6 comments/ 14045 views/ 9 favorites City Mouse By: foozzzball //: 2105, City of San Iadras. Perking Centre's Function Hall. "Uhm. There's a Report from Lake North, which was written to summarize research operations in Twenty-Ninety for the auditors. " Troy blinked against the blinding lights, and cleared his throat awkwardly. "It was written just before the Emancipation. The part I want to tell you about tonight, is, uhm. It's just one line out of a list. 'Model organism group eighty, B.L.M. revision three. Population of twenty-four. Three individuals were dissected over the course of research.'" He could get through this. The lights helped, it made it hard to see just how many people were sitting and staring at him. "Uhm. That's what it says." Troy cleared his throat again, reaching up to cover his eyes for a moment, eyes watering, and maybe not just from the light. "That's all it says. That's the only public information available, and unless you followed the documentaries you wouldn't have heard about it anyway. Uh. So they say model organism. Y'know, like lab mice?" Nervous laughter fluttered up from the audience. He smiled awkwardly. It didn't look right, all stretched out across his snout. "Uhm. What you do with model organisms, is, uhm. You dissect them, and afterwards what's left is medical waste, and that goes into an incinerator. " He ducked his face away from the light. The audience were quiet, now. Very quiet. "And, uhm. When these three individuals went into the incinerator shafts, well the shafts just weren't built for that. Nobody, uhm. Nobody thought they'd be putting children down those shafts and their bodies just, just kind of..." He bit down on his lip, hard, weaving his hand back and forth, bouncing from one invisible wall to the other, back again. "Bounced. And that made the shafts rattle for like, five, ten minutes, and, uhm... uhm. But, uhm. The, the thing, uh..." The audience was whispering now, the hundreds of them turning each syllable into a meaningless flutter of human voices. Jim Bragdon had come up from almost nowhere, clamping a reassuring hand down on Troy's shoulder. Turned him away from the microphone. But it didn't feel reassuring. "It's okay, you don't have to-" Troy took a shuddering breath, eyes squeezed shut, and jerked his shoulder out from under Jim's hand. "Yeah, you're right. It's okay. Uhm. I'm fine." "You're sure? It's not too much?" "Yeah." "Okay." Jim glanced out at the audience, put on that reassuring smile again until they quietened back down and backed up just a step. Just a step. "Sorry about that." Troy took hold of the podium, swashing his naked tail out of Jim's way, and dry swallowed. He kept his eyes shut. That was easier. "Uhm. But uhm." He blew out a long breath. "But it's all okay. Because they didn't actually put any children into that incinerator shaft. Children are people. They put three model organisms out of research group eighty down the incinerator shaft, and they were not people." He opened his eyes and looked up at the spotlights, eyes still watering. At least that's what he told himself. "They were just cloned lab animals. Three out of a batch of twenty-four. All official documents referring to these three individuals have been sealed by the courts because of the Emancipation, except for that one line in the summary." Troy clamped his eyes shut, trying to force away the shuddering in his breath. "'Model organism group eighty, B.L.M. revision three. Population of twenty four.'" He swallowed down another breath. "'Three individuals were dissected over the course of research.' And they were my brothers Springfield, Kiev, and Berlin." Troy tugged at his black dress shirt's collar, grimacing. The speech had gone just fine, up in the presentation auditorium, with people staring at him and harsh lights burning his eyes. He'd been unable to see the audience, and that had probably been his saving grace. No such luck out here in the meeting hall, where socialites browsed for dainty things to eat along with their choice of tea or coffee, all beneath a distressingly wide and open ceiling. Thankfully, the walls were rather welcoming. The crowds were focused around the food tables, and he could pretend to ignore the stares he attracted, examining the same stretch of wall three times over. Stucco, painted a delicate shade of green, machine-manipulated into artful crests and waves which seemed to have an endless variation. It took a few minutes for Troy to figure out the trick, a four meter by four meter texture applied at an oblique angle, making it difficult for the eye to pick out. He felt eyes on him, glanced back. So many shades of flesh; brown, pinkish-white, tanned olive brown, gene-resequenced patterns of light and dark. He turned his face aside, feeling all too alien, his own skin hidden under ebony black fur. Troy breathed deep, looking over the wall again. Maybe he could distract himself with the stucco for a few more minutes. He tugged at the collar of his shirt again, grimacing vaguely. Maybe he could slip away early, call a cab, go check into a hotel and just sit and wait through the rest of tonight and Saturday for his flight out of San Iadras on Sunday. The fingers of his left hand curled numbly around the phone in his pocket. At some level he was already trying to figure out the search criteria to look up a cab company with. He'd gotten so far as two steps away from the wall and towards the door before he spotted someone angling for him through the melange of faces. Two someones. He swallowed down his gorge. At least one of the two wasn't human. Led by an older human woman with heavyset features, hair greying but skin still smooth, Troy saw her companion's mouse-like features twisted into an awkward smile of embarrassment. That face, that quirk of the lips was intimately familiar to Troy. He saw it in the mirror often enough. Troy licked his lips nervously, not sure which of his brothers this was. His gaze dropped to the lapel pin, a crucifix. He should've spotted his brother's eye. "Hi Turin." "Uhh, Mrs Rutherman, let me introduce, uhm..." Turin took a moment to stare at Troy's lapel, looking for the pin, a stylized Grecian horse's head. Turin pinched at the bridge of his snout, over his nostrils. "My brother, Troy Salcedo. Troy, this is Mrs Rutherman, one of the Fund patrons. She thought I might be you." Troy smiled, mirroring Turin's earlier smile, and felt a tremble building in his jaw. "Delighted, Mrs Rutherman. So glad to meet a donator, the Furry Rehabilitation Fund is obviously a charity close to my heart." "Wonderful to meet you Mr Salcedo! Aahh, Troy, may I call you Troy? Jimmy said he'd lost track of you, I suppose I'll keep you out of trouble for him, shall I? Really, though, your speech was very stirring. How you and your brothers survived those awful labs-" Troy watched Mrs Rutherman's lips move, feeling his resolve start to crumble. Yes, the labs... she looked a little familiar, in the way all humans did. Flat face. Pair of eyes, nose, mouth. "-is quite beyond me! You boys must have a great deal of strength. I am absolutely shocked by what one thinking being can do to another thinking being, it is utterly barbaric." Cover the nose and mouth with a surgical mask, give her protective eye wear, put her into a surgical gown... Troy felt spots of pain down his spine, an itching in his left hand. His eyes were drawn to Turin's face, the slight difference between Turin's two eyes. You really had to look for it. Unless you knew the pale grey line around one iris were manufacturer's markings you'd never guess they'd stuck needles into Turin's eye until, in the end, they'd had to rip it out. Troy tried to keep the quivering out of his tail. "I dearly wish the past could be undone, but at least we can try to right the wrongs now, hmm?" she concluded, with a smile. Behind her, Turin lifted a hand to his mouth and bit down on his fingernails. Even though the Fund paid for it, giving Turin a new eye seemed just a little unlikely to right the wrongs that mattered. Troy clenched and unclenched his hands slowly. At least Troy wasn't alone in his discomfort. Not with one of his brothers around. He opened his mouth to speak- "Please excuse me, Mrs Rutherman, I must be going." What Troy heard was his own voice, sure enough. Except he was going to say 'We' instead of 'I'. That was the problem with being one of two dozen genetically engineered clones. Other people shared your voice, and they thought the way you did. Turin had beaten him to the punch, but had forgotten all about him. "It has been a pleasure to meet you, Turin," Mrs Rutherman replied cheerily. "I do hope to meet you again." Turin nodded and smiled, more from relief than anything else, and glanced to Troy suddenly. He offered a weak smile. Guilty as sin. " I'll give you a call before your flight out, Troy," he offered meekly. "It's alright," Troy replied, trying to keep the accusation out of his voice. "I'll keep an ear open." He watched his brother retreat. Turin already had his phone out, was already punching in search criteria. He could say 'me too.' He could do it now. But every second he waited the story would look less likely, he'd given the damn speech and it just wouldn't look right for him to disappear and people would blame him and talk and know and... and it wasn't as though he had anything to do. Troy buried his envy and turned back to Mrs Rutherman weakly. Mrs Rutherman smiled broadly, almost as if trying to force her cheery mood onto him. "Troy, you simply must come and meet some of my adoptive children. They would be pleased as punch to meet you, I'm sure!" He smiled back helplessly and let himself be led away. Somewhere nearby, Troy heard the clink of china, teacups and saucers being put down. People were finishing their drinks. Pretty soon, he prayed, they'd finish their conversations and start leaving. Then he could escape too. Mrs Rutherman kept up her line of discussion with a remarkable level of precision. It was all meaningless twaddle, going on and on like some kind of engineered script for small-talk that someone had thought would be apologetic and uplifting all in one non-threatening package. Just so long as the subtle reminders of how terrible the horrors he'd had to endure could be taken as reassurances that it would never happen again, rather than reminders of exactly what had happened and how, anyway. The crowd was pressing in on all sides, and soon he was following Mrs Rutherman's voice less out of obligation and more out of need, it was the only familiar thing in that crowd of babble, people watching him, staring at his fur and ears and snout and everything that made him inhuman, watching him like a mouse trapped in a maze. "Florence!" cried another of his brothers nearby, "Do excuse me, I'm terribly sorry, I need to go and..." Troy willed his brother to run, get out of this threatening place, find an exit and run. His mirror image nervously elbowed his way out from between two guests, his eyes wide. "Florence? I- Troy, I'm sorry, have you seen Florence?" Troy swept one arm around his brother's shoulders protectively, almost by reflex. "It's alright, Dallas. Where'd you leave him?" Mrs Rutherman's smile didn't waver for a moment, even while Dallas hunched up, eyes squeezed shut. It didn't help that it only made those nearby stare all the more. "Oh, I'm sure we'll find your brother on the way," Mrs Rutherman announced cheerily, ushering the two of them away through the crowd. "How do you tell who's who? My sons never settled on a satisfactory method." Troy halfway dragged his brother away, shielding him from the worst. He tried to dampen his dry mouth, swallowing down spittle. "We found lapel pins. Uhh, Mrs Rutherman, this is my brother Dallas." "Oh, I see! " She didn't pause in her step, dragging the two of them away, finally they were free of the crowd proper. "I'm delighted to meet you, Dallas," she added kindly when they were away from the crush. Dallas tried to return the smile with trembling lips. "Um. Thank you Mrs Rutherman." "Are you all named after cities?" "Uhm." Dallas nodded, eyes clenched shut. The last nod left him hunched up. He didn't straighten. Troy grimaced inwardly. He always had to be the strong one. And it was alright, but there was never anyone there for him. He reached into Dallas's breast pocket and pulled free the white handkerchief, which he pressed to his brother's face. Dallas responded only gradually, finally taking the handkerchief and blowing his nose awkwardly, hands pressed around his snout. Troy looked up to find Mrs Rutherman smiling down, as though ignoring it would somehow make it all better. "I very much like your lapel pin. A steer for Dallas and a Trojan horse for Troy. That's very clever!" Ignoring it didn't make it worse, at any rate. The smile helped. Dallas managed to smile back, eventually. "Thanks, Mrs Rutherman. Florence picked out mine for me." "Oh, do call me Elaine!" Mrs Rutherman replied, still smiling broadly. She tried to be nice. That helped, in a way. It would've helped more if she'd left them alone. "Uh. Thank you, Elaine," Dallas floundered. A few moments passed, evidently until Mrs Rutherman - Elaine - decided the pair of them were ready to move on. She took the both of them by a hand, naturally she held Troy's left, and led them forward. Dallas stared wide-eyed at Mrs Rutherman holding onto Troy's hand. "Um, Elaine, you can't, uhm..." "Yes, Dallas?" Troy clenched his jaw. Maybe she wouldn't notice how rubbery and cold his left hand was. "Troy's hand, uh... that's where they..." Mrs Rutherman's smile increased in voltage. Warm, understanding, motherly. Slightly terrifying in its force. "It's quite alright, isn't it Troy?" She squeezed his left hand so hard he almost imagined he could hear plastic scraping. No, not really. It wasn't alright. "Yes, Mrs Rutherman. It's alright." It wasn't even his real hand. They took it away and it'd tumbled into the incinerator, and there'd never been enough painkiller and when there was he'd stumble around off balance, and. And Christ. He found his jaw clamping down, tight, until his teeth clicked against one another, rasping and grinding. "Good! Now, do come and meet my dear children." She smiled, even as she drew them towards another group. Troy's heart stood still for a moment, but the group weren't human like Mrs Rutherman. Not brown and pink, but brown and gray and white and black and yellow, covered in fur. "Scott, Andrew, Paul." Mrs Rutherman waved at a trio of young men, all mirror images of each other. Each was grey furred, cat ears rising to a point over their short-clipped hair, three pairs of greenish slitted eyes looking up lazily. "These two are Troy and Dallas Salcedo. Troy, Dallas, these are my three grown up boys, Scott, Andrew and Paul." Begrudgingly, flinching at the contact, hands were shaken. A tall girl, no more than fifteen or sixteen, smiled pleasantly and waited to be introduced, her hair running with the same zebra-stripe pattern that wound down her bare arms, her equine face drawn into a polite smile. "Oh, and my youngest daughter, Susan-Mae," Mrs Rutherman added, with the warm smile of a mother. "She still lives at home. Most of my other children have moved out into the big wide world." Troy realized that Susan-Mae must have only been born - decanted, really - just before the laws changed fifteen years ago, and furs were made 'free' with the emancipation. Spared the years before people came to their senses. She wasn't wearing shoes. Or at least, not the usual sort. She had elongated and reshaped hooves with heavy rubber soles attached like horse-shoes. "Pleased to meet you," he murmured. Mrs Rutherman turned to her sons. "Do get everyone introduced, won't you? I'm sure Dallas will get along famously with that sister of Thomas's girlfriend." "Which one?" enquired one of the boys sarcastically. "Oh hush. Her sister in the ballet, you know the one." "I meant which girlfriend, actually..." "Andrew! That isn't very nice!" "Uh, that was Paul, mom. I'm Andrew. You're going to give us issues." The furthermost left fur sheepishly pointed out, while Susan-Mae sniggered. It was a regular old happy family, Troy reflected, keeping his head down much of the time. The kind you got with money and force of will and some kind of mad devotion to family life. It almost looked pleasant, inviting. He and Dallas stayed out of it, nodding and smiling through introductions to the various other family members and hangers on. There was Mr Rutherman, a tall old human gentleman. This was Jonie Stevens, a very thin fur with a distinctly otter-like look to her, and those two sandy-coloured canid-looking women, one redhead and one blonde, were Jeane and Jasmine Dixon. Not quite canid, though, they explained. Marsupial, though it was hardly obvious from a glance. There was young Iggy, the only human child of the bunch, eight years old and wearing a Halloween costume tail hanging from his belt as a childish kind of solidarity with his inhuman foster-brothers and foster-sisters. It didn't take long for Dallas to be introduced to Thomas's girlfriend's sister, whichever girlfriend it was. Nadine Andrews, a striking feline woman, a female clone-run like Mrs. Rutherman's boys, the Edwards clone-run. She was tabby, gray, thin-limbed and graceful, socially awkward as she played the wallflower. Troy sighed in relief, watching as Dallas joined her, the pair turned up to the wall, backs to the crowd. Dallas would be okay without Florence or Troy's guidance. For the rest of tonight, at least. "I don't know what mom was thinking." One of the three cat-like brothers cleaned his claws beside him. "I mean. You guys' genotypes are what, mice? Cats and mice." Troy flinched slightly. Even in dress shoes these brothers could walk silently. "Lab mice," he quietly confirmed. "Uh... which one are you?" he asked, embarrassment quivering his voice. "Scott. Still, though," Scott continued, staring after Dallas and Nadine, cat and mouse hesitantly exchanging a few quiet words at a time, "Hardly seems logical. No offence, but you and Dallas just smell... jumpy." Troy rubbed his hands together nervously, ignoring the texture of the left one beneath all the fur. "We're ah... always jumpy in crowds. I don't think the predator-prey dynamic comes into it." Even so, he avoided making eye contact with Scott. Scott shrugged, eventually. "Maybe," he allowed, not willing to press the issue. "Your batch manage to stick together?" Troy asked, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Ahh, we got out of the dorms and were adopted in little groups." Scott shrugged again. "Twos and threes and fours. Yours?" "We got held back in a single orphanage while the, uhh, damage was repaired." Troy gestured reflexively, with his left hand. Just as reflexively he tucked it back into a pocket. "Medical rehabilitation." "Ah." Scott nodded, reaching up to scratch behind one feline ear. He shrugged slowly. What the hell did you say to that, anyway? Nothing, apparently. He shrugged again, said, "Nice meeting you," and slapped Troy's back chummily. With that, he walked off. "Hey Paul!" Troy watched Scott walk off with mixed emotion. The dismissal had been abrupt. But now, thank God, he could have a quiet moment alone. Should he be insulted, or relieved? Sagging against the green stucco wall, now all the way across the function hall from where he'd started, he let out a breath. Relieved. He had plenty of time to be insulted later. He checked his wristwatch. Just how long could people stand to hang around and make conversation? Maybe it was a corporate thing. Most of the humans here were corporate employees showing their faces in the name of PR. At times like this they'd be passing around business cards, building contacts. Smiling, talking, pretending to give a damn long enough to gain the moral high ground. City Mouse Dallas and the feline woman, Nadine, seemed happy enough further along beside the wall. Troy could see that Dallas had opened up a little now. The hand-waving gave it away. He couldn't hear the words, but the gestures seemed to say that Dallas had found some reassuring topic to ramble on and on about. Astronomy, maybe. Judging by Nadine's quiet smile, she was all too happy to stand back and listen, only having to contribute a supportive ear. "So, uhm, Mister..." Troy glanced down. The little human, the child, had a ruddy face and a miserable frown. His shirt was all untucked near the back, where the kid'd had trouble with the fake toy tail. He wiped at his nose and sniffled. The usual reflexive shiver travelled down Troy's spine. But something in him recoiled against it, made him at least try to smile. "Yeah? You're Iggy, huh? You okay?" Troy asked, forcing the brief surge of panic down. The child didn't deserve it. The child nodded, had second thoughts and shook his head. He held up his hands, cupped and full of pieces of electronics. Plastic covers, the green of printed circuit boards, a loose screen, a plastic mat of buttons, pale pink organic wafers. "Jeane's sister said you could help." He sniffled messily. "Who? Jasmine?" "No, uhm." Iggy blinked away tears. "Her." Troy glanced up, looking around at the group of furs, blinking a little as he spotted the two canid sisters he'd been introduced to, Jeane and Jasmine Dixon, had now been joined by a third copy. This time another redhead, carefully and dutifully inserting hairpins into a weepy looking Jeane's hair. "Oh. Her big sister?" "Yeah." Big sister. As if mass manufactured clones could have differing ages. But sometimes you didn't have to be older to be the big brother, as Troy very well knew. Dutifully he knelt down, ignoring the errant stares of the other partygoers. "Alright. So, uh, what happened, Iggy?" "Well Jeane's staying at home 'cause her boyfriend's a big meanie, and she gave me her phone to hang onto for her, an' I just wanted to see how it worked... but it just doesn't fit back together, and she thinks he's gonna call, and now it's broken." The drama surrounding Jeane's life, that Troy couldn't handle. The phone, on the other hand... "It'll all be just fine, Iggy. Jeane's big sister is right. I can help. Alright." Troy began picking through the bits and pieces of the disassembled phone in the boy's cupped hands. "All that's broken are these little plastic clips, see? Everything else just fits together like a tiny little electric puzzle... Don't suppose you have any tape or glue or rubber bands?" "... No." Troy bit his lip. "We'll sort something out." The elder Dixon was pretty, in a weird and predatory way. Prettier than her sisters, anyway. It wasn't just her well styled red hair, a little too bright and red to be auburn, too fiery to be scarlet. He could tell the difference between her and Jeane by the tint. Faint, but recognisable after a little observation. Jasmine, with her blonde hair, was much simpler to recognise. On the one hand, Troy found it interesting from a social dynamics point of view. Some batches of furs didn't seem to want to differentiate all that much, like the grey feline mix, last name Edwards. Others, like his own, black lab mouse revision three, last name Salcedo, found it important to find ways to be different from each other and used a variety of small, conscious methods to do so. But only small methods, and not too different. More than little things would be wrong, somehow. Hair colour, though... most furs had longer hair, part of the genetic tweaking they'd all been given in the production process. It first appeared between the second and third generation furs, as part of the attempt to make furries ever more human. But the shade of hair was generally not too different from the major fur colour. Dye or genedye was a natural choice for most, others cut their hair almost as short as their fur. But the different shades. Was it even a conscious mechanism to differentiate? Did it even matter? Wasn't he just using his interest in social dynamics as an excuse to keep staring at her? Troy shifted restlessly on the stone bench, outside the function hall's secondary entrance. He moved his briefcase off his lap and set it down beside him on the bench. His tail was curled under the bench's back, its tip laying cold on the concrete sidewalk. It was late now. Probably. A quick glance at his wristwatch confirmed the thought. He'd already gotten Dallas into his and Florence's car. Apparently Dallas and Nadine had exchanged phone numbers. Florence had spent most of the evening talking to some young up and coming film actor filming on location in San Iadras who'd taken the opportunity to mingle. Well. At least now they were safely off home to their shared apartment. Sydney had been around earlier, somewhere, and probably left for Florence and Dallas's before the end of the speeches. Turin had made his perfect getaway. Troy shook his head. His brothers weren't really his responsibility. Not anymore, not now that they were all done with schooling and surgery and finally making their own decisions in the world. He felt guilty about hating that responsibility, but in a way it had been kind of nice to be the capable one again for awhile, even if it was difficult, vaguely frightening. Something that distanced him a little from his brothers in a way that felt wrong. Maybe the 'eldest' Dixon sister was having similar thoughts about the whole situation, standing with her arms curled around herself, just a couple of dozen feet away on the sidewalk where she waited with the other two sisters for a cab, drenched in the light of a street lamp. Then again, her production run had been a lot bigger than his, something like a hundred and fifty survivors if he remembered it right. His group only had fourteen left, now. Maybe she wasn't the only one who had to play big sister amongst the Dixon sisters. Even so, she was extremely good at it. And extremely good looking. Light yellow brown fur, pointed muzzle, red hair, slinky little grey-blue dress that made her green eyes seem all the more dazzling. Not that the other two girls, in red and brown dresses of similar cut respectively, weren't as beautiful as her... It was probably the confidence issue, Troy thought. She had a lot more confidence in the way she walked. Maybe her love life contributed to that. From what Troy had managed to accidently overhear, Jeane and Jasmine consistently had boy troubles. Their 'elder' sister probably had a more stable boyfriend, giving her more emotional stability. Which put him out of the running. Troy shook his head and grasped his hands together, staring down at them. One of them was real, and the other hand wasn't. Just like his chances with her. Oh well. It wasn't as though he'd ever manage to say hello. He hadn't ever managed to maintain a relationship with a girl past a couple of weeks. Partly because he couldn't really afford the time away from study and research, partly because initiating conversation was always a little rough. Being a furry who got jumpy around humans didn't help any up in the states either, with its countrywide population of five hundred furs. The fact most of the girls were only interested in him for the exotic factor hadn't been terribly fun, either. A cab rolled up, a traditional yellow, light over the credit reader blinking. It was just a cheap two seater with dark windows and an obvious set of camera shrouds for the automatic driver. It pulled up to the sidewalk, doors sliding open. Jeane and Jasmine made their way into the cab, the 'elder' sister holding their purses for them while they got themselves settled, sitting at an angle to the seats to avoid crushing their blunt, stiff tails against the seat back. The two took their purses from their sister, said their goodbyes, and shut the doors. The cab rolled off with a characteristic sparking sound that made Troy think about misaligned capacitors arcing off voltage. The third Dixon sister straightened, slung her own purse over her shoulder and glanced back across the stretch of pavement. At the function hall. No, not at the function hall... at him. As soon as the realization hit him, she'd looked away again, facing the street lamp. She pulled something from her purse, there was a plastic click, and Troy thought he spotted a mirror glinting in her hands. She held something up to her face, brushed something back and forth. The sharp hiss of a cosmetic spray applicator pierced the night sounds of traffic, there was another glint of the mirror. She fanned her face with her hand for a moment, drying what Troy presumed must have been shading dyes. A plastic click as the cosmetics were closed and placed back into her purse. She glanced down the street. A private car rolled by, silvery and humming as it rounded the function hall and swept past. Troy expected it to stop, some corporate playboy blessed with having that pretty fur in his life. The car did stop, rolling to a halt and backing up to the sidewalk where she stood. Troy picked up his briefcase again and hugged it to himself. Oh well. The private car's back windows rolled down. No playboy, though. Just a little boy. Iggy, miserably tired, determined to stay awake as long as he possibly could on a night with no bedtime. "Hi." "Hi sweetie. Shouldn't you be taking a nap?" "Maybe." Then the front window rolled open. It was Mrs Rutherman, seated beside her husband. "Jennifer, dear, don't you need a lift?" Jennifer. He liked that name. He liked it a lot better than Jeane or Jasmine. Jennifer Dixon. It rolled around his mind nicely. "Oh, no ma'am." Jennifer smiled, reaching up to flick a few errant lengths of her hair back over a shoulder. "I've got a cab coming. The company I use is a little far out, that's all." Mrs Rutherman nodded, glancing back at Iggy and Susan-Mae in the back seat, the horse-like fur's face illuminated briefly by an electric screen. Mrs Rutherman turned back to Jennifer with a smile. "If you're sure. Thank you for helping out Jeane earlier, Jennifer. You've always been so good to my girls." Jennifer hunched up one shoulder in a kind of helpless shrug, smiling whimsically. "They're my sisters." "Yes, but my three kittens, ooh, don't you tell them I still talk about them like that! Well, those three hardly ever visit their brothers." "Ah, well, that's men for you." Jennifer paused a moment, before adding, "Most men, anyway." "I hope that exclusion includes me, Young Lady." "Absolutely, Mr Rutherman." "Me too!" "You too, sweetie." "She's just saying that," Susan-Mae's protested, unseen in the back. "You're going to grow up to be a little monster, Iggy." "Am not!" Mrs Rutherman turned back in her seat, staring down her children. "In any case, thank you again, Jennifer. My regards to your parents." "I'll give them to the Karlsens when I see them next." Mrs Rutherman smiled, perhaps just a little too tightly. Most foster parents, Troy realized, must have preferred to think of their adoptive children as their actual children. Even if they were an entirely different species. "Ah well. Good Evening, Jenny." "Good Evening, Elaine. Mr Rutherman, Susan-Mae. Don't you let her get in your hair, sweetie. You're a perfect gentleman." "Yes miss." Iggy leaned on the window frame, even while the windows rolled up, seeing how long he could keep the safety switch engaged. Susan-Mae's white-furred and black-striped hands dragged him back off the frame soon enough. Jennifer stepped back from the car, waving as it pulled off again, windows rolling up. The electric engines purred back into life, with none of the sparking sounds of the cab, and she was left standing there alone again. She glanced back again. Definitely not at the function hall this time, but at Troy. He looked away, embarrassed. From the corner of his eye, he spotted her examining the building's facade this time, the concrete, steel and glass ribs, looking his way every so often. He was sure she couldn't help but notice every time he risked looking at her directly. He looked away, down the street at the road junction. Her cab would round the corner fairly soon, he imagined, and then she'd be gone, and he could relax. Be very relaxed. Relaxed and entirely alone, true, but- "Troy, right? I liked your speech." Troy jumped reflexively, his briefcase slid from his grasp and clattered onto the sidewalk. Jennifer was standing right next to him, beside the bench, a hesitant smile on her lips, distended somewhat by her muzzle, changing into a look of concern. "Oh, I'm sorry, I..." "No, no, it's perfectly alright, I, uhm," Troy bent over, grabbing madly for the briefcase, fingers slipping off its side, "It's, er, uh." His fingernails scratched over the faux leather case, pulled it straight, found the handle, dragged it up onto his lap. He waved one hand out rapidly, "I'm just very, uhm..." She sat down beside him on the bench, slowly, lifting her tail slightly to slip it over the edge of the bench. She winced a little, as though empathising with the discomfort he was trying to hide. "Mind if we start over?" Relief flooded through Troy. "Not, uhm. Not at all." He tucked his briefcase onto the side of the bench away from her, laying it flat carefully so it couldn't end out knocked over. She smiled again, then. "So. Hi. I liked your speech." His speech. Ten terrifying minutes under the spotlights. "Thank you." He'd talked himself into doing it, because he couldn't bear the idea of any of his brothers having to stand up there under the lights and say the words themselves, remember their time in the labs. She nodded, a slight twitch of the ear. "I thought it was very brave. What you and your brothers did." Did? All Troy had done was survived. Maybe that was the brave part. Or maybe she meant consenting to all the other medical examinations, back during the investigations that led to the furries being 'freed' from their lives in the corporate dormitories and research labs. The medical examinations had been easy. Easy in comparison to the rest of it. He shrugged a shoulder. "It, uhm, wasn't anything special." He bowed his head, not quite able to look up at her, only steal a surreptitious glance at her knees, covered in pretty grey-blue fabric. She paused a moment too, reaching up and smoothing down her hair, patting her face gently. "And your help with Jeane's phone. That was really very kind of you." He looked up then. Her eyes were beautiful. Gentle shading had been applied to her fur, flowing into the natural light patches of fur around her eyes. Beautiful green eyes. Really just so.... He was staring again. He glanced away, swallowing dryly. "Oh, uhm. It was nothing." "Still, though. Jeane really appreciated you replacing hers with yours. And I really don't know how you got the data and accounts to transfer, I can never figure out all the features." Troy held out his hands, shrugged. "Well, they were similar models. And the casing was busted. That's all. The working life of these things is only really six months to a year anyway. I don't even use mine that much." She smiled a little, held out a hand, her claw-like nails clipped short and manicured, yellow-brown fur short and kempt. "Jennifer Dixon." "Troy Salcedo," he replied a little lamely. He reached out, his fingertip brushed her knuckle. She put her warm palm in his, closed her fingers around his hand. His own hand wasn't so well maintained. His own fur not quite so finely brushed or well trimmed or a such a lovely shade, hand so beautiful and delicate, so finely proportioned. Troy silently thanked whatever surgeon put this girl's hands together. Troy glanced up. She was looking at him. Not oddly, as others might when he lapsed off into a conversational lull. Kindly. She'd even let him hold onto her hand for a few moments more than was necessarily polite. His heart ached just a little as their hands parted. "So. Where are you heading? If you like, we could split cab fare." "I, uh. I'm really just in town for the function. I was thinking about getting a room at the Greystone hotel, Downtown. Last time I was here they weren't full." She tilted her head quizzically. "And then?" "I'm flying out on Sunday morning. Day after tomorrow." "Oh. Well. Downtown's on the way for me, anyway. So... Would you mind?" "Splitting cab fare? Uhm. No. Not at all." "Great," Jennifer replied with a smile. She glanced away at the road, crossed her legs and brushed the hem of her dress back over her knees. He followed her gaze, found himself watching the paved street, praying it would remain empty for a little while longer. Praying he could think of something more to say. "So. What do you do for a living?" Troy glanced back at her. "Oh, uhm. It's not very interesting, really." "Try me." "Working on my Doctorate at the University of Minnesota." "Which field?" He pulled at the collar of his dress shirt. This was about when most people lost interest. "Nuclear Chemistry. Mainly synthetic atoms, isotope decay reactions. That sort of thing. I work on reactor fuels." She smiled at him. "So is it all computer simulations and reactors, or do you still get to play around with test tubes and Bunsen burners?" "Uhm. Only on weekends, when we've been good." It was a lame joke. She grinned anyway. Never underestimate the simple pleasure of talking to a patient woman who's pleasant on the eyes. She waited for him to compose himself, let him think through his words. She smoothed over all the bumps. It turned out she was a secretary. Mostly. What the rest of the mostly entailed, well, that was another bump that got smoothed over, but he really didn't mind. Hard to mind, sitting in a tiny little two-seater cab right beside her. Another thing not to underestimate. And all too soon, it had to be over. The two seater cab rolled to a halt, the imposing gray facade of the Greystone hotel was now before them, a carpet leading from the drop-off area and up to the lobby doors. She sat facing him, on the faux leather bench seat of the cab, knees together, purse beside her, angled with her shoulder against the seat back to accommodate her stiff tail. She glanced past him at the hotel, back at him. He dipped his gaze. He'd been sitting in a similar fashion. His knee a couple of inches from hers. He swallowed dryly. "Uhm, thank you for sharing your cab with me." She indicated his briefcase. "Is that all your luggage?" He nodded, patting the briefcase. "And you don't actually have a room booked?" He shook his head. She watched him a moment longer, maybe a moment too long. "Troy..." "Jennifer?" "Don't take this the wrong way, but... can you really afford to waste money on a hotel like that?" "I, uh..." No. Not really. In all honesty he should've searched out a cheaper hotel, or maybe have asked to stay on the floor at Florence and Dallas's apartment, since Sydney had the couch. Too late for that. "I don't want to, you know, intrude, but... well. I've got a foldout bed at my place you're welcome to for a couple days. I mean, if that isn't too forward." Troy couldn't quite manage to focus on her. Embarrassment, maybe. He felt a vague hot flush somewhere up around his ears. Maybe something like a blush, just without the cheeks and skin of a human. Possibly a twinge of terror. Jennifer continued, shifting somewhat on the seat. "It's a quiet place. I'm quiet. It really won't be intrusive for you, I mean, you can be alone if you want to. I'll be quiet as a mouse, if you'll excuse the pun." The uncomfortable feeling faded. At the worst case, if the paranoia got too much to bear, he could quietly stick his nose in a text file or something. City Mouse "It's... uhm. If it's not going to be a problem." "It won't," she said, smiling with something approaching relief. He nodded, then, smiling back a little hesitantly. "Thank you. You're really very kind." Jennifer swung the thin map screen towards her, picked out her address. She smiled at him, face lit by the screen's glow. "It's nothing, really." She reached for her purse, as the screen flashed its payment icon. "Oh, uh. Let me get that." Troy grabbed his wallet from his jacket, passed it over the cab's credit reader He flicked his wallet open, checking the screen before nudging the pay option with a knuckle. The electronics gave a beep as payment was made. She paused, hands in her purse. Another smile, drawing her lips in a graceful curve across her muzzle. "Thank you." "It's the least I can do," Troy replied, settling his wallet back into his jacket as the cab started rolling once more. He moved his briefcase down under the seat again after a moment's thought. She put down her purse, settled again with her shoulder against the seat back. The lights of the hotel faded, leaving the cab interior in slight darkness. Just enough for her green eyes to become prominent, reflecting the meagre light. The cab picked up speed, street lights flashed by, casting a slow strobe of light across her. She blinked languidly, smiled a little more, and he realized he'd been staring into her eyes for half a minute, maybe longer. He averted his gaze, she tapped his knee with one of hers. He glanced up at her, she grinned in response. "So, uhm. You seem very good at putting me at ease." "I met one of your brothers at college." She admitted, tilting her head slightly. "Didn't take me long to figure out you guys prefer being treated gently." "That's, uh. That's how you knew I'd be able to help with Jeane's phone?" Jennifer bit her lip awkwardly. "Iggy said I'd sent him over?" She sagged a little, embarrassed. "Yeah." She lifted her shoulder smoothly. Smiled briefly. "Didn't take me long to figure out you're all really brainy, too." "You studied at the City University of San Iadras?" She nodded. The fur on the back of Troy's neck pricked up. "Monaco." "Monaco," she agreed. "I haven't heard from him in, god, three years? How is he these days?" "He's, uhm. He's in..." Troy frowned. "Turkey, I think? Maybe Georgia." "Eastern European Union?" She lifted an eyebrow pointedly. "Seems like him. I would've expected France or Germany though." "Oh, he wanted to, but it's difficult to get in. He was very into that war from the Nineteen-Forties." Troy swallowed. She nodded, crossing her legs and once again brushing down the hem of her dress. "I remember he had a lot of vids and things about it. Is he still studying, or?" "Sort of." The last time Troy had seen his brother Monaco, Monaco had been unwilling to talk about much that was happening in his life. More interested in slinging around the new brand of politics he'd thought up in Europe. "Archaeological digs, I think. He sent some nice wilderness and ruin photos with his last set of E-mails, but that was a few months back." She nodded placidly. "It seems a little weird to me, that all of you Salcedo boys are so far apart. Pretty much all of my sisters are here in San Iadras. Well, there's six of us in Milan, Jodi, Jaye, Jacqueline, Jacoba, Joey and Joy, and about a dozen out in Australia. But most of us are here." "You've all got names starting with Jay?" "Jays, Gees and Is, mostly," she said. "There's a Jacqueline with an I, and another with a Y, so a lot of names get recycled through spelling. I'm kind of lucky, being the 'proper' Jennifer. There's also Jenny with an I, with a Y, and an I-Ee. And two Jens, one with one en, the other with two." "Must make things a little difficult," Troy said, meshing his fingers together, carefully winding those of his right hand between his left, closing the left down over the others little by little. "Not really. We all used our serial numbers at first. Getting used to names and living apart after being in the dormitories was a little traumatic." She explained a little of her early life, growing up as a foster child after the emancipation released her from the dormitories she lived in, back in 2090. Adjusting to all the new people hadn't been all that hard for her, apparently her run had frequently had tea parties and dinners and things. A childhood entirely unlike his own. He didn't remember all the details, the things about learning which fork to use and wine glasses with soda, but he did remember her eyes. Green, beautiful eyes. //: City of San Iadras. 'Uptown' district. "So July went into music production. Started as a go-for girl with the big name labels, very popular... you remember that song, 'Made-Up Girl', by Elandro Vasquez, the Columbian guy?" Troy twitched an ear slightly, glancing away to the side. The walls of the corridors here were a gentle cream white, he hadn't actually seen the outside of the building, been too busy listening to Jennifer in the cab when it'd pulled up in the underground lot. The white walls, tiled flooring, it was all vaguely spartan, too clean. Almost institutional, if you ignored the faux chandeliers and pot plants. "Ah, I don't really know music very well," he admitted. "The ad campaign for Wessex Electronics, with their AI assistant on the high end machines, Clara?" She asked, shoes clacking on the tiles as they walked. Strange shoes, too. High heels, complete with strapping, showing off her sinuously curved feet covered in tawny, yellow-brown fur. Troy frowned slightly, passing his briefcase from hand to hand. He'd done that twice already. He wasn't sure if carrying it on the side closer to her would act as some kind of barrier, or if on the other side it might scuff against the wall, maybe chipping the paint, which seemed like a sin given the cleanliness. "Uhm, 'Pretty girl, fresh off the assembly line, made up in some genius's mind?' Something like that?" She nodded, fishing around in her purse. "Originally about July. There's another line about coffee machines she's always preferred... Anyway, she's with him, now." She pulled out a set of keys, adding quickly, "Managing Vasquez's career, that is." Troy rubbed at the back of his head lightly. "That's great," he said, nodding. "I never really figured out how musicians make their money. Other than live concerts, of course." "Oh, it's all licensing now." She fingered through the keys dexterously, selecting a piece of plastic shaded green. She jammed her thumb into it, pressing it up against the reader beside a door. "Payview, interactives, movies, advertising. Nostalgia types sometimes buy recordings, too." The door, cut timber with metallic insets at the joins, swung open noiselessly. "Recordings?" "Oh yeah. Physical media. You get these little doodads with lasers to read them for an audio device," she said, poking with one long finger at a raised panel on the doorway, like a laser striking. "Little flat things, so big," Jennifer added, holding her thumb and forefinger wide apart. She stepped through the door and held it open, letting her handbag slide off her arm, straps grazing at her fur. Troy stepped through, holding the grip of his briefcase tightly in both hands. Her apartment was huge. The ceiling was high, the floor tiled in the same white as the corridor, but past the little kitchen nook and bar it was covered in a thick throw rug with some kind of Amerindian pattern. The walls, other than the full length windows that took up one side of the room and led out to a small balcony, had paintings - not prints, Troy could tell immediately, because prints were produced to standard paper sizes, and the paintings were out of standard proportions. One was even a trapezoid shape, framed in heavy wood, with a heavily foliaged landscape. Of course there was a screen, though it too was framed in wood and set with another landscape image. Jennifer set her handbag down on a wickerwork end table, which had old glossy fashion printouts stacked on it. She glanced back, adding quickly, "Watch the door, it bites." Troy spun around, blinking at the door. Sure enough it snicked shut, having decided he'd gotten clear and out of the way. Which would have been true if he was human. If he hadn't turned around, it'd have closed on the tip of his tail. "I can, uhm, recalibrate that for you," he offered. "Really?" She glanced up, sweeping some of her loose hair over a shoulder. "I never figured out where to get at it. I was thinking about just replacing it with a real door, latch and all, but building regulations, you know?" He nodded, turning away from the door, pulling his briefcase up to his chest tightly. Jennifer leaned over the kitchen bar, pulling out a small inset control panel from the surface. She wasn't, Troy noticed, averting his eyes, wearing a bra. "Here are the environment controls," she said, walking over, head dipped to peer at the control panel. She gestured at it until menus lit up on the screen. "Lighting, temperature, so, just, y'know. Make it so you're comfortable. And, uh." She bit at her lip lightly, looking up at him and holding it out. "Did you actually manage to eat anything at the function hall?" He shook his head wordlessly, putting down his briefcase to accept the control panel. "Me either," She nodded, turning back to the kitchen. She briefly reached up to settle one of the straps of her dress firmly over a shoulder as she bustled past the kitchen bar, tail swaying behind her while she walked with an unintentionally sultry gait. "Sandwiches okay?" She ducked her head to read off the fridge's screen, brushing her hair back yet again. "Cheese, ham, peanut butter..." He dragged his thumb over the panel until it returned to the main menu, set it down. He didn't want to switch from her presets. "I like peanut butter," he replied, looking up. Jennifer smiled, a pretty curl at the side of her muzzle, pleased. "There's some whole-wheat I can toast for you, if you like." And so in five minutes Troy was chewing on peanut butter spread on toast. Peanut butter. She couldn't have known about him and peanut butter. First thing they'd given him after the emancipation took him out of the labs? Peanut butter. New and scary, like the rest of the world, but wonderful. It was comfort food, the first comfort food he'd ever had outside the labs. They traded small talk, while she leaned up against the counter, occasionally chewing on a slim piece of ham from the fridge. She didn't seem to mind when he glanced up at her, stared off into the distance. So after a time, he stopped glancing away so often. "-It didn't really matter, of course, but we always ended out wondering why he did it," Jennifer continued, finishing her story with a shrug and a smile. She shook out her arm, shaking her wristwatch about to get a glance at the time. "Alaska." Troy shook his head slowly. "It's a long way to go," he concluded, sipping down the last of the water she'd given him after the snack. Trailing a hand on the counter, she stepped around, moving for the couch. She lifted a shoulder smoothly as she passed by him. "I certainly wouldn't want to live up there. Anyway," she said, bending over beside the couch, the folds of her dress tightening over her buttocks as she did. "That's life." she started running her fingers beneath the edge of the couch's base panel. "Oh!" Troy got up with a start as she started hauling, moving close beside her he reached down, running his fingers along the padded edge of the couch's panel, beside her own. "Let me, uh... let me help you with that." "Thank you," she breathed in his ear, suddenly closer than he'd realized. She gently put her hands over his, guiding his fingers over a latch. "It's pretty straightforward." The flesh beneath his fur tingled with her touch. His ear felt hot where she'd whispered to him. He nodded numbly, unlatching and pulling the couch open to reveal an unadorned blue mattress's surface. As she straightened, her hip brushed against his. Jennifer smoothed down the hem of her dress, running a hand along her thigh to do so, cocking a shoulder with a smile. "Well. I better go and get you some sheets. The bathroom's over there if you need it." Troy tugged at his dress shirt's collar and dry swallowed, still crouched down as she looked him over. "Ah, if you don't mind me using your shower, that'd be great." She nodded brightly, then. "Sure." She stepped back towards her bedroom, flicking her tail. "Just be comfortable, Troy." Troy licked his lips nervously, watching her go. How could he be comfortable, with that bulge in his pants? Jennifer's bathroom seemed large. Almost too large. The femme's apartment, come to think of it, seemed just a little too large and expensive for a secretary. Anxiety gnawed at him while he undressed, piling his clothes on the upturned lid of a laundry hamper, along with his small bottle of soap. She couldn't be single. He shouldn't think about her like this. But she was pretty, beautiful really. Sexy, too. Very sexy. As usual, Troy's train of thought was broken while he fiddled with his left hand. The prosthetic wasn't exactly waterproof. It soaked up water worse than a sponge, leaving the exterior cover bloated and prone to tear or shed fur. Human prosthetic skin didn't work as well with fur punching through it. He grasped an empty towel rail with his left hand, keeping his grip tight as he searched around in the back of his mind for the right command to give it. It was like trying to move a limb that wasn't there. As usual, the disconnection left a sick feeling in the back of his throat. Sent a hard to define cold feeling along the circuit bridge stuck in his spine, triggering sensations that didn't, couldn't, naturally exist. His left hand went numb. He reached out with his right, picking at the line of skin and fur before folding it back from the scars. He got ahold of the little notch for the locking ring and gently worked it around until it released. The hand remained in place on the towel rail, keeping its grip. The stump of his arm felt cold, with its scarred pink flesh and plastic-ceramic sockets left exposed. But those were waterproof. He entered the shower cubicle, naked, pausing to twitch his tail inside before closing the shower's glass door. The console lit up with the snick of the shower door. A custom model, he realized from the menu's options. There were covered vents. Warm air, for drying. There were a pair of shower heads, one on a flexible hose curled up on the wall. Her shampoos were lined up on a shelf, and he set his own bottle beside them carefully. She kept combs and brushes in the shower. Not something he'd seen anyone else do before. He selected the temperature and water pressure he wanted from the most familiar of the menu sections, and once again set to fumbling with his bottle of soap, clenching it between his teeth while popping open the cap, returning it to his mouth while he scrubbed up a lather in his fur. Then the usual routine set in, and his mind began to wander again, imagining Jennifer using this shower, what she looked like drenched, grooming the fur on her throat and stomach and breasts and- Knock Knock. "Uh?" The door opened, and through the water speckled glass Troy saw Jennifer walk in, blurred, but plainly with a grey towel over her arm. "Thought you might want a towel," she said brightly, pausing beside the towel rack. She'd see his hand, was his first thought, shortly followed by the one that this glass, even if steamed up, was hardly blurry enough for his own modesty's sake. "Uh..." She paused a moment, glancing down while getting the towel over the bar. He could easily see the slow sway of her tail against the gray-blue of her dress as she worked. Don't be freaked out, he silently prayed. Her head bowed, she stared at the hand a long moment. "Aaanyway," she drawled, the chirp gone from her voice. No comment about the prosthetic hand hanging on her towel rack, anyway. "Sorry to intrude, just, thought you'd need a towel, or something." No brightness at all in that voice. She shrugged up a shoulder, seemed to glance back. Shit. Shit! Did she really glance back at him? Through the water drops on the glass he couldn't tell. He hunched down on himself, turning his back on her, but- Yeah. She'd seen, she'd definitely seen something other than the prosthetic hand on her towel railing, and her voice was bubbly again. "Anyway. Enjoy your shower," she teased, sashaying back through the door. "Uhm, thank you!" he called, suddenly gulping for breath. She giggled as she shut the door, a pleasant sound, one that made his heart beat faster, and he glanced down. He sucked in another breath, squeezing his eyes shut in embarrassment. He cringed against one of the shower doors, lightly bumping the back of his head against the tiling for a few minutes. Enjoy yourself. Troy flattened his only hand across his face. Shit. She definitely hadn't missed his prosthetic hand. And she almost certainly hadn't missed the pink of his erection against his almost black fur, fogged up shower door or no fogged up shower door. Shit. Between the shower's hot air blowers and the towel she'd left, Troy found himself drier than he usually was after a shower. His fur was light and fluffy almost immediately, instead of waiting around for twenty minutes feeling like a, ha, drowned rat. Wearing a fresh pair of undershorts from his briefcase's meagre assortment of clothing and seated on the side of the fold-out bed, Troy swallowed nervously again, staring at the pieces of Jeane's phone he'd set out carefully on the white bed sheets. Intellectually, he knew he should be thinking about how to repair the phone so he could use it until he got a new one. Maybe about what he was going to do with himself tomorrow. Practically, however, his mind was stuck on Jennifer. She'd made the bed for him, and he could smell her on the sheets. A dry, almost dusky odour that he couldn't describe to himself satisfactorily. She was in the shower now, and he could hear the faint roar of droplets pitter pattering against the shower door glass. Against her. Where he'd been standing a couple of minutes before. It was silly. She couldn't be single, not with a place like this. All too soon her shower ended, and he heard the blowers start up. Not something humans generally needed, but for furs... God, it had been useful. He wished he could install one in his little apartment out by the university, but he didn't think the terms of his rent contract would allow it even if he could afford a set-up like that. A bathroom set up like that had to be expensive. And one didn't just get that kind of money for being a secretary, surely? The bathroom door clicked open, and Troy tried not to stare while Jennifer stepped out, fog pooling around her feet. Her feet were almost like paws, reshaped with bone and collagen implants like his own, but she seemed to take a natural gait that put most of her weight on her toes. She left damp patches from the pads of her soles on the tiles, then as she moved further along and onto the Amerindian patterned rug. She looked up with a smile, adjusting the towel wedged up under her armpits. "Don't mind me," she offered, "I'm sure you want some sleep by now." Troy felt a thickness in his throat, and he nodded quickly. "Ah, yeah." Eyes dipped to the floor, her wet trail of prints, he added, "Ah, good night, Jennifer." Jennifer nodded, ducking her head. "You too." She slipped towards her bedroom door but paused beside the wall console. She glanced back over her shoulder. "You want the lights out?"