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"Tai's Story", "description": "The tale of a young boy who suddenly finds himself in chaotic New York City, with the dark shadows of an untold past looming over him. ", "count": "26", "submission_left_submission_id": "94741", "submission_left_file_name": "1731988_KichigaiKitsune_tais_story_chapter_11_com.doc", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/1731/1731988_KichigaiKitsune_tais_story_chapter_11_com.jpg", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/1731/1731988_KichigaiKitsune_tais_story_chapter_11_com.jpg", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/1731/1731988_KichigaiKitsune_tais_story_chapter_11_com.jpg", "submission_left_thumb_huge_x": "300", "submission_left_thumb_huge_y": "151", "submission_left_thumb_large_x": "200", "submission_left_thumb_large_y": "100", "submission_left_thumb_medium_x": "120", "submission_left_thumb_medium_y": "60", "submission_right_submission_id": "116435", "submission_right_file_name": "1731990_KichigaiKitsune_tais_story_chapter_13_com.doc", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/1731/1731990_KichigaiKitsune_tais_story_chapter_13_com.jpg", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/1731/1731990_KichigaiKitsune_tais_story_chapter_13_com.jpg", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/1731/1731990_KichigaiKitsune_tais_story_chapter_13_com.jpg", "submission_right_thumb_huge_x": "300", "submission_right_thumb_huge_y": "151", "submission_right_thumb_large_x": "200", "submission_right_thumb_large_y": "100", "submission_right_thumb_medium_x": "120", "submission_right_thumb_medium_y": "60" } ], "description": "................", "description_bbcode_parsed": "................", "writing": "Tai’s Story - Chapter 12.\nBy Kichigai Kitsune\nCopyright 2005-2010\n\nDisclaimer: This story contains sexual scenes involving “cubs” (young anthropomorphic nonhuman characters – furries) as well as coarse language, violence and adult themes. It also features romance, actual plot and multi-syllabic words. Now that I’ve scared off both ends of the spectrum: \nIf you are not legally allowed to view such material under the laws you are subject to, do NOT continue past this disclaimer. \nThis is also the twelfth and final part in a long story – as such, if you are new to it, you should start from the beginning.\n\n\nRobert fell forwards onto the desk, cradling his head in his weary paws. The rain bounced off the metal van’s roof noisily, but it faded into the background as he worried himself sick, again.\n“Unpromising,” the sergeant had called it. Robert felt he was being optimistic.\n\tUpon receiving the satellite scans, the police sergeant poured over them in ominous silence. Aside from that single word, he had given Robert no indication of what he was going to do. \n\tThere was an unusual amount of activity at the New York docks, centering mostly around one of the large cargo ships berthed. Well over fifty suspicious furs crawled over the complex, and the encroaching storm blotted out huge swathes of the images. Few high-resolution scans were available in the first place due to the weather. \n\tEven now a pair of officers scoured the image for signs of hostages and prisoners, but they would be lucky to find anything, Robert knew. Even the analysts he left in a local building, the makeshift hub for the CIA’s part in this operation, would probably find nothing whatsoever in any useful amount of time.\n\tIt turns out it’s hard to find a pair of small children in a poor resolution image of nearly a dozen blocks of industrial complex. Who knew?\n\tWorse, the powerful storm-front out to sea had reached the coast. The chance of getting any decent high-definition surveillance satellite imagery was about to plummet. If they were lucky, the storm would give them a few minutes of respite; hopefully it would make things harder for the bastards hunting his children.\n\tThe sergeant walked over to him, and Robert looked up belatedly. He felt so lethargic all of a sudden. So useless. At the moment, they were all useless. His depression must’ve showed on his face, as the sergeant hesitated before speaking. \n\t“We’re not ready just yet,” he said carefully. \n\tRobert merely nodded. \n\t“We’re going to wait for some backup.” The sergeant sighed, scratching his pointed canine ears. “We’re going to need more folks, and even then this is going to be touch and go. Without knowing where the hostages are, we can’t do very much.” \n\t“I know. We’re in contact with the Coast Guard.”\n\t“Right, we’ll need them – this really could turn into a war-zone. Have your people managed to get anything? Any idea where the hostages could be?” \n\tThe fox shook his head slightly. “No.” He couldn’t say much to the police about this. The handful of personnel Robert had on this operation were intercepting radio and cellular radio transmissions in the area, as well as poring over the scant few pieces of high definition imagery they’d managed to acquire before the storm made it impossible – all of it was technically a violation of the CIA’s mandate, operating on home soil, unless Mitchell had managed to pull some serious strings. The less the police actually knew about what they were doing, the better.\n\tThere was already going to be severe consequences for this, most likely. Robert could only hope they wouldn’t all fall upon his shoulders alone.\n“I’ll be back in a moment. You’ll need to give me some sort of a line of communication to the Guard; we can’t co-ordinate something like this through your agency and we’re going to need their muscle. If your guys get any leads, let us know. We’ll get them out.” The canine cop turned quickly and returned to the front of the van, mumbling into his radio. \n\tGlancing at the satellite scan on the whiteboard, taped up beside the incomprehensible notes the police had scrawled, Robert tried to think. It was a big area. But they could surely cover it? Robert had no idea how many cops there were available but striking a blow to a dangerous international drugs and weapons racket had to warrant at least a decent amount of manpower. \n\tAnd if it didn’t, saving the lives of a pair of kids should, right?\n\tThe cynical side of him warned him not to expect much. Even worse, the experienced side of him agreed.\n\tHis phone suddenly buzzed in his pocket, and he plucked it out hastily. “Hello?” he barked into it the moment the device reached his ear.\n\t“DAD!”\n\tRobert almost collapsed. “Mike! Oh, thank God! Are you both okay? Where are you?!”\n\t“Dad!” Mike’s voice continued. He sounded strained. As if in pain. “W-we’re hiding in a warehouse. I guess we’re okay. A-are you coming to get us?”\n\t“A warehouse?” Robert blinked, his heart rate rising. This was their chance. “Which one? Are there any landmarks nearby?” He swiftly moved over to the satellite scan. \n\tThere was muffled conversation from the other side, and Robert felt a surge of relief as he recognized the other voice. \n\t“We’re near the water?” offered Mike. “Near the, um, waterfront. We don’t know anything else. We’re right near the water. Ow! Watch the leg!” \n\t“Sorry!” Robert heard Tai say. “I can’t see!” \n\tThere were only seven warehouses right on the waterfront, lining the promenade. “Mike, can you give me anything else? There are far too many warehouses.” \n\t“No. The rain was too heavy, I couldn’t see anything.”\n\t“Can you go out and have a look? One of them has a big crane near the front. Another has three shipping containers. The last one has a ship docked near it. Anything, Mike.”\n\tThere was a pause. “G-go out and look?” Mike groaned incredulously. “I can’t!”\n\t“Why not?”\n\tThere was no response at first. “I can’t. My leg is hurt.”\n\t“What about Tai?” Even as Robert said that, he knew the boys wouldn’t want to split up for even a second. \n\t“He’s badly hurt dad…” Mike audibly swallowed. “Where are you? Are you coming for us?”\n\t“Shit!” the fox mumbled, thumping a balled up paw on the whiteboard. “We can’t get you without any idea which warehouse you’re in, Mike. There are too many of them, so you have to give me something to work with. I know you’re hurt but you have to suck it up and do something!” \n\t“I… d-dad… please?” The kit’s voice cracked slightly, and Robert lidded his eyes.\n\tWhat was wrong with him lately?! \n\t“I’m sorry, Mike. I’m here. You’ll be okay, I promise. I’m coming to get you. Just need to know where you are first, that’s all. If you can tell me that, this will all be done.”\n\tMike sniffed. “I’m sorry dad…”\n\t“It’s alright; you’ve done so well already. I don’t know if I’d’ve been able to stay safe as well as you boys have. If I could, I’d take over everything from here, but I can’t just yet. I’m sorry.” Robert growled quietly at himself. “Where are you exactly? How are you speaking to me?”\n\t“E-exactly?” The ten-year-old sounded puzzled. “In an office. Um, we’re using a phone we found in an office in a warehouse.”\n\t“Will you be able to call back? If something else comes up?”\n\t“I guess… but dad, don’t go! Just stay on the phone!”\n\t“Mike, I…” Robert paused. “I have to go, at least for a minute. But wait, I need you to look around. There has to be a clue about where you are in that office.”\n\t“Like what?” \n\t“Anything. Just look around. I really do need you to tell me exactly where you are, Mike. Exactly. So just do your best, and call me back in a minute. I’m going to talk to the police and see what else we can do.”\n\t“… Okay. Make sure you pick up!”\n\t“I will.”\n\t“… Alright. You hang up first?”\n\tRobert smiled in spite of it all. “I will. Talk soon, Mike. I’m so proud of you.” Canceling the call, the fox rounded on the sergeant, who had been watching quietly. “Alright, we have some more information – sort of.”\n\t\n\t“Why didn’t you tell him?” Tai enquired, clutching desperately to Mike’s arms, hoping he could leech enough heat to stop the shivering. There wasn’t much to leech.\n\tPlacing the phone besides them, Mike tried to help out by rubbing the smaller boy’s torso. “Tell him what?”\n\t“Why you really didn’t want to go outside. He’ll think your leg is really bad now.” \n\tMike felt slightly embarrassed. “I’m not scared,” he stated.\n\t“But I could’ve gone to check.”\n\t“No,” the older boy said firmly. “We’re not splitting up again. We’re safe here; I’m not risking snooping around outside. Besides, you’re way too hurt.”\n\tTai smiled and nuzzled into his friend’s shoulder. \n\t“I-I guess we should try to find some clues…” With obvious reluctance, Mike released the smaller kit and tried to crawl out from under the big desk. “Ah! My leg is really sore!” \n\tTai sat forward. “Shouldn’t we do something?” he asked. “You’re still bleeding, I think. Doesn’t it hurt?” \n\t“Yes!” Mike whimpered. He struggled to his paws again. “Shit! Owwww!”\n\tToday, Tai realized, he’d heard the well-spoken older boy swear more than in the entire time he’d known him. \n\t“What do we have to do for your leg? Shouldn’t we do it first?” Still trembling, Tai crawled out behind his friend.\n\tTeary-eyed, Mike glanced at the first-aid kit. “I-I don’t know,” he said fearfully. “I don’t want to do it yet.” \n\t“What do we have to do?”\n\tMike bit his lip, pretending to scan the desktop. “Umm… ever had that brown, stinky stuff put on a cut?” he asked, absently trying to wriggle the hand-cuffs that still bit into his wrists. He had almost forgotten about them by now, despite the fact they clearly were pinching his nerves. The sharp, stabbing pain had only gotten worse over time. “Anti-septic?”\n\t“Yeah.” \n\t“Remember how it stings like hell?”\n\t“Uh-huh.” \n\t“You know how it hurts much more the worse the cut is? Well this is the worst cut I’ve ever had.” \n\t“Oh.” Tai looked briefly at the back of Mike’s thigh. The matted fur and thick, adhesive blood obscured the injury entirely. “I get it.” \n\tThe brown-furred kit overturned some papers, scowling as he searched for a way to identify their hiding place. “I-I guess we have to do it,” he admitted, “but I’d rather wait.” \n\tAfter a thoughtful moment, Tai frowned at him. “You can die if you keep bleeding, can’t you?” \n\tMike flinched. “Y-yeah but it’s not that bad! Don’t do that!” Nonetheless he anxiously tried to look over his shoulder at the bleeding gash.\n\t“Sorry.” \n\tThe fruitless, stumbling search continued. Mike wasn’t even sure what he was looking for. Would the warehouse have a name? Be numbered? They had to find out what warehouse they were in, but Mike did not want to even leave the office. The prospect of going back outside scared him.\n\tNo. Truth was, he was just out-and-out scared. He shook, but not just from the cold, and he still felt light headed. His stomach was uncomfortably tight, and a sickening acid had boiled up within him and kept threatening to make him throw up. The encounter with Marco had tripled that uneasy, burning nausea and… \n\t “Shit!” he cursed again, falling against the desk. He squeezed his hazel eyes tightly shut and tried to fight it, but it was pointless. He shouldn’t have started to think about it. The kit started to cry again. \n\t“Mike, what’s wrong?!” Tai limped over to him. \n\tMike just shook his head. He said something, but Tai couldn’t understand a word. Instead, the tawny kit stepped closer and lightly touched his friend’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Mike,” he whispered. “We’re safe now. All we have to do is find a way out.”\n\t“I know, I know!” Mike held his breath.\n\tSuddenly, the littler kit embraced him. “I know how it’s like. I really do. It’s scary, and you shake all over for ages afterwards. Just want to cry and wait for it to be over. You want to stop being scared because it feels so bad. But we’ll be okay, Mike. We got away from him, he can’t hurt us.”\n\tMike clung to him. “This is so stupid,” he sniffed. “What are we supposed to look for?! How can we tell what warehouse this is?!”\n\t“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll just have to tell your dad we can’t find out?” \n\t“He’ll just tell us to go outside and look. He won’t understand.” \n\tTai shook his head. “We’ll have to think of something else. He’ll understand.” He paused. “I-I trust your dad. He’ll understand.”\n\tMike stared at the desk, thinking. “Alright.” Mike froze for a moment. Then he looked distinctly uncomfortable. “W-wait…”\n\tHe marched purposefully over to the waste bin in the corner of the room and, as Tai watched on in bemusement, the barky-furred kit doubled over and puked into it with a loud, gagging retch.\n\tCoughing, Mike straightened again. “Ughh. L-let’s look some more before we call dad and tell him we give up.” \n\t“Uhh, okay.” \n\tThey stared at one another for a few moments, before bashful grins found their ways onto both kits’ faces. \n\t“That was kinda random, huh?” Mike chortled, wiping his muzzle on a wrist. \n\t“And kinda gross!”\n\n\tThe storm had arrived. \n\tDarron stared unseeingly out over the waterfront, slouching against a warehouse’s cold concrete wall. Before him, the scum he’d been placed in command of, supposedly, scurried about like roaches as the rain mercilessly pounded them. Despite their ceaseless complaints, Darron barely noticed it, even though his hoodie was soaked through. \n\tThere was only a single other container to load onto this ship. Another two for the other. It was almost over for tonight. The job was almost finished.\n\tBut not for Darron. \n\tThe harsh white noise of the rain was amplified by his hood, and it consumed his senses. It merged seamlessly with his train of thought: a dark, cruel fury that just howled meaninglessly around in his mind.\n\tThe rain. The sound of it. The chill. The glistening concrete and granite all around him, drenched in the shadow of a moonless night. The storm.\n\tHe remembered it all, with vivid… excruciating… detail. He remembered it all. He even remembered that sickening warmth of blood as it seeped through his fur and over his cold skin, could still feel it even now. Memories he tried so hard for years to bury, they had suddenly, violently clawed their way to the forefront of his thoughts tonight.\nTonight should have been the night he avenged her, did something, and gained some form of victory in his pointless life, but… he screwed up. The little shit escaped him. Got away when there was no damn excuse for Darron to have let him. Anger was all he felt though. None of the longing, none of the pain. None of the… love, or warmth he desperately wanted back. Memories of those moments were few and far between.\nIt was all gone now.\n\tHe didn’t even hear the bulldog at first. He was so used to ignoring the muscle-bound thug, and he certainly wasn’t attentive at the moment.\n\t“Those little shits are going to screw everything,” the brawny canine said, a touch of contempt in his voice. He joined the wolf under the meager refuge of the warehouse’s overhanging roof. \n\tDarron blinked, snapping himself back into the present. “What?”\n\t“Yeah. What.” The bulldog folded his thickly muscled arms. “I knew it was a fuckin’ stupid idea to involve you.” \n\t“The fuck are you talking about?” Darron sighed darkly. His patience for this bellicose moron and his tiger friend was nonexistent at this point. “I wasn’t the brainless fuck who let them escape.”\n\t“Yeah, yeah, you’re just the one who brought them here in the first place. You think we’re all fucking stupid. Trying to play us all. Newsflash kid, you’re still just a dick-wit teenager that doesn’t know better than to fuck with adults. You think nobody would figure it out?” The canine spat on the ground. “Our fuckin’ guy just goin’ out and killing some vixen and getting himself done in too? Now you’re after these kids, sayin’ some bullshit about weeding out the other CIA rats – and we don’t even know there are any. It don’t take a genius to figure that vixen was the one who killed your whore mother, and you’re just trying to fuck with her kids now.”\n\tA chill that was not from the weather spread through Darron’s body. Like a cold water that ran from his heart to his fingertips. But he said nothing. \n\t“Thanks to you, we’ve got the kids of two fuckin’ spooks loose here right while we’re in the middle of a shipment. They stole Tony’s phone; how much you wanna bet the little shits have called daddy already? All we know, we could have the fuckin’ army here in five minutes. Some fuckin’ spook sniper could have your empty little head right in his crosshair right now.” The bulldog’s voice strained with anger and derision. “You’re gonna fuck up an operation that’s been untouchable for over a decade, if you haven’t already. Maybe now he’s gonna realize he shoulda sent you to join mommy the moment you got back.” Shaking his head, the dog pushed off the wall and started to walk away. “Can’t wait to see what he does then, shit-head.”\n\tDarron shook. Before he knew it, he was moving. The howling rain surged, yet even still he knew his paws made no sound. \n\tRage darkened his vision only momentarily, and when it returned, the sight that greeted him brought a satisfied smile to his face.\n\tThe thug gurgled wetly, his body trembling in reflexive spasm. Darron pulled him closer by the knife handle buried in the side of the thick neck, neatly severing his windpipe. No outcry had even been possible. Once more on a rainy night, he felt that creeping warmth seep through his fur. \n\tThis time, he didn’t care. He welcomed it.\n\t“You sicken me,” he snarled into the startled dog’s ear. “You took everything from me, and you didn’t once think…?” A sudden feral urge to rip the huge thug’s face open with his very teeth threatened to overwhelm the wolf’s mind. Instead, he wrenched the blade free, destroying his victim’s throat entirely and spattering the ground with blood. “Ever think I want every single one of you cunts dead?!”\n\tDarron pulled the dying fur around, glaring into his panicked eyes as they gradually lost focus. The wolf trembled, unbelievable hatred consuming him whole. Boundless anger, frustration and bitterness, so poorly contained for almost eight years, and it all flowed freely now.\nHe raised the knife again. \n“I want everybody fucking dead!!”\n\n\tWhen the phone rang again, Robert’s finger was already hovering over the answer button. \n\t“Hello?” he asked, contorting himself to allow an officer to squeeze past him in the claustrophobic van. \n\t“Dad,” Mike’s voice began. “We can’t find anything. Can you think of anything else?”\n\tRobert hissed in cold disappointment. If they’d gotten a more accurate location, the police could’ve just extracted the kits quickly and quietly. But they’d have to try the alternative the sergeant had offered. The one Robert hated. “I was just talking with the police here,” he said slowly to his son. “We do have another idea.”\n\t“Yeah?”\n\tRobert hesitated. Should he just order the boys to stay put? Or try this stupid plan to get them out of the site of a possible firefight?\n\tThe sergeant was watching him, and he caught the fox’s eye. He simply nodded once. \n\tDamn it. \n\t“You have to head to the giant crane. It’ll be visible to you almost anywhere if you just look up and around. It’s massive, several storeys high, and there’s a red beacon-light on top of it.” \n\t“… What…?” the boy whispered in a tiny voice. \n\t“You’ll have to move, Mike. Come to us. We can’t come to you if you don’t know where you are. We need to get you out of there.” \n\t“Okay…” \n\t“I know.” Robert closed his eyes. This was fucking stupid. “I know you’re scared. But there are your choices, Mike. I’ll let you decide. Whatever we settle on, I will get you both out of there. I promise.”\n\tThere was some urgent, hushed conversation on the other side. The kits were discussing it, but Robert couldn’t make out a single word. He knew his son was a smart kid, but if they misjudged their own abilities here, or made one mistake… they wouldn’t make it home alive.\n\t“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he quietly asked the sergeant. \n\tThe canine shrugged. “Hell no. But everything you’ve told me? I don’t think we should let them just sit around. They’re not safe there, and we have to assume the bad guys hold the security control centers and checkpoints – for all we know, they’ve been seen on the CCTV and their hiding place is compromised already.” \n\t“And there’ll be plenty of cameras in the warehouses…” Robert growled to himself. “Aw, damn it.”\n“The crane’s the best landmark on the docks, near an entrance and it’s very open. I can get snipers to cover the area very well, even from outside the fence, and we can get to them fast. I want the hostages out before we try to contact the assholes in there – they’ll step up their efforts to find them if we do it the other way around.”\n\t“Dad?” the phone squeaked. “O-okay. We’ll try it. We’re hurt but we can do it.” \n\t“Hurt?” Robert demanded, his eyes widening. “What’s wrong?”\n\t“My leg’s been cut, and Tai was beat up.”\n\tRobert swore. “Alright, look, if you’re sure you can handle getting to the crane, we’ll meet you there.”\n\t“We don’t know where the crane is, though!”\n\t“That’s fine. You’ll find it. It’s away from the water, and look for the beacon lights up high. Listen, Mike…” Robert turned slightly and lowered his voice. For some reason, he didn’t think the police needed to hear. “I’m so proud of you. You’re both so brave. I can’t believe how well you’ve done. It’s still your choice. You can wait there if you like. If you do go for the crane, the cops will set up snipers to try and protect you. All you need to do is be quiet and get there.” \n\t“Stealthy?”\n\t“Exactly. Don’t need to be quick about it. Just take your time and be safe. Just be safe.”\n\t“Okay…” The kit sniffed. “Um… j-just in case: I love you, dad.”\n\tRobert smiled. “You know what, Mike? Tell me about it when we get home. Does pizza sound good tonight?”\n\t\n\t“I don’t think we can do this…” muttered Tai. \n\t“Of course we can,” Mike told him. “Just w-wrap it around the cut. Not too tight!”\n\tTai eyed the bloodstained, exposed section of Mike’s thigh. The wound bled still, the watery redness slowly seeping into the matted fur like diluted paint. It was disgusting, and Tai was glad the wet fur obscured his view of the gash. “Are you sure we’re not supposed to put anything else there? What about that stinging stuff?”\n\t“It’s only temporary!”\n\t“What does that mean?”\n\t“It’s just for a little while.”\n\tWith a shrug, Tai gave up. “Okay…” \n\tIt took a little time for Tai to get the bandage around his friend’s leg. He tried to be careful, but even still, Mike winced. “Ow!” \n\t“Too tight?”\n\t“No, it just hurts. I’m okay.” Mike inhaled deeply. “S-so, did you see a crane anywhere? Do you know where we’re meant to go?”\n\t“… No.” Carefully, Tai knotted the bandage in place. It was a terrible job, but then again, he had no idea what he was doing. His fingers were still numb, too. “… Mike, I don’t want to…”\n\tThe barky-furred pup straightened. “Me neither…”\n\t“Can’t we just wait?” Tai stumbled backwards, barely regaining his balance before slamming into the filing cabinet again. He leaned on it heavily.\n\tThey were both tired. \n\tIt wasn’t just a tiredness like they felt before bedtime, but a horrible weariness that pervaded their whole, hurting bodies. After the encounter with the tiger, then after calming down in the dubitable safety of the office, Tai had noticed his vision becoming fuzzier and distant. Disconnected. Like he was sleepily watching a boring school play rather than facing a harrowing, dangerous reality. \n\tIt was impossible to imagine Mike felt much better. Yet the older boy seemed pretty focused. \n\t“We don’t know how safe we are here!” he insisted rationally. “Someone just has to look inside and see… they’ll find us.”\n\tTai groaned weakly, trying to fight the urge to ignore Mike’s words and fall asleep right then and there on the bristly, unpleasant carpet.\n\tSighing, Mike leaned on the desk. He looked around, and had to admit he felt a little dizzy. Only minutes before, he’d wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep. Then the mere idea of getting to true safety, being in his dad’s arms again, had given him a glimmer of energy. Like a small spark of hope.\n\tBut even still, the plan to just hide and let everything blow over still sounded so very, very appealing.\n\tTai stumbled into the messy desk and slowly lowered himself to the ground. “Unhh…” he moaned quietly. “A-are you sure we can do it, Mike?”\n\tSadly, Mike appraised his exhausted friend for a few moments, and then sighed. “No. I’m not.”\n\t“Do we have to?” Tai rested his head on the desk’s side. \n\t“Yeah. It’ll be dangerous, but so will staying in here. We gotta be tough.”\n\tClosing his eyes for a brief moment, Tai almost seemed to fall asleep. Then he took a deep, shaky breath and pulled himself upright. “Okay. I-if you say so.”\n\tThat settled it, Mike supposed. “Okay. Did you see a huge crane anywhere? Bigger than any of the buildings?”\n\t“No.”\n\t“That’s our first objective!” Mike smiled wanly. “We need to find the crane. That’s our mission.”\n\t“Okay.” Tai returned the faint smile. \n\tMike picked up the phone and stabbed in his father’s phone number. He took a deep breath and held it to his perked ear.\n\tIn seconds, Robert had answered the phone. In a quavering voice, Mike told his father their decision. Tai simply watched and listened, ears pricked.\n\t“Alright.” Mike nodded glumly. “We’ll be careful. Love you dad… so does Tai.” The tawny kit blinked. “We will…”\n\tExpectantly, Tai waited while his friend placed the phone on its cradle. “What did he say?”\n\tThe brown-furred kit blinked wearily. “W-we have to find the crane. There’re lots of bad guys out there, so we need to be sneaky. We don’t need to rush… the cops are gonna set up snipers.”\n\t“What’s that?”\n\t“Um, they hide and shoot enemies from ages away.” Mike pushed away from the desk. “If they can see us, they’ll shoot any bad guys that get close to us.”\nThey started to limp towards the small office’s exit. “I guess we can go the way… he got in,” Tai suggested.\n\tHobbling after him, Mike nodded. “I s’pose. It’s gotta lead somewhere.” Truth was that Mike was glad Tai thought of heading that way. He didn’t want to pass near the stairs leading to the fire-escape, or be forced to look at either of the corpses he knew were near there.\n\tThey stumbled together along the short service corridor Marco and the lemur had exploded from. Another dry, musty and unpleasant hallway – Mike was getting sick of those already, though he had to admit they were better than warehouses, or being out in the torrential rain… or in the drainage ducts again. \nOn the wall they spotted a corkboard, with various notes pinned on it. Mike gave it a passing glance, but it just seemed to be timetables or schedules of some sort. Fuse boxes and pipes lined the short corridor as well, but neither kit was curious enough to investigate anymore. \n\tThe unlocked door at the other end predictably opened into another messy alleyway. Mike poked his head out and was instantly blinded by the pelting rain as it cascaded off the warehouse roof and splashed into his face. \n\tHe flinched away. “Ugh!” he groaned. “I hate the rain!!” \n\t“What’s wrong?” squeaked Tai. \n\t“Rain in my eyes!” The brown-furred kit again snuck a peek outside, this time covering his head with a paw. The alleyway was clear, but almost instantly he felt the nip of the cold, and wanted to retreat back inside.\n\tIt had been bad before, but without a shirt he felt the breeze penetrate his fur easily. Going shirtless was something he’d done many times before, but never, ever before had he though to try it in heavy, frigid rain for some reason. Tai had been enduring it up until now though, and there was no dignified way Mike could ask for his shirt back. Besides, Tai needed it more than he did.\n\tGlancing back, he saw his friend cringing away from the doorway.\n\t“Come on,” Mike said gently. “It’s okay. We’ll only be out for a little while.” \n\tTai shivered and shot his friend a reproving, sour glance. “But we don’t even know where we’re going,” he complained.\n\t“We’ll find out. C’mon.” \n\tIt didn’t seem like Tai wanted to move just yet. So Mike did the one thing he was sure would get him moving.\n\tWithout waiting, he snuck out into the alley, shielding his eyes from the rain. Trying to keep as much of the rain as he could off of him, he stayed close to the warehouse’ wall, seeking shelter in its shadow. Eventually, he heard Tai give a plaintive whimper and start to follow. \n\t“Mike, slow down!” Tai limped over to his friend. As Mike stepped around a large dumpster, Tai moved to follow but tripped on the metal bin’s edge. “Ah!” \n\tImmediately Mike turned and helped him up. “You okay?” \n\t“Ow! I’m alright.”\n\t“OK, we need to find the crane… maybe we can get up higher and look around?” Mike looked up, shielding his eyes again. There were fire escapes on both of the large warehouses, but none of them reached the rooftops. “Ugh. Let’s keep going.”\n\tTai wrapped his arms tightly around himself, slowly padding after Mike as the older boy led the way. Mike stopped at every corner and peeked surreptitiously around them, silently beckoning Tai to follow him. The rain crashed noisily down around them, and Tai had to squint to see more than several feet away. They struggled onwards though. Tai instinctively trusted his friend to scout the unlit alleys and dark passageways at each turn. \n\tLuckily, they never encountered anyone. \n\tAt last Mike led them past the warehouses, and they found themselves amidst a forest of shipping containers. \n\tAs far as Tai could tell, there were hundreds of them, laid out in orderly grid formation in a huge concrete field. He ducked closer to one of them, trying to hide from the rain.\n\tThe older boy slowed down when they past several of them, stopping eventually to gaze skywards. \n\t“What i-is it?” asked Tai.\n\tMike raised a paw to his eyes. “Dad said that there was a red light on top of the—” He flinched away. “Ah! Crud! A raindrop just landed in my eye!”\n\tTai looked up and frowned. A heavy mist had descended over the docks. The frigid ocean winds and rain was reacting with the comparative warmth of the land, creating a dense fog. He could see nothing. As he stood squinting into the rain, the wind whipped up and swept down the vast aisle of shipping containers. Standing so upright and caught off guard, Tai was blown against the thick metal of one of the containers.\n\tDazed, he fell to his backside. \n\t“Tai, you okay!?” Mike cried, stumbling himself. \n\tTai nodded. He looked up to address his friend. “I’m okay…” Something caught his eye. A faint glimmer of color that flickered weakly through the twisting shroud of mist and rain. He frowned, staring just beyond his friend’s head. Was that…? \n\tThere it was again. Almost impossible to see. A faint, red dot blinking in the fog. It was high off the ground, judging from the angle. Very high.\n\t“There!” He pointed, pulling himself upright. “Over there!”\n\tPuzzled, Mike looked around. “I don’t…”\n\t“Right there!” claimed Tai, pointing. “No, up a bit!”\n\t“I can’t… oh.” Mike swallowed. His shoulders visibly slumped. “Th-that’s gotta be ages away!”\n\t“Not really!” Tai said excitedly. “When the weather is like this, sometimes even when things are really close you can’t see them.”\n\t“I’ve been in fog before…” Mike said dubiously.\n\t“I’ve been in fog hundreds of times! Mom and dad used to work at the harbor, a long way from home! Sometimes wh-when I was with them, and it started raining, this super-thick mist would come in from the sea. You could get lost in the parking lot!”\n\tMike groaned. “That’s not good!”\n\t“But we can see that light! It has to be close!” Tai felt a rush of relief. Judging from the wind and what little he could figure out of their orientation, their goal lay in the opposite direction from the stormy waterfront. He approved of that.\n\tWith a resigned groan, Mike started to trudge in the direction of weak beacon light. “Alright… let’s go.”\n\tTai staggered after him. The sudden movement blurred his vision and he stumbled, be he pressed on. Suddenly, he understood what ‘bone-weary’ meant. It was such a deep tiredness, but the need to keep moving, to stay awake, and to endure the freezing rain, kept him from truly feeling sleepy. It wasn’t something he’d felt before. In a way, it was almost interesting.\n\tThey wandered the maze of metal boxes for an indeterminate amount of time. Exhausted as they were, moments seemed to blend together. Occasionally, Tai felt a strange falling sensation and he caught himself a split second from collapsing to the ground. Each time he did, he struggled to refocus on the brown-furred body that was only feet away, but as hazy and indistinct as everything else in the fog.\n\tWalking along on autopilot, Tai didn’t even register the loud scraping sound and the clanging of metal. However, Mike whirled around, grabbing Tai’s shoulders and urgently pulling him back. “Get back!” he hissed at his startled friend, sounding frightened. \n\tThey ducked behind the narrow side of a container, and Mike peeked around it while Tai rested against it. \n\tPuzzled, Tai strained to hear what was going on. \n\tThe clanging continued, and he felt vibrations travel down the container’s length. There was some muted chatter, but he couldn’t make anything out.\n\tHeart thumping in his ears again, Mike peered intently into the obscuring mist. He hadn’t heard the two adults - all sound muffled by the dense fog and drowned out by the pouring rain - until he almost rounded the corner and smacked into them. They had roughly jerked open one of the containers doors. Had they just been a little more gentle, Mike may not have noticed them until \n\t“How many are there?” quavered Tai, tucking his paws under his armpits.\n\tMike noticed he was starting to shake now. Violently, the way Tai had earlier. The cold was starting to numb his body, and water was dripping incessantly from his nose. “J-just two, I-I think.”\n\t“What should we do?”\n\t“I don’t know! Hold still!”\n\tThere was another loud clang, and the container shook with a resounding bang as it was closed. Mike winced.\n\tA powerful beam of light lanced out to the side of the metal oblong, and a rattling like that of a trolley could be heard. At first, it sounded like rumbling thunder. Mike frowned, trying to hear any hints of what was going on. The bright torchlight suddenly swung around and pointed directly at him. “At the other side!” the torch wielder cried loudly over the rain.\n\t“Oh crap!” Mike squeaked, pulling his head in and clawing at Tai, trying to pull the smaller kit to his feet. “Come on, go, go!!”\n\tMike tried to pull his friend along, but Tai’s cramped legs refused to work and he fell face first to the concrete. Panicking, Mike helped him up before resuming attempting to drag the kit with him. \n\tThey retreated back another container, and stopped to take cover behind it again. Mike leaned against the metal surface, breathing heavily as he heard the ear-piercing screech of the door they had just been hiding behind being wrenched open.\n\t“Ow…” Tai groaned, rubbing at his knee. Despite his jeans and fur, he’d banged it on the wet concrete painfully. Another random injury to add to the collection.\n\tEventually, they stuck their sodden heads out past the container’s edge and squinted into the fog. The adults slammed their container shut and started towards the one beside it. They were speaking, laughing to one another, but neither kit could hear them too well.\n\t One of them withdrew a handgun, and the kits shrank back. Had they been seen?\n\tBut neither of the grownups turned around. The unarmed one undid the locks and deadbolts on the door and hauled it to the side, to the sound of an ear-rending scraping noise. They stepped into the large metal box.\n\tAnother voice suddenly could be heard. A younger, female voice. \n\tA smaller figure burst out into the rain, and both boys gasped.\n\tThe fog rendered their vision indistinct, but it was clearly a smaller female. She stumbled drunkenly around before collapsing to the harsh blacktop, only just breaking her fall in time – her wrists were bound together. Even at the distance they were at, her disoriented sobbing was easy to hear.\n\tOne of the adult furs, the one with the handgun, hauled her to her paws and dragged her back to the container. With a mocking laugh, he cuffed her on the back of the head and callously shoved her in. It was impossible to see what was happening in the container, but then neither of them was entirely sure they wanted to. \n\tWhimpering, Mike found himself clutching his smaller friend’s paw. “T-Tai? What’s going on?”\n\tThe tawny kit drew away from the sight. “Th-they’re gonna sell her.”\n\t“She’s a slave?”\n\tTai shook his head. “She’s a person. They kidnapped her.”\n\t“We have to help!” Mike bit his lip for a second. Then he groaned in frustrated fear. “Unnhh! We can’t!”\n\t“They’ll just beat us up and take us too.” Tai looked up at his friend with wide eyes. “We’ll tell your dad. The police. They’ll rescue them.”\n\tAfter a moment, Mike nodded. In a very peculiar way, it hurt to agree. There was nothing they could do. They were just kids. Though he hated even thinking that, it was true: the container would be locked, and they were no match for the grownups who held the keys. Nor did they have the time to sneak around looking for other options.\n\tThey had to leave these people behind them and hope the police could save them. \n\t“We… we should move!” Mike’s voice shook noticeably. They had nearly been spotted. \n\tTai nodded, limping closer to his friend’s side. “Okay.” \n\t“Let’s move out to the side a bit…” suggested Mike, shakily wiping at his sopping head and facial fur. “Then keep going towards the light.”\n\tTai nodded. “Alright.”\n\t\n\tThe sergeant circled the area on the satellite map with a thick red marker before turning to address the team. And of course Robert, who refused to be left out of the quick field briefing.\n After all, he had something for them, and he'd be damned if he couldn't contribute to saving his own children.\n They had quickly transferred to another van. Or rather, a truck, which was significantly more spacious. Heavily armed and armored officers watched their sergeant with a quiet confidence, and their professional bearing instilled far more confidence in Robert than he'd felt in the last twelve hours. After quickly filling in his officers on the situation, the sergeant turned to the fox.\n \"Mister Donaldson, you said you had some intelligence for us?\" he asked in a clipped voice.\n Now it was his turn. Robert coughed and stepped forward. He lifted up his laptop and set it on the table just near the whiteboard, turning it to display the screen to the assembled police officers. \"Yeah,\" he murmured, his throat oddly dry. \"Yes, we do. There's a large amount of cellular radio transmissions in the docks at the moment. Far more than you'd expect at two in the morning, and not near any of the guard posts.\"\n The officers just watched him quietly. Robert felt himself getting slightly nervous. \"As I'm sure you know, cell phones today are equipped with geo-positional systems. As, uh, as your sergeant explained to you just before, this is how we managed to locate the hostages before their signal died. They're usually very accurate.\" He hit the return key and a detailed overhead map filled the fifteen inch screen, with yellow blinking dots slowly crawling all over it like lethargic ants. \"Anyone holding a working cellular phone in the docks tonight is having their movements tracked by global positioning satellite. Here we have a high-definition map of the entire, uh, docks, and we've got their positions superimposed on it. Unfortunately, the storm is making high-definition satellite surveillance almost impossible, and it's screwing with GPS signals.\" Robert coughed. \"This is the best we can really do. If the bad guys have a mobile phone on them, we can get their rough position. I imagine that can be relayed from this laptop to anyone in the field by radio?\"\n An officer, a wiry dingo, nodded. \"Sure can, sir,\" he confirmed. \"It's a safe bet most of the perps have cell phones, too.\"\n \"The CIA can do this shit?\" murmured a raccoon officer, looking discomfited.\n Robert chuckled. \"The CIA?\" he laughed. \"I'm not using CIA resources to do this - I can't. Any nosy wanker with a working internet connection nowadays can trace someone via their cell phone. All I've done is asked my friends in the office to help me collate the data onto a publicly available map.\"\n \"Alright,\" The sergeant said gruffly. \"Here's what we've had to do. The hostages were incapable of giving us their location, so they've been instructed to head to the large construction crane marked on the map. The construction site is relatively new, a new warehouse block, and it's as unobstructed an extraction point as we're going to get.\" He quickly drew a few crosses on the map. \"It's also street-side. Franca and Skenazy, you'll be on top of this multi-storey car park. Avery and Jackson, you guys'll be up here on this office building's roof. We haven't had time to check out these locations, but they should let you cover the rescue team. Rescue team, you guys make your way to the construction site. When the hostages come into contact with you, take them into custody and get out of there. Extraction point is here.\" Now he marked a spot on the main dockside road, only a few hundred meters from the construction site but nonetheless outside the dockyard's boundaries.\n\t“There will be medics there ready to give them medical attention and get them downtown.” The canine eyed Robert firmly. \"This is where you'll be waiting. Go with your kids to the hospital. We'll handle the rest. Leave the other agents here with us. I think you've done all you need to do.\"\n \"Alright,\" Robert said. He was tingling all over. \"I can do that.\"\n \"What little information we've got indicates little activity near the construction site. Don't expect many contacts there, all the activity is towards the waterfront and warehouses, but if you see anyone endanger the hostages, take them down. If you can see clear to doing so only, bring them in. We've got two children to rescue here, don't take any chances.\" The sergeant shook his head. \"Alright. Marksmen, get to your positions. We don't have much time. Extraction team, let's talk about how you're getting there...\"\n Robert spaced out. The image of the lazy, doughnut-devouring NYPD officer was crumbling before his eyes. Whether for good or ill, these officers probably took their job more seriously than anyone he'd ever met - possibly even more so than those he'd met in the military. It was reassuring, but a bit unnerving. It reminded him of why he steered clear of surveillance teams and some of the more intense jobs at the agency. It was a chaotic business at times, and he was glad when he finally got his cosy office-bound analyst post away from the active operations. At least he didn't have people yelling at him to get some uncooperative bit of technology to work, as if fuzzy sat-imaging was due to him not wanting a clearer resolution enough. He'd had enough of that by his first two months; Robert preferred things to be a little more relaxed.\n The officers the sergeant had picked out stood and bustled out of the van.\n The sergeant went on, offering directions to the remaining officers. Robert watched on.\n Eventually, the briefing was over, and all the cops quickly got to their paws and left with nary a word. The sergeant came over to Robert.\n \"Like I said,\" he began, \"I'll have an ambulance and paramedics waiting up the dockside road. You should wait with them. From what you've told me, they're going to need a hospital visit.\"\n Robert smiled. \"They probably will. Not that they'll be happy about it.\"\n \"Just remind them they'll be getting lollypops if they behave for the doctor. They still do that, right?\" The sergeant smiled wryly.\n \"Honestly, I have no idea.\" Robert chortled. \"I imagine the emergency room works differently to the family doctor's office.\"\n \"We'll have several officers waiting with you. I doubt anyone will follow the SWAT team to the ambulance, but just in case.\"\n \"They can also keep an eye on me, right?\"\n \"That too.\" The sergeant shrugged. \"Nothing personal. I'm sure you consider yourself otherwise but for all intents and purposes you're a civilian here.\"\n \"Believe me, sergeant. I wish I really was one. Then none of this would've happened.\"\n\n\tThe rain wasn’t letting up. Once again, Tai’s entire body had gone numb and his muscles had contracted painfully. As they stumbled wearily along the side of yet another long, unremarkable building, his slender legs went stiff.\n\tWith a weak gasp, Tai fell against the dull brick wall. “Wait!” he groaned. “Mike!”\n\tThe bigger boy stopped slinking along and looked back. As quickly as he could, he limped over. “Are you alright?” the brown furred kit asked, helping his friend upright again. “What happened?”\n\tTai shook his head. “I don’t know!” A white flash lit up the sky, briefly blinding both of the kits. Scarcely half a second later, a mind-shatteringly loud explosion shook the ground. Unable to help himself, Tai jumped and gave a tiny scream.\n\tEven Mike winced. “It’s okay!” he said, though his words were hard to discern over the rain. “Come on. You can do it! We’ve not got long to go!”\n\tShakily, the tawny kit leaned on his friend and took a step. “Unh!” he sobbed, collapsing against Mike’s side. “My legs hurt!”\n\tMike whimpered to himself. “I-it’s a cramp!” he said. “That’s all! It’s coz it’s cold and we’ve been doing a lot of running.”\n\tTai shook his head again, this time more vigorously. “I can’t walk!”\n\t“Tai, we can’t stop!”\n\t“Please! I can’t walk anymore!” On cue, Tai’s knees buckled and gave out, forcing Mike to catch him. He gave a strangled cry. “Ow! Mike! It hurts!”\n\tAfter a moment, Mike swore in a strangely whining voice. “Okaaay… come on, let’s find a place to rest! There was a place back this way.”\n\tSupporting the smaller kit’s weight again, Mike limped back the way they had come. They headed back to an undercover parking bay that they had past not long ago, where a large semi-trailer was parked. Mike took them both towards the back of the darkened recess until their progress was blocked by the thick metal roller door shutting off the building’s interior loading bay. \n\t“Here!” the barky-furred kit gasped, slowly easing the smaller boy to the ground between the massive shutter and the imposing grill of the gigantic vehicle. The most sheltered spot available.\n\tHe pulled over a nearby milk crate and nearly slipped on a sodden newspaper, causing another fresh burst of pain to wrack the cut on the back of his thigh. Then he promptly slid to the wet bitumen himself. “Ah, ow!” he groaned. “T-Tai, sit on the crate.”\n\tTai groaned quietly, gingerly rubbing at his calves and thighs. “I c-can’t! My leg won’t listen, I can’t stand up.”\n\t“Okay, never mind then.” Smiling slightly, Mike scooted a little closer. “It’s a charley horse,” he said clinically. “Must be a pretty bad one.”\n\tTai didn’t reply, instead focusing on trying to massage his legs. “Oww!” he whined, balling up a fist and weakly pounding his thigh. “This hurts worse than anything!”\n\t“What about what happened to your ribs?”\n\tThe tawny kit blinked. “E-except that.” \n\tMike snorted, leaning against the metal shutter and closing his eyes. The steady hissing of the rain was oddly pleasant. \n\tIt felt so nice to just be sitting down. To let his eyes close.\n\t“No!” Mike suddenly growled at himself, snapping his eyes open again. “Ngh. T-Tai, we can’t wait too long. We’re not safe here.”\n\t“Okay.” Tai groaned and stretched his leg. “This is stupid.”\n\t“Huh?”\n\t“I’m sick of getting hurt.” The tawny kit blinked owlishly, staring at his leg as the pain slowly ebbed away. It didn’t disappear entirely, but it did diminish. “It’s stupid.”\n\tMike shrugged wearily. “We haven’t been shot,” he said reasonably. “That’s good.”\n\t“Some of them had bigger guns. Did you see?” Tai rubbed at his face, trying to stop the water dripping into his eyes. “Um, not pistols. Bigger.”\n\t“No…” Slowly and ungainly, Mike lurched to his paws and staggered to the truck’s cabin. “They did? What sort of guns?”\n\t“I don’t know. I don’t know much about guns.” \n\tMike peered down the length of the semi-trailer at the lashing rain outside. The storm showed no signs of calming, at least not yet. Even still, he figured it’d be a bad idea to wait for it to calm anyway. His dad said the police would be waiting. \n\t“I bet my dad has a gun,” he murmured aloud. “He just hid it from me.”\n\t“My mom did.” Tai shifted. “A bigger one. It was dad’s. Um, a rifle I think it’s called. He used to hunt stuff with it.”\n\t“Your dad was a hunter?!” Mike turned around. “Seriously?”\n\t“Yeah. He said it was easier to hunt for meat for the winter, um, rather than go shopping at the market and spend all our money.” Tai nodded. “He once told me he first went hunting when he was ten.”\n\t“Whoa. He was my age?” Mike leaned on the cold metal. “Did he get to shoot anything or was he just watching his dad?”\n\t“He said he used to hunt little things by himself when he was that age.”\n\t“Wow!” Mike frowned thoughtfully. “That’d be cool. Wish I could have a gun.”\n\t“Why?”\n\t“Why not? Then I could’ve shot that jerk tiger. We wouldn’t be here.” After a pause, he stared right into Tai’s watery green eyes. “And if you or your mom had a gun, don’t you think your mom could still be here?”\n\tTai stared at his shoes. “I would’ve been too scared to do anything,” the kit whispered dully. “I always am.”\n\tMike shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t be. No way.”\n\t“What? Why?”\n\tThe older boy just smiled. \n\t\n\tLieutenant Edwards was feeling decidedly old. \n\tHe wasn’t actually old. No, he was coming up on his thirty-fifth birthday. The collie was in the prime of his life. Or so he kept telling himself.\n\tHowever, he’d chosen tonight to show up to work slightly hung-over and with less sleep than he’d usually get by with. In fact, it had been some time since he’d done a live field operation of any kind with SWAT, but his ‘seniority’ bit him in the ass. They needed every single officer they could spare, rousing him from his warm bed he shared with his wife. \n\tSo, he slinked along miserably, the rest of his team following his lead. Their booted paws made no audible sound over the crashing of the rain, which splashed irritatingly into his goggles, and visibility was atrocious. It wasn’t the most pleasant night, but if Edwards was right about things, they’d be grateful for the storm before things were done for the night. This was nothing like the usual op.\n\tIn fact, he couldn’t recall doing anything like it in years of police work. It was always interesting to try new things, he just wished he was in a better position to enjoy it this time.\n\tAs they rounded the first building and snuck along its monotonous brick length, beginning their stealthy infiltration into the dockyards, a paw tapped his armored shoulder. “Sir, contact three o’clock high!” one of his officers hissed. “Sentry. Second floor fire escape, side of the warehouse.”\n\tEdwards ducked beside a large loaded pallet holding several dozen sodden cardboard boxes. His team took cover beside him, somehow managing to fit all four of them behind the pallet. \n\tSquinting up in the savage rain, Edwards could scarcely focus on the silhouette leaning over the railing of the fire escape. From the looks of things, the guy was squinting blindly into the rainstorm himself.\n\t“He’s got a gun,” muttered the lieutenant, shifting slightly. “And no peashooter either.”\n\t“I can take him from here.” \n\tEdwards shook his head. “Don’t even think about it, we’d give our position to every son of a bitch with ears around here.” The collie sighed and raised a paw to his shoulder-mounted radio. “Command, this is bravo-four. Got an armed sentry about thirty feet from us, on the second floor of the street-side warehouse fire-escape. Over.”\n\t“I guess this guy doesn’t have a cell phone,” murmured an officer wryly. \n\tThere was a pause. “Copy, bravo-four,” his radio blurted, making him wince. “Charlie-two sees him also. Over.”\n\tBriefly, Edwards wondered who ‘charlie-two’ actually was. “Well, he’s right above us. We’d appreciate some help here. Over.”\n\t“Ten-four, bravo-four. Our guy is taking the shot. Over.”\n\tThe sentry shifted, leaning over the railing. Staring right at the pallet, trying to make sense of the movement he’d seen through the obscuring rain.\n\tThe officers didn’t even hear the shot. However, they certainly heard the impact as the subsonic bullet smacked straight into the unwitting sentry’s chest from six-hundred meters away. With a strangled cry, the shadowy figure was knocked sideways and toppled easily to the blacktop. He landed with a thud.\n\t“Right. Tango down. Good shot. Shit – we’ve got to move him.” With the appropriate paw-gesture, Edwards crept out from behind the pallet and led the way to the unmoving corpse on the cold bitumen, eyes watching every possible angle, including the roofs fire escapes, down the sights of his gun. “Hudson, get over here.”\n\tThere was an odd delay before the other officer stepped forward and crouched at the dead sentry’s legs. “Sir.”\n\t“Are you okay?”\n\tOfficer Hudson, a young raccoon, looked away uncomfortably. “Fine, sir. This is just… I just never expected to be hiding a body when I applied to SWAT.”\n\t“Me neither. This isn’t your typical robbery or drunken ass-hat holding his kids ‘hostage’ though. Come on.” Quickly, the officers dragged the body closer to the warehouse wall, concealing it as best they could. \n\tHowever, as they checked the body over, Hudson gestured at the weapon slung around the sentry’s neck. “Sir, look at that thing.”\n\t“What about it?” Edwards grunted, standing and fending off a bout of nausea. The bourbon was really talking back to him. \n\t“That’s no street-punk gun. It’s a German battle rifle. Large caliber, not the sort of thing you carry around for poppin’ critters. Look at the scope on it.”\n\tEdwards shrugged. “The spook told us what we were dealing with. These boys are gun-runners and smugglers. This jack-off alone probably made more money than half the department.”\n\t“Yes sir, but the only reason to have a sentry on duty with something like this is if they’re expecting trouble. It’s too obvious, and they wouldn’t need it to recapture the hostages.”\n\tFantastic, thought Edwards, scratching his muzzle. But that meant their time wasn’t being wasted – there were serious bad guys here, and it was time for SWAT to do its job once again. “Fuck. Alright. Come on, our job’s simple. We’re just to get the hostages out, then we hold the perimeter while the Coast Guard get in there. Let the soldiers do their job, focus on ours.” He straightened. “Right, let’s hustle; and hope these stupid kids get to that crane so we don’t have to go looking for them.”\n\n\tIn silence, the two kits huddled together, sitting shivering in the corner up against the filthy concrete wall of the loading bay.\n\tTightly hugging one another’s bodies together, desperate for what little warmth they could get, they stared at the concrete in front of them listlessly. Struggling to hold onto the miraculous second wind that had enabled them to get even this far. To even this dubious safety.\n\tAt last, Tai spoke. “I h-hate being this cold,” he stated.\n\t“I just hate the cold.” Mike shifted slightly, trying to loosen his cramping limbs. “I like summer.”\n\t“I like winter. But y-you’re supposed to have to have the right clothes for it.” Tai rested his head on the older boy’s shoulder. “If we had the stuff, I could make a fire for us. Hrrr…”\n\tThat surprised Mike for some reason. “You k-know how to make a campfire?”\n\t“Uh-huh. Dad taught me. He taught me a lot of stuff about survival. When he died, mom tried to do it instead. Then she stopped, so school did it.”\n\tMike groaned. “Why couldn’t we have gotten lost in a forest or something then?” he complained. “At least then one of us would know what to do.” \n\t“Um, yeah. Remember I told you he was a hunter when he was younger? I don’t remember where he grew up, but it got really cold and snowy there too, so he taught me what his dad told him. I was really, really young, so I can’t remember most of it…”\n\tIn fact, it was one of the only things Tai really remembered of his dad. The frustrating mornings where the patient grownup had tried to teach his four-year-old son how to tie knots using a bootlace. He hadn’t gotten a single one down right until some months after his dad had died.\n\tHis mother’s tutelage was more successful, probably because he was older. But as time went on, both of them started to lose interest. Eraline never really seemed to believe Tai could learn what she tried to teach him, and Tai detected her hurtful attitude easily, making every failure, every day it took to learn something, frustrate and upset him all the more. Soon, the lessons stopped, to the relief of both of them.\n\tLuckily for the fox kit, who relished his time alone in the snowy wilds, every single school he attended saw the merit of teaching the students some basic survival tricks, given where most of their students lived, and Tai practiced them whenever he could – it was an excuse to go out alone, if nothing else. School was horrible, and he knew his dad could have taught him better, but at least these rare lessons were something he was interested in. The whole twenty minutes a week they spent on the topic, he devoured it as joyfully as he could.\n\t“You never told me much about your dad…” Mike mused aloud.\n\t“I can’t think of anything to say,” Tai deflected quietly. \n\tThough Mike nodded. “I know… I don’t like talking about my mom much. I bet you don’t wanna talk about your dad either.”\n\tTai thought for a moment. “I-I’ll go first?”\n\t“Okay.”\n\tThe tawny kit frowned slightly as he tried to think of a place to begin. It wasn’t easy. “Um. He died when I was really young. I really don’t remember much.”\n\t“Didn’t you say he died when you were four, right?”\n\t“Yeah. I was nearly five though.” Tai’s ears slowly flattened to his skull. “I miss him. He used to play with me. I-I’m sorry, Mike. I don’t remember.”\n\tMike shrugged slightly. “It’s okay. My mom was like that… She was really nice. Dad and her took turns to be with me during the day.”\n\t“You never went to school?”\n\tMike shook his head. “Psh. No. Always been home-schooled. I’m a home boy, yeah!”\n\t“D-did your mom and dad always leave you home alone?” Tai looked up curiously. “Mine did. They had to.”\n\tThat one gave Mike pause. “Well… not exactly,” he said at last. “Dad doesn’t leave me alone all the time, only sometimes. He usually takes me out with him to do the shopping, or go to meetings, parties, barbecues and stuff. Oh, and swim-meets, football games. I know what you mean though. I’m only alone for a few hours a week like when dad goes to lectures or stuff I don’t need to go with him for – I asked him to leave me alone now and then.”\n\t“Oh. Is that where you met your friends?”\n\t“Well, met them all over the place!” Mike chuckled. “You only met some of them, you know. Some of my friends are grownups.”\n\t“What? Really?” Tai blinked.\n\t“Yeah,” drawled Mike, as if the answer was obvious. “I don’t care about how old you are. That’s what school does: makes you think everyone is, like, divided into ages. We’re not. Let’s see… you’re eight, younger than I am, Ernie and Aaron are fourteen and Jake’s seventeen. He isn’t the oldest either.”\n\tTai was amazed to discover that this really confused him. Though it made sense, he supposed, the idea of having a friend so much older than him was bewildering. As if it went against some sort of unwritten law. Then again… Mike and, in a way, Jake had already shown him that it could happen. \n\t“Why d’ya ask?” Mike suddenly enquired.\n\t“Just wondered… When dad was alive, he’d stay with me when mom went out, and when he went out, mom was there.” Tai sighed bitterly. “But then I started school and mom just left me there all day and I’d come home by myself.”\n\t“Hmm.” Mike tenderly laid a paw on his friend’s chest. “I never got to meet a friend like you though.”\n\tThey fell silent for some time, exhaustion robbing them of words. Tai’s head drooped slightly, and Mike shook him. “Don’t sleep,” he mumbled. “We gotta move soon.” \n\tThe littler kit nodded. “Okay.” He inhaled deeply through his nose. Then snorted a giggle back out. “You stink! Yeuch!”\n\tThere was no way to prevent it. Mike burst into giggles as well. “It’s the water!” he explained. “From the pipes! The drains!”\n\tSuddenly, Tai’s laughter died down, and he hung his head. \n\t“I’m sorry I acted like a little kid when we were in the pipe,” Tai muttered sheepishly.\n\tIt took a few moments for Mike to even realize what he meant. “Oh. No. I acted like a jerk. Sorry I yelled at you.” \n\tTai’s ears slowly drooped. “I got scared. I know we have to be grown up until we get out of here, but… I-I’m sorry.”\n\tSwallowing, Mike shook his head. “I got scared too… I didn’t mean anything I said to you then.”\n\tFurther silence, before Mike groaned and started to haul himself to his paws. They’d gotten some desperately needed warmth and rest, but they needed to press on. “Ah!” He only just managed to refrain from clutching at his thigh. “Ow! H-here!”\n\tStooping awkwardly, Mike offered his paw to his friend. Tai pulled himself upright, hissing in pain as his leg reluctantly unbent. \n\tThey limped past the truck to the exit from the bay, and together they stopped to look outwards at the thundering rain and whirling mists. Through the fog, all things had become one distorted gray shadow, and even the pinpoints of light from the high poles and floodlights they knew were out there were faint and fading. Like iridescent fireflies drowning in the roiling storm. \n\tMike turned and beheld his friend’s expression. Anxiety and dread stood plain upon Tai’s face as he stared into the meaningless, cold chaos. Eventually, Tai’s fearful eyes met Mike’s. \n\t“It’s okay,” Mike said. “Like we said. We’ve gotta be grown up now. If anyone can, you can do it Tai!”\n\tNarrowing his eyes, Tai returned his gaze to the wild storm. \n\tYeah. Yeah, he could. He knew he could do what needed to be done. Could be strong enough to get it done.\n\tMike had taught him how.\n\n\tRobert wrung his paws as he paced around the police car. He had been driven there by some regular officers, and now they waited alongside the ambulance. They had taken up station opposite the docks’ thick perimeter fence, which was lined with coils of vicious razor-wire. Though they were technically in sight of the docks, they were far away from the activity they had detected, easily a mile deeper into the massive complex that hugged the Hudson River. As far and safe away as possible for a quick extraction. \nBy now, Robert’s jacket was soaked through, but he couldn’t make himself wait in the car. His mind was whirring. There was something wrong here. Or so he had convinced himself.\n\tHe had poured over the files, especially the ones containing what little information he could get on Eraline and her assignment eight years ago. There was something so very, very disturbingly wrong about everything right now. \n\tThe driver-side door was opened, and the bulkier of the two cops stepped out. He was wearing a thick, nylon jacket, appropriate to the weather and emblazoned with “POLICE” in thick, reflective lettering. It looked very unlike Robert’s sorry excuse of a jacket.\n\t“You okay, sir?” grumbled the officer, closing the door. “You don’t look so good. I have some coffee if you’d want some.”\n\tRobert laughed nervously. “Oh, bloody hell,” he chortled. “I’d love some, but I couldn’t keep it down.” \n\tThe cop nodded. Robert wasn’t sure, but he thought it was a lion. He wasn’t paying too much attention to things like that at the moment.\n\t“You know, I have to admit,” the cop said guardedly. “I thought something was shady about this whole thing. Drugs, kidnapping… I guess you could say I thought you were just trying to protect your turf.” \n\tRobert shivered. “Believe it or not, the CIA has never been involved in the sale of narcotics – or persons – on the homeland.”\n\t“That’s not what the tabloids would have you believe,” chortled the lion easily. \n\t“The CIA has limited capacity on American soil,” Robert said dryly. “If you’re looking for a good target for conspiracy theories, try the FBI. We find out who’s trying to blow up our citizens and stop them by sending the military after them. They throw our citizens in jail for smoking a plant.”\n\t“Interesting position for a guy working for the government.”\n\t“Working for it doesn’t mean you have to agree with it all the time; and I was a freshman once.” Robert smiled at the lion. “Thanks for trying, but I’m going to keep worrying no matter what.” \n\t“I had to try. You looked like hell.” The officer chuckled again. Robert had to admit, the guy had a relaxing, deep voice. Oddly, it sort of helped. “You know, I’d swear I recognize you.” \n\tThe fox wrapped his arms tightly around his body. “I don’t know about that. I hadn’t spoken to any police in a long time before today.”\n\t“I suspect the last one you spoke with was me.” The lion drew back his hood a little, and Robert finally saw his thick, russet mane. “In fact, I’d bet a hundred bucks that I know one of the kits we’re waiting on.”\n\t“I…” Robert blinked. “Oh. Damn. Yeah. I do recognize you.” He laughed. “Now that’s a coincidence and a half.”\n\t“What was his name again? Tai, wasn’t it?”\n\tRobert nodded. “Y-yeah…” \n\t“Where’s his mom? Why’re you here for him again and not her?” \n\t“Well…” Robert sighed. “She’s… not available right now.” \n\tThe powerful feline just shrugged. “Again, huh.”\n\tRobert closed his eyes. “It’s not that. She’s dead. Someone… someone shot her. Tai’s an orphan now.”\n\tThe lion stared at him. “Oh… shit. Oh my God, that poor kid.”\n\t“You have no idea.” Robert turned, squinting up at the blinking beacon light atop the crane. “You really don’t.”\n\n\tIt was a miracle they could still walk, and Tai knew that. It seemed his legs took every opportunity to remind him how lucky he was that they deigned to cooperate. \n\tSuddenly, they gave out, and he stumbled to his knees as his muscles surrendered briefly.\n\t“Ah!” He closed his eyes tightly. “Come on, please…”\n\tThe kit looked up to see his friend continuing on almost equally unstable paws. \n\tAll he had to do was follow his older friend. That was all… they were almost home free.\n\tWith a groan, Tai placed a paw on a knee and hauled himself upright. It was much harder than he could ever remember it being.\n\tHe had to keep up.\t\nAll he had to do was keep up! He knew he could do it.\n\t“We’re almost there!” exclaimed Mike, pointing into the distance. “I can sort of see the crane!”\n\tTai nodded, pointlessly as Mike wasn’t even watching him, as he stumbled forwards. They had made their way out of the maze of shipping containers, and now they were faced with an open, gravelly area. The wind lashed at them furiously out in the open, buffeting them, threatening to knock them down again and again.\n\t“Come on!” Mike took his paw. He caught the smaller kit’s eye, smiling slightly. It brought a momentary grin to Tai’s own face; soaked through, Mike looked sort of funny. \n\tAs they walked on, the gigantic, looming crane came into view. The huge shape started to take form, and Tai realized it now towered many dozens of feet above his head. Looking almost straight up, he could make out the blinking red beacon more clearly. As they moved further inland, the fog was thinning too. Slightly. Beyond the crane, there were only a few more buildings – gray shapes that shimmered behind the veil of the fog. At least, Tai thought they were buildings.\n\tThey were almost there.\n\tWhen they got even closer, Tai realized the indistinct shapes were buildings, but unfinished ones. Exposed girders and half-complete walls. One of the construction sites seemed to be right by the crane’s base. \n\t“I think we should head to the bottom of the crane,” Mike said, leaning closer to Tai’s ear. “Let’s go through that building! We can hide easier in there.”\n\t“Okay.” \n\tTogether, they staggered towards the entrance to the concrete structure, the gravel giving way to wet, yellow sand. At last, they passed through an entrance in the tall, unpainted wall, and found themselves on the firm, concrete foundations. But to Tai’s dismay, there was no respite from the rain. There was no roof yet.\n\tThe kits looked around briefly, struggling to see something in the darkness. Thick metal beams stuck up from the ground, and large piles of concrete slabs and bricks, dotted the center of the foundation. The piles were massive; thousands of pounds of construction material, stacked well above the kits’ heads. The wind howled as it weaved through them and around the thick concrete walls, but nonetheless they provided some shelter. \n\tMike hopped a few steps further into the building and squinted into the distance. “I can see the fence!” he said excitedly. “It’s huge, like, I dunno, fifteen feet high. I think it’s covered in razor-wire again. Probably electrified, I bet.” There was a pause. “Hope we don’t have to climb it.”\n\tWeary and sore all over, Tai leaned heavily on a metal beam, closing his eyes. He just wanted to sleep now. They had to be safe by now. Since the maze of containers, they had been completely untroubled by anyone. This construction site, so far from the waterfront, had to be safe. Maybe they could just…\n\t“Tai!” hissed his friend, suddenly gripping his shoulder. “I just heard something!!”\n\tTai almost cried. “Wh-what?!”\n\t“I d-dunno! Shh, we should hide!” Mike started to push him towards a pile of concrete, presumably to take cover behind it.\n\tThere was a scraping, a heavy boot on concrete, and the boys whirled around.\n\tA dozen feet away, a figure had stepped out from behind one of the brick piles. In the darkness and thick fog, all they saw was the large, shadowy figure crouched. Pointing something at them. A gun. \n\tUnable to help it, both kits screamed, stumbling backwards desperately. \n\tThe figure reacted, straightening up and raising his arms. Pointing the firearm upwards and away. “Shh!!” the figure hissed. \n\tBefore he could say much else, other figures slipped out from behind cover, and the kits screamed again. Mike’s legs failed him and he collapsed to the concrete, while Tai turned and unthinkingly made a panicked run for the crane. Someone stepped out in front of him and easily scooped him off his paws. \n\t“No!!” he screeched, trying to struggle. His assailant was powerful though, and easily held him aloft.\n\t“Calm down!” the fur said urgently. He placed the kit down on his feet, but gripped his arm firmly. “We’re the police! We’re your friends!” \n\tTai stumbled and fell to his backside. But he stared at the shadowy figure who had stopped him, garbed in black- or was it dark blue?- entirely, holding a long gun of some kind. The fur’s features were obscured by the darkness, and he could make out no further details. \n\tBreathing heavily, Tai tried to stand and break free, but he was easily pulled back down to the ground. Once again, adrenaline flooded his body and his heart started to beat faster. How could he know these were police?! They had snuck up on them and surrounded them, and now they were grabbing at both he and Mike. Capturing them.\n\tThat wasn’t what rescuers were supposed to do!\n\t“No! Let go!” he wailed, weakly trying to push the adult’s powerful paw off his forearm. \n\tThere was a scuffling noise behind him. Paws struggling and slipping on wet concrete. “Get away!!” he heard Mike scream. \n\tThe one holding Tai just cursed. “Shit, restrain them and let’s just get out of here!” he ordered, firmly twisting Tai’s arm behind him. “We don’t have time for this. Sorry kid.”\n\tWith a terrified wail, Tai found himself being pushed face down to the concrete, his arms pulled behind his backs. Not painfully, but certainly not gently. Something encircled his wrists and suddenly tightened, gripping his skinny wrists. He tried to jerk his arms away but his wrists wouldn’t separate. He had been handcuffed. But it wasn’t metal; at least it didn’t feel like metal.\n\tThe adult forcefully pulled him upright. As he did, Tai caught a glance of Mike also being yanked off the ground. His wrists were also bound behind his back; some sort of yellow plastic ribbon…\n\t“What are you doing?!” Mike sobbed as the armored grownup easily lifted him and slung his restrained form over a broad shoulder while another did the same with Tai. “Please stop!”\n\tBut not one of them listened, and they started to quickly bear the kits away. \n\tTai kicked and squirmed, still confused, panicking; but nothing he did fazed the one that effortlessly carried him. He started to cry.\n\tAt last, the officer holding him spoke, not pausing in his stride. “Calm down, kid,” he hissed quietly. “It’s just standard procedure. You’re safe now – we just have to get moving. Calm down.”\n\tTai surrendered, going limp in the adult’s grasp. His energy was gone, and it was just pointless. He knew that. He was small, they were big, and he was handcuffed – or whatever. It was hopeless to keep struggling. His heart was beating so hard and so fast he thought it’d explode, and he was so scared, but… the fear was being eroded by the exhaustion. \n\tHowever, as the coordinated gang of black and blue armored adults hurried along in the howling wind, Tai noticed something. They were being carried away from the docks. They left the construction site behind, passing a thick metal fence over a dozen feet tall. The boy twisted around, urgently scanning the surroundings through the obscuring rain. They weren’t being carried back the way they came.\n\tMaybe they really had been rescued? Maybe this was exactly what was supposed to happen after all! \n\tThe sudden burst of relief made him feel even fainter.\n\tBut Mike continued to cry and weakly struggle. Had he not noticed?!\n\tTai relaxed. He couldn’t help his friend now. They’d be okay. They were really safe now.\n\t \n\tRobert was still staring anxiously at the red beacon when his pointless reverie was interrupted by a garbled bark from the lion’s radio. \n\tHe whirled around. “What was that?” he demanded of the officer.\nBut the lion just shot him a grin. “Jameson here, ten-four.” He rounded his patrol car as the passenger side door opened. A leopard officer got out, hood down despite the pounding rain. “They’re on their way! Told you, sir. I know some of the guys in SWAT. They know their stuff.”\n\tBlinking, Robert looked down the street. Squinting into the rain and gradually thinning fog, he saw the oddest sight he even remembered being glad to see. Four of the SWAT officers were awkwardly running down the street, off to the sidewalk. They were carrying two small forms slung over their shoulders and held tightly. \n\tHe had to resist the impulse to cry for joy. “Oh, bloody hell,” he whispered to nobody in particular, his knees buckling. “Thank God.” \n\tSuddenly dizzy, Robert fell against the side of the ambulance as the paramedics quickly got out. The SWAT officers ran directly over to them, gently depositing the dazed kits on the ground right by the ambulance. \n\tRobert moved immediately the moment their paws touched the ground. “Oh, my god!” he gasped, running to them. Unthinkingly, he dropped to his knees and pulled his son into a vice-like hug. “Oh, shit, Mike! You’re okay!” \n\tBut Mike was crying, distressed. “Oh, shit!” he wailed, struggling in his own father’s embrace. “Take it off! Please, take it off dad!!”\n\tAlarmed, Robert leaned away. “What, what is it?!” he asked. It was only then he noticed Mike’s wrists were tied behind his back with zip-cuffs. \n\t“Please!!” Mike repeated desperately. “These are what he used!! Please!” \n\tFor a dumbfounded moment, Robert had no idea what his son was talking about. Then he clicked. “Oh, sweet Jesus!” he turned to Jameson, who hovered nearby. “You got a knife? Something to get these things off!” \n\tThe feline pulled out a small utility knife and handed it to Robert, who spun his son around and slashed the zip-cuffs off immediately – though a pair of broken handcuffs still encircled the kit’s wrists. He reached out and pulled Tai to him, likewise slashing the plastic straps off. Before he could return the knife to the officer, Mike whirled around and latched onto him like a lamprey eel.\n\t“It’s okay,” Robert said gently. “It’s okay. They had to do that, Mike. I’m sorry, I should’ve warned them. Oh, I am so glad you’re safe…”Adjusting his grip, Robert reached out and gently tugged Tai into the embrace as well. The exhausted eight-year-old clung to him immediately. “You too, Tai. You’re both so amazing.” Tears started to pool in his eyes, and the many armed police around them just faded into meaninglessness.\n\tOne of the uniformed paramedics, a middle-aged cougar, came over to them and stood quietly holding two thick blankets. Robert ignored him, firmly squeezing the two kits to him. They were all that mattered at the moment.\n\t“We fucking did it,” he muttered. “I don’t believe it. I love you both so much. I’d’ve gone crazy if either of you… Oh, fuck!”\n\tThe cops clamored around them, speaking quietly into their garbling radios. But the three foxes didn’t even care. \n\tAt long last, Robert managed to separate them. He smiled at their exhausted faces as they both wavered on their tired legs. “Okay, boys,” he said, sniffing loudly. “Let’s get you to the hospital. I think the police can take it from here, yeah?” \n\tThe paramedic quickly swaddled both kits in those thick fuzzy blankets, and directed them towards the ambulance. “Come on guys, just a quick check up here then we’ll go downtown,” he told them quietly.\n\tThey inspected Mike first, having him sit on the back of the open ambulance. The kit could barely keep his eyes open as his pulse was sought, and the medic quickly scanned his cuts and bruises.\n\tTai stood by Robert, watching Mike’s inspection detachedly. He was so tired, he almost felt like he was already dreaming. \n\tThe rain started to die down at long last, and the wind started to calm. Dazedly, the kit looked upwards. The sky was choked with gray clouds still, but the wind blew them along, slowly but surely dispersing them. The storm was ending, for now, it seemed. He stumbled slightly, dizzied from looking directly upwards.\n\t“Oops, you okay?” asked Robert, gently touching the boy’s shoulder.\n\t“Yeaaaah…” mumbled Tai. He met the adult’s eyes and smiled. “Thank you…”\n\tSomething struck hard him in the back, and Tai stumbled forwards. It hurt, and left behind a cold stinging, almost like a snowball or a wet baseball had been pelted at him. His first instinct was to spin around, looking for whoever threw it. There was nobody there. He frowned. The sting suddenly intensified, and he touched a paw to his chest. “Ah!”\n\tAfter a short moment, a bizarre tinny ringing started in his ears, and his exhausted legs buckled. Then gave out completely. \n\tAll of a sudden there was an outcry. Rather, he noticed it at last. There were voices crying out, and chaotic activity around him. Somebody caught him, but he felt himself still falling. Being laid out on the wet bitumen.\n\t“Wh-what?” he asked softly, his voice sounding dulled and scarcely audible to even himself. \n\tRobert’s horrified face loomed into view, then others followed suit. Mike, a familiar faced lion, and the paramedic. The lion said something, but he couldn’t make it out. It was so fuzzy, and the buzzing noise had… he blinked to clear his vision, struggling to listen harder.\n\t“Don’t move, okay!” he heard the lion say slowly. His voice was calm, but his eyes were strangely disturbed. “Don’t move, Tai.”\n\tTai struggled to raise his head. “Wh-what’s wrong? What’s going on?”\n\t“No, don’t move!” insisted the cougar. \n\t“Uh? B-but… I-”\n“Tai, listen! You’ve been shot!”\n\n\tRobert staggered backwards.\n\tWhat was right before his very eyes… could not be. He saw it, but it couldn’t be real. \n\tThin, watery blood was already pooling on the bitumen beneath the tawny kit, who looked around, confused. Weakly struggling to move, even as the medics urgently told him to stay still. Some of the red liquid was being washed away, the running rainwater on the bitumen leading it to the drains beneath the sidewalk, but it continued to flow. More and more of it. Steadily, it even oozed from the boy’s chest somewhere, turning the shirt he wore a dark, disturbing red.\n\tHe could hear his own son, crying louder than he’d ever heard him. But it sounded so distant. It couldn’t be real either.\n\tWhat monster would do this?\n\tThe SWAT officers spread out, seeking cover, as the paramedics selflessly flocked to attend the stricken child. One of them had to pull Mike away when he tried to cling to his smaller friend.\n\tSuddenly, Robert was running. Sprinting straight towards the construction site the police had come from. An unholy determination seized him, and he withdrew his pistol, loading it without breaking stride.\n\tIt fell into place now. It made sense. It all made horrible sense.\n\tHe knew what had to be done, and he knew he had to be the one to do it. It couldn’t be any other way.\n\t“What the fuck is he doing?!” thundered Jameson, taking only a few steps after the fox, but quickly realizing the vulpine completely outpaced him. “Jesus!” He clawed at his radio. “All units, be advised, the civilian fox running to the construction site is friendly! Hold your fire!”\n\tHe whirled around, darting back to his patrol car. “What’s that idiot doing?!”\n\tThe brown-furred boy looked around in horror and fear. The warm blanket he held about his shoulders slipped from his suddenly numb fingers and fell to the ground. “What…? What happened?! Wh-where’s my dad going?!” \n\t“I have no god-damn idea!” growled the lion, popping the trunk and pulling out a shotgun. “He’s running straight at a fucking sniper! He’s gonna get himself killed!”\n\tIn a startlingly composed voice, one of the SWAT officers took a hold of his shoulder-mounted radio and started speaking into it. “Command, this is Bravo-Four! Officers under fire at the hostage evacuation site. A shooter has us pinned down from the construction site, location uncertain.” The collie swore suddenly. “Jesus, he’s hit the fucking kid! Damn it; get the other one down or the fuck out of here!”\n\tThe radio garbled something, but it was ignored.\n\tJameson growled to himself and slipped into his patrol car, handing the twelve-gauge to his partner. He wrenched the key in the ignition and slammed his paw on the accelerator. The tires screeched abominably on the wet surface and the vehicle lurched forward until the lion spun the steering wheel. The car violently whipped around and Jameson applied the handbrake, repositioning his vehicle to offer some cover to the paramedics and the injured child.\n\tConfused, Mike looked from the patrol car to the hastily shrinking figure of his father, then down at his wounded best friend. With a strangled cry, he tried once more to run to his friend’s aid.\n\tThe cougar caught him and pushed him away. “No!!” he snapped. “Please, kid, stay away! Get behind something, get behind the car!”\n\t“He’s my best friend!” Mike sobbed, trying to push past the adult. “Please!”\n\t“Don’t do this, kid! If we have to restrain you, we will!”\n\tTai’s eyes closed briefly, and his head rolled. “Mike, what’s going on?” he asked weakly. Mike wailed in response, burying his head in his paws, his knees buckling. A powerful arm slipped around his stomach and he was easily lifted off the ground. Before he could kick at his assailant or complain, he was quickly spun around and hauled over behind the patrol car. Strong paws and arms covered him, gripping his shoulder and encircling his waist; pushing the exhausted kit down firmly to the harsh bitumen. \n“Don’t move!” the lion’s voice was loud in his ear. “You have to stay here, Mike. Okay? That shooter could still be out there. Just stay down!”\nCrying, Mike couldn’t respond. He struggled just enough that he could see his friend and the uniformed adults kneeling by him.\n\tSeveral feet away, the cougar paramedic swore, touching a firm paw to Tai’s neck. “Shock. He’s bleeding out, fast. Get the epinephrine. He needs a transfusion right now. Two-hundred-forty mills.”\n\t“Do you think we can get him downtown?” asked one of his colleagues, slipping a rolled up blanket under the kit’s head. \n\t“We do this here or he won’t make it downtown.”\n\tMike shut his eyes tight. \n\tThis couldn’t be happening. Not now.\n\tNot now…\n\n\tRobert knew what he was doing was stupid. To say the very, very least. But it all clicked into place somehow. He had to do this, and do it now. \n\tThere were other targets there. All of them better choices. Himself. The SWAT officers. There was no reason whatsoever for anyone to shoot Tai. Except for one…\n\tAfter firing at the child, he doubted the shooter would hold position. He’d flee, try to slink away. He had to know the police would have a marksman of their own covering the SWAT officers, who would take out an opposing sniper without hesitation, and the shooter wouldn’t risk detection just for the chance to pop a second shot at Robert. No, the shooter was running.\n\tBut that just meant he was taking up position elsewhere…\n\tThe fox leapt into the construction site, rounding a pile of concrete slabs and continuing to sprint. Ignoring the twinge in his knee as it slowly started to become painful. \n\tEven though it was across open space, he headed towards the nearest warehouse. Something told him who he was looking for hadn’t stopped running yet.\n\tThere was an alley around the back of the warehouse, and he headed for it. But as he was about to head for it, that familiar feeling once again prickled the back of his neck. He dove past the alley, rolling awkwardly on the wet concrete and slamming into the brick wall. There was a snapping report, followed by a loud crack.\n\tRobert pulled himself to a crouch, taking cover by the corner. Two bangs. Single shot. A high powered rifle, easily able to hit a small target from a few hundred meters, even in this weather.\n\tBut now what? The shooter would likely hold out in that little alley.\n\t“Shit,” Robert muttered to himself, standing up. \n\tThere was only the faintest of sounds to give him warning – the crunch of gravel and dirt under a paw. The shooter quickly stepped out from the alley, driving something at Robert’s face. The fox ducked, and the whistling blade just missed his scalp. He tried to raise his paws to shoot, but the knife came slashing downwards this time. With a lick of agony, the blade bit into his forearm. His paw shuddered in spasm, and the firearm slipped from his grasp. It clattered to the wet gravel.\n\tThe shooter rushed him, pushing him into the wall and trying to bring the knife down on his collar. With his good paw, Robert narrowly managed to catch his opponent’s wrist… His gaze flitted from the slowly descending knife-point to the crazed yellow eyes that glared at him with utter hatred. \n\t“Rrrrghah!!” Darron howled madly, using his free paw to punch Robert square in the face. \n\tHis head slammed backwards into the bricks, causing his legs to give way. The knife point descended further, but as the teenaged wolf raised his free paw again, Robert grabbed the elbow of the arm holding the blade firmly, maintaining his grip higher up with his other, unwounded, paw.\n\tStepping out to the side and twisting the teenager’s arm, Robert slammed him into the wall shoulder first, effectively exchanging places with him. He continued to twist the arm, pressing the maniacal wolf into the wall. Once again, despite the awkward angle Robert had him at, Darron threw a punch. The punch fell short, and Robert twisted the wolf’s arm further, pulling it downwards forcefully.\n\tDarron was thrown to the ground. But he kicked upwards as he fell, and his hard-pointed boot clipped Robert on the side of the neck. \n\tThe force of the kick knocked Robert senseless for a second. He released his grip and staggered to his knees. \n\tThe wolf lunged at him, attempting to stick the blade into his chest, and Robert narrowly managed to parry the strike. He clutched the teenager’s wrist and barreled into his smaller frame, slamming him up against the wall again. Robert tried to hit his opponent’s wrist off the sharp corner of the wall, but Darron’s grip was strong. It took several attempts before Darron cried out, dropping the knife.\n\tRobert quickly kicked it away. The knife skittered across the wet concrete until it disappeared under a dumpster up against the warehouse wall. In response, Darron immediately raised a swift knee, slamming it right into Robert’s groin.\n\tThe fox cried in pain, doubling over. So Darron grabbed his head-fur and smashed a fist down onto the back of his skull. \n\tUnable to pull free, Robert charged into the teenager’s waist, driving him once again into the warehouse wall. Then he cinched his opponent’s legs, ducking under his center of balance and lifting him off the ground.\n\t“Put me down, fuckface!” Darron growled, slamming a forearm into Robert’s back. \n\t“Ngh! Gladly, asshole.” Heedless, the fox hurled himself and his cargo at the dumpster’s metal edge.\n\tThere was a massive bang as Darron’s spine was rammed into the metal bin, and he stiffened. Robert stepped back, quickly slipping his arms onto either side of the wolf’s surprisingly thick neck, securing a grip behind the head. Willing as much strength as he had into it, he pulled Darron’s head downwards and thrust a knee upwards, using the full momentum and leverage of his body – just as he remembered being taught by a certain ferret so many years ago.\n\tThe impact was audible. Darron reeled backwards into the dumpster again, losing his footing. \n\tHonestly, Robert thought he had won. The sheer power of that clinching knee had hurt his own leg. He was sure the teenager would go down from it, but Darron simply shook his head clear and leapt away from the dumpster, denying Robert the chance to corner him. It was incredible.\n\tThe teenager’s yellow eyes started to refocus, and they narrowed now. Some of the blazing, mindless hatred ebbed away, and he brought his paws up, taking a more measured stance.\n\t“Fuck,” Robert growled. All he’d managed to do so far was make the kid take him seriously; meanwhile, his right arm was gashed wide open and he was losing blood quickly. If he’d been able to follow up the knee-strike rather than hesitating, he might’ve been able to end it.\n\tDamn it.\n\tDarron slipped forward, throwing a short jab. The fox avoided it clumsily, but Darron instantly followed it up with a cross which just missed his nose. Finally, his first paw swung around in a hook, and that connected with Robert’s forehead. There was a clunk, and Robert staggered back.\n\tHe tried to throw his own, less-than-confident, punch, but Darron’s movement was slick. His head bobbed slightly to the side, and his counter-punch smacked Robert right on the nose, bloodying it instantly.\n\tRobert froze, unsure what to do. But he wasn’t even allowed that momentary respite, and Darron stepped in again, throwing three fast, flowing punches that only barely missed - but this time following with a hard kick that slammed into Robert’s upper thigh. “Agh!” the fox cried, a jolt of pain frazzling his entire leg and jarring his bad knee.\n\tHe couldn’t fight the kid like this, he knew. It had been a decade since his hand-to-hand training, and he didn’t even take it seriously back then. His opponent on the other paw seemed to know exactly what he was doing. More than that, he wasn’t just some kid who’d taken a few boxing lessons. Darron knew how to truly fight. Unlike the encounter with Nate, Darron was not critically wounded. Robert could tell that closing with the wolf would be just as disastrous as staying at this range: the wolf kid seemed a dirty street fighter. If his speed in going for Robert’s testicles hadn’t already confirmed that…\n\tSo what were his options? He had to be smart about this. He was good at that, he liked to think.\n\tBut was he smart enough to defeat an enraged opponent half his age?\n\tDarron punched at him again, another measured jab. Robert retreated into the alley, bringing his paws up into a fighting stance of his own. He was so out of practice, he didn’t even have his paws up properly. Bloody hell.\n\tSuddenly, Darron darted forwards, closing the distance. He threw a punch to Robert’s gut with his lead paw, but he brought the strike upwards at an awkward angle. Surprised, Robert couldn’t stop it, and the long uppercut slipped between his raised arms, clipping Robert on the chin. The wolf launched another flurry, this time one of the blows catching Robert square on the lower muzzle, and he reeled back. Darron threw another wild low-kick, sweeping the dazed fox’s leg entirely.\n\tRobert collapsed to the concrete with a cry. When his vision returned, it was to see Darron’s fist come down onto his nose again.\n\t“How do you like this, motherfucker?!” demanded Darron, pressing a knee into his opponent’s chest and raising his fist once again.\n\tUnable to see an alternative, Robert struck at the teenager’s groin. Another awkward, upwards punch struck the wolf on the chin, and Robert rolled quickly out from under him, gasping and dizzy. \n\tThings had gone slightly hazy, and an oppressive pressure seemed to be squeezing his head. \n\tFrustrated and pained, Darron stood. He charged at the fox, drawing a fist back.\n\tA last second instinct kicked in, and Robert moved forward, bent at the waist. Unthinkingly, he intercepted his opponent’s charge, slamming into his hips and once again clinching his knees. He tackled the wolf to the ground, and he heard the dull thunk of the back of his head striking the gravel. \n\tStunned from the impact and caught completely off guard by Robert’s surprisingly adroit takedown, Darron could only belatedly roll over onto his paws and knees. But Robert had stuck close to him, and immediately pounced, wrapping an arm around the teenager’s neck and cinching his grip with his other. The fox squeezed with all his might, trying to choke the wolf unconscious…\n\tDarron recognized the extreme danger, and he started threshing wildly. Robert held him fast, trying to control the wolf’s posture and keeping his weight firmly pinning the kid down. It would only take a few seconds and he had the choke locked tight… but the young wolf suddenly clawed at the deep bloody cut on Robert’s arm.\n\t“Aaagh!” Robert howled. Almost instantly, his grip loosened and Darron slipped free frantically. \n\tThey both scrambled to their foot-paws again, eyeing one another warily.\n\tThe amber eyes were wide now. It brought an involuntary smirk to Robert’s face. Darron had underestimated him. Though he had gotten away, the textbook ‘rear-naked choke’ was likely only a second from rendering him unconscious and the wolf knew it. \nRobert tensed, as ready for anything as he could ever be.\n\tGrowling, Darron swiftly knelt to grab something down by his foot-paws. There was a harsh scraping sound, and then Darron straightened, holding aloft a stout, three foot long steel pole. Robert felt his heart freeze. \n\tDarron gave him a smug, murderous grin before swinging the weapon at him. Robert leapt backwards out of the alley again.\n\tThe teenager swung it again, but once again Robert was just out of range.\n\tThe fox swore silently, afraid again. He was hurt and tired, while Darron nonetheless seemed still pretty fresh – seemingly spurred on by homicidal madness. Robert had no idea what to do against someone wielding an iron bar like that! He locked his eyes onto the deadly metal implement.\n\tSuddenly, he remembered something. Yes, he did know what to do! He’d been shown before by one of the best teachers he’d ever had – it’s no different from any other weapon, he’d been told a hundred times. But knowing vaguely what to do and doing it were not the same things. He struggled to remember the details…\nSnarling, Darron raised the pole high and rushed forwards to bring it down upon the still retreating Robert.\n\tBut the fox changed directions, darting forwards instead. He raised his left paw, catching Darron’s wrist just before it could swing the weapon downwards. Quickly, Robert stepped across and into the teenager’s body, holding the wrist clutching the weapon up and to the side. He swung other paw upwards to the outside of Darron’s in the process, tightly grabbing Robert’s first arm’s wrist - bending Darron’s elbow sharply backwards between them. An intricate yet quickly completed knot of their forearms, wrists and elbows. A figure-four.\n\tRobert spun around, pulling the complicated pretzel their arms had become in towards his own waist. There was a wet tearing sound, and Darron’s feet left the floor. He was thrown to the ground, but Robert continued to control that ruined arm. After the wolf hit the ground with a heavy thud, Robert rolled him onto his front, slamming his knee down on his back.\n\tDarron howled in agony – his shoulder joint was torn, but Robert continued to wrench it.\n\t“Gotcha, you little bastard!” Robert panted, securing his grip. \n\tUnsurprisingly, Darron’s pained cries and gasps were tinged with fury. But Robert held him fast. The kid was defeated, and they both knew it. \n\t“I want to talk to you. Darron.”\n\tThe wolf’s breathing stopped briefly. “Wha—?” he wheezed. “H-how the fuck do you know my name?”\n\t“I know who you are.” Robert tried to slow his own breathing, to no avail. “I know why you did what you did.”\n\t“Do you?!” Darron snarled. “What the fuck do you know about—”\n\t“Eraline did not kill your mother.”\n\tDarron froze. “Wh-what the fuck are you talking about?”\n\t“I’ve read the reports. I know what happened to you. To your mom.” Robert lidded his eyes, trying to stop his gasping breaths from interrupting him. “Eraline… was trying to get you out of there, but your mom was caught, Darron. The asshole that bought you caught her, and threatened to kill you, maybe worse, if your mother didn’t try to kill Eraline. The agent that was so close to cracking them wide open. Your mother was killed in self-defense, Darron. She either had to die to Eraline, or your ‘owner’ would do it. Or kill you.”\n\t“Bullshit…” Darron said. Suddenly he growled. “Bullshit!! You worthless spy asshole, why would you try to lie about this!? You fuckin’ think I’ll believe—AGH!!”\n\tRobert had wrenched the teenager’s shoulder. “Shut up, you self-important little shit!” he yelled at the wolf beneath his knee. “Why would I lie to you? The hell would I gain? You killed Eraline, and here I am trying to tell you the truth instead of being with the little boy you fucking shot!” Suddenly enraged, Robert pushed the wolf’s skull into the concrete. “You killed his mother, my closest friend, and now you’ve probably killed her son too, and you think I’d dignify you by caring whether or not you believed me?! I don’t need to lie to you, and I don’t care if you believe me. Quite frankly, I’m trying to decide whether or not I should kill you. I sure as hell see no reason to let you walk away from this.”\n\tAmazingly, Darron fell silent.\n\t“You’re child-killing, kidnapping scum. You’re no better than the filth your mother died trying to protect you from, died trying to bring them down; and what do you do? You join them?!”\n\t“Stop.” \n\t“What?!”\n\t“Stop!” Suddenly, Darron sniffed. There was a pause. “What did you do to me? Just then. What was that? Some CIA assassin shit?”\n\tRobert sighed. “I’m no assassin. It’s called ‘ude garame’ in Japanese. Arm-entanglement. Just a self-defense move. It’s not CIA-anything.”\n\tThe wolf fell silent. “Why…?” he whispered, his previously growl-like, macho voice suddenly quaking and weak. “Why are you telling me this? Why?!”\n\t“Because I thought you had the right to know.” Robert gasped, still out of breath. “Because I wanted to clear my friend’s name. Because enough people have been hurt.”\n\tDarron tensed, but did nothing.\n\t“This was all you. Wasn’t it? You got Eraline killed. You kidnapped the boys, just so you could get some sort of twisted revenge. Some perverted justice. How did you find out where she was? Nate? Did you get him to kill her too? Did you get my son god-damn raped just so you could find out?”\n\t“… No…” Darron whispered. “They… got the ferret to do that. I took the stuff he stole… looking for her. Was useless. But then she came back…”\n\t“So then you got an innocent mother killed.”\n\t“She wasn’t fucking innocent! She still—!”\n\t“No, Darron! Jesus Christ, if anyone is to blame for what happened to your mom, it’s the bastard who thinks he owns you, like cattle.” Robert exhaled angrily out his bloodied nose. “You went to work for the one to blame, and you killed the one that risked her life to try and save you! Nice going, kid!”\n\tDarron suddenly exploded, his young body surging with strength, somehow getting his knees under his body. Robert cursed, struggling to hold on with his tired arms, but Darron seemed to no longer care about the surely incredible pain in his shoulder. He dislodged Robert, shoving him away and scrambling backwards. He dove at something, agilely rolling to his feet.\n\tThe exhausted fox prepared to fight once again, but Darron simply pointed a pistol at him.\n\tHis own.\n\tRobert froze. \n\tBut the teenager did nothing. His eyes watered and his expression was lost, despairing. Hesitant.\n\t“So, is this it?” Robert murmured. “You’re going to kill me too? Make my son an orphan too?” \n\tDarron didn’t move an inch, though his shoulders heaved with every ragged breath…\n\t“He loves me. I know that. If I’m gone… I think you’re one of the few furs alive who know what it’d do to him. You want to be responsible for that? Again? Or do you want to help make sure your mom didn’t die in vain?” He paused, but there was no response. “What are you going to do?” \n\tThe wolf shook his head. Tightening his finger on the trigger. “Stop them,” he muttered. “The ship.”\n\t“… I don’t understand.”\n\t“The ship. Thirty on it already, more in some of the containers…” Darron swallowed.\n\tBy now, Robert’s heart had forgotten to beat. “… What are you going to do, Darron?”\n\tDarron glared at him, his amber eyes hardening. He moved at last…\n\tRobert braced himself, squeezing his own eyes tight shut. He called the image of his son and wife to him. Imagined holding them both. Feeling their warmth. One last time, all together…\n\tThere was a sharp, ear-splitting pop, and Robert jumped.\n\tHe opened his eyes just in time to see Darron’s limp form collapse to the ground.\n\t“Oh…” Robert blinked. “… Bloody hell.” \n\t\n\tMike knelt on the wet bitumen, huddled up against the dirty metal door of the patrol car. The rain still fell, a steady drizzle that fell on his exposed torso, but he didn’t care.\n\tHe had no idea what he was watching. All he knew was his friend was lying scarcely ten feet away. The rivulets of water running down the street were still tinged pink with Tai’s blood, but Tai himself was obscured from vision as the oddly uniformed paramedics crowded around him. They said things to one another, barking orders, doing… things, things that Mike didn’t understand. \n\tIt was too much. It was too hard. He wanted to run to his stricken friend; he wanted to say something to him, just in case…\n\tBut they wouldn’t let him. They’d pull him away. All he wanted was to be near his best friend – his father had just run off, he could be dying too. But he couldn’t even be with his friend…\n\tSome of the police taking cover around the car and the ambulance suddenly moved, bringing weaponry to bear on somewhere behind the car. Slowly, the barky-furred kit crawled forward, not really sure if he cared what it was the cops were suddenly aiming at, yet nonetheless he peered around the rumbling car’s bumper.\n\tHe recognized the dark figure, limping towards them. It had both arms above its head, and though Mike was almost blinded by tears, he knew who it was. It had to be. \n\t“Hold your fire!” the leonine office barked, advancing slightly on the injured fox approaching the ambulance. “The hell were you thinking?!”\n\tRobert smiled weakly. “Got him,” he said simply.\n\t“You fucking idiot…” \n\tBefore the lion could continue, Mike jumped to his feet and charged right at his father. He wrapped his shaking arms around him… “Oh, dad!!” cried the kit, squeezing as hard as he could. He started crying again, but this time, Robert was there to hold him tight. \n\t“It’s okay, Mike,” he said weakly. \n\t“N-no it’s not! Tai’s hurt!” The kit’s legs buckled again, and his father had to keep him upright. \n\tThe paramedics stood, and the cougar rushed over to the ambulance. Mike broke away from his dad’s embrace, turning to watch with horrified eyes.\n\t“Let’s move! He’s lost too much; we have to get him downtown! Before another god-damn shooter shows up!” The cougar’s voice cracked. He sounded desperate as he pulled some sort of metal trolley from the ambulance’s rear door. “Fuck this, I’m not having the first one I lose be a little kid!”\n\t Mike stepped towards them, but Robert caught his wrist. \n\t“Where are they taking him?!” the boy demanded. \n\t“Hospital, Mike,” Robert said softly. “Where we’ll have to go too.”\n\t“H-hospital?” Mike froze. “No. No! I want to go with him!” He tried to run to the ambulance, but Robert pulled him back. “Dad! Let go! Please!!”\n\tThe kit turned, begging his father to release him with reddened, imploring eyes.\n\t“I can’t, Mike…”\n\t“No! I want to go with him, please! Let me go!” Setting his feet, Mike pulled as hard as he could, to try to break his father’s steely grasp. “Pleeeeaase!! I won’t get in the way! Let go! I wanna be with him!! Dad, no don’t do thiiiis!!” His voice rose to a scream, but his father held on. After a few moments of struggling, Mike’s knees gave out and the shirtless, wet, trembling kit collapsed to the ground. “Don’t do this… dad… I h-have to say goodbye. I have to say it… I have to say it! Not like mom. Please…” \n\tRobert closed his eyes. Mike’s plea easily cut into him deeper than the knife that had gashed open his arm. But he couldn’t… even if the paramedics would allow it, Robert knew his son wouldn’t be able to control himself. He shook his head slowly. \n\t“I’m sorry, Mike…”\n\t With a broken-hearted wail, Mike curled up on the ground, covering his face with his free arm. Robert knelt beside him. He tried to brush the kit’s head-fur, but Mike pushed his paw away violently. \n\tThe ambulance’s rear door was slammed shut, and within moments the vehicle, and its shrieking siren, started off down the street. \n\t“Mike, listen…” Robert reached out with his other paw again, but Mike batted it away. \n\t“Go away!!” the kit screamed before instantly returning to his wracking sobs. “I-I hate you…”\n\tRobert waited a few moments, as Mike’s crying ebbed away, his exhaustion wearing him out. “No you don’t,” the grownup said softly. “I’m so sorry Mike. You know I have to.”\n\tThe kit didn’t move. \n\t“He’s your best friend, isn’t he?” Robert sat heavily on the wet bitumen. His arm still bled profusely, and by now he was feeling faint. “…More than that? Right?”\n\tMike tensed. At last he moved his arm away from his face, and he stared at his father, his expression somewhere between stunned and scared. “I-I…”\n\t“It doesn’t matter, Mike. It really, really doesn’t matter.”\n\tThe barky-furred kit sobbed quietly. “W-will he be alright?” he managed to whisper.\n\t“I don’t know, Mike.” Robert swiped at his bloodied nose with a wrist. “I can’t tell…”\n\tHe turned and watched the ambulance speed around a corner wildly, disappearing behind a dirty, wet building. Robert looked up, towards the blackened clouds that smothered the sky.\n\t“You never can…”\n\n\n\n\t……………\n\n\n\n\tIt was a warm night. Clear skies with the faintest hint of a breeze. A rarity of late, with winter just thinking about moving on and letting the hotter, drier months have their turn at last. The sun was only just beginning to set this evening, and the sky was almost crimson.\n\tThough he’d rarely had the opportunity to visit this garden, he’d always loved it. Tom and Eraline kept things quite neat, and upstate New York was a beautiful place to begin with. It was quite a drive from Manhattan, not that he minded making it.\n\tPushing open the security door, he ambled outside, holding a beer loosely in his paw. Smiling slightly, the fox approached his friend, who stood by the poolside, gently pushing a stroller back and forth with his free paw, the other occupied by his own beer.\n\t“You’re missing your own party,” Robert chortled, sidling up to the pensive father. “Are you feeling okay?”\n\tThomas gave a quiet snort, raising the bottle of liquor to his muzzle. “Just a little thoughtful.”\n\t“What’s on your mind?”\n\tBrushing aside his wealth of strangely colored head-fur, Tom smiled down at his son. “Well, the same as always.”\n\tRobert bent over and peeked into the stroller. It was impossible for him to keep the smile on his face from blossoming into a massive grin – he was a father himself, after all. Little Tai was asleep, his tiny chest rising and falling rhythmically. His paws loosely holding his small blanket closed. “It’s hard to get them off your mind, isn’t it?” he murmured wryly. “He’s got a lot more fur now. It’s not just the eyes; he’s got your fuzz too.”\n\t“Yeah, should make him popular with the ladies.” Tom chuckled. “I still can’t believe it. I’m the luckiest guy alive. I have a dream job, a lot of cash, a wonderful wife and now a son.” He paused. “Damn, three years ago, I thought I’d never amount to anything more than a star on a wall down south.”\n\t“Nobody is ever just a wall ornament.”\n\t“Thanks, Rob. It’s all thanks to you, man.”\n\tThe pair of them sighed and looked up at the bleeding sky, streaked with wispy clouds. Simultaneously, they raised their beers again. \n\tThomas shook his head, his expression sad. “I wish I didn’t have to leave this place. New York has been good to me. Not that a country boy like me could’ve ever thought it.”\n\tRobert peered at the sleeping infant. “Well… Tom, do you ever think about what your job could do? To them?”\n\tAs vague as it was, it needed no explanation. “Hell, sure I do.”\n\t“Moving across the nation at the whim of some pencil pushing stat-muncher like me? The danger?”\n\t“Yeah.” Thomas nodded slowly. “What it would be like if they came home from school, ten years from now – and there was no one there for them. I’ve thought all about it. I’m terrified, Rob, but what can I do? What happens if, instead of me, it’s Tai?”\n\tThere was a long pause, before Robert shifted on his paws. “Look, Tom. You shouldn’t be doing this. I know I don’t have the details, but this isn’t right – on our own soil, so far as I can tell, and now that you have a child? You should drop this. Tell the suits to get someone without so much to lose.”\n\t“No. I can’t.” The blonde fox shook his head firmly. “It’s because I’ve got so much to lose that I need to do this.”\n\t“Can you explain?”\n\t“Not really. Just trust me. You’re a father too, been one for longer than me – you’d understand if you knew. I’m not leaving my son to live in a world with… so much wrong, so much evil, especially like this, and being someone that could’ve done something to help – but sat on my ass instead.”\n\t“I suppose it’s like being a soldier – complete with the messiah complex.” Robert gave a teasing laugh, but then sighed. “I’m going to miss you, you know. Haley and I aren’t happy about this at all.”\n\t“I know man, sorry.”\n\t“Tell me one thing if nothing else, please. Are you coming back from this, Tom?”\n\tSwigging from his beer, Thomas gently pushed the stroller forwards, then slowly rumbled it back. Tai gave a quiet squeak in his sleep. “I’m not sure,” Tom admitted. “But then again, how can you tell?”\n\t“… You never can.”\n\t“Exactly.” There was a short laugh. “But I don’t care. When I finally do piss off, I’ll know I’ve left behind a boy that I’m proud of. There’s not much I’ve done right in my life, but being a dad is something I’m gonna ace first time.”\n\tRobert smiled. “Unlike your English. It’s ‘of whom I’m proud.’”\n\t“Yeah, that, Captain Cambridge.” \n\tThey both snickered quietly.\n\t“I mean…” Thomas murmured, draining his beer. “It can happen at any time, like I said. It does nobody any good to worry about it.”\n\t“Yeah. That’s true, I suppose. Within reason.”\n\t“So it doesn’t matter, really. What matters is what we left behind.” There was a pause. “I don’t mean achievements. Or money. Or empires, or getting your name in a fuckin’ history book. It’ll all be forgotten eventually. I mean… the hearts we touched. Every little bit of advice, of happiness, we leave behind. Just making the world better in whatever way we can. Changing real lives. It’s the little things. We don’t have to change the world.”\n\tRobert nodded. “Definitely. You know, you’re surprisingly eloquent tonight. Is it the booze?” \n\t“Yeah.”\n\t“Like I said, no life is just a star on a wall. Nobody is just a passage in a history book, and nobody is just a statistic. That star means something to someone.”\n\tKneeling, Thomas gently laid a paw on his tiny son’s head. “Well, he’s my star. Not on the wall, but up in the sky. There’s a billion, billion of them, all shining bright, but it’s this one I’m risking it all for.” He sniffed. “I dunno how I got to thinking about this. It’s just… this little guy comes along and blows everything I thought I understood out of the water. This is a life, Rob, this is a living thing. It doesn’t matter how young or old you are, if you’re rich, poor, in this country or another. What matters is what we leave behind, and already, Tai has made at least two lives on this planet so much happier. He’s the brightest star in my sky. When I go, I’ll know I lit up a few skies, and I know Tai, and little Mikey, will light up their fair share too.”\n\tRobert wiped an eye. “Shit, Tom.”\n\t“What’s that?”\n\t“You know they already have. They already have.”\n\nChapter 12 – Fin.\n\nCopyright Kichigai Kitsune 2010.\n\n\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "Tai’s Story - Chapter 12.
By Kichigai Kitsune
Copyright 2005-2010

Disclaimer:  This story contains sexual scenes involving “cubs” (young anthropomorphic nonhuman characters – furries) as well as coarse language, violence and adult themes. It also features romance, actual plot and multi-syllabic words. Now that I’ve scared off both ends of the spectrum:
If you are not legally allowed to view such material under the laws you are subject to, do NOT continue past this disclaimer.
This is also the twelfth and final part in a long story – as such, if you are new to it, you should start from the beginning.


Robert fell forwards onto the desk, cradling his head in his weary paws. The rain bounced off the metal van’s roof noisily, but it faded into the background as he worried himself sick, again.
“Unpromising,” the sergeant had called it. Robert felt he was being optimistic.
\tUpon receiving the satellite scans, the police sergeant poured over them in ominous silence. Aside from that single word, he had given Robert no indication of what he was going to do.
\tThere was an unusual amount of activity at the New York docks, centering mostly around one of the large cargo ships berthed. Well over fifty suspicious furs crawled over the complex, and the encroaching storm blotted out huge swathes of the images. Few high-resolution scans were available in the first place due to the weather.
\tEven now a pair of officers scoured the image for signs of hostages and prisoners, but they would be lucky to find anything, Robert knew. Even the analysts he left in a local building, the makeshift hub for the CIA’s part in this operation, would probably find nothing whatsoever in any useful amount of time.
\tIt turns out it’s hard to find a pair of small children in a poor resolution image of nearly a dozen blocks of industrial complex. Who knew?
\tWorse, the powerful storm-front out to sea had reached the coast. The chance of getting any decent high-definition surveillance satellite imagery was about to plummet. If they were lucky, the storm would give them a few minutes of respite; hopefully it would make things harder for the bastards hunting his children.
\tThe sergeant walked over to him, and Robert looked up belatedly. He felt so lethargic all of a sudden. So useless. At the moment, they were all useless. His depression must’ve showed on his face, as the sergeant hesitated before speaking.
\t“We’re not ready just yet,” he said carefully.
\tRobert merely nodded.
\t“We’re going to wait for some backup.” The sergeant sighed, scratching his pointed canine ears. “We’re going to need more folks, and even then this is going to be touch and go. Without knowing where the hostages are, we can’t do very much.”
\t“I know. We’re in contact with the Coast Guard.”
\t“Right, we’ll need them – this really could turn into a war-zone. Have your people managed to get anything? Any idea where the hostages could be?”
\tThe fox shook his head slightly. “No.” He couldn’t say much to the police about this. The handful of personnel Robert had on this operation were intercepting radio and cellular radio transmissions in the area, as well as poring over the scant few pieces of high definition imagery they’d managed to acquire before the storm made it impossible – all of it was technically a violation of the CIA’s mandate, operating on home soil, unless Mitchell had managed to pull some serious strings. The less the police actually knew about what they were doing, the better.
\tThere was already going to be severe consequences for this, most likely. Robert could only hope they wouldn’t all fall upon his shoulders alone.
“I’ll be back in a moment. You’ll need to give me some sort of a line of communication to the Guard; we can’t co-ordinate something like this through your agency and we’re going to need their muscle. If your guys get any leads, let us know. We’ll get them out.” The canine cop turned quickly and returned to the front of the van, mumbling into his radio.
\tGlancing at the satellite scan on the whiteboard, taped up beside the incomprehensible notes the police had scrawled, Robert tried to think. It was a big area. But they could surely cover it? Robert had no idea how many cops there were available but striking a blow to a dangerous international drugs and weapons racket had to warrant at least a decent amount of manpower.
\tAnd if it didn’t, saving the lives of a pair of kids should, right?
\tThe cynical side of him warned him not to expect much. Even worse, the experienced side of him agreed.
\tHis phone suddenly buzzed in his pocket, and he plucked it out hastily. “Hello?” he barked into it the moment the device reached his ear.
\t“DAD!”
\tRobert almost collapsed. “Mike! Oh, thank God! Are you both okay? Where are you?!”
\t“Dad!” Mike’s voice continued. He sounded strained. As if in pain. “W-we’re hiding in a warehouse. I guess we’re okay. A-are you coming to get us?”
\t“A warehouse?” Robert blinked, his heart rate rising. This was their chance. “Which one? Are there any landmarks nearby?” He swiftly moved over to the satellite scan.
\tThere was muffled conversation from the other side, and Robert felt a surge of relief as he recognized the other voice.
\t“We’re near the water?” offered Mike. “Near the, um, waterfront. We don’t know anything else. We’re right near the water. Ow! Watch the leg!”
\t“Sorry!” Robert heard Tai say. “I can’t see!”
\tThere were only seven warehouses right on the waterfront, lining the promenade. “Mike, can you give me anything else? There are far too many warehouses.”
\t“No. The rain was too heavy, I couldn’t see anything.”
\t“Can you go out and have a look? One of them has a big crane near the front. Another has three shipping containers. The last one has a ship docked near it. Anything, Mike.”
\tThere was a pause. “G-go out and look?” Mike groaned incredulously. “I can’t!”
\t“Why not?”
\tThere was no response at first. “I can’t. My leg is hurt.”
\t“What about Tai?” Even as Robert said that, he knew the boys wouldn’t want to split up for even a second.
\t“He’s badly hurt dad…” Mike audibly swallowed. “Where are you? Are you coming for us?”
\t“Shit!” the fox mumbled, thumping a balled up paw on the whiteboard. “We can’t get you without any idea which warehouse you’re in, Mike. There are too many of them, so you have to give me something to work with. I know you’re hurt but you have to suck it up and do something!”
\t“I… d-dad… please?” The kit’s voice cracked slightly, and Robert lidded his eyes.
\tWhat was wrong with him lately?!
\t“I’m sorry, Mike. I’m here. You’ll be okay, I promise. I’m coming to get you. Just need to know where you are first, that’s all. If you can tell me that, this will all be done.”
\tMike sniffed. “I’m sorry dad…”
\t“It’s alright; you’ve done so well already. I don’t know if I’d’ve been able to stay safe as well as you boys have. If I could, I’d take over everything from here, but I can’t just yet. I’m sorry.” Robert growled quietly at himself. “Where are you exactly? How are you speaking to me?”
\t“E-exactly?” The ten-year-old sounded puzzled. “In an office. Um, we’re using a phone we found in an office in a warehouse.”
\t“Will you be able to call back? If something else comes up?”
\t“I guess… but dad, don’t go! Just stay on the phone!”
\t“Mike, I…” Robert paused. “I have to go, at least for a minute. But wait, I need you to look around. There has to be a clue about where you are in that office.”
\t“Like what?”
\t“Anything. Just look around. I really do need you to tell me exactly where you are, Mike. Exactly. So just do your best, and call me back in a minute. I’m going to talk to the police and see what else we can do.”
\t“… Okay. Make sure you pick up!”
\t“I will.”
\t“… Alright. You hang up first?”
\tRobert smiled in spite of it all. “I will. Talk soon, Mike. I’m so proud of you.” Canceling the call, the fox rounded on the sergeant, who had been watching quietly. “Alright, we have some more information – sort of.”
\t
\t“Why didn’t you tell him?” Tai enquired, clutching desperately to Mike’s arms, hoping he could leech enough heat to stop the shivering. There wasn’t much to leech.
\tPlacing the phone besides them, Mike tried to help out by rubbing the smaller boy’s torso. “Tell him what?”
\t“Why you really didn’t want to go outside. He’ll think your leg is really bad now.”
\tMike felt slightly embarrassed. “I’m not scared,” he stated.
\t“But I could’ve gone to check.”
\t“No,” the older boy said firmly. “We’re not splitting up again. We’re safe here; I’m not risking snooping around outside. Besides, you’re way too hurt.”
\tTai smiled and nuzzled into his friend’s shoulder.  
\t“I-I guess we should try to find some clues…” With obvious reluctance, Mike released the smaller kit and tried to crawl out from under the big desk. “Ah! My leg is really sore!”
\tTai sat forward. “Shouldn’t we do something?” he asked. “You’re still bleeding, I think. Doesn’t it hurt?”
\t“Yes!” Mike whimpered. He struggled to his paws again. “Shit! Owwww!”
\tToday, Tai realized, he’d heard the well-spoken older boy swear more than in the entire time he’d known him.
\t“What do we have to do for your leg? Shouldn’t we do it first?” Still trembling, Tai crawled out behind his friend.
\tTeary-eyed, Mike glanced at the first-aid kit. “I-I don’t know,” he said fearfully. “I don’t want to do it yet.”
\t“What do we have to do?”
\tMike bit his lip, pretending to scan the desktop. “Umm… ever had that brown, stinky stuff put on a cut?” he asked, absently trying to wriggle the hand-cuffs that still bit into his wrists. He had almost forgotten about them by now, despite the fact they clearly were pinching his nerves. The sharp, stabbing pain had only gotten worse over time. “Anti-septic?”
\t“Yeah.”
\t“Remember how it stings like hell?”
\t“Uh-huh.”
\t“You know how it hurts much more the worse the cut is? Well this is the worst cut I’ve ever had.”
\t“Oh.” Tai looked briefly at the back of Mike’s thigh. The matted fur and thick, adhesive blood obscured the injury entirely. “I get it.”
\tThe brown-furred kit overturned some papers, scowling as he searched for a way to identify their hiding place. “I-I guess we have to do it,” he admitted, “but I’d rather wait.”
\tAfter a thoughtful moment, Tai frowned at him. “You can die if you keep bleeding, can’t you?”
\tMike flinched. “Y-yeah but it’s not that bad! Don’t do that!” Nonetheless he anxiously tried to look over his shoulder at the bleeding gash.
\t“Sorry.”
\tThe fruitless, stumbling search continued. Mike wasn’t even sure what he was looking for. Would the warehouse have a name? Be numbered? They had to find out what warehouse they were in, but Mike did not want to even leave the office. The prospect of going back outside scared him.
\tNo. Truth was, he was just out-and-out scared. He shook, but not just from the cold, and he still felt light headed. His stomach was uncomfortably tight, and a sickening acid had boiled up within him and kept threatening to make him throw up. The encounter with Marco had tripled that uneasy, burning nausea and…
\t “Shit!” he cursed again, falling against the desk. He squeezed his hazel eyes tightly shut and tried to fight it, but it was pointless. He shouldn’t have started to think about it. The kit started to cry again.
\t“Mike, what’s wrong?!” Tai limped over to him.
\tMike just shook his head. He said something, but Tai couldn’t understand a word. Instead, the tawny kit stepped closer and lightly touched his friend’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Mike,” he whispered. “We’re safe now. All we have to do is find a way out.”
\t“I know, I know!” Mike held his breath.
\tSuddenly, the littler kit embraced him. “I know how it’s like. I really do. It’s scary, and you shake all over for ages afterwards. Just want to cry and wait for it to be over. You want to stop being scared because it feels so bad. But we’ll be okay, Mike. We got away from him, he can’t hurt us.”
\tMike clung to him. “This is so stupid,” he sniffed. “What are we supposed to look for?! How can we tell what warehouse this is?!”
\t“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll just have to tell your dad we can’t find out?”
\t“He’ll just tell us to go outside and look. He won’t understand.”
\tTai shook his head. “We’ll have to think of something else. He’ll understand.” He paused. “I-I trust your dad. He’ll understand.”
\tMike stared at the desk, thinking. “Alright.” Mike froze for a moment. Then he looked distinctly uncomfortable. “W-wait…”
\tHe marched purposefully over to the waste bin in the corner of the room and, as Tai watched on in bemusement, the barky-furred kit doubled over and puked into it with a loud, gagging retch.
\tCoughing, Mike straightened again. “Ughh. L-let’s look some more before we call dad and tell him we give up.”
\t“Uhh, okay.”
\tThey stared at one another for a few moments, before bashful grins found their ways onto both kits’ faces.
\t“That was kinda random, huh?” Mike chortled, wiping his muzzle on a wrist.
\t“And kinda gross!”

\tThe storm had arrived.
\tDarron stared unseeingly out over the waterfront, slouching against a warehouse’s cold concrete wall. Before him, the scum he’d been placed in command of, supposedly, scurried about like roaches as the rain mercilessly pounded them. Despite their ceaseless complaints, Darron barely noticed it, even though his hoodie was soaked through.
\tThere was only a single other container to load onto this ship. Another two for the other. It was almost over for tonight. The job was almost finished.
\tBut not for Darron.
\tThe harsh white noise of the rain was amplified by his hood, and it consumed his senses. It merged seamlessly with his train of thought: a dark, cruel fury that just howled meaninglessly around in his mind.
\tThe rain. The sound of it. The chill. The glistening concrete and granite all around him, drenched in the shadow of a moonless night. The storm.
\tHe remembered it all, with vivid… excruciating… detail. He remembered it all. He even remembered that sickening warmth of blood as it seeped through his fur and over his cold skin, could still feel it even now. Memories he tried so hard for years to bury, they had suddenly, violently clawed their way to the forefront of his thoughts tonight.
Tonight should have been the night he avenged her, did something, and gained some form of victory in his pointless life, but… he screwed up. The little shit escaped him. Got away when there was no damn excuse for Darron to have let him. Anger was all he felt though. None of the longing, none of the pain.  None of the… love, or warmth he desperately wanted back. Memories of those moments were few and far between.
It was all gone now.
\tHe didn’t even hear the bulldog at first. He was so used to ignoring the muscle-bound thug, and he certainly wasn’t attentive at the moment.
\t“Those little shits are going to screw everything,” the brawny canine said, a touch of contempt in his voice. He joined the wolf under the meager refuge of the warehouse’s overhanging roof.
\tDarron blinked, snapping himself back into the present. “What?”
\t“Yeah. What.” The bulldog folded his thickly muscled arms. “I knew it was a fuckin’ stupid idea to involve you.”
\t“The fuck are you talking about?” Darron sighed darkly. His patience for this bellicose moron and his tiger friend was nonexistent at this point. “I wasn’t the brainless fuck who let them escape.”
\t“Yeah, yeah, you’re just the one who brought them here in the first place. You think we’re all fucking stupid. Trying to play us all. Newsflash kid, you’re still just a dick-wit teenager that doesn’t know better than to fuck with adults. You think nobody would figure it out?” The canine spat on the ground. “Our fuckin’ guy just goin’ out and killing some vixen and getting himself done in too? Now you’re after these kids, sayin’ some bullshit about weeding out the other CIA rats – and we don’t even know there are any. It don’t take a genius to figure that vixen was the one who killed your whore mother, and you’re just trying to fuck with her kids now.”
\tA chill that was not from the weather spread through Darron’s body. Like a cold water that ran from his heart to his fingertips. But he said nothing.
\t“Thanks to you, we’ve got the kids of two fuckin’ spooks loose here right while we’re in the middle of a shipment. They stole Tony’s phone; how much you wanna bet the little shits have called daddy already? All we know, we could have the fuckin’ army here in five minutes. Some fuckin’ spook sniper could have your empty little head right in his crosshair right now.” The bulldog’s voice strained with anger and derision. “You’re gonna fuck up an operation that’s been untouchable for over a decade, if you haven’t already. Maybe now he’s gonna realize he shoulda sent you to join mommy the moment you got back.” Shaking his head, the dog pushed off the wall and started to walk away. “Can’t wait to see what he does then, shit-head.”
\tDarron shook. Before he knew it, he was moving. The howling rain surged, yet even still he knew his paws made no sound.
\tRage darkened his vision only momentarily, and when it returned, the sight that greeted him brought a satisfied smile to his face.
\tThe thug gurgled wetly, his body trembling in reflexive spasm. Darron pulled him closer by the knife handle buried in the side of the thick neck, neatly severing his windpipe. No outcry had even been possible. Once more on a rainy night, he felt that creeping warmth seep through his fur.
\tThis time, he didn’t care. He welcomed it.
\t“You sicken me,” he snarled into the startled dog’s ear. “You took everything from me, and you didn’t once think…?” A sudden feral urge to rip the huge thug’s face open with his very teeth threatened to overwhelm the wolf’s mind. Instead, he wrenched the blade free, destroying his victim’s throat entirely and spattering the ground with blood. “Ever think I want every single one of you cunts dead?!”
\tDarron pulled the dying fur around, glaring into his panicked eyes as they gradually lost focus. The wolf trembled, unbelievable hatred consuming him whole. Boundless anger, frustration and bitterness, so poorly contained for almost eight years, and it all flowed freely now.
He raised the knife again.
“I want everybody fucking dead!!”

\tWhen the phone rang again, Robert’s finger was already hovering over the answer button.
\t“Hello?” he asked, contorting himself to allow an officer to squeeze past him in the claustrophobic van.
\t“Dad,” Mike’s voice began. “We can’t find anything. Can you think of anything else?”
\tRobert hissed in cold disappointment. If they’d gotten a more accurate location, the police could’ve just extracted the kits quickly and quietly. But they’d have to try the alternative the sergeant had offered. The one Robert hated. “I was just talking with the police here,” he said slowly to his son. “We do have another idea.”
\t“Yeah?”
\tRobert hesitated. Should he just order the boys to stay put? Or try this stupid plan to get them out of the site of a possible firefight?
\tThe sergeant was watching him, and he caught the fox’s eye. He simply nodded once.
\tDamn it.
\t“You have to head to the giant crane. It’ll be visible to you almost anywhere if you just look up and around. It’s massive, several storeys high, and there’s a red beacon-light on top of it.”
\t“… What…?” the boy whispered in a tiny voice.
\t“You’ll have to move, Mike. Come to us. We can’t come to you if you don’t know where you are. We need to get you out of there.”
\t“Okay…”
\t“I know.” Robert closed his eyes. This was fucking stupid. “I know you’re scared. But there are your choices, Mike. I’ll let you decide. Whatever we settle on, I will get you both out of there. I promise.”
\tThere was some urgent, hushed conversation on the other side. The kits were discussing it, but Robert couldn’t make out a single word. He knew his son was a smart kid, but if they misjudged their own abilities here, or made one mistake… they wouldn’t make it home alive.
\t“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he quietly asked the sergeant.
\tThe canine shrugged. “Hell no. But everything you’ve told me? I don’t think we should let them just sit around. They’re not safe there, and we have to assume the bad guys hold the security control centers and checkpoints – for all we know, they’ve been seen on the CCTV and their hiding place is compromised already.”
\t“And there’ll be plenty of cameras in the warehouses…” Robert growled to himself. “Aw, damn it.”
“The crane’s the best landmark on the docks, near an entrance and it’s very open. I can get snipers to cover the area very well, even from outside the fence, and we can get to them fast. I want the hostages out before we try to contact the assholes in there – they’ll step up their efforts to find them if we do it the other way around.”
\t“Dad?” the phone squeaked. “O-okay. We’ll try it. We’re hurt but we can do it.”
\t“Hurt?” Robert demanded, his eyes widening. “What’s wrong?”
\t“My leg’s been cut, and Tai was beat up.”
\tRobert swore. “Alright, look, if you’re sure you can handle getting to the crane, we’ll meet you there.”
\t“We don’t know where the crane is, though!”
\t“That’s fine. You’ll find it. It’s away from the water, and look for the beacon lights up high. Listen, Mike…” Robert turned slightly and lowered his voice. For some reason, he didn’t think the police needed to hear. “I’m so proud of you. You’re both so brave. I can’t believe how well you’ve done. It’s still your choice. You can wait there if you like. If you do go for the crane, the cops will set up snipers to try and protect you. All you need to do is be quiet and get there.”
\t“Stealthy?”
\t“Exactly. Don’t need to be quick about it. Just take your time and be safe. Just be safe.”
\t“Okay…” The kit sniffed. “Um… j-just in case: I love you, dad.”
\tRobert smiled. “You know what, Mike? Tell me about it when we get home. Does pizza sound good tonight?”
\t
\t“I don’t think we can do this…” muttered Tai.
\t“Of course we can,” Mike told him. “Just w-wrap it around the cut. Not too tight!”
\tTai eyed the bloodstained, exposed section of Mike’s thigh. The wound bled still, the watery redness slowly seeping into the matted fur like diluted paint. It was disgusting, and Tai was glad the wet fur obscured his view of the gash. “Are you sure we’re not supposed to put anything else there? What about that stinging stuff?”
\t“It’s only temporary!”
\t“What does that mean?”
\t“It’s just for a little while.”
\tWith a shrug, Tai gave up. “Okay…”
\tIt took a little time for Tai to get the bandage around his friend’s leg. He tried to be careful, but even still, Mike winced. “Ow!”
\t“Too tight?”
\t“No, it just hurts. I’m okay.” Mike inhaled deeply. “S-so, did you see a crane anywhere? Do you know where we’re meant to go?”
\t“… No.” Carefully, Tai knotted the bandage in place. It was a terrible job, but then again, he had no idea what he was doing. His fingers were still numb, too. “… Mike, I don’t want to…”
\tThe barky-furred pup straightened. “Me neither…”
\t“Can’t we just wait?” Tai stumbled backwards, barely regaining his balance before slamming into the filing cabinet again. He leaned on it heavily.
\tThey were both tired.
\tIt wasn’t just a tiredness like they felt before bedtime, but a horrible weariness that pervaded their whole, hurting bodies. After the encounter with the tiger, then after calming down in the dubitable safety of the office, Tai had noticed his vision becoming fuzzier and distant. Disconnected. Like he was sleepily watching a boring school play rather than facing a harrowing, dangerous reality.
\tIt was impossible to imagine Mike felt much better. Yet the older boy seemed pretty focused.
\t“We don’t know how safe we are here!” he insisted rationally. “Someone just has to look inside and see… they’ll find us.”
\tTai groaned weakly, trying to fight the urge to ignore Mike’s words and fall asleep right then and there on the bristly, unpleasant carpet.
\tSighing, Mike leaned on the desk. He looked around, and had to admit he felt a little dizzy. Only minutes before, he’d wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep. Then the mere idea of getting to true safety, being in his dad’s arms again, had given him a glimmer of energy. Like a small spark of hope.
\tBut even still, the plan to just hide and let everything blow over still sounded so very, very appealing.
\tTai stumbled into the messy desk and slowly lowered himself to the ground. “Unhh…” he moaned quietly. “A-are you sure we can do it, Mike?”
\tSadly, Mike appraised his exhausted friend for a few moments, and then sighed. “No. I’m not.”
\t“Do we have to?” Tai rested his head on the desk’s side.
\t“Yeah. It’ll be dangerous, but so will staying in here. We gotta be tough.”
\tClosing his eyes for a brief moment, Tai almost seemed to fall asleep. Then he took a deep, shaky breath and pulled himself upright. “Okay. I-if you say so.”
\tThat settled it, Mike supposed. “Okay. Did you see a huge crane anywhere? Bigger than any of the buildings?”
\t“No.”
\t“That’s our first objective!” Mike smiled wanly. “We need to find the crane. That’s our mission.”
\t“Okay.” Tai returned the faint smile.
\tMike picked up the phone and stabbed in his father’s phone number. He took a deep breath and held it to his perked ear.
\tIn seconds, Robert had answered the phone. In a quavering voice, Mike told his father their decision. Tai simply watched and listened, ears pricked.
\t“Alright.” Mike nodded glumly. “We’ll be careful. Love you dad… so does Tai.” The tawny kit blinked. “We will…”
\tExpectantly, Tai waited while his friend placed the phone on its cradle. “What did he say?”
\tThe brown-furred kit blinked wearily. “W-we have to find the crane. There’re lots of bad guys out there, so we need to be sneaky. We don’t need to rush… the cops are gonna set up snipers.”
\t“What’s that?”
\t“Um, they hide and shoot enemies from ages away.” Mike pushed away from the desk. “If they can see us, they’ll shoot any bad guys that get close to us.”
They started to limp towards the small office’s exit. “I guess we can go the way… he got in,” Tai suggested.
\tHobbling after him, Mike nodded. “I s’pose. It’s gotta lead somewhere.” Truth was that Mike was glad Tai thought of heading that way. He didn’t want to pass near the stairs leading to the fire-escape, or be forced to look at either of the corpses he knew were near there.
\tThey stumbled together along the short service corridor Marco and the lemur had exploded from. Another dry, musty and unpleasant hallway – Mike was getting sick of those already, though he had to admit they were better than warehouses, or being out in the torrential rain… or in the drainage ducts again.
On the wall they spotted a corkboard, with various notes pinned on it. Mike gave it a passing glance, but it just seemed to be timetables or schedules of some sort. Fuse boxes and pipes lined the short corridor as well, but neither kit was curious enough to investigate anymore.
\tThe unlocked door at the other end predictably opened into another messy alleyway. Mike poked his head out and was instantly blinded by the pelting rain as it cascaded off the warehouse roof and splashed into his face.
\tHe flinched away. “Ugh!” he groaned. “I hate the rain!!”
\t“What’s wrong?” squeaked Tai.
\t“Rain in my eyes!” The brown-furred kit again snuck a peek outside, this time covering his head with a paw. The alleyway was clear, but almost instantly he felt the nip of the cold, and wanted to retreat back inside.
\tIt had been bad before, but without a shirt he felt the breeze penetrate his fur easily. Going shirtless was something he’d done many times before, but never, ever before had he though to try it in heavy, frigid rain for some reason. Tai had been enduring it up until now though, and there was no dignified way Mike could ask for his shirt back. Besides, Tai needed it more than he did.
\tGlancing back, he saw his friend cringing away from the doorway.
\t“Come on,” Mike said gently. “It’s okay. We’ll only be out for a little while.”
\tTai shivered and shot his friend a reproving, sour glance. “But we don’t even know where we’re going,” he complained.
\t“We’ll find out. C’mon.”
\tIt didn’t seem like Tai wanted to move just yet. So Mike did the one thing he was sure would get him moving.
\tWithout waiting, he snuck out into the alley, shielding his eyes from the rain. Trying to keep as much of the rain as he could off of him, he stayed close to the warehouse’ wall, seeking shelter in its shadow. Eventually, he heard Tai give a plaintive whimper and start to follow.
\t“Mike, slow down!” Tai limped over to his friend. As Mike stepped around a large dumpster, Tai moved to follow but tripped on the metal bin’s edge. “Ah!”
\tImmediately Mike turned and helped him up. “You okay?”
\t“Ow! I’m alright.”
\t“OK, we need to find the crane… maybe we can get up higher and look around?” Mike looked up, shielding his eyes again. There were fire escapes on both of the large warehouses, but none of them reached the rooftops. “Ugh. Let’s keep going.”
\tTai wrapped his arms tightly around himself, slowly padding after Mike as the older boy led the way. Mike stopped at every corner and peeked surreptitiously around them, silently beckoning Tai to follow him. The rain crashed noisily down around them, and Tai had to squint to see more than several feet away. They struggled onwards though. Tai instinctively trusted his friend to scout the unlit alleys and dark passageways at each turn.
\tLuckily, they never encountered anyone.
\tAt last Mike led them past the warehouses, and they found themselves amidst a forest of shipping containers.
\tAs far as Tai could tell, there were hundreds of them, laid out in orderly grid formation in a huge concrete field. He ducked closer to one of them, trying to hide from the rain.
\tThe older boy slowed down when they past several of them, stopping eventually to gaze skywards.
\t“What i-is it?” asked Tai.
\tMike raised a paw to his eyes. “Dad said that there was a red light on top of the—” He flinched away. “Ah! Crud! A raindrop just landed in my eye!”
\tTai looked up and frowned. A heavy mist had descended over the docks. The frigid ocean winds and rain was reacting with the comparative warmth of the land, creating a dense fog. He could see nothing. As he stood squinting into the rain, the wind whipped up and swept down the vast aisle of shipping containers. Standing so upright and caught off guard, Tai was blown against the thick metal of one of the containers.
\tDazed, he fell to his backside.
\t“Tai, you okay!?” Mike cried, stumbling himself.
\tTai nodded. He looked up to address his friend. “I’m okay…” Something caught his eye. A faint glimmer of color that flickered weakly through the twisting shroud of mist and rain. He frowned, staring just beyond his friend’s head. Was that…?
\tThere it was again. Almost impossible to see. A faint, red dot blinking in the fog. It was high off the ground, judging from the angle. Very high.
\t“There!” He pointed, pulling himself upright. “Over there!”
\tPuzzled, Mike looked around. “I don’t…”
\t“Right there!” claimed Tai, pointing. “No, up a bit!”
\t“I can’t… oh.” Mike swallowed. His shoulders visibly slumped. “Th-that’s gotta be ages away!”
\t“Not really!” Tai said excitedly. “When the weather is like this, sometimes even when things are really close you can’t see them.”
\t“I’ve been in fog before…” Mike said dubiously.
\t“I’ve been in fog hundreds of times! Mom and dad used to work at the harbor, a long way from home! Sometimes wh-when I was with them, and it started raining, this super-thick mist would come in from the sea. You could get lost in the parking lot!”
\tMike groaned. “That’s not good!”
\t“But we can see that light! It has to be close!” Tai felt a rush of relief. Judging from the wind and what little he could figure out of their orientation, their goal lay in the opposite direction from the stormy waterfront. He approved of that.
\tWith a resigned groan, Mike started to trudge in the direction of weak beacon light. “Alright… let’s go.”
\tTai staggered after him. The sudden movement blurred his vision and he stumbled, be he pressed on. Suddenly, he understood what ‘bone-weary’ meant. It was such a deep tiredness, but the need to keep moving, to stay awake, and to endure the freezing rain, kept him from truly feeling sleepy. It wasn’t something he’d felt before. In a way, it was almost interesting.
\tThey wandered the maze of metal boxes for an indeterminate amount of time. Exhausted as they were, moments seemed to blend together. Occasionally, Tai felt a strange falling sensation and he caught himself a split second from collapsing to the ground. Each time he did, he struggled to refocus on the brown-furred body that was only feet away, but as hazy and indistinct as everything else in the fog.
\tWalking along on autopilot, Tai didn’t even register the loud scraping sound and the clanging of metal. However, Mike whirled around, grabbing Tai’s shoulders and urgently pulling him back. “Get back!” he hissed at his startled friend, sounding frightened.
\tThey ducked behind the narrow side of a container, and Mike peeked around it while Tai rested against it.
\tPuzzled, Tai strained to hear what was going on.
\tThe clanging continued, and he felt vibrations travel down the container’s length. There was some muted chatter, but he couldn’t make anything out.
\tHeart thumping in his ears again, Mike peered intently into the obscuring mist. He hadn’t heard the two adults - all sound muffled by the dense fog and drowned out by the pouring rain - until he almost rounded the corner and smacked into them. They had roughly jerked open one of the containers doors. Had they just been a little more gentle, Mike may not have noticed them until
\t“How many are there?” quavered Tai, tucking his paws under his armpits.
\tMike noticed he was starting to shake now. Violently, the way Tai had earlier. The cold was starting to numb his body, and water was dripping incessantly from his nose. “J-just two, I-I think.”
\t“What should we do?”
\t“I don’t know! Hold still!”
\tThere was another loud clang, and the container shook with a resounding bang as it was closed. Mike winced.
\tA powerful beam of light lanced out to the side of the metal oblong, and a rattling like that of a trolley could be heard. At first, it sounded like rumbling thunder. Mike frowned, trying to hear any hints of what was going on. The bright torchlight suddenly swung around and pointed directly at him. “At the other side!” the torch wielder cried loudly over the rain.
\t“Oh crap!” Mike squeaked, pulling his head in and clawing at Tai, trying to pull the smaller kit to his feet. “Come on, go, go!!”
\tMike tried to pull his friend along, but Tai’s cramped legs refused to work and he fell face first to the concrete. Panicking, Mike helped him up before resuming attempting to drag the kit with him.
\tThey retreated back another container, and stopped to take cover behind it again. Mike leaned against the metal surface, breathing heavily as he heard the ear-piercing screech of the door they had just been hiding behind being wrenched open.
\t“Ow…” Tai groaned, rubbing at his knee. Despite his jeans and fur, he’d banged it on the wet concrete painfully. Another random injury to add to the collection.
\tEventually, they stuck their sodden heads out past the container’s edge and squinted into the fog. The adults slammed their container shut and started towards the one beside it. They were speaking, laughing to one another, but neither kit could hear them too well.
\t One of them withdrew a handgun, and the kits shrank back. Had they been seen?
\tBut neither of the grownups turned around. The unarmed one undid the locks and deadbolts on the door and hauled it to the side, to the sound of an ear-rending scraping noise. They stepped into the large metal box.
\tAnother voice suddenly could be heard. A younger, female voice.
\tA smaller figure burst out into the rain, and both boys gasped.
\tThe fog rendered their vision indistinct, but it was clearly a smaller female. She stumbled drunkenly around before collapsing to the harsh blacktop, only just breaking her fall in time – her wrists were bound together. Even at the distance they were at, her disoriented sobbing was easy to hear.
\tOne of the adult furs, the one with the handgun, hauled her to her paws and dragged her back to the container. With a mocking laugh, he cuffed her on the back of the head and callously shoved her in. It was impossible to see what was happening in the container, but then neither of them was entirely sure they wanted to.
\tWhimpering, Mike found himself clutching his smaller friend’s paw. “T-Tai? What’s going on?”
\tThe tawny kit drew away from the sight. “Th-they’re gonna sell her.”
\t“She’s a slave?”
\tTai shook his head. “She’s a person. They kidnapped her.”
\t“We have to help!” Mike bit his lip for a second. Then he groaned in frustrated fear. “Unnhh! We can’t!”
\t“They’ll just beat us up and take us too.” Tai looked up at his friend with wide eyes. “We’ll tell your dad. The police. They’ll rescue them.”
\tAfter a moment, Mike nodded. In a very peculiar way, it hurt to agree. There was nothing they could do. They were just kids. Though he hated even thinking that, it was true: the container would be locked, and they were no match for the grownups who held the keys. Nor did they have the time to sneak around looking for other options.
\tThey had to leave these people behind them and hope the police could save them.
\t“We… we should move!” Mike’s voice shook noticeably. They had nearly been spotted.
\tTai nodded, limping closer to his friend’s side. “Okay.”
\t“Let’s move out to the side a bit…” suggested Mike, shakily wiping at his sopping head and facial fur. “Then keep going towards the light.”
\tTai nodded. “Alright.”
\t
\tThe sergeant circled the area on the satellite map with a thick red marker before turning to address the team. And of course Robert, who refused to be left out of the quick field briefing.
            After all, he had something for them, and he'd be damned if he couldn't contribute to saving his own children.
            They had quickly transferred to another van. Or rather, a truck, which was significantly more spacious. Heavily armed and armored officers watched their sergeant with a quiet confidence, and their professional bearing instilled far more confidence in Robert than he'd felt in the last twelve hours. After quickly filling in his officers on the situation, the sergeant turned to the fox.
            "Mister Donaldson, you said you had some intelligence for us?" he asked in a clipped voice.
            Now it was his turn. Robert coughed and stepped forward. He lifted up his laptop and set it on the table just near the whiteboard, turning it to display the screen to the assembled police officers. "Yeah," he murmured, his throat oddly dry. "Yes, we do. There's a large amount of cellular radio transmissions in the docks at the moment. Far more than you'd expect at two in the morning, and not near any of the guard posts."
            The officers just watched him quietly. Robert felt himself getting slightly nervous. "As I'm sure you know, cell phones today are equipped with geo-positional systems. As, uh, as your sergeant explained to you just before, this is how we managed to locate the hostages before their signal died. They're usually very accurate." He hit the return key and a detailed overhead map filled the fifteen inch screen, with yellow blinking dots slowly crawling all over it like lethargic ants. "Anyone holding a working cellular phone in the docks tonight is having their movements tracked by global positioning satellite. Here we have a high-definition map of the entire, uh, docks, and we've got their positions superimposed on it. Unfortunately, the storm is making high-definition satellite surveillance almost impossible, and it's screwing with GPS signals." Robert coughed. "This is the best we can really do. If the bad guys have a mobile phone on them, we can get their rough position. I imagine that can be relayed from this laptop to anyone in the field by radio?"
            An officer, a wiry dingo, nodded. "Sure can, sir," he confirmed. "It's a safe bet most of the perps have cell phones, too."
            "The CIA can do this shit?" murmured a raccoon officer, looking discomfited.
            Robert chuckled. "The CIA?" he laughed. "I'm not using CIA resources to do this - I can't. Any nosy wanker with a working internet connection nowadays can trace someone via their cell phone. All I've done is asked my friends in the office to help me collate the data onto a publicly available map."
            "Alright," The sergeant said gruffly. "Here's what we've had to do. The hostages were incapable of giving us their location, so they've been instructed to head to the large construction crane marked on the map. The construction site is relatively new, a new warehouse block, and it's as unobstructed an extraction point as we're going to get." He quickly drew a few crosses on the map. "It's also street-side. Franca and Skenazy, you'll be on top of this multi-storey car park. Avery and Jackson, you guys'll be up here on this office building's roof. We haven't had time to check out these locations, but they should let you cover the rescue team. Rescue team, you guys make your way to the construction site. When the hostages come into contact with you, take them into custody and get out of there. Extraction point is here." Now he marked a spot on the main dockside road, only a few hundred meters from the construction site but nonetheless outside the dockyard's boundaries.
\t“There will be medics there ready to give them medical attention and get them downtown.” The canine eyed Robert firmly. "This is where you'll be waiting. Go with your kids to the hospital. We'll handle the rest. Leave the other agents here with us. I think you've done all you need to do."
            "Alright," Robert said. He was tingling all over. "I can do that."
            "What little information we've got indicates little activity near the construction site. Don't expect many contacts there, all the activity is towards the waterfront and warehouses, but if you see anyone endanger the hostages, take them down. If you can see clear to doing so only, bring them in. We've got two children to rescue here, don't take any chances." The sergeant shook his head. "Alright. Marksmen, get to your positions. We don't have much time. Extraction team, let's talk about how you're getting there..."
            Robert spaced out. The image of the lazy, doughnut-devouring NYPD officer was crumbling before his eyes. Whether for good or ill, these officers probably took their job more seriously than anyone he'd ever met - possibly even more so than those he'd met in the military. It was reassuring, but a bit unnerving. It reminded him of why he steered clear of surveillance teams and some of the more intense jobs at the agency. It was a chaotic business at times, and he was glad when he finally got his cosy office-bound analyst post away from the active operations. At least he didn't have people yelling at him to get some uncooperative bit of technology to work, as if fuzzy sat-imaging was due to him not wanting a clearer resolution enough. He'd had enough of that by his first two months; Robert preferred things to be a little more relaxed.
            The officers the sergeant had picked out stood and bustled out of the van.
            The sergeant went on, offering directions to the remaining officers. Robert watched on.
            Eventually, the briefing was over, and all the cops quickly got to their paws and left with nary a word. The sergeant came over to Robert.
            "Like I said," he began, "I'll have an ambulance and paramedics waiting up the dockside road. You should wait with them. From what you've told me, they're going to need a hospital visit."
            Robert smiled. "They probably will. Not that they'll be happy about it."
            "Just remind them they'll be getting lollypops if they behave for the doctor. They still do that, right?" The sergeant smiled wryly.
            "Honestly, I have no idea." Robert chortled. "I imagine the emergency room works differently to the family doctor's office."
            "We'll have several officers waiting with you. I doubt anyone will follow the SWAT team to the ambulance, but just in case."
            "They can also keep an eye on me, right?"
            "That too." The sergeant shrugged. "Nothing personal. I'm sure you consider yourself otherwise but for all intents and purposes you're a civilian here."
            "Believe me, sergeant. I wish I really was one. Then none of this would've happened."

\tThe rain wasn’t letting up. Once again, Tai’s entire body had gone numb and his muscles had contracted painfully. As they stumbled wearily along the side of yet another long, unremarkable building, his slender legs went stiff.
\tWith a weak gasp, Tai fell against the dull brick wall. “Wait!” he groaned. “Mike!”
\tThe bigger boy stopped slinking along and looked back. As quickly as he could, he limped over. “Are you alright?” the brown furred kit asked, helping his friend upright again. “What happened?”
\tTai shook his head. “I don’t know!” A white flash lit up the sky, briefly blinding both of the kits. Scarcely half a second later, a mind-shatteringly loud explosion shook the ground. Unable to help himself, Tai jumped and gave a tiny scream.
\tEven Mike winced. “It’s okay!” he said, though his words were hard to discern over the rain. “Come on. You can do it! We’ve not got long to go!”
\tShakily, the tawny kit leaned on his friend and took a step. “Unh!” he sobbed, collapsing against Mike’s side. “My legs hurt!”
\tMike whimpered to himself. “I-it’s a cramp!” he said. “That’s all! It’s coz it’s cold and we’ve been doing a lot of running.”
\tTai shook his head again, this time more vigorously. “I can’t walk!”
\t“Tai, we can’t stop!”
\t“Please! I can’t walk anymore!” On cue, Tai’s knees buckled and gave out, forcing Mike to catch him. He gave a strangled cry. “Ow! Mike! It hurts!”
\tAfter a moment, Mike swore in a strangely whining voice. “Okaaay… come on, let’s find a place to rest! There was a place back this way.”
\tSupporting the smaller kit’s weight again, Mike limped back the way they had come. They headed back to an undercover parking bay that they had past not long ago, where a large semi-trailer was parked. Mike took them both towards the back of the darkened recess until their progress was blocked by the thick metal roller door shutting off the building’s interior loading bay.
\t“Here!” the barky-furred kit gasped, slowly easing the smaller boy to the ground between the massive shutter and the imposing grill of the gigantic vehicle. The most sheltered spot available.
\tHe pulled over a nearby milk crate and nearly slipped on a sodden newspaper, causing another fresh burst of pain to wrack the cut on the back of his thigh. Then he promptly slid to the wet bitumen himself. “Ah, ow!” he groaned. “T-Tai, sit on the crate.”
\tTai groaned quietly, gingerly rubbing at his calves and thighs. “I c-can’t! My leg won’t listen, I can’t stand up.”
\t“Okay, never mind then.” Smiling slightly, Mike scooted a little closer. “It’s a charley horse,” he said clinically. “Must be a pretty bad one.”
\tTai didn’t reply, instead focusing on trying to massage his legs. “Oww!” he whined, balling up a fist and weakly pounding his thigh. “This hurts worse than anything!”
\t“What about what happened to your ribs?”
\tThe tawny kit blinked. “E-except that.”
\tMike snorted, leaning against the metal shutter and closing his eyes. The steady hissing of the rain was oddly pleasant.
\tIt felt so nice to just be sitting down. To let his eyes close.
\t“No!” Mike suddenly growled at himself, snapping his eyes open again. “Ngh. T-Tai, we can’t wait too long. We’re not safe here.”
\t“Okay.” Tai groaned and stretched his leg. “This is stupid.”
\t“Huh?”
\t“I’m sick of getting hurt.” The tawny kit blinked owlishly, staring at his leg as the pain slowly ebbed away. It didn’t disappear entirely, but it did diminish. “It’s stupid.”
\tMike shrugged wearily. “We haven’t been shot,” he said reasonably. “That’s good.”
\t“Some of them had bigger guns. Did you see?” Tai rubbed at his face, trying to stop the water dripping into his eyes. “Um, not pistols. Bigger.”
\t“No…” Slowly and ungainly, Mike lurched to his paws and staggered to the truck’s cabin. “They did? What sort of guns?”
\t“I don’t know. I don’t know much about guns.”
\tMike peered down the length of the semi-trailer at the lashing rain outside. The storm showed no signs of calming, at least not yet. Even still, he figured it’d be a bad idea to wait for it to calm anyway. His dad said the police would be waiting.
\t“I bet my dad has a gun,” he murmured aloud. “He just hid it from me.”
\t“My mom did.” Tai shifted. “A bigger one. It was dad’s. Um, a rifle I think it’s called. He used to hunt stuff with it.”
\t“Your dad was a hunter?!” Mike turned around. “Seriously?”
\t“Yeah. He said it was easier to hunt for meat for the winter, um, rather than go shopping at the market and spend all our money.” Tai nodded. “He once told me he first went hunting when he was ten.”
\t“Whoa. He was my age?” Mike leaned on the cold metal. “Did he get to shoot anything or was he just watching his dad?”
\t“He said he used to hunt little things by himself when he was that age.”
\t“Wow!” Mike frowned thoughtfully. “That’d be cool. Wish I could have a gun.”
\t“Why?”
\t“Why not? Then I could’ve shot that jerk tiger. We wouldn’t be here.” After a pause, he stared right into Tai’s watery green eyes. “And if you or your mom had a gun, don’t you think your mom could still be here?”
\tTai stared at his shoes. “I would’ve been too scared to do anything,” the kit whispered dully. “I always am.”
\tMike shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t be. No way.”
\t“What? Why?”
\tThe older boy just smiled.
\t
\tLieutenant Edwards was feeling decidedly old.
\tHe wasn’t actually old. No, he was coming up on his thirty-fifth birthday. The collie was in the prime of his life. Or so he kept telling himself.
\tHowever, he’d chosen tonight to show up to work slightly hung-over and with less sleep than he’d usually get by with. In fact, it had been some time since he’d done a live field operation of any kind with SWAT, but his ‘seniority’ bit him in the ass. They needed every single officer they could spare, rousing him from his warm bed he shared with his wife.
\tSo, he slinked along miserably, the rest of his team following his lead. Their booted paws made no audible sound over the crashing of the rain, which splashed irritatingly into his goggles, and visibility was atrocious. It wasn’t the most pleasant night, but if Edwards was right about things, they’d be grateful for the storm before things were done for the night. This was nothing like the usual op.
\tIn fact, he couldn’t recall doing anything like it in years of police work. It was always interesting to try new things, he just wished he was in a better position to enjoy it this time.
\tAs they rounded the first building and snuck along its monotonous brick length, beginning their stealthy infiltration into the dockyards, a paw tapped his armored shoulder. “Sir, contact three o’clock high!” one of his officers hissed. “Sentry. Second floor fire escape, side of the warehouse.”
\tEdwards ducked beside a large loaded pallet holding several dozen sodden cardboard boxes. His team took cover beside him, somehow managing to fit all four of them behind the pallet.
\tSquinting up in the savage rain, Edwards could scarcely focus on the silhouette leaning over the railing of the fire escape. From the looks of things, the guy was squinting blindly into the rainstorm himself.
\t“He’s got a gun,” muttered the lieutenant, shifting slightly. “And no peashooter either.”
\t“I can take him from here.”
\tEdwards shook his head. “Don’t even think about it, we’d give our position to every son of a bitch with ears around here.” The collie sighed and raised a paw to his shoulder-mounted radio. “Command, this is bravo-four. Got an armed sentry about thirty feet from us, on the second floor of the street-side warehouse fire-escape. Over.”
\t“I guess this guy doesn’t have a cell phone,” murmured an officer wryly.
\tThere was a pause. “Copy, bravo-four,” his radio blurted, making him wince. “Charlie-two sees him also. Over.”
\tBriefly, Edwards wondered who ‘charlie-two’ actually was. “Well, he’s right above us. We’d appreciate some help here. Over.”
\t“Ten-four, bravo-four. Our guy is taking the shot. Over.”
\tThe sentry shifted, leaning over the railing. Staring right at the pallet, trying to make sense of the movement he’d seen through the obscuring rain.
\tThe officers didn’t even hear the shot. However, they certainly heard the impact as the subsonic bullet smacked straight into the unwitting sentry’s chest from six-hundred meters away. With a strangled cry, the shadowy figure was knocked sideways and toppled easily to the blacktop. He landed with a thud.
\t“Right. Tango down. Good shot. Shit – we’ve got to move him.” With the appropriate paw-gesture, Edwards crept out from behind the pallet and led the way to the unmoving corpse on the cold bitumen, eyes watching every possible angle, including the roofs fire escapes, down the sights of his gun. “Hudson, get over here.”
\tThere was an odd delay before the other officer stepped forward and crouched at the dead sentry’s legs. “Sir.”
\t“Are you okay?”
\tOfficer Hudson, a young raccoon, looked away uncomfortably. “Fine, sir. This is just… I just never expected to be hiding a body when I applied to SWAT.”
\t“Me neither. This isn’t your typical robbery or drunken ass-hat holding his kids ‘hostage’ though. Come on.” Quickly, the officers dragged the body closer to the warehouse wall, concealing it as best they could.
\tHowever, as they checked the body over, Hudson gestured at the weapon slung around the sentry’s neck. “Sir, look at that thing.”
\t“What about it?” Edwards grunted, standing and fending off a bout of nausea. The bourbon was really talking back to him.
\t“That’s no street-punk gun. It’s a German battle rifle. Large caliber, not the sort of thing you carry around for poppin’ critters. Look at the scope on it.”
\tEdwards shrugged. “The spook told us what we were dealing with. These boys are gun-runners and smugglers. This jack-off alone probably made more money than half the department.”
\t“Yes sir, but the only reason to have a sentry on duty with something like this is if they’re expecting trouble. It’s too obvious, and they wouldn’t need it to recapture the hostages.”
\tFantastic, thought Edwards, scratching his muzzle. But that meant their time wasn’t being wasted – there were serious bad guys here, and it was time for SWAT to do its job once again. “Fuck. Alright. Come on, our job’s simple. We’re just to get the hostages out, then we hold the perimeter while the Coast Guard get in there. Let the soldiers do their job, focus on ours.” He straightened. “Right, let’s hustle; and hope these stupid kids get to that crane so we don’t have to go looking for them.”

\tIn silence, the two kits huddled together, sitting shivering in the corner up against the filthy concrete wall of the loading bay.
\tTightly hugging one another’s bodies together, desperate for what little warmth they could get, they stared at the concrete in front of them listlessly. Struggling to hold onto the miraculous second wind that had enabled them to get even this far. To even this dubious safety.
\tAt last, Tai spoke. “I h-hate being this cold,” he stated.
\t“I just hate the cold.” Mike shifted slightly, trying to loosen his cramping limbs. “I like summer.”
\t“I like winter. But y-you’re supposed to have to have the right clothes for it.” Tai rested his head on the older boy’s shoulder. “If we had the stuff, I could make a fire for us. Hrrr…”
\tThat surprised Mike for some reason. “You k-know how to make a campfire?”
\t“Uh-huh. Dad taught me. He taught me a lot of stuff about survival. When he died, mom tried to do it instead. Then she stopped, so school did it.”
\tMike groaned. “Why couldn’t we have gotten lost in a forest or something then?” he complained. “At least then one of us would know what to do.”
\t“Um, yeah. Remember I told you he was a hunter when he was younger? I don’t remember where he grew up, but it got really cold and snowy there too, so he taught me what his dad told him. I was really, really young, so I can’t remember most of it…”
\tIn fact, it was one of the only things Tai really remembered of his dad. The frustrating mornings where the patient grownup had tried to teach his four-year-old son how to tie knots using a bootlace. He hadn’t gotten a single one down right until some months after his dad had died.
\tHis mother’s tutelage was more successful, probably because he was older. But as time went on, both of them started to lose interest. Eraline never really seemed to believe Tai could learn what she tried to teach him, and Tai detected her hurtful attitude easily, making every failure, every day it took to learn something, frustrate and upset him all the more. Soon, the lessons stopped, to the relief of both of them.
\tLuckily for the fox kit, who relished his time alone in the snowy wilds, every single school he attended saw the merit of teaching the students some basic survival tricks, given where most of their students lived, and Tai practiced them whenever he could – it was an excuse to go out alone, if nothing else. School was horrible, and he knew his dad could have taught him better, but at least these rare lessons were something he was interested in. The whole twenty minutes a week they spent on the topic, he devoured it as joyfully as he could.
\t“You never told me much about your dad…” Mike mused aloud.
\t“I can’t think of anything to say,” Tai deflected quietly.
\tThough Mike nodded. “I know… I don’t like talking about my mom much. I bet you don’t wanna talk about your dad either.”
\tTai thought for a moment. “I-I’ll go first?”
\t“Okay.”
\tThe tawny kit frowned slightly as he tried to think of a place to begin. It wasn’t easy. “Um. He died when I was really young. I really don’t remember much.”
\t“Didn’t you say he died when you were four, right?”
\t“Yeah. I was nearly five though.” Tai’s ears slowly flattened to his skull. “I miss him. He used to play with me. I-I’m sorry, Mike. I don’t remember.”
\tMike shrugged slightly. “It’s okay. My mom was like that… She was really nice. Dad and her took turns to be with me during the day.”
\t“You never went to school?”
\tMike shook his head. “Psh. No. Always been home-schooled. I’m a home boy, yeah!”
\t“D-did your mom and dad always leave you home alone?” Tai looked up curiously. “Mine did. They had to.”
\tThat one gave Mike pause. “Well… not exactly,” he said at last. “Dad doesn’t leave me alone all the time, only sometimes. He usually takes me out with him to do the shopping, or go to meetings, parties, barbecues and stuff. Oh, and swim-meets, football games. I know what you mean though. I’m only alone for a few hours a week like when dad goes to lectures or stuff I don’t need to go with him for – I asked him to leave me alone now and then.”
\t“Oh. Is that where you met your friends?”
\t“Well, met them all over the place!” Mike chuckled. “You only met some of them, you know. Some of my friends are grownups.”
\t“What? Really?” Tai blinked.
\t“Yeah,” drawled Mike, as if the answer was obvious. “I don’t care about how old you are. That’s what school does: makes you think everyone is, like, divided into ages. We’re not. Let’s see… you’re eight, younger than I am, Ernie and Aaron are fourteen and Jake’s seventeen. He isn’t the oldest either.”
\tTai was amazed to discover that this really confused him. Though it made sense, he supposed, the idea of having a friend so much older than him was bewildering. As if it went against some sort of unwritten law. Then again… Mike and, in a way, Jake had already shown him that it could happen.
\t“Why d’ya ask?” Mike suddenly enquired.
\t“Just wondered… When dad was alive, he’d stay with me when mom went out, and when he went out, mom was there.” Tai sighed bitterly. “But then I started school and mom just left me there all day and I’d come home by myself.”
\t“Hmm.” Mike tenderly laid a paw on his friend’s chest. “I never got to meet a friend like you though.”
\tThey fell silent for some time, exhaustion robbing them of words. Tai’s head drooped slightly, and Mike shook him. “Don’t sleep,” he mumbled. “We gotta move soon.”
\tThe littler kit nodded. “Okay.” He inhaled deeply through his nose. Then snorted a giggle back out. “You stink! Yeuch!”
\tThere was no way to prevent it. Mike burst into giggles as well. “It’s the water!” he explained. “From the pipes! The drains!”
\tSuddenly, Tai’s laughter died down, and he hung his head.
\t“I’m sorry I acted like a little kid when we were in the pipe,” Tai muttered sheepishly.
\tIt took a few moments for Mike to even realize what he meant. “Oh. No. I acted like a jerk. Sorry I yelled at you.”
\tTai’s ears slowly drooped. “I got scared. I know we have to be grown up until we get out of here, but… I-I’m sorry.”
\tSwallowing, Mike shook his head. “I got scared too… I didn’t mean anything I said to you then.”
\tFurther silence, before Mike groaned and started to haul himself to his paws. They’d gotten some desperately needed warmth and rest, but they needed to press on. “Ah!” He only just managed to refrain from clutching at his thigh. “Ow! H-here!”
\tStooping awkwardly, Mike offered his paw to his friend. Tai pulled himself upright, hissing in pain as his leg reluctantly unbent.
\tThey limped past the truck to the exit from the bay, and together they stopped to look outwards at the thundering rain and whirling mists. Through the fog, all things had become one distorted gray shadow, and even the pinpoints of light from the high poles and floodlights they knew were out there were faint and fading. Like iridescent fireflies drowning in the roiling storm.
\tMike turned and beheld his friend’s expression. Anxiety and dread stood plain upon Tai’s face as he stared into the meaningless, cold chaos. Eventually, Tai’s fearful eyes met Mike’s.
\t“It’s okay,” Mike said. “Like we said. We’ve gotta be grown up now. If anyone can, you can do it Tai!”
\tNarrowing his eyes, Tai returned his gaze to the wild storm.
\tYeah. Yeah, he could. He knew he could do what needed to be done. Could be strong enough to get it done.
\tMike had taught him how.

\tRobert wrung his paws as he paced around the police car. He had been driven there by some regular officers, and now they waited alongside the ambulance. They had taken up station opposite the docks’ thick perimeter fence, which was lined with coils of vicious razor-wire. Though they were technically in sight of the docks, they were far away from the activity they had detected, easily a mile deeper into the massive complex that hugged the Hudson River. As far and safe away as possible for a quick extraction.
By now, Robert’s jacket was soaked through, but he couldn’t make himself wait in the car. His mind was whirring. There was something wrong here. Or so he had convinced himself.
\tHe had poured over the files, especially the ones containing what little information he could get on Eraline and her assignment eight years ago. There was something so very, very disturbingly wrong about everything right now.
\tThe driver-side door was opened, and the bulkier of the two cops stepped out. He was wearing a thick, nylon jacket, appropriate to the weather and emblazoned with “POLICE” in thick, reflective lettering. It looked very unlike Robert’s sorry excuse of a jacket.
\t“You okay, sir?” grumbled the officer, closing the door. “You don’t look so good. I have some coffee if you’d want some.”
\tRobert laughed nervously. “Oh, bloody hell,” he chortled. “I’d love some, but I couldn’t keep it down.”
\tThe cop nodded. Robert wasn’t sure, but he thought it was a lion. He wasn’t paying too much attention to things like that at the moment.
\t“You know, I have to admit,” the cop said guardedly. “I thought something was shady about this whole thing. Drugs, kidnapping… I guess you could say I thought you were just trying to protect your turf.”
\tRobert shivered. “Believe it or not, the CIA has never been involved in the sale of narcotics – or persons – on the homeland.”
\t“That’s not what the tabloids would have you believe,” chortled the lion easily.
\t“The CIA has limited capacity on American soil,” Robert said dryly. “If you’re looking for a good target for conspiracy theories, try the FBI. We find out who’s trying to blow up our citizens and stop them by sending the military after them. They throw our citizens in jail for smoking a plant.”
\t“Interesting position for a guy working for the government.”
\t“Working for it doesn’t mean you have to agree with it all the time; and I was a freshman once.” Robert smiled at the lion. “Thanks for trying, but I’m going to keep worrying no matter what.”
\t“I had to try. You looked like hell.” The officer chuckled again. Robert had to admit, the guy had a relaxing, deep voice. Oddly, it sort of helped. “You know, I’d swear I recognize you.”
\tThe fox wrapped his arms tightly around his body. “I don’t know about that. I hadn’t spoken to any police in a long time before today.”
\t“I suspect the last one you spoke with was me.” The lion drew back his hood a little, and Robert finally saw his thick, russet mane. “In fact, I’d bet a hundred bucks that I know one of the kits we’re waiting on.”
\t“I…” Robert blinked. “Oh. Damn. Yeah. I do recognize you.” He laughed. “Now that’s a coincidence and a half.”
\t“What was his name again? Tai, wasn’t it?”
\tRobert nodded. “Y-yeah…”
\t“Where’s his mom? Why’re you here for him again and not her?”
\t“Well…” Robert sighed. “She’s… not available right now.”
\tThe powerful feline just shrugged. “Again, huh.”
\tRobert closed his eyes. “It’s not that. She’s dead. Someone… someone shot her. Tai’s an orphan now.”
\tThe lion stared at him. “Oh… shit. Oh my God, that poor kid.”
\t“You have no idea.” Robert turned, squinting up at the blinking beacon light atop the crane. “You really don’t.”

\tIt was a miracle they could still walk, and Tai knew that. It seemed his legs took every opportunity to remind him how lucky he was that they deigned to cooperate.
\tSuddenly, they gave out, and he stumbled to his knees as his muscles surrendered briefly.
\t“Ah!” He closed his eyes tightly. “Come on, please…”
\tThe kit looked up to see his friend continuing on almost equally unstable paws.
\tAll he had to do was follow his older friend. That was all… they were almost home free.
\tWith a groan, Tai placed a paw on a knee and hauled himself upright. It was much harder than he could ever remember it being.
\tHe had to keep up.\t
All he had to do was keep up! He knew he could do it.
\t“We’re almost there!” exclaimed Mike, pointing into the distance. “I can sort of see the crane!”
\tTai nodded, pointlessly as Mike wasn’t even watching him, as he stumbled forwards. They had made their way out of the maze of shipping containers, and now they were faced with an open, gravelly area. The wind lashed at them furiously out in the open, buffeting them, threatening to knock them down again and again.
\t“Come on!” Mike took his paw. He caught the smaller kit’s eye, smiling slightly. It brought a momentary grin to Tai’s own face; soaked through, Mike looked sort of funny.
\tAs they walked on, the gigantic, looming crane came into view. The huge shape started to take form, and Tai realized it now towered many dozens of feet above his head. Looking almost straight up, he could make out the blinking red beacon more clearly. As they moved further inland, the fog was thinning too. Slightly. Beyond the crane, there were only a few more buildings – gray shapes that shimmered behind the veil of the fog. At least, Tai thought they were buildings.
\tThey were almost there.
\tWhen they got even closer, Tai realized the indistinct shapes were buildings, but unfinished ones. Exposed girders and half-complete walls. One of the construction sites seemed to be right by the crane’s base.
\t“I think we should head to the bottom of the crane,” Mike said, leaning closer to Tai’s ear. “Let’s go through that building! We can hide easier in there.”
\t“Okay.”
\tTogether, they staggered towards the entrance to the concrete structure, the gravel giving way to wet, yellow sand. At last, they passed through an entrance in the tall, unpainted wall, and found themselves on the firm, concrete foundations. But to Tai’s dismay, there was no respite from the rain. There was no roof yet.
\tThe kits looked around briefly, struggling to see something in the darkness. Thick metal beams stuck up from the ground, and large piles of concrete slabs and bricks, dotted the center of the foundation. The piles were massive; thousands of pounds of construction material, stacked well above the kits’ heads. The wind howled as it weaved through them and around the thick concrete walls, but nonetheless they provided some shelter.
\tMike hopped a few steps further into the building and squinted into the distance. “I can see the fence!” he said excitedly. “It’s huge, like, I dunno, fifteen feet high. I think it’s covered in razor-wire again. Probably electrified, I bet.” There was a pause. “Hope we don’t have to climb it.”
\tWeary and sore all over, Tai leaned heavily on a metal beam, closing his eyes. He just wanted to sleep now. They had to be safe by now. Since the maze of containers, they had been completely untroubled by anyone. This construction site, so far from the waterfront, had to be safe. Maybe they could just…
\t“Tai!” hissed his friend, suddenly gripping his shoulder. “I just heard something!!”
\tTai almost cried. “Wh-what?!”
\t“I d-dunno! Shh, we should hide!” Mike started to push him towards a pile of concrete, presumably to take cover behind it.
\tThere was a scraping, a heavy boot on concrete, and the boys whirled around.
\tA dozen feet away, a figure had stepped out from behind one of the brick piles. In the darkness and thick fog, all they saw was the large, shadowy figure crouched. Pointing something at them. A gun.
\tUnable to help it, both kits screamed, stumbling backwards desperately.
\tThe figure reacted, straightening up and raising his arms. Pointing the firearm upwards and away. “Shh!!” the figure hissed.
\tBefore he could say much else, other figures slipped out from behind cover, and the kits screamed again. Mike’s legs failed him and he collapsed to the concrete, while Tai turned and unthinkingly made a panicked run for the crane. Someone stepped out in front of him and easily scooped him off his paws.
\t“No!!” he screeched, trying to struggle. His assailant was powerful though, and easily held him aloft.
\t“Calm down!” the fur said urgently. He placed the kit down on his feet, but gripped his arm firmly. “We’re the police! We’re your friends!”
\tTai stumbled and fell to his backside. But he stared at the shadowy figure who had stopped him, garbed in black- or was it dark blue?- entirely, holding a long gun of some kind. The fur’s features were obscured by the darkness, and he could make out no further details.
\tBreathing heavily, Tai tried to stand and break free, but he was easily pulled back down to the ground. Once again, adrenaline flooded his body and his heart started to beat faster. How could he know these were police?! They had snuck up on them and surrounded them, and now they were grabbing at both he and Mike. Capturing them.
\tThat wasn’t what rescuers were supposed to do!
\t“No! Let go!” he wailed, weakly trying to push the adult’s powerful paw off his forearm.
\tThere was a scuffling noise behind him. Paws struggling and slipping on wet concrete. “Get away!!” he heard Mike scream.
\tThe one holding Tai just cursed. “Shit, restrain them and let’s just get out of here!” he ordered, firmly twisting Tai’s arm behind him. “We don’t have time for this. Sorry kid.”
\tWith a terrified wail, Tai found himself being pushed face down to the concrete, his arms pulled behind his backs. Not painfully, but certainly not gently. Something encircled his wrists and suddenly tightened, gripping his skinny wrists. He tried to jerk his arms away but his wrists wouldn’t separate. He had been handcuffed. But it wasn’t metal; at least it didn’t feel like metal.
\tThe adult forcefully pulled him upright. As he did, Tai caught a glance of Mike also being yanked off the ground. His wrists were also bound behind his back; some sort of yellow plastic ribbon…
\t“What are you doing?!” Mike sobbed as the armored grownup easily lifted him and slung his restrained form over a broad shoulder while another did the same with Tai. “Please stop!”
\tBut not one of them listened, and they started to quickly bear the kits away.
\tTai kicked and squirmed, still confused, panicking; but nothing he did fazed the one that effortlessly carried him. He started to cry.
\tAt last, the officer holding him spoke, not pausing in his stride. “Calm down, kid,” he hissed quietly. “It’s just standard procedure. You’re safe now – we just have to get moving. Calm down.”
\tTai surrendered, going limp in the adult’s grasp. His energy was gone, and it was just pointless. He knew that. He was small, they were big, and he was handcuffed – or whatever. It was hopeless to keep struggling. His heart was beating so hard and so fast he thought it’d explode, and he was so scared, but… the fear was being eroded by the exhaustion.
\tHowever, as the coordinated gang of black and blue armored adults hurried along in the howling wind, Tai noticed something. They were being carried away from the docks. They left the construction site behind, passing a thick metal fence over a dozen feet tall. The boy twisted around, urgently scanning the surroundings through the obscuring rain. They weren’t being carried back the way they came.
\tMaybe they really had been rescued? Maybe this was exactly what was supposed to happen after all!
\tThe sudden burst of relief made him feel even fainter.
\tBut Mike continued to cry and weakly struggle. Had he not noticed?!
\tTai relaxed. He couldn’t help his friend now. They’d be okay. They were really safe now.
\t
\tRobert was still staring anxiously at the red beacon when his pointless reverie was interrupted by a garbled bark from the lion’s radio.
\tHe whirled around. “What was that?” he demanded of the officer.
But the lion just shot him a grin. “Jameson here, ten-four.” He rounded his patrol car as the passenger side door opened. A leopard officer got out, hood down despite the pounding rain. “They’re on their way! Told you, sir. I know some of the guys in SWAT. They know their stuff.”
\tBlinking, Robert looked down the street. Squinting into the rain and gradually thinning fog, he saw the oddest sight he even remembered being glad to see. Four of the SWAT officers were awkwardly running down the street, off to the sidewalk. They were carrying two small forms slung over their shoulders and held tightly.
\tHe had to resist the impulse to cry for joy. “Oh, bloody hell,” he whispered to nobody in particular, his knees buckling. “Thank God.”
\tSuddenly dizzy, Robert fell against the side of the ambulance as the paramedics quickly got out. The SWAT officers ran directly over to them, gently depositing the dazed kits on the ground right by the ambulance.
\tRobert moved immediately the moment their paws touched the ground. “Oh, my god!” he gasped, running to them. Unthinkingly, he dropped to his knees and pulled his son into a vice-like hug. “Oh, shit, Mike! You’re okay!”
\tBut Mike was crying, distressed. “Oh, shit!” he wailed, struggling in his own father’s embrace. “Take it off! Please, take it off dad!!”
\tAlarmed, Robert leaned away. “What, what is it?!” he asked. It was only then he noticed Mike’s wrists were tied behind his back with zip-cuffs.
\t“Please!!” Mike repeated desperately. “These are what he used!! Please!”
\tFor a dumbfounded moment, Robert had no idea what his son was talking about. Then he clicked. “Oh, sweet Jesus!” he turned to Jameson, who hovered nearby. “You got a knife? Something to get these things off!”
\tThe feline pulled out a small utility knife and handed it to Robert, who spun his son around and slashed the zip-cuffs off immediately – though a pair of broken handcuffs still encircled the kit’s wrists. He reached out and pulled Tai to him, likewise slashing the plastic straps off. Before he could return the knife to the officer, Mike whirled around and latched onto him like a lamprey eel.
\t“It’s okay,” Robert said gently. “It’s okay. They had to do that, Mike. I’m sorry, I should’ve warned them. Oh, I am so glad you’re safe…”Adjusting his grip, Robert reached out and gently tugged Tai into the embrace as well. The exhausted eight-year-old clung to him immediately. “You too, Tai. You’re both so amazing.” Tears started to pool in his eyes, and the many armed police around them just faded into meaninglessness.
\tOne of the uniformed paramedics, a middle-aged cougar, came over to them and stood quietly holding two thick blankets. Robert ignored him, firmly squeezing the two kits to him. They were all that mattered at the moment.
\t“We fucking did it,” he muttered. “I don’t believe it. I love you both so much. I’d’ve gone crazy if either of you… Oh, fuck!”
\tThe cops clamored around them, speaking quietly into their garbling radios. But the three foxes didn’t even care.
\tAt long last, Robert managed to separate them. He smiled at their exhausted faces as they both wavered on their tired legs. “Okay, boys,” he said, sniffing loudly. “Let’s get you to the hospital. I think the police can take it from here, yeah?”
\tThe paramedic quickly swaddled both kits in those thick fuzzy blankets, and directed them towards the ambulance. “Come on guys, just a quick check up here then we’ll go downtown,” he told them quietly.
\tThey inspected Mike first, having him sit on the back of the open ambulance. The kit could barely keep his eyes open as his pulse was sought, and the medic quickly scanned his cuts and bruises.
\tTai stood by Robert, watching Mike’s inspection detachedly. He was so tired, he almost felt like he was already dreaming.
\tThe rain started to die down at long last, and the wind started to calm. Dazedly, the kit looked upwards. The sky was choked with gray clouds still, but the wind blew them along, slowly but surely dispersing them. The storm was ending, for now, it seemed. He stumbled slightly, dizzied from looking directly upwards.
\t“Oops, you okay?” asked Robert, gently touching the boy’s shoulder.
\t“Yeaaaah…” mumbled Tai. He met the adult’s eyes and smiled. “Thank you…”
\tSomething struck hard him in the back, and Tai stumbled forwards. It hurt, and left behind a cold stinging, almost like a snowball or a wet baseball had been pelted at him. His first instinct was to spin around, looking for whoever threw it. There was nobody there. He frowned. The sting suddenly intensified, and he touched a paw to his chest. “Ah!”
\tAfter a short moment, a bizarre tinny ringing started in his ears, and his exhausted legs buckled. Then gave out completely.
\tAll of a sudden there was an outcry. Rather, he noticed it at last. There were voices crying out, and chaotic activity around him. Somebody caught him, but he felt himself still falling. Being laid out on the wet bitumen.
\t“Wh-what?” he asked softly, his voice sounding dulled and scarcely audible to even himself.
\tRobert’s horrified face loomed into view, then others followed suit. Mike, a familiar faced lion, and the paramedic. The lion said something, but he couldn’t make it out. It was so fuzzy, and the buzzing noise had… he blinked to clear his vision, struggling to listen harder.
\t“Don’t move, okay!” he heard the lion say slowly. His voice was calm, but his eyes were strangely disturbed. “Don’t move, Tai.”
\tTai struggled to raise his head. “Wh-what’s wrong? What’s going on?”
\t“No, don’t move!” insisted the cougar.
\t“Uh? B-but… I-”
“Tai, listen! You’ve been shot!”

\tRobert staggered backwards.
\tWhat was right before his very eyes… could not be. He saw it, but it couldn’t be real.
\tThin, watery blood was already pooling on the bitumen beneath the tawny kit, who looked around, confused. Weakly struggling to move, even as the medics urgently told him to stay still. Some of the red liquid was being washed away, the running rainwater on the bitumen leading it to the drains beneath the sidewalk, but it continued to flow. More and more of it. Steadily, it even oozed from the boy’s chest somewhere, turning the shirt he wore a dark, disturbing red.
\tHe could hear his own son, crying louder than he’d ever heard him. But it sounded so distant. It couldn’t be real either.
\tWhat monster would do this?
\tThe SWAT officers spread out, seeking cover, as the paramedics selflessly flocked to attend the stricken child. One of them had to pull Mike away when he tried to cling to his smaller friend.
\tSuddenly, Robert was running. Sprinting straight towards the construction site the police had come from. An unholy determination seized him, and he withdrew his pistol, loading it without breaking stride.
\tIt fell into place now. It made sense. It all made horrible sense.
\tHe knew what had to be done, and he knew he had to be the one to do it. It couldn’t be any other way.
\t“What the fuck is he doing?!” thundered Jameson, taking only a few steps after the fox, but quickly realizing the vulpine completely outpaced him. “Jesus!” He clawed at his radio. “All units, be advised, the civilian fox running to the construction site is friendly! Hold your fire!”
\tHe whirled around, darting back to his patrol car. “What’s that idiot doing?!”
\tThe brown-furred boy looked around in horror and fear. The warm blanket he held about his shoulders slipped from his suddenly numb fingers and fell to the ground. “What…? What happened?! Wh-where’s my dad going?!”
\t“I have no god-damn idea!” growled the lion, popping the trunk and pulling out a shotgun. “He’s running straight at a fucking sniper! He’s gonna get himself killed!”
\tIn a startlingly composed voice, one of the SWAT officers took a hold of his shoulder-mounted radio and started speaking into it. “Command, this is Bravo-Four! Officers under fire at the hostage evacuation site. A shooter has us pinned down from the construction site, location uncertain.” The collie swore suddenly. “Jesus, he’s hit the fucking kid! Damn it; get the other one down or the fuck out of here!”
\tThe radio garbled something, but it was ignored.
\tJameson growled to himself and slipped into his patrol car, handing the twelve-gauge to his partner. He wrenched the key in the ignition and slammed his paw on the accelerator. The tires screeched abominably on the wet surface and the vehicle lurched forward until the lion spun the steering wheel. The car violently whipped around and Jameson applied the handbrake, repositioning his vehicle to offer some cover to the paramedics and the injured child.
\tConfused, Mike looked from the patrol car to the hastily shrinking figure of his father, then down at his wounded best friend. With a strangled cry, he tried once more to run to his friend’s aid.
\tThe cougar caught him and pushed him away. “No!!” he snapped. “Please, kid, stay away! Get behind something, get behind the car!”
\t“He’s my best friend!” Mike sobbed, trying to push past the adult. “Please!”
\t“Don’t do this, kid! If we have to restrain you, we will!”
\tTai’s eyes closed briefly, and his head rolled. “Mike, what’s going on?” he asked weakly. Mike wailed in response, burying his head in his paws, his knees buckling. A powerful arm slipped around his stomach and he was easily lifted off the ground. Before he could kick at his assailant or complain, he was quickly spun around and hauled over behind the patrol car. Strong paws and arms covered him, gripping his shoulder and encircling his waist; pushing the exhausted kit down firmly to the harsh bitumen.
“Don’t move!” the lion’s voice was loud in his ear. “You have to stay here, Mike. Okay? That shooter could still be out there. Just stay down!”
Crying, Mike couldn’t respond. He struggled just enough that he could see his friend and the uniformed adults kneeling by him.
\tSeveral feet away, the cougar paramedic swore, touching a firm paw to Tai’s neck. “Shock. He’s bleeding out, fast. Get the epinephrine. He needs a transfusion right now. Two-hundred-forty mills.”
\t“Do you think we can get him downtown?” asked one of his colleagues, slipping a rolled up blanket under the kit’s head.
\t“We do this here or he won’t make it downtown.”
\tMike shut his eyes tight.
\tThis couldn’t be happening. Not now.
\tNot now…

\tRobert knew what he was doing was stupid. To say the very, very least. But it all clicked into place somehow. He had to do this, and do it now.
\tThere were other targets there. All of them better choices. Himself. The SWAT officers. There was no reason whatsoever for anyone to shoot Tai. Except for one…
\tAfter firing at the child, he doubted the shooter would hold position. He’d flee, try to slink away. He had to know the police would have a marksman of their own covering the SWAT officers, who would take out an opposing sniper without hesitation, and the shooter wouldn’t risk detection just for the chance to pop a second shot at Robert. No, the shooter was running.
\tBut that just meant he was taking up position elsewhere…
\tThe fox leapt into the construction site, rounding a pile of concrete slabs and continuing to sprint. Ignoring the twinge in his knee as it slowly started to become painful.
\tEven though it was across open space, he headed towards the nearest warehouse. Something told him who he was looking for hadn’t stopped running yet.
\tThere was an alley around the back of the warehouse, and he headed for it. But as he was about to head for it, that familiar feeling once again prickled the back of his neck. He dove past the alley, rolling awkwardly on the wet concrete and slamming into the brick wall. There was a snapping report, followed by a loud crack.
\tRobert pulled himself to a crouch, taking cover by the corner. Two bangs. Single shot. A high powered rifle, easily able to hit a small target from a few hundred meters, even in this weather.
\tBut now what? The shooter would likely hold out in that little alley.
\t“Shit,” Robert muttered to himself, standing up.
\tThere was only the faintest of sounds to give him warning – the crunch of gravel and dirt under a paw. The shooter quickly stepped out from the alley, driving something at Robert’s face. The fox ducked, and the whistling blade just missed his scalp. He tried to raise his paws to shoot, but the knife came slashing downwards this time. With a lick of agony, the blade bit into his forearm. His paw shuddered in spasm, and the firearm slipped from his grasp. It clattered to the wet gravel.
\tThe shooter rushed him, pushing him into the wall and trying to bring the knife down on his collar. With his good paw, Robert narrowly managed to catch his opponent’s wrist… His gaze flitted from the slowly descending knife-point to the crazed yellow eyes that glared at him with utter hatred.
\t“Rrrrghah!!” Darron howled madly, using his free paw to punch Robert square in the face.
\tHis head slammed backwards into the bricks, causing his legs to give way. The knife point descended further, but as the teenaged wolf raised his free paw again, Robert grabbed the elbow of the arm holding the blade firmly, maintaining his grip higher up with his other, unwounded, paw.
\tStepping out to the side and twisting the teenager’s arm, Robert slammed him into the wall shoulder first, effectively exchanging places with him. He continued to twist the arm, pressing the maniacal wolf into the wall. Once again, despite the awkward angle Robert had him at, Darron threw a punch. The punch fell short, and Robert twisted the wolf’s arm further, pulling it downwards forcefully.
\tDarron was thrown to the ground. But he kicked upwards as he fell, and his hard-pointed boot clipped Robert on the side of the neck.
\tThe force of the kick knocked Robert senseless for a second. He released his grip and staggered to his knees.
\tThe wolf lunged at him, attempting to stick the blade into his chest, and Robert narrowly managed to parry the strike. He clutched the teenager’s wrist and barreled into his smaller frame, slamming him up against the wall again. Robert tried to hit his opponent’s wrist off the sharp corner of the wall, but Darron’s grip was strong. It took several attempts before Darron cried out, dropping the knife.
\tRobert quickly kicked it away. The knife skittered across the wet concrete until it disappeared under a dumpster up against the warehouse wall. In response, Darron immediately raised a swift knee, slamming it right into Robert’s groin.
\tThe fox cried in pain, doubling over. So Darron grabbed his head-fur and smashed a fist down onto the back of his skull.
\tUnable to pull free, Robert charged into the teenager’s waist, driving him once again into the warehouse wall. Then he cinched his opponent’s legs, ducking under his center of balance and lifting him off the ground.
\t“Put me down, fuckface!” Darron growled, slamming a forearm into Robert’s back.
\t“Ngh! Gladly, asshole.” Heedless, the fox hurled himself and his cargo at the dumpster’s metal edge.
\tThere was a massive bang as Darron’s spine was rammed into the metal bin, and he stiffened. Robert stepped back, quickly slipping his arms onto either side of the wolf’s surprisingly thick neck, securing a grip behind the head. Willing as much strength as he had into it, he pulled Darron’s head downwards and thrust a knee upwards, using the full momentum and leverage of his body – just as he remembered being taught by a certain ferret so many years ago.
\tThe impact was audible. Darron reeled backwards into the dumpster again, losing his footing.
\tHonestly, Robert thought he had won. The sheer power of that clinching knee had hurt his own leg. He was sure the teenager would go down from it, but Darron simply shook his head clear and leapt away from the dumpster, denying Robert the chance to corner him. It was incredible.
\tThe teenager’s yellow eyes started to refocus, and they narrowed now. Some of the blazing, mindless hatred ebbed away, and he brought his paws up, taking a more measured stance.
\t“Fuck,” Robert growled. All he’d managed to do so far was make the kid take him seriously; meanwhile, his right arm was gashed wide open and he was losing blood quickly. If he’d been able to follow up the knee-strike rather than hesitating, he might’ve been able to end it.
\tDamn it.
\tDarron slipped forward, throwing a short jab. The fox avoided it clumsily, but Darron instantly followed it up with a cross which just missed his nose. Finally, his first paw swung around in a hook, and that connected with Robert’s forehead. There was a clunk, and Robert staggered back.
\tHe tried to throw his own, less-than-confident, punch, but Darron’s movement was slick. His head bobbed slightly to the side, and his counter-punch smacked Robert right on the nose, bloodying it instantly.
\tRobert froze, unsure what to do. But he wasn’t even allowed that momentary respite, and Darron stepped in again, throwing three fast, flowing punches that only barely missed - but this time following with a hard kick that slammed into Robert’s upper thigh. “Agh!” the fox cried, a jolt of pain frazzling his entire leg and jarring his bad knee.
\tHe couldn’t fight the kid like this, he knew. It had been a decade since his hand-to-hand training, and he didn’t even take it seriously back then. His opponent on the other paw seemed to know exactly what he was doing. More than that, he wasn’t just some kid who’d taken a few boxing lessons. Darron knew how to truly fight. Unlike the encounter with Nate, Darron was not critically wounded. Robert could tell that closing with the wolf would be just as disastrous as staying at this range: the wolf kid seemed a dirty street fighter. If his speed in going for Robert’s testicles hadn’t already confirmed that…
\tSo what were his options? He had to be smart about this. He was good at that, he liked to think.
\tBut was he smart enough to defeat an enraged opponent half his age?
\tDarron punched at him again, another measured jab. Robert retreated into the alley, bringing his paws up into a fighting stance of his own. He was so out of practice, he didn’t even have his paws up properly. Bloody hell.
\tSuddenly, Darron darted forwards, closing the distance. He threw a punch to Robert’s gut with his lead paw, but he brought the strike upwards at an awkward angle. Surprised, Robert couldn’t stop it, and the long uppercut slipped between his raised arms, clipping Robert on the chin. The wolf launched another flurry, this time one of the blows catching Robert square on the lower muzzle, and he reeled back. Darron threw another wild low-kick, sweeping the dazed fox’s leg entirely.
\tRobert collapsed to the concrete with a cry. When his vision returned, it was to see Darron’s fist come down onto his nose again.
\t“How do you like this, motherfucker?!” demanded Darron, pressing a knee into his opponent’s chest and raising his fist once again.
\tUnable to see an alternative, Robert struck at the teenager’s groin. Another awkward, upwards punch struck the wolf on the chin, and Robert rolled quickly out from under him, gasping and dizzy.
\tThings had gone slightly hazy, and an oppressive pressure seemed to be squeezing his head.
\tFrustrated and pained, Darron stood. He charged at the fox, drawing a fist back.
\tA last second instinct kicked in, and Robert moved forward, bent at the waist. Unthinkingly, he intercepted his opponent’s charge, slamming into his hips and once again clinching his knees. He tackled the wolf to the ground, and he heard the dull thunk of the back of his head striking the gravel.
\tStunned from the impact and caught completely off guard by Robert’s surprisingly adroit takedown, Darron could only belatedly roll over onto his paws and knees. But Robert had stuck close to him, and immediately pounced, wrapping an arm around the teenager’s neck and cinching his grip with his other. The fox squeezed with all his might, trying to choke the wolf unconscious…
\tDarron recognized the extreme danger, and he started threshing wildly. Robert held him fast, trying to control the wolf’s posture and keeping his weight firmly pinning the kid down. It would only take a few seconds and he had the choke locked tight… but the young wolf suddenly clawed at the deep bloody cut on Robert’s arm.
\t“Aaagh!” Robert howled. Almost instantly, his grip loosened and Darron slipped free frantically.
\tThey both scrambled to their foot-paws again, eyeing one another warily.
\tThe amber eyes were wide now. It brought an involuntary smirk to Robert’s face. Darron had underestimated him. Though he had gotten away, the textbook ‘rear-naked choke’ was likely only a second from rendering him unconscious and the wolf knew it.
Robert tensed, as ready for anything as he could ever be.
\tGrowling, Darron swiftly knelt to grab something down by his foot-paws. There was a harsh scraping sound, and then Darron straightened, holding aloft a stout, three foot long steel pole. Robert felt his heart freeze.
\tDarron gave him a smug, murderous grin before swinging the weapon at him. Robert leapt backwards out of the alley again.
\tThe teenager swung it again, but once again Robert was just out of range.
\tThe fox swore silently, afraid again. He was hurt and tired, while Darron nonetheless seemed still pretty fresh – seemingly spurred on by homicidal madness. Robert had no idea what to do against someone wielding an iron bar like that! He locked his eyes onto the deadly metal implement.
\tSuddenly, he remembered something. Yes, he did know what to do! He’d been shown before by one of the best teachers he’d ever had – it’s no different from any other weapon, he’d been told a hundred times. But knowing vaguely what to do and doing it were not the same things. He struggled to remember the details…
Snarling, Darron raised the pole high and rushed forwards to bring it down upon the still retreating Robert.
\tBut the fox changed directions, darting forwards instead. He raised his left paw, catching Darron’s wrist just before it could swing the weapon downwards. Quickly, Robert stepped across and into the teenager’s body, holding the wrist clutching the weapon up and to the side. He swung other paw upwards to the outside of Darron’s in the process, tightly grabbing Robert’s first arm’s wrist - bending Darron’s elbow sharply backwards between them. An intricate yet quickly completed knot of their forearms, wrists and elbows. A figure-four.
\tRobert spun around, pulling the complicated pretzel their arms had become in towards his own waist. There was a wet tearing sound, and Darron’s feet left the floor. He was thrown to the ground, but Robert continued to control that ruined arm. After the wolf hit the ground with a heavy thud, Robert rolled him onto his front, slamming his knee down on his back.
\tDarron howled in agony – his shoulder joint was torn, but Robert continued to wrench it.
\t“Gotcha, you little bastard!” Robert panted, securing his grip.
\tUnsurprisingly, Darron’s pained cries and gasps were tinged with fury. But Robert held him fast. The kid was defeated, and they both knew it.
\t“I want to talk to you. Darron.”
\tThe wolf’s breathing stopped briefly. “Wha—?” he wheezed. “H-how the fuck do you know my name?”
\t“I know who you are.” Robert tried to slow his own breathing, to no avail. “I know why you did what you did.”
\t“Do you?!” Darron snarled. “What the fuck do you know about—”
\t“Eraline did not kill your mother.”
\tDarron froze. “Wh-what the fuck are you talking about?”
\t“I’ve read the reports. I know what happened to you. To your mom.” Robert lidded his eyes, trying to stop his gasping breaths from interrupting him. “Eraline… was trying to get you out of there, but your mom was caught, Darron. The asshole that bought you caught her, and threatened to kill you, maybe worse, if your mother didn’t try to kill Eraline. The agent that was so close to cracking them wide open. Your mother was killed in self-defense, Darron. She either had to die to Eraline, or your ‘owner’ would do it. Or kill you.”
\t“Bullshit…” Darron said. Suddenly he growled. “Bullshit!! You worthless spy asshole, why would you try to lie about this!? You fuckin’ think I’ll believe—AGH!!”
\tRobert had wrenched the teenager’s shoulder. “Shut up, you self-important little shit!” he yelled at the wolf beneath his knee. “Why would I lie to you? The hell would I gain? You killed Eraline, and here I am trying to tell you the truth instead of being with the little boy you fucking shot!” Suddenly enraged, Robert pushed the wolf’s skull into the concrete. “You killed his mother, my closest friend, and now you’ve probably killed her son too, and you think I’d dignify you by caring whether or not you believed me?! I don’t need to lie to you, and I don’t care if you believe me. Quite frankly, I’m trying to decide whether or not I should kill you. I sure as hell see no reason to let you walk away from this.”
\tAmazingly, Darron fell silent.
\t“You’re child-killing, kidnapping scum. You’re no better than the filth your mother died trying to protect you from, died trying to bring them down; and what do you do? You join them?!”
\t“Stop.”
\t“What?!”
\t“Stop!” Suddenly, Darron sniffed. There was a pause. “What did you do to me? Just then. What was that? Some CIA assassin shit?”
\tRobert sighed. “I’m no assassin. It’s called ‘ude garame’ in Japanese. Arm-entanglement. Just a self-defense move. It’s not CIA-anything.”
\tThe wolf fell silent. “Why…?” he whispered, his previously growl-like, macho voice suddenly quaking and weak. “Why are you telling me this? Why?!”
\t“Because I thought you had the right to know.” Robert gasped, still out of breath. “Because I wanted to clear my friend’s name. Because enough people have been hurt.”
\tDarron tensed, but did nothing.
\t“This was all you. Wasn’t it? You got Eraline killed. You kidnapped the boys, just so you could get some sort of twisted revenge. Some perverted justice. How did you find out where she was? Nate? Did you get him to kill her too? Did you get my son god-damn raped just so you could find out?”
\t“… No…” Darron whispered. “They… got the ferret to do that. I took the stuff he stole… looking for her. Was useless. But then she came back…”
\t“So then you got an innocent mother killed.”
\t“She wasn’t fucking innocent! She still—!”
\t“No, Darron! Jesus Christ, if anyone is to blame for what happened to your mom, it’s the bastard who thinks he owns you, like cattle.” Robert exhaled angrily out his bloodied nose. “You went to work for the one to blame, and you killed the one that risked her life to try and save you! Nice going, kid!”
\tDarron suddenly exploded, his young body surging with strength, somehow getting his knees under his body. Robert cursed, struggling to hold on with his tired arms, but Darron seemed to no longer care about the surely incredible pain in his shoulder. He dislodged Robert, shoving him away and scrambling backwards. He dove at something, agilely rolling to his feet.
\tThe exhausted fox prepared to fight once again, but Darron simply pointed a pistol at him.
\tHis own.
\tRobert froze.
\tBut the teenager did nothing. His eyes watered and his expression was lost, despairing. Hesitant.
\t“So, is this it?” Robert murmured. “You’re going to kill me too? Make my son an orphan too?”
\tDarron didn’t move an inch, though his shoulders heaved with every ragged breath…
\t“He loves me. I know that. If I’m gone… I think you’re one of the few furs alive who know what it’d do to him. You want to be responsible for that? Again? Or do you want to help make sure your mom didn’t die in vain?” He paused, but there was no response. “What are you going to do?”
\tThe wolf shook his head. Tightening his finger on the trigger. “Stop them,” he muttered. “The ship.”
\t“… I don’t understand.”
\t“The ship. Thirty on it already, more in some of the containers…” Darron swallowed.
\tBy now, Robert’s heart had forgotten to beat. “… What are you going to do, Darron?”
\tDarron glared at him, his amber eyes hardening. He moved at last…
\tRobert braced himself, squeezing his own eyes tight shut. He called the image of his son and wife to him. Imagined holding them both. Feeling their warmth. One last time, all together…
\tThere was a sharp, ear-splitting pop, and Robert jumped.
\tHe opened his eyes just in time to see Darron’s limp form collapse to the ground.
\t“Oh…” Robert blinked. “… Bloody hell.”
\t
\tMike knelt on the wet bitumen, huddled up against the dirty metal door of the patrol car. The rain still fell, a steady drizzle that fell on his exposed torso, but he didn’t care.
\tHe had no idea what he was watching. All he knew was his friend was lying scarcely ten feet away. The rivulets of water running down the street were still tinged pink with Tai’s blood, but Tai himself was obscured from vision as the oddly uniformed paramedics crowded around him. They said things to one another, barking orders, doing… things, things that Mike didn’t understand.
\tIt was too much. It was too hard. He wanted to run to his stricken friend; he wanted to say something to him, just in case…
\tBut they wouldn’t let him. They’d pull him away. All he wanted was to be near his best friend – his father had just run off, he could be dying too. But he couldn’t even be with his friend…
\tSome of the police taking cover around the car and the ambulance suddenly moved, bringing weaponry to bear on somewhere behind the car. Slowly, the barky-furred kit crawled forward, not really sure if he cared what it was the cops were suddenly aiming at, yet nonetheless he peered around the rumbling car’s bumper.
\tHe recognized the dark figure, limping towards them. It had both arms above its head, and though Mike was almost blinded by tears, he knew who it was. It had to be.
\t“Hold your fire!” the leonine office barked, advancing slightly on the injured fox approaching the ambulance. “The hell were you thinking?!”
\tRobert smiled weakly. “Got him,” he said simply.
\t“You fucking idiot…”
\tBefore the lion could continue, Mike jumped to his feet and charged right at his father. He wrapped his shaking arms around him… “Oh, dad!!” cried the kit, squeezing as hard as he could. He started crying again, but this time, Robert was there to hold him tight.
\t“It’s okay, Mike,” he said weakly.
\t“N-no it’s not! Tai’s hurt!” The kit’s legs buckled again, and his father had to keep him upright.
\tThe paramedics stood, and the cougar rushed over to the ambulance. Mike broke away from his dad’s embrace, turning to watch with horrified eyes.
\t“Let’s move! He’s lost too much; we have to get him downtown! Before another god-damn shooter shows up!” The cougar’s voice cracked. He sounded desperate as he pulled some sort of metal trolley from the ambulance’s rear door. “Fuck this, I’m not having the first one I lose be a little kid!”
\t Mike stepped towards them, but Robert caught his wrist.
\t“Where are they taking him?!” the boy demanded.
\t“Hospital, Mike,” Robert said softly. “Where we’ll have to go too.”
\t“H-hospital?” Mike froze. “No. No! I want to go with him!” He tried to run to the ambulance, but Robert pulled him back. “Dad! Let go! Please!!”
\tThe kit turned, begging his father to release him with reddened, imploring eyes.
\t“I can’t, Mike…”
\t“No! I want to go with him, please! Let me go!” Setting his feet, Mike pulled as hard as he could, to try to break his father’s steely grasp. “Pleeeeaase!! I won’t get in the way! Let go! I wanna be with him!! Dad, no don’t do thiiiis!!” His voice rose to a scream, but his father held on. After a few moments of struggling, Mike’s knees gave out and the shirtless, wet, trembling kit collapsed to the ground. “Don’t do this… dad… I h-have to say goodbye. I have to say it… I have to say it! Not like mom. Please…”
\tRobert closed his eyes. Mike’s plea easily cut into him deeper than the knife that had gashed open his arm. But he couldn’t… even if the paramedics would allow it, Robert knew his son wouldn’t be able to control himself. He shook his head slowly.
\t“I’m sorry, Mike…”
\t With a broken-hearted wail, Mike curled up on the ground, covering his face with his free arm. Robert knelt beside him. He tried to brush the kit’s head-fur, but Mike pushed his paw away violently.
\tThe ambulance’s rear door was slammed shut, and within moments the vehicle, and its shrieking siren, started off down the street.
\t“Mike, listen…” Robert reached out with his other paw again, but Mike batted it away.
\t“Go away!!” the kit screamed before instantly returning to his wracking sobs. “I-I hate you…”
\tRobert waited a few moments, as Mike’s crying ebbed away, his exhaustion wearing him out. “No you don’t,” the grownup said softly. “I’m so sorry Mike. You know I have to.”
\tThe kit didn’t move.
\t“He’s your best friend, isn’t he?” Robert sat heavily on the wet bitumen. His arm still bled profusely, and by now he was feeling faint. “…More than that? Right?”
\tMike tensed. At last he moved his arm away from his face, and he stared at his father, his expression somewhere between stunned and scared. “I-I…”
\t“It doesn’t matter, Mike. It really, really doesn’t matter.”
\tThe barky-furred kit sobbed quietly. “W-will he be alright?” he managed to whisper.
\t“I don’t know, Mike.” Robert swiped at his bloodied nose with a wrist. “I can’t tell…”
\tHe turned and watched the ambulance speed around a corner wildly, disappearing behind a dirty, wet building. Robert looked up, towards the blackened clouds that smothered the sky.
\t“You never can…”



\t……………



\tIt was a warm night. Clear skies with the faintest hint of a breeze. A rarity of late, with winter just thinking about moving on and letting the hotter, drier months have their turn at last. The sun was only just beginning to set this evening, and the sky was almost crimson.
\tThough he’d rarely had the opportunity to visit this garden, he’d always loved it. Tom and Eraline kept things quite neat, and upstate New York was a beautiful place to begin with. It was quite a drive from Manhattan, not that he minded making it.
\tPushing open the security door, he ambled outside, holding a beer loosely in his paw. Smiling slightly, the fox approached his friend, who stood by the poolside, gently pushing a stroller back and forth with his free paw, the other occupied by his own beer.
\t“You’re missing your own party,” Robert chortled, sidling up to the pensive father. “Are you feeling okay?”
\tThomas gave a quiet snort, raising the bottle of liquor to his muzzle. “Just a little thoughtful.”
\t“What’s on your mind?”
\tBrushing aside his wealth of strangely colored head-fur, Tom smiled down at his son. “Well, the same as always.”
\tRobert bent over and peeked into the stroller. It was impossible for him to keep the smile on his face from blossoming into a massive grin – he was a father himself, after all. Little Tai was asleep, his tiny chest rising and falling rhythmically. His paws loosely holding his small blanket closed. “It’s hard to get them off your mind, isn’t it?” he murmured wryly. “He’s got a lot more fur now. It’s not just the eyes; he’s got your fuzz too.”
\t“Yeah, should make him popular with the ladies.” Tom chuckled. “I still can’t believe it. I’m the luckiest guy alive. I have a dream job, a lot of cash, a wonderful wife and now a son.” He paused. “Damn, three years ago, I thought I’d never amount to anything more than a star on a wall down south.”
\t“Nobody is ever just a wall ornament.”
\t“Thanks, Rob. It’s all thanks to you, man.”
\tThe pair of them sighed and looked up at the bleeding sky, streaked with wispy clouds. Simultaneously, they raised their beers again.
\tThomas shook his head, his expression sad. “I wish I didn’t have to leave this place. New York has been good to me. Not that a country boy like me could’ve ever thought it.”
\tRobert peered at the sleeping infant. “Well… Tom, do you ever think about what your job could do? To them?”
\tAs vague as it was, it needed no explanation. “Hell, sure I do.”
\t“Moving across the nation at the whim of some pencil pushing stat-muncher like me? The danger?”
\t“Yeah.” Thomas nodded slowly. “What it would be like if they came home from school, ten years from now – and there was no one there for them. I’ve thought all about it. I’m terrified, Rob, but what can I do? What happens if, instead of me, it’s Tai?”
\tThere was a long pause, before Robert shifted on his paws. “Look, Tom. You shouldn’t be doing this. I know I don’t have the details, but this isn’t right – on our own soil, so far as I can tell, and now that you have a child? You should drop this. Tell the suits to get someone without so much to lose.”
\t“No. I can’t.” The blonde fox shook his head firmly. “It’s because I’ve got so much to lose that I need to do this.”
\t“Can you explain?”
\t“Not really. Just trust me. You’re a father too, been one for longer than me – you’d understand if you knew. I’m not leaving my son to live in a world with… so much wrong, so much evil, especially like this, and being someone that could’ve done something to help – but sat on my ass instead.”
\t“I suppose it’s like being a soldier – complete with the messiah complex.” Robert gave a teasing laugh, but then sighed. “I’m going to miss you, you know. Haley and I aren’t happy about this at all.”
\t“I know man, sorry.”
\t“Tell me one thing if nothing else, please. Are you coming back from this, Tom?”
\tSwigging from his beer, Thomas gently pushed the stroller forwards, then slowly rumbled it back. Tai gave a quiet squeak in his sleep. “I’m not sure,” Tom admitted. “But then again, how can you tell?”
\t“… You never can.”
\t“Exactly.” There was a short laugh. “But I don’t care. When I finally do piss off, I’ll know I’ve left behind a boy that I’m proud of. There’s not much I’ve done right in my life, but being a dad is something I’m gonna ace first time.”
\tRobert smiled. “Unlike your English. It’s ‘of whom I’m proud.’”
\t“Yeah, that, Captain Cambridge.”
\tThey both snickered quietly.
\t“I mean…” Thomas murmured, draining his beer. “It can happen at any time, like I said. It does nobody any good to worry about it.”
\t“Yeah. That’s true, I suppose. Within reason.”
\t“So it doesn’t matter, really. What matters is what we left behind.” There was a pause. “I don’t mean achievements. Or money. Or empires, or getting your name in a fuckin’ history book. It’ll all be forgotten eventually. I mean… the hearts we touched. Every little bit of advice, of happiness, we leave behind. Just making the world better in whatever way we can. Changing real lives. It’s the little things. We don’t have to change the world.”
\tRobert nodded. “Definitely. You know, you’re surprisingly eloquent tonight. Is it the booze?”
\t“Yeah.”
\t“Like I said, no life is just a star on a wall. Nobody is just a passage in a history book, and nobody is just a statistic. That star means something to someone.”
\tKneeling, Thomas gently laid a paw on his tiny son’s head. “Well, he’s my star. Not on the wall, but up in the sky. There’s a billion, billion of them, all shining bright, but it’s this one I’m risking it all for.” He sniffed. “I dunno how I got to thinking about this. It’s just… this little guy comes along and blows everything I thought I understood out of the water. This is a life, Rob, this is a living thing. It doesn’t matter how young or old you are, if you’re rich, poor, in this country or another. What matters is what we leave behind, and already, Tai has made at least two lives on this planet so much happier. He’s the brightest star in my sky. When I go, I’ll know I lit up a few skies, and I know Tai, and little Mikey, will light up their fair share too.”
\tRobert wiped an eye. “Shit, Tom.”
\t“What’s that?”
\t“You know they already have. They already have.”

Chapter 12 – Fin.

Copyright Kichigai Kitsune 2010.


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