I could hear breathing in the room beyond. I tugged at my tie, then pulled it out from around my neck as I stepped into the main room. Lounging on the bed, propped against the wall, was a white tigress casually reading something on a smartphone. Her red velvet sleeveless evening gown strained between her expansive chest, and her fur gleamed where the light touched it. At her waist was a wide black belt to emphasize her figure, and a golden chain choker sat close to her neck, with a familiar agate bauble at the hollow of her throat. I’d seen all of Ms. Teozen’s girls wear something like it somewhere, probably a gift from the madam herself.

I coughed once to try to get her attention, but her eyes remained deliberately on her screen. I waited several seconds, then spoke into the silence, my voice seeming too loud for the small space. “Ms. Teozen sent you?”

“She did, yes,” the tigress confirmed, still not turning her head. “My name is… well, call me Bianca.”

“Bianca, that’s very pretty. I… well, I brought you something.” I pulled a second envelope from my pocket, unmarked, and held it out to her. “A gift, not part of the deal.”

Finally, Bianca turned her head; her eyes were pale blue, like a cloudless summer sky. “Thank you, Reggie.” She sat up and took the check from me, then slid it into a pouch of a duffel bag on the floor beside the bed.

I winced at the shorthand. “Please, call me Reginald. I haven’t been called Reggie since high school.”

She chuffed softly, the tip of her tail flicking in amusement behind her. “Funny, that. First things first, though.” She held up a small cut crystal vial, about the length of my finger, stoppered at one end with a cork wrapped in wax. Inside swirled a dark amber liquid. “I’ll need three drops of your blood, to finish this.”

I watched Bianca roll the prism around in her fingers, the fluid inside shifting about. “Is that…?” I wiped my hands on my slacks; no matter how many times I did this, confronting the moment always made me nervous.

Bianca laughed again, a deeper rumble in the back of her throat. “Oh, poor boy. It’s more than you could imagine, that’s what it is.” She held out a paw. “Your hand, please… Reginald.”

With quickening pulse, I offered Bianca my hand, and she took it in hers, then closed her fingers around mine. An ivory claw slid out of her thumb, and she scratched my palm with it. Instantly, blood welled up in the cut, the salty sweat making it sting. I hissed against pursed lips, but I couldn’t look away as she broke the seal on the vial in her other paw, then counted off the crimson drops that she dribbled into the crystal. As each hit the amber within, the fluids reacted, mixing in rainbow hues. “One… two… three.” She let go of my hand and corked the small tube again. “That will take about five minutes to settle. Go run that under cold water for a bit.”

I nodded. “Yes, Bianca.” That familiar constriction returned as I held my hand under the faucet, watching drops of blood wash down the drain. My fingers and toes had started to go numb again. “Ms. Teozen never has told me where she gets her potions. They’ve got to eat up most of what I’m paying.”

“Ms. Teozen doesn’t encourage us to discuss finances,” the tigress called from the other room. “It ruins the mood.”

“I’m just wondering,” I responded over the running water, rubbing at the cut with my palm. “I’m fascinated by all this, really.”

Bianca chuckled again, and then I saw her in the bathroom mirror, leaning against the doorframe. She’d slid out of her dress, revealing a hunter green satin corset laced with white cord, accompanied by a matching thong below. “And you get so little opportunity to study it, I’m sure.” Her pale blue eyes burned into my reflection.

I shrugged and looked down at the sink quickly. “Let’s say it doesn’t come up much in my line of work.”

Bianca smiled tightly. “I’m sure it doesn’t.” She nodded, then slid back out of the doorframe, beckoning with her tail as she returned to the bed. “Has it stopped?”

I pulled my hand out of the water; the line of red was still visible, and as I watched, it slowly darkened, but it was mostly sealed. “Pretty much, yes.”

“Good,” the tigress responded. “Join me.”

When I stepped back into the bedroom, Bianca was busily shaking the vial in one paw, her other arm across her chest. She held it up before her eyes; the fluid within had gone completely clear. “It’s ready.” She tossed it to me. “Drink.”

I studied the crystal vial carefully; rainbows danced in its depths. “All of it?”

She nodded again, smiling with that hint of fang again. “One gulp.”

A shudder ran through me, but I nodded and pulled the stopper from the vial. The scents of jasmine and copper hit my nose and I sneezed, but before I could lose my nerve, I tossed back the contents like a shot. It was oily and tangy and it burned down my throat like liquid fire, then settled into a warm tingle in my stomach. I grunted and sat heavily on the bed. “It’s like an itch,” I muttered, not really thinking about it.

“Those sensations will fade soon,” Bianca soothed. “You should go ahead and strip.”

I shook my head, but I started fumbling with the buttons on my shirt. “I know. No, I—” The words caught in my throat, then tumbled out of me. “It’s like an itch. If you try to scratch it, it only itches worse.”

Bianca’s tail hooked behind her. “You’re not talking about your palm, or the potion.” That half-smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “How do you feel?”

I shuddered again; far from fading, the tingle was starting to spread, a faint burning like acid reflux, but deep in my gut. “Not good,” I admitted. “It wasn’t like this last time.”

Bianca’s smile spread, but her eyes grew harder. “You met with Selina last time. You asked Ms. Teozen to up the tension. We seek to please.”

The pain was starting to spread; every brush of my clothes made my skin crawl, and I struggled with the buttons, trying to get the clothing off. “I know what I—” A wave of nausea washed up my throat, making me gag. “Oh fuck….”

The tigress folded her arms beneath her ample chest. “Oh, poor boy. Is this too much for you?”

With a rising groan, I tore my starched shirt off my chest and threw it on the floor; beneath it, fire crawled beneath my flesh, turning it dark and coarse. Stiff brown fur forced itself through the leathery hide, and I desperately rubbed at the skin, trying to scrape away with the pain with palsied, agony-riddled fingers. Something ripped behind me, and for a moment I thought I had torn a hole in my skin, but when I reached back, the rear seam of my slacks had given way, the shivering nub of a tail forcing itself through the fabric. I dropped to my knees, a sob cracking up my throat, breaking over parched lips.

Softly, Bianca tsked behind me. “You should be careful who you ask to make things harder on you, Reggie.” Her voice was surprisingly soft, her whiskers a maddening tickle against my ear. “Somebody might take it as a challenge.”

I whined again, more at the burning than the name. I tried rolling onto my back, but the carpet burned against my fur. I thrashed up into my rump, but that just ground my boxers into my ass. “Oh fuck,” I panted again, putting my head in my muzzle. “M-make it stop, make it stop make it stop, please….” Another sob broke out of me, and the tears started to roll freely down my muzzle, stopped short by a bleating cry when Bianca’s needle-sharp teeth clamped down on my ear.

“That’s enough out of you,” she growled. “You wanted this. You wanted it rough, so Ms. Teozen sent me, and I take my job seriously.” She tugged at my ear, then let go, the hot blood running down my cheek a fresh spark of pain mixing with the mounting burn of the fabric touching me everywhere. “You want it to stop?” I nodded mutely and she held out her paw. “Stand up.”

I took her paw in my hand and forced myself to my hinds, then struggled out of the last of my clothing and tossed it aside. Nude, the pain finally began to abate, and the end of so much agony was so intense that I moved to latch onto my tormentor, to weep my relief into her breast. As my chest brushed against her corset, though, pain seared itself across my chest and I stumbled backwards with another cry, landing on the bed. Instantly, my back was a field of flames, and a fresh scream tore itself from my mouth as I thrashed back upright.

“Enough!” Bianca gripped my shoulders in her paws. “Hold still.” I froze, and again the pain vanished, as if it had never been. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I looked down at myself. At the end of my legs, hooves insulated me from the carpet, and understanding dawned. “Those are the only things keeping me upright, aren’t they?” I whispered. My heart pounded in my chest, my blood pulsing in my ears. I felt nauseous, giddy, ready to throw up, and I realized only seconds later that my cock was jutting upright and a thin stream of pre was pouring down my shaft.

The tigress chuckled again. “He learns fast.”

Cautiously, I brushed my hand against Bianca’s corset, then jerked it back as if I’d just pressed it against a hot stovetop. I looked at my hands; the fingertips were hard and black, glittering slightly. I tapped one tip against her chest, but nothing happened. I held my breath, then pressed one fingertip into the fabric, but nothing happened. I let out a sigh of relief. “Okay, okay… I can handle this, but… um… how can we…?” I blushed, suddenly; I’d been so distracted by the effects of the potion that I’d almost forgotten that part of the bargain.

“You won’t like it,” Bianca chuckled, then nipped my other ear, making me whimper. She knelt beside the bed, then reached into the duffel bag and pulled out a small stack of something white. She set the pile on the nightstand, and then plastic rustled as she unfolded one and approached.

My ears reflexively folded back against my head as I realized what it was. “You can’t be—” My protest died in my throat at Bianca’s calculating smile.

“I am, in fact,” the tigress growled deep in her throat. “And until that potion wears off, it’s these or…” She glanced meaningfully at the bed.

I swallowed heavily at that. “Yes, ma’am,” I whispered, crossing my arms behind my back. I didn’t mean to say it, but the word slipped out along with my cock, aching in front of me.

“Good boy,” Bianca smirked. “But this won’t be enough. Only water can cool that fire. I hope you can relieve yourself through that.” I winced as she flicked a claw against my throbbing erection. “Otherwise, when this goes on, it’s going to hurt. Think you can manage that, Reggie?”

“I… don’t know, ma’am.” I swallowed hard, chest tightening from humiliation. “I… I can try.”

The tigress chuckled again. “You’d better do more than try, or you’re going to be in a lot of pain until you manage.” Then, without further ado, she pressed the adult diaper into my crotch, sending a blistering ache over my groin. I immediately let out a fresh cry and my knees started to tremble, but I grabbed Bianca’s fur and pushed, and the white padding started to yellow and soften. Almost at once, the fire gave way to a soothing warmth, the relief and the pleasure making me groan.

“Hold that here,” Bianca directed, moving my hands to the front of my padding. I gingerly took the waistband in between my fingers, and while I supported my end, her fingers moved quickly to the sides and behind, pulling up the rear and taping everything into place. The plastic rustled every time my short tail flicked against it, reminding me of its presence and making me blush anew. “There we go, little Reggie.”

I whimpered and folded my arms behind my back, my cock pulsing against the wet padding. “Thank you, ma’am.”

The tigress grinned and massaged me through my diaper, and I started to grind against her capable fingers, but after a few seconds of teasing, she put her other paw on my shoulder and pushed me down. “Kneel, little boy.”

I winced but nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” Ginger, I sank to my knees, but true to her word, the only sting when I knelt was the normal carpet burn. I let out the breath I hadn’t meant to hold as Bianca stepped up in front of me, her legs spread, the front of her sodden panties before her.

Hungrily, I threw myself at her, muzzle pressed against her thatch. The satin was soaked with her juices and the faint sour tinge of urine, but I lapped like a parched dog at an oasis. She growled and moaned, moving her paw to the back of my head, holding me against her crotch. I sucked her nectar from the fabric and traced her folds with my tongue through the thin material, frantically rubbing myself through the front of my own soggy undergarment, squishing the wet padding against my shaft and grinding against my hand.

“If you come before I do, I’m taking half that stack with me when I leave,” Bianca growled, and I forced my hand away from my crotch. I groaned into her sex, whimpering with need, trying to ignore the throbbing of my cock as I poured my energies into the tigress’ cunt. After what felt like hours of worshiping her through her panties, she pulled aside the sheer fabric, bearing her folds to me directly. “Now, little boy,” she whispered hoarsely. “Get me off.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I grunted in response, my tongue already starting to go numb. I was no expert, but she wasn’t my first, and she was as turned on by what she’d been doing as I was. She was already growling by the time she bared herself to me, and her clit was already throbbing when I touched my tonguetip to it. She let out a yowl and sunk her claws into my shoulders, but the pain was only an encouragement. I traced her netherlips and circled her clit, then dragged my tongue over it, and her whole body tightened and shook under me, tailtip batting at my chest.

When the moment passed, she pulled her paws off of my shoulder and retrieved her dress from her bag. “If you can get off through that, you’re welcome to do so.” She patted the stack of diapers on the nightstand. “Water will work as well as urine; the spell only cares about moisture. Just be careful; I’m leaving you six, and they have to last until the potion fades.”

I swallowed heavily, but my hand was already back on the front of my diaper, rubbing frantically against myself through the wet padding. Within seconds, I was groaning, and then a fresh burst of spunk added to the mess. I sank gratefully against the carpet, letting it tickle my chest. “How long… how long until it wears off?”

Bianca grinned and pulled the dress on over her head. “Long enough to make six diapers a challenge. The room is reserved through the end of the week.” She carefully tugged the velvet into place, then buckled her belt. “You have Ms. Teozen’s number if anything too disastrous happens.” With that, she retrieved her bag and slung it incongruously over her shoulder. “Enjoy your weekend, Reginald.”

I rolled onto my back and smiled up at the departing tigress. “I will, Bianca.” As the door opened and closed behind her, I sighed happily and soaked the diaper further, hoping that this would scratch the itch, at least for a while.

I broke the gaze and looked down at my computer, which was busily installing update four of fifteen. I shrugged. “Sure. What’s up?”

Steven didn’t move, and the smile on his face tightened slightly. “In my office?”

I shrugged again. “Sure.” I dragged out the vowel, trying to project nonchalance, but the timing of the request sent a shiver down my spine. He turned, and I followed behind, running down the litany of possible gaps in my performance. No matter how many times he pulled me aside to deliver an attagirl or just ask my opinion on something, I could never shake the sense that this time, we were going to have the Big Talk.

Steven’s office looked more like a nest than an office. His whiteboard was an intricate multi-colored disaster, an attempt to drag some amount of order out of chaos, and that theme seemed to carry across the rest of his space. Every available flat surface had something on it, from notepads to magnetic paperclip sculptures to printouts of presentations. As I stepped across the threshold into Steven’s office, he nodded at me. “Close the door?” Despite the rise in his voice, it wasn’t a request.

I bit back the resigned sigh as I did so. “Did you need my help with something?”

He dropped into his chair and leaned back, then waved towards one of the cheap lobby chairs opposite his desk. “Have a seat?”

I grimaced. “I’d rather stand, if you don’t mind.” My chair had been uncomfortable enough; the lumbar support jammed into my spine and the memory foam cushion seemed to have developed amnesia. Those rigid metal-and-plastic frames looked downright torturous. “I’m about to head to the doctor’s office anyway. I e-mailed you about that this morning.”

He nodded again. “I saw, which is why I wanted to catch you. I wanted to ask if the visit had anything to do with your meeting this morning.”

I held very still, gazing into my manager’s eyes, trying unsuccessfully to measure his mood. “This morning?”

He sat upright and tapped on his keyboard, exposing the desktop completely covered in icons. “Amanda emailed me afterwards, asking if you were okay. She said you took her roles-and-responsibilities meeting and tried to turn it into a turf war.”

The sigh forced itself out of me, along with the breath I’d been holding. “I’ll apologize to Amanda later; I’m really not feeling well.”

“You don’t look well, I’ll give you that,” Steven agreed, brushing his mustache away from his mouth with his fingers. “I’ve noticed you’ve had a lot more sick days the last few months.” He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his desk on top of a stack of color printouts. “I just wanted to find out if everything’s alright.”

Honesty warred with caution behind the scenes inside my head. “I think everything’s going to be alright,” I replied cautiously, carefully measuring the stress in my words. “I’ve been having some medical problems, but they’re nothing that ought to hurt my job performance.”

Steven chuckled grimly. “I think ‘ought’ and ‘is’ are pretty far apart here.” He held up a hand, palm outstretched, and shook his head. “I’m not trying to scare you, but I wanted you to hear it from me before you heard it from anybody else. Amanda’s not happy, and she’s not being quiet about it. I’ve already told her you’re sick, and that’s taken some of the heat off of things, but whatever it is, try to get it sorted out quickly if you can, okay?”

My gut twisted in response, but I inhaled sharply and swallowed my snarl. “Sometimes these things can take time to sort out, but I’ll do the best I can.”

Steven stood up and held out a hand. “I don’t want to lose you, Rhee. You’re one of my best people. Are you sure you can’t tell me what’s going on?”

I took his hand in my own, fighting down the grimace at my own clammy touch. “I wish I could, but it’s really nothing you ought to worry about. I’ll be back after my appointment, but I have to head down south, so I’ll be in late.”

My manager pumped once, then let go and waved me off. “Go ahead and take the rest of the day. I got your reports from this morning. Try to get things fixed, okay?”

I closed my eyes and nodded, my chest tight. “I will.” Then I was out the door, grabbing my laptop and scurrying for the exit like I was dodging a runaway train.

I turned my head so I didn’t have to watch the needle going into my arm. “That’d be pretty accurate. I bit somebody’s head off in a meeting today. Figuratively,” I added after a moment’s pause.

“Just checking,” my doctor quipped. “You never can be sure. Ready?” I nodded and held my breath. The needle burned as it entered, a bright spark of pain just inside my elbow that always made me grit my teeth. “There. Hold still.”

I nodded again. “Holding,” I grimaced through clenched teeth. It was ludicrous, I knew, being afraid of something so tiny, but fears didn’t have to be rational to have power, and were usually stronger when they weren’t. Seconds ticked past while I focused on the padded table under my butt and the itch at the base of my spine. I wanted to think of anything but the needle jammed into my arm and that burning, stinging sensation around the puncture wound and vial after vial of blood pumping out through the hole and—

“Done!” he exclaimed, sliding the tiny butterfly needle out of the hole. A whimper escaped me, but Dr. Bernardi just clucked his tongue in response. “I’ve been doing this every three months for four years.” A wad of gauze and a strip of vet wrap later, he was holding my elbow bent to stop the bleeding. “You’re going to get used to it eventually.”

He said that every time, and the familiarity was comforting, even if the reason for it wasn’t. I held my injured elbow in my good hand, smiling despite the lingering pain. “Not if it hurts worse every time you do it!”

Dr. Bernardi put his free hand on his chest over his silk tie and raised his eyebrows in mock-surprise. “You wound me, Mrs. List. I am a professional.”

I grinned at that. “A professional what, though?”

Dr. Bernardi set down the vials on his counter, then waggled his hand, turning towards his desk. “Oh, a little of this, a little of that, very little of that.” He pulled out a full syringe, then stuck it through the rubber stopper on one of the vials. “Speaking of, are you going to be at the gathering two weekends from now? My oldest’s going to be presenting himself.” He pulled a testing strip from a jar, then set it on the counter beside the sink. “I’d like a few supporting voices to be there.”

“I’d love to,” I replied. “We can talk politics later, though. What’s the word?”

My doctor clucked his tongue again as he let a drop of blood fall onto the testing strip. “I don’t have to send these off to the lab to tell you what’s going on, but I will just so I have exact numbers.” He kept his head down over the desk, watching the paper change color. “At a minimum, your expressin is low, and I can guess that your serum teratonase levels are off the scale.” He turned around and looked down the length of his nose at me. “Let me guess; you’re not taking your pills over the weekend.”

I sighed. “I was hoping I could get by without doing so. If I skip Friday morning, by Friday night I’m able to change again, and then I start taking them Sunday morning and by Monday I’m fine for work.”

Jerome Bernardi, MD, DVM, scowled and walked over to the exam table, putting one hand on my knee. “Did you remember to take your pills on Sunday?”

I nodded urgently. “I swear, I did. Morning and evening dose, both.”

He patted my leg lightly. “And I bet I’m not going to be able to talk you into taking your pills every day like a good little bear, am I?”

I sighed. “I really don’t want to lose that. It’s the one chance I have to feel sane during the week.”

Dr. Bernardi rubbed his chin with his free hand, then squeezed my knee. “You know, we can try putting you back on the adhominol.”

I shook my head quickly. “The last time I tried it, I broke out in hives all over.”

Dr. Bernardi clucked his tongue, then took a seat at his desk, two fingers flying over his keyboard. “Fine. I’m upping your expressin to two-hundred grams, twice a day, but that’s as high as I can safely push it. Take half a pill every morning and night over the weekend, then double up on Sunday night to try to get your serum levels back where they should be. If you feel the least bit off next Monday, call me, okay?”

I let out a chuff of relief and nodded slowly. “I can do that. Thanks, doc.”

My doctor shook his head and grinned lopsidedly at me. “Don’t thank me until it works, Rhee. Which… who knows? It’s worth a shot.” He stabbed the keyboard with one fingertip. “Sent. Take care, and I’ll see you a week from Saturday.”

Behind me, I could hear the sounds of the sages’ preparations, but they seemed dim and distant. Chalk scratched against the dais around me, and salts flowed in a circle around it. The air grew thick with the scent of rain and woodsmoke. I could hear, if I focused, Miss Aura and Mister Iladin discussing sigils and stars, influences and intentions. I caught my name, once or twice, or perhaps I just remembered it. Taneh. It was a pretty name, strong but yielding. What will yours be, pet? I wondered, as I stroked the young wolf’s ears.

Miss Aura’s voice came to me from miles away. “Pet, how is he? And yourself?”

“Quiet, ma’am,” I replied, letting the words fall gently out of my muzzle. “Relaxed, a little scared.”

“Just a little?” The question was gentle. “Not a lot?”

“No, ma’am,” I assured. “I’m well-trained and doing as I’m told.” I lowered my gaze, then rested a paw over my pet’s chest. “He’s frightened, mostly of the pain.”

Mister Valentin’s voice was more insistent, but no less removed. “Tell him he won’t hurt much more.” Then, more quietly, in a voice I don’t think I was meant to hear, he added, “I’m still not sure what you’re planning.”

“I’m correcting two mistakes tonight,” the sage replied just as softly. “I haven’t time to explain the rest. Trust that everyone should be happier with the outcome.”

After that, for a time, there were only the sounds of preparation and my own gentle murmurs, keeping my pet relaxed. He turned his head and gently nuzzled at my leg, whimpering softly, and I held one of his paws between both of mine. Then, finally, Miss Aura called out to me again. “Taneh, do you remember when we stepped outside the Great Work together? How the skeins supported us when the ground gave way?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, closing my eyes. As she mentioned it, I could easily imagine the glowing lines of light beneath us, feel the sway and tip of the rays bowing slightly beneath our weight. I shifted faintly to compensate, adjusting my knees, which grew a muffled grunt from my pet’s muzzle.

Far behind me, the sage chuckled. “Never mind, pet. You’re doing as you’re told, and doing very well.” Hindfalls whispered against stone. “When the circle closes, be ready to catch yourself. Do you understand?”

I drew in a deep breath, then let it out and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

Somewhere far behind me, a final chalk-line scratched into place, a few grains of salt poured across them, and the witchlights faded into twilight. “From the furthest star to the tiniest speck, all things are connected in the Great Work.” Miss Aura’s voice echoed faintly, her voice all around me. “The tapestry stretches in all directions, from the heavens to the earth, binding all things together. Past and future, above and below. Here, within the unbroken circle, we separate off a small piece of the Work, that we may weave changes into it.”

The air around me hummed with potential as Miss Aura spoke. I opened my eyes, but the glowing lines remained, shining up from below. It took me only a moment to find my balance, the shining skeins more than enough to support my weight. My pet startled when the world began to fade, but I lay my paws on his shoulders and chanced a whisper. “Easy, pet.” I nuzzled between his ears, and lay still again with only a whimper. Once we both had our balance, I lifted my head. “Yes.”

“Beyond the Great Work, cause need not precede effect, and before may follow after,” the sage’s voice continued. Beyond the circle, all had become darkness; only her words breached the barrier. “In this place, we may make changes, and not fear the consequences. Water may pour up to a vessel, and fire may burn without consuming fuel. Outside the Great Work, we may pull the weapon from the wound, and no blood shall flow.”

My stomach clenched at the words, but the order was clear. Gingerly, I pressed my paws together on either side of the broken wooden shaft, then gradually pulled upwards. My pet arched his back, but then I felt something give way, and the blade slid free, slick with blood. Light shone up from the hole left in his chest, lit by the strands supporting us over the abyss. I resisted the urge to peer into the opening; I was afraid of what I might see inside.

“Good pet,” Miss Aura assured me, and my own breathing eased slightly. “You’re doing as you’re told, and doing it well. The hole below marks a point of egress, a space through which the unneeded may leave. The hole above marks a point of ingress, a space through which the needed may enter. Salts may separate, chalk may mark and guide, but it is the will that directs and commands. Let us trace a circle around this hole with the tool that created it, to bless it and keep it pure.”

Clumsily, I drew the metal spear tip through my pet’s fur, in a rough circle around the wound. It was far from precise, but I was doing as I was told. Once marked, the sage’s voice resumed as if she had never stopped. “So blessed, we may separate the unnecessary from the desirable, the wheat from the chaff. Ruby dust for Oshka. Thistle for purity, elderberry to consecrate. Clover and clove, basil and bay. Within the circle, two threads bind incompletely, brought together by arrogance and fear, wolf and rabbit conjoined in a single skein. Let us lay paws on this knot, and with this touch untie. The hole below marks a point of egress, through which Wilik’s thread may leave.”

As my paws came to rest on either side of my pet’s injury, it felt as though they were passing within, as though the flesh weren’t quite solid. As a test, I gingerly pressed down against his pelt, and I something inside gave way, as a waterskin breaking. The light rising through the wound began to sputter as something smelling of fresh-cooked stew poured out below, between the strands of light and down into the darkness. As I watched, his tail began to recede, and his ears grew longer in equal measure. His muzzle shrank to a rounded curve, and his hinds swelled like mine. Melka, I realized. He always was his mother’s son.

“With Wilik’s gift removed, the knot remains incomplete, a single thread tied to naught.” Suddenly the sage’s voice was a whisper all around, in my ear but nowhere to be seen. “Sapphire dust for Matska. Orange for marriage, peony for love. Heather and honeysuckle, mandrake and mistletoe. Within the circle, two threads bind completely, brought together by love and compassion. Let us lay paws across these threads, and with this touch unite. The hole above marks a point of ingress, through which Jedrik’s thread may enter.”

Lifting one paw from my pet’s chest, I placed it upon my own, and pain the likes of which I had never felt shot through me, as if I had been stabbed through the gut with a spear. I felt something move within me, and then an arc of lightning jumped between us. My pet spasmed once against me, then again, his motions echoed by my own. The blood rushed from my head, and my world swam around me. I swayed and stumbled, but then his paws were at my sides, holding me steady. I looked down, and he smiled back, his golden eyes alight. At his shoulder and hip, patches of white fur stood out from the black, no doubt matched by one on the back of his leg.

“With Jedrik’s gift added, the knot becomes whole, two threads brought together by love and compassion.” Miss Aura’s voice returned to normal, though still at a great distance. “What remains is to mold the second as the first, to complete the pairing. Anise to bless, cinnamon to heat and stoke. Peppermint, motherwort, and clove. Let us wipe away the inner circle and match touch for touch, gift for gift.”

I wiped my paw across the circle I’d traced, and the hole in his chest went with the rest of the marks. The other rabbit below me let out a gasp, then a full-throated moan as the heat within him swelled. Cautiously, I slid back along the strands of light to let him lay flat, then took one of his paws in mine. It took only a little effort to take each of his claws between my stubs and work them back into the ends of his fingers. A bit more, and his fingers lay folded flat as mine were. The thumb was hardest to mold away, but when that was done, his paw was the mirror of mine, a thought that stoked my own inner fire. His other paw went quickly, but there was more to do.

Working my knees to either side of his head took time, but soon his muzzle was just below my nethers. “Lick,” I whispered into the darkness. “Learn.” Then I lay across his chest, so that his groin was just beneath me. As he pressed his lips to mine in a most intimate kiss, I took his sheath in my paws. Guided by his tongue, I cautiously molded flesh to match the sensations I felt. The heat within me became a flame as ey pleasured me, fueled by eir fire and my own efforts.

Soon that ache burned too brightly, and I plunged my muzzle into eir newly-molded sex, hoping to slake my burning need in eir depths. I rubbed the opening to eir tunnel gingerly with one stubby digit, squirming back against eir paw in return. Every lick echoed against my body, every shudder mirrored in my own. I traced eir nethers with my tongue, carefully avoiding that sensitive button as long as I could, until my need drove me to caress it directly, drawing a howl from my lips. I held back as long as I could, but my tongue was too insistent, my need too demanding. My release was a lightning strike that ran from the tips of my newly-lengthened ears to the base of my shortened tail, my tunnel clenching tightly as if to try to hold the other within me until the stars ran cold. “Yes,” we whispered in unison, when voice finally returned to us.

Miss Aura’s chuckle probably wasn’t part of the ritual. “You’re doing what you’re told, and doing it well. As all things have symbols to give them meaning, so is the name the symbol of self. The self that entered the circle is not the self that leaves, and so the name must change to match. Wormwood and violet, with licorice root to seal. Outside the Great Work, we may separate a skein to make changes to it. To weave those changes back within the larger pattern, we carefully part the circle. Salts divided, chalk split.” I heard the thunk of wood against stone, and then the scrape of one of the lines being split. “Wake up, Taneh.”

I startled at the name, my name, and fell onto my side with a groan, thudding against the solid wooden dais. The first rays of sun were just streaming in through the windows, making the witchlights seem dim by comparison. Every muscle in my back and legs felt stiff, and my paws ached. “Ma’am,” I groaned.

A whimper to my right made me turn my head, and my heart jumped in my chest. Staring at the rabbit that lay beside me felt akin to gazing into a mirror. Eir fur was black where mine was white, white to my black, but the patches across shoulder and hip were an eerie match. Eir arms ended in an animal’s paws, and between eir legs was only a need to be filled. Ey lifted eir head with a groan, pressing eir paws to eir eyes. “I’m exhausted.”

“Quiet, pet,” Miss Aura corrected as she shuffled over. “Any pain, at least?”

Ey paused, biting eir lip. One paw went to eir chest in surprise, brushing against where the spear had been. Of the broken weapon itself or the wound, there was no sign. “No, ma’am… just tired.”

The grin that split the sage’s muzzle could have outshone the sun itself. “Good. Very good,” she said as she wiped at her eyes. “If anything ever hurts, ever, you get your master to come tell me, do you understand?”

The other rabbit ducked eir head sheepishly, squirming. Ey glanced to me and blushed; eir eyes were a deep and vivid gold. “It’s not pain, exactly, ma’am.”

Miss Aura laughed, her tail hooking behind her in amusement. “I think you’ll be fine. Baron? You can claim your pets.”

“Hrr?” Half-asleep on the floor just beyond the circle, Mister… Master Valentin’s eyes fluttered, then snapped open as understanding dawned. “Oh! Right.” He sat up and stretched, then pushed himself from the floor with a groan. “Taneh, heel.” Then his eyes turned to the other rabbit, and the world held its breath. “Um….”

“Yes, master.” I struggled to my hinds, then knelt with a wince slightly behind and to the left of Baron Deterikh. The other rabbit watched wordlessly as I moved, then up to the baron’s face. Eir eyes went wide with longing and confusion, but before ey could speak, I took a risk and gestured towards the space to my right, at the lynx’s other side. “Rikeh, heel.”

At the mention of eir new name, ey sagged against the ground in relief. When ey lifted eir face, the smile on eir muzzle shone brighter than the coming dawn. “Coming, master,” ey whispered, then rose and took eir place beside me.

Master Valentin looked down at the both of us, and a weary smile broke out on his muzzle. “Both of you, rise follow. I have a few announcements to make and a war to stop.”

Passing through a Confederacy immigration control point in the Transponder line, even in full human form, is going to set off somebody’s private alarm somewhere. Sure, there’re metal detectors and stripsearches and ten kinds of security to keep weapons out of transit areas, but there are ways around those sorts of things, not limited to bribery and nepotism. Most authorities report catching high numbers of smugglers into and out of secured areas, but never as a percentage of the total number of people suspected of bringing contraband goods through a restricted-access point. The fact is, a person as high-profile as I am is going to get recognised by somebody almost anywhere he goes, whether it’s by sight, voice or ID code. Being partly responsible for the system that allows such easy recognition, it’s little wonder I had someone waiting to greet me with open arms and a double-barrel welcome mat. Not everybody appreciates becoming just another number in an international database.

I don’t even think I was tailed; my senses were jacked up high enough that the only good means of following me would’ve been using the ever-present security cameras that come as a natural function of life inside a technopolis. The best that a physical being could have hoped was to duplicate what the electronics already knew, and in so doing they’d almost certainly have set off my paranoia and whatever advantage they could’ve gained by knowing where I was would’ve been lost by my awareness that I was being traced.

My best reconstruction of the event goes something like this: I walked through the Transponder gate at the inbound immigration checkpoint. A complex series of interactions between the transceiver in the archway, the Universal Identity Transponder implanted at the base of my neck, and the nearest International Identification Registry system led to the conclusion that I was, in fact, listed in the IIR database. The computer back-ending the transceiver proudly displayed the results of its queries about my country of citizenship (Cascadia), legal adult status (yes), outstanding criminal warrants (none in any IIR member nation or Interpol database) and permission to travel within the Confederacy (seven-day transit pass, work permitted within Confederate borders). Nothing suggesting anything out of the ordinary came up, so the green light flashed and a small bell toned to pass me through the gate. At that same instant, a second signal, most likely from a trojan wired up by the gunman’s accomplice in the Monitor booth, caused the gunman’s beeper to buzz, alerting him that the target had just passed through immigration and would be clear of customs momentarily. Assuming he was stationed near the exit gate, this would’ve given him ample time to set up for the shot.

Travelling as a full human, with no visibly abnormal traits, I had carelessly assumed that I would go unrecognised by the vast majority. Purists strike me as being such luddites when it comes to certain aspects of technology that I forget how sophisticated they can really be when not dealing with areas of modern science that they think violate their religious beliefs. So, my guard was down. That gave the gunman all the opportunity he needed to fire off three connecting shots. One went straight through my abdomen, missing my spine but removing a large chunk of my liver. The second connected with my upper chest, probably rupturing both lungs and doing unpleasant things to my cardiac rhythm. The third took out my right shoulder and probably disconnected my arm from the rest of my body.

I didn’t even have time to scream before I went into shock. The part of my brain responsible for processing pain went into overdrive, then got deactivated two milliseconds later by an override circuit designed for just such an occasion; with the crosscurrent flooding out all the meaningful signals, I was literally incapable of feeling the aftereffects of the shots. Call me old-fashioned but drugs designed to prevent a patient from waking up scare the hell out of me, as does the idea of any chemical that stops me from being able to remember anything that happened under its influence. I’d rather rely on a few microamps cutting off access to the synapses and be wide awake when somebody tampers with my body than trust any surgeon, no matter how skilled, to do what I want without me being right there to point out corrections while zie works. It activates itself automatically when it detects an excessive rate of signal is coming through that area of the brain; this means I can still feel minor injuries, but anything more serious than a bad sunburn or a papercut and I’ll only notice a quick twinge and then numbness.

Falling back onto the tile in shock and confusion, I was dimly aware of difficulty breathing, more gunshots, screams and general confusion. One unfortunate side effect of the override circuit is that it tends to throw my other sensory perceptions out of whack. I saw sparkles in front of my eyes, the overhead lights started humming loudly in my ears and then hundreds of hands lifted me and started carrying me along the corridor. I felt a deep pressure in my left arm, one that I had long ago learned to identify as the prick of a needle while under the influence, and then everything faded to a uniform grey static and white noise in my ears.

When I came around, more recognizable by the fact that I knew when I blinked than anything else, I was flat on my back staring up at the ceiling. Fluorescent white strips overhead stared down at me. I saw tiny rainbows around the edges of the lights, telling me the pain inhibitor was still active.

A voice startled me out of complacent comptemplation. “Awake, I see.”

I tried to turn my head but found I had all the muscle-tone of a wet tea towel. My brain put together the commands to string together a sentence but rather than words coming out of my mouth, a synthesiser near the bed picked up on the signals approaching my vocal cords and intercepted them, translating them into speech, albeit much less emotional and flatter than my own: “Doc, is that you?”

Doctor Richard Sanford, the man who had overseen every one of my major Transitions and most of my minor ones, chuckled and leaned over into my field of vision. Light reflected off the top of his balding head and into my eyes. “Don’t bother trying to move anything below your lips; you’re on a motor-control inhibitor to stop you from pulling apart any of the innumerable stitches currently holding you together. That includes your vocal cords.”

A mechanical laugh echoed out of the speechbox. “Your mother would be proud; all those sewing lessons paid off.”

Sanford smiled, showing his almost-perfect even white teeth. “We had to grow you a liver, two lungs, several meters of small intestine, a stomach and several kilos of muscle, bone, nerve and skin to put you back the way you were when you left. You want to tell me how my handiwork got so badly damaged?”

After a moment of pondering and two false starts, I managed to get the synthesizer to say, “A man with a shotgun wanted more than a few words with me. Where am I?” The last was a question but, as usual, the confounded mechanical contraption delivered it all in a flat monologue. I might as well have been reading a grocery list.

The doctor clucked his tongue and then leaned back out of my field of vision. “Pity,” he said, ignoring my question. “I was so hoping that for once, you’d manage to not damage my artwork while showing it off to the world.”

I swore to myself that one day I was going to figure out how to tell from his voice when Sanford was being funny and when he was being serious. However, it wasn’t going to be today. “Couldn’t let that happen. Besides, human is boring.”

He laughed. “It’s familiar, though. I’ll stick to my form for now. I can embrace some areas of new technology and support others without practicing them all on myself. What were you doing in the Confederacy, anyway?”

I tried to sigh but it came out as a quiet hum on the speaker. “Private installation. Details classified.”

Sanford clucked his tongue again. “Well, I’ll leave you to recover, then. Try to stay comfortable; you’ll have plenty of time to mull over what to do from here.” I closed my eyes, reducing the world to blackness. I heard footsteps and then the quiet click of a doorlatch falling into place. Unable to do anything else, I lay back and listened to the sound of my own heartbeat and the silent hum of machines as they lulled me into oblivion.

After a week of being turned this way and that by a rotating schedule of nurses who showed all the personal interest of a blind date, Doc Sanford came in, looked me over, pronounced me fit to move under my own power and removed the motor inhibitor. It took an hour for everyone to pull out the lengths of tubing that had kept me tied into the machines that acted as life-support. The first thing I did under my own manpower was walk to the toilet; it was probably my most rewarding physical experience to date. Solid food followed closely behind, if you can call warm oatmeal solid. I was still dazed and lightheaded from the override circuit being active constantly, but ignoring that, I felt as good as I did before the “incident.”

The incident. After attending to all my relevant bodily functions, I found a terminal and started scanning for news reports from the Confederacy. It wasn’t hard. The network returned several reports published over a span of hours, from two minutes after the first shot to morning-after, all accompanied by high-quality full-color-and-stereo security camera feeds of three solid impacts slamming into my chest, picking me up and flinging me gracefully in a close-to-parabolic arc, coming to rest splayed out on the tile floor, the shotgun-wielder standing over me for all of two seconds, savoring the moment.

Ignoring the bulk of the story for the moment, I focused my attention first on the video footage. Several full-speed passes through the graphic display of violence made the hair on the back of my neck rise; I felt as if I were attending my own funeral. I halted the flow of images and pulled a close-up of my assailant’s face. Smoke curling away from the barrels gave him a halo effect. He was bald but probably hadn’t shaved his head in a few days. His eyes were sunken, as were the rest of his features to some degree; he looked like someone had punched a bowl of bread dough, stuck the man’s face on the indented surface and then let it rise. He was overweight but not fat, or at least not disproportionately so. His lips were curled back in an animal’s snarl, but his eyes gleamed with sadistic pleasure. Studying him, I couldn’t help but think that he was getting some kind of twisted kick out of doing his deity’s dirty work. Zooming back out, I got a look at his clothes. His jacket and pants were an unbleached off-white and around his neck I caught the flash of polished metal, the golden stylized flame-and-world pendant showing membership in, or at least some affiliation with, the Purist movement.

I sighed and saved a few images extracted from the datastream for my personal files, then called up the associated texts. Thomas Elijah Westborough, born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, was in custody eleven minutes and twenty-two seconds after shooting “Kolya Jensen, self-appointed architect of the Brave New World”. A few reports from more conservative news services went into wild speculation behind the reason for the co-inventor of the so-called Identity Chip to be in a place so opposed to his very existence, with claims ranging from conversion to several different One True Ways to secret meetings with subversives in government planning to make the Confederacy a puppet-signatory to the Reunified Northam talks. Those that chose not to guess why I was there did go so far as to wonder openly about it.

I had to laugh at the title bestowed upon me. It wasn’t my fault that religion couldn’t keep pace with technology; that particular race had been lost so many times on so many tracks over the years that it hardly seemed worth the effort to run it again. The right to die, the origin of life, the rising of the sun, and the shape of the earth—to pick a select few choice contests—had all come under attack as being against the whims or wishes of some Invisible Pink Unicorn or Magical Sky-Daddy over the years. All of them had eventually forced the devout and the devoted to come to grips with the fact that, a few glitches in quantum physics aside, the universe didn’t really care what they wanted to be true.

It also wasn’t my fault that Transponder technology had had become so ubiquitous. Transition technology had made almost every form of physical identification useless; given a month and enough money, you could become anyone or anything, within certain limits. Want to be an elephant for your kid’s jungle-themed birthday this fall? Two months and fifty-grand, give or take two weeks of physical therapy. Want to look like Chartreuse or Rocco Carboni? Twenty-thousand and two weeks. Sure, people have died in the tanks, but have died on surgical tables for as long as we’ve been lifting people out of the dirt to keep their incision sites clean, and I don’t hear a lot of clamoring for going back to the leeches-and-emetics theory of medicine. So, even if most people still operate under the very comforting delusion that they still look like their old Northam Identicards, the truth is that you couldn’t trust them to match, assuming they were still valid.

It wasn’t even my fault that Transponder technology existed. Officially, the Cascadia government owned all rights to the technology when it was developed, and they chose to release the technical specs into the field. I happened to be on the team that developed it, and yes I was the geek that put forward the technical design that became the framework for the UIT network, but I wasn’t any of the hundreds of people who recognized the need for identity confirmation that existed outside of physical constraints, allocated resources to solve the problem, hired my company as a research partner, and then pushed for results. I certainly wasn’t the millions of people who voted those politicians into office because of a facejacking operation that exposed three celebrities as criminals and put seven people in jail for conspiracy to commit murder. I was one person who happened to be at the right place at the right time to serve as a capstone on a much larger effort.

Getting in front of a camera at the Portland Techxpo and bragging about having made possible the Mark of the Beast… okay, yes, that was my fault. It certainly didn’t endear me to a bunch of religious psychotics like Brother William Washburn’s Purist Movement, but it was so hard to take them seriously. Their press releases read like half a dozen holy books and a double fistful of dollar bills with kook rants written on them passed through a Markov chain generator, and their policy statements showed they collectively had a creative—to be generous—understanding of both religious scripture and the scientific method. They had some two-dozen “official” factions, all split from the main group based on some minor nitpick involving just how many angels could dance on what sized pin, but on peeling back all the social niceties and hairsplitting, they were a bunch of people who’d decided that the best way to deal with the pace of technology was to ban anything that made them feel icky inside. They couldn’t get most of their members elected in either Tejas or the Confederacy because they were too conservative, and if that didn’t put them squarely beyond the realm of reason, nothing would.

I shut down the newsfeed and stared blankly at the terminal for about a minute, putting my thoughts in some semblance of order. Then I shook my head and punched in the callcode for my office. Three buzzes later, the speaker popped, heralding the audio pickup on the other side. “Identicorp Portland.”

I recognised the voice. Breathing a sigh of relief, I punched a request for video. “Trace, it’s Kolya.”

I counted off three seconds subvocally before Trace Morgan, my nominal vice-president and one of my closest friends, sent back a denial for my video request and a request for authentication. “Identify on secure channel, please.”

“Oh, for the love of…” I bit my tongue, then chuckled at my response. The override circuit must be affecting me, I thought. The terminal was an Astra 320, not exactly cutting-edge but still equipped with a UIT transceiver as part of its stardard peripheral list. I put my hand over the receiver and waited for the thing to beep at me and tell me it had read my transponder. When it did, I spoke back into the terminal. “Authentification on its way. And send your own while you’re at it.”

“Already in progress. Stand by.” I fidgeted in my chair while my terminal and his talked to each other, then the IIR database, finally transmitting a little message backing my claims to Trace. A request for video pickup came through on my end, which I quickly accepted. A few seconds later, a window on the terminal opened up, Trace’s muzzle staring out of it at me. He’d Transitioned shortly after I did, partially to help prove that the UIT could replace any conventional form of identification, partially to indulge himself. He looked like a labrat, a six-foot-two white rat, right down to the tip of his pink tail. His figure was still mostly human-proportioned, but the fur and skull
were unmistakabily rodentine.

His black eyes blinked at the screen. “Kolya?” His voice registered surprise.

I grimaced. “Hi.”

“You look…” He paused, not directly look into the pickup.

“The word is ‘bad’, Trace.”

“I’ll go with that,” he agreed quickly, trying to fill the previous gap. “I heard the news. Sanford putting you back together alright?”

I made a face at the screen. “I itch.”

Trace chuckled, a high-pitched chitter that sounded like it should be coming from a cartoon chipmunk. “Just don’t gouge yourself this time.” I rolled my eyes at his comment. I’d had the override circuit installed at the same time as my first major Transition: leopard, with a heavy emphasis on the animal traits. When I woke up, of course I didn’t feel any pain because of the neural block, but I did itch from all the fur. I wasn’t used to my body and I’d forgotten about my claws, so I managed to carve four good-sized slices in my chest before the slick feel of blood on my pawpads made me hit the panic button. It took nearly twice as long to recover as it should have. Needless to say, most of the office found this hilarious.

I rolled my shoulders in a shrug. “Have I missed anything important?”

Trace gave a non-committal shrug. “We’ve had Confederacy officials on the phone off and on for the past nine days alternatively demanding to know if we want to press charges and meekly asking if you’re alive and wanting to know if-slash-when someone will be coming back. There’ve also been roughly half a dozen messages left, all in different synthesised voices, taking credit for your death and proclaiming you to be the first to fall. There’ve been over two-dozen additional calls we presume from the same sources, but they’ve been hang-ups, possibly automated. Tracking the calls led to public phone booths in Cascadia, Tejas and the Confederacy. All calls were purchased with anonymous cashcards. Cascadia police and Interpol have both been notified.” He paused a moment, looked around the edge of the pickup. “That seems to be everything.”

I nodded. “Sounds like the shop’s under control, then. I should be out of here in a week and on my way back to Atlanta in ten days.”

Trace stared into the video pickup, tapping his front teeth with a claw; it was a nervous gesture me made when he was thinking. Then he leaned back and shook his head once. “This place can run for a month without you in a pinch and the Confederates can wait. I’d suggest Transitioning. Something new and different.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Maybe I missed something somewhere. I thought we were out to prove to them that Transponders could defeat any conventional disguise tactic. Perhaps I’m mistaken somewhere?”

The rat clicked his tongue and let out a high-pitched squeaking sigh. “The Confederacy has assured me that no report of your survival has yet hit their news wire, and also that they found their security leak and have patched it. Going back in the same body you took last time is just going to tell the Purists to try harder next time. Thus, I think it’s a dangerous idea, but going in another form should be safer, especially if you take along a bodyguard.” The like-I-told-you-to-do-last-time was implicit.

I thought, scratched my ear—carefully—and finally shrugged in mock defeat. “Alright, you win. I Transition before I go back.”

“And you take a bodyguard.” His pink eyes glittered with determination.

I sighed. “Alright, and I take a bodyguard. Call Dom and have her meet me here in a week; I should be coherent by then.”

Trace smirked, a feat I still found amazing giving his facial structure. “I already paged her; she should be there in the next half hour.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re a real piece of work.”

Trace’s muzzle split a little further. “That’s what Sanford said when he finished with me. Now get back in bed; Dom will be there soon and you’ll need your strength to deal with her.”

I waved a hand dismissively, even though my vision was getting blurry. “Fine, fine. See you in a month, give or take.”

Trace waved a paw at the video pickup and then the window shut itself down, the speaker crackling once to signify the end of the conversation. I hauled myself off the terminal and just about fell over my own feet getting back into bed. I sighed, realising I’d pushed myself too far for my first day under my own power. From the comfort of the mattress, I requested some classical music and lay back, eyes open but unfocused. I lost track of the time staring at the rainbows flickering around the fluorescent lights in time to Holst and Dvorak. I cut back into reality, though, when the music cut out and a voice came through the terminal speakers. “Kolya?”

It was Sanford’s receptionist, Terry Moreno, one of the only people on the staff with more skill at rebuilding computers than organics. I tilted my head and called out towards the terminal, “Yes?”

I had trouble telling if the distortions in Terry’s voice were the result of the transmission medium or just the override circuit messing with my senses again. “You’ve got a visitor.. Dom Herschell?”

I sighed and struggled to sit up in bed, regretting it as soon as I was semi-vertical. “I’m awake. Send her in.”

“On her way.” The music snapped back to life, picking up where it had been interrupted.

I canned the playback and waited. Around a minute later, the door opened and Dominique Herschell strolled into the room. She wore a tan fitted jumpsuit, far too crisp for it to have seen any real use. She was clearly between jobs; she’d obviously recently shaved her head, and the black tribal tribal tattoos on her head stood out sharply against her brown skin. She kicked the door shut with the heel of one foot, detoured by the terminal to grab the chair and dragged it over next to the bed. Rather than say anything, though, she just spun it around backward and sat facing me, her arms folded over the back.

I held her gaze for all of about thirty seconds before sighing. “What?”

Dom smirked. “I was just thinking of all the times you told me you didn’t like my line of work. Now Trace calls me and says you want to hire me. I’m just enjoying the moment.”

I snorted. “I still don’t like your line of work. Gun-for-hire never struck me as a career with good retirement options.”

Her smirk slipped into a playfully mocking sneer. “I’m a courier, not a mercenary. My combat training is for self-defense and the protection of valuables, which occasionally means people like you. And with that kind of crack, maybe I won’t take your job.”

It was my turn to grin. “Yes you will. You’ll have time to rub my nose in it all the way to the Confederacy and back.”

Dom gave me a look somewhere between incredulous and patronizing, then pulled a piece of gum out of one of her many pockets. “Confederacy?” She popped the stick in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

I sighed. “Yes, Confederacy. Okay, jokes aside, Dom. You’re the best person I know for this sort of business and one of the only ones I can probably trust to tag along. I got shot the last time I went and I have a vested interest in seeing that that doesn’t happen again. I’m a thinker, not a fighter. I had skywired senses and I still took three shotgun slugs from someone I should’ve seen five miles away.” I paused and shrugged, ignoring the discomfort from my right shoulderblade. “I need your help.”

I ran out of steam there and left the silence hanging while Dom blew bubbles. After a minute or so of consideration, she snapped her gum and nodded. “Alright. Two ground rules.”

Time to negotiate. “Number one?”

She held up a finger. “If the bullets start flying, I get hazard pay.”

I sighed but didn’t bother arguing that one. “Done. Number two?”

She grinned and raised a second. “If I say ‘duck’, you duck. When I say it, not after asking me why.”

I rolled my eyes. “Contrary to Trace’s claims, I am not the most inquisitive person on the planet and I do not have a problem with authority figures.”

She only snapped another bubble in response. When I said nothing further, she shrugged and stood, walking towards the door. “I’ll get the travel details from Trace. When do we leave?”

That reminded me. “Five weeks.”

Dom gave me that look again from the doorway. “Any reason for the delay?”

I nodded. “Trace wants me to Transition before I go. Bring a pocket scanner with you to the tube station.”

She grinned; I could just make out the wad of gum between her teeth. “What’re you going to be?”

I shrugged again, this time wincing at my shoulder. “I don’t know. I’ll have something figured out by the time Sanford starts cutting. Trace suggested ‘new and different’ so it’ll probably be anthropomorphic.”

Dom paused, one hand on the doorjamb. “Try female.”

I snickered. “That’d certainly be new and different.”

“It’ll also be something the Purists won’t consider,” she said pointedly, tapping a finger on the frame.

My eyes narrowed. “You read the news?”

Dom’s grin broadened. “I didn’t have to.”

I raised an eyebrow in puzzlement. “I don’t get it.”

A look of consternation passed over Dominique’s face, then she sighed. “Trace said he’d have my head if I told you, but he had me follow you from a discreet distance on your last trip. I couldn’t get to you in time to keep you from getting shot, but I did get you evacked back to Angeles. Trace covered the slingshot fare and I paid Medifast to keep your lungs attached to your neck while Sanford prepped an emergency suite for your arrival.” She grinned, leaning against the doorway. “Doc complained about their stitchwork.”

I sat, shocked, for what may very well have been the first time in my life. I honestly didn’t know whether to be angry or pleased that my ex-girlfriend and my best friend for the past twenty years had simultaneously conspired behind my back and saved my hide. I slumped against the head of the bed and looked back into Dom’s eyes. “Thanks.”

She brightened somewhat, a ghost of her smirk echoing on her face. “See you in five weeks. Try not to be late.” Then she exited the door while I slid back down into bed and let the Beethoven swell as I tried to decide on my next face.

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 they 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.”

“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, 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 was 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 the other girl’s 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 midair. “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 speech came out in 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 audibly; the sound showed up as a splat of red in the air.

I put a finger over my muzzle, then motioned for Giri and Imogen to follow me. They exchanged glances but did so, stepping away from the fresh distortion. I looked back at the block of text, then squinted and whispered, “Test, test.” It flickered as I spoke, 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?”

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 the underlying software that another piece, the 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.”

Giri 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 that 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 fist out of a silvery box shot through with multicolored lightning streaks. One person had her by the shoulders and was trying to extract her; another 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());. I froze. What wasn’t I going to let this be? I tried to remember what I was going to compare it to, but my mind felt empty. Why couldn’t I think of anything? “Imogen!”

“Little busy, John!” the mouse shouted in response. “Trying to keep the panic down! What is it?”

“Giri’s gone,” I replied .”I can’t think. I need your help.”

The writer snorted; the sound echoed and twisted around itself in grey-brown whorls. “This is your field, not mine.”

I shook my head. “My memory’s corrupting. I need help to call_function(vox, FALSE, NULL);.” Golden letters scrolled across my field of vision. There has to be something we can do. The rollback has to be almost done. We just have to hold out a little longer. The system should resync itself and the database will offload its—”

Imogen threw up her paws. “Don’t have time for this! Just do something!”

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.

I had to it would be enough.

He was a mottled mess of grey and white, dotted with patches of pink where the fur had burnt away. He loped through his Protectorate, sometimes on four legs, sometimes on two, depending on the lay of the land and his mood. Ashes scattered as his paws hit the earth, and the scent of smoke hung heavily in the air. The afternoon sun cast rays of pink and violet across the ground, motes in the air scattering the light and littering the ground with patches of shadow.

Rising to the top of a hill, Shadowdance stood on two legs and surveyed the damages. It would be years before his territory was fully restored. He might not live to see the day that he could call the job complete. And yet, his heart felt light, and despite the tears in his eyes he smiled, his tail wagging behind him. Here and there, green shoots poked through the layer of grey, and the scent of deer and rabbit came to his nose even through the soot. In the distance, fresh water splashed along some unnamed tributary of the Colorado river, along with the chirrup of insects in the early evening. Even if he didn’t, the land would survive, and thrive once more, and that was all the Child of Wolf could dream.

A roar echoed in the distance, and the wolf’s ears perked. Letting out a howl in response, he dropped to all fours and ran towards its source, chest heaving as he burst through the treeline into a familiar clearing. The lodge remained where Watcher had left it weeks ago, at the edge of the river just outside his sacred territory. Beside the tree under which the tent had been build, the tan-furred Child of Wolf stood, his tail low, his ears back against his head, glancing about nervously. Leaning against it was a Child of Bear, his thick brown coat streaked with grey. One paw clutched a talisman hanging from his neck, while the other adjusted the pouch-covered bandoleer that hung from his shoulder.

Shadowdance stopped short, staring. He blinked rapidly, then broke into a wide grin, ears perked and tail wagging furiously behind him. “I’ll go get that deer now.”

Mountain grinned in response. “Grant us passage, Shadowdance?”

The grey-furred Child of Wolf nodded. “You’re welcome to come and go as you please.” He looked to Watcher and held out a paw. “Both of you.”

Watcher stepped forward and clasped paws with the other wolf, bowing over it. “I’ll do what I can to earn that right.”

Shadowdance grinned in response. “You already did.”

The Child of Bear held out a paw, then tapped his muzzle, sniffing the air. “Where is she?”

“Foraging,” the grey wolf replied. “She’ll be back before sunset, as will Leaper.”

The bear nodded at that, then motioned for Dancer to approach. “Turn around; let me check your arm.” The Child of Wolf whined but complied, turning so the bear could press his fingerpads in along his shoulder. “You’re healing up okay, but you still should have let me sling that. How do you feel?”

The Child of Wolf could only grin in return, his tongue lolling to one side of his open muzzle as he panted. He sprawled out over his back, and the bear knelt in front of him, rubbing his belly like an overgrown St. Bernard. Dancer growled in pleasure, batting at the air with his forepaws. “I told you.”

Mountain nodded and smiled in response. “Yeah, you did. Now, if you’re going to go hunt, go hunt. I want to check you over before nightfall.” He turned, suddenly, to the tan wolf who had been standing silently beside him. “Unless you’d show me how…?”

Watcher smiled gently. “You’re doing fine, Mountain, though I think I’m going to get a nap while we wait for the others to return. The sweet smoke will do me some good.” He knelt and gathered a few strips of bark from the leather blanket, then stepped inside the sweat lodge, letting the flap fall into place behind him.

Mountain stood, alone, for several moments, simply enjoying the feel of the light breeze through his fur. Then, he dropped to all fours and padded over to the bank of the river. Staring into the water’s depths, he saw flashes of movement beneath the surface. He watched, still, then suddenly snapped out one paw, raking it through the water, laughing with cub-like delight at the solid smack of impact and then the gentle flop of the fish onto the bank. Two more followed in rapid succession, and then the Child of Bear turned to his catch, licking his lips in anticipation. He reared, his bear’s body rising onto its hinds, head tilted painfully back against his neck. Then the world bent around him as his head pivoted on its access. His claws shrunk, splayed as five short stubby digits gave way to padded, furred paw-like hands. The blunt stub of his tail fidgeted as he stretched, trying to relieve the pleasant ache that always accompanied the physical change from four legs to two. Then, finally, he knelt by the bank, fingers laced in the wet soil, his head bowed in prayer. “Thank you, Great Mother, for this gift. I am Your cub, and I am grateful for this world that You share with me, for the gifts You have bestowed.”

Alex smiled. “Nope. I failed, and you can confirm that with Watcher.”

The man stood, trying to shrug off Alex’s paw, but the bear kept a vice-grip on his shoulder. “I said you were on his side.”

Alex’s grin threatened to split his head. “Nope,” he repeated. “I’m on both your sides.”

At that, Watcher barked a short, painful laugh. “Ridiculous. That man is a Shepherd, intent on killing every last one of us.”

“Maybe,” Alex admitted. “I got his side of the story earlier. Watcher, tell me about Mirror’s Smile.”

The Child of Wolf froze, tail and muzzle dropping. “I fail to see what—”

Alex held out a paw. “Indulge me, Watcher. Tell me again what happened to her.”

The wolf sagged, nodding. “Very well, Mr. Demont, if you insist.” He turned and walked over to the riverbank, looking down. He hesitated as he approached Mirror’s body, kneeling next to the fallen Child of Wolf but visibly afraid to touch her. “She had Pledged herself to a small tributary of the Mississippi river. Someone poisoned the water, and—”

“Someone,” Alex interrupted. “You mean AllChem.”

Watcher nodded. “Yes, but I would not learn that until later. I tried for months to help her, when I could. Every remedy I knew, every possible cure I could divine, every prayer I could remember and some I invented just for her.” He reached down to Mirror’s body, fingers hesitantly brushing against her dull fur, tracing one visible rib on her skeletal frame. “Nothing worked. Little by little, the life went out of her, until in the end she begged me to end her pain.” His voice broke. “So I did.”

“You killed her,” Walker sneered, grunting as Alex dug his claws into his shoulder. “Put all the fancy words you like on it; you murdered her.”

Watcher’s head spun back towards Alex and Walker. “No! I… I did everything I could think to do! I was so young, then. I had only just realized my nature. She…” He turned back to his fallen mate. “She was the one to show me the truth of what I was.”

Alex nodded. “Sounds right.” He looked at Walker. “How does that sound to you?”

Walker glared over his shoulder. “How does what sound?”

Alex rolled his eyes, dragging the man over to where Walker knelt next to the fallen body. “For being so smart, you two sure are dumb.” He grabbed Watcher’s arm in his other paw, hauling the Child of Wolf to his feet. “Get a good look at each other. Look down, at her. Who do you see? What’s her name?”

“Mirror’s—” “Lisa—” Both man and wolf spoke, then stopped, staring at each other.

The bear let that sink in for a few seconds before continuing. “Walker, you said you buried everything for your job, until you met Lisa. Watcher, you said you had only just come into your nature when you met Mirror’s Smile. Both of you say the woman you love took sick for an unknown cause. Walker, the wolf tried to heal your girlfriend. Watcher, you did everything you could for Mirror.” As the two stared at each other in growing horror, Alex drove his point further home with every statement. “Walker, the wolf killed Lisa. Watcher, you put down your mate. You found out that AllChem had a chemical spill upstream, the company Walker worked for.”

He let go of their shoulders, walking away from both, while they stood in shock, eyes turning from each other to Alex and back. “You—either, both, whatever—threw away your dreams for your job, then met a woman who could help you have both again. She died when you used your newfound knowledge to try to save her, turning your back on the other half of your past. When you found out it was your company, the people for whom you had given up those visions in the first place, that cost you the love of your life, you cracked.” He threw his paws up in the air, turning to face the other two. “Come on, guys, don’t make me say this out loud.”

Walker and Watcher turned to each other; the man’s face twisted in disgust, the wolf’s in shame. “Right,” Alex said into the uncomfortable silence. “You two have a lot to discuss. I’m not asking you to kiss and make up, but do you two think you can resolve your differences without resorting to name-calling?”

“Don’t count on it,” Walker muttered, his eyes boring into the top of Watcher’s head.

Alex shrugged. “If you can’t, you’re going to die. Your only path to victory is suicide, Walker. It’s your choice. Find some way to live with Watcher, or quit living. Do you see a third option?” He waited several seconds for Walker’s indignant sputters to settle back into that angry stare. “Neither could I.”

Alex turned in his seat, putting one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the Child of Wolf’s shoulder. “Hey, Watcher… it’s going to be okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Watcher sobbed, slumping in his chair. “What have I done? What have I done what have I done oh Dancer and Tundra and Nighteyes and… I’m sorry… I’m so, so sorry….” His head bent, his ears pinned against his skull. “Lisa… Lisa, I’m sorry, I… I failed….” His voice descended from there into wordless sobbing.

“Watcher, listen,” Alex said gently, trying to calm the wolf. “I can’t possibly say I understand what you’re going through right now, because I don’t. What I can say is that you’re not alone, and we’re here to help. All of us. Briar and Dancer and I, at least. We’ll get through this. You need healing.”

Watcher swallowed heavily, struggling for control. “No, Mr. Demont, I… I don’t think there’s any healing for me, not after what I’ve done. I don’t think there’s penance big enough.” He closed his eyes, tensing. “I’d like… please, Alex, I… I don’t think I can live with the shame of killing my own kind.”

At that, Alex grinned. He drew in a deep breath, and as he let it out, his face stretched, mouth and nose fusing into a short blunt muzzle tipped by a black leathery nosepad. Fur blossomed along his cheeks, spreading over his scalp and down his neck to disappear beneath his disintegrating shirt. Claws burst from the ends of his fingers, digging into the steering wheel and poking into the wolf’s shoulder. He grunted, squirming against the seat and then tugging at his jeans to free the stubby tail trapped beneath at the end of his spine. Then, after a few moments of struggling, the remains of a pair of shoes flew into the truck bed.

The Child of Bear caught Watcher’s open-jawed stare and chuckled. “If you can’t deal with it, what makes you think I’d handle it any better?”

“But….” For once, the wolf seemed at an absolute loss for words. He swallowed heavily, blinking rapidly as if trying to dispel an illusion. “How?”

The bear shrugged. “Before, I only thought I believed. Now I actually do.”

Watcher leaned back in his seat, gaping. “I really have no idea what to say to that, or to anything else. I’m at a loss as to what to do.”

The Child of Bear gestured to the steering wheel. “We go back to Shadowdance’s Protectorate. We help him rebuild. We help you and Tom rebuild. The rest will take care of itself.”

The wolf shook his head. “It’s not that easy. I’ve… killed people. I’m afraid I may try to do so again.”

“Killing you won’t bring them back,” the bear said, turning to face out the front window. “Alive, at least you can do penance. I don’t think you’re a risk, but if you do try something, there will be others around to catch you before you do anything drastic. It’ll be a long time before you’re well, and it won’t be easy, but you’ll have others around you to help. Besides, Briar and Shadowdance already know.”

Watcher looked up at that, ears drooping. “They do?”

The bear nodded. “Yeah, we caught Tom, I followed up on a hunch, they saw him change. Now, we should get going. We’ve got a lot of healing ahead, for all of us.”

The wolf shook his head slowly. “This… this is too much. I’m in your debt, Mr. Demont.”

“Please,” the Child of Bear said as he started the truck. “Call me Mountain.”

Walker knelt nearby, his shoulders hunched, his head bowed. His body shook as he sobbed softly, his arms extended. In front of him, a woman lay on a familiar leather sheet. Her sallow skin clung to her frame, her joints swollen. Dirt smudges and grass stains covered her chest and legs, while flecks of blood clung to her lips and chin. One arm lay extended out beside her, while the other Walker held in his own, his fingers entwined with hers. Her hair lay in a spill around her head, listless and dull. Her mucous eyes were vacant, staring at nothing.

Slowly, Alex approached, kneeling reverently on the other side of Lisa’s body. “I’m sorry, Walker,” he said quietly, keeping his hands on his knees.

The man lifted his head, his eyes red with tears and rage. “Sorry?” His voice was a harsh whisper. “I had to watch the woman I loved wither and die over the span of a year and you’re sorry? I had to put up with the sniveling, whining shaman who promised her health and delivered only pain and you’re sorry.” Walker spat the words through clenched teeth, fighting back more tears. “I had thrown everything into my job, until I met her. I turned my back on my dreams, devoted myself to my work. I gave up everything I ever wanted. Then I met Lisa.” He turned his eyes back to the woman in front of him, his bottom lip trembling. “She… she made it okay. She made all that sacrifice seem worthwhile. I spent every minute I could with her. When she got sick, that bastard wolf promised to take care of her. He promised to help her. And everything he did, everything he tried, only made it worse. I begged her to get help. I begged him to find a real doctor. She was so taken with him, and he was so sure of himself, and all I could do was watch as she died in front of me.”

Walker looked up once more, glaring across at Alex. “I can’t bring her back, but I can take from the wolf the thing he valued, the way I valued her. I can rob him of his dreams, destroy his precious vision, and then watch his heart shrivel up and blow away the way mine did.”

Alex put his hand back on his leg. “You’re killing people, Walker. You’re killing people who had nothing to do with Watcher, or Lisa.”

“No.” Walker’s insistence was final, his eyes cold. “I’m not killing anyone; I’m just culling the herd. If you all want to live like animals, then you can die like animals for all I care.”

Alex was silent for a moment as he stroked his beard in comptemplation. “What about Watcher?”

Walker grinned smugly. “Watcher’s gone. I caged him and sent him away.”

Alex rose carefully, keeping his hands at his side. “If he’s gone, he can’t see your revenge, can he? If you want him to suffer, doesn’t he need to be here to see it?”

“No!” The outburst was even stronger than the last. “If he’s here, you might let him go.”

“If he’s not here, how’s he going to see what you’re doing?” Alex spoke patiently, calmly. “How’s he going to know that you won?”

Walker’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t trust you. You’re on his side.”

Alex shrugged. “Why should I be? I’m not one of them. I failed his little test. You can ask Watcher yourself about that one.”

“You did?” At Alex’s nod, Walker stood and brushed the grime from his knees. “I wish I’d known that earlier. Sorry about your apartment.” He gestured behind Alex, then stepped over Lisa’s body to the cage under one of the trees. Inside it, a tan-furred wolf lay on his side, curled up like a pup, shaking. “So, the infallible Watcher fails again. How does that make you feel?” The wolf tried to look away, but Walker’s fist slammed into the cage, rattling the bars and making its occupant’s tail bristle. “Don’t turn your back on me, you hypocritical fraud. You thought you knew everything, but really, you’re just a dumb animal. Admit it!” Walker’s face distorted in a mask or rage. “Admit it!”

The wolf turned back, his ears flat against his skull. He hung his head, then nodded slowly, hunkering down on himself, his tail tucking itself between his legs.

Walker smirked, putting his hands on his hips. “So, the old wise wolf finally admits his folly. You’ve lost, Watcher.” He bent down, gloating into the cage. “There’s nothing you can do, this time. Your little friends might have gotten Parson, but they haven’t gotten me, and they won’t—”

A heavy, brown-furred paw slammed into the back of his head, knocking him into the trap; his forehead clanged off of the bars as he dropped to the ground. “He was never going to shut up,” Alex grumbled as he stepped forward. He peered through the bars at the wolf within. “I don’t suppose, with him out of the way, you can just whisk yourself out of there, can you?” Without waiting for an answer, he squatted, grabbing the bottom edge of the heavy iron cage and lifting. Once the gap was wide enough for the wolf, he grunted. “You better squeeze out while you can.”

Watcher needed no further encouragement and slunk under the cage, rising back onto his hind legs once free. “I am afraid I underestimated you, Mr. Demont,” he said softly once he was free. “Now, if you do me the courtesy of helping get Mr. Kinney here underneath—”

Alex dropped the cage, letting it slam into the ground. “No.”

Watcher’s ears flattened against his head. “But, Mr. Demont, you are quite aware that that man is one of the Shepherds. If he awakens—”

Alex turned around. “I’m quite aware of what he is, Watcher. And who he is.” He tapped the side of his head. “Every time you showed up around me, I could feel something… wrong. Like a spider crawling around inside my brain. I figured it was more of your spiritual association, but it wasn’t.” He looked down at his paws, then back up at the Child of Wolf. “It was mine.”

The wolf took a step backwards, away from the bear staring intently at him. “Mr. Demont, I… am afraid I am unsure what you mean.”

“Oh, I think you know exactly what I mean,” Alex replied, kneeling down and putting a paw on Walker’s shoulder, gently shaking him awake. “This ends, though. Now.”

The Voice of Irokai was a core function that could tap into any audio stream in order to deliver important system updates; it had permission to access anyone’s audio system at any time. However, for deaf tourists and noisy environments, Tadashiissei provided an alternative: a scrolling text field, which again couldn’t be disabled but could be resized or relocated for customer comfort. That hook was always present, even if the recipient of the message could hear! The hack bypassed the audio system, went straight for the visual interface, repositioned and altered the text to be as annoying as possible, and then began dumping chunks of Project Gutenberg passed through a fishbowler. The end result looked like a badly-written description of a drug trip.

“Debugger, abort run.” The words vanished from my vision. “Open e-mail, title, quote, bug one-four-six-two-two, end-quote.” I dumped a fast summary detailing my findings, suggesting that the visual hook be disabled as long as the audio one worked and access for the text interface be explicitly limited to the individual. It wasn’t a cure, but the real fix would take locking down the Voice of Irokai, which was way outside of my scope. Ideally, I’d have never gotten this deeply into the core systems in the first place, but with the ongoing crisis, Tadashiissei needed all the help it could get.

I pulled my test results together, then attached them to the outgoing message. “Send to developers-internal. Close. Suspend.” With that, the remaining windows faded around me, leaving me sitting in the back of Tadashiissei’s Beni office, rubbing at my muzzle with one paw. “One down…” I glanced up at the wall, to a list of open issues, then shook my head. “Too many to go.” I rose out of the chair and stretched. “I can’t believe I’m up this early.”

Mitsuko put a paw on my shoulder, smiling gently, her own deep green eyes tired. “You were not sleeping, John, nor was I. At least this way we are helping, ne? The outstanding crises are being addressed. Progress is being made.”

I groaned, paws on the small of my back. “Yeah, but the overall list is still growing.” I rolled my shoulders in a shrug and twisted, trying to pop my back. Explain to me again the sense of giving people the ability to fly and then letting them have sore backs. I wondered if it might be some function of the map from neurons to code that made me still think my muscles felt tight, when in fact I had no muscles to tighten. That got me thinking about the models they were using and how they got the tail to function so naturally, but before I got too far into that path, I felt something in in my lower back give way and the tension melted. “Still, I wish the reason I couldn’t sleep was ‘busy’ and not ‘worrying about not waking up.’”

“Do not worry, John,” Mitsuko’s other paw was at my side, and then her body was warm against my back. “I will not let that happen.”

I reached back and hugged her against me, then turned and kissed her forehead. “I appreciate the thought, Mits, really.” I stretched again, loosening up my shoulders. “I’m going to take a break and see if anyone is open for breakfast. I’d rather not just instantiate something.”

“Oh, hai,” Mits said, making a face. “One can only see the same plate of eggs so many times before doubting its sincerity. I will meet you in a bit; this meeting cannot last much longer.” She slid back, out of my arms, then tapped her ear, holding one paw in front of her, waving me away with the other.

The skies over Beni were overcast, but the rain had yet to return. At least someone got rid of the music, I thought, paws stuffed into the pockets of my slacks. The streets were eerily empty, as were the store fronts. Pseudo-organic tendrils jutted and swayed haphazardly from buildings and road, spreading in a fibrous network across rooftops and across streets. Signs hung on the walls at regular intervals suggesting that tourists visit Murasaki Prefecture or the Bazaar at Hana while Beni Prefecture was undergoing emergency maintenance; it looked like most everyone had taken the suggestion.

One front door to a tenement building hung open, unlike all the others in the block, but even more oddly, it opened not to one of the stock building interiors but to an unlit staircase, leading down. I recognized the floor of the FutureShock as soon as my hinds touched it, that weirdly cool, slick feel of trying to process the sense of touching nothing. This, however, wasn’t the Shock’s entrance; there was no warning message and no sign. From a quick scan of the environment, it looked like somebody had hacked the door in place.

A quick review of timestamps showed that the edits had been put into place late last night, after the extended shift had gone to bed. The link out from the club had Briar’s information stamped all over it, which didn’t surprise me; she was the sort to make that kind of quick hack, but she had to have authority to link to a public area. The inbound link had a name I didn’t recognize on it, but where the author’s employee number would have been was only the single line: terminated, Rei Sasaki.

That made me pause. Something very clearly had happened, but based on what little I had, I had no way to tell what, and the last thing I needed was more mysteries while I was already tired and hungry. I copied chunks of the relevant logs and databases to personal storage, then stepped inside the door. I wasn’t interested in what the Shock had to offer at the moment, but it was the first sign of anything other than abandoned buildings and other people’s tampering.

“Briar?” I called out as I entered the main room of the club, but the interior was as empty as the rest of the prefecture. Semi-fungal fronds covered large chunks of the walls, swaying and occasionally sending out a fresh shoot to cling to one surface or another. The sunsphere looked clean, as did the mirrors, but most of the rest of the hexagons had been obliterated by it. The Tree sported eerily organic curves in addition to its angular branches, and underneath it, most of the benches looked like they’d been completely overwritten. I squatted over my heels, pulling up logs and object models. From a first glance, it looked like it did some kind of space analysis, then did a massive property overwrite to spawn copies of itself, but where was it getting its environment? It wasn’t calling any kind of environment model, could it really be doing a fast location test? That seemed really inefficient, especially in open spaces—

Something electric slammed into me from the side, sending a spasm through my body and knocking me onto my side, landing on my elbow with a curse. A second later, some kind of thick vine shot through the space my back had just vacated, hitting the side of the Tree with a wet splurch. Where it hit, a fresh discolored disk began to spread, new nodules rising out of its surface. “You want to watch those force fields,” a familiar voice called. “You’ll have plenty of chances to get hurt, don’t worry about that.”

I scrambled to a sitting position, looking towards the voice in shock. Standing in front of one of the mirrors was a starkly white-furred wolf. His arms were folded across his bare chest, subtle shifts of his posture emphasizing the gold bars in his nipples and the matching chain that hung from his neck. He wore his pants baggy, covered in gold-toothed zippers, the wide hems sweeping the floor. His tail wagged behind him, matching his grin.

He walked over and held out a paw, which I took hesitantly, looking him in the eyes as he helped me back to my hinds. “Jules… what’re you doing here?”

Jules ignored the question, motioning with his free paw to the tendril that had almost hit me in the back. “That thing’s nasty; cleaning it out of the zone’s going to take work. I’ve spent the better part of a day deconstructing it, and you’re not going to like it. It eats properties, fills space, clones itself, and that’s about it. Oh, and it’s unpredictable; it’s doing some hash-randomizer that tells it where to spread and how that I can’t reverse-engineer. I’ve seen that spine-tendril trick before; I threw a chair and it got snagged in mid-air. It’d be a really cool screensaver if it weren’t wiping out the place.”

“Jules,” I repeated, squeezing his paw more firmly to get his attention. “You got banned. What’re you doing here?”

At that, he turned and looked at me. “I’m trying to clean up my club, but it looks like a lost cause. The back rooms are clean, though; it can’t get through the mirrors. It can eat them, but it can’t read the portal code.” He smirked at that, tapping the edge of one and sending ripples across its surface. “These are still some of my best work.”

I scowled, my tail lashing behind me. “Jules, quit dodging the question. Tell me what’s going on.”

The wolf rolled his eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh. “All right, fine. Follow me; I’m not standing around in here.” He tapped on the surface twice, then stepped into the quicksilver surface, pulling me behind him. I closed my eyes as it slid coolly over me, then opened them again as my hind again touched solid ground on the far side. The walls of this room were red, a deep crimson velvet interspersed with hardwood beams and brass. Gold dragon statues breathed a steady stream of smoke into the air, filling the space with a sweet herbal haze. The floor away from the edges of the room was recessed, with steps leading down to a thick carpet that matched the walls. Overstuffed sofas and bean bags lay strewn about the floor, next to tables on which a number of hookah sat. The whole place had the feel of a futuristic opium den.

Jules let go of my paw and spun as he popped out of the mirror. Walking backwards with practiced ease, he dropped into one of the bean bags built for two, snagging a hose on the way down. “Like what I’ve done with the place?” He grinned, slipping the filigreed nozzle into his muzzle.

“The dragons are new,” I quipped, folding my arms across my chest. “Listen, Jules, I don’t know if you noticed, there’s a disaster happening, and last I heard, you were still banned. How’d you get back in?”

The wolf breathed out a cloud of faintly shimmering smoke, then stretched, crossing his arms behind his head. “I know people, okay? I caught wind that something bad was going to happen to Irokai, so I got with some friends and came to find out if I could help.”

“Nice try,” I replied. The grin vanished from Jules’ expression, his eyes shifting away from mine as I continued. “Outside of Adam and I, you don’t know anybody well enough to help you try to crack the security on Tadashiissei’s servers, I wouldn’t do it even if I could, but I’m not half the developer you are, and Adam wouldn’t even know where to begin. Plus, I know you. You want to be here legitimately so badly that you wouldn’t dare violate your ban, even if you could get an unregistered rig onto the network. Drop the patter, Jules. Just tell me the truth: why are you here?”

Jules started trying to look relaxed and confident, but the more I spoke, the more he looked like he wanted to crawl inside the bean bag on which he’d flopped. When I finally repeated the question I’d tried to get him to answer twice before, he sighed, ears flattening against his head. “Okay, fine, John, you caught me. Are you happy? Yes, I’m on an unregistered rig. I got the keys from a contact. I got tired of pretending this wasn’t important to me. Ever since you moved, Adam’s the only one left I see regularly, and he hasn’t been the same since. And he still refuses to call me Jules.” The wolf sagged into the oversized cushion. “You know the ban’s nothing but politics, John.”

I sighed and shook my head. “I know, Jules. I said that from the beginning, but it was because you wouldn’t let go of your crusade.”

At that, his arms shot out wide. “Crusade? They’re charging you by the second for the privilege of being alive! They’re bleeding you dry, making you pay for stuff that should’ve been free, just for the sake of squeezing a little bit more money out of everybody’s dreams!”

“My point, Jules,” I said, putting a paw to the bridge of my muzzle. “Look, you’re right, I agree with you. I always did, you know that. That doesn’t justify you breaking and entering. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

The wolf’s eyes dropped, his body tensing. “How about three?” he breathed.

I cocked my head to the side at that. “Three? What—” His outburst and the quiet admission combined in my head with some of the things I’d seen over the last day, and my eyes narrowed to slits. “You bastard.”

Jules cringed. “John, I—”

“Stop.” I cut off his protest with a sweep of my paw, and my eyes lit a deep and righteous gold. “Jules, you had better tell me the truth, and you had better do it right now. Did you have anything to do with what’s been happening to my home?”

The only response I got was a nod, but it was enough. A chill ran down my back, the bottom falling out of my stomach. “Why?” It was all I could do to force the word out around a clenched jaw.

The wolf pushed himself out of his seat and jammed his paws into his pockets. His shoulders were stooped, his tail trying to curl between his legs. “Okay, yes, I was stupid. I was angry. After I got banned, somebody contacted me about an underground movement to protest Tadashiissei’s policies towards Irokai. I joined. At first it was harmless pranks, leaving messages for people to find to make them ask questions, but Tadashiissei just kept it all under wraps. So… we escalated, and they just kept burying it. So, finally, after months and months of protests and trying to make ourselves heard legitimately, the group finally just blew up, hoping to make a scene that the company couldn’t just hide. It worked.”

I bit back the first reply, then gave up and let it out anyway. “Idiot. Do you really think they’ve heard a single thing you’ve said? All you’re doing is proving that if you can’t play your way, you’re willing to ruin the fun for everyone else. Damnit, Jules, you’re not this dumb! Since when did this kind of strategy ever work?”

He hunched further in on himself. “John, please stop yelling.” His voice had gone very soft, taking that near-monotone I knew meant he was close to his breaking point. “I said I was wrong. I said I was stupid. I don’t need you making it worse. I was angry. I was desperate. You’re right; I want this. I want this desperately. I never expected Tadashiissei to ban me for trying to challenge their policies. I figured the worst that would happen is they would win and I would keep paying forever, hating it but doing it anyway because I need this. I need to be this. When they told me not to come back, I went a little crazy. I did some really dumb things. Now all I can do is try to fix them and hope for forgiveness.”

I took a deep breath and let it out in a rush, feeling the anger sap out of me. I took a step closer to the wolf and put a paw on his shoulder. “You’re forgiven, Jules. I couldn’t stay mad at you. I just wish you’d thought this through before you did it. All of you. Two residents so far are confirmed deleted and the backup system is offline to prevent accidental corruption, so there’s no pulling them back until everything’s fixed.”

Jules winced. “Oh, hell.” He turned, his yellow eyes looking into mine. “Please, let me help.”

I nodded. “I’ll talk with Rei and some of the others I know in Security; they may be willing to listen to reason, and this will be a good way for you to prove that you’re trustworthy, but you’re going to have to come clean and turn over everything you’ve got. I mean it. And that means the rig, too, if he asks for it.” His eyes went wide, but I pressed onwards. “I’m serious, Jules. I’ll help you get back in, but you’ve got to go legit.”

He sagged against me, but he nodded anyway, his arms wrapping around my shoulders in a hug. I returned the embrace, and suddenly he was clutching me to his chest, shaking, tears quietly rolling down his cheeks and onto my shirt. I ran a paw down his back, doing what I could to comfort him. “I’ve missed you,” I said quietly. “I never quit loving you, you know.”

That caught his ears and he withdrew enough to look at me, wiping at his eyes with one paw. “What? But what about—”

“Mits?” I smiled. “We were close, but it wasn’t until after you got banned that we got together. I’d gone out of habit, but I was having a lousy time, and she happened to be off-duty. We spent the day just talking about Irokai, how much I loved it, how much you loved it. She told me she’d heard what happened and was sorry the company had responded as it had. We commisserated. Things went from there.” I shrugged. “I wasn’t the one who broke it off, Jules. I tried to tell you outside, but you were so set on it being a problem that nothing I said was getting through.”

Jules chuckled quietly, his tail giving a half-hearted wave. “I wonder if Mitsuko knows how lucky she is.”

I smiled. “She’s got an idea. I’ve still got all your old avatars, you know. I kept them. We don’t come here much, since you left, but we still reminisce about this place.”

“Yeah?” The wolf’s eyes lit at that. “Do you think… you could? Once, for old times’ sake?”

I huffed, tail lashing. “Jules, remember that whole ‘disaster’ thing happening?” Seeing the look in his eyes, though, I sighed. “Okay, okay.” It took a moment to scan through the interfaces to find where I’d archived everything, a few more to do a quick validation to ensure they were safe, but once I had them active, I backed out of the menu and then looked down at my paws. A quick internal command, and my pads began to glow. “Ready?”

The wolf nodded, his eyes focused on my paws. He licked his lips once, then waved away his pants, leaving himself nude in front of me. A fresh glint of metal caught my eye, making me chuckle; he’d put a barbell through his sheath, even knowing no-one would probably see it. “You really do need this,” I said quietly, stepping closer to him. I knew the answer, but seeing him nod, watching the shivers of anticipation pass through him still made my cock twitch in its sheath. “Easy or hard, Jules. Pick fast.”

Jules snapped his eyes shut, but not before I saw the hunger in them. “Don’t be gentle,” he whispered. His tail curled tightly against his back, his sheath stirring. He balled his paws at his sides. “Please.”

I snapped open my hardline and enabled the pain transmitters, glimmers of pure white mixing into the golden glow. “Brace yourself,” I replied, then grabbed his paws in mine, sending pulses of light up his arms.

Instantly, he clenched his jaw. “Hurts,” he whimpered. “Don’t stop.” His tail lashed behind him as the light spread further up his arms and over his shoulders. I grinned, tightening my grip against his wrists, letting the light slide further over him, outlining his body in a radiant halo. His muzzle hung open, tongue lolling. He gulped air, letting out a gasp as the light enveloped him. As he dropped to his knees, he let out a high-pitched whine, flattening his ears against his head. “Please….”

I nodded, then pushed the light, baring down on the wolf’s paws. Under my pads, the fur flattened, joints stiffening as his skin began to crystallize. His elbows locked as the change spread further up over his arms. “Please what?” I smirked. “Please stop? Please no? I could leave you like this, I guess—”

“No!” The cry was reflexive, thrusting itself out of Jules’ throat with the force of a junkie begging for a hit. “Don’t… don’t stop.” He opened his eyes, haunted and needy, looking down at himself as his shoulders froze. His expression locked into one of panic and bliss as his chest solidifed, his ability to breathe gone but not the instinct to do so. Then the changes came faster, down over his stomach, his crotch, his stiffening shaft turning smooth as it turned to carved diamond. Light permeated the wolf’s entire figure as the shift accelerated. He tilted back his head, muzzle frozen half-open. “Ye—” The word died mid-syllable as his muzzle became translucent, clear, his entire figure transformed into a crystal sculpture with a final flash of light.

I took a moment to validate that the editor had finished, then put my paws together, the light shifting from a deep gold to a bright blue. I put my fingers on his chest, and the glow suffused Jules’ form, casting curious rainbows across the crimson carpeting. Deep inside, where the wolf’s heart was, something sparked, then caught, an orb of cerulean lightning crackling to life. It flickered, then flashed, sending tendrils of current out through his frozen limbs. As it crossed joints, the crystal fractured, then broke. Metal plates grew to seal the shattered ends, with powdered gemstones providing lubrication. Metal shafts grew inward through the hearts of the crystals, forming rods to carry current from the central core out to the smallest segments. Fractal filaments pulsed with power as the ball in his chest throbbed. The last spark sent a wave up his head, restoring his neck and filling his eyes with St. Elmo’s fire.

“—es….” Jules moaned as he collapsed, his fall muffled by the thick plush pile. “Oh, gods… oh, John.” The crystalline wolf shook, fingers clutching at the carpet. “Thank you… I’d… I’d almost forgotten how good that feels.”

“Oh, hai, John is quite skilled at that.” I spun around, ears flat against my head. Mitsuko stood next to the magic mirror, her arms folded in front of her chest, her tail waving lazily behind her in amusement.

“Mits!” I ducked my head, a chill running down my back. With a guilty glance, I dismissed the glow around my paws. “How… how long were you watching?”

My girlfriend giggled. “Long enough to watch you give Jules-kun what he wanted?” She walked towards us. “I did tell you the meeting would be over soon, John.”

Jules pushed himself back to his hinds, though he was still shaking from the rush of the change. “I’m sorry, Mits; it was my fault. I was the one that asked him to—”

Mitsuko put a finger over Jules’ crystalline muzzle, silencing him. “I have no reason to be jealous, Jules,” she said quietly. “I know John loves me. I know John loves you too. And I am glad to see you again, even under such circumtsances.” She withdrew her finger, then leaned forward and pressed her muzzle to the wolf’s, eliciting a quiet whimper from him as they kissed. She withdrew, then licked his muzzle teasingly. “Perhaps when this is all over, we shall finally get to know one another, ne?”

Jules’ tail wagged, though the wolf’s cheeks still glowed with embarrassment. “I think I’d like that, yeah.”

“Oh, hai, I do as well,” Mitsuko murmured. “In the meantime, though, I suggest that we both show John how much we know about him, ne?” She grinning, and then as she arched her back, her clothing dissolved, falling around her in a flutter of leaves and flower petals.

“I think I’d like that, yeah,” Jules replied, turning his attention to me, his expression taking on an almost feral grin. Lightning flickered throughout his entire form as he took a step in my direction.

I looked from wolf to raccoon and back, reflexively taking a step backwards. “Hey, what about… we just stepped out for food, Mits… we don’t have…”

Mitsuko advanced, grinning. “We should make the time. If Irokai is to disappear, then our final moments should be good ones; if Irokai is not to disappear, then we may continue our work afterwards. There will always be more reasons not to do the things we wish, ne?” With that, she smiled, kissed her paw, and blew it at me, enveloping my muzzle in a cloud of sweet-smelling pollen.

Reflexively, I tried to draw in a breath before the dust hit me, but by the time I knew she was doing it, it was too late to avoid pulling the pollen deep inside. Almost instantly, a warm tingle ran along my spine, tail shivering and muscles relaxing. My knees went weak, but thankfully I had a beanbag nearby to break my fall. I landed smoothly, feeling almost liquid as I draped across the overstuffed leather.

Jules grinned down at the other raccoon, dropping to his knees. “Nice one, Mitsuko.” His eyes turned to mine, flickering with concern. “How you feeling, John? You can still say no.”

I looked at the wolf, a warm grin spreading across my muzzle. My head felt clear, my body relaxed. The pain in my back was gone, as was the tension in my shoulders I hadn’t even realized I had. I was still in control, still very aware of my surroundings, but all of the stress of everything that had happened over the last forty-eight hours just melted and poured out of me. “Good,” I murmured. Watching Jules move so freely and so confidently, I couldn’t help but remember how it used to be between us. I missed it. I missed him. I’d told him the truth, earlier, one I hadn’t even really said to myself; I did still love him. “Very good. Please.” I groaned and, with a bit of maneuvering, shifted the bag so I was mostly level, my rump over the edge, my knees spread.

The wolf let out an electric growl, positioning himself between my legs. His crystal shaft rose from its shealth, glittering and smooth. “It’s been a while,” he admitted. “Too long. I may need a little help.”

At that, Mitsuko was beside him, smiling. “How may I help you this morning?” Before he could answer, though, she knelt, one paw ducking between her own legs. Her breathing visibly quickened as fingers shifted against her sex, and then she gently wrapped her paw around his shaft, spreading her nectar along his length. At her touch, his back arched, letting out a modulated groan. “Oh, hai,” she breathed huskily. “I can assist you with that.” Once his shaft glistened from her juices, she withdrew her touch, leaving him to crawl closer, his cock bobbing up as he moved between my legs.

The wolf’s pads were as cool as I remembered as he spread my cheeks, nestling himself between them. The tip of his cock tingled with current as he cautiously positioned it against my pucker, then wrapped his arms around my thighs. “Ready?” When I nodded, he leaned forward, pressing himself inside of me in a slow, smooth motion. Almost instantly, the pressure and power and pleasure pulsing under my tail made me groan, bliss spreading over me in shockwaves up from my crotch. Jules slide his smooth crystalline cock as deeply as he could into me, then held himself against my legs, panting. “Forgot… how good it feels….”

I closed my eyes and nodded in response, trying to breathe deeply, senses overloading. “Keep going.” I put one paw on my sheath. He groaned as he withdrew, then thrust forward again, achingly slow, visibly relishing every twitch and spasm of my pucker against his cock. I did my best to match my strokes to his, and soon we had established a rhythm between us, his crystal-and-lightning form moving against mine, arousal surging every time his hips came to rest against my rump.

Mitsuko giggled above me, and I opened my eyes again to see her standing over me. “Excuse me, but is this seat taken?” Without waiting for a response, she knelt over my muzzle, legs parted. At the cleft of her crotch, rather than the delicate folds I knew, a vivid blue-white magnolia blossomed, its petals unfurled. As she neared, her scent, rich and heavy mixed with floral fragrances that overwhelmed my nose. It filled me with the urge, like an insect, to explore her depths. As soon as I could reach her, I parted my jaws and flicked my tongue out to savor the taste of her nectar as she rocked against my muzzle. With each breath, that teasing, aching desire burned more fiercely, and I tried to slide my tongue further into her.

“Wow.” Jules’ voice was distant and panting. “You got him.” I felt Mits arch her back above me, glanced down to see the wolf’s paws at her breasts, then focused my attention back to her floral depths. We all of us moved together, my girlfriend above me, my ex-boyfriend below, each of us shifting and moaning and panting in time to the others’ movements, driving each other to higher and higher depths of joy.

The wolf was the first to break the pure sounds of lovemaking, whimpering against clenched teeth. “Not… gonna last.” I nodded and started squeezing him as he thrust himself into me, tightening as much as I could given how out of practice I was and how devoted I was to licking each and every petal from base to tip and back, tongue circling Mits’ stubby stamen at the base of her cup. She keened quietly, driven closer to release by my actions as well as Jules’ eager caress at her chest, but it was the one between my legs whose rhythm was breaking. His whole body shook, paws moving back to my hips to pull himself deeper into me, struggling to hold out one more, thrust, another, and then with a warbling howl he drove himself into the top of his knot, sending not spunk but a wave of pure electricity deep into my guts. The surge of power sent its own spasms running along my spine, down to my tail and up to the top of my head, and my paw tightened around my shaft in time for me to come, sending spatters of my own juices across my chest.

As the last aftershocks of his release passed, Jules pulled out of me carefully, a last zot of his charge leaking against my pucker and making me jump. He grinned, then sprawled back on his back. “I needed that,” he groaned. “I can’t tell you how much. He doing okay for you, Mitsuko?”

The moment my orgasm had left me, I had turned my attention back to Mits’ petals. At the wolf’s comments, though, she rose and then bent down to kiss my muzzle, flicking her tongue across her juices soaking into my fur. “Always, Jules, but I am afraid that something urgent has arisen.”

She held out a paw to me, which I took, rising and shaking my head to clear it. “What’s up? Sorry you didn’t finish, Mits.”

The raccoon smiled at me, but her eyes were hollow. “It is okay, John. For now, we must go.” She tapped her ear. “While we were engaged, I received word from the head of Hospitality. The decision has been made at the highest levels to increase our efficiency in handling the ongoing issues. With most critical system disruptions resolved, senior management has opted to declare the crisis averted and handle the remainder as maintenance issues.”

Jules’ eyes flashed, baring pointed teeth in a growl. “Hello? Metafungus? I don’t think this counts as resolved.”

Mitsuko turned to the wolf, arms folded across her chest. “Oh, hai, you are correct, but nor is it an emergency if the zone is empty. All available personnel have been asked to locate and escort anyone remaining within the area to the transit station for Murasaki. In one hour, Beni Prefecture is being taken offline until further notice.”

What little light from the opening of the crevasse quickly faded as the passageway turned, the ground beneath his feet angled downward, into the belly of the mountain itself. In the darkness, Alex’s tension grew with each step, a knot forming in the pit of his stomach as his feet carried him further into Bear’s cave. The walls dug at his shoulders, tufts of fur catching and tearing free as he stumbled onward, his paws outstretched in front of him in the darkness. Where the wind outside had been a constant droning in his ears, here all was still, unmoving, only his own movements stirring the air.

His claws rapped painfully against the stone wall, echoes of the impact rebounding off of the narrow walls. The bearman whuffed in annoyance and began feeling in the dark for the latest turn, but what met his paws made him wince from more than the dull ache of the impact. The tunnel shrank even further ahead, half the height of the previous, already-cramped space. Kneeling, Alex could see dim flickers of movement ahead, bouncing off the wall past another turn in the tunnel: his destination, if only he could reach it.

Alex felt around the opening, measuring it with his paws, and then tried to squirm past, but he only needed one test to decide he’d have to find some other way to continue: he could barely squeeze both shoulders into the tunnel at once, and there was no way he’d get the rest of him to follow at that size. The shifting slivers of light ahead taunted him, showing him just how close he was, and yet the last ten feet might well be a hundred miles, if he couldn’t find some way past this shrunken gap.

Damnit! Alex’s thick pawpad smacked heavily into the stone floor, making his elbow twinge in pain and small clouds of rockdust swirl, settling into his fur. He wasn’t about to turn back here, and yet where was there else to go? He could find no other openings with his hands, and he hadn’t felt any along the walls as he’d entered. He could see light ahead, when he looked, so there had to be someone past this opening, but there was no way past? He simply couldn’t fit as the bear.

What about as the man? The bear-mind wondered.

Even as the idea came to him, he rejected it as unacceptable. He’d fought so hard to escape that life; he wasn’t about to embrace it here. This was his chance to be himself. Willfully adopting his human form, in his own dreamscape… could he even do so? And did he want to try? The notion rankled, but the more he studied it, the more it seemed the best solution, if reverting to the furless skin he’d so eagerly escaped could be called the best. At least it got him where he wanted to go, or so he hoped.

Alex turned his attentions inward, concentrating on the rising and falling of his chest as he knelt, his forepaws on his knees, trying to ignore the thick shag of his pelt beneath his pads. Draw in the man, draw out the bear. Focus on the trappings of humanity, the apartment, the job, the daily grind. After so long unlearning the importance of the things that held him beholden to his previous life, to try to consider them meaningful now, or even to think of specifics, made his forehead furrow, but slowly he called up images and ideas that belonged in the World of Man: the comforting hum of an air conditioner on a hot day, the steady flicker of fluorescent lighting, the smell of fresh-brewed coffee.

His body slowly bent and twisted under him, the fur receding from his rapidly lightening skin. His massive claws slowly shrank back to cracked and split fingernails, the ones on his hinds retreating back into his toes. He felt light-headed, weak. A familiar weight settled against his chest, the bear-claw poking him through the tangle of wiry, greyish brown hair. He ran his fingers through his hair, pulling it back and out of his face, then scratched at his untrimmed beard briefly before rearing back to squat over his heels, looking at his hands, pink and furless. The real me, he thought cynically.

With his reduced bulk, the tunnel walls were close but still gave him plenty of room to pass, and he crawled down the last ten or twelve feet in a hurry, cursing under his breath as the loose rocks that had gone unnoticed under his dense pawpads now dug painfully at his unprotected skin. More than once he scraped something harshly against the rocks, making him flinch and swear again, but soon he rounded the final corner, the tunnel quickly widening beyond into a large cave, in the middle of which blazed a fresh wood fire. Wisps of heavy, savory smoke rose from the flames, blending with the heavy scent of predator that so long back had attracted Alex to the cave.

Of Bear, there was no sign.

“Hello?” Alex said almost reflexively, his human voice small in the large cavern, echoing faintly in the enclosed space. “I have come to see Bear.”

No voice spoken in answer, but the bear-mind asked him if that were really why he were here.

Alex blinked, not expecting the internal response, but having gotten one, he continued. “I have come to see if I am a Child of Bear.”

Are you? The bear-mind asked quietly.

“That’s what I’ve come to find out!” Alex burst out, looking around, feeling a bit foolish for talking with himself. Not only that, he thought, but arguing with myself as well. If I lose, I’m going to feel really stupid. “Watcher sent me here to find that out.”

Are you? The bear-mind asked again, just as implacably. It seemed unconcerned by the outburst, as it had by the rest of Alex’s frustrations.

“You don’t know?” Alex asked peevishly, the hair on the back of his neck rising.

The bear-mind chuffed a laugh. If you are, then you are. Why ask me?

“You’re saying if I say that I am, then I am?” The answer seemed too simple, even for the child-like innocence of the bear-mind.

No, it told him calmly. If you are, then you know you are. If you have to ask, then you aren’t. Being a Child of Nature is as simple as believing it, but that belief must come from within. It cannot be given, cannot be taken, and cannot be stolen. It must come from within, and it must be accepted with an open mind and an honest heart.

The bear-mind then scowled, and Alex shivered, feeling its anger for the first time. You say you believe. You even think you believe. If you truly believed, though, you would already know it.

Alex rose on the balls of his feet, turning his head towards the ceiling. “I am a Child of Bear!” he called out, his voice ringing feebly off of the rocks, hollowly resounding in his ears.

Are you? The bear-mind asked him again simply.

Alex’s head dropped, and he stared down at his hands: hairless, clawless, furless. The real me. He’d thought in anger and disgust, but he’d thought it. The crushing weight of understanding collapsed inward on him, as if the mountain above him had suddenly given way. The flames snuffed themselves, plunging the cave into darkness, and Alex fell heavily to his bare knees and wept bitter tears into his pink, padless, human hands.