FSE

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Slick Run

II 44 Arise

The first thing Fox noticed as he entered KING was how cool it was inside.

The entrance led into a wide, sky-lit circular vestibule, with rooms leading off to the left and right and a broad carpeted staircase heading up to the second and third floors. The glass-domed ceiling was reinforced with octagonal steel mesh, leaving bare a circle at the center, looking like a monstrous eye. The National flag of Corneria was painted on the floor, along with that of the Cornerian Armed Forces, the only example of color that wasn't a shade of brown or black. The air-conditioning was running full-tilt, mechanical whine rushing above their heads in an effort to claim dominion or defiance over the desert. Fluorescent lighting shone from wall-hugging lamps, bathing them in artificial, colorless, eye-gouging brightness.

Fox wanted to stop and look around, but Major Cook seemed an astoundingly busy man in a world where nothing seemed to happen; the rabbit quickly brushed passed him to the right, perhaps-accidentally-perhaps-deliberately slamming into his shoulder. Fox glared at him, quickly falling in step behind him.

"Major, we need your help."

"I'm sure."

"Uh, sir, we're here because two girls have gone missing in the area. They're father wants them returned safely, and he hired us to do just that."

"And will you do that?"

Fox felt that was a strange question, but he didn't pursue it. Instead, he kept following behind the major, keeping up with his rapid pace. The hallway was bare, solid brickwork painted sandy brown. Alex was behind him, eyes wide and nervous on his first time in the field, though he tried to put up an air of collectedness. At the end of the hallway was a pair of thick metal doors with press-button locks; the major smashed his fist into the button locks, sending them both wide open, banging against the doorstops. Fox turned and gave Alex a look.

The mess hall's one prominent feature was that it was large, big enough for several thousand full-time soldiers rather than the paltry dozen Fox saw. Several men and women were dipping spoons into something pale with the consistency of stew. They were all garbed in the same sand-colored clothing as the major, and they all looked like they hadn't slept for a year. Fox cleared his throat.

"Major, this is a problem that Starfox has been hired to fix, and we're going to fix it."

The major didn't respond, just kept slow-running past the long coffee-brown tables. The soldiers who were more awake turned to look at the pair following the major, raising amused eyebrows.

When Fox was about to speak up again, he heard the major mutter something about "bigger problems."

"What was that, sir?"

"I said we've got bigger problems! Two missing girls aren't going to make front page here. I'm not going to drop everything I've got going now just for them. This is bigger..."

Fox's nostrils flared; he didn't like senseless hate, but he detested outright indifference even more. He hated people in authority who had the power in their hands to help others and willingly chose not to. Instead of speaking his mind and saying something that would severely damage much needed relations, Fox continued to put in a statement.

"Look, major, we've been getting reports that there've been ships coming down on Hex for the past two months."

The rabbit made a nasal sound and turned his head long enough to sneer at Fox. "Two months? Boy, that shit's been going on now for the past two years. Wherever you've gotten your information, it's a little understated."

Fox narrowed his eyes as he heard this. Did General Pepper lie to him? No, he just started collecting information a bit too late prior to the mission; hadn't had his eye on it for long. That was it. Fox kept his silence for the moment as they continued to walk out of the mess hall, down another barren corridor, through several rooms that Fox guessed were the barracks or some reasonable facsimile, and finally, after several more corridors, into a spacious, carpeted office. The air here was mechanically purified and felt like a spring breeze on Fox's fur. A plaque, placed at the head of the kiln-dried hardwood table said "Colonel Winchester."

Major Cook sat in the arched armchair, took out a pen, and immediately began writing into what looked like a daily planner, making no acknowledgement that Fox and Alex existed. They looked at each other; Alex rolled his eyes and Fox shook his head exasperatedly. Time passed slowly in the silence, with the ticking of the clock on the nearby wall to mark the passage of Fox's increasing anger and disappointment.

After several more long minutes had passed, Fox felt the gauge break. He stepped quickly to the table and slammed his fist on the cool surface. The rabbit looked up, his face wrinkled in hatred and what looked like a tinge of fear. When Fox spoke, it was with an ugly, gravel-ridden growl.

"Major Cook, I don't care if you don't care. I don't care if you don't help. But we're going to go find those two girls with your permission, and you're going to give us your damn permission...right...now."

The moments that passed in stunned expectancy seemed just as long as the useless minutes in silence. The major looked up at Fox with an expression that could have shattered a mountain. The vulpine held his stare, unfazed. Finally, as the clock continued to tick away much needed time, the major breathed a sigh, his face resigned to a look of defeat. The ear that was whole wilted slightly, the other remaining cadaver stiff.

"Alright, you do that. Go out there and search, if you think it'll help. I can spare a few of my men, if you want..."

Fox nodded. "Yeah, we'd like that."

"They'll be waiting for you by the main door. That's all, is it?"

Fox said it was, but they both knew that there would be more eventually. Fox and Alex stepped out of the office, breathing in the cool air. They were quiet for a few moments before Alex coughed into his hand.

"Are you sure we really needed his permission, Fox?"

"Just because he's a jerk doesn't mean we shouldn't play by the books."

"I suppose..."

Three minutes later, after walking into several rooms they did not recognize, they began wondering where the hell the exit was.

---

Fox had to grip the sides of his seat to keep from getting pitched out of the jeep. The driver, a sturdily-built mouse with thin glasses, seemed to have a knack for driving over small dunes and turning corners at breakneck speeds. His waist still burned from where the rubber bullet struck him, and all the bouncing around in the backseat was aggravating the pain. Fox felt another headache trying to slip out, but he ignored it for now.

They took two vehicles, with three occupants to each vehicle; Alex and two KING soldiers in one, and Fox in the other with two more. The driver was quiet, but the one in the passenger seat, a short and wispy-looking dingo, continued to jabber away about the planet's geography and geological history. Fox could only make acknowledging remarks as he couldn't get a word in otherwise; Hex once had an ocean that covered ninety percent of its surface and look at the mountains, you can see by the striations in the rock where sediments had been accumulating for many thousands of years atop the metamorphic rock ("Ah..."); the planet had once been dominated by several races of titanic crustaceans, the evidence of which can be seen every now and then jutting out of the sand after a heavy wind, and some surviving strains of the crustaceans are thought to still exist in the lakes up north ("Hmm..."); it is still unknown how the ocean levels had fallen, but it is presumed that they had fallen over a period of ten thousand years, a relatively short time, geologically speaking ("Huh...").

The driver sniffed and made a humorless grin. "Maybe a hole opened up in the seabed one day, and it sucked everything down into nowhere, like a giant bathtub drain. So now somewhere there's just a gigantic hole in the desert."

"That's stupid," the dingo said childishly. The driver laughed.

"How did it happen, then?"

The dingo had no answer, and Fox rolled his eyes. They continued on through the valley in silence, passing tall and foreboding rocks and thorny bushes covered in thistle-like leaves. The army jeep was electrical; Fox found it odd to be riding in such a quiet vehicle. The only sound that he could actually hear coming from the vehicle were the tires grating against the sandy ground. The pain was slowly growing in his head and he wished he could take a couple pills to ease it back, but he didn't want to in front of these two.

Fox noticed that the clothing all the soldiers wore didn't possess any names or rank insignias. He pondered over the meaning behind that, but couldn't get anywhere.

After a short while, the driver asked Fox how much farther it was to the suspected landing point of the Tassel sisters. Fox checked the map, downloaded onto his PDA display. It was only a couple more miles; the LZ would be in sight. They had been following the foot of the southern mountain range, climbing up the rock-strewn ridge up to a relatively level plateau. Ferns the color of whiskey peeked out unevenly from spider-cracks in the rock, whispering against one another as a sirocco wind blew from the west. Behind, KING was just visible as a brown smudge in the distance.

The jeep pulled up to a stop, the cloud of dust and sand they had following them finally catching up and enshrouding them. Fox opened the door and hopped out, squinting as a fresh gust of hot air blew into his face. The two soldiers stepped out of the jeep, the dingo starting to jabber about the seasons and weather patterns on Hex and how the jeep's batteries were always topped up since they ran on solar power and the sky was rarely, if ever, overcast.

Fox noticed they were holding their black rifles in their hands, slung over shoulder straps. Slightly unnerved, Fox tried to keep an eye on them and the ground. He hoisted Rush's ridiculous turtle pack higher onto his shoulders.

They walked across the perimeter of the mesa, scanning all thirty acres, all one million three hundred six thousand eight hundred square feet of rock and sand. The ferns murmured as they stepped through them and the wind called them into a dance against their legs. The sun was poised like a gold coin about to fall into the sand, forgotten for a dozen hours. As the sun descended, Fox saw how the land darkened with it; it was no longer pale, no longer faded, but filled with color. Warm colors and cool colors coalesced into a vibrancy that sprang to life as the sun bowed out. Brown, he realized with a smirk, was curiously absent.

Fox and the two soldiers met back in front of the jeep, weary from walking. Fox grumbled, angry and confused at having not only been unable to find an aircraft, but even the barest trace that there ever had been an aircraft. No debris, no footsteps, no imprints, nothing.

"Not a damn thing," Fox muttered, balling his hands into fists.

The little dingo made a slight, supportive sound. "They cover their tracks pretty well, don't they?"

The mouse roughly shushed his comrade, jabbing his elbow into the canine's shoulder. They both glanced at Fox, and he looked at them with narrowed eyes. Clearing his throat, the mouse shouldered his rifle and started walking to the jeep. "Let's get going," he said. Fox noticed the mouse kept stealing curious looks at him. He felt his anger and confusion growing in tandem, parallel with his headache.

The dingo had let something slip. For the moment, Fox wouldn't chase after it. He'd wait for something more concrete. Sighing through his nose, he hopped into the back of the jeep and braced himself for the ride down, slipping his pack off and setting it onto the floor beneath the other seat.

The other jeep was waiting for them back at KING. The other soldiers had already headed inside, but Alex asked them if they had found anything, and Fox only shook his head. The cat nodded and said that they had the same luck.

"This doesn't make any sense," Alex mused.

"I know."

"Maybe they gave the wrong coordinates?"

"Maybe."

Fox was following the others toward the main door when he suddenly remembered his pack. Mentally berating himself for leaving it in the jeep, he headed back to the vehicle. As he was reaching for the bag, he saw the drawing.

"Drawing" was a bit of a stretch. It looked more like a messy stain or chemical spill that had been worked to bring to mind some vague manner of artistic attempt. It was drawn on the rear door, driver's side, with some kind of brown substance, something that looked like a number three with the lateral lines curving upwards, though it could just as easily have been a smear.

Fox didn't need to run a chemical analysis machine to know that the symbol was made with feces; he could smell it well enough.

"Hey, you guys! What's this?"

The soldiers and Alex turned around, a little miffed at being turned away from the cool air inside the building. They asked him what it was, but he just waited for them by the jeep. As they edged around the side of the vehicle Fox pointed out the symbol-stain, and was surprised by the reaction it delivered. The dingo stared at it open-mouthed, pleasantly dumbstruck, while the sturdy mouse visibly blanched. He cleared his throat and tried to cover up his expression, but Fox was watching him and his companion hard.

"That's--that's weird, man," the dingo said, a shitty liar. The mouse was more experienced; he straightened out his glasses, polishing them on the cuff of a sleeve with an irritating calmness. He went to the glove compartment and took out a filthy rag.

"We must've picked it up when we scraped up against that boulder. Lots of rocks out here carry desert varnish; a reddish-brown dust that acts just like charcoal. I'll get rid of it."

Before the mouse touched the door, Fox made sure the symbol was committed to memory. The soldier bent down and began wiping away the stain.

"I remember the major chewed me out once for getting that on one of our other jeeps. Damn near ripped my--."

"Who lives out there?"

The mouse didn't answer, made no attempt to convey that he heard Fox. He continued to wipe away the stain on the door, effectually making it worse. He spat on the door, still wiping. Fox turned to the twiglet-limbed dingo, who was looking at him like a criminal, with wide twitchy eyes and a head that jerked around, seeking an escape from conversation.

"Who lives in the desert?" Fox asked, his eyes sharpened into angry accusing beads.

The dingo grinned loosely, trying to feign ignorance, but his eyes said everything. "What're you askin' me for, man? I don't know."

"I think you do."

The dingo was taking a step backward, but Alex was right behind him, black-and-white sentinel glaring down with zircon eyes.

"You--you guys can't bully me, man. I'm a soldier, you know."

Fox was already stepping toward the dingo. "And I'm too pissed off to care. Who lives out in the desert?"

"Nobody you want to know."

Fox stopped and looked down at the mouse. He was still cleaning up the smear, but he was looking up at Fox with a tired expression. The vulpine could see the bags that hung beneath his eyes, deep and dark.

"Nobody you'd want to meet under the sun or in the dark. You probably think we're trying to hide something here, that we're trying to keep something secret, but the fact is that you can just walk out there into the valley and wait for them to come to you, but I wouldn't do that if I were you. Usually, they've just kept to themselves, staying behind the hills, just watching us. But lately they've been getting antsy..."

The mouse finished cleaning up the stain, wiping his hands on the rag and tossing it into the back of the jeep. He stepped passed Fox, motioning for Alex to unhand his comrade. He turned around, giving Fox a hard though slightly anxious look. "If you want some answers, get the major to tell you about Dice Mullein."

Then he walked away, his friend in tow, into the base. In the horizon, the sun was already half buried in the sand, shadows stretching like long, searching claws.

---

Dice Mullein...

Fox ran the name through his mind, purposefully filling each syllable with significance. The name didn't bring up any memories or suggestions for him, nor for Alex. But he saw the suggestion that lay behind the name, saw the contorted expression on the dingo's face when his friend stated it, like an ultimate profanity.

In the evening, Cook had them help out the personnel cart around objects from and to the storage room. Fox didn't mind the labor, hoping that the effort would put them in a better light with the major. He wanted him in a proper state of mind when he asked him about magic-name Mullein.

One of the soldiers grabbed a box from the storeroom and left, leaving Fox to count the number of portable radios they had shelved along one of the walls. He tried to focus on the task, but he kept going over the events of the day.

Actually, the more he thought about the day, the more his headache tried to break loose, some insectile monster pushing against a membrane, trying to break out and spread agony. Fox unzipped a pocket on his vest jacket and reached inside, feeling the bottle of pills he had there.

"Hey, Fox."

Fox slowly zipped up his pocket, squinting angrily as the dull throbbing began. For some reason it had migrated from his right eye to the left. He turned around and saw Alex nodding to him, holding a full-face gas mask in his hands.

"Hey..."

Alex glanced to the open doorway. "So what do you think?"

"I think Major Cook is purposefully keeping us in the dark about the people in the desert for some reason. I think General Pepper needs to fire his tech team and get a new one. I think we're not being paid enough for this."

"Yeah. You know, back in the desert I think I might've found something, but I'm not so sure."

Fox jerked his head around to look at the cat. "Are you serious? Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"I didn't trust those guys we were with."

Fox nodded, glancing at the doorway. "So, what did you find out?"

"Well, there's a nice flat rock in the shade of an outcropping, then I saw an empty corner between two boulders where nobody would see anything, but apart from that it's all spider territory."

Fox looked at Alex uncomprehendingly, wondering what the hell he was talking about. Then he caught on, a leering sneer flashing on his lips. "You son of a bitch...are you telling me that you've spent that whole ride looking for places to fuck!?"

"No, not the whole ride. Just, like, as a side note."

Fox shook his head, turning back to the radios. "Unbelievable..." Alex put a hand on his shoulder, but Fox shrugged it off. He didn't want to talk, didn't want to see the feline anymore, not right now, not for a while.

"I'm sorry, Fox."

Fox said nothing. He pretended to be counting the radios, waiting for Alex to leave so he could take his pills. He heard Alex start to walk away, but the feline stopped after several feet.

"You know, there's no security cameras in here."

"Get out!"

After Alex had left, Fox dry swallowed one pill, then another, pulling a grimace both times. Shaking his head, he started taking stock of the radios.

---

Fox tried to get in touch with Major Cook after taking inventory but he couldn't find the man. All he could find was a makeshift receptionist in the form of Private Shale Fenrisson, telling him that he and Alex were allowed to sleep in the barracks for the night, "for their own safety."

Fox glowered; he expected this mission to take longer than one day, he just didn't think he'd make zero progress on day one. He assumed there would be complications, there always are, but this was just a rolling snowball of tangled knots. Mission completed: Jack-all, empty barrel, dried-up lake, gutted house, blank file, drained battery, barren desert fucking zero percent.

Fox threw his pack onto his chosen bunk. They were all double-stacked steel-frame bunk beds, and he, remembering his days in the Academy, chose the one closest to the floor. The mattress was slate grey and stiff, filled with that hollow polysynthetic tubing rather than steel springs or foam. It didn't make any noise when he sat down on it to test its resilience. The barracks themselves were huge, emphasizing his theory that KING was built for several thousand at a time. Some of the soldiers were milling around, about nine in total. The barracks were a prime example of the Cornerian regiment and weren't segregated by gender; men and women were either stripping to their underwear or already in them. One girl, a tall, emaciated-looking banded gecko with a haircut resembling a bowling ball was fully nude, strumming a nylon-string guitar. She was playing a slow, repetitive song called "House of the Snake and Scorpion," a song Fox found strangely hypnotic, elegant even.

He knew the painkillers were working before his mouth--and later, his eyes--became dry. He took a long, deep breath, grounding himself to Now, and looked around his surroundings. His bunk was situated near the center of the room, a few dozen yards from the bathroom. It took Fox a minute to realize that there were windows along the walls, but they were all boarded up with wood and sheet metal.

There was also a surprising amount of security cameras. Not just in the barracks but the whole damn base. Fox wondered about that.

Cameras. Boarded up windows. A few dozen soldiers remaining out of thousands. Those soldiers just barely getting feasible hours of sleep. Nobody wants to talk about the people who live in the desert. And what about those people? What's their game?

Dice Mullein...

The name had a strange tinge in his mind. The first name was like a hiss, the second like a wind-driven moan of a dying man. Fox shook his head, feeling his mind start to become encased in a syrupy, chemical haze that thickened with each breath he took. The fluorescent light started to hurt even more, needles driving slowly into his emerald eyes.

Fox started to take off his clothes, first the vest jacket, shirt, gloves, and then his boots. Ordinarily, he would have blushed being in the presence of several semi-nude/totally nude persons--and military, at that--but the painkillers had already inhibited his self-consciousness. He ripped the belt out of the loops of his pants and, breathing heavily through his mouth, slipped off his pants as well. He scratched an itch on his thigh, his fingernails scratching against his black boxers.

The room wasn't spinning, wasn't darkening into a Wonderland dream. The room actually brightened, magnifying the eye-cutting light, while things around him fused in a slow transition, like a camera losing focus. Fox didn't want to go to sleep, didn't want to be the first one while everybody else was pissing about. He wanted to just lie back, rest his head, and listen to the gecko chick play that weird, mesmerizing song.

Fox slunk under the single thick grey blanket. He kicked out his legs, accidentally sending his pack over the side and onto the floor.

That song...he could feel the vibrations from that song wavering through the air around him, tickling his fur. Or was he imagining that? What part of that was he imagining?

Fox reached up a hand and loosely traced the symbol he had seen scrawled on the jeep onto the bottom of the mattress above him, the number three with upward-curving tines. He promptly fell asleep before his hand fell back to the blanket.

---

Fox woke up, feeling rather heavy in his head and chest. His head lolled like a ball on a string as he moved in the bed, stinking sweat filling his nostrils, wondering where he was. It was black, all dark, with only a series of dim white-blue lights lining where the walls met the floor, but they did nothing for him with his slightly blurred vision.

The Academy.

No.

The Great Fox.

No.

What was this place called? KING.

His eyes felt dry and stung, sharing the same sensations as the roof of his mouth and tongue. Minor issues, smaller brothers to the saber-rattling problem at hand; Fox's bladder felt as if somebody had stuffed a balloon into his loins. Breathing the cool, pure air in one large gulp, he pushed aside the blanket, slipping himself stiffly out of bed.

His kidneys tickled as he got up--a little too fast, perhaps. His head suddenly filled with a weight, and starbursts blazed through his sight. Taking a moment to collect himself, he had to clutch at his groin, metaphorically and literally telling himself to hold it.

I'm not far from the bathroom...Just, what goddamn direction is it?

_ _After thinking a bit, Fox began walking, his socks silent against the linoleum. He wasn't so encumbered in the dark, his eyesight still brighter, marginally, from his "aspirin." He could see the edges of the rows of beds, silhouettes in shadow. He just had to keep walking straight...

He got to the door, swung it open to more darkness. Fox felt his way along the wall for the light switch, flipping it on by accident. The white light shot into his eyes like knitting needles, candleblind, and he flicked the lights off. He had gotten a glimpse of the room; four stalls painted black with six bare urinals to the left, amber mosaic tile flooring, three big mirrors above the four sinks to the right. Everything except the stalls and the floor were the color of adobe brick.

Fox grunted as he stumbled forward to one of the stalls. He locked the door, found the seat, dropped his boxers, and sighed. His stream hit the water like somebody turned the volume up to eleven; he braced one elbow against the wall and rested his head against it.

Some day...Some damn day this has been. Questions and questions and questions and nobody wants to answer them. Question: if you willingly landed on a desert planet, why would you avoid the one place that represented civilization? Answer: because you're not looking for civilization. Question: how do you cover your footsteps in the desert? Answer: you don't, you let the desert do it for you. Question: where do you turn when authority doesn't want you to know anything? Answer: you go right under their noses. Question: Where are the Tassel sisters? Answer:...still processing.

_ Question: who are the people living out in the desert? Why are they so feared by KING? Would they know where the Tassel sisters are?_

_ Question:..._

_ Question:..._

_ Question:..._

_ Ninety percent of the base fee. They're not gonna pay even that much; they'll just take the money from Tassel and use that as a shock absorber to pay the rest. All this for ninety percent. Still, it's only early days..._

Fox finished, eking out a few more drops before pulling up his boxers. He took a breath, cleared his throat. Now he had a new question. How the hell do you flush this thing?

Hey, Foxy.

Fox stopped in his search for the mechanism. He heard that, someone saying his name in the next stall. But it was so silent, so quiet like silk over sweaty skin that he was half-sure he had imagined it. He stood up, leaning his ear against the cold steel of the stall.

"Fox?"

It was Alex. Alex was in the adjacent bathroom stall. Why?

"Alex, what--what're you doing?"

The sound of the other door opening, a pause, a finger tapping on his door. The handle jiggles, and Fox can only look in the direction of the voice.

"Let me in, Foxy."

Fox shook his head. "I shouldn't. Not after the shit you've been pulling all day."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know damn well what." Fox didn't elaborate, he didn't have to. Alex wasn't an idiot, he knew he was acting so shitty and Fox wasn't going to explain something that didn't require summarization.

"I said I was sorry."

"I don't believe you."

He could hear Alex's sigh, deep and melancholy. Fox wondered if the feline really did want a serious relationship. He wondered if he wanted a serious relationship. It couldn't be so bad, not really. But Alex...

Fox shook his head, knowing he would regret it later. He unlocked the stall door. "Get in," Fox whispered in the dark.

He stepped back so the cat could open the door, his frame taking a good portion of the empty space. He could just barely see the white parts of Alex's body, or at least his chest, face, and elbows. He must be wearing pants. He heard the lock slide back into place.

"I can't get you out of my mind, Fox."

Is that a lie? Is that flattery to persuade me to do something for you? Are you being serious?

He reached out a hand, his fingers coming in contact with the white fur on the feline's chest. He slid his hand down to Alex's waist, feeling the cat pull him into a soft embrace. He rested his head against the big cat's chest, listening to his heartbeat in the silent dark. Big hands were rubbing his back, and he felt Alex put his chin down on the top of his head, pressing down his ears. He could smell Alex's sweat, laced with his citrus shampoo, and he loved it, loved the scents when presented with the cat's warm body. Maybe he did love Alex. Maybe...

"Were you just hiding here in the dark or did you follow me?"

"I followed you. You were so loud that you couldn't hear me. I even scratched on the door."

One hand stayed at the small of his back while the other slowly traveled upward, following the ridge of his spine up to the back of his head. Alex was playing with his short hair there, and the sensation gave Fox a sensual chill.

"You wanna fuck me, right here?"

Fox sniffed, choking back a laugh at Alex's brazenness. No poetry, no clever innuendo or banter, just out with it and no chance of miscommunication. The cat pushed out of his arms, keeping one of Fox's hands on his hip as he turned around. He was gripping the top of the stall, sticking out his rear. Fox could feel Alex's tail searching for him, making sure he was there behind him.

"Alex..."

"Come on."

Fox shook his head, grinning. He ran his hands along Alex's warm hips, loitering around the seam of his pants. He remembered wanting something back on the Great Fox. Now what was it?

Fox pushed his pelvis against Alex's rear, electricity surging through him as he felt the cat's heat. He kept one hand on Alex's hip, the other reaching around to grope his manhood. Fox had hoped Alex would be erect already, but he wasn't; he started rocking his crotch against Alex's ass, slowly, as he began rubbing, massaging Alex's groin. He heard him moan, pleasure-sigh, and the cool bathroom was starting to feel like a sauna.

Fox felt himself getting stiff as he grated against Alex's ass, his cock pushing up against the fabric of his underwear. He took away the hand he had on the cat's hip long enough to readjust himself, then set it back in place.

Shortly, Alex hissed out a sigh though his nose. Fox knew that meant he was confused, that he felt Fox was wasting time. He grinned as he reached both hands around to unzip the feline's pants, deliberately being as slow as possible. The prospect of what he was going to do made his head light and tingly. More adrenaline.

Fox undid Alex's button and fly, pulling his pants down to his ankles. He realized that Alex wasn't wearing underwear, which was just perfect. Alex stepped out of them and spread his legs, thinking Fox wanted to be inside of him. Fox pressed his boxer-screened erection between Alex's cheeks, relishing in the warmth that covered him, transferred and shared between their bodies. For a moment, he was tempted to oblige the feline, to slip out of his underwear and enjoy what Alex was offering him. It felt so damn good...

Then he crushed Alex's ideas of anal sex by stepping away and speaking in a low, affection-laced tone. "Turn around, Alex."

The cat blew air through his nose, annoyed "what now" kind of sound. "What?" he grumped.

"Turn around, right now."

The cat sighed again, denied what he wanted. That was Alex's deal, Fox realized; he always got what he wanted. He hoped that what he was going to do would be another thing that Alex would want, would beg him for every time, and Fox would just enjoy the fuck out of it when he told him no.

Feet shifted on the floor, telling him the cat was complying with his order. "What is it, Fox?"

He kneeled down onto the cold mosaic tile, sitting on his ankles. He reached up into the dark, feeling Alex's legs. Above him, the feline asked him what he was doing. Fox didn't answer, he'd know soon enough. He ran his hands upward over hot, firm thighs. He could smell Alex's sweaty musk, sharp and masculine and intense from sleeping in bed. He thought about the best way to do this, whether he should follow the map of the feline's body, tracing with his fingers up his thighs and across his lower belly and down to his destination, or just use his mouth to search for it.

He had to admit, he didn't imagine giving his first blowjob like this, in the dark, in the bathroom stall of a nowhere paranoid military base. He had imagined the scenario in a pricey Cornerian hotel room with soft light, warm air imbued with incense, satiny bed, slow and heavy rock music in the background, Alex's golden-brown eyes looking at him, telling him if he was doing something wrong. This was a bit different. On the other hand, he liked guessing where Alex was.

The irony of the situation wasn't lost on Fox, either; he was trying to reassert his authority by getting on his knees. Well, why not?

Fox inched his face closer to Alex's body, judging the location of his cock by the wave of musky heat that washed over his face. His heart was pounding, worrying over the prospect that he might screw up. He took a nervous breath, inhaling Alex's scent, then let it out.

"Fox? F--oh...fuck."

He had blown right on the feline's smooth cock. It was right there, hot and hard and waiting for him, and he just had to take it.

He licked his lips and pushed his head forward. His blush went full-tilt scarlet when he felt the warm tip of Alex's rod pressing against his muzzle, pulling up his lip. Keeping his hands on those muscular thighs, he brushed the feline's length with his face and lips, too scared to stick it in his mouth yet. His heart was beating rapidly, making him pant, or maybe it was just being down here, letting Alex's love-smell envelope him.

Alex moaned above him, sex-cursing quietly in the shadows. Fox reached down and squeezed his own hard-on, sending a pulse of pre-cum to stain and bead on his boxers. With his other hand he reached up and grabbed the base of Alex's shaft, directing it down to him. He put the tip to his lips, kissing it, running slowly down its length. He followed the phallus highway--all seven inches, which seemed so much larger down here; he spat a couple of times when he came to a bit of lint--down to the cat's testicles, where that man-scent seemed the strongest. Right then he felt a stab of desire, a booster of pornographic magnitude. When he started licking Alex's balls with swift, zealous strokes, he felt the cat's abdomen flutter, heard him hitch in a breath, effeminate contrast with his normal low voice.

Fox stopped, pulling his head back, knowing that sooner or later he had to quit stalling. He had made up his mind, he was going to fulfill his fantasy, and no mental back-talk or negative thinking was going to stop him. Fox licked his lips again, making sure his mouth was coated with saliva. He had read an article about oral sex advice, remembering only bits and pieces of it now. Even though his senses were peaked, he found that thinking was a chore.

He jerked from the base of Alex's cock out to three or so inches, slowly but forcefully. He put his lips to the tip, so hot and moist and sweaty, and Fox felt another shot of adrenaline. He took his other hand and reached up to grasp Alex's balls; he knew to do that, but he had forgotten why. He did so in cycles, letting go to increase pressure just a little bit, let go, increase pressure. They felt hot and heavy in his hand, and slick with his saliva. He squeezed, eliciting a pained hiss from the cat above him.

"Not so hard, sugar."

"Sorry."

He parted his lips and began moving his head forward, feeling the tip press against his tongue. He remembered his teeth, keeping his jaw open. When the tip passed into his mouth he felt Alex jerk his hips, shoving a couple inches more into him, surprising him. He backed off to the tip, coating the shaft in another film of saliva.

Fox closed his eyes, an action that he felt vindicated even with the darkness. He focused on the salty, sexy taste, rolling his tongue over and around the shaft, moving his head back and forth, breathing heavily through his nose. He moaned as he moved his mouth over Alex's rod, luxuriating in the way it pressed against his tongue and the roof of his mouth.

Slowly forward, slowly back. He was going too slowly--a thought that seemed to register more with his body than his mind--and so he increased speed just a little bit. He moved further as he went, taking more of Alex into him, more heat, more cock, more, more, more.

He alternated rolling his tongue over the smooth pink skin with sucking on the shaft, drawing out ripples of pre-cum, fragments of the whole that Fox wanted. He pushed himself further, feeling Alex's cock push further into his mouth. As the feline's pubic fur began tickling his nose, he felt the warm hard-on that filled his mouth begin tickling his throat.

Fox had never practiced oral sex on auxiliary suggestive objects; when the tip of Alex's cock pressed against his throat he clammed up, esophagus barricade. He backed off, coughing, breathing deeply, swallowing, then went back to work with a lusty, eager sound escaping his throat. He wanted to accomplish this feat, to prove to Alex and to himself that he could do it.

He increased speed, increased pressure. A mixture of his saliva and Alex' pre-cum was starting to dribble down his chin. He wiped it away, though the direction in which he shifted it caused it to spread along his neck and collarbone. He slipped his own cock out of his underwear and began jerking himself in synchronicity with the way he moved his mouth. Alex was breathing hard and heavy, trying his very best to moan quietly. He was gently bucking his hips against Fox's mouth, urging the vulpine to try harder.

Each time he attempted to push the tip deeper, his throat would close, no entry, access denied. Angrily, Fox worked himself back and forth faster and harder, simultaneously trying to suppress his gag reflex. His eyes were watering. He sucked, his cheeks caving slightly as he tasted Alex's flavor, and swallowed.

Disappointed with himself, he resigned to the fact that he couldn't take Alex entirely. Grunting in frustration, he worked the first half of the feline's rod with his mouth while his hand tugged and pulled from the base. He ignored his own erection, focusing wholly on Alex.

A grating sound, Alex's claws digging into the surface of the metal stall; a strained, urgent breath in the darkness above.

"Fox...Fox, I'm right there..."

If Alex was expecting him to pull away, Fox thought, he was going to be very mistaken. He moved his mouth as fast as he could, slurping along the feline's hard-on, his tongue and palate starting to tingle from the constant, rapid sensation. He breathed through his nose as a tear slipped down his cheek.

Alex's testicles seemed to flee from his grasp, twitching upward. A second later, Fox's mouth was flooded with the bitter, silky milk of Alex's climax. It had caught him by surprise; when he tried to swallow, Alex had already released several spurts into his mouth. His adam's apple worked like mad as he noisily tried to consume his reward, though there was some dereliction; he choked on it, sputtering with his mouth still clinging around the feline's rod. In a panic he couldn't denounce, his throat closed up, and as Alex shot more of his load into him he felt his nasal cavities invaded, an uncomfortable, _swelling_feeling. Cum was dribbling down his nose and the corners of his mouth as he gagged in a desperate attempt to rebalance the situation.

Alex was leaning over him as his convulsions tapered away into shaky, jerky motions. He felt the cat's abdomen pressing down lightly on the top of his head, making his world a little more hot and humid. Fox still continued to drink what was left, making sure no drop was lost, his nostrils burning. He leaned back off of the softening dick to breathe, taking big gulps of air with a wheezing breath before returning, licking and lapping and slurping at what he presumed was still issuing from Alex.

The feline's voice was a throaty whisper when he spoke in between long breaths.

"Alright, Fox, alright...There's nothing left. I'm fucking done."

Fox leaned back, setting his hands on the tile floor behind him. His breathing was shallow and constricted, like a respirating whistle. He tilted his head back, the movement producing a sense of dislocation, feeling as though he were floating in the void, in an inky sea of nothing. He coughed, jolting him back to Now, where the air was like a chill on his perspiring body and little stars were popping in his vision.

He sat there in the dark, on the floor, waiting for Alex to speak, but he didn't, just breathed long and hard. After a short while, he slowly stood up on gelatin legs. He swayed, holding out his hand to brace himself against the stall door. There was a hand there on the door; he followed it, fingers running through the fur of his crewmate's arm to settle at one powerful shoulder. Alex grabbed him, wrapped his arms around Fox's waist and pulled him close. Fox quietly let himself go limp as he rested his head against the big cat's shoulder.

He didn't know why he was feeling so weak. He wondered if he had climaxed just then as well, and hadn't even felt it. He rubbed his face into Alex's fur, enjoying the sex-smell that washed over them. For a minute or two the world ceased to exist, and the only thing that had any substance and significance were the two of them, holding onto each other in the dark, breathing hot and heavy.

"I can't move," Alex said weakly, and he giggled. Giggled, like a child. Fox smiled, almost laughed, probably would have if his nose didn't sting so much. All things considered, that wasn't all that bad, but he shook his head; he'd have to practice so next time wouldn't be like that.

"Was that alright? I mean, I did okay, right?"

He felt Alex's chest ripple in a whispery chuckle, felt him shake his head. "Sugar, you were awesome. Thank you so, so fucking much."

Something pressing down on his head, Alex's lips. Fox still smiled, rubbing the big cat's back as Alex rubbed his as well. One hand went down to the small of his back, resting at the top of his buttocks. He knew it wasn't a suggestive action, Alex was too tired. And, frankly, so was he.

In the silence beyond their calming breathing, Fox heard a click. It was almost imperceptible, but he heard it. He opened his eyes, noticing that the room had suddenly become a little bit brighter, too.

"I'm gonna have to think real hard to try and top th--."

Fox clamped a hand against Alex's mouth. He could see his face, those golden-brown gemstones staring at him wide with surprise. Alex tried to pull Fox's hand away but the vulpine held up a finger to his mouth, his eyes open in fear. A bright spot appeared on the wall above the toilet, then shot away like ball lightning.

Somebody else was in the rest room, shining a flashlight across the walls and floor. He could just see the beam as it cast a blue-white circle over the adobe-colored ceiling. As quietly as he could, he moved his feet so they were right behind one of the panels that kept the stall bolted to the ground, in case the fellow moonlighter decided to sweep the light under the stalls.

To his horror, that's exactly what they did.

The beam strayed under the stall door. Alex had the sense to do what Fox was doing, keeping his feet behind the grounding metal panel. They pressed themselves together, keeping close to the cold wall, feeling as if the air had just gotten colder. They didn't dare breathe; Fox had to put a hand to his own mouth, fearing that the individual would hear the explosive pounding of his heart.

The light went away, disappearing, only to slightly light up the entirety of the room. Fox guessed the person was holding the light up to the mirrors.

Fox didn't know how long they stood there, inhaling spoonfuls of air, minimum wage oxygen, as the person was doing whatever they were doing in front of the mirrors. He heard a thunk, something falling into one of the white-colored sinks, and a soft chuckle issuing from a female voice. It was light and airy, devoid of anything proclaiming the sinister, but still Fox held onto Alex in a terror-cold grip.

After a time, the person gave another quiet, tittering laugh--The sound made Fox think of a flock of birds returning to Corneria for the spring--and the room darkened again, the beam flashing along the floor in a zigzag pattern. There was another click, probably the person turning the light off, and rest room door opened, shut, and silence. Silence in the black.

Fox and Alex continued to stand stiff as beams, wanting to but failing to believe that the creepy-crawler was out of the room. They listened to the quiet, their ears rigid, rotating slightly, trying to catch any possible sound. After a while, Fox let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding, confirmed in his fear of doors.

Total darkness is a world without time. They stayed there for what felt like an eternity, but which was more in the realm of ten minutes, as Fox would later find out. After a while of detecting no foreign sounds, they decided to get out of the rest room and get some sleep. Alex put on his pants, thanked Fox and, after a bit of awkward searching, kissed him on the mouth, which Fox was happy to reciprocate.

Alex opened the stall door, confident in the dark. Fox stood where he was for a bit, listening to Alex heading out the main door. He considered if he should wash himself up; he probably had semen stains all over his chest and face, which would dry and clump up his fur come the dawn. He was about to, his hand straying to the light switch on the wall, but he was too tired. Sniffing away an itch in his nose, he followed Alex, trying to figure out which bed was his.

He found it after a bit of searching and blind groping in the shadows. It was when his foot thudded into his big backpack that he realized where he was. He crawled under the thick blanket, framing his fingers behind his head. He thought about the experience he had with Alex, the tastes and textures and smells, smiling over how he had tried so desperately to force his body to do what it couldn't. He just had to practice, that was it.

Fox imagined the best possible situations for practicing when he fell asleep, his lips pulled up lightly into a grin.

---

The first scream woke Fox up, and the second had sent him out of his bed.

The army guys and girls were already up and getting dressed, keeping tightly to their regimen. He saw that they were all looking, eventually walking over, to two individuals who were standing by the rest room, the door wide open. The two, a male ferret and a female lynx, weren't inside the room, just staying out of the doorway. The ferret turned, and Fox saw the cold fear in his eyes, making them wide and frigid. He quickly put on his green pants and shirt and followed the other soldiers as they milled around the bathroom.

Alex was with them. When he caught sight of Fox, there was a worried look in his eyes, and Fox wondered why.

One soldier, a tall otter, was holding a hand to his mouth and quickly walking away. Fox stopped him and asked what was going on.

"They got in again," was all the otter had to say before walking very quickly to the hallway door.

The soldiers that were by the rest room were talking and gesticulating all at once, filling the large barracks with echoes of inane babbling. His curiosity thoroughly piqued, he forced his way through the group, not afraid to push. The ferret and lynx, seeing that Fox was making a swathe through the small though tightly packed crowd, had lost the paralysis of their initial fear and immediately took off.

Fox stepped into the bathroom, getting a sense of déjà vu. The floor was amber mosaic tile, the bathroom stalls black, everything else adobe brown. But the thing that caught his attention was something he certainly didn't remember seeing the night before.

Words had been written on the mirrors in large, careful font, the medium used what looked like red lipstick. On one mirror, the closest to the far wall: "YOUR BULLETS ARE YOUR COFFIN NAILS." On the middle mirror: "WASH YOUR FILTHY HANDS!" The mirror closest to the door proclaimed in the largest font of the three: "44 ARISE." There was something in the sink beneath the middle mirror, something small and dark. It took Fox a couple moments to realize what the thing in the sink was, and when he did he tried to avert his attention to the writing, but he could still see it.

Beneath the middle mirror, encompassed by a living, noisy halo of flies, was the desiccated head of a young male boar staring blindly from within the bowl of the sink. The fur was mangy and matted black with long-dried blood, eyes grey and filmy; a lieutenant's cap was perched on his head, tilted at a jaunty, impudent angle.

It stank in here. Fox broke through the gaggle of soldiers, still smelling decay.

Alex asked him what was going on. Fox had nothing to say, he was too angry. He was going to talk to Major Cook, no matter who or what got in his way, and he wasn't going to leave until he got some answers. He walked out of the barracks; by this time soldiers from the other barracks were entering, wondering what the commotion was. He ignored their questions, heading out into the hall to Colonel Winchester's office.

He caught the rabbit on his way out of the office. Behind him was the dingo Fox had rode with the other day, his eyes wide, face sniveling.

"Major, we have to--."

"Get out of my way."

"No! You're going to tell me what the fuck's going on right now, or I'm going to suddenly forget all about rank and respect."

The dingo nodded his head as he kept up with the superior officer. "Sir, I think that would be a good idea. We could use their he--."

The rabbit turned on his heel, the air whistling as the back of his hand collided with the dingo's face, causing him to stumble and lose his balance.

"You are a soldier, private! Grow a fucking pair and act like one!"

The rabbit made to grab the canine by the ear, but Fox, in a fit of uncontrollable anger, grabbed the rabbit by his forearm and twisted it, slamming the major into the wall.

"That was a big mistake, major," he hissed through clenched teeth. The old rabbit was strong, but Fox was filled with rage and frustration; he felt like he could snap the man's arm off and stick it in places arms weren't designed to go. The rabbit struggled against the wall, his voice a strained growl.

"I could have you shot!"

Fox almost smiled. "You do and I'll haunt your ass for the rest of your life until you join me. But how about we just do the sensible thing and talk?"

He let go of the rabbit, taking a step back in case he tried anything funny. He helped the dingo up to his feet, who, looking slightly shocked, was holding the side of his face.

Another soldier was walking briskly down the hall to the office, a male lion so tall his ears nearly scraped against the ceiling. One hand was wrapped around something small. As he walked up to them, the rabbit's face contorted into a hateful grin, his lips peeling back into a bestial expression.

"Sergeant Hagg, take this man into custody. He assaulted me; I want him in handcuffs, a gag, a fuckin' straightjacket. Just get him out of here!"

The lion made no motion as to do any such thing. He held up his closed hand, fingers around a small tube-like object. "Sir, we found this in the rest room," he said.

"Didn't you hear me!? Get rid of him!"

"Sir, look at it!"

"I don't give a f--."

The rabbit's attention was drawn down to the thing in the lion's hand, cutting off his speech. He stared at it, first in confusion, then with the shocked, widening eyes that come with dawning comprehension. Fox only stood to the side with the short dingo, silently watching the scene unfold.

The major took the object from the lion's hand, a small lipstick container, black and gold casing, with a brand name and lip-like symbol on the side. The rabbit stared at it with an open mouth.

"This belonged to Private Burns..."

The lion didn't answer him, didn't need to. He glanced at Fox, and the vulpine saw a sad look in his eyes. He felt sorry, but he was glad the major was no longer foaming at the mouth. The rabbit turned his head up to the sergeant, but his eyes remained on the lipstick.

"Thank you, sergeant. That...that's all, then?"

"For now, sir, yes."

Major Cook nodded and dismissed the lion and the dingo as well. Fox stood there with the major, realizing just how quiet the hallway was even with the mechanical rush of the air conditioning.

After what seemed like several long minutes, Major Cook leaned against the wall. Fox looked at him, saw all the energy and fervor that had filled his face had drained away, left dry and anemic.

"What do you want to know, boy?" he asked, his voice mumbling with sudden exhaustion.

There was a lot that Fox wanted to know, a lot of questions that needed answering. Instead, he focused on one, remembering what the mouse had told him yesterday.

"Tell me who Dice Mullein is."

The rabbit smiled, a tired, I-thought-you'd-say-that sort of smile. He took a long, drawn-out breath and began.

"When I was stationed at KING, some eight or nine years ago, I had just been promoted to colonel. The army was getting nervous over Andross and his threats, and they suspected he'd set up a fortified zone in some out of the way, middle of nowhere planet. They looked at Hex and immediately set up KING within a year. When I got here, I was given a list of personnel with high security clearance, sort of a VIP list of people who can walk in and out, participate in projects, and whatnot. I remember looking through it one night and seeing a discrepancy; two names that were on that list but weren't listed as proper army. In fact, there was no designation, just the names. They were Dice Mullein and Skin Mullein.

"I asked some higher-ups about the variance, and in no small words they told me to keep my big mouth shut. So I had two people walking around the base who were _not_military, but were getting all the perks. KING was a secret installation back then, before the Lylat Wars; everything was a lot more confidential. Some things, particularly discrepancies in the paperwork, always made me nervous. I wanted to find out who these two were, so I began walking around, keeping my eyes and ears open. I started asking my officers, but they said they didn't know anything. We used to have three and a half thousand recruits here; you can see where one man couldn't possibly conduct the operation alone. That was probably my first mistake. In the end, I guess I didn't need to ask my officers; I had the fortune to talk to them one night. I couldn't sleep, had to make and take some important calls in the morning. So I headed down to the kitchens to get some coffee.

"I saw them, one sitting on the shoulders of the other, trying to get something from above the pantry. They couldn't have been older than teenagers, though the boy was already as tall as an adult. They were coyotes, but they had rattlesnake tails."

The major looked at Fox to make sure he was listening. "You get that? Rattlesnake tails. I saw patches of fur that were bare, and had, I don't know, scales or something. The girl even had eyes like a snake, pale yellow with black slits. They wore civilian clothing, dirty jeans and cheap shirts. I just watched them, scrounging around in there for something. The girl stretched out her hands--her tail rattled, like a damn maraca--and came back with what looked like a loaf of sliced bread. The boy asked if she got it, and she didn't answer, just rattled her tail. She leapt down off his shoulders and they just tore into the bread, not so much eating it as outright consuming it, as if they'd been suffering a famine. I walked in right then and decided to talk to them. Well, they just up and stopped dead still to look at me, caught like criminals. I saw the girl had heavy stitches across her neck, which probably explained why she couldn't speak. The girl didn't have any expression on her face, just watched me with those snake eyes. But the boy...the boy had something about him, just an air, if you want to call it that. He smiled at me like he was an old friend. He was...charming. He_started the conversation, _he lead the conversation into the topics _he_wanted to discuss, and when I asked him questions he didn't want to answer, he gave some roundabout, indecipherable answers that still left me cajoled. Dice was a charmer, even at that age...

"I didn't see them for a while after that. The next time Dice and I spoke, with Skin just watching, they were accompanied by a bunch of people I recognized as some kind of scientists. I didn't know what they were supposed to be, but any career man could see they weren't real military; some kind of science derivative. They were out walking around the base, just listening to those gibbering pencil-necks. Dice would cut in every now and then, emphasizing his words with his hands, looking like he was engaged in a big philosophical discussion. Dice saw me looking at him and smiled, asked me to join him, like he was a fucking rock star looking for the next fan. I admit I was intrigued so I followed them around, but the science guys seemed pretty guarded.

"I was supposed to train them like normal soldiers, even though I had no idea what they were supposed to be. They didn't have any rank, but they were treated like they were their own rank. I personally instructed them in training missions out in the open desert. Allowing them out was probably my second big mistake.

"One day we were out there, me, Dice, Skin, and about eight low-ranking soldiers. We were coming back from the desert when I noticed that Dice wasn't with us. It was like he was there one minute and then--ffft!--gone. I stopped the group, questioning them all, even Skin. She shook her head, flicked her tail. I got angry and ordered the group to comb the area. About five minutes later we saw Dice cresting one of the hills, a weird pleasantness on his face. He was smiling, telling us he was alright, he was alright with everything. I questioned him thoroughly, but there wasn't a question he didn't have a clever answer to. We headed back to base, and I made damn sure to keep those two in front of me.

"That was when the trouble started. Tools started disappearing from the garage; little symbols scratched into small, discrete corners of the walls; people were waking up in the middle of the night thinking they heard something outside; I heard that Dice was requesting enough books to start up a small library. I got rather curious, as well as nervous; those tools aren't cheap. I set up an information network with some of my officers, getting them to report back to me about any information they might have heard concerning Dice and Skin. Those two were keeping mostly to themselves, turning down anybody who wanted to talk to them. They became distant, sometimes aggressive.

"Something happened to Dice that day in the desert. Much of what my informants told me I initially disbelieved, criticizing them for making shit up. They said Dice kept telling Skin that a spirit called 'Hyaena' had spoken to him out there, that it told him there was only one way to live, and a whole bunch of other nonsensical shit, claiming that the spirit would sometimes communicate through him. Sometimes, you'd be having a coherent conversation with Dice when the 'spirit' would show up, and he'd start gibbering in some language, if you can call it a language. I asked my officers if they knew what kind of books Dice was requesting, and they were all a whole bunch of different subjects; biochemistry, genetics, philosophy, law, physics, astronomy, astrology, anything. I asked Dice what he was up to, as friendly as I could, and the look he gave me then, just a face of total, incomprehensible hatred...it was there and gone after one blink, and suddenly he was the old Dice again, smiling, Mr. Good Buddy and your best friend in the world. I didn't like that.

"Suddenly the Lylat Wars were over. Andross was dead, and apparently so was KING. With a mad dictator dead there was no need to keep three thousand five hundred people on a desert planet, so most of 'em were shipped out elsewhere. A couple hundred remained with me, career boys and girls willing to protect a piece of sandblown shit. One of my guys from my info-net had blabbed about my secret intel collecting; my superiors caught wind of it and demoted me down to major. A colonel called Winchester stepped in to take the reins, and he did a pretty bang-up job until everything started crashing down..."

Major Cook paused here, and Fox waited. He normally didn't like long stories, but he felt this was necessary.

"In my job, you have to try and visualize events as they happen, and the events that might occur because of them. Sometimes you wonder if you could have seen something coming, if you could have stopped it from happening, but the damnedest thing is when you always hit the conclusion that you couldn't have seen it. Dice and Skin were running some sort of political campaign behind the shadows, gathering a following. Dice spoke about how everyone in the military was living under a delusion, that their lives were settled around a lie. That killing people to ensure peace was a contradiction, that peace wasn't a thing you spilled blood for. He even sang, the bastard! You could see their progress overnight by the growing amount of people that were sitting with them in the mess hall, listening to him ramble about his concept of life. He had a knack for finding out a person's hang ups, what made them feel guilty or ashamed or angry, and he found ways to eradicate that emotion. It was unbelievable how he could just say his nonsense and people would just eat it up.

"One day he was sitting on one of the tables, talking wildly about the false reality of what he called 'the establishment.' Colonel Winchester had Dice taken into custody for spreading seditious lies about the military. That night, someone had taped a sheet of paper over Winchester's office door. It said 'Your whole system is a game. You better lock this door.' Winchester's actions escalated in hostility, which led to more notes, more missing objects, more fear. There was a protest outside the room we were keeping Dice; Winchester had all the participants taken in on the same crime as him. They were all let out four weeks later on the same day, another big mistake.

"The bloodshed started only six days after that. Mullein and his followers must have been sneaking guns, knives, grenades, and ammunition, secreting them in caches all around the base for maybe a couple months. It was almost morning, about ten minutes before roll call, when I heard the first shots. I remember banging my foot against the desk, trying to get out of there. For about twenty minutes, there was only fear and confusion in KING. A bunch of soldiers were running out of the base, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. Winchester had everyone head over to the armory, but Mullein had already gotten to it.

"It wasn't just civil war, it was total fucking bedlam. We didn't know who was shooting at whom, who was an enemy or who was a friend. It was just gunfire and grenade-bursts and fear. I...I didn't know what to do."

The major paused here for a minute. Fox could see the look in his eyes, not seeing the floor he was looking at.

"I hid for most of the battle, finding a cabinet in which to wall away. There was just screaming, and eventually the screaming stopped, and fires were burning somewhere. When I stepped out, I headed down the hallway to the mess hall, gun drawn, looking for the two people I knew had orchestrated the fucking thing. When I got there, it was just...awful. Some of the soldiers were staring at me with dishpan eyes, young bucks who had never been in a proper fight. I looked out of one of the windows and I saw them, all of them; Dice and his followers out on the sand, staring at the base. They were all singing, chanting in some language. When they finished probably the fourth verse they all started walking away, just walking...into the desert. It was right then that I knew that there was no way Mullein should be allowed to live.

"I grabbed a rifle off one of the privates, bashed the glass out and aimed. I had Mullein right there in my sights. I was ready to fire, but before I could pull the trigger Skin was right there beside me, sticking a weird, curved knife into my side. She pulled the knife back, and that look in her eyes...there was nothing there. She would've taken my head if I hadn't rolled to the side. I jabbed the butt of my gun into her face and she took off, jumped right out of the window. She didn't leave empty-handed, though."

Major Cook motioned to his stiff half-ear and smiled. Fox was staring at him, unsure of what to say.

"They've set up some kind of commune, somewhere out there, with Dice as their supreme spiritual leader. For the past two years they've been stealing from us, making off with our jeeps and converting them into dune buggies. They watch us and we watch them; sometimes there's an exchange of bullets, but nothing really big. They shoot to miss, telling us they could if they wanted to. We'll find symbols carved or painted onto the walls. Objects that should have been in one place we'll find in a completely different place. We tried to attack their camps, but each attempt was ruined; Dice was always two steps ahead, as though he were listening in on our strategy. In truth, he was; many of his group possessed military radios from the storeroom. They're always listening in, and I've suspected that they've managed to set up microphones in some shadowy corners.

"I realized that all of our communicating devices operate on the same frequency; I couldn't risk having a larger Cornerian ship come down here and be ambushed, so I had some of my people tear the radio room apart. We can't contact anybody off of this planet, and nobody can contact us, which is just fine when you remember that they always heard what you were saying. McCloud..."

Fox didn't want to look at him, didn't want to look into his eyes, but he didn't turn his head away fast enough. He saw the sadness in there, the pain and the fear.

"My niece disappeared three weeks ago. I thought she had been kidnapped and killed...This belonged to her." He held up the lipstick. "I think she joined them. She was never...she was always a good girl..."

Fox took a step toward the rabbit, feeling like he was walking into the deep end of a very big pool. He had to clear his throat before speaking. "I have to go out in the desert, major."

The rabbit glanced at him, then nodded. "Take whatever you need, boy. You won't find any red tape from me anymore. Just...promise me one thing, do an old man a favor."

"Yeah, sure."

The rabbit looked at him, gave him the hardest look Fox had ever seen on a man of his age.

"Don't leave a single one of them alive."

Fox said okay, though he knew he couldn't do that. Shakily, he put his hand on the rabbit's shoulder, felt him stiffen, then soften. He held his hand there for a few moments, then, taking a deep breath, he headed out of the hallway to the barracks. He had to grab a few things.

---

"Don't do this, Fox."

He ignored Alex, checking his pack to make sure he had everything he needed. Alex was behind him, looking down on him, black-and-white guardian that Fox didn't need right now.

"Not now, Alex."

"Fox, don't go out there. Let's just call in the Great Fox and--."

"No."

The soldiers were all talking by their own bunks. The rest room had already been cleaned out and disinfected, but nobody wanted to go in there.

"Damn it, just think about this for a minute."

He hefted his pack over his shoulders and began walking away. They had made him and Alex turn in their weapons the other day; Fox began walking directly to the armory. The feline was right behind him, still trying to keep him here. He stopped listening, keeping his ears trained on the footfalls of his boots on the linoleum tile.

Suddenly he felt himself twisted to the side, his pack-cushioned back slamming into the wall. He looked up and stared angrily into Alex's eyes, zircon cabochons bleeding anger and horror and sadness.

"I'm not going to let you walk out of here, Fox! You saw what they did to that lieutenant, what do you think they'd do to someone who was actively looking for them?"

Fox pushed the feline away. He didn't say anything, just kept on walking.

"Look, at the very least let me come with you."

"No."

"Godammit, Fox, I don't want you to die!"

The ferocity of Alex's shout made him pause, made him turn around. He looked at Alex, saw how bright and damp those eyes were now. A few of the soldiers were in the hall, watching them. Their eyes made him want to turn and run, to get the hell out of here and out into the sand, but he stood his ground, clenching his hands into fists.

"Stay here, Alex. Help these guys set up a defense, and try to contact Peppy for an update but don't, I repeat don't, try to ask for any assistance. I've got a plan, just let me run with it."

"Fox..."

Fox kept glancing from Alex to the soldiers, watching them watching him. He looked at Alex, saw the passion in his eyes, and swore at himself. He bridged the space between him and the feline with two long strides; his head and hands felt light with the surge of epinephrine.

_ This is crazy don't do it don't do it don't do it--_

Fox grabbed Alex by the shirt and pulled him toward him. He kissed the big cat, roughly, shoving his lips against the feline's lips. He held himself there, his body practically quivering with fear knowing that others were watching him. He heard whispers and mutterings, wondering if they were real or he was just imagining them.

Fox broke the kiss and stepped back before Alex could touch him. He looked deep into Alex's eyes, more to ignore the onlookers than anything else.

"Everything's going to be fine, Alex. Just let me do this. I promise I'll come back."

If my plan works, he didn't add.

Alex sighed, looked like he was going to cry, shook his head, then smiled, a soft, pitying smile. "Okay, Fox, okay. But you better come back, or I'm gonna have to spank you."

Fox grinned and nodded; there was another fantasy he wouldn't mind enjoying. He had a feeling he'd need it once he got back from the desert. He gave Alex a smile before turning around toward the armory.

He grabbed his pistol and ammunition; asked one of the soldiers to show him how to work one of the army jeeps. Confident enough in his driving skills, he told the armed guards stationed at the wall to open the gate.

The morning sun was ascending over the horizon, colossus eye watching over the desert and the jagged hills. Fox kept driving forward, hoping that somebody from Mullein's cult would be somewhere out here today, hoping that his plan would work, hoping that the Tassel sisters were still alive, hoping that Alex would be alright, hoping that he'd come out on top on this.

Hoping a lot of things.