twisted about with human they retained that epoch-old habit of posturing. Of course, humans postured as well but Alts merely did it far, far more impressively. Alt body language still held a lot of their wild forms, modified with human influences. Ramsay cast a glance briefly toward Seth, "I don't need my own bite marks for comparison, flat-head." He complained with a grunt.

Seth snorted at the detective's banter. Ramsay did not stand when the wolf reached the bar to glower down at the boar. "Stormy," Seth said with wry aplomb, "Meet Detective Merchant, Seattle Cold Case." The wolf spared Ramsay a golden-eyed glance and a rumbling growl before returning his stare to Seth. The boar rolled his small, dark eyes and sighed irritably. "Quit snarling, pup, he's not here to up his arrest count." He thrust a thick nailed finger toward a nearby stool and glared up at the wolf with his beady porcine eyes, silver-capped tusks gleaming in the pulsing dance floor lights. "Detective, Chase Storm." He flicked a hand toward the wolf.

After several seconds of hard staring Stormy let a chuff of breath out past his teeth and moved to sit on the indicated stool leaving a single empty one between himself and the human. Ramsay noted that he was immaculately groomed, eartip to paw, with polished claws neatly trimmed. There was no immediate animal musk about him either, only a hint of sandalwood. Seth crossed his arms and leaned his elbows on the bar, "Stormy, lad, tell the detective what you do."

The wolf looked over at Ramsay, those piercing gold predatory eyes boring into the detective with surly distrust. Ramsay found the direct intensity innerving but refused to waver. "I am a student." Stormy said at length with a growl so deep it was almost difficult to distinguish as words. Seth made a small noise of disgust and rapped the bar with his blunt fingers.

"Of?" he prompted.

Stormy's whiskers twitched irritably and he did not drop his stare. Nor did Ramsay. Twenty years dealing with petty thugs and their penchant for hard stares left him well prepared for the wolf. "Dental surgery." Again the growl that Ramsay had to spend a moment translating in his head. If the club had lacked the audio discriminators any understanding at all would have been impossible.

Once he understood what the wolf said Ramsay blinked and leaned back in surprise, his jaw hanging. "Huh." He grunted, casting Seth a sidelong glance. The boar grinned hugely around his tusks and, with a wink and jaunty salute, snatched up Ramsay's empty mug before withdrawing. Without the boar to focus on the detective turned his attention back to the wolf who looked similarly confused. One ear was up and forward, though, indicating pensive curiosity. "What year?" Ramsay asked.

"Third?"

"Veterinary?"

Stormy rolled his eyes and exhaled an exasperated growl, both ears backing. "Uh, duh? Of course veterinary. Do you think some skinjob wants these poking around in their mouth?" He held up his hands, as well proportioned as Ramsay's own, but backed by fur with fingers tipped by stout black claws. Calloused black pads adorned the palm and the underside of each finger.

"Since it's usually done remotely using robotics, who's to care?"

Stormy shook his head. "No, no. I said oral surgery, reconstructive work, not remotely assisted basic hygiene." His hands lowered to his lap. "And why do you give a rat's, chewtoy?"

Seth returned, depositing two mugs of coffee, and as swiftly retreated favoring Ramsay with a nod; they would have privacy. The wolf blinked at the exchange. "Get off the angst, pup, I'm not here slumming. I'm here looking for -" he paused and picked up his coffee, "I'm looking for knowledge I lack, some inspiration or, hell, just some observations that I can glean something from."

The wolf's hard golden gaze narrowed and he flicked his muzzle toward the boar going about catching up on backed up orders beyond the discriminator shimmer. "Where's he fit in?"

"He just makes damn good coffee, and he's not as prejudiced as some." Ramsay raised an eyebrow at the bellicose young wolf with a short wave of his coffee toward the observers still staring at him from vantages throughout the club.

"No." The wolf growled introspectively as he sampled his own coffee from a mug designed for the architecture of his muzzle. "No, he's not that. Just butt damned ugly." His attention returned to the detective. "Where do I fit in?" Now both ears were forward.

"I've a couple cadavers with bite marks."

Stormy's brows drew down and his ears backed in distrust, "I'm not going to finger any Alt for you." He snarled warningly, fur bushing in the same alarming defensive posture he displayed previously. He slammed the mug down onto the bar with such violence that its contents splashed over the rim to soak his hand. Ramsay quelled the atavistic fear response crawling up his spine with only a tightening of his lips and a more firm grip upon his own mug. Reflexively he yearned to reach for his sidearm but it was secure in a property locker thirty paces away. Ramsay took a breath and studiously raised his mug to take a slow sip while he pushed down his purely limbic fear response.

"I believe the bites are from wild animals, not an Alt." He forced out after a moment, the looming predator awakening animal fears no training could easily quell. "I just need to prove it."

Stormy blinked, taken aback by the unexpected reply. His fur settled slowly and his ears came back up. "Oh." he said after a pause, ears coming forward and then turning rearward as he ducked his muzzle abashedly. "I'm sorry, I -" With a sigh he snatched some napkins from a nearby dispenser and distracted himself by dabbing the coffee out of the white fur of his hand.

"Yeah, relations aren't the best." Ramsay offered as he waited for the wolf to compose himself.

"Yeah." Stormy gingerly dropped the napkins beside his mug to soak up the spill and ran a hand over his head, ears lying back briefly. "Why do you think it's a wild animal?"

"Xenogen altered the shape of your heads when they manipulated your genetics, over almost all breed lines. Alt dentition has been changed to a more broad diet, more omnivorous. Especially among carnivores." He shrugged slowly and glanced around the room again, a reflexive crowd scan looking for potential threats or criminal activities he was only passingly conscious of. "Things like that."

"Not many would care." Stormy said slowly, settling once more onto his stool and taking up his mug again. "Not if they can lay the blame on an Alt." He watched the detective while Ramsay's gaze flicked across the room and returned.

"Many don't, or only care when it suits their goals." Ramsay sipped his coffee to get his jangled nerves to settle. "Maybe even I wouldn't have, either, except the evidence is just a touch... well, just a touch off." He met the wolf's curious golden stare, the predatory intensity strangely absent though the creature's eyes had not physically changed at all. "Personally I don't give a damn where it points, but it points somewhere , and that's the truth I am trying to follow."

Stormy tilted his head slightly, "And if it does point to an Alt?"

"If it does, I'm sorry about his luck." Ramsay shrugged expansively, "But it won't."

"What makes you so sure?"

Ramsay gave his gut a slap. It was not as fit as the young wolf's but it was still solid enough. "Twenty one years under the shield, pup, and good honest gut feeling."

Tall ears flicked and twitched while the wolf contemplated the veracity of Ramsay's words, peering at him intently while that gleaming black nose twitched. Stormy weighed the out-of-place human's confidence against his own all too necessary distrust of humans. At length he took a slow draw from his mug and licked the whiskers along both sides of his muzzle. "Tell me, then, why you think that way?"

Ramsay also sipped but had no whiskers to lick. "Showing is better than telling, I lack the schooling you have to even describe it." He took his personal link out of his pocket and set it on the bar between them. "These are holo-reproductions of high resolution wound scans taken from the victims." Tuning the emitter to vicinity limited mode he called up the first holograph. "To me they just don't look... right, not like the muzzle of a carnivore Alt." He glanced up at the wolf who had leaned slightly forward now with both ears alertly pinned forward, "I've never attended an alt autopsy to get a good look at the anatomical distinctions." To anyone else in the club, save perhaps Seth working ten feet away, the shimmering of the audio barriers would turn the holograph into a smeared blob of light.

The tiny emitter in his link projected a highly detailed holograph of the upper and lower dentition of what was clearly a mammalian predator into the air a foot above the bar top. Ramsay leaned back slightly to watch the wolf scrutinize it. With golden eyes slightly narrowed and white ears backing in concentration Stormy pondered the image. With deft flicks of claw tipped fingers through the field he rotated, flipped, and scaled it repeatedly for several seconds. "So what is it your detractors are saying?" He asked at length with a quick glance over the close-up of one holographic tooth.

"My detractors?" Ramsay cocked an eyebrow, "Pup, I'm it. I am the detractor." Ramsay scowled, "And bet your tail I've got some heat for not towing the party line."

Stormy twitched one ear forward and then back, "No doubt. What's the party line?"

"Labor class pred Alter, with heavy emphasis on canidae."

"You use 'labor class' as if it defines us, detective." The wolf raised his gaze from the holograph to look through white brows. "That went away before I was decanted." Stormy shook his head slowly and growled a low sigh, "But yes, it's a pred after a fashion, but not a canidae or, as you assume, an Alt. They'd never get a dental impression match from any Xeno line, much less one limited to canid phenotypes."

"Most of you still fall within labor distinctions yet, wolf. Only you youngsters are expanding behind the definitions." He waved a hand to dismiss the argument. "So what kind of teeth are those, if not a Xenogenetics predator?" Not that he could dismiss the idea that someone could manufacture a match, Ramsay thought angrily to himself.

"Well, most notably they're ursidae. Ursus Americansus, to be exact, the North American Black Bear." Stormy leaned back slightly and crossed both hands in his lap, "But they're not native to this region any more. Where were these victims found?"

"Wild End."

Stormy's jaw muscles twitched as he chewed that revelation over, "Sure as hell no wild bears in the city, detective."

The detective felt a flash of triumph at the proper identification of the animal's teeth, he was finally on the right track. "That's great, pup, great. Now how do I prove my allegation? I'll have to take this to my superiors. I'm pretty confident that they'll do everything they can to dismiss my findings."

Gleaming white predatory teeth flashed in a bestial smile that looked all too much like a snarl. "Give me your link and five minutes. I'll put together a presentation that'll stop their arguments dead." Ramsay made a small motion toward the projector with one hand to indicate that Stormy could do what he needed. With a lick of his whiskers Stormy drew it a little closer and glanced through the image. "Give me a night and I could teach you enough to make it look like you figured this out for yourself."

Ramsay took a draw from his coffee and settled back to let the wolf work. He quirked one corner of his mouth in a good-natured smile as he met the wolf's golden eyed look. "Among other things. Wouldn't work out, pup, no one'd believe I learned how to tell the difference between teeth overnight, without help from someone who did." His fingers extended toward the wolf, his consultant. Stormy's ears twitched for a few moments before he gave a slow nod of understanding. The acute golden eyes dropped down to focus on the holo.

"Yes, well, as much as someone would believe me learning how to solve murders." The young wolf rumbled, "I've highlighted comparison points, here and here." With the tip of a manicured black claw he touched the holographic fangs and molars. With deft motions he accessed the datanet via Ramsay's projector and pulled another, very similar, holograph from some archive. "This is an archival image of an Americansus skull from the Northern Baja Natural History museum, which we actually use for these very sorts of comparisons in class. You can see in a point by point comparison how closely they are related."

"Related?"

"Conformational characteristics of the species." Stormy corrected. "I could not determine breed line similarities without a tissue sample." He defined a dozen points between the two holographs with a deft economy of motions while he spoke. "They took culture samples?"

"Culture swabs? Of the victims? Yes, I'm sure they did. I don't have those records on hand, though." Ramsay watched the presentation being put together, interweaving the two holograms with points and simple explanations. "Why?"

"Of the wounds, specifically." Stormy rotated the holo to examine his work. "Bacterial spectra in the wounds, specifically the deeper ones made by the longer canines, can be used to determine point of origin of the animal. What it's been eating other than the victims, which would give an indication if it's native or was - imported." Whiskers drooped at the idea that some creature was brought into the area solely to dispose of someone's political inconvenience. "And I'm sure you know how salivary residue can also be used to create a genetic profile. That could narrow the identification down to specific breed lines and perhaps even a single animal if it came from any zoological facility on the continent." Pushing the paired holograms slightly to one side of the holo field he called up a third image. "Whatever animal that caused the injuries would have had to have been shipped in, or cultured, for release." Without looking up he began defining comparison points with the third image.

"Seems like a damn lot of dangerous work just to finger a few Alts." Ramsay mused aloud, "Why not just hire, bully, or starve a few Alts to do the job?"

The wolf rumbled a rueful growl, "Alts can talk, chewtoy." He glanced up with a momentary half grin and ear flick to denote humor at the appellation. "Starved, tortured, or even ferals can be made to talk. Their saliva can establish direct culpability. That's suicide for a pred, gnawing on a human, but a wild animal is easier to manage and it won't talk." He leaned back and pushed the projector toward Ramsay. "Third image is a dental scan from a middle-age Americansus Xeno killed in an industrial accident. All of the relevant features have been compared."

Ramsay pocketed his link with a nod of agreement. "And a normal animal would be easier to dispose of. I doubt they would want it found, though, whoever put it out there."

The wolf frowned, whiskers drooping, "Detective, all Xenos are 'easy to dispose of'. You'll end up finding some pred to blame, and all the Hawkes worked to accomplish will get sunk."

"Exactly. If you critters will eat your most visible advocates, how safe are the rest of us?"

"With the reproductive liberty vote a couple months away, that's a frightening assumption." Stormy sighed, retrieving his coffee. Alts could not reproduce, which kept Xenogenetics in business creating more and more of them, all of whom had fifty percent of their wages returned to the company. A ballot stood before the human voters that, if it passed, would force Xenogenetics to remove the reproductive blocks on all future Alts.

Stormy frowned upon discovering that his drink had cooled. He swirled it a couple of times and drank anyway. "Bears are not, by and large, predators though." He pointed out at length. "In the wild they primarily scavenge. It'd be unlikely that a small bear like a Black would attack a single healthy human, much less two." He raised his brows and gave his whiskers a lick once again. "Eat a couple of corpses, now, they'd certainly do that."

"Eating is pretty obvious. But as for attack, now, that's a pretty hotly disputed piece of the case. The victims were pretty well eaten by the time of discovery, so badly done in that determining cause and time of death is proving problematic." Ramsay quaffed the last of his coffee and set his mug back down upon the bar.

Stormy winced with a backing of ears and whiskers, "Ouch. That explains the detail of your holos; a lot of imprints." He worried his lower lip between two gleaming ivory fangs. "Any hair left behind? Tracks? I'm no zoologist but I can learn a lot from paw prints."

"I haven't examined the trace evidence in detail as yet, and I recall that rain wiped out all but a single salvageable print. I don't have those images on hand." Ramsay stood and stormy did likewise, his lanky lupine frame equaling the detective in height though the detective had a good fifty pounds of added mass. "There's a lot about this case I don't like, pup, and you've shed a lot of light on my misgivings. It's going to make whole bunch of people already unhappy with my investigation even less so." The wolf paced him toward the door with an easy stride of his long, oddly jointed lupine legs. The coatroom attendant was ready with his coat and sidearm by the time he arrived to surrender his valet chip.

"You'll be in trouble, rocking the boat with this information?" asked the wolf.

Ramsay grunted with a nod, "Oh yes, I'm going to cause a lot of people to be damn angry with me." He took his sidearm, gave it a cursory examination by reflex, and slipped a charge pack into the handgrip. "But then, I've been down that road a time or two in my years." Stormy watched silently, eying the weapon. Alts were barred from owning firearms of any sort, except for their own law enforcement personnel. "Look, with tensions like they are between labor Alts and humans there's no telling what sort of shit this is going to stir up." He drew on his trench coat and fished his card wallet from one of the many pockets. He slid one of the cards, a simple paper stock one with nothing more than his last name and a number printed upon it, from the wallet and offered it to the wolf. "Call me in a week. That's my private number, it goes to me and not the department. I'll let you know how things are going. You never know, I may need your expert testimony when this case goes to trial."

Stormy took the card and secreted in some concealed pocket of his safik. Then, unexpectedly, he stuck out his white furred, black clawed and padded, semi-human hand. Ramsay grasped it, sharing a firm handshake before the wolf released his grip. "Thank you, Detective Merchant, for all of us."

The towering Kodiak bear at the door favored him with a bemused stare as he stepped back out into the cool late night air. A heavy fog hung with lazy stillness in the air, obscuring the dark bulk of his department sedan parked at the curb. With his unbound long coat sweeping about his legs Ramsay glanced to the left and right at the door to the club before stepping out of its well of welcoming light to be swallowed up by the mist.