Into that space, though, something had just entered that clearly didn’t belong. It was… I couldn’t tell what it was. One corner was squared, sharply, like a building block. The opposite faces were irregular, rippling and jerking like some kind of living thing. Its surface shifted colors rapidly, along with its shape, though the three edges of it remained consistent. Fragments grew and shrank in the air, fingerlike projections or completely separate objects that vibrated slowly before fading out or merging with the underlying structure. It didn’t even announce itself; one moment it wasn’t, and the next it was, letting out chirps and warbles seemingly at random.

“So what is it?” Imogen asked, her paws on her hips. “More to the point, where’d it come from? I thought you said this place was closed.”

“It is,” I insisted. I hesitated a moment, then added, “It was, anyway.” I opened my hardline and scanned through menus, looking for intrusions or malware, but each check came back clean. “I’m not seeing anything. Giri, any ideas?”

The fox shook his head, his tail lashing behind him. “I have checked it twice; even with your added permissions, it has no properties, no structure. It does not actually exist.” He scowled. “It reminds me uncomfortably of the FutureShock.”

I nodded at that. “Yeah, but Jules isn’t here, and he did the real hackery on that place.” I looked back at Imogen. “Let people know we’re poking at it, but truth is I don’t know.” I glanced at Giri, but the fox shook his head. I sighed; I wanted to tell her more, but Giri was right to advise against it.

The mouse nodded, then walked back towards the group she’d been addressing before. “C’mon, folks. Let’s go somewhere else and let these guys work. C’mon, everybody, make some room. Soon as these guys have things figured out, they’ll let us know.” She motioned, and despite the collective groans of about a hundred weary people, they rose and began to shuffle away, towards another part of the space. Before they’d even gotten a few steps, though, Imogen was back into her story, and it sounded like the others sank quickly back into the rapture of her narratives.

As soon as Imogen’s voice was down to a murmur, I looked back at Giri, voice low. “Any clue? I’m at a loss.”

Giri shook his head again. “The server is failing; that much is certain. Could this be a side effect?”

I stared at the shifting block and shrugged helplessly. “I have no idea. I can hack a bit on back-end stuff, but my job was always front-end components. Aesthetic, not functional. I’d need somebody like Jules or Briar for details, and even she might not know.” I sighed. “I’m afraid this is out of my league.”

The fox stared intently at the shifting image, a frown spreading on his muzzle. “It is growing.” He motioned with one paw to the object. “It has a second corner now.”

I looked where he indicated, tailtip hooking in frustration. “You’re right, it does. That still doesn’t tell us what it is, though, or anything else.”

“You know as much as I at this point,” Giri said. “I would have to do a deep dive to determine more, but I am not sure I would know what I am seeing. It does not appear to have definition, yet it is there. It is not anything, yet it exists. And it is still growing.”

I watched with fascination as a square, about a foot per side, slowly filled the space. The chattering and clicking that it emitted changed in timbre as, and the shapes that it filled rapidly took on the edges and corners. It looked almost as though someone were pouring luminescent, light-and-sound-reactive goop into an invisible mold that hung perfectly still in the air. It ratcheted up to the top of the space, and then, as if meeting an invisible lid, it leveled itself and then formed a perfectly shaped rectangle, about four inches tall.

As if cued by its completion, a shout rang out across the space. Heads turned, and Giri and I broke into a sprint towards the voice. Imogen beat us to the site and already asking questions of a visibly-upset black cat as we approached. “What is it? What happened?” She spread her drawl thick, resting a paw on her shoulder. “It’s okay now. Everything’s gonna be—” She stopped, then followed the cat’s pointing finger to a space in front of her in which letters and numbers hung in space. “Ah, hell.”

“It just showed up out of… hey, is that my—” She stopped, as the block started to echo her speech, but a scant moment before she spoke, as if it knew what she was about to say. The same words scrolled in space, in a vivid violet, starting cleanly at one point, then disappearing off raggedly off of another. Perpendicular to that, code fragments flickered. The area between them filled in rapidly as the cat spoke. “What’s it… it’s writing down what I say!” She looked at Imogen, then me. “Why’s it—it’s hard to… to talk with… with that. How is it… doing that?”

“I have no idea,” Giri said, spacing his words evenly. His words showed up a deep blue calligraphic script. “I find this even more disturbing, though.”

I nodded. “Me, too. It’s like it’s—” My own text looked like angular gold text, blocky and monospaced. “It’s… reading out of the—” I stopped, head snapping to Giri.

The security expert’s head canted to the side. “What? What is it?”

Imogen leaned forward and adjusted her pince-nez. “Yeah, you look like—” I made a quick cut-it gesture, dragging my paw across my throat, and she snapped her jaws shut, her teeth clacking audicbly; the sound showed up as a splat of red in the air.

I put a finger over my muzzle, then motioned for them to follow me. They exchanged glances but did so, stepping away from the fresh distortion. I looked back at it, then squinted and whispered, “test, test.” The midair text block flickered, and I sighed, returning to full volume. “Damn, never mind.”

“What?” The word was simultaneous from three muzzles. A cacophony followed, as they sorted out who spoke next, but Imogen easily overpowered both of the others. “Don’t leave us hanging, John; what is it?”

I pointed to the space as it swelled. “It’s a chunk of the speech engine. It’s… it’s how the graphics engine is rendering the speech engine.”

Imogen and the cat just blinked in confusion, but Giri’s eyes shot open in shock. “Are you sure, John?”

I nodded. “Pretty sure. I can’t think of any other way it would be getting that information.”

Imogen held up a paw. “You two lost me at ‘chunk,’” the mouse said. “Try again, in English.”

Giri jammed his paws into the pokets of his coat. “If John is correct—and I hope he is not—it is… a piece of Irokai’s underlying software that Irokai’s display system is attempting to render.”

“Okay, I get that,” the mouse said slowly. “But why? And what’s so bad about that?”

I looked at Giri, then back at Imogen. “It’s… listen, this plan… the server can’t hold everybody on here right now. I deleted everything I could, but I’ve still got more people on here than my development box can sustain at the same time. Everything we do, it all takes memory. Computer memory. Every thought, every action, it’s all computer code. It takes memory to execute, to tell who’s doing what. We’re running out of it. It’s—” I barked a laugh. “It’s the only limited resource we have… and we’re running out.”

Imogen blinked and canted her head to the side. “How do you run out? Nobody new is showing up. Nobody’s running anything, right?”

Giri shook his head. “It is not so simple. There must be a time delay between when a bit of memory is allocated to record that someone has done something, and when the bit that marked the past state is freed, to ensure that all systems have the new state. The more people, the more things are present, the more complex the interactions, the longer delay that must be to ensure safety.”

I nodded at the fox. “Jules explained it to me once, but he’s the genius on this stuff. The short form is that the system’s out of memory, and it’s out of backup memory, and there’s nothing left for it to use to store people’s actions… so it’s using whatever memory it can.”

The cat blinked. “You mean it’s…” She looked back at the block of code, then burst out, “It’s bigger! Oh, my god, it’s… there’s another one!” Her finger shot out suddenly, and I followed it to another patch of flickering graphics hanging in mid-air, some distance away.

I groaned. “It’s run out of everything else, so it’s using this space. And because it is, everything that happens on the back-end that shows up is rendering, and we’re all seeing it, so it’s changing the environment that much faster!” I looked at Giri. “This… this beats the Beni hack, by a long shot.”

Girl smirked. “I believe this is where Mitsuko would say, ‘oh, hai.’”

Imogen put a paw on each of our shoulders. “Okay, bad. What do we do? How do we stop it?”

I blinked. “Stop it? We can’t stop it. Anything we do makes it grow faster!”

The mouse’s eyes hardened, “John, that’s—damnit!” The cat took off at a run, over to a group of people, pointing and jabbering agitatedly at the distortions. They turned, then approached, and the volume spread as their words were echoed, then spread as they went to show others. “I swear, nobody learns around here,” she grumbled, putting her muzzle in her paw. “You and Giri work on this; I’m gonna go stop the deluge.” Then she clapped us on the back and followed the others. “Hey! Hey!”

I tuned her out, then looked back to Giri. “This is going to go to hell fast if we don’t do something. Ideas?”

Giri shrugged. “I do not know. I wanted to understand the way in which my world worked, but… now I am not so sure.”

I shook my head, then popped open my hardline. “There’s got to be something.” I started scanning menus. “Change the garbage collection speed.”

The fox shook his head. “Desynchronized actions and corrupted accounts.”

I scowled. “Cache dump.”

He shook his head again. “That would make the problem worse; we want fewer misses, not more.”

“Damnit, Giri, I want help, not—” I caught myself mid-outburst. “Sorry, sorry, this is… stressful. Suspend the whole system, wait for Jules.”

Giri nodded. “I… am unused to being afraid, myself. If we trust that, we should have trusted the rollback. Plus, we have no way to know if he will be able to restore us, regardless of whether he wants to do so.”

“Right. Damnit. I’m running out of options here.” My eyes flicked over hovering menu choices. “What about—” A scream cut me off, followed by another. I turned, then gaped. The cat that had run from the conversation had one paw on her other elbow, shaking and crying as she tried to pull her first out of a silvery box shot through with multicolored lightning streaks. One of the people she had gone to see had her by the shoulders and was trying to extract her; the other was backing away quickly, then suddenly turned and bolted.

“Help me!” the cat shrieked, blubbering. “Help me, please!”

That was the only spark the room needed. What had been a crowd instantly became a mob, people running in terror from the alien blocks and from each other. Some tried to help; others tried to escape. Of course, with all that commotion, the system needed that much more memory to render it all, and the only place it had left to find it was in here. Alien spires and fractal fragments began to materialize across the universe as the graphics engine seized more memory to try to display what was happening.

I looked back at Giri, eyes hard. “Space partition; cut the ceiling in half, buy us some more time.” The fox didn’t respond. “Giri, I need your opinion here. What about—Giri? Giri, what’re you doing? I told you, no loading!”

The fox had a sword in his paws; I hadn’t seen him with it when he’d arrived. Come to think of it, I didn’t remember him having one, but he held it balanced across his pads, his head bowed. “I… am sorry, John. It is the right thing to do. Please… give my apologies to Briar.”

I blinked. “Giri? Giri, what the hell are you—no! No, no, no!” I ran over to grab the fox by his lapels. “Don’t you dare quit on me!”

He smiled. “This is not abandoning the fight; this is giving you a little more time. It is… fitting. This is the role Tadashiissei wanted me to play, so I will play it. Good-bye, John-kun.” He drew the blade in a graceful arc from its sheath, then turned it in his wrist and, with a solid thrust, rammed its tip into his gut. There was no blood; he must’ve been too conscious of how much rendering power that would take. Instead he just… froze in place. He didn’t even crumple or fall. His body just stopped moving. His eyes were squinted tightly closed against the shock and pain, but on his muzzle was an almost beatific smile, his head upturned and his tail held high.

“Damnit!” I swung at the statue of Giri in front of me, but as my fist came in contact with it, a black square shot with angry red lines materialized around his head, wiping the smile off of his muzzle and catching my fingers in mid-air. “Shit!” I felt my heart leap into my throat as panic tried to set in. Screams and cries filled the spaces around me, interspersed with static and pure-tone beeping. Music rippled across the panel in front of me, notes making the lines wink on and off. A wolf grabbed my arm. Her eyes were gone; in each socket, a pair of luminescent letters glowed. She opened her muzzle to say something, but only the smell of violets and shift right two && call_function(vox, TRUE, #0xA1830128725E); came out.

Make or break(); time. There had to be something I could do. I wasn’t going to let this be LOOKUP_FAIL(memory()); NO_SWAP(memory());. Why couldn’t I think of anything? The rollback had to be almost done by now; we just had to hold out a little longer, but we couldn’t. The system would resync any minute now, and the database would offload its Atomic transaction(rollback) aborted mid-process; unable to write to log; but we couldn’t wait. We were out of time.

Time. Timing. open_menus(admin(TRUE)); Scan down to the system statistics. Find the Irokai services. It is a shame he could not come back, Mitsuko said. Lower priority. Lowest priority. Garbage collection. The scent of rotten eggs, the feel of something unpleasantly moist, and a charnal taste, overwhelming. Highest priority. Less action per time unit. More time for sync. Time.

Hopefully it was enough.

Imogen looked up at the podium, then nonchalantly adjusted her glasses. “You sure got their attention,” she quipped sardonically. “Think maybe you can get everyone else’s?”

I nodded, then lifted my arms to my sides, amplifying my voice to boom over the plaza again. “Everyone, please! Calm down!” If the crowed noticed, nobody reacted. “This is an intimidation tactic to get us to disperse; it’s harassment, and it’s illegal. Everybody, relax; we’ll take care of it.”

The mouse pulled the pince-nez from her muzzle and breathed on them, then polished the lenses with her vest. “Nice. Here’s some free advice for you, John: don’t go into politics; stick with advertising.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and let out a piercing whistles that rattled the windows and turned the heads of everyone standing in Tadashiissei Plaza. “Everybody, sit tight! They’re playing hardball. Don’t let ‘em see you sweat and we’ll get through this just fine!” At that, the crowd started to stabilize, and the shouts faded back to a dull roar. Imogen then grinned up at me. “All yours, John. You’ve got about ten minutes before people start cracking again.”

As much as I appreciated the help, I was fighting my own rising panic. I held out a paw to her, pads out. “One sec, please.” I opened my hardline, then snapped through menus to send a message to Mits, asking her where she was. She hadn’t answered the last five times I’d paged, but I had to try again. This time, as will all the others, the only reply I received came from the subsystem handling communications: the person you are attempting to reach is not presently available; please try again later.

“Damnit!” I swore, pounding one fist against the other. “Where is she?”

The mouse cocked her head to the side. “Who, thin raccoon that was with you when you arrived? Green blouse, white pants?”

I nodded. “Mitsuko. She’s a resident, too. I have to find her, make sure she’s okay.”

“Ouch.” Imogen grimaced, then looked around the crowd. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s okay right now, though.”

I nodded, but my eyes were back on the crowd, scanning for Briar and Giri, but they weren’t hard to find. The fox and rabbit were clinging to each other like lovers in a life raft, his arms around her shoulders, hers around his waist. I glanced back to the mouse and said, “Let me get theirs first.” Then, punctuating my words with a sharp whistle, I called out to my co-conspirators. “Briar! Giri! Get up here, please?” The two looked at each other, then back to me. As the approached, I grabbed the fox’s arm to help him onto the platform, started talking fast. “I need you to run interference on the crowd and get people calmed down. I have to go find Mits.”

I made it one-and-a-half steps before Briar grabbed one arm, Giri the other. “I can’t let you do that, John,” the rabbit said. “We need you.”

“Mits needs me,” I growled back, my tail lashing. “I have to go find her.”

Giri shook his head. “I must agree with Briar, John-kun.” The fox’s grip tensed against my fingers. “This situation is of your… our… making. We have a responsibility to protect them from this.”

My eyes went wide. “Protect them from a rollback?” I blinked. “How?”

Despite the gravity of his expression, Giri’s eyes twinkled. “You work in development; you tell me.”

I shook my head rapidly. “No, listen, I don’t have time for this; I have to go find Mits and make sure she’s safe.” I turned away from the two of them, but neither one would release their grip on my shoulder or arm.

“For aether’s sake, John,” Briar sighed in exasperation. “Start thinking digitally already!” She tugged on my sleeve, spinning me to face her, then gripped the sides of my head in her paws. “Mitsuko is fine. Yes, she might be panicking now just like you are, but consider. Either the rollback works as planned, or it doesn’t. If it does, you’re both restored to pre-disaster versions of yourself. Your relationship’s older than this crisis; it’ll survive. If it doesn’t, you’ll be back as you are now without any perception of the intervening time. Either way, you’ve got no reason to panic.” She looked at the fox. “It’s you I’m worried about; we only got together after this whole mess started.”

“That is untrue,” Giri replied, a faint smile spreading on his muzzle. “I arrested you for shoplifting before the attacks.”

I rolled my eyes. “Touching, very touching. Now let go, or I’ll delete you both myself.”

Briar grinned. “You can’t; you don’t have access.”

I sighed. “Not here, but if you were—that’s it!” I snapped my claws sharply. “I’ve got an idea. Let go already; we don’t have time for this. I said I’m not running and I meant it.” The two hesitated, looking at each other, then stepped away from me. “Thank you,” I continued. “So, I still have my old development server hooked onto the system. The shutdown probably won’t take that offline, and any code running there is probably safe.”

“Probably?” Giri folded his arms across his chest, looking skeptical. “You do not know?”

I shrugged. “I doubt it; too many people have bought those and spent way too much money on them. My account’s paid out through the month, and I can pay that one manually for a while. If we need, we can probably take up a collection to keep it active. Besides, do you have a better idea?”

When the fox shook his head, I opened my hardline. Some of my options were already grayed out, but the messaging system still worked. I need your help, I sent in a meeting invite to Jules. Can you meet me at the transit station?

The reply came quickly: Weren’t you the one saying being seen around the HQ was a bad move for me? I’ve read the transcripts from your spat with Security; nice job giving away the farm.

I let out a groan. Not now, Jules, I shot back.I need a portal to my server. We need to move people.

What for? It’s just a rollback. At least it fixes the problems. I could hear Jules’ shrug in his text.

I sighed and snapped out a fast reply. And makes more. Last known-good backup means before the attacks. Means before the revolt. Means none of us inside remember why we were fighting. Means you stay banned and we don’t know why you’re so angry again.

Jules was silent for several seconds, then shot back, Be there in three, hon. Then his icon went grey.

I laughed and shook my head. “He never changes.” I looked at Imogen, then Briar and Giri. “Jules says three minutes.”

Imogen glanced upwards, then back to me. “You probably got two. Who is this guy, anyway?”

The rabbit’s ears had already perked. “Jules? He’s one of the founders of the FutureShock. Guy’s a genius coder, if a little fast and loose. I thought he’d gone native when I first met him; I only found out he wasn’t when he got banned for making a stink about uploading.” She hesitated a moment, then mused way too innocently, “I didn’t know he was back. Did they lift his ban?”

I couldn’t keep the faint smirk from my muzzle. “Somebody sent him an induction rig and a hacked account. Somebody on the inside with ties to Minshukakumei.”

That got Giri’s attention; the fox snapped his head around, his eyes narrowed to slits. “Are you saying that someone within Tadashiissei was working to destroy Irokai?” His tail lashed, and I saw one of his paws reflexively go to his hip before clenching into a fist.

I shook my head. “I think somebody on the inside is playing double-agent, and Jules got caught in the middle. Tadashiissei destroying its own creation makes no sense. No, I think the company found out about a group of active dissidents, they tried to deal with it quietly instead of admitting they had security holes, and things ended up getting out of control.” I grinned. “They fell victim to their own hubris, and they awoke a sleeping dragon.” At Giri’s puzzled expression, I explained. “The populist backlash. They made people angry enough to fight back.”

The fox nodded, tail waving behind him. “It makes sense, though it still makes me angry. So much of this could have been avoided.”

Briar shrugged. “Yeah, well, hindsight has perfect vision, so they say. Now they’ve got a bunch of angry residents and they’re about to try to clean up their mess by wiping everything back to how it was, which means if Jules doesn’t get his tail here soon, they’re going to get away with it.”

“They won’t,” Jules replied.

The rabbit whipped around, one paw on her chest. “Don’t do that! Are you trying to get me to jump out of my pelt?”

The wolf grinned, his ears perked and tail waving. “That’d be kind of hot, but—” He glanced to the side, at Giri’s glare. “I don’t think your new boyfriend would approve.” He turned to me, his paws jammed into the pockets of his oversized pants. “So what’s the plan? I heard the Voice. And where’s Mitsuko?”

I nodded in response. “We’ve got about forty-five minutes, and Mitsuko is… not responding to my messages. Is your account still wide open?”

Jules’ tail lashed once. “Really.” His eyes flicked about in his skull for a few seconds. “Yeah, everything seems to be there, why? Are you really going to try to crowd everyone onto your dev box?”

I shrugged. “It’s the best option I can provide right now. Once I’m on there I should be able to make room for everyone.”

“John, love, that box isn’t sized to hold that many people.” The wolf’s eyes tightened around the corners and his voice dropped to a low whisper. “I don’t think you understand the load you’re asking to put on that thing, and its support system’s about to get bounced. You’re talking about….” He visibly snapped through menus, fingers tapping against the air. “Two-thousand people on a server maybe sized for a quarter of that. It’s a development system, which means not ready for production. You overload it, it goes down in the middle of the rollback… I don’t want to think about what happens.”

My chest froze. “So do you have a better idea?” I asked in the same tone.

He shook his head. “No, but I don’t see how you’re going to make this work.”

I grinned, tail hooking. “You get me a public portal and get everyone here and then we’ll worry about that.”

Jules’ grimace deepened. “No, you’ll worry about that. I’ll be calling Adam once you’re up and running and then taking off.”

“Taking off?” I blinked. “But… Adam? And what about all of this?”

Jules ticked off points on his clawtips. “One, I’d just be one more person on the system, and I have no idea what I’m doing to the local environment coming in from the outside. On Tadashiissei’s boxes, I didn’t care so much. On yours, right now, that’s a risk I won’t take. Two, great job sidestepping the rollback, getting out of their environments, but now you’re on an isolated system that’d be way too easy to unplug. Somebody with physical access to the box needs to go guard it until they’re finished. Three, I need Adam to come unplug me because I’m on an intravenous line and my disconnect function’s on a hard timer that’s not set to go off until some time Sunday night when the bag runs dry.”

My eyes went wide, accompanied by Briar’s gasp. “Jules!”

The wolf’s ears went flat. “John, don’t start on me,” he growled. “I said I wanted to live here. Give me some credit, here. I’m not doing anything they don’t do in the pods, just with homebrew equipment.”

“They don’t turn off people’s safety switches!” I shouted back, then immediately caught my voice and lowered it. “Jules, assuming I survive this, we’ve got to have a talk about boundary-setting.”

Jules winced, but his grin returned anyway. “If you make it through this unchanged, then it was a good thing I did this. If you don’t, you won’t remember it anyway. If you don’t make it, it won’t have mattered.” He brought his paws together and cracked his knuckles. “Let’s get this started.” His eyes closed, but beneath the lids they shook rapidly, and put his paws in front of him as if resting them on a table. “I don’t see a teleport-enabled door around here I can borrow; I’ll have to make one.” The Voice of Irokai started to announce unauthorized local edits, then suddenly fuzzed into unintelligible static as a rippling liquid silver mirror poured into place, hanging vertically in midair. “I always hated that voice,” he muttered. “Now, John, I need a door on your side. Object reference, database name, something.”

I scanned my notes and documentation, then passed the wolf a reference. “Main airlock to the station.”

“Station?” His head canted to the side. “Right, right. This ought to come through any minute. Send me a back link, and whatever you do, don’t delete this door. I don’t care what else you purge, but leave this one intact. Once it’s gone, I won’t be able to put it back.” His connection request arrived and I approved it. “Good, now go through and send me back a remote link request; different zone, so you’ll have to—”

I waved off the rest of the explanation. “I remember how to do this; I’ve got one in my office. See you…” I stopped, then looked at the wolf, my ears drooping. “I’ll see you after this is over, I guess.”

Jules nodded. “I’ll hang around until the request comes in, then call Adam. It’ll take him about ten minutes to get to my place, and fifteen to get to the data center, so figure half an hour and we should be in place. If they’re going right at fourteen, that’s five minutes of leeway. You better hope we don’t hit traffic. Take care.” One paw snapped out and grabbed the collar of my shirt, then tugged me into a rough kiss before shoving me towards the portal. “Now move.”

I broke the kiss roughly, then turned to the others. “Once I have the place pared down, I’ll contact you and you can start sending people through. We’re going to be cutting this close, but we should make it. Everyone ready?” When they all nodded, I dashed through the portal. As soon as I was on the far side, my feet left the floor, sent flying from the force of a step in the local microgravity. Behind me, the iris of the airlock stayed stubbornly open, a hack Jules must have put in place to keep the connection open.

It took me a few moments to sort out my bearings, but I quickly had the development panel open and started flipping through server statistics. With everything set as it was right now, the server could safely hold about five-hundred people, with another fifty pushing it into the danger zone. I grimaced; the station had to go if I wanted to fit everyone onto the system. First, though, I could de-allocate the biggest wastes. Space went first, as did everything else outside the station walls; that doubled my available memory. The physics engine governing orbital mechanics got me another hundred. I glanced out one of the portals at the black emptiness beyond; no stars glittered, no suns burned.

I shivered; this was about to become a really desolate place. Walls and doors started disappearing. Shops and pylons vanished. Every chair, table, and detail that didn’t have to be there rapidly went into the trash and was purged. Soon I was down to the outer walls, a few textures, and the airlock; the server cap sat stubbornly at 1900. I closed my eyes and shook my head. A few finger twitches wiped out everything but the doorway and defined a single featureless rectangle of space, three meters tall, a hundred on a side. Everything else I reverted back to system defaults, as blank as the day I got it. Then I started scanning the base code and wiped everything I could think to remove. I hesitated a moment on the checkbox for the archive system, then disabled it as well.

I glanced at the capacity meter: 1970. It would have to do. I opened my communication window and sent a message to Briar and Jules. The server is ready. Have Imogen start sending people through.

Almost as impressive as the tower, though, was the crowd that had already gathered around it. The clock had not yet touched eight, but already over a hundred people stood on the tessellated tiles, milling about slowly, murmuring. I scanned faces and accounts as I walked through the crowd. Many were nervous, or excited. A few people were visibly angry. Many in the audience had had at least one encounter with Tadashiissei’s terms of serve and account access policies. I kept my expression carefully level, but inside I was smiling; this was precisely the type of audience I hoped would come.

At the opposite side of the plaza from the transit center, a waist-height platform stood a short distance from main entrance to the Tadashiissei Tower. Whoever had placed it had chosen its location well; it stood too far from the entrance to be considered an obstacle, but it forced the crowd to stand close enough to be an implicit threat. A small group clustered behind it, talking amongst themselves. The rabbit I didn’t know, but she struck me as familiar. The other two, however, I recognized as soon as I saw them. John stood with his arms defensively crossed across his chest, his tail lashing and his ears against his head. Mitsuko rested one paw on his shoulder, her eyes full of concern but her own posture suggesting she didn’t feel the confidence she tried to project. All of them were dressed conservatively, as if for a job interview.

As I stepped out of the crowd, a voice behind me spoke. “I do not believe you are welcome here.”

The smile that I had attempted to hold inside let itself out in a smirk. “Giri.” I turned to look at the fox. He stood relaxed, his paws jammed into the pockets of his coat. He had replaced his usual sweater, though, with a simple button-down shirt. His muzzle was expressionless, but his tail wagged behind him in amusement, almost wolf-like. “I would like to say I’m surprised to see you here, but I suppose I shouldn’t be.”

Giri half-bowed, but he kept his gaze studiously locked with mine. “I would say the same.”

I returned the gesture, even though there was no respect in his. “I work for Tadashiissei Security. It’s my responsibility to ensure the safety of Irokai.”

The words hurt me to say, but that was nothing compared to the pain visible in Giri’s response. His tail brushed out behind him. His eyes narrowed in a squint, and the corners of his muzzle tightened. He raised one paw to his waist, hesitating a moment before grabbing his belt. “I suggest that you leave, Rei. Have Security send someone else to cover this event.”

My own tail lashed; it was hard not to respond to his anger. Before I could do more, however, the rest of the gathered group had joined him. The rabbit put a paw on Giri’s waist, while Mitsuko and John interposed themselves between us. “Giri, go keep an eye on the crowd for me; I’ll call you when I need you.” As the fox nodded and walked away, the raccoon nodded to me. “Rei. I’m glad you could make it.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “Are you the ones who organized this event?”

John shrugged. “They organized themselves; I just put together the flyers. It’s more like a flash mob than anything else.”

“And your reason for the flyers was?” I asked, narrowing my eyes in suspicion.

The raccoons exchanged glances, then Mitsuko said. “I believe that will become apparent in a moment. John, I believe it is time.”

John nodded back, then turned to me. “Excuse me, Rei.” With that, he hopped up onto the platform, raising his arms over his head. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then when he next spoke, his voice boomed out over the crowd. “If I may have your attention, everybody?”

The crowd fell mostly silent, turning to face the podium. “Thank you all for coming out here so early; I know most of you are probably just thinking about sleep.” He paused, letting a brief chuckle pass through the audience. “I also want to take a minute to thank the folks who run the FutureShock for helping me get this together so fast.” He paused to let the applause run its course, then lifted his arms again, projecting his voice out over the whole of the plaza. “I don’t want to bore you or waste your time, so I’ll get to the point. There’s something wrong with this place, but it’s something we can fix.”

He stopped a moment, looking down to Mitsuko, then back out over the crowd. “When I first came to Irokai, I did so because I thought it would be fun, a chance to be something else, somebody else for a while. I came back afterwards because I found something more. I found a place where I could do things I just couldn’t do outside. I found a place I could experience things that simply had no analog equivalent.” He brought his paws together overhead. “I moved to Irokai, uploaded myself, became a resident, because I found a place where magic, or the closest thing to it could be real. I found a place where the old rules just didn’t have to apply any more.” He spread his arms wide, a pair of pigeons flying from the space between his cupped fingers.

He paused a moment, letting the crowd applaud in response, then dropped his voice. “That, however, didn’t mean that people wouldn’t try to make some new rules. Different rules. Less popular rules. Outside, the rules you simply couldn’t escape were things like gravity, the speed of light, or your own heartbeat. In Irokai, they’re rules like subscription fees and access charges.” The light around the podium began to dim, as if gathering the shadows from the corporate tower over the stage. “Sure, they’re small. A nickel here, a dime there, a dollar somewhere else. It’s never too much to ask, but is it too much to pay? What’s the difference between walking and flying, if gravity’s just a number in a database? What’s the difference between raccoon and rabbit, between wolf and weasel, when you can change your body as easily as your clothes?”

The people in the audience began to murmur, with scattered claps, but John continued to speak over the swelling throng. “I took a job with Tadashiissei because I wanted to help make Irokai a place where anything was possible. Where anything is possible. When the attacks started, I pitched in and helped as much as I could, figuring out what was wrong. When that required me to make changes to the environment, I made them. I did what I had to do to make Irokai safe again. Now, Tadashiissei’s told me I have to pay for everything I did in the line of duty!” He paused, then broke into a shout. “They’re threatening to suspend my account—to turn me off—if I don’t agree to pay!”

The crowd, already grumbling, broke out into a full-throated growl. “It gets worse,” Giri called back to the stage, his own voice even but matching John’s in pitch.

“Giri!” John motioned for the fox to join him. “Come up here, tell everybody what happened to you that night in Beni Prefecture.”

Giri nodded, the crowd parting as he approached the platform. “I worked for Tadashiissei since my inception, in their security department. I saw the signs of the coming assault and tried, time and again, to warn them, to investigate, to take steps to stop it, but they did nothing.” As he spoke, he stood straighter, lifting his head, visibly projecting the pride he took in his work. “When the attacks began in earnest, they acted surprised that it would happen. After working for fourteen hours, including trying to resolve emergencies left unfinished after business hours, I was ordered to take six hours to rest, which I would have done had I not received a direct request from help from several people trapped inside a building in Beni Prefecture that could reach no one else. I agreed to assist since there seemed to be no other options, went to Beni, and had to make some edits to the local environment to get them out of their building.”

He paused, letting the crowd absorb his words, then sighed, visibly slumping on stage. “No sooner had I finished, than my manager arrived to fire me for failure to follow a direct instruction.”

“It’s not right!” The rabbit from earlier cried out, and suddenly the growl became a rumble of discontent. “If you hadn’t acted, at least two of those people would still be stuck waiting for a restore. And who knows how many other residents got hit when Beni got taken offline.”

“No, it isn’t right,” John echoed, talking over the rapidly rumbling crowd. “If we were just customers, maybe they could get away with it. Caveat emptor, sure, but for some of us this isn’t a game any more. This is our home. These are our lives, and we have rights, and Tadashiissei can’t take those away from us just because we can’t leave! We have a right to live without worrying about getting deleted because they can’t secure their systems. We have a right to know why Beni Prefecture’s still offline. We have a right to not have to pay just to live!”

Hearing his words, I couldn’t contain my smile any further, but I knew my part to play in this, even if they didn’t. “Excuse me,” I called up to the stage, letting my voice carry over the crowd as the others had. “I am here as a representative Tadashiissei Security, and—” The crowd turned ugly, hurling jeers and threats in my direction. I raised my voice to be heard over the mob. “And I feel it necessary to remind you, John, that as a fellow employee of the company, you are obligated to abide by certain rules and regulations governing public conduct. I think you’ll find that this event is clearly in violation of them.”

“Oh, you’re still here?” The raccoon’s tail hooked, and he smiled, but his eyes were dark. “What’re you going to do, fire me?”

I chuckled. The whole of the event could not have gone better had I planned it myself, right down to the dialog. “No,” I conceded, gesturing towards the building. “But surely you must be aware that by now, your demonstration has not gone unnoticed, and no doubt your department manager is aware of your actions against Tadashiissei, and she will have many questions.”

John folded his arms across his chest and motioned for me to join him up on the platform. “She already does, and she supports me. Since you’re here, though, I’ve got a couple of little favors to ask of you. They’re simple; they won’t take you long.” Once I was standing beside him, he held up a paw, then started ticking off points on his fingers. “One: go back to human resources and you tell them I quit. I can’t work for a company that treats me like this. I wouldn’t put up with it before and I refuse to put up with it now. Two, tell my old manager and my team that we demand that they make restoring Beni Prefecture their top developmental priority and provide regular updates until it’s back online.”

As the crowd burst into applause, he turned to face them and grinned, then motioned for quiet. “Three,” he said as he faced me again. “Tell the board of directors that the residents of Irokai demand a seat at the negotiating table, not as employees, not as customers, but as citizens with inalienable rights, to collectively renegotiate our terms of service and account maintenance fees. Four, tell them that regardless of whether they meet with us or not, we demand an end to the user-level environment charges for residents. I’ll pay my taxes, but no more micropayments, no more death of a thousand bills.”

I crossed my arms and scowled, whipping my tail behind me. “They will be unlikely to listen to you. You did sign a contract with Tadashiissei before you came here.”

“As a tourist, yes, but not as a resident,” the raccoon countered with a smirk. “So, let’s put this in terms they’ll understand.” He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and opened them again, lifting his voice to the crowd. “I just pulled my bank account information from your database. Five: you tell the board of directors that until Tadashiissei meets with us on our terms, they don’t get another dollar from me.”

I let myself laugh, knowing John and the rest would think it directed at him. “Are you really so naïve as to think that one rebellious account will change corporate policy?”

A strong tenor rose out of the crowd in response. “No, but maybe two might.” A tall white-furred mouse in a sleeveless top, vest, and denim skirt stepped forward, her hairless tail whipping behind her.

I turned, raising one brow. “And who might you be?”

The mouse grinned. “Imogen Franklin.” The author adjusted her glasses, then put her paws on her hips. “Maybe you’ve heard of me. I’ve written a few books that folks seem to like, and your company’s been bragging for the last few years about saving my life. Maybe if they get a cease-and-desist telling ‘em to stop using my name, that’ll make ‘em listen.” She grinned up at the platform. “Give ‘em hell, John!”

In the wake of her words, a chorus of numbers rang out from the crowd as people rushed to be next to disable their payments. A flurry of cheers rose from the crowd as more and more people cut off Tadashiissei from their banks. Then the rabbit I saw earlier yelled out: “No more payments just to live!” Her words were infectious, and they too spread through the crowd, until the whole plaza was filled with people chanting Minshukakumei no Irokai’s slogan.

John turned to me, a wide-eyed smile on his muzzle, his tail waving slowly behind him. He had the look of an artist, stunned by his own creation. “Do you think you can handle those for me, Rei?”

I smirked in response. “Perhaps Mitsuko will be telling them herself.” I gestured down to the empty space behind the platform where she had been standing some time ago. “While you were enraging our customers, she was summoned inside.” John’s eyes widened even further as his gaze followed my open paw. “Nevertheless, I will deliver your requests. Good morning.” Then, before he could reply, I bowed, opened my hardline, and teleported back into the tower, leaving behind a thunderclap and the echo of my smile.

I felt a flash of anger at the memory. It was hard not to draw a direct line from this place to the makeshift entry to Briar’s club and the events that occurred there. Had I not gone to someone else for help, I might never have expected to put a stop to the attacks on Irokai. I could have simply continued, indefinitely, cleaning up the petty messes and complaining to my superiors. Then, when the real assault happened, I could have simply ignored it all, followed my orders, and told myself that nothing more could be done. I could have simply continued as I had before, willfully ignorant but happy.

I balled my paws into fists and jammed them into my coat pockets to try to stop my fingers from shaking. None of it was true, but it was hard not to believe that it could have happened that way. I almost wished it had; I would have felt less disappointment. I wanted to say that Briar had more than offset the frustration, anger, and resentment I had felt towards both the company and myself; and she had made more of a difference than I could have thought possible. She, however, was but one bright point, and I had been in a very dark place for a very long time. I was glad for how things happened, to be sure, but not because of her. I was still unsure how comfortable I was with her. One night of pleasure after shared stresses was no reason to be interested in her, and her other interests made me nervous, to put it politely.

Really, I had been getting desperate for some time, and the orders I had received were only fueling my urgency. I had not wanted to be where I was, but I had seen no other way to go. Helping Briar and the others had meant defending my principles as well as protecting my home, and what, truly, had it cost me? I no longer worked for a company I disrespected in a position I did not enjoy. I had gotten the best possible outcome I could have reasonably expected, and far better than I could have received.

Neither of those lies gave me any comfort, either, while I sat alone in my apartment, staring out the window at the Murasaki skyline, wondering what to do with the rest of eternity. I had asked myself in the past what I would do with myself, if Tadashiissei had not been in my future. Each time the question had arisen, I had pushed it aside. Now, I had no choice but to admit I had never answered the question. I knew that finding a job would become a necessity in the near future, but who would hire a security agent fired for negligence? After his shockingly public confrontation and dismissal, I doubted that Sasaki would be willing to give a positive reference.

A quiet voice spoke from behind me. “Perhaps formal reintroductions are in order; your family name was different, the last time we spoke.”

I shrugged. “It was my name at incept. I thought it more fitting than what I picked before.”

“Interesting,” Mitsuko replied. “Why did you change it back?”

I smirked and turned to face the raccoon, leaning back against the black warning sign. “Unimportant; it was no longer me.”

Mitsuko stood silently for several moments, considering my words. Her eyes remained inscrutable, but her tail twitched behind her in confusion. “I was not sure you would be here; you did not accept my invitation. I was not even sure that I had invited the right person.”

I took a deep breath, then sighed, resignation returning to my expression. “I was not sure I would come; still, here I am.” I had not wanted to respond, but I felt obligated to do so. It had not been a summons; I no longer worked for Tadashiissei and could not be ordered to attend. Yet, after issuing one to her so long ago, I had never apologized. The least I could do was treat her request with the same urgency.

The raccoon nodded in response, then bowed slightly. “Please, allow me to explain my request. My lover, John, is facing suspension of his account over some financial discrepancies. He is organizing a protest at the Tadashiissei plaza for tomorrow morning starting at eight, local. He hopes to continue it until someone else within the company responds to his requests for help.”

I frowned. “I have little interest in further hurting my chances at gainful employment by participating in a protest against the company from which I was just fired.”

The corners of Mitsuko’s muzzle turned up in a faint smile. “With respect, Giri-san, you worked in Security, not Hospitality. More importantly, though, I have heard about your final exchange with Rei Sasaki from multiple sources. I suspect that attending a public rally in support of those actions would do more for your reputation than avoiding it.”

“Multiple sources?” I tilted my head to the side. I had Briar’s support, I knew, but she had said nothing of anyone else commenting on my actions, nor had she mentioned telling anyone else. “From whom?”

The raccoon’s smile broadened. “It is not specifically important from whom I heard which detail; some of the names were certainly aliases unwilling to admit that they were members of the FutureShock.” She folded her paws together in front of her. “What I may say with certainty is that more than one person has publicly praised your actions. From all reports, you acted in a swift and decisive manner in response to a customer safety complaint, took creative steps to resolve a large problem, and that you were terminated without regard to any mitigating circumstances.” She paused to give her words some weight, then continued more softly. “I am asking you to lend your voice to a protest, not to publish security flaws.”

I folded my arms across my chest. It was hard not to feel a swelling of pride at her words, but it was not enough to overcome my frustration at myself, and at the whole situation. “It will not be much of a protest if only present and former employees of Tadashiissei are in attendance,” I replied.

The tip of Mitsuko’s tail hooked in amusement, and her eyes flashed with pride. “With some generous assistance from some mutual friends, we have generated a fair bit of interest in this rally. I suspect that a significant percentage of the resident populace and a fair number of tourists will be present to hear what we have to say, and to share their own stories. It would seem that there is a great deal of frustration with a large number of corporate policies that has awaited a reason to spill into active anger.”

I held still a few moments, considering my next words. “And you believe that your lover and his story can provide that tipping point?”

“Perhaps not,” she admitted softly. “His situation is… extreme, but he is not well-known in his community.” Then she looked into my eyes. “I do, however, believe that you and your termination could.”

Her words stunned me. I slowly returned my paws to my pockets, shifting my weight against the wall. It was difficult to believe, but if her other words were true…. “Does anyone else within Tadashiissei know of the protest?”

Mitsuko shrugged gently. “I have seen no reason to inform anyone else in Hospitality of its coming. As to whether anyone else within the company knows, that I cannot say.”

I lowered my head, looking down through the glass floor to the streetlights below, watching them twinkle like stars. “I still do not understand why you think my situation will attract more attention than he. He is a dedicated and respected employee facing suspension.”

The tip of the raccoon’s tail hooked as she held up two fingers. “First, I agree that my mate’s situation is the more dire, but it is also the more… abstract.” She blushed, ducking her head in an apology to her absent lover. “Financial matters are difficult to explain and are easily lost in details. Not everyone can conceive of why suspension of his account is such a problem for him as a resident, and taking the time to explain will result in some people growing confused and others becoming disinterested as not applicable to them. Meanwhile, everyone should be quite capable of empathizing with someone who has lost a job for political reasons.”

I nodded on response to that. “And the second?”

Mitsuko’s ears rose. “As I said before, my mate is popular within a small segment of the populace and within the company proper, but in the larger community he is not so well-known. He is doing this in hopes to call attention to his situation, but he is not a public speaker. Others have volunteered to share their situations, but I fear that their problems may be overshadowed by their open emnity towards Tadashiissei itself. You are accustomed to dealing with the public, your plight is easily understood, and you have a broad base of popular support.” She paused, then laced her fingers together once more. “Also, before the attacks on Irokai began, you did ask for our assistance, did you not?”

I lifted my head and tilted it to the side. “I did, yes, but that was in response to the ongoing rogue edits from Minshukakumei. This is a matter of corporate policy.”

“And yet, a direction connection could be drawn from one to the other, could it not?” She tilted her head to the side and smiled. “Had Tadashiissei responded to you when you first suggested there might be an issue, this matter might have been resolved by the time Johnathan moved. Had you not assembled such thorough notes on past attacks, Johnathan might have had far less information on which to work, preventing him from resolving nearly as many hacks. Had he not been so instrumental in the recovery effort, he would not have been forced to activate as many special functions, and thus his bank and Tadashiissei would never have come into conflict. Thus, without your engagement, we might not now be in this situation, having to organize this protest.”

The raccoon’s smile slid to a mischievous smirk. “You asked us for assistance, Giri. We are assisting you… including in the way you feared we might have to assist.”

At that, my eyes went wide and my ears flattened against my head. “You are suggesting rebellion.”

Mitsuko’s expression returned to a careful neutrality. “I am suggesting protecting my lover. We have an open admission from Financial that the matter is not one for which Johnathan should be punished, and yet they insist that they are powerless to stop the suspension. As part of my duties as a member of Hospitality, I am authorized to use any administrative authority necessary to protect the well-being of residents and visitors to Irokai. If Tadashiissei cannot or will not correct this, I will be forced to do so.” Her golden eyes glinted. “If this happens, I fear there will be repercussions, which will lead to an escalation, and from there sides will quickly be chosen whether I wish them to be or not. I am asking you now, Chō Giri, whether you will help me avoid this unfortunate outcome.”

I stuffed my paws back into my pockets. This was a side of Mitsuko that I had never seen before, and some part of me wished never to do so again. Even as I had hinted at open warfare against Tadashiissei in the past, I had never wanted the conflict; I only ever wanted the attacks to stop. Now, here was someone threatening the very outcome I had hoped could be avoided at all costs, and she was offering a very narrow window of opportunity for me to act. My fingers closed around the flyer for the protest that Briar had sent me earlier in the evening, and I closed my eyes, nodding once. “Hai, I will attend.”

Underneath his freshly-pressed shirt and the rest of his calm exterior, though, the Dalmatian was struggling not to tremble, rehearsing in his mind what he would say to his boss when she called him into the room. He’d been the one to ask for the meeting, something already out of the ordinary. Usually she was the one to summon her minions, most often to rub their noses in some mistake she’d found in their work. Arianna Harrington had exacting standards of her staff, and they were expected to meet them, if they didn’t want to find themselves looking for work.

He’d never been dragged into her office before, so he felt safe there, but it was what went unsaid from the above that really made him nervous. Harrington and Associates could demand such precision and talent from its staff because it was one of the top design companies in the city, if not the country, and it paid very well to ensure it got the best. Getting an offer was proof of talent. Keeping it was something else entirely. Allen had kept his job for four years now by throwing himself one-hundred percent into his work, and so far it had handsomely rewarded him.

This, however, was the moment of truth. In all his time at the company, he’d never raised a complaint when his annual raise showed only the cost of living increase, and while the money was good, he knew he was worth more. Just the fact that he’d lasted as long as he had under a slave-driver like Arianna Harrington for four years would be worth gold to any number of other graphics houses, and he could practically name his salary. Before he went anywhere else, though, he wanted to see if he couldn’t get his boss to acknowledge that fact.

Now he only had to survive the meeting.

The phone on the secretary’s desk buzzed suddenly in the office, startling him out of his reverie, his head popping up from the magazine. The raucous sound carried for a few seconds, then snapped back to silence, followed by a voice, distorted slightly by the staticky speaker. “Send in my two-o’clock, Linda.”

The secretary, a bright-eyed beagle with a professionally-groomed coat of tans and browns, pressed a small button on the phone with a freshly-filed clawtip and leaned forward slightly in her chair. “Yes, Ms. Harrington.” She then sat back upright and turned to Allen, nodding once. “Ms. Harrington will see you now,” She motioned toward the heavy wooden door leading from the antechamber to the inner lair, where the principle partner of Harrington and Associates sat waiting.

Allen rose, his mask of calm still intact—he hoped—and tossed the unread magazine casually back onto the stack covering the glass end-table next to the couch. He nodded back to Linda and walked towards the entrance to Ms. Harrington’s office, his paw resting a moment on the brass letters that spelled out his boss’ name. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Linda press some button on her desk, and a small chime somewhere rang merrily, a lock unlatching with an audible thunk. Thus invited, Allen swallowed heavily and pushed the door open carefully, stepping into Ms. Harrington’s office.

The office itself sat on the outside corner of the building, and smoke-tinted windows overlooking the city dominated made up two of the walls, providing him with a panoramic view of the downtown district. An overstuffed black leather sofa and a matching chair clustered around a glass-topped coffee table near the corner between the windows. His hindpaws sank into the thick cadet blue shag as he stepped within, his eyes drawn to the cityscape.

“May I help you?” The voice, from behind and to his left, caught Allen off-guard, and he jerked around to face the speaker. Against the left wall, the one not covered in glass, sat a deep cherry desk, atop which rested a computer monitor, two paper-trays, a number of pens, a black leather business folder, and a phone. Two high-backed leather chairs sat in front of it, obviously intended for guests of far more prominence than most of Ms. Harrington’s humble staff. Obviously whoever had laid out the office not only wanted the primary occupant to have the best view in the room, but also intended to keep out of sight when anyone entered, giving the element of surprise to the occupant.

Even more startling than the voice, though, was the sight that greeted Allen when he turned his head. Behind her desk sat a well-groomed vixen, her forest-green eyes fixed on him, the corners of her muzzle and her ears perked in a half-smile. She sat upright in a high-backed, black leather executive chair, leaning with her elbows against the desk, her muzzle resting lightly on her steepled forepaws. Her blouse was obviously silk, a deep green that matched her eyes and emphasized the sheen of the russet fur surrounding them. At her throat was a silver necklace, set with emeralds that sparkled out from against the white fur of her neck. She held her thickly-furred tail high, currently free of the slot at the back of her chair, the tip tied with a dark green satin ribbon that matched her top.

The vixen’s smile deepened when Allen’s eyes met hers, and he got the distinct impression of looking into the eyes of a predator, one who’d been sizing him up from the minute he walked through her office door. Before he could recover gracefully, though, she sat back slightly in her chair, motioning towards one of the chairs in front of her. “Mister Ritchie? Please, take a seat.”

Allen gave his best interview smile and pulled back the chair after a moment’s fumbling; the guest seats were heavier than they looked. “I do appreciate you taking time out of your day to see me, Ms. Harrington.”

“Please,” she cooed with disarming ease. “Call me Arianna. I took the time before you arrived to review your history with the company. Four years is an impressive lifespan at Harrington and Associates.” Her ears flicked bemusedly, apparently aware of her own morbid joke. “You do excellent work, if I say so myself.”

Allen’s ears grew warm, and he knew they had to be reddening from the unexpected praise. “I’m glad that you’re pleased with the quality of my performance. Actually,” he added quickly, “that’s why I’m here.”

“Oh?” Arianna’s eyes didn’t register the response projected in her voice, locked on his intently. “Do tell.”

It took the Dalmatian several seconds to find his tongue again, all the composure he had carefully rehearsed in the antechamber evaporating under the scrutinizing stare of his manager. “I came to ask for a raise,” he finally managed to say into the oppressive void.

Arianna’s expression didn’t change a bit from before his statement to after, but she did shift in her seat, her paws steepled in front of her muzzle, elbows balanced on the arms of her chair. “Do you believe that Harrington and Associates made a poor offer to you when you accepted your position? Do you think the annual increases were out of line with the cost of living?”

Allen shook his head quickly, hoping to avoid insulting his boss. “Not at all. Far from it, actually.”

Arianna’s smile broadened, her eyes narrowing. “Then why ask for a raise?”

In two quick ripostes, she had talked him into a corner. “Because….” Her gaze never wavered, her eyes holding his captive, the smug smile fixed on her muzzle. He took a deep breath through his muzzle and took his chance. “Frankly, I know I’m worth more than that.”

His manager leaned forward, her elbows again resting on her desk, her arms folded now in front of her. “What makes you say that?”

Allen smiled nervously himself. She hadn’t kicked him out of her office yet, so he must be doing something right. Either that or she was taking her time, playing with him before delivering the killing blow to his career. “The salary you offered me was in line with my skills of four years ago. I’ve gotten better since then, both in skill and in presentation. You yourself admitted that four years at Harrington and Associates is a long time for someone to survive under your standards. I’ve met and exceeded them consistently. With that kind of credential, I could name my price at any other shop.”

Arianna’s eyes opened wide in mock-surprise, the smug grin still fixed to her muzzle. “Is your loyalty to Harrington and Associates so low that you would just walk out the door like that, Mister Ritchie?”

The Dalmatian’s chest froze, his eartips cold. His tail tried suddenly to retreat between his legs, catching on the seat of the chair. He’d meant it as an honest evaluation of his abilities, but he’d pushed himself over the line. The threat of quitting was on the table, though, and now he had to cover for it. “No, I’d rather stay,” he said earnestly, trying to project as much regret as he could. “I really would. I just know that if I offered my skills somewhere else, they’d offer me a salary based on what I’m worth now, not what I was worth four years ago.”

Arianna nodded, leaning back into the cool leather of her seatback. “Just how much would you like to stay? Suppose I said no. Would you be ready to walk out of that door, past the receptionist, and right out the front door, only to return for your last check and your personal effects?”

The fact that her voice never wavered from its even temperament made Allen sit very still in his seat, the chill in his ears spreading down to his muzzle. His tail tried to crawl down between his legs, but the construction of his seat prevented it. He’d blown his chance, and he knew it. He’d pushed his luck too far. “I would really rather not have to do that, if I can avoid it. I just… I think I’m worth more than you’re paying me, and I think you know it too.”

The vixen chuckled quietly to herself. “Oh, I believe I know exactly what you’re worth, Mr. Ritchie, but let’s find out? I’ll make you the following deal.” She stopped, glanced towards her office door, then stabbed the speaker button on the phone. “Linda, would you please go down to the break room and bring Mister Ritchie and myself some fresh coffee, thanks,” she said quickly into the unit, releasing the button without waiting for a reply. Then she lifted her head back to Allen’s, her smile taking on a definite predatory tone. “You’ve got about ten minutes. If you can make me climax before she gets back, you’ve got your raise. If not… maybe you’ll be able to get it from one of our competitors.”

Allen’s eyes went wide, even moreso than normal. “You can’t be serious!” he shouted hoarsely. “This is harassment!”

“It’s your word against mine, Mister Ritchie,” Arianna cooed, obviously enjoying the situation. “You came asking for a raise, I told you no, you stormed out of the building, and then made up this story about sexual harassment to try to get back the job you quit. You’d better hurry; if the coffee’s already made, you’ve got less time than you think.”

Allen rose indignantly, knocking his chair backwards. His paws balled into fists, and for a brief moment he considered doing just as she said, storming out of the office and calling the police, when he realized just what a bind he really was in. At this point, he’d become just another throw-away employee, one more victim of Arianna Harrington’s exacting standards. It really was his word against hers, and she had history on her side. Any leverage he had when he’d entered was gone now. When Linda returned with his coffee, his job was gone.

Unless… no, she couldn’t be serious, he thought. His cock, though, throbbed once in anticipation, the situation appealing to his baser instincts even as his brain rejected it as absurd. He looked down at her, staring smugly back up from her seat with a knowing grin. As he watched, she parted her muzzle and let the tip of her tongue run over her lips, and he felt his body responding. She really was attractive, the cut of her blouse emphasizing and showing off her cleavage without exposing anything, and with her chair pushed away from the desk he could see the black skirt she wore, covering just enough of her thighs to follow the convention of modesty. Even in the midst of his turmoil, a part of his mind wondered what lay just out of sight.

Arianna was hot, she knew it, and she knew he knew it too.

Allen walked quickly around to stand in front of her, his paws at his neck, slipping his tie from around his throat, letting it drop to the floor. His eyes never left hers while he unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, then knelt, the solid cherry desk blocking his view of the front door to her office. His knees sank into the thick carpeting, and he leaned forward, his paws resting on Arianna’s knees, her deep red fur warm against his pads. Slowly he slid them along her thighs, ruffling the fur against the grain, still watching her for some sign of disapproval or hesitation, but her look offered only amusement and her own obvious arousal at the situation.

“You’d better hurry, Mister Ritchie,” the vixen said huskily, her voice low. “You’re already down a minute.”

The Dalmatian’s fingers slid beneath the edge of the skirt, riding it up against her legs, slowly exposing more of her well-toned legs, then the white shimmer of satin panties. He pressed his muzzle against them, burying himself in her scent, his own cock twitching in its sheath as he engrossed himself in her arousal. He parted his jaws, his tongue darting out to lick over the sheer fabric, tasting her musk, dampening the material that covered her sex.

Arianna’s paws clenched against the armrests of her chair, her muzzle half-open in an expression of eager anticipation, breathing heavily now as Allen nuzzled into her crotch. Her juices started to soak the satin as well as her saliva, her scent deepening, thickening as he caressed her through the delicate fabric. A soft whine escape her as she lifted herself briefly, letting the skirt gather behind her, beneath her tail, allowing her to expose more of herself to his questing muzzle.

Allen’s tongue poked into the fabric, denting it as he explored her cleft through the satin, learning the flavor of her musk, savoring the tastes of her arousal as he encouraged her, licking hungrily against the white satin. His paws slid up to her waist, clawtips hooking into the waistband of her panties and sliding them down, exposing her sex. The fur there was white, short and already darkened and slick from her juices and his licking. Her labia were already a bit swollen from arousal, parted slightly to expose the tender inner lips, the entrance to her tunnel visible just behind them.

He let the panties drop around her ankles and put his paws back on her knees, parting them firmly, forcing Arianna to slide forward on her chair to open herself up to him. He pressed his muzzle into her snatch, tongue caressing her outer lips, then darting between them to tease the inner ones, coaxing a series of moans out of her as he licked her. Her fingers moved from the arms of the chair to the back of his head, holding him against her crotch.

Arianna panted, her eyes closed now, muzzle open as she panted, each touch of his tongue to her netherlips bringing a fresh gasp out of her as he lapped at her, exploring her sex. She felt him press himself further between her legs, and then she squealed as he curled his tongue up into her tunnel, fucking her with his muzzle, thrusting that wet organ over and over into her. She shuddered, tensing against him, gripping the fur on the back of his head tightly as she neared her release.

Allen withdrew from her canal slowly, his tongue slipping free of its gentle grip, but then he drew it up between her lips without breaking contact with the skin, her moan shifting into a high-pitched keen. His paws moved between her legs now, fingerpads to either side of her netherlips, gently pulling them apart, exposing her swollen pearl, the hood withdrawn to bare her nubbin. He caressed it with his tongue, sending another shiver through her body, her fingers moving from just holding his head to cupping his ears, guiding him to her secret spot, urging him onwards, and he obeyed, tongue slowly swirling around her clit and then dragging slowly across it, teasing her sensitive flesh, pushing her towards climax.

Arianna began to shake, biting her lip now as Allen lapped directly at her button, her body quivering beneath his touch. She tensed, tailtip quivering, her body nearing the release she demanded, her breath coming in short, heaving gasps. Her black claws entwined into the short white fur on the back of Allen’s head as he drove her onwards, nearing the point of inevitability. She inhaled sharply, eyes closed, so close to release. His tongue lapped eagerly at her clit, caressing it directly, and she responded, her body tightening and then suddenly spasming as she climaxed, crying out from the strength of her orgasm. Her body shook, spasms running through it as she rode out the wave of her release, grinding herself against Allen’s muzzle.

Allen continued to lick at her nubbin until the last aftershocks passed from her body, then pulled himself away from her, her grip on his head gone slack in her release. The fur of his muzzle was soaked in her juices, and he licked at himself, savoring her taste. He withdrew from her crotch, rising from the floor after retrieving his tie. “So, do I keep my job?” he asked with a smirk of his own.

Arianna nodded weakly, then motioned towards the far end of the room. “Washroom, on this wall.”

Allen nodded and walked to the far side of the office, noticing the door set flush with the wall near the panoramic window. Inside was a small bathroom complete with shower and sink, decorated in the same cadet blue as the office beyond, trimmed in silver. He looked at himself in the mirror, then set about scrubbing the traces of his sins from his fur. He gave a quick blowdry to his wet fur, then retied his tie and checked himself again with a grimace. The scent of her sex still lingered in his nostrils, and everyone he passed would probably suspect what he’d been doing, but at least didn’t quite look the part now.

When he came back, Arianna was sitting at her desk, chatting happily away with her secretary, three mugs of coffee on a cafeteria tray nearby. Her secretary was occupying one of the chairs across from her, taking notes. The vixen looked over at him and motioned him over with a grin, a genuinely friendly smile. “Allen! Please, have a seat. I was just discussing your promotion with Linda, working out the details to have her pass them to HR.”

Allen’s ears shot upwards, his eyes going wide again. “Promotion?”

Arianna nodded, a hint of her mischevious smirk crossing her muzzle. “As we discussed? Personal project lead. I need someone who from time to time can handle special assignments from me that I just can’t trust to someone of lesser standards and skill, and I think you’ve amply demonstrated your ability to handle the position in your time here.” She winked when she finished her statement, her ears flicking in amusement.

Allen laughed. “I think I can handle the job. I’m flattered that you’d trust me with such a high-profile position.”

“Oh, believe me, you’ve earned it.” Arianna responded as Allen made a grab for his coffee. “I think you’ve got quite a future ahead of you at Harrington and Associates.”

When I opened them again, the sun was no closer to setting then before, but a fresh crop of user reports had blossomed across the map of the prefecture. Fingers tapping rapidly over the glass surface, I pulled a collection towards me, opening them and scanning the descriptions. Some included snapshots: a rain of winged toasters, a person’s face reduced to an iconic yellow disk, a flame hanging in midair; those fell quickly into clusters of similar conditions. The ones reporting only in text took longer, scanning for keywords to add them to the growing collections. A few drifted back to the map, but the rest eventually sorted into five larger collections, each of which I tagged for the development team.

The crisis of the moment resolved, I opened my personal archive of all the security reports I had filed relating to Minshukakumei no Irokai. None of the present attacks shared any immediate similarities with past intrusions; in the past, they—whoever they were—had been more than willing to claim credit for their work, attaching their name and slogans to all of their assaults. None of these, though, showed any sign of ownership. And yet, something suggested patterns to me. The floating flames suggested a past incident of fiery kanji in a bonfire on Kigiku Island. Staring at the two images next to each other, it almost seemed that I could spot the places where the two used the same randomizing functions.

With a sudden inhale through my nose, I copied the filed reports to my archive, then waved away the windows with a sweep of claws and shut my eyes. Feel, and accept the feelings, but do not succumb to them, I reminded myself. I felt anger, and fear. For months, if not years, I had reported threats to Irokai’s security; Tadashiissei had done nothing. I had pointed out correlations between past assaults, suggesting a large and organized effort; Tadashiissei had done nothing. I had all but begged my superiors to open further investigations, to find the people who were breaking my world and to stop them; Tadashiissei had done nothing.

Now, I was reduced to sifting for patterns in apparent chaos, making connections where none existed, and hoping that Tadashiissei would do something. I was angry, and I was scared.

A touch on my shoulder brought me out of my reflections. “Giri?”

I opened my eyes, looking over my shoulder up to Koneko’s face; her wide blue eyes were squinted in concern, her ears and whiskers held back; in her other paw, she held a mug of hot tea, steam rising from its mouth. “You’ve been here over fourteen hours. You need a break.”

I put a paw over hers and shook my head, looking back to the map. “I am taking breaks as time permits. I took a walk—”

“Five hours ago,” she interrupted, thrusting the mug at me. “Orders from management. You’re off-duty for six hours, minimum. Get a meal and a nap.”

I held my gaze level as I took the tea from her, then rose from my chair. “Very well,” I said after several seconds. I took an obligatory sip from the mug, then passed it back to Koneko with a minimal bow. “I will return in four hours, then. Thank you for the tea.” Koneko returned the bow, her expression carefully neutral, then motioned me away from the table, sliding into the seat I had just vacated. As soon as she was comfortable, a fresh array of lights blossomed over the map, and her fingers began tapping across its surface, sorting through customer complaints.

I watched her work for a few seconds more, then turned and walked out of the front of the building. The skies were still a rich afternoon blue, streaked with pink and gold. Someone had put a human infant’s face on the sun, constantly changing expressions. I watched it laugh silently for several seconds, then suddenly begin crying for no reason. The rapid change of expression sent the fur of my tail into a bristle, and I turned my gaze away, focusing on the sidewalk in front of me as I walked the short distance back to my apartment. The building, a glass-and-steel high-rise, looked thankfully free of infection, though I didn’t take the time to validate the entire system. I did, however, test that the front door would let me back onto the street and that the elevators had the same number of buttons as when I left.

I didn’t want to admit it, but I was even more tired than Koneko had suggested. The thought of leaving the recovery efforts up to my superiors, though, after all the times I had been told that something like this would be resolved, only to see the reports quietly ignored, made the exhaustion just one more thing to tolerate. Still, I was relieved for the order, despite the irritation at being interrupted. It meant that, at least for a few hours, the failure to protect Irokai no longer weighed on my shoulders. You have done what you can, and you continue to do so, I reminded myself. If Irokai falls, it will be because they failed to listen, not because you failed to warn them. It was a small comfort; the thought of my home disappearing was no more pleasant now than it was when it had occurred to me before.

I dropped heavily into the futon in my living room, covering my eyes with my paws. Such thoughts would get me nowhere. I felt mounting annoyance and aggravation, but I had no means to deal with either. For now, all I could do was as had been suggested: eat, sleep, and hopefully awaken to a steadily shrinking queue of complaints and questions. A few fast flicks through the hardline menus, and I had a hot meal on the way. While the menu was open, I glanced at my standing account, the numbers hovering in the bottom-right corner of my interface, and smiled wryly at the note hovering in its place: The ongoing cost of residence within Irokai has been suspended while we resolve these ongoing technical difficulties.

That resolved, there seemed to be little to do but wait. I had no interest on watching the ongoing reports of the disasters, and I was too tired to focus on other entertainment. Dinner arrived soon enough, and I quickly tucked into fried vegetables and shrimp over noodles with thick broth; the food was a welcome distraction from the rapidly compounding absurdities, and once I was done, the exhaustion I had been staving off hit me at full force. I stretched out on the futon, not even bothering to return to my bedroom. “Lights, off; windows, close.” I told the room, shrouding the apartment in darkness.

Giri, it’s Briar. The words came through in spurts, chunks of text followed by stretches of silence. We need your help. Bad.

I counted off three seconds, letting the last of the ringing fade. I have another two hours of on mandatory downtime, Briar-san; I am afraid there is little I can do at the moment.

FutureShock hit, Giri, came the hasty response. Some kind of lockout, can’t leave. Got two uploads and a dozen analogs, some kind of deep object hack. Need your help.

Usagi-san, I appreciate your situation, but there is little I can do at present. I responded. I can provide you a list of contacts who have agreed to help me.

Her next message was almost instant. Please, Giri. Most here don’t trust Tadashiissei. Some think this is a company plot as it is. I don’t know who else I can call that they’ll listen to. A moment later, she sent a second reply: Please don’t make me beg.

I sighed, rubbing at my eyes. I wanted to insist she find a replacement, but really, could I in clear conscience ask that of her? I didn’t trust most of my superiors to have the best interests of Irokai and its inhabitants in mind; what assurance could I offer someone who knew less about the situation than I did? I rose from the couch and stretched, trying to awaken the rest of the way before I left the apartment. I will be there as soon as I can be. Please do what you can to prevent panic. With that, I took long enough to adjust my coat before leaving for the tram station.

Finding the afflicted area Briar had described was easy enough; a few minutes’ walk from the terminal, I caught wind of something that smelled distinctly of dust and mold. Following the scent another block, I found a patch of some kind of abnormal discoloration on the wall of a café, spreading slowly over the surface. As I watched, the rust-colored brickwork turned a mottled yellow with streaks of darker green. The while area then began to distend irregularly, taking on a slick, swollen sheen. Once it had bulged out like a pustule, a small cluster of filaments shot up from the building, arcing in semi-random curves back towards the surface. Where they fell more than a few feet, they withered and vanished; where they came into contact with regular brick, they spread their symptoms, fresh buboes bulging upwards from the surface.

I opened my hardline and scanned the spreading infection; it looked like someone had gone past virus and directly on to digital fungus; the whole city block appeared to be infected. There was no lockout; the door to the club that Briar had mentioned simply didn’t exist any more, nor did most of the buildings. The tendrils moved slowly, likely to ensure that no people were accidentally hit, but anything infected became defined as a host, losing all properties outside of spreading the disease, and the more hosts, the faster the infection could spread.

It was an elegant disruption, I had to admit, studying the vector. Unfortunately, it had also spread further than I could repair on my own. This is Giri of Tadashiissei Security, I broadcast to the prefecture. Is there anyone within Development or Hospitality currently available that can assist with resolution of an attack? I have two residents and several tourists trapped within a building; their only exit has vanished and tensions are rising. I waited several seconds for a reply, then repeated myself, but still no response came. I closed the menu, taking a deep breath and letting it pass slowly, attempting to release the sudden burst of anger I felt.

Four or five seconds later, I opened my menu again, reaching out to Briar. Usagi-san, I cannot get to the door; one of the attacks has blocked access. This will take me a few minutes to resolve; are you and the others safe?

For now, came the quick reply. The entry’s covered in some kind of web and spreading into the interior. Slow, but we don’t have a lot of space left. It got Wyth’s cloak and Babel’s suit when they tried to analyze it, but nobody’s hurt.

I wanted to ask who Wyth and Babel were, and why they would stand so close to an obvious source of danger, but those questions could wait until afterwards. Stay away from it for now. Do you or anyone there have local administration access over your present area?

Briar hesitated several seconds before responding. I do, yes. What do you need?

I considered, then shook my head. Everything. Please grant me read access so that I can try to get you out as quickly as possible.

Giri, there’s a lot here. This place is pretty custom.

Please, Briar-san. You asked for my help; I am attempting to comply. I am in Security, not Development; I can only access what I can see. You must trust me on this.

It took almost a minute, but the next message I received from Briar contained the header record for something defined as FutureShock, and I quickly opened and began parsing the code. My eyes widened at some of the contents; they had to have deliberately broken the rendering engine in dozens of places: wall objects with references to non-existent textures, symbol primitives invoked directly, disjoint spaces connected solely by teleportation, rooms in which every wall had been defined as “ground” to disable gravity. The entire area appeared to be either the worst programming attempt I had ever seen, or one giant intentional violation of Irokai’s building code. I fought down the urge to simply let the virus wipe out the club and have them rebuild it according to the guidelines; the time for recriminations would be after the others were safe. I couldn’t teleport them out directly, nor could I edit any of the privately-owned areas around, but I could define a new door in an uninfected area that led to the interior of the club, then allow Briar to connect back to it from the inside. It was an unpleasant hack, but it would resolve the problem in the immediate. Give me a few minutes, usagi-san, I sent to Briar. You should receive a link request presently. Please accept and build a reverse link.

Got it, thanks, will be waiting, she replied. As soon as I received her message, I closed down the communications window and willed the katana into place at my hip. Finding an unowned area of Beni proved difficult; the zone was a popular destination and many people had staked out claims to buildings, even if they had done nothing more than add construction signs and donation request links to the doors. However, surprisingly close to the prefecture’s Transit Center, I managed to find a tenement whose owner had improperly secured it. Closing my eyes, I ran through the forms in my mind, then put one paw on the hilt. With a forward step, I drew the sword, opening the development menu. As the tip of my blade swung in a wide arc, I hashed and scanned the building’s construction list. With a decisive thrust to the rear, I reassigned ownership of the front door to myself. Pairing each action with its associated motion, I danced through repurposing the door and requesting the connection. I held the the katana outstretched in front of me, its tip perfectly still as I waited for Briar’s reply, then returned to a ready pose and returned it to its saya as I accepted her request and closed the access menu.

As soon I approved the link, the door jerked open from within and a dozen… forms… spilled through it onto the street. Some I could charitably describe as heavily modified; others seemed to be complete rewrites, so thoroughly altered that I could make no guess even as to original species. The first to leave the door seemed like an ordinary raccoon, but her fur was far too pink, and her claws appeared to be made of similarly-shaded plastic. The second could have been a mink or weasel, but all I could see for sure through the haze within the transparent bodysuit around him was lavender fur. The parade of bizarre figures continued, each more vivid than the last. The last to leave was the most shocking; it might have once been a rabbit, or perhaps might one day become one, but at the moment it looked mostly like a collection of brass gears and rods with colored tubes interwoven, inscribed all over with glowing runes and covered in places with black rubber sheeting and small patches of fake fur. After that one left, I shoved the door closed again, then looked over the group, breathing slowly to keep my emotions in check. I hastily scanned them each for any sign of the infection I had seen on the buildings elsewhere, but each of them came up clean.

The clockwork contraption turned—to look at me, I presumed, though I could only guess based on the position of its ear-supports—and then stepped closer. “Thanks,” it said in Briar’s voice. “We had some time to spare, but not much, and we were all getting escape pod fever down there.” It stood for several seconds, silent, then tilted its head to the side. “Giri?”

I shook my head, breaking my stare. “Yes, good,” I said hastily to fill the silence, then addressed the group at large, raising my voice. “You all appear uninfected. Please, for your own safety, I would consider exiting Irokai if you can. You will be given credit for any time lost and inconvenience suffered towards future return visits. In the meantime—” I caught myself suddenly, then opened my hardline and began poring over each of the figures in turn. All of them showed extensive edits, most of which had no attribution at all. Few of the modules carried approval from the company, though none of them seemed at first glance to violate the rules any worse than the club itself. They were aesthetically disturbing, but they were well within the terms of service.

I spun to face the mechanical rabbit. “Who among you made all of these changes?”

The clockwork creature’s brass antennae suddenly flattened against its head. “That’s…” It stopped, then looked to the rest of the group. “I did,” it said with a sigh.

I narrowed my eyes, then looked to the others. “Did any of you help?” They exchanged glances amongst themselves, then looked back to me, their eyes hard. I sighed, then held up my paws, pads out. “I understand.” I took a deep breath, then let it out suddenly. “Irokai is under attack,” I said bluntly, cutting through the delicate statements that Hospitality had been making for the better part of a day. “I believe that Tadashiissei is more intent on preserving its image than on protecting its creation. I am looking for volunteers willing to assist with reversion of past damage. If you have sufficient skill to make those kinds of changes, then I believe you are qualified to assist.” Most of the others visibly changed from reserved to surprised and, at the last, perhaps even a little eager. “Are any of you interested?”

One paw, grey-furred and decorated with glowing tattoos, rose hesitantly, and I nodded to the coyote. “What is your name, koyōte-san?”

He looked first at me, then to Briar, then to one of the others before meeting my gaze, projecting defiance. “It’s Sparks.”

I nodded, then opened my hardline. Without the sword, it took me more time to remember the locations of all of the menus, but eventually I found the one I needed and set his administration flag. I had to limit his scope to Beni Prefecture and scale down his access in other ways, but once I was done, I nodded to him. “See if it worked, Sparks-san.”

Sparks’ ears flattened against his head briefly, but then after a few moments, he knelt and touched the ground, and a webwork of blue circuit traces branched out from the point of contact. His eyes went wide and the changes reverted instantly, but then he stood upright, grinning. “Wow. it… it worked. I don’t know what to say.”

At that, my tail flicked, the closest I would permit myself to a smile. “Please say that you will assist, Sparks-san. We cannot be everywhere; we need people we can trust.”

Sparks nodded at that, and I turned to the mechanical rabbit, doing the same for her. “Are there any others, Briar-san?”

Briar shook her head. “The last one was Jules, but he got banned.” She held up one brass arm, holding the hand in front of her. “Not for hacking. He… got in a fight with Legal over access charges. You can look that up.”

I shrugged. “If he is banned, he cannot be of help to us; that is beyond my ability to correct.” I turned back to the rest of the group. “There is much work to be done, but it has been a difficult day for us all. I would ask that you all meet me here tomorrow at—” Before I could finish my sentence, a thunderclap sounded behind me, sending the crowd scattering. I spun to face the target, one paw moving to the hilt of my sword, but rather than a fresh assault, I found myself staring into the eyes of my manager.. The tiger scowled down the length of his blunt muzzle at me, his arms folded across his broad chest. His tail lashed behind him in visible displeasure.

“Where do I begin, Giri?” Rei Sasaki’s voice was hard. “I have been watching for several minutes, hoping that I was misinterpreting your actions, but it would seem I was not.”

My own eyes narrowed in response. “Perhaps if Tadashiissei were dedicating sufficient resources to resolve these incidents before they put our customers at risk, Sasaki-sensei—”

Sasaki cut me off with a wave of his paw. “Tadashiissei is doing what it can with the resources it has. The company does not have to justify its actions to you, only to its customers, and they, by and large, seem happy with how this unfortunate incident is being handled. You, however, have seen fit to violate a direct order to remain off-duty to rest, to alter private code without permission, to perform drastic edits to an environment without justification, and to grant tourists prefecture-wide administrative access without authorization.” He paused after each infraction in the litany of my misdeeds just long enough to let its gravity take hold. “What possible explanation could you have for acting in so reckless a fashion?”

I closed my eyes. Feel, and accept the feeling. I struggled to keep my tone as level as possible. “Perhaps, Sasaki-sensei, if Tadashiissei had taken a single one of my warnings about Minshukakumei no Irokai months ago when these sorts of attacks started, we might not have found ourselves in this position now.”

Sasaki’s eyes narrowed at that, and I couldn’t help but smile faintly in response. “Perhaps, Giri-san, if you had followed instructions I would not now be forced to take such drastic action.” His tailtip flicked, then held eerily still. “If I cannot trust you to fulfill the orders that you have been given, then I cannot trust you to be responsible with the authority you have enjoyed. Effective immediately, your position with Tadashiissei is hereby terminated, your security access revoked.” I felt a wave of nausea pass over me, followed by a chill that settled into my spine and refused to leave. “Any personal effects that have been left at one of our offices will be relocated to your apartment within twenty-four hours. Good evening.” Then, with a second flash of light, the tiger was gone.

“What a dick,” Briar said anticlimactically into the uncomfortable silence that followed. Then, more quietly, she added, “I’m sorry.” Mistaking my silence for refusal, the clockwork rabbit stumbled onwards. “I shouldn’t have asked you to—″ My paw snapping up, pads towards her, stunned her into silence for a moment, but then she backed away. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, lowering her head.

I took another deep breath, holding it deep in my lungs, silently counting off seconds. Do not succumb to it. When the moment of anger subsided, I let go and lowered my paw. “What is done, is done. I acted as I believed right; I would do so again. That this is the result only proves my point.”

Briar was silent for several seconds, then muttered, “He’s still a dick.”

I opened my eyes and studied the mechanical rabbit for several seconds, tail flicking, but before I could respond, the sky above began to finally darken. I glanced towards the sun, watching it sink below the horizon, then turned my face to the heavens, watching for the eye of the Dragon to shine in the sky. As blue faded to indigo, though, Seiryū remained hidden, though there wasn’t a cloud in sight. I glanced away, hoping to catch sight of the Tiger, but Byakko, too, stayed invisible.

Then the sky faded past twilight to darkness, exposing the naked, empty, starless heavens.

Something within me broke in that moment, something indistinct and tenuous that simply let go at the sight of the void overhead. Suddenly, it no longer mattered whether Tadashiissei survived, whether Irokai endured… or I did. All of my pain, all of my struggle, and yet I couldn’t even save this one thing. “The stars….” I couldn’t bring myself to continue the statement.

“Giri?” Briar’s voice, subtly changed, brought me back from falling into space. I lowered my gaze from the empty sky and turned to face her, but everything I had meant to insist died on my lips. In the time I had stood stunned, the rest of the FutureShock’s inhabitants had dispersed, leaving Briar alone. However, instead of the half-finished automaton, what met my eyes was the rabbit I had first seen standing in the middle of the Sunny You. Her eartips were black as was a small patch at the end of her muzzle, but aside from that, her fur was so white that it gleamed. On her shirt, a stylized metallic gold atom whirled slowly, while the patterns of her skirt rippled through muted matching greens. A pair of bracelets clattered quietly against each other on her wrists.

All around her, swirling in lazy orbits, a small cluster of stars twinkled. They winked and fluttered, dancing casually around her figure. She smiled, then caught one in her paw and held it out to me. “I can’t give you back what you’ve lost, but I can give you this. You did a good thing back there; you deserve recognition for that.”

I took the star from her, glancing at it briefly. “You did copy it, usagi-chan.”

Briar shrugged, still smiling. “You going to turn me in?”

“No,” I admitted, closing my paw around the light, then held out the other to her. “I would rather ask you to join me.”

The rabbit entwined her fingers with mine, some of her starlets hovering around my arm in response. “I’d be glad to.”

Most of the trip to the apartment passed in relative silence. I was unsure of what to ask and half-afraid of the answers I might receive. I knew she had had a security record at one time. Someone she knew had been banned. The clockwork form, and in fact most of the other figures leaving the club, disturbed me. I wanted to know how, and what happened, and why. What would you do with the information, though? I asked myself as we exited the tram in Murasaki and I directed her towards my apartment building. What could you do? Would you call Security?

At that, I stopped myself at the door to the lobby, turning to face the rabbit. “My apologies, Briar-san; this has been a very—”

Her finger was across my muzzle in an instant. “You don’t need the honorifics, Giri.” She smiled, a tiny star floating in front of her eyes as she looked at me. “Just ‘Briar’ is fine. Or usagi-chan. We’re equals now, aren’t we?” Then, to emphasize the point, she withdrew her paw, opened the front door, and waved me inside.

“You are right… Briar,” I agreed, heading to the elevator. “This has not been an easy day for me.”

The rabbit giggled in response. “Try being bodily assaulted by a macrovirus. I think everyone’s stressed.” She turned. “Listen, Giri, if you don’t want this—”

It was my turn to silence her again. “I want this, usagi-chan.” I moved the paw in front of her to her cheek. “You have shown me multiple kindnesses, and for now, I would rather not be alone.”

She smiled. “I never sleep alone if I can help it.”

As soon as we entered the apartment, her fingers were at my shoulders, tugging the coat down my arms and tossing it over the back of my couch. The sweater followed quickly, and then her fingers were at the waist of my slacks, making short work of the zipper. “I want to see you,” I said softly as she knelt, sliding her arms around to unfasten the button holding the flap over my tail.

“You will,” Briar said, grinning up at me, still fully clothed. She tugged down my pants and underwear, letting out a giggle as she leaned forward to place her muzzle close to my groin and inhale deeply. “Nice,” she breathed, making me stir. Then, before I could respond, she rose from her crouch and stepped back, lifting her muzzle to the ceiling and closing her eyes. The lights dancing about her dimmed slightly, drawing in closer. The rabbit drew in a deep breath, and as she exhaled, her top and skirt dissolved into a myriad of whirling, multicolored wisps floating around her. She smiled, then stood next to me, her stars enveloping us both.

My paws found her hips as hers rested upon my shoulders, and then she was in my arms, her muzzle pressed to mine, her legs around my waist. She was surprisingly light as I pulled her to me, walking slowly to the bedroom. Her white fur was thick and so, so soft, and her scent rich and full in my nostrils. I set her down carefully on the edge of the bed, leaning forward to kiss her; her muzzle tasted faintly sweet, and she trilled quietly in the back of her throat as I lay down beside her. Her paws roamed over my chest as I slid an arm under her head, then drifted down to my sheath, tenderly stroking the short fur with her fingertips. It wasn’t long before she had me fully exposed and breathing hard, gazing deeply into her eyes. Even now, they glinted like copper.

Briar smiled in response and wrapped one leg around my waist, guiding me to the entrance to her tunnel, then pressed herself to me. She hissed, arching her back as she took me, one of my paws on her back to steady her, the other at her hip. Her heat engulfed me, sending a shiver down my spine as she embraced me fully, a slow moan escaping her muzzle as she sank herself to the root of my shaft. “Nice,” she breathed again, eyelids fluttering as she held herself around me. “Please.”

I nodded in response, then slowly pulled away, drawing in a shuddering breath as she clutched at me, then gently pushed myself back into her depths. She began to keen softly, moaning slightly with each stroke, while I held her to my chest, her breasts pressed against me. The stars that surrounded her pulsed in time with her breath, her heartbeat, flickering in response to her arousal. Her short tail flagged with each thrust, back arching as she met my motions with her own, rocking her hips, pulling herself against me.

I held the rabbit tightly, trying to take my time, to drive her to release, but as her words indicated, she was quite skilled, and soon I was as eager as she, hips grinding rhythmically against her. With every thrust, I felt myself drawing closer, tensing, shaking. Her quiet moans were an aphrodisiac, the scent of her fur an inspiration. Stars swam in my vision, encircling us both. “Briar,” I whispered through clenched teeth, “I cannot… hold out….”

The rabbit’s only reply was a high-pitched whimper and a nod, meeting each of my thrusts with one of her own, the leg over my waist pulling me deeper and deeper into her with every push. She relaxed herself as I drove myself into her, then tightened as I pulled away, milking me with expert control, and despite all my meditations and training, there was little I could do but give into her ecstasy. The longer I resisted, the more I shook with need, tension and need rising within. My sheath tightened against me, but I closed my eyes, determined to delay as long as I could, one more stroke, and another, and another, and—

With a grunt, I drove myself as deeply into her as I could, arms locked around Briar, her muzzle pressed into my shoulder as I came, pulsing within her warm, tight tunnel. My breath hung in my throat, body spasming, her sex fluttering against my cock, squeezing as much out of me as she could. For seconds, I lay rigid, buried hilt-deep within the rabbit, every muscle locked and twitching, letting out a groan of relief and release as I sagged against the mattress, spent. “Oh, Briar… Briar….” My fingers slid gently over her back as I nuzzled into her neck. “Arigatō.”

The rabbit moaned softly into my shoulder, muzzle pressed softly into my fur. “De nada,” she replied, her voice satirically formal. I blinked and pulled away, looking curiously at her, but her brass eyes glinted at me in humor as she broke down into giggles, snuggling into my embrace. “Sorry, I had to. You don’t have to thank me, Giri. I wanted that.”

“As did I, ” I sighed. “But still… I wish to. Thank you, Briar.” With a groan, I withdrew, rolling onto my back, feeling the tension of the last day, the last week, the last few months, starting to drain out of me.

Briar rolled up onto her side next to me and rested her head on my shoulder. “So, I have to ask… why the sword?” She grinned. “It’s so stereotypical.”

I turned to look at her, giving a faint shake of my head. “It is, yes, but… since you ask, I will tell you.” I leveled my gaze once more at the ceiling, letting out a long sigh. “Irokai has always fascinated me. I always wanted to know how it worked, why it worked. I knew, even from my sōkōbi—my… birthday, essentially—that this was a created place, a playground for others, but I saw no reason why that should stop me from wanting to understand it. My base system had been designed for their security staff, but I refused to consider that a reason not to be what I wished. So, I studied, earned a degree in software engineering, and applied repeatedly for transfer to Development. Every time, it was politely suggested that my skills were of more use to them where I was, interfacing with others in Irokai and resolving local disputes. Never mind that my response times were lower than most of my peers, or that I wished to do something different; they simply preferred leaving the design of the world to those who could leave it. When I learned—” I stopped that thought; it was unnecessary to delve into personal politics.

“Eventually, I decided that if what they wanted was a toy soldier, that would be what they would receive.” My muzzle twisted into a faint smirk as I continued. “I changed my name, took up battōjutsu, and practiced using it as a focus to improve my access times.” I rolled up onto my side, looking into Briar’s eyes. “We may be wholly digital, but I have no more awareness of my code than you do, and our models were based on human neural networks. My muscle memory is stronger than my base recall, but my recall tied to muscle memory is better than both. Simply put, I work better with it than without.” That made me frown. “This is no longer an issue.”

“Wow,” Briar whispered, her eyes wide in awe. She spread one paw over my chest, entwining her fingers into my fur. “What was your name before you changed it?”

I hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “Chō.” I considered. “I think… I may change it back.” Then I smiled, covering her paw with one of my own. “As for stereotypical, would you not say that oversexualized rabbits are just as bad? I recall an old saying involving breeding.”

At that, the rabbit laughed and pressed herself against me, sliding her fingers lower down over my stomach. “Yeah, well, where I’m from, foxes have the same reputation.”

As her fingerpads brushed over my waist, I lifted my voice slightly. “Lights, off. Clock… off.” Once the room had gone to darkness, I pulled Briar to my chest once more. “I cannot guarantee your safety if you stay, or mine. If I am gone by morning, though, I will have left happy.”

Nude aside from the sash tied around my waist, I stepped out onto the metal balcony, muzzle turned upwards to face the heavens. As I closed the glass door behind me, sharp winds cut through my fur, but I had long since become numb to the cold. One paw I kept at my waist, steadying the katana in its saya as it bobbed against my hip; the other I curled around the thin railing, bracing myself as I gazed upwards at the sky. Even with the morning fast approaching, I could still make out the constellations overhead. To the east, Seiryū had all but disappeared, only its eye still visible against the coming dawn. Opposite, Byakko shimmered against the darkness, her tail dipping lazily into a rising pond of brilliant blue. Elsewhere, the Tortoise and Phoenix chased each other across the heavens, and Rabbit and Fox danced. Beneath them all, I stood and faced them, entranced.

No matter how long I gazed upwards at the heavens, I never tired of watching the stars dance in the sky, watching them shine and scanning for the occasional comet. I knew, as a matter of fact, that the heavens were artificial. Far from being celestial bodies of burning gas, Irokai’s stars were mere polygon clusters, spinning in place overhead and palette-shifting to give the illusion of twinkling in a sky unfettered by air pollution. They gave off no heat, only light. If I wanted, I could download a copy of the night sky and, in much-reduced scale, hang it from my living room ceiling.

Yet, for all that, I never tired of looking up to them. Stretched out against an endless blank slate, they gave Irokai a sense of infinity. The world was not boundless, but a night sky filled with stars fostered a sense that it could be. As far back as I could remember, the stars had transfixed me, and I could spend hours doing no more than lying on my back and watching them, imagining flying among them, reaching out and touching them. Knowing their truth had never diminished their impact. In many ways, it had heightened it.

For several minutes, I stood, watching as the approaching day washed out the stars, until a flood of brilliant light broke through the skyline, outlining Murasaki Prefecture in gold. The last of the stars disappeared behind a wash of sun, and I lowered my gaze from the sky. I had delayed starting the day as long as possible. It was time to begin.

Stepping back from the railing, I drew the scabbard from my sash. Kneeling, I rested it in front of me, then bent reverently over it, my muzzle not quite touching the ground, forehead just barely brushing against the intricately woven sheath. With arms outstretched, I held the pose of a supplicant, focusing on my breath as it entered my nostrils and then escaped between my lips. Prostrate before the sun, I emptied my mind, waiting to see what filled it.

As expected, the vision of the distorted sky was first to mind, and with it a wash of anger. Stepping out of my apartment to be greeted by such a crude scrawl against the heavens was an offense both professional and personal. Until then, I had taken the graffiti in stride, the childish hacks of vandals who sought to destroy something they could never have built. Their acts against the stars themselves had been a blow too far; it was proof that they, whoever they were, would stop at nothing until their aims had been achieved. It also served as the strongest proof yet that my superiors either didn’t understand the danger that hackers could pose, or didn’t care. It didn’t seem to matter how strident my demands, how imploring my requests. Every attempt I made to illustrate the threat to Irokai seemed to fall on deaf ears. My reports went unread. My support requests were closed, unanswered.

Eyes closed, vision turned inward, I studied my response, and my response to my response. It wasn’t just anger that motivated me, I realized; it was despair. I no longer believed that there would be an official response to my requests, any more than there would be a public revelation that anything had ever happened. In beautiful Irokai, hackers were an archaism, like paper currency. To admit that someone had, not once but multiple times, broken through the security measures in place and tampered with things publicly considered immutable would have revealed a world unready to be treated as just as real as any other. Even if someone were to answer my cries, it would be in a way that never admitted there had ever been a complaint. I would never know if someone were listening, until one day I found my prayers answered, with no sign that they had ever been made.

The weight of memory hung heavily on my shoulders, but I dragged myself consciously back into the now of meditation. Your breath is real, I reminded myself, ignoring the inherent absurdity of a digital sapience in a simulated world worrying about air. In. Out. In. Out. I focused on the sounds of my breath, on the feelings of the air moving, the rise and fall of my chest. Feel, and accept the feeling, but do not succumb to it. I felt anger, and helplessness; this didn’t mean I needed to be angry or helpless. The question was, what was there to do about my emotion? How could I resolve this tension?

I considered, briefly, quitting my job with security. I had, in the past, manually reverted changes that I had found, and once I had requested and received a restoration from backup files, but the problems were beginning to arise faster than I could resolve them alone. Others within the department had helped me, and even my manager had thanked me for my efforts. It seemed, though, that outside of a limited few brave souls, most of Irokai’s management had traded honesty and diligence for appearances. I could foresee a day, not too far into the future, when I simply could not keep pace with those trying to break Irokai from within. What would I do then? It would be better to leave a final warning and simply walk away from it all while I still had some dignity, to give up on trying before burning out and coming to hate something that I enjoyed. The world would disintegrate around me, but I, at least, would not go with it.

And yet, were I to quit, what would I do instead? Where would I go? There was no “outside” for me, not in the way there was for the analogs who worked for Tadashiissei. Irokai was my only home, and I was as intimately tied to its existence as the world was to its hardware. The hackers were not just an artistic annoyance; they were a threat to my home. If the hackers were to get out of control, or worse, to gain control of Irokai, its creators might decide to simply end their grand experiment. What, then, would happen to those of us who lived within it? If Irokai were to disappear, I would surely go with it. The thought of death was alien to me, as it was to any resident of this world, but contemplating the end of Irokai itself was one that filled me with dread. There would be no waking up from that final shutdown.

I opened my eyes and leaned back, resting my paws on my hips, considering the sword that lay before me. If I was displeased with my decision, it was because the other options available to me were worse. No matter how pointless it seemed, the best option I could find was to keep my position with Irokai Security. At the very least, I could continue documenting every breach in hopes of forcing some form of response. I might never get a formal acknowledgment, but at least the problems would be fixed. Plus, as long as I held a security clearance within the company, I could continue to revert most of the changes myself. For those too invasive to manage alone, I could enlist others to help, people outside of Security, or even outside of Tadashiissei itself. I smiled tightly, remembering my conversation with the Hospitality specialist from the other night. Laid out in such bare terms, Mitsuko had been disturbed, to say the least, by the prospect of going behind her employers’ backs, but even she had seen the necessity of action if Tadashiissei refused to do so. If she could convince her lover to help, so much the better.

I reclaimed the sword from the ground, bowed over it, then held it briefly upright, balanced on the tip of the scabbard, before sliding it back into the sash at my waist. My knees slightly spread, I waited until I felt still, then placed one paw on the hilt of the sword, drawing it and rising onto one hind as I slashed forward, the opening stroke of the Mae kata. In time with the blade, I launched the security interface and pulled up the administration panel. The tip of the sword wobbled slightly, my concentration split between the physical and practical. Turning to the blade to the side, I raised it overhead and gripped the hilt in both hands, sliding forward on one knee to draw the blade down in a vertical slice, accompanied by opening the local lockout menu. The blade wandered wide as I scanned through database references, then snapped down in a decisive stroke as I rose to both hinds and flagged an account. Then, finally, I closed the menu and completed the noto, returning the sword to its scabbard, sinking slowly back to the opposite knee.

Through each of the forms I progressed, the Ushiro and Ukenagashi, and on through to the Nukiuchi. Each draw matched an opening of the interface, each stroke a command, and each return exited the terminal. I ran through the stances twice, once for thoroughness and once for speed. Then, practice done for the day, I bowed over the sword, then released it back into my personal archive. By the time I had finished, the sunrise had long finished, and the clock in the den hovered at a few degrees shy of eight. I scowled at the time, tail and ears flat in irritation, but I hastily dressed and then left, making my way down to the lobby and the streets of Murasaki Prefecture.

Inside, the atmosphere was decidedly cool. The most incongruously unhappy element within the room was a female rabbit wearing a black shirt with an animated silver-and-blue logo advertising something called FutureShock and a skirt with some kind of pseudo-randomized texture running through the range of violets. The bright red security-rings around her ankles and wrists prevented her from leaving the store, but beside her stood a teenaged fox in a yellow employee’s polo and black slacks, staring at her as though to lock her in place through the force of his gaze alone. He held his arms folded defensively across his chest, leaning forward domineeringly, his tail curled tightly against his back. A few other patrons looked on with a mixture of interest and contempt, while an older female bear wearing similar corporate apparel, stood behind the counter, watching distastefully.

As soon as they realized I was there, both the rabbit and fox started to speak, their voices canceling each other out in a blur of noise. Ignoring them and holding out a paw, pads facing them for silence, I walked up to the cashier’s station and drew my security credentials out of the interior pocket of my coat. “My name is Giri. You called for security, akibito-sama?”

The bear nodded, clacking the claws of one paw against the yellow countertop. She pointed with the other towards the rabbit in the middle of the store. “She tried to make off with one of our specialty mods without paying.—”

“I did not!” The outburst from the rabbit was automatic, her voice at once petulant and pleading. “I—”

The younger fox immediately snapped, “You did! I saw you! I caught you myself! I—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” The rabbit put her paws on her hips, the silver rings in her ears jangling angrily as they shook. “I did nothing of the sort!”

The two fell instantly into bickering, their volume quickly rising as each tried to shout down the other. I sighed, shook my head, and opened up my security terminal, putting into place a local mute on the two of them. Instantly, their voices stopped cold, but it took several seconds for them to realize what had happened. They both glared at each other, then at me, as though trying to convince me that the other was at fault.

Turning away from the bickering couple, I looked back to the manager, pulling up her name out of the user database. “So… Eliott-sama, please explain.”

The manager blinked, standing a bit straighter when I referred to her by name; apparently she had never had to deal with Irokai Security before. She motioned towards a display on the wall near the cashier’s station. Within a clear case, the figure of a bear-sow slowly spun, motes of light sparkling through her fur irregularly. Beneath the case, a sign in Japanese and English announced the Firefly package, available on sale now for forty-percent off with any other avatar upgrade. “I was up at the front of the store helping some other customers, but Aaron saw her standing there staring at the display. I heard him ask her if she needed any help, and she asked him how much the new Firefly mod cost by itself. When he told her, she started screaming about usury and monopolies. That’s when I excused myself and approached. I tried to get her to calm down, but she refused to listen to me either, and then Aaron said she started to make an unauthorized copy! That’s when I hit the security lockdown.”

Throughout the manager’s speech, the rabbit started gesturing more wildly, while the other store associate tried to grab her arms and pin them down. The confrontation appeared to be headed to blows, so I put a movement lockout on them both and then relocated the rabbit next to me. She jerked around in surprise, almost falling when her feet refused to leave the ground despite her vigorous response. I removed the vocal lock from her and frowned. “So, usagi-san, is this correct?”

The rabbit snorted, paws again on her hips. “Hardly.” She turned first towards the fox, then the manager. “I was trying to figure out if they used a pseudo-randomizer or if they had a real analog random function on the lights, and he told me to stop trying to hack their code. I could’ve bought two custom bodies for what they wanted for one little mod, so I whipped out a decompiler—which, by the way, is neither illegal nor against the service agreement—to see for myself. The kid freaked out and screamed thief, and she hit the panic button.”

The bear’s silver-tipped brown fur bristled, her eyes narrowing. “You can’t just go around trying to steal source code! That’s illegal!”

“Terms of Service, Customized Avatars, section fourteen.” The accused let out an exaggerated sigh. “I have the right to ensure before purchase that any mod I buy is compatible with other code I already have installed. I’ve got some heavy mods that I paid a lot of money for and I’m not going to plunk down that much credit for something that’s going to clobber something else I already own. Legally.”

The manger sniffed. “I don’t see a single mod on you.”

At that, the rabbit smiled tightly, and the logo on her shirt froze into the image of a single world emblazoned on her chest in metallic silver. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t wear most of them in a place like this.”

At that, I held up my paws, forestalling them both from continuing. “I believe I understand what has happened here,” I said quietly. “I will take custody of her, akibito-sama.”

As the manager smiled her approval, the rabbit’s eyes went wide and jumped from me to her and back. “You gotta be kidding me! I’ve done nothing wrong!”

In the security menu, I switched the target of the rabbit’s location lock from the interior of Sunny You to a five-meter radius centered on me. “Are you disobeying a direct order from Irokai Security?”

The rabbit’s ears shook, her rings chiming angrily, but she looked down at the ground. “No.”

I nodded, mostly to myself. “Good.” To the manager, I bowed deeply. “Thank you for alerting Irokai Security to this matter, Eliott-sama. I will ensure this is handled appropriately.” As soon as she bowed in return, I turned and walked out of the store, the rabbit dragging behind me on an invisible leash. I ignored the sales associate when he stuck his tongue out at my charge, but only as the door closed behind me did I relinquish his voice to him.

I made a point of ignoring the passers-by as I walked. I could see at the edges of my sight how they stopped to stare at the “criminal” in her awkwardly blocky red cuffs and anklets, but I did nothing to acknowledge them, other than to motion for the occasional pedestrian to step out of my way. To her credit, my charge did nothing to engage them, neither challenging nor pleading. She merely followed in silence as I led her to a nearby office building, up an awkward elevator ride and then three sullen flights of stairs, until we stood on the roof, alone in crowded Murasaki Prefecture.

When I did finally stop, the rabbit stumbled into me and then jerked backwards. “Sorry,” she mumbled automatically, her eyes not meeting mine.

I didn’t move from my spot for several seconds; I merely stood and looked over the edge of the building, down to the streets below.

“I said I’m sorry,” the rabbit repeated, her voice louder but still nervous.

“What is your name, usagi-san?” I asked, not looking at her. Far below, people moved, like little blobs of color twinkling against black asphalt.

The rabbit hesitated before blurting, “Briar.” It was a challenge as much as a declaration.

I opened my terminal access and performed a quick scan. “Your account says otherwise, Summerfield-san.”

The rabbit snorted again. “Oh, yeah, clever,” she sneered, reflexively. “You can look stuff up in a database. If you don’t like my nickname, at least call me Caitlyn.”

I turned away from the streets, back to face her, a frown on my muzzle and my ears flat. “I work in security; giving me an alias, even a common one, was not your wisest decision.”

Briar rolled her eyes. “I told you what I wanted to be called. You gonna give me guff about it?”

I looked away, towards the skyline, watching the morning sunlight reflecting off of the buildings. “No.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her gesture at me with one paw, resting the other on her hip. “What’s with the outfit, anyway? Coat, sweater, slacks. Samurai sword. Sure, you’re Security, I understand, but do you have to look like a poorly-animated police officer?”

Without looking back at her, the corner of my muzzle rose in a wry smile. “Perhaps the fact that you knew what I was as soon as you saw me is proof of its effectiveness.”

At that, she crossed her arms in front of her. “Yeah, insecure and trying to prove something.” We both stood in silence at that, until finally she said, irritably, “Look, what’s going on? Am I getting banned or not?”

I shook my head, still not facing her. “No,” I said again.

The rabbit let out another heavy sigh and gestured to one wrist with the opposite paw. “Why all the theater, then? Why didn’t you just tell them to buzz off?”

“I had my reasons, Briar-san.” I looked back at her. “Sunny You has a partnership with Tadashiissei. I could not simply do nothing.”

“Politics.” Briar spat the word.

I merely nodded in response, taking a seat against the railing at the edge of the building. “Would you have stolen the upgrade, had they not caught you?”

Briar’s face registered an instant of guilt before returning to her defiant glare from before. “You can’t steal code. Code’s just an idea given a form. I was trying to figure out how they did it so I could do it myself for cheap.” She paused briefly, then continued. “Everything they sell is overpriced, anyway, and their code’s always a mess. I know folks who could do the same thing in half the space.”

“I see,” I said, more to her expression than her words.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she snapped. “You said as much.” She drew away, then, looking down at the roof, as though suddenly remembering to whom she was speaking.

“I did,” I agreed quietly. Before I could say anything else, though, a buzzer rang twice quickly, indicating a work call. I held out a paw to Briar, then tilted my head, checking my communication requests. It was from Mori Koneko, one of my analog coworkers. I accepted the contact. Hai?

Giri? It’s Koneko, she transmitted unnecessarily. I think we’ve had another incident like you described. This one’s … it’s big. You’d better come see for yourself. Following her words was a relocation invitation.

I sighed. One moment; I have another job to complete. I closed the connection, then looked back at Briar. “I will let this one go as a misunderstanding. I suggest you stay away from Sunny You for some time.?” I dismissed the location lock, and the angry red circles around her limbs disappeared.

Briar blinked and rubbed at her bare wrists. “Wow. You had me worried for a while there. I thought I was busted again for sure.”

At that, I raised one brow. “Again?” I performed a quick scan of her visitor history but found nothing in her record. “Your file appears clean.”

The rabbit’s eyes widened briefly, but then she shrugged. “It’s… must’ve been a while. Maybe these things fade over time.”

I waved off the excuse, standing up from the ledge. “I have more pressing concerns than someone trying to save a little money.”

“You know, I like your attitude, I think.” Briar sent me a contact information memo, which I filed automatically. “Next time I get in trouble, I’ll call you.”

I sighed and shook my head, then accepted Koneko’s invitation to go survey the latest assault on my home, leaving Briar alone on the rooftop to contemplate the sun.

My gaze briefly followed the moon’s, down through the floor to the sea of lights that ebbed and flowed below me. A moment of vertigo ran over me, making me shiver, but as soon as I felt it, it was gone, quashed by the same part of my mind that had let me interpose countless times before when one visitor or another had inadvertantly risked self-integrity while part of my group. The sense was the same every time, an instant of sick giddiness just before my training took hold of me and suppressed it. Staring down at the glittering expanse, I wondered what it would be like to live outside, where that sensation could be had at any time, for mor e than a few brief seconds.

Once the vertigo passed, I walked out onto the bridge, cinching my kimono around me as proof against the chill in the air. The service request that had woken me gave me only a location and a sense of urgency, but nothing else. I’d taken only enough time to make sure Johnathan was still asleep and then to meet the basic needs of decency before leaving. I had actually considered referring it to my shift-replacement; I had little enough time to spend with Johnathan as it was, at least until he moved to Irokai. However, the request had been by name. I might have been on vacation, but a priority call of this nature simply could not be ignored.

Halfway across the skybridge stood a fox, tall and thin, his red-furred ears standing straight above his head. The split hem of his black longcoat shifted slightly with every move of his white-tipped tail, but aside from that he stood still as a statue; even his bare hinds remained fixed in place against the transparent floor in defiance of the cold. His gaze remained level, his narrow muzzle as blank as the wall in front of him. In the reflection of the glass, his large violet eyes met mine. He nodded once, and the sense of urgency dissipated.

As the request faded to a background impulse, I queried the local dataspace about my host. It took only a few glances through my menus, and then I had as many questions as answers. The first name that came to me was Giri, but the family name gave me pause, a string of characters that could have been static. Quietly, I wondered why he had changed it, but it would have been rude to ask before a proper introduction. Attached to the name was a link to his public employee record. I followed the reference, and Giri’s title and station were mine: security lead, Ouseito Ward, Murasaki Prefecture. I ignored the web of contacts and reports that followed; what mattered was the mindset of the person that had summoned me, and knowing his role in Irokai would help me understand that. It was little enough with which to work, but it was more than I had before the summons.

Giri remained still through my investigations, but as I studied his personnel records, a stream of fresh static, much like his family name, begin to flow out of him. A request for key exchange followed a few moments later, a few meaningful droplets masked in an empty sea. Even as he waited for acknowledgement, the steady pace of nonsense continued, though his violet eyes remained fixed on the view, acting as though he were silent.

I smiled as graciously as any hostess would to a sullen guest and stood next to him on the bridge, paws resting on a railing near the wall. I did my best to catch his gaze in the reflection off of the glass, but all I could do was study his eyes as they stared into the distance. “It is a beautiful night, is it not?” I spoke the words lightly, hoping that some geniality might set my summoner at ease. The privacy request hung unanswered, a subliminal nagging just out of normal sight.

His silence stretched out into seconds, but then the digital babbling faded out and the security request disappeared with it. The fox didn’t turn to look at me, but instead raised one paw, waving it to encompass the view of the stars. “Check the local edit history,” he said quietly, ignoring the question I had asked. His tail twitched as he spoke, expressing irritation that he kept from his voice.

The frown that I felt never reached my muzzle, though my own banded tail flicked once in response to his own. “Perhaps introductions are in order,” I replied with a smile, turning away from Giri’s reflection to face the fox directly. “My name is Ikanobari Mitsuko.” I half-bowed at the waist, extending the most courteous greeting I could without dipping into unnecessary formality.

Again, the fox paused, waiting for several seconds before responding with a bow of his own. “Giri,” he said in the same soft tone as before. He held the position for a moment, then rose.

I followed his motions, smiling again as I looked into his eyes. “You have no family name?”

At that, one corner of his muzzle rose into a smirk. He parted his jaws, and a burst of static and dissonant beeps and trills escaped it, making my fur bristle. “You asked,” he said after the noise abated.

I rubbed at one ear with a paw. “Oh, hai,” I admitted with a rueful smile. “Why did you change it?”

Giri shrugged. “It is a hash of my codebase at incept. I thought it was more fitting than what they named me.”

“Oh?” I tilted my head to the side, filing away that bit of information. “What was it before?”

The fox shook his head. “Unimportant; it was not me.”

The exchange, eccentric at the mildest, made me hesitate. I could find little in the brief exchange that invited further conversation, and in a few sentences, Giri had managed to put me on guard. Rather than push that line of discussion any further, I fell back to my training. I clasped my paws together at my waist and inclined forward slightly. “How may I help you this evening?”

Giri scowled at the question, then turned back to the window, motioning again towards the window. “Please review the local edit history.” He transmitted a set of coordinates along with his words, indicating a section of the sky out beyond the buildings.

Now I frowned. “My administrative access is limited,” I said as politely as I could, keeping my eyes on the side of the fox’s muzzle, ignoring the direction of his gaze.

The fox’s own expression soured at my words. “You work in Tadashiissei’s Hospitality Division; I know what access you have.” He sighed, ints of petulance in his voice. “I am asking you to review the local edit history, not randomly delete a building.”

I held back a sigh of frustration, and turned from Giri back towards the window. Obviously he had no interest in letting this go. As glad as I was for the system interface and as easily as I relied on some of what it allowed me to do, I disliked having to tap into my administrative access; it always felt like cheating. It took only a few moments of silence, and then I began paging back through logs of the indicated region.

It wasn’t hard to find what Giri wanted me to see. Just over two hours ago, someone had replaced a section of the heavens visible to almost the entirety of the Prefecture. I called up the display engine and passed the captured edits through it, and the constellations became letters. I spoke aloud the English words written in twinkling motes of light: “Why do you pay to live?” A series of Japanese kanji floated in comet trails beneath: Irokai no Minshukakumei.

I turned from the window back to the fox that stood beside me, cocking my head to the side. “Democratic Revolution of Irokai? What is—”

Giri held out one paw, forestalling the question. “I do not know. If I did, this would be resolved by now.” His other paw went to his waist, and a traditional katana shimmered into place within an ornate sheath beneath his fingers. “What I do know is that this is not the first breach of this sort. To date, I have backup logs of seventeen such incidents in the last calendar year, and their frequency has been increasing.” A fresh stream of encrypted data began to pour out from him, followed a few moments later by a new request for key exchange. “Please review these revision logs,” he said quietly.

This time, I accepted his offer with a nod, and the nonsense resolved into sets of log files and database entries showing both original and altered content. None of them contained a source or owner. I compared the records before and after; in most, innocuous text had been replaced with more slogans. In some, Tadashiissei’s logo had been replaced by one that looked like the symbol of Irokai, but its colors were inverted. The only constant across them all was the same kanji that I had seen emblazoned across the sky.

I frowned and released my specialty access, then adjusted my kimono and folded my arms across my chest. “Any incident such as this surely would have attracted some sort of attention by now, by the media if not Tadashiissei.”

The fox’s expression remained implacable, but pride and anger flickered in Giri’s eyes. “Irokai Security is both efficient and proactive. I have also brought every such assault I have encountered to the attention of my superiors, and every time I have been told that appropriate actions will be taken and that anyone violating Irokai’s codebase or harming its residents will meet with stiff punishment.”

I waited a few moments, then prompted Giri gently. “They have not caught the perpetrators?”

One of Giri’s ears twitched. “The security logs have been rotated and sent to external storage.”

I let his words—both what he did and did not say—sink slowly into my thoughts. The implication of his statement was clear: no-one working for Tadashiissei had responded to his reports. I tugged my kimono more tightly around me, shifting from one hind to another against the cold glass. “Does anyone else know about this?”

Giri shrugged. “I have made efforts to make Security aware of the situation, and many have expressed concern. As to whether anyone outside of Security knows or cares….” He left the rest of that thought unspoken.

I tugged my kimono more tightly around me. “Why did you ask for me, then? I work in Hospitality, not Security.”

The security agent smiled tightly in response, holding up two fingers. “Two reasons. The first is that Hospitality specialists have access to any level of emergency administrative authority deemed necessary in order to protect the well-being and happiness of residents and visitors to Irokai. My access is much broader, but requires specific permission from my management.”

I nodded once. “And the other reason?”

He hesitated, then turned to face the sky once more. “Your lover, Johnathan Dart. He has development-level access, does he not?”

I tilted my head, tail twitching in response. “He does, yes, but why—”

Giri again stopped me with an outstretched paw. “I have made every attempt to notify my superiors, both within and outside of my management, of the seriousness of this situation. These changes have either no name attached or else obviously fraudulent ones. I have been unable to identify a source for any of the attacks. Every last one of these should have started a full-scale audit both of internal and external security. So far, it has led to nothing. I can only assume, therefore, that upper management within Tadashiissei is aware of events and does not care. I therefore cannot continue to trust internal responses as adequate.”

His eyes narrowed as he spoke, his voice becoming hard. “Your lover is not yet a part of Tadashiissei. If it becomes necessary to take action without their approval, we may need his assistance.”

My eyes widened. “You are suggesting rebellion.”

Giri shook his head, his paw once more at his waist, fingers curling about the hilt of his sword. “I am protecting my home. My primary role, both as an employee of Tadashiissei and as a resident of Irokai, is to safeguard both this place and the people who live here. If Tadashiissei will not take action, then I must act on their behalf. To do less would be dereliction of my duties.” He turned back to face me. “If these attacks continue as they have, we may soon find ourselves fighting to protect everything we value. What I need to know from you, Ikanobari Mitsuko, is whether you will help defend Irokai or not.”

I looked down to the blade at Giri’s waist, then back into the fox’s eyes; they glinted like polished amethyst, cold and hard. I wanted to doubt his analysis. I wanted to question his conclusions. I even briefly considered a flat denial, but everything was too well-considered, too well-argued. Given what he had seen and heard, his explanation seemed consistent with all of the facts at his disposal. As I had no alternatives to offer, it made his position a difficult one to deny.

“Hai,” I said quietly, nodding once in response. “I will help.”