Shifti - User contributions [en]

Talk:FreeRIDErs (background material)

2017-03-14T07:54:14Z

JonBuck: /* Nextus Military RIDE Designations (122-160 AL) */

I'd like to know more about ASA armors. Do they act as their own Forward Observes? What kind of standard equipment do they have? What their sizes range. Anything and everything basically. --Oddoneout

:Well, we haven't really ''needed'' to work out details like this because they haven't come up in any story. I'm sure the avian RIDES (Light Scouts, Light Mobility) would act as spotters and use comm lasers. Feel free to bring your own ideas to the table. Also, make sure you hit the Signature button when you post. :) --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] ([[User talk:JonBuck|talk]]) 02:11, 28 December 2013 (CST)

::Alright, I was thinking it would be good if they have a long range sensor suite so they can be deployed without the need for an FO except when targeting at extreme ranges. My brother is in the military and he confirmed for me that this is, to an extent, how artillery can currently operate. If the target is within a certain distance they can target and fire on their own. But most of the time they have an FO or at least someone to call in coordinates for them because they're going for extreme ranges.--[[User:Oddoneout|Oddoneout]] ([[User talk:Oddoneout|talk]]) 08:22, 28 December 2013 (CST)

==Nextus Military RIDE Designations (122-160 AL)==
I was wondering if there is a specific designation for not yet designated models, like in development models that are not yet in a stage where one would decide if it was to be a LSA or a LMA or a RMR. EXP for "experimental" springs to mind, but I havn't yet found any established RIDE that would be that far back in the development stage. -[[User:Lin|Lin]] ([[User talk:Lin|talk]]) 14:03, 11 March 2017 (CST)
:Our thinking is that the 000-series is the prototype-prototype, the real experimental stage. The 001-series are the "production prototypes" that get field experience, then on up as each major revision is made. [[User:JonBuck|Buck]] ([[User talk:JonBuck|talk]]) 23:33, 11 March 2017 (CST)
::I meant... the desination is XXX(g)-YYY-NNNZ, XXX the phenotype (CTH for Cheetah), g for gender, YYY for the type, NNN for where it is in this development (000 for the first prototypes) and possibly a Z for variant designations. If a RIDE would follow that designation sheme but were made explicitly as an experimental testbed for what is possible (military demonstrator so to say) instead of a real battlefield role, would that get the closest match of an existing type or would it get something different like EXP or MDM (militrary demonstration model)?
::I ask, because some big point of the plot I have in mind is, that the RIDE was designed with just matching very few goals to prove it was possible, skipping on any non essential other part. In this case, it is for a cheetah modeled high speed one with the goal to break the 2000 meters in 10 seconds. That would meet the LSA, LMA and RMR brackets, but at the same time the explicit skipping on anythign that would be exra weight (including what was needed to fulfill all the other parts of that role) does make it hard to place it in either of those, so I thought EXP or something to evade something even more civillian sounding, like RCE and FRI (Race or Formula RIDE). --[[User:Lin|Lin]] ([[User talk:Lin|talk]]) 15:30, 13 March 2017 (CDT)
:::This is more-or-less answered in-story: Fritz was the ''prototypes<nowiki>'</nowiki>'' prototype's prototype, the first RIDE after Rattigan, and the very first to be a transforming mecha. His model designation was LNX(m) LMA-000. If the record-attempt RIDE was a military project, it would probably be designated a Scout or Mobility Armour (if I recall correctly, RMR stands for "Rapid Medical Response", which would necessitate medical equipment). There is a chance that it would be given a unique code, though. LSR for "Land Speed Record" sounds both apt and military.
:::--[[User:Proginoskes|Proginoskes]] ([[User talk:Proginoskes|talk]]) 20:27, 13 March 2017 (CDT)
:::I think LSR would work in this context, myself. -[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] ([[User talk:JonBuck|talk]]) 02:54, 14 March 2017 (CDT)

Talk:FreeRIDErs (background material)

2017-03-12T05:33:47Z

JonBuck:

2015-04-22T04:29:38Z

JonBuck: /* On the Nature of Qubitite */

== Old Discussion on the Future of [[FreeRIDErs (setting)|''FreeRIDErs'']] and the Upcoming 'Earth-Zharus War' Story Arc Previously in Page Header ==

Are there any plans to let writers stray into the Earth-Zharus War scene? I've got a story idea or two that I'd love to set in that period, but I'm short on the context that Jon, RM and the others have in mind. That is, I don't really have any idea how you intend the war to play out. Although my idea wouldn't actually involve much in the actual frontlines/war, it would be good to have some idea of the kind of materiel and hardware and general strategy and social climate and the such, because nothing concrete seems to have actually been laid out so far for that period (or have I missed something?). Which is why I thought I'd ask your permission before getting started. If needed, I'd be more than pleased could draft out the general idea. Thanks in advance! --[[User:Wayward Coyote|Wayward Coyote]] ([[User talk:Wayward Coyote|talk]]) 18:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

:Thanks for your interest here, but there's a lot of ground to cover between the present and that future in the setting before we get there. We can't guarantee that anything you'd write taking place during that period would remain canon. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] ([[User talk:JonBuck|talk]]) 19:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

:Yeah, what Jon said. Our ideas for the war are very very nebulous at this point, more possibilities than anything else. There are things we don't even know quite yet about how we're going to end "Integration", let alone what comes ''between'' that and the war. Any number of things could change between now and then. So just be patient, or else think on how to adapt your ideas to the setting's "present". —[[User:Robotech Master|Robotech Master]] ([[User talk:Robotech Master|talk]]) 23:23, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

::Ah, I understand. I might just follow the main series for now and wait until it hits that time period; I'm quite keen to see where it's going anyway. Or maybe I'll see what I can do with some other ideas I have lying around. Either way, though, thank you for your replies! --[[User:Wayward Coyote|Wayward Coyote]] ([[User talk:Wayward Coyote|talk]]) 07:38, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

== Possiblity of FreeRIDErs Cross-Over Stories ==

'''''This discussion thread has been moved to [[Talk:Once More Into the Breach, My Friends…#Discussion on the 'Possibility of FreeRIDErs Cross-Over Stories'|Talk:Once More Into the Breach, My Friends…]].''''' <br />
— [[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) (Originally posted at 7:22 PM EST on November 4<sup>th</sup>, 2014 and last edited at approximately 5:34:30 PM EST on January 10<sup>th</sup>, 2015)
:There are still replies waiting to be read over there, though, so come on down!
:— [[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 14:09, 14 November 2014 (EST)

== Possibility of Stonegate Ancestry and Military Heritage? ==

I was wondering if I could possibly give the extended Stonegate family some ancestors, at least one of whom I'd like to use to set a precedent for Socah Gates's involvement in military affairs, starting with [[User:RandomDSdevel/Carter's Last Stand?|''Once More Into the Breach, My Friend…: Carter's Last Stand?'']]? <br />
— [[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 17:41, 10 January 2015 (EST)
:If you're wondering why I asked, then it's because I thought it'd be kinda funny if [[User:RandomDSdevel/Sandbox/Works in Progress/Documentation/Carter Hawkinson|Carter Hawkinson]], the character who I made up to put in a data-based, copse-sicle–like situation, decided to visit Rhianna at the FreeRIDErs' Garage before attending one or more of the classes she teaches at Roberto Martinez Memorial University in Uplift to see if he'd like her as a teacher only to be interrupted mid-conversation by Charlene McClaren when she rushes in to tell Rhi about his resurrection and its relevance to her? Imagine the look at Charlene's face when she sees him standing there talking to Rhi, especially if she'd met him earlier before she knew about his significance!
:— [[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 19:46, 27 February 2015 (EST)

== Pre-'Post–Oil-Age 'Dark Ages<nowiki>'</nowiki>' Political Situation? ==

What would you guys imagine the political situation just prior to the beginning of the post–Oil-Age 'Dark Ages' to be like? Or is it too early to dive into that yet? <br />
— [[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 18:08, 14 January 2015 (EST)
:Are you guys still thinking about this?  — [[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 14:37, 29 January 2015 (EST)
::It's kind of important to me that you guys work on helping me figure this out for my story [[User:RandomDSdevel/Sandbox/Works in Progress/Stories/Carter's Last Stand?|''Carter's Last Stand?'']], so please let me know if you've thought about this yet and how far along you are in formulating an answer. If you'd like my input on this, then please either respond here or tell me where, if at all, you've been discussing this so that I can join in.
::— [[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 19:23, 27 February 2015 (EST)

== On the Nature of Qubitite ==

What exactly is qubitite made out of? Is it some kind of [[en:Wikipedia:Photonic molecule|photonic molecular]] mesh prevented from dissipating by the presence of ordinary, baryonic matter inside? If so, then could it be synthesized in-universe and how difficult would doing so have to be in order to prevent the possibility of qubitite synthesis from being widely known by the time of the latest story in the current [[FreeRIDErs (setting)|''FreeRIDErs'']] chronology? <br />
— [[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 19:19, 27 February 2015 (EST)

:This is something we have to leave intentionally vague. The setting is more inspired by anime than hard scifi. Suffice to say that synthetic qubitite will only be introduced when we're ready, and we're ''far'' from ready. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] ([[User talk:JonBuck|talk]]) 13:26, 13 April 2015 (CDT)
::Doggone it, I was going to have enough of it made available for some qubitite-based implants like the ones Jeannette Leroq has to make the reconstruction of a human being out of approximately–five-hundred-year-old records of that individual's DNA and brain state possible! Guess those involved in the project will just have to get some from a smuggler even though synthesizing the stuff would have made things a lot easier for my characters by allowing them to get around Zharus's export laws. About how far in the current chronology's future do you and the others intend to introduce synthetic Q, exactly, anyway? I was going to have somebody give a materials scientist whom he or she is friends with give him a hunk of rubidium salt or alloy that started sprouting weird blue specks on its surface after it had been lying around on a hard light surface for a while so that said materials scientist could study it and figure out exactly what it is. Obviously, tons of papers would likely come out of such efforts, but maybe their publication on Earth could be prevented or delayed by some small part of Earth's government that is actually knowledgeable and embracing of the truth behind what's going on on Zharus? And I was thinking that the procedures described by these papers would take months or even years to produce anywhere near a practical amount of qubitite so that they wouldn't really matter any more when they finally get declassified several years later because a much more efficient method of synthesizing Q had been discovered by then. My hope is that the significance and consequences of such a discovery would either turn out to be minimized in the grand scheme of things or forgotten about during the Earth-Zharus war. But I suppose the ability to synthesize qubitite would make Zharus's political situation a lot more tenuous, wouldn't it? So I guess now might not be the greatest time to let it factor into too many stories just yet.
::— [[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 17:20, 13 April 2015 (EDT)

:::Longer term, we have plans for a war with Earth. The exact circumstances of which are still up in the air. So, have patience. :) --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] ([[User talk:JonBuck|talk]]) 23:29, 21 April 2015 (CDT)

== On the State of This Setting's Documentation ==

Hey, I've noticed that, while you've got some great pieces of in-universe documentation and source text for [[FreeRIDErs (setting)|''FreeRIDErs'']], it could be expanded and complimented by some documentation from the point of view of our universe. Is it okay if I help you guys with that while I'm still in the early planning stages of my project [[User:RandomDSdevel/Sandbox/Works in Progress/Once More Into the Breach, My Friends…|''Once More Into the Breach, åMy Friends…'']]? <br />
— [[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 19:51, 27 February 2015 (EST)

== On the compilation of an eBook ==

Hi all.
I am planning on embarking on a project of compiling and updating an eBook of the entirety of the FreeRIDErs universe. I expect this to be a reasonably large undertaking, and I would like the permission of as many of the authors involved before I begin. If you don't want your stories in the compilation, then I will be... well, I won't be happy, but I will to leave them out. I do realise that eBooks are already available for some of the stories, but I am attempting to compile as many stories as possible in a few volumes.

I will be giving full credit to the appropriate authors, and expect my own tiny, infinitesimally small contribution to this amazing universe that you have created to be noted by a small footnote at the start of the book that says "Compiled and Edited by F.L. Dragon".

I expect it to be completed within a month or two, maybe four if I get held up, as there is a lot of story to go through, proof-read to get any mistakes that may have been missed, and to make sure the formatting is consistent. I will also be doing this on my own, although any help would be appreciated. After completion, I expect to maintain the compilation on a monthly to bimonthly basis. This may be adjusted later to a quarterly update, but it will still be available and maintained.

Finally, I don't expect to make any monetary units from this project. At all. Zero Dollars.

And so, I humbly ask your permission to begin work on this project. I will be more than happy to provide progress updates every now and then, and I hope to complete it to your satisfaction.

Thank you for your time and consideration.
--[[User:FlyLowDragon|F.L. Dragon]] ([[User talk:FlyLowDragon|talk]]) 08:22, 8 April 2015 (CDT)
:You know, some of the stories in this setting already have e-book versions; I can't remember exactly which ones they are, but I ''do'' recall that those that do have a notice at the top. Could this help you with your project? Anyway, I think it's cool that you're compiling all of the ''FreeRDIErs'' stories into one collection. I ''do'', however, have one thought about this effort: wouldn't it be a ''lot'' easier to create an automated solution to do this for you rather than updating it manually?
:— [[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 16:12, 9 April 2015 (EDT)
::I do realise that, but they are: 1) all in separate e-books, and 2) not the Director's Cut versions. I think. I haven't actually looked at them, to be honest. Also, to create an e-book, all you need is the text, so going to pre-existing e-books that may or may not let you copy the text, depending on what software you use to read them, is not very helpful. Although seeing how the formatting is done in them might give me a standard to aim towards.
::Setting up an automated process for it... It can be semi-automated, but I'd still need to go through and make sure that all of the formatting is correct and consistent, and start it. Compare, for example, Aloha, by Jetfire, and Marshals, by JonBuck with Robotech_Master, paying attention to the dates given in story. In Aloha, they are bolded, while they are italicised in Marshals. It is very difficult to account for small things like that in the formatting, and so it is preferable to do it manually.
::Also, automation isn't that simple. When a new story is posted, I would still need to put the text into a word processor, make sure it is formatted properly in the word processor, give it another go-over for spelling and punctuation errors, use file conversion tools to convert the file into an e-book file, and then make sure that the file conversion tools didn't mangle the formatting, before giving it another go over for anything I missed, and then going back to step 2 if there is something I missed. And then send a version back to the author without the spelling mistakes. This process can only be reliably done by a human, and trying to automate it... well, I think the strip at https://xkcd.com/1319/ shows what I'm talking about. I'd end up spending more time working on the automation than I'd save by using the automation.
::Once the bulk of the work is done (got all pre-existing stories in the e-book), then it might only take me as long as it takes me to read the story to fix any new stories up and get them fully formatted. That is, if it doesn't get to me all mangled, badly formatted, and/or full of spelling and punctuation errors. And if I get to read it at the same time, well, bonus! So, no automation, although I would create a few templates to help reduce the time spent on it.
::Still, by the end of it all, I think I might end up reading each story however many times anyway, so win-win! :P
::--[[User:FlyLowDragon|F.L. Dragon]] ([[User talk:FlyLowDragon|talk]]) 21:45, 9 April 2015 (CDT)
:::Ah, of course! Maybe you could put your work up in a central place — say, either here on Shfiti or maybe in a repository hosted somewhere like [https://github.com/ GitHub] — so that others could contribute if they wanted and when they had the time? I've been thinking about going back through the stories and proofreading them anyway, so I'll probably chip in some work even though I'm currently working on my own mini-arc of stories at the moment since those are still just in the early planning/brainstorming/writing stages. Anyway, good luck, and I'll probably see you around!
:::— [[User:RandomDSdevel|RandomDSdevel]] ([[User talk:RandomDSdevel|talk]]) 12:59, 12 April 2015 (EDT)
:::Actually, the only works with Directors Cut versions so far ''do'' have e-books. The e-books of "Deserted" and "Merging Traffic" both incorporate the DirCut revisions, and the DirCut version of the original "FreeRIDErs" is incorporated along with the DirCuts of the chapters of "Integration" we have done so far as an "Integration" e-book, which will grow as we crank out more DirCuts. We haven't really had time to focus on that lately, because the next Totalia story has been kicking our asses for months now. But we're almost done with that, and should be able to bang out a few more after that (we hope).
:::Also, I question the necessity of a FreeRIDErs e-book that collects ''everything.'' People only read one story at a time, after all. A single e-book with all the stories in it could be kind of large and unwieldy, like the 75 megabyte version of all 15 ''Wheel of Time'' e-books that was included with last year's Hugo Nominations packet. For now, if you wanted to e-bookerize things, it would probably be best if you concentrated on creating single e-books of stories that don't have them yet, like all of Jetfire's stuff—though I'd suggest getting permission from him first, since that's only polite.
:::Apart from that, I suppose I wouldn't have any objection to an e-book of everything, provided that the stories were presented in publication order insofar as is possible. It just seems less useful right now than having individual e-books of everything.
:::—[[User:Robotech Master|Robotech Master]] ([[User talk:Robotech Master|talk]]) 01:14, 15 April 2015 (CDT)
:::Yeah, when I suggested this, I didn't think of how unwieldy it could be. I do still want to create a collection of the stories, but it is now more likely to be in the form of multiple e-books. The original plan was to split everything into different volumes, maybe 3 or 4, but even then it would still be a bit big. A quick word count of Jetfire's work up to All Spark Bulletin got a word count of over 180'000. This might not be a door-stopper, but it is still a decent length, and is only a fraction of the total writing, and more recent works (like the Totalia series) are probably longer than that in their own right. So, the aim now will be to create an e-book of each story that doesn't already have one, and compiling them in the one location for easy access. I may still decide to combine some stories that are in the same arc but one or some of the stories is a bit shorter (like the Foxed duology), with the author's permission of course. I'll probably try to make each e-book at least 40'000 words in length, which is about the size of a small novel, or a large novella. This will mean I may combine a few of the early Aloha stories, if I get Jetfire's permission, as Aloha on its own is only about 11'000 words.
:::I'll probably keep the standard of formatting similar to the pre-existing e-books, so I'll definitely look at them. I probably should have gone through them before suggesting stuff, though. GitHub does look like a good place to store everything, and it would allow me to make revisions reasonably easily, as well as create to-do lists for any broken formatting and spelling errors. Still, I'll look into it a bit more before coming to a final decision.
:::So, I guess I'm still waiting on permission from Jetfire, Fibio, HawlSera, Kris, and Claude LeChat, assuming that you speak for JonBuck as well, Robotech_Master. I am also curious as to the status and canonicity of Oddoneout's two stories that are sitting in the Category page, but not in the setting page, as well as Jetfire's Rescue 911, in the same situation.
:::--[[User:FlyLowDragon|F.L. Dragon]] ([[User talk:FlyLowDragon|talk]]) 15:52, 15 April 2015 (CDT)

Talk:FreeRIDErs (setting)

2015-04-13T18:26:56Z

JonBuck: /* On the Nature of Qubitite */

User talk:Eirik

2015-02-04T09:40:44Z

JonBuck:

A hearty welcome aboard. :) --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 00:11, 31 August 2007 (EDT)

And same here. Good to see your work again. :) [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 00:30, 31 August 2007 (EDT)

Problem you pointed out with [[Special:Popularpages]] only covering NS_MAIN (the "main" namespace) was even easier to fix than I thought it was going to be. Anyway, it now lists pages in NS_USER (like [[User:Eirik]]). In fact, when I checked before leaving you this notice, [[User:Eirik]] was in 17th place :P [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 03:28, 9 January 2008 (EST)

== Flinthoof Pic ==

I found the pic in question and added the link. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 20:58, 31 August 2007 (EDT)

== Little Boy Lost ==

I'm the one who translated that story.
I want to add Russian ection, but don't know how.
[[User:Inry|Inry]] 11:51, 4 January 2008 (EST)

==Template:My stories==

Hi, just thought I should drop a note here since I imagine most authors won't be regularly checking [[Help:Templates]] for updates. I've finally added a template that I should have created long ago, a tag to put on userpages to facilitate linking to your personal story category; [[Template:My stories]]. If you want, just stick this code at the top of your userpage to create a standardized little box with a direct link in it: <nowiki>{{my stories}}</nowiki>. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 22:19, 18 January 2008 (EST)

== Page Formatting ==

Hey. I added some Headers since your user page is so long, and a table of content. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 04:14, 23 February 2008 (EST)

== Tug of War==

Just noticed that [[User:Eirik/Tug of War]] isn't listed on your user page, just your category. Since you've got extensive blurbs for everything I figured that might be an oversight. Also, hope you don't mind the little bit of copyediting I did; I wanted to stick the story on Bryan's picks and that's all that was holding me back. :) [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 14:11, 12 March 2008 (EDT)

== Shifti Book ==
Please see [[Best of Shifti]] and leave a note on the [[Talk:Best of Shifti|talk page]] to let us know whether or not we have your permission. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 20:05, 3 October 2008 (EDT)

== XCom project recruiting ==
Hello Brian! You may or may not be familier with the XCom project. In it, I play the game XCom: Enemy Unkown, naming the charecters after various TSA/Shifti authors. As such, I was wondering if I could use your name for the project, as you have a large number of stories, many of which I greatly enjoy.

:''I don't have a problem with that, if you can just use the name "Eirik", not my full name.'' --[[User:Eirik|Eirik]] ([[User talk:Eirik|talk]]) 12:10, 29 January 2015 (CST)

I'll probably use Brian "Doc" Coe, as the game requires a first, last, and nickname. Also, thank you for responding, was starting to think I'd have to use names from people who won't respond to my E-mails. [[User:Doomreaver|Doomreaver]] ([[User talk:Doomreaver|talk]]) 05:54, 30 January 2015 (CST)

User:Robotech Master/Reaping the Whirlwind

2015-01-28T07:14:59Z

JonBuck:

{{title

|name=Marshals: Beginnings, Episode Two: Reaping the Whirlwind

|author=Jon Buck & Robotech_Master

|user=JonBuck}}

{{author note|This story can be downloaded in PDF, EPUB, Mobi (Kindle), ODT and RTF format from [http://www.eyrie.org/~robotech/freeriders/ this website, as "Marshals Beginnings."].}}

''May 21, 128 AL''
''Whirlwind, Pleiades Plateau, Southern Dry Ocean''

DOLEB Corporal Reed Mosley hurried down the steps of the outpost station. He was a slim man with sandy brown hair, brown eyes, and the kind of full mustache that was in style in his old home polity, Cape Nord. He wore the standard quibitie blue DOLEB uniform, though with a minimum of decoration. “Just got word. Rod Clemson was spotted over on Coulter's Rill. If we leave now—”

“Calm down, Mosley. You'd think they'd seen Burnside Bill.” Mosley's partner, Corporal Carson Nilsson, sat back in the cushy saddle of his large Chinook skimmer bike. He was a heavy-built, florid-faced man with more than a bit of a paunch. “Let's not make more work for ourselves. It's the end of our shift.”

“You kidding? There’s a good chance he’s going to try to sneak more refined Q over the border tonight. This could be our shot at catching him red-handed.”

“So…we can catch him red-handed tomorrow,” Corporal Nilsson said. “Not on the clock, not our problem.”

Reed glared at him. He was used to some crazy statements about their duties from his fellow officers, but that one was hands down one of the worst. Nilsson was all about his own personal comfort, from the soft buckskin leather of his Chinook's seat to the handmade gourmet meals he packed in the saddlebags while on their cushy, inadequate patrols. But it wouldn’t do any good to argue. Instead, Reed sighed, audibly. “Yeah, pal, I guess you’re right.” He yawned. “You won’t say anything if I head home a little early? It’s Ladies’ Night at Seven Sisters, and you know what ''that'' means.”

“It's about time you got with the rest of us, Mosley,” Nilsson said. “Nice to see you're finally coming around. Ladies love a Man in uniform. But you're from Cape Nord, right? You know that.”

“See you later.” He straddled his Tornado, thumbed the starter, and headed back toward their barracks. But instead of pulling into the garage, he only stopped long enough to dismount the DOLEB transponder beacon from under the bike’s saddle and toss it into the bushes nearby. Then he pulled away again, in the other direction, making a wide circle to put some dunes between himself and the outpost. If he hurried, he could intercept Clemson a dozen klicks before he passed over the border into Harmon Gulch.

He didn’t fool himself that his superiors would look kindly on it, but he was just about frustrated past the point of caring by now. Half a dozen times in the last month the smuggler had slipped by right under their noses. They had camera and ZPS tracking data that proved it. But somehow DOLEB was never in the right place at the right time. Mosley might have lost patience with the more ridiculous aspects of Cape Nord’s obsession with Manliness, but that didn’t mean he was prepared to countenance such a brazen affront to his Manhood as letting a criminal operate with impunity out of his jurisdiction. “Rod Clemson, you are going ''down.''”

Reed dropped down to lose himself in ground clutter and glanced at the radar display as he closed in on the predicted vector. If Clemson was taking the route he thought he was, he should be coming into view right…about…

“There you are.” The pip was just the right size and speed for the Nextus lynx RIDE bike Clemson had gotten surplus after the War. The very ones Nextus had replaced the Tornado with, in fact. Reed patted the fairing of his bike reassuringly. “Yeah, we’ll show ‘em that newer ain’t always better, won’t we, boy.” He just had to wait a little longer for the RIDE to get closer. If he sprang the trap too early, the smuggler could peel off and get away. They had to be as close as possible if this was going to work.

Reed waited anxiously. Had the RIDE’s sensors pinged him? It was possible, though he hoped not. Though if they had, they should be changing course already, and he wasn’t, so…

Now. Reed revved the bike and streaked up into the sky after the smuggler. “Rod Clemson! This is the Dry Ocean Law Enforcement Bureau! Land that bike and keep your hands where I can see them!”

As expected, the smuggler’s only response was to rev his RIDEbike faster. “Yeah, I hoped you’d do that,” Reed muttered, flipping the switch to kick in the extra battery packs and impeller motors he’d installed into the bike. Then he flipped another switch to activate targeting on his front pulse cannons. He triggered a long burst aimed to pass right in front of the bike by centimeters. “That was your warning shot! Land that bike no—WHOA!” Reed threw himself into a barrel roll as the bike returned fire from a rear-mounted pulse gun, bolts hissing through the air.

“Okay, so that’s how you wanna play it? Fine.” Reed fired again for accuracy—but it was now the RIDE’s turn to dodge and dive, heading for a canyon down below. A warning popped up on Reed’s HUD that he was only 5 klicks from the Harmon Gulch border. Reed ignored it and goosed his bike after them, firing as he went.

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“Is good sunset, ''da''?” Heinrich leaned forward, arms crossed on the instrument panel of the vaguely ursine quad-bike that was Sasha’s skimmer mode, as they proceeded south among the eastern perimeter of the Harmon Gulch territory. It had been a fairly peaceful day, as had most of them since the Marshals had formed. It seemed that the power vacuum left by rounding up the criminal scum had not yet filled itself. Which was fine with Heinrich, on the whole. All the same, he could have preferred things to be a little less boring.

Sasha chuckled, knowing his rider’s thoughts from long familiarity. “Is good sunset, ''da.'' So, any regrets?”

“About what? Leaving Sturmhaven? Becoming Marshal? Becoming ''man?''”

“All of the above? I’ve picked up on the odd thought here or there, you know.”

“Eh.” Heinrich shrugged. “You must know, safety wait time on crossride is being almost up. And am thinking of changing back. Meaning no offense, my friend.”

“Of course. I knew from the outset this was a temporary arrangement.”

“At least you no need worry of being sold. You are Marshal now, with me or without me. We are taking care of our own, always.”

The comm crackled with Sally’s voice. “Hey, you two. Getting sensor reports of pulse fire not too far from your location. Check it out?”

“''Da!'' Are being on our way!” Heinrich gripped the handlebars, and they swerved and picked up speed.

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Reed swooped through the canyon after the RIDE, keeping half his attention on not running into canyon walls and the other half on not being hit by the RIDE’s return fire. ''Must be nice, having a second brain who can handle firing and stuff.'' At least his bike was maneuverable enough to deal with it. ''Nilsson’s Chinook would get creamed.''

The canyon widened out and ended, and they were in the open again. He lined up the crosshairs again…then the RIDE braked and Fused. Reed shot right past. “Oh, snap.” He flipped the switch to convert the bike to armor mode, counting the seconds as the parts rotated around and pulse blasts streaked by. Lucky thing it was so hard to hit a moving target—or else the RIDE was a lousy shot.

Fuse complete, Reed spun around, tracking onto the RIDE and firing his pulse rifle. For all that the Ad-I bike was clunkier and less maneuverable than a RIDE, you didn’t have to maneuver very far to point a gun at a target. With some satisfaction, he saw his first shots smack into the RIDE’s hardlight armor. As it returned fire, Reed kicked in his thruster pack and moved forward. The RIDE tried to pull away, but faltered under the weight of the pulse fire. “Gotcha.” The Tornado slammed into the RIDE, forcing it downward.

They both hit the ground, rolled over…and then the RIDE shoved him off and converted back to skimmer form. As Reed staggered to his feet, the skimmer bike sped away. “Urgh…no you don’t.” Reed raised the rifle, sighted carefully down the barrel, and fired. Two hundred meters away, the RIDE bike’s rear lifter pods blew out and it went down.

“Right!” Reed kicked in the lifter pack and hovered over to the downed bike. The inertial safety systems had kicked in, sparing Clemson more than a few bumps and bruises, but he was clearly in no shape to run anywhere. He lay spread-eagled across the ground next to the smoking RIDE. Reed touched down next to him. “You have the right to remain silent. Asshole.”

“What is being all this, then?”

Reed glanced up in time to see a big bear Fuser touch down next to him, bearing a large pulse rifle of its own—and a big shiny gold star on its chest. The bear didn’t point the rifle directly at him, but didn’t point it too far away, either.

“Just making an arrest. DOLEB Corporal Reed Mosley.”

“You do realize you are being out of jurisdiction, Corporal? This is being territory of Harmon Gulch, and I am being Marshal Heinrich Ivanovich.”

Mosley placed the accent. ''Oh, great. Sturmhaven. Well, at least it’s not a ‘Woman Of.’ ''“Hot pursuit doctrine. I started chasing this low-life Q smuggler back in the Pleiades. Anyway, I was unaware Harmon Gulch had any law enforcement.”

“We are havink it now.”

''Huh. So I see. ''Deciding that not arguing with big bears with badges and guns was the better part of valor, Mosley nodded. “Well, sorry about that, Marshal. If I’d known you were here, I’d have commed ahead to set up a roadblock. How long you been active?”

“All of two weeks, Corporal,” a new voice said. A snowmobile-style RIDE, surprisingly with no human aboard, landed and changed to Walker form, an arctic fox. “Sorry I missed it.”

“Is being okay, Summer,” Heinrich said.

''Oh, great. Something else the higher-ups didn’t see fit to let me know about.'' “Well, that’s good to know. Pass me your comm code, I’ll give you a buzz next time.”

“Surprise is not being all on your side. ''We'' were not knowing the Dolts had any officers who were actually being competent.”

“Not to mention not bent,” the bear added in another voice.

''Ouch. ''Mosley sighed. He knew what everyone called DOLEB behind their backs—every officer did, but hardly cared—but couldn't dispute the epithet, either. He'd watched Nilsson accept naked bribes, and had refused just as many during the four months since he joined. “Frankly, the shoe fits. I don't know if there's anyone else like me anywhere on the force.”

“Always at least a few good apples among the bad, I say,” Summer said.

“Anyway, the collar on this guy’s all yours. You should find plenty of undeclared high-grade refined Q in his RIDE’s panniers. Just do me a favor? Leave me out of the report. I’m in enough trouble with my supes and fellow officers as it is. If they knew I was actually doing my job, they might fire me.”

“You wish no credit at all?” Henrich said.

“Hey, it’s enough for me to know this jerk’s off the streets.” ''And modesty is a Manly virtue.'' Reed knew he shouldn’t still be thinking in those terms, but what could you do about the attitudes you grew up with?

“Of course,” the bear mecha said. “And you handle that Tomato better than anyone I've ever seen since the War. Please take that as a true compliment.”

“You make do with what you’ve got.”

“Life gives you tomatos, you make marinara sauce,” Summer quipped.

“I would have said Bloody Marys, but yeah.”

“Wyatt and Durante are incoming,” Sasha reported. In the distance the large APC that doubled as their paddy wagon descended out of the sky. The bear ambled over to check on the RIDE. “You okay there, friend?”

“What do you think? My biscuits are burning!” the RIDE replied, still smoking from his lifters. “And I've got a nasty case of mode-lock.” They heard a sigh. “Not that it matters. Gonna end up in the crusher anyway.”

“Nah, kitty. Even if you're a willing accessory to the crimes here, you're not going to get crushed,” Summer said.

“Why am I not reassured? Well, I'm yours anyway. I'm shutting down.”

“I’d better get on back. My partner will be looking for me at Seven Sisters. Comm me if you get wind of anything happening up Whirlwind way, I’ll do what I can.”

“Nice meeting you, Corporal,” the bear said, giving him an actual salute.

“Da, is being good day today,” Heinrich said. He looked at the prostrate Rod Clemson, surrounded by a transparent hardlight shield to protect him from the heat. “For most, anyway.”

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After a quick stop back at the barracks to retrieve the transponder, Reed Mosley pulled his Tornado into the parking lot at the Seven Sisters, the combination pub and dance club that passed for ''Whirlwind’s'' center of social activity. The miners who frequented the place had pretty simple tastes. As long as the booze kept flowing it didn't matter if it was fabbed rotgut or 12-year old scotch imported from Earth.

The rest of the Dolts—as he could now admit was the right word for them—normally took over a corner of the place, lording over it like nobility over their serfs. At the center was Captain Lind and her right-hand woman, Lieutenant Solberg.

If the Reed Mosley of five years ago had met them it would have confirmed every bad thing about women being in charge that Cape Nord fed to young Men. But the Reed Mosley of the present was well-traveled enough, and mature enough, to have recognized Cape Nord sexist codswallop for what it was. That they were nasty, backstabbing bitches was without question, but that was what Cape Nord culture expected them to be in leadership positions. Reed knew that just about anywhere that wasn't Cape Nord it couldn't be farther from the truth.

Sitting in his regular booth with a Cape Nord catgirl on each side, Nilsson waved his partner over. “Mosley! What the hell you doing sitting by yourself? Get over here and get yourself a drink and a girl. And get a load of this!”

Projected over the table was one of the ancient television shows enjoying a resurgence in popularity via Steader Entertainment. In Reed's view Joe Steader and his company were doing some incredible, and successful, cultural necromancy. He recognized the beat of the theme as 1970s disco. The screen showed two policemen on gasoline-powered motorcycles. “'ChiPs'?”

“This is a great show!” Nilsson said. “I'm ''totally'' Ponch and you're John.”

“If you say so.” Reed shrugged and sat down right on the end of the circular booth. “What is it? Police procedural?”

“Does it matter? Look, Reed…” he leaned forward and made a sweeping motion with his hand, pushing the TV show aside. “Everybody knows how gung-ho you are for the job. But you've been around long enough now I know you've seen just how pointless it really is. The Dry is too big, and we're too small to make any difference.”

“What's your point, Carson?” Reed asked, deciding to go with the first name thing for now.

“The point, Reed, is that you take what you can get. You've hotrodded out that Tornado you ride, so I know you're getting money from somewhere.”

“It's called a savings account,” Reed said. ''And some lucky investments in Brubeck Mining. Like half the Manly Men of Cape Nord.'' Sometimes it amused Reed just how much of Cape Nord’s financial success could be traced to the lucky happenstance that one of the Manliest Men Alive had founded a business and then been successful himself. “I’m not in this for the money; it’s just an excuse to spend time in the great outdoors.” ''And away from Cape Nord.''

Nilsson made a dismissive gesture. “Don't give me that bullshit, Reed.”

Mosley shook his head. “Sorry, Nilsson, but I just can’t. It’s all right for you, since you’re from Nextus where it’s elevated to an art form, but not for me. Taking bribes just isn’t Manly.” He had to admit, as obnoxious as he found the whole Manliness thing, it sure did provide a handy excuse when he needed it. In his more cynical moments (which was most of the time, these days) he wondered whether ''anyone'' in Cape Nord honestly saw Manliness as anything more than a reason not to have to do things they didn’t want to.

“So you're not joining in because of some Cape Nord cultural bullshit?” Nilsson said incredulously. He pointed up at Captain Lind. “You know she's from New Oslo? Little town north of the main caves? Escaped to blast through the damned glass ceiling you keep women under up there.”

''Oh, now I get a rant and a lecture. Which I’d probably actually ''agree with,'' if I weren’t trying to hide behind the bullshit. Well, that’s karma for you.'' “Well, that’s certainly her privilege. I don't see what it has to do with me.”

“I guess I'll have to use simple words for you Nordy neanderthal. When opportunity knocks, you take it. And I want to ''see you'' taking it. Because Captain Lind is not so reassured you're in the game with the rest of us. You're getting one more chance to play ball. Hear?”

Reed made a show of sighing and acquiescing. “Loud and clear.”

Nilsson smiled. It wasn't a friendly smile, but that of a dog keeping an eye on a potential threat. “Good. Now, let me buy you a drink. Rum and Coke good for you?”

“Gimme a White Russian.”

The Corporal laughed. “Heh. Yeah. Real 'Manly' drink there, Mosley.”

Reed grinned. “Maybe you haven’t seen that movie the Steaders put out just last week? ''The Big Lebowski''? If it’s good enough for The Dude, it’s good enough for me.”

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''May 23, 128 AL''
''<s>DOLEB</s> '''Marshals''' Office, Dust Devil''

“Knock knock.”

It was Sally’s turn on the desk this weekend. She looked up at the young man leaning against the frame of the open Marshals office door. He wore slacks, flannel shirt, and a down vest. “Can I help you?”

“Reed Mosley, ma’am. Was just in the neighborhood, thought I’d stop by.” His accent as much as his hairstyle marked him out to be from Cape Nord. Sally hoped she wouldn’t have any Manly Man attitude trouble with him. It was about the last thing she needed right now.

“Oh, right. I heard about you. Brought down that smuggler last week. Prosecutor indicted him, by the way. Don’t know if it’ll stick on appeal, but at least we’ll get him off the streets for a while.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“So what brings you to these parts, Corporal Mosley?”

“Please just call me Reed, ma’am. Main thing is, I wanted to come over and meet you folks, and offer a bit of unofficial cooperation.”

Bonnie lifted her head over the lower door in the stall behind Sally's desk. She had her own hardlight skin now and to the uninitiated it looked as though Sally was keeping a real horse in her office. Bonnie had chosen a buckskin coloration with a black mane and tail, though that was easily changed. “Is that right?”

Reed nodded to her. “I sure hope it’s right, but either way, it’s correct.”

“The stink must be really bad over there,” Sally said.

“I could just quit and wash my hands of the whole thing, but I won't,” Reed said. “I can't sit by and watch this happen.”

Sally couldn’t resist a little dig. “Man’s got to do what a Man’s got to do, huh?”

Reed rolled his eyes. “Ma’am, if the only reason someone had for fighting injustice was that it was Manly, that would be one piss poor sort of a Man, pardon my French. Frankly, I’m fed up with working for a laughingstock mall cop operation that only seems to exist to take bribes not to do anything.”

Sally chuckled. “Hard to blame you for that. Why don’t you come on down to Clancy’s and meet everyone else who’s off duty at the moment?”

“I’d like to meet them, ma’am, but I’d really rather not be seen in public with you folks ‘round here. Word gets back to Whirlwind that I’m talking to Marshals, could be a little awkward.”

“Fair enough. How ‘bout Jeremy’s, then? That’s the local mechanic shop. There are some private garages good for a talk. I’ll let the others know.”

“Sounds good to me. Guess I'll go for a wander in that direction. I kind of like the Old West look the ''Dust Devil'' has. The ''Whirlwind ''can't decide if they're groovy sixties or mellow seventies. A man gets tired of so much avocado green and shag carpeting.”

“I hear ya,” Sally said. “Bon-bon and me are due for a break. We might wander that way ourselves in a few.”

“Well, see you then.” Mosley nodded, then let himself out.

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The layout of the ''Dust Devil'' was the same as the ''Whirlwind'', so Reed easily found the mechanic shop. It was a busy place with skimmer and RIDE parts laid out neatly, waiting to be installed. An ore hauler skimmer-truck shared space with a half dozen RIDEs.

“Okay, try that again, Leonato,” the mechanic—presumably Jeremy—said.

The skimmer bike on the repair platform was a familiar one. It still bore a few scorch marks from Reed's pulse rifle, but the rear lifter pods had been replaced. There was a quiet hum, and the bike collapsed inwards into a lynx mecha the size of a pony.

“That got it, Jeremy! Thanks,” Leonato said. He stretched his forelegs, then his hindlegs, just like a real cat would, before he noticed Reed standing there. He jumped, spun in midair, yowled like a scalded cat, and hid behind the ore hauler.

“Leo! What gotten into you?” Jeremy noticed the newcomer. “Can I help…”

“That guy shot me down with a Tomato! A ''Tomato''! I'll never live that down!” Leonato yowled.

“Uh…sorry?” Reed said. “I’m sure if it hadn’t been for that dead weight you were carrying, I never would have caught you.”

“Damned straight!” Leonato growled. “And you friggin’ Dolts weren’t supposed to be anywhere near there that night.”

“Oh, really? How would you know that?”

“I didn’t, but Clemson did. Talked to himself a lot. Damn sure didn’t ever talk to ''me.''”

“When you RIDEs are Fused, you and your rider are supposed to be able to read each others’ thoughts, aren’t you?”

Leonato sniffed. “You’d think, wouldn’t you? But he had me fettered away from that. Guess if I knew what-all he must have, I’d have felt the same way. Jerk.”

Reed's interaction with RIDEs had been indirect at best. They hadn’t been covered much in DOLEB training—not exactly a big surprise, since almost no Dolt officers got to use any. The magazines on newsstands and media tablet feeds were more informative. On the personal side, the mecha tended not to be very talkative around Dolts, and stayed close to the miners who owned them. Since the Dolts didn't use RIDEs themselves it was another count against them as far as the miners were concerned. It made them even more outsiders.

“I gather you don’t need to worry about him anymore.”

“Yeah, so what’s it to you?”

A snowmobile skimmer landed on the platform outside and converted into an arctic fox. “Cool down, Leo. He's not going to shoot you again or anything.”

“A cat has to have some dignity,” the lynx said. “You canids have none, Summer. What kind of name is that for a male fox, anyway?”

“It's a Cape Nord thing. You ever hear that Johnny Cash song, ‘A Boy Named Sue’?”

Reed nodded. “In some circles, it’s considered ‘Manly’ to have a sissy name. Don’t ask me how that works. I haven’t been back there since right after the War ended. I got fed up with the whole thing. Even burned my Man Card.” He shook his head. “Then they sent me a Platinum Man Card in the mail two weeks later. I didn’t dare try to burn it again, lest they induct me into the Chippendales or something.”

“No idea what Nerd made those Man Card rules, but they're positively Byzantine and only getting worse,” Summer agreed. “So many rules about what's Manly and loopholes they'd make a Nextus native throw up their hands and give up.”

“Damned silly, you ask me. Should be enough ''you'' think you’re a Man. We’re supposed to be ‘rugged individualists’…but we have to seek everyone else’s approval for that? Who dreamed that one up?”

“Is natural overreaction to Sturmhaven women. I sympathize. Sturmhaven female foolishness is being so extreme, it cannot help but breed equal and opposite extreme of male foolishness.”

Reed turned, recognizing the accent of the Marshal to whom he’d handed off Clemson. “Marshal Ivanovich, isn’t it?”

“''Da'', but be calling me Heinrich.” He was un-Fused, but the immense bear Sasha loped along behind him. Heinrich was a good ten centimeters taller than Reed and as muscular as a real bear. Just looking the way he did would've given him a full Man Card on entering Cape Nord.

“Then call me Reed. Good to meet you in the flesh.”

“Is feeling same, comrade.” Henrich nodded. “Would offer to buying you drink, but am understanding not wanting to be seen.”

“We've heard bad things about the Whirlwind Dolts from prospectors passing through,” Sasha said. “We're happy to see there's one good egg in the bunch. Why the visit?”

“They’re ''not'' so glad. There’s only so long I can really hold off on taking part in the corruption without them getting suspicious. I’ve read there was some story about a New York City cop having the same trouble. Maybe one of these days the Steaders will release it.”

“Am thinking you want to do something about it,” Heinrich mused.

“Planning on it. Way I figure is, there wasn’t any point when nobody gave a damn. But now I know you guys are here…”

“We're a bunch of inexperienced, barely-trained rookies,” Sasha admitted. “Essentially learning on the job. It really must be bad if you want ''our'' help.”

“Don't sell us too short, Sasha,” Summer said. “I've already skill-chipped most of what we need and I have a whole library of forensics and crime scene investigation methods in my head. Experience will come naturally.”

“You guys are already more competent than 99% of the Dolts I’ve worked with,” Reed said. “Fact is that I need you guys to give me some backing legal authority here.”

“I think we could manage that,” a woman who looked half dragon said. “Hi, Jeremy. Just coming by to see if the next set of Enter's emitters is in yet.”

“Hard to get parts for dragons, Mara. And Enter needs a lot of emitters for a proper skin,” Jeremy said. “You'll get a text.”

“So, you're planning on a sting, Mr. Mosley?” Mara said.

“That’s the idea. I can’t keep pushing away their bribes without ending up in a ditch somewhere. So I’m going to have to play along. I figure if I’m careful and not too nosy, I can figure out where the money’s coming from sooner or later.”

“But working alone with no one to watch your back is kind of risky, isn’t it?” Sasha asked.

Reed shrugged. “Yeah, but what choice do I have? I can’t exactly just bring a friend in and have the Dolts hire them.”

Summer cleared his throat. “You know, there’s more than one kind of partner. Seems to me most people who don’t work with RIDEs tend to underestimate them. Think we’re just fancy toys who only mimic intelligence. So maybe when you get your first bribe, you go out and spend it on one.”

Reed blinked. “You’re offering?”

“Why not? I don’t have a partner at the moment, you seem like a nice enough guy, and I’m a fully-empowered Harmon Gulch Marshal, with all the legal authority thereunto.”

“Which might not mean much outside the Marshals just yet, but it means everything as far as we’re concerned,” Mara said.

“If you wanted, I mean.” Summer wagged his tail diffidently. “After all, I don’t know how you feel about RIDEs…”

Reed paused. How ''did'' he feel about RIDEs? He’d never gotten one, but then they were kind of expensive, and he hadn’t felt like it would really be fair to saddle someone else with the burden of putting up with him if they didn’t get any say in it. But in this situation… “Since you’re offering, I’d be glad for the help.”

Summer nodded. “Well, that’s settled then.”

“Is good!” Heinrich declared, slapping Reed on the shoulder. “Let’s move to private room. We can talk more fully, make plans there.”

Reed shrugged, partly because of the sting from the friendly slap. “Sure, works for me.” He nodded to Leonato. “No hard feelings?”

“Eh.” The lynx sneezed. “Well, this Marshals biz is a lot better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. And it is nice to be free of that Clemson jerk. But don’t expect to be my favorite person.”

“I can live with that.”

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''Whirlwind''
''May 28, 128 AL''

“Your very first cash-in and you buy one of those RIDE-things…that turns into a snowmobile.” Corporal Nilsson looked at the skimmer-mode Summer in disbelief. “A ''snowmobile'' in the middle of the Dry.”

“What can I say? It was cheap, and it shouldn’t require nearly as much maintenance as that Tomato,” Reed said. “And a snowmobile reminds me of home.” He felt a little guilty about referring to Summer as an “it,” but they’d agreed that it would help conceal Summer’s true nature.

“Yeah, well, whatever gets you through the night.” Nilsson shrugged. “You just better be able to keep up on patrol.”

Reed grinned. “Don’t worry about me.” '':Keep up, eh? Wouldn’t want to fall behind when we go out to ''not catch anybody''…:''

'':I'm twice as fast as that ''Schnook'' he rides,:'' Summer scoffed.

Summer was technically stolen goods. A brand new RIDE taken from a dealer lot in Cape Nord and then passed through a couple more hands before ending up with the Harmon Gulch claim jumpers. As with most of the stolen RIDEs, the Marshals had settled with the insurance companies to be allowed to “keep” them.

'':And off we go. Another wasted day…:''

'':Any day that gets us closer to busting these slobs isn’t ''totally'' wasted.:'' Summer sent a wink emoticon. '':Besides, it’s plenty of time to get to know each other.:''

The so-called patrol was a ''lot'' more tolerable with Summer to chat with. They made several stops along the way at various claims, each time accepting some kind of payment—in money, qubitite to sell at the Assay Office, or items of value. This was just SOP, and the miners were all jaded enough that they just handed things over without complaint. Their RIDEs took an interest in Summer, though.

'':Don't worry. I'm not blowing our cover or anything,:'' Summer reassured.'' :But you're the first Dolt they've seen with a RIDE, so they've got questions.:''

'':Sure. Keep track of who’s fettered and who’s free, though. I don’t know if it’s a one-to-one correlation, but it seems more likely the free ones belong to the “good guys.”:''

“You'll be hotrodding that thing out in no time with all this cash, Mosley,” Nilsson said during a lunch break. His meal was a round of toasted brie ''en croute'', fresh seedless red grapes, a ham and fontina cheese sandwich on marble rye bread with dijon mustard, and an early vintage of Burnside Red wine. All was served on unbreakable fine china and a silver tray.

Reed's own lunch was very simple: cola, potato chips, and a roast beef sandwich. “Maybe. I’ve got to put something aside for my old age, you know.”

“Me, I'm going to get some chrome trim for Snookie here.” He patted the battery pack in front of him, under his lunch tray. “She likes bling.”

It was all Reed could do not to laugh out loud. “She does, does she?”

Outwardly, the next week passed pretty much as it had before. Summer stayed quiet around the Dolts and was rarely in Walker form, though he kept his eyes open and sensors engaged at all times. Captain Lind had complimented the rookie's new physical attributes—Reed didn't bother trying to hide the tail and ears. Otherwise, she kept the interaction with her inferiors to a minimum as a matter of policy. It wouldn't do for the nobility to fraternize too much with the serfs, after all.

Ladies' Night came around again and Reed sat down with Nilsson in his regular booth, drinking a White Russian and watching ChiPs. Reed had amassed several thousand ''mu'' in bribes already, all in a special account that would turn evidence when the time came. He also had Summer's recordings of Nilsson's activities, and whenever they met the few other Dolts on patrol.

The longer this went on, the greater the chance of being discovered, the more antsy Reed was getting. He just needed something that would break the case wide open so much that even the DOLEB Commandant in Nuevo San would have to take action. But at the same time, he knew he had to be careful how he went about it if he wanted the evidence to be legally admissible. Without a warrant, he couldn’t tap encrypted comm lines or bug private quarters.

Then one day Summer buzzed him. '':Hey, Reed. I think we may have something here. It’s that local Chaucer rep, Flint Basil.:''

'':Yeah? Slimy little bugger. What about him?:''

'':Well, he and Lind just walked into Seven Sisters together, and they’re going to one of the back rooms.:''

'':Can you get a read on what they’re saying?:''

'':Tickling the windowpane with a laser now. It probably won’t be admissible, you know.:''

'':Yeah, but if they’re going to do something shady, maybe we can find out about it and catch ‘em at in the act.:''

Basil had an odd accent Reed couldn't place. “I want you and your Dolts to put some pressure on your new competition,” he was saying. “Ever since these ‘Harmon Gulch Marshals’ have begun operating, it’s posed a serious threat to our bottom line in the region. Some of the richest strikes are in that province, and if these Marshals pose a serious threat to our operations, we won’t be able to convince those miners to sell out. Their arrest of Clemson last month was bad enough.”

“How am I supposed to put pressure on them with a half dozen officers?” Captain Lind said.

“If you need muscle, I can get you more muscle,” Basil said ominously. Then the voices became too muffled to hear.

'':They put up a privacy field,:'' Summer informed. '':Sorry about that. And that guy's accent. He's from Kepler. That planet's run by the mob.:''

'':Well, that’s certainly a strike against him. Ugh. We’d better let the Marshals know about this.:''

'':The good news is, if we can catch ‘em trying to do us dirty in Harmon Gulch, jurisdiction won’t be a worry.:''

'':The problem’s going to be figuring out what it is.:'' Reed shook his head. '':I don’t know if I’m trusted enough yet to be in on anything like this, especially if they bring in outside “muscle.”:''

'':If it helps, I can almost certainly get a warrant from a Harmon Gulch judge for some bugging and tracer planting.:''

'':Will that count given they’re out of your jurisdiction right now?:''

'':It’s a fig leaf. But it’s all we’ve got. Anyway, we just want to use it to find out what they’re going to do, not enter it into evidence directly. I'll call the Dragon Lady.:''

{{separator|k}}

Mosley found the next few days of patrols more than a little enervating. They hadn’t been able to do very much in the way of additional intelligence gathering. Hidden tracers and bugs planted on the other Dolts’ bikes, other bugs where they thought they would do some good. But they couldn’t break into Lind’s private quarters or tap her encrypted comm’s hardline, so it was hard to know for sure what was really going on.

Then, three days later, they were out patrolling the eastern side of ''Whirlwind ''territory—the opposite edge from Harmon Gulch—when Summer signaled for Mosley’s attention. '':Think we’ve got something here.:'' He threw up a chart showing the positions of the other four officers in their DOLEB division. '':Funny thing. They’re supposed to be on north and south patrols, but they’re heading into Harmon Gulch.:''

'':And here we are all the way over here. Did you comm Sally?:''

'':I let ‘em know. They’re keeping an eye on things.:''

'':Hmm.:'' Mosley thought for a moment. '':I think it’s time for you to fake some engine trouble.:''

'':On it.:'' The skimmer’s engine sputtered and cut out.

“Aw, dammit,” Mosley swore over the comm as Summer sank to the desert sand. “I think I might have shorted the main sarium battery when I put the latest impeller upgrade in.”

Nilsson sneered. “That’s what you get for messing with fancy-schmancy RIDEs instead of tried-and-true Ad-I tech. You need a lift back or something?”

“Nah, you go on. I should be able to get this sorted out in two ticks. Nothing ever happens on these patrols anyway.” He climbed off the saddle and made a show of squatting down and peering at the sarium battery assembly.

“Well, if you’re sure…” Nilsson circled once, then sped away. Mosley waited until he was well over the horizon before detaching the DOLEB position transponder and dropping it on the sand.

“Right, now let’s get out of here. We stay low and keep to the dunes, we should be able to cut across the Rest without anyone noticing.” Mosley swung back into the saddle. “I hope you can make better speed than a snowmobile in the desert.”

Summer scoffed. “Just watch me.”

{{separator|k}}

Heinrich, Sasha, and Natasha patrolled along the length of Redmane Ridge, near the Harmon Gulch border. There were a dozen claims in this territory, and they'd already gotten used to the Marshals stopping by to say hello. It took a while to build trust, and the miners this close to the border still doubted the Marshals were any better than the Dolts. They still had a ways to go.

Today the normally clear skies over the Dry had a high layer of cirrus, painting the sky with mare's tails.

“Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy…well, damnit,” Natasha sang. The Sturmhaven she-wolf lacked the stereotypical accent.

“We may be facing stormy weather in more ways than one, comrades.” Henrich frowned. “Receiving word from Sally of Whirlwind Dolt incursion into Harmon Gulch. Could to being rising of balloon.”

“The balloon’s going up, you mean,” Sasha put in.

“''Da'', is what I said.”

“One of these days I’m going to figure out whether you keep getting idioms wrong on purpose. Anyway…looks like our orders are to keep an eye on them without letting them know we know.”

“Da. And if they are knowing we are knowing, we should at least be knowing they are knowing we are knowing.”

“I hate you.”

With a throaty chuckle, Heinrich steered over onto a new heading. “We will be shadowing them from distance, staying in ground sensor clutter. If they are staying in ground sensor clutter too, could be challenging.”

“We’ve got the frequencies of their locator beacons, thanks to Summer and Reed. We should be able to keep an eye on them.”

“Will let you keep track of that. Just do not be letting them see.”

“Don’t worry. When the time is right, we’ll give them a big surprise.”

{{separator|k}}

“Well, there’s a surprise.” Sally glanced at the display screen in the Marshals’ office command center. “Looks like the jumpers or someone like them are back at my mine, and doing a little more than ‘probing’ this time. Just lost one of my pulse turrets…and there went another. Was that a plasma bazooka?”

Bonnie nodded. “They’ve got some serious military hardware there. Gee, wonder where ''that'' could have come from.”

“So we’re supposed to round up the whole posse and high-tail it out there…” Wyatt mused. “Just in time to get clobbered by an ambush, I expect.”

“The joke’s going to be on them.” Sally pursed her lips. “Hate to say this, but if we’re going to shut this ambush down, we may just have to let them do their worst to the mine for a while, so’s we can deal with the other varmints first.”

“We sure don’t want to charge into battle knowin’ we’re like to get shot in the back, that’s for sure.”

Wyatt scratched behind a scale. “Can we really just up and arrest Whirlwind cops for being out of their jurisdiction?”

“Probably not…” Sally frowned, staring off into space for a moment. “But if ''they'' know why they’re there, what if we dangle some bait in front of them? Have a lone Marshal wander all unknowing into their sights, and if they open fire, everyone else swoops in an’ rounds ‘em up?”

Bonnie snorted. “So ambush the ambushers, is what you’re sayin’? I’m thinkin’ I like this idea. But who gets to play bait?”

Sally grinned. “Who do you think? I wouldn’t ever ask any of my subordinates to do somethin’ I wasn’t willing to do myself, and I don’t think you would neither.”

“Guess we ought to get on out there, then. I’ll let the others know where to be.”

“Works for me, pard.” Sally held out her arms for Bonnie to Fuse over, then they were out of the command post like a shot.

{{separator|k}}

Two Tornados and a Chinook drove forward across the desert, their riders hunched low over the fairing. Not that it helped their radar profile any, but at least it made them feel “covert.”

“You see anything yet?” Kendrix Pean asked over short-range comm. The overweight DOLEB Sergeant got the Chinook, as the senior-most officer. The fourth member of their “patrol” had had genuine battery trouble and returned to the ''Whirlwind''.

“No sign, sir,” Patrolman Delia Knoles said. She glanced left and right. “Seems like we’re alone.”

“Use your scanner, you stupid cow,” Corporal Alerio Vagle sneered from the other Tornado. “We’re the only ones around for tens of klicks.”

Pean shook his head. “The ‘hired help’ isn’t meeting any resistance. This worries me. They’ve got to be around somewhere.”

“Hey. We take our time responding, why would they be any different?” Vagle said. “I’m not worried.”

“Just keep your eyes peeled. We’re supposed to let the ‘help’ handle them, but something always goes wrong.”

“I don’t know about this, sir,” Knoles said. “I mean, taking bribes is one thing, but going out and attacking other officers? Just seems wrong to me.”

“You know what we do to people who don’t play ball. These people ain’t playing ball. End of story, ''q.e.d., ipso facto, et cetera.''”

“Yeah. And you know what happens if ''you'' don’t play ball.”

Knoles rolled her eyes. “Understood, sir. Will comply, sir.”

“Hello, what’s this?” Pean tapped the touch-sensitive display panel on his bike. “Picking a single skimmer up on the scope. Squawking a law-enforcement transponder code, yet. Seems to be heading toward the mine, and we’re in a perfect position to intercept.”

“Maybe we should just let the ‘help’ deal with them?” Knoles suggested.

Vagle sneered again. “Why should they get to have all the fun? Let’s get ‘em!”

“But…” Knoles stammered. “Forget it. Weapons hot.”

“Knoles, you take the left. Vagle, right. We’ll get ‘em in a pincer.” Pean revved his bike and shot forward. The others quickly followed.

{{separator|k}}

'':They took the bait, Sal,:'' Bonnie reported. '':And Wyatt and the others are in position.:''

'':Don’t count your chickens ‘til they open fire. Wait’ll we’d have to be blind to miss ‘em, then comm ‘em all friendly-like. An’ then be ready to go evasive soon’s they fire.:''

'':That's gonna cut it close. I ain't that quick, even for the junk they ride. Going to need every hardlight hoxel of armor here. Here we go.:''

Bonnie’s sensors registered multiple targeting radar locks a split-second before pulse beams split the air. Bonnie’s lifters kicked in, propelling them twenty meters straight up as they Fused. '':Ha! Two misses and a graze. D’ya suppose they don’t bother keeping their guns calibrated since they don’t never use them?:''

Sally brought up their guns, locking onto the three bikes. “Harmon Gulch Marshals! Stand down and disarm! You’re under arrest!”

“Get ‘em!” the one on the Chinook yelled as they engaged their own sluggish Fuses.

“Fusing isn't a free action,” Sally said. She took down the Chinook first, careful not to hit anything too critical to the pilot's survival in the Dry. That gave the two Tornados time to complete theirs as their commanding officer sank to the ground on one lifter pod and no weapons.

“You’re going ''down,'' bitch!” one of the Tornado riders yelled, raising his pulse rifle. Then the gun sparked and exploded as another pulse shot pierced it—not from one of the Marshals, but from the other Tornado, which immediately dropped its gun and raised its hands.

“I give up!” the woman said. “I never wanted to be here anyway.” She shot a glance at the other one. “Idiot.”

Wyatt and Durante touched down behind her, followed by Heinrich and Sasha. “Are holding right there! Are being under arrest!”

The female Tornado pilot looked around. “Uh…can I request political asylum?”

“I'll have your ''badge'', Knoles!” the Chinook rider shouted as he tried to stand. “Then I'll have you by the tits!”

“Don’t know why you’d want me that way. Thought you and Vagle here were an item.”

“You know what I mean, bitch!” He struggled to rise, only to fall flat on his face.

Durante plodded toward them and spoke with militaristic authority. “Your skimmers have been rooted and your weapons are disabled. Now, come quietly. Sal, Bonnie, read 'em their rights.”

“You got the right to have rights,” Bonnie drawled. “If you don’t want those rights, well, that’s all right.”

“What my smart-arse companion ''means'' to say—” Sally began.

Durante interrupted her. “Hit the dirt!” A cloud of mini-missiles boiled up from behind a nearby sand dune, tracking inward toward the Marshals. He swiftly interposed himself between Sally and Bonnie and the missiles, spinal defense lasers pulsing at them. They were able to knock down about half of them before the rest hit his flank in a flurry of explosions.

“Durante!” Bonnie yelled.

“We’re okay! Take cover behind us, all of you!”

“Who the hell is that?” Bonnie said.

“Gotta be Nilsson and his 'Snookie',” the female officer said, taking cover with them. “Though what the hell he's doing out here when he's supposed to—” another pair of mini-missiles slammed into Durante's scorched flank. “—supposed to be watching Mosley a couple hundred klicks east of here, I dunno.”

“Haven't seen a Schnook loadout like this since the War!” Bonnie said. “Not tracking him very well in all this Q-dust he's kicked up. Durante?”

The parasaurolophus mecha changed to APC mode to provide more cover and weapons coverage. “Hunker down. I think we've got some help incoming. Damn, this guy's good! And with a ''Schnook''!”

{{separator|k}}

Reed and Summer had just crossed the border into Harmon Gulch when they picked up the comm traffic of the three deputies getting taken down. Reed grinned. “Good for them.” Without being asked, Summer steered in that direction.

As they swerved around a dune, they were just in time to see a Fuser-mode Chinook unleash a cloud of missiles from rocket packs on its hips and shoulders. “Hey, what…that’s Nilsson, isn’t it?”

Summer bracketed the mech in his head-up display. “He’s flying like a vet. A damned ''good'' vet. He's actually got them pinned down!”

“I knew he was in the War, but wow. Well, we’d better go take him down. If we can.” Reed triggered the Fuse. “Let’s get him.”

They hadn’t closed more than half the distance before Nilsson’s sensors picked them up and he turned to face them. He opened up with pulse cannons while sending missiles to cover their dodge points to left and right. Summer threw up a hardlight shield and dodged through the missiles. The shield took the impact and vanished as they broke through the explosions. Reed fired back with their pulse rifle, making their assailant drop to the ground.

'':He’s got better armor and more firepower than we do,:'' Summer sent.

'':Yeah, but we’ve got friends. We just need to keep him distracted and give them an opening.:'' Aloud, he commed, “Nilsson, what the hell are you doing?”

“Doing? What am ''I'' doing? What the hell do you think ''you're'' doing!” Nilsson shot back. “We've got it made, Mosley! I am not going to let you or some pissant upstart 'Marshals' ruin it!”

'':Summer, can you back-hack him?:''

'':No go, buddy. He's still got mil-spec anti-hacking gear on that Schnook of his. Recent stuff, too. Guess that's where some of this bribe money's gone to.:''

“Hang on, Sarge! I'm coming!” Nilsson shouted aloud.

'':Shockingly loyal, isn't he?:'' Summer snarked. A barrage of pulse blasts from their rifle hit the Chinook armor's right thigh, scorching the armor under the hardlight shield. Summer commed their compatriots. “Bonnie, Durante! You're the vets! What's the strategy here?”

“Well, we don't want to kill him,” Bonnie said, putting down some covering fire with her pistols.

“We had a trick in Nuevo San for taking down Schnooks,” Durante said. “Those joints in armor mode overheat like mad if they're worked too hard. Just keep him running!”

“I'd challenge him to a dance-off if I thought he'd do it!” Reed added. “But he's got to know that weakness, too.”

“Yes, but he can't exactly de-Fuse right now, can he?” Durante pointed out. “Mara and Enter are up there, but their last orders were to keep an eye on the bunch at Sally’s mine. And this Q dust is too thick to get through.”

“Right.” Dodging again, Reed fired another series of pulses. “We have ''got'' to get some better firepower.”

“This guy's some kind of major Ace,” Bonnie said. “The Schnooks sucked, but some pilots knew the knack with 'em.”

“He’s got to run out of missiles sooner or later, right?”

“Those are 2-centimeter micro missiles,” Sasha said. “He can carry a frightening number of them on a Chinook.”

“Then we keep the pressure on! Sooner or later we’ll get through.”

Nilsson’s Chinook moved to put a sand dune between itself and Bonnie, firing a half-dozen rockets straight up and over the dune as he fired his pulse gun at Summer. “You think you and your pets can take me? Ha! Certified Triple Ace here! My Snookie's been with me since the War!”

'':I've ''gotta ''upgrade to a mil-spec frame!:'' Summer said after narrowly dodging another salvo. '':My batteries are over half down! Can't take much more of this, Reed.:''

'':And the longer he keeps us busy, the more damage his friends do to Sally’s mine.:''

Sally sighed. “Durante, Sasha—forget the prisoners. We’re gonna need everyone to handle this guy. Get him in a crossfire.”

“On it!” The bear and parasaurolophus leaped the dune and engaged. The Chinook disgorged another cloud of missiles and retreated further. Some of the missiles left visible damage in Durante's side armor.

'':If this keeps up, we might have to retreat,:'' Summer observed. '':How embarrassing.:''

Then sudden motion caught Reed's eye, and he looked up. There was a winged shape visible in the sky, growing larger by the second. '':Don’t count your chickens just yet. We need to keep his attention for just a few more seconds…:'' He popped up and fired another long pulse burst.

Then Mara and Enter dove out of the sky, foreclaws slamming into the Chinook’s shoulder and throwing it forward onto the ground with an enormous, savage roar.

“''Hooo-wheee!'' That's what I'm talking 'bout!” Bonnie cheered.

“You have a dragon? Nobody said you had a dragon!” a voice Reed recognized as Corporal Knoles shouted over comm. “Holy shit!”

Enter easily tore the weapons and missile pods from Nilsson's Chinook, then rose, holding the armor suit down with one claw. “Sorry we’re late. We hadn’t noticed you were in trouble ‘til we glanced this way just now.”

Sally grinned. “Better late than never. I think we need to see ‘bout getting us some better laser uplinks an’ buying some satellite time if this’s gonna be a reg’lar thing.”

Reed and Summer followed Heinrich and Sasha back to where the other Chinook and two Tornados had been knocked down. The crippled Chinook hadn’t made it very far, and one Tornado seemed to be sitting on top of the other one, who was spread-eagled in the sand. “You are still being here?”

Knoles shrugged. “You hadn’t read us our rights yet. We’ve hardly ever had to read them ourselves, so I kinda forgot what they were. This one wanted to bug out—” she thumped the helmet of Vagle’s suit with her fist “—but I think he needs to hear them even more than I do.” She paused. “Well, when he wakes up, anyway. I am ''so'' sick of this shit.”

Sally turned to Reed. “That’s all your crew, right?”

“We're missing one,” Reed said.

“Wendt went back to base,” Knoles said. “You know how ''he'' is with skimmers. Might want to send a rescue party.”

Reed laughed. “Yeah, Sally, that's everyone. Unless the Captain and the LT decide to show up. Which I don’t exactly expect to happen. Those two stay away from anything that might involve getting their hands dirty.”

Sally nodded. “We’ll see’f we can get authorization from DOLEB HQ to arrest ‘em ourselves. Later. Right now, we got some thugs back at the mine we need to curb-stomp while there still ''is'' a mine left.”

“Reed, Summer, mind giving us a hand with these ne'er-do-wells while everyone else goes to help Sally?” Wyatt asked. Durante landed nearby and opened his aft ramp.

“Our pleasure,” Reed said. “Good luck with the thugs. I suppose we'll be along once we drop these guys off on the ''Dust Devil'' jail.”

“We'll chat more about this once this is over, Reed,” Sally said. Her RIDE changed to skimmer mode around her. “Good to have you with us. Giddyap, Bonnie!”

{{separator|k}}

''June 4, 128 AL''
''Whirlwind, Pleiades Plateau Marshals Office''

“Well, that’s the last of them, sir.”

“Good.” Marshal Reed Mosley leaned back behind the scarred mahogany desk that had once belonged to Captain Lind. It was one of the few things from the old DOLEB office that had stayed in the transition to being the Pleiades Marshals office. A printed warrant for the previous occupant's arrest hung on the wall behind his chair, nicely framed.

Standing in front of the desk was probationary Marshal Delia Knole, the copper badge on her chest matching the gold one on Reed’s. At the moment, she was the only other Marshal on staff, but that was soon to change. They’d just spent the morning interviewing several local miners and their RIDEs to see if any would be willing and able to join up. If the background checks worked out they'd soon have a half dozen more, including their RIDEs.

“Do you think any of them will work out?”

“Hard to say. The level of crime hasn’t been so bad down here. Say what you will about bribes, at least it meant they had incentive to foist the criminals off on other provinces.”

“Like Harmon Gulch.”

Reed nodded. “Yeah. So they got ticked off enough to form the Marshals. This bunch is more complacent. But that’s to be expected. We’ll borrow some manpower from Harmon Gulch while we work on recruiting elsewhere. I figure there are enough decent people in the polities and maybe even Laurasia that we can fill out the ranks sooner or later.”

Knoles coughed, scratching behind her new coyote ears. “You know, I can't thank you enough for this second chance.”

“There were a few…mitigating circumstances,” Summer said. He lay on a RIDE couch next to the desk. He was going to get the mil-spec shell with hardlight pelt he wanted sooner rather than later, though arctic foxes were harder to find. “Like turning polity's evidence. And Wyoming will help keep you on the straight and narrow.”

“Yo,” the she-coyote RIDE said. “Youse can count on me. Not that I need ta. Delia's a good egg.” Wyoming had been one of the RIDEs they’d liberated from the jumpers attacking Sally’s mine after dealing with the ambush. As with the earlier batch, most of them had chosen to join the Marshals when offered Moose’s choice—especially once they had heard from that batch how good things were for the ones who’d stayed.

Reed nodded again, then reached out to pat Summer on his head. “And if your RIDE doesn’t know the real you, who does. So, yeah.” He chuckled. “You know, that’s an idea. Pair all the recruits up with RIDEs and have ‘em Fuse first thing. Could save a lot of time in the long run. Wonder if that’s why the Dolts didn’t use ‘em.”

“I dunno. They seemed pretty attached to their 'cycles. The way Nilsson was sobbing over his 'Snookie' after we pulled him back to his feet…” Summer mused.

“I still feel kind of bad about that,” Reed admitted. “Like we ripped up his teddy bear or something.”

A soft chime filled the room as the door opened. Reed stood up to meet the new transfers coming inside, extending his hand to the shaggy bear Fuser. “Heinrich, Sasha! Welcome to the ''Whirlwind''. We appreciate the help.”

“Are being glad to be here.” The bear waved. “Will be different, but not so very different.”

Sasha added, “Something tells me we’re all going to be expanding a lot beyond Harmon Gulch and Pleiades before too long. Half a dozen other provinces are already starting to make noises about voting out their DOLEB franchise and asking us to come in and organize a local Marshals branch for them. Something about the idea of local law sounding a lot better than having outsiders imposed on them.

“Plenty of trustworthy serial strikeouts like ourselves to fill the ranks,” Sasha said.

“Da, Sasha. Not all of us are good or lucky at prospecting,” Heinrich admitted. “But wish to remain here in the Dry anyway.”

“Well, I think you'll make a great lawman,” Reed said. “For now, though, let's go to the Seven Sisters. They have a great non-fab microbrew lager here. And if you like White Russians, they have the best in this part of the Dry.”

“If good enough for Dude, good enough for me,” Heinrich said, thumping his chest. “Lead on, my friend.”

{{separator|k|'''To Be Continued'''}}

{{series bar
|series=Marshals: Beginnings
|previous=[[User:Robotech Master/Ride Sally|Marshals: Beginnings, Episode One: Ride, Sally]]
|next=}}

[[Category:FreeRIDErs]][[Category:Robotech_Master]][[Category:Jon Buck]][[Category:Anthropomorphic]][[Category:Story]][[Category:Horse]][[Category:Dinosaur]][[Category:Dragon]][[Category:Fox]]

User:Robotech Master/Ride Sally

2015-01-28T04:05:11Z

2014-09-19T02:15:36Z

JonBuck: /* About Myself */

{{my stories
|name=Jon Buck
|category=Jon Buck
}}
test

==About Myself==

I've been involved in this particular genre since 1996. And I didn't start small. My first ''magnum opus'' was the Winds of Change setting, which turned out to be surprisingly popular to write in. In the years since, I've grown a lot as a writer, and I don't plan on stopping. The stories that go up here will be those that will not be submitted for publication.

New stories will generally be posted to [http://lists.integral.org/listinfo/tsa-talk TSA-Talk] first, then here. Though I am posting an in-progress series here first to give Shifti a boost. I am also a ''Shifti'' [[Shifti:Administrators|Administrator]].

<div class="floatright">
{| class="toc"
|-
!Legend
|-
|
*[[Image:Star.png|20px]] - Favorite of mine
*[[Image:Triple_X.png|20px]] - Adult content
*[[Image:Book with bookmark.png|20px]] - Long story (>150kB)
*[[Image:Magnifying glass.png|20px]] - Short story
*[[Image:Clock warning.png|20px]] - On Hiatus
|}
</div>
__TOC__

=={{separator|f|Works in Progress}}==

*Sadly moved down to The Unfinished.

=={{separator|f|Recent Works - 2012 to ...}}==

*'''[[User:JonBuck/FreeRIDErs|FreeRIDErs]]
:This story is heavily inspired by anime tropes.

=={{separator|f|Recent Works - 2004 to 2009}}==

*'''[[Against Type]]''' [[Image:Book with bookmark.png|20px]](2007)
:A Xanadu story, co-op with [[User:Bryan|Bryan]]. Unlike most Xanadu stories it actually begins a few weeks after the event, and concerns the problem of secondary transformations, like [[Slinx]]. It's also, amazingly, a story that features no deer transformation whatsoever.

*'''[[Colony]]''' [[Image:Book with bookmark.png|20px]][[Image:Star.png|20px]] (2005)
:A standalone novella, about 250 kilobytes of text.
:Inspiration for this story came from two pictures posted to Yerf. Two deer in 18th century Colonial outfits. I do not have external links, unfortunately.
:This is a world with geography roughly similar to our own. But different enough that the equivalent of North America was never colonized by humans, even in the Ice Age. I'm rather happy with this setting and may revisit it. The uncompleted story [[Exile's Road]] was the basis for this one.

*'''[[Doe's Hoof]]'''[[Image:Magnifying glass.png|20px]][[Image:Triple X.png|20px]] (2006)
:A quickie. What happens when you're down on your luck and you really have nowhere to go?

*'''[[Fight the Wind]]''' (2004, {{add|another chunk added 2008}})
:I wrote this when I was unemployed, following graduate school. It lasted months, and during that time I got a lot of self doubt about the career I had chosen. So I wrote a few transgender stories like this kind of theme. It doesn't have a plot, per se. It's mainly about being carried along by events... and being changed beyond one's own recognition.
:This story features some graphic content, but so far no actual sex or violence. I've probably exaggerated it somewhat, not having firsthand experience, but the graphic depictions in the story are as close to reality as I can make them. I like being thorough.

*'''[[The Limelight]]''' [[Image:Star.png|20px]] (2004)
:A story in [[User:Bryan|Bryan's]] Wisp-touched setting. I rather like the main character.

*'''[[Marquee]]''' [[Image:Star.png|20px]] [[Image:Magnifying glass.png|20px]] (2007)
:This is a gift story for a friend for TSA-Talk's Christmas Xchange. It takes place in the same over-the-top comic book setting as [[Steel City]]. It's a silly, over the top comic book setting where transformations of almost any sort are simply a matter of fact. I rather like writing in it.

*'''[[Steel City]]''' [[Image:Magnifying glass.png|20px]] (2007)
:This is yet another dream-inspired story. It's both transgender and transformational. It's also a non-deer story, and a non-horse story. I wrote this in the space of two days. It takes place in a very tongue-in-cheek Comic Book-style world where all the innocent bystanders are very jaded about the whole Hero-Villain thing. They just try and stay out of their way and get on with their lives. [http://www.geocities.com/evilsnack/innocent.htm The Innocent Bystander's Survival Guide] should always be taken to heart.

*'''[[User:JonBuck/Subject to Change|Subject to Change]]''' (2009)
:In the months before I wrote this, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, the stock market crashed, millions lost their jobs, and I had some of the worst writer's block I've ever had. I call kind of story "fluff". Something I start writing to break the ice. Frequently a Plot shows up, as it has here. However, while I suppose it's more of a prologue to a longer work, there's no guarantee I'll continue it. For another story in the same setting, see Fish's [[User:Fish/Mad Hatters and Musical Chairs|Mad Hatters and Musical Chairs]].

===[[Paradise (Setting)|Paradise]]===

This setting has taken off faster than I thought. Partly due to the original story getting on the [http://www.ursamajorawards.org/RL2007.htm 2007 Ursa Major Recommended Anthropomorphics Short Fiction] list. Thanks to whoever nominated me. The setting page can be accessed via the above link.

For a full story and related-page listing, please see the '''[[:Category:Paradise|Paradise Category]]'''.

*'''[[User:JonBuck/A Kind of Paradise|A Kind of Paradise]]''' (2007)
:This is just fluff. It's been at least two months since I wrote anything, and I just need to loosen up a bit. Plot is optional, and probably nonexistent. However, it still turned out well. I'm going to have to continue it sometime soon. I've created a page with setting notes at '''[[Paradise (Setting)]]'''. The story generated enough interest to open it up. The basic rules are in place.

*'''[[User:JonBuck/Tall Tales|Tall Tales]]''' (2008)
:I actually started this story before [[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] and [[User:MatthiasRat|Matthias]] started their series. But it's more or less required reading for Paradise authors, since there are a lot of Important Events.

*'''[[User:JonBuck/Open Secrets|Open Secrets]]''' (2008)
:The next Paradise story. I thought I'd take a different tack with this one. This story went on hiatus for quite some time, since Real Life events were sadly outpacing(!) the oil prices originally depicted when I started this story in February. They hit $148 a barrel in July, then crashed as the economy did, reaching a low of about $34 in mid-December. I may change the story to reflect this some, but ''this story is essentially complete.''

*'''[[User:JonBuck/After Hours|After Hours]]''' (2009)
:It's been a while since I wrote very much. I've had to reread some Paradise stories to get back into the groove again. This story was inspired in part by art from Kacey. [http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2132032/ Here is the art on FurAffinity]. In order to view you will need an account there. Not safe for work.

*'''[[User:JonBuck/Family Tree|Family Tree]]''' (2009)
:Re-adding this after the Great Crash.

*'''[[User:JonBuck/Travelers|Travelers]]''' (2012) '''Added 02/08/2012'''
:Completed after the Great Writer's Block of 2011.

*'''[[User:JonBuck/Outsider|Outsider]]''' (2012) '''Added 02/17/2012'''
:Completed after the Great Writer's Block of 2011. Another quickie with a different take.

===Be Human===

I credit Yoko Kanno with pushing me to actually find a decent name for this setting. It's a song title from the [http://www.jameswong.com/ykproject/disc/disc.php?cd=gits_behuman ''Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Be Human''] compilation. I'll have another look at this series soon. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 09:38, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

*'''[[Escape]]'''(2007)
:My ideas start with quickies, but always snowball into something bigger. This storylet was inspired by a dream I had. All the main imagery is there.

*'''[[Window of Opportunity]]''' (2007)

:Second in the series, Jason has to adapt to a very changed life, and realizes that without acting, things will go from bad to worse.

*'''[[Consolidation]]''' (2007)
:Next story in the series.

=={{separator|f|Middle Works - 2000 to 2003}}==

*'''[[Actaeon Reborn]]'''[[Image:Star.png|20px]] [[Image:Book with bookmark.png|20px]] (2000)
:This is the first story (novella) I wrote that really felt professional to me. ended up submitting it to a couple of online magazines, but nothing ever came of it. So up it goes here.

*'''[[Arms and Armor]]''' (2001)
:A graduate student finds that there is still old magic lurking about in interesting places.

*'''[[Braggart]]''' (2001 or so)
:A lot of my stories are evoked by an image. The idea of a Greek god, roving around in a pimped up car, struck me as really funny. So I wondered just what kind of mischief he could get into.
:This is not one of my best stories. It just sort of ends. It's also shorter than usual for me.

*'''[[Hunter's Moon]]''' [[Image:Magnifying glass.png|20px]](2003)
:Another quickie. Basically, I was thinking about how a weredeer might communicate his or her condition, since deer are not known for biting people. This is what I came up with. And it's no fun for the weredeer.

*'''[[Sentinel]]''' (2002 or 2003)
:I have quite a few stand-alone stories. Putting them up on Shifti has made me look through my folders for the first time in years. There's a lot of stuff that I've forgotten about. This one was inspired by a friend's interest in Napoleonic Europe. It also sort-of takes place in the same setting as Actaeon Reborn above.

*'''[[The Sigh of Wind]]'''[[Image:Magnifying glass.png|20px]] (2000)
:Sometimes I get in a mystical mood, and this story is the direct result. I think I managed to capture the feeling just right. I still think the results are a little pretentious. But I did [http://us-p.vclart.net/vcl/Artists/Sara-Palmer/DeerX2C.jpg get some neat art out of it.]

=={{separator|f|Early Works - 1996 to 1999}}==

In this section will go stories that I wrote prior to 2000. This has a number of caveats. Mainly that as I've matured as a writer, my writing style has also grown and improved. Improved ''a lot.'' In most cases I haven't read ''any'' of these in at least five years and more. All errors in grammar, spelling, and general story structure are therefore unchanged. Caveat emptor.

*'''[[Dragonsbane]]''' [[Image:Book with bookmark.png|20px]](1998)
:A lot of stories of mine are inspired by dreams. This dream grabbed me so hard, with such clear imagery, I rolled out of bed at 3am and started writing. It also spawned an unfinished sequel, which I intended as a novel from the start. But it never quite came to be. This is also one of my earlier works. So I had a great deal of enthusiasm when writing it, but not a whole lot of skill to bring it to fruition.

*'''[[The Long Shadow]]''' [[Image:Book with bookmark.png|20px]](1999)
:This turned into my first real attempt at novel-level worldbuilding. The next story in this setting, Fallen Gods, I first started writing when I started at the university that fall. I toted a notepad to all my classes and jotted down ideas and notations. I still have that notepad around somewhere (I'll have to find it). I also used Photoshop to create maps of the European-analogue. I won't be posting ''Fallen Gods'' here, as I hope to sell it. But this is a prototype novella, about 250k.

===Echoes===
*'''[[Titanic]]''' [[Image:Book with bookmark.png|20px]](1996)
:This story is one of my earliest works. It also comes from a time when I was ''Titanic'' geek. I devoured just about everything about the ship, its passengers, and everything else. The genesis of this setting was my job at the time (working for a small retail store), my boss had come back from an Alaska cruise. I was also less settled on the species I "am" now, and whales and dolphins were much more in my imagination. So, here it is, in all its bombast and pretension.

:It's also the first story I wrote that started a trend for what amounts to historical fantasy-fiction. I've pretty much stayed there ever since.

:'''Warning: Story takes place in First Person perspective, yet has three main characters.''' This was an early experiment of mine. I really didn't know what I was doing. Can you tell?

:But the important thing is that I was having a ''lot'' of fun.

*'''[[Echoes]]''' [[Image:Book with bookmark.png|20px]][[Image:Star.png|20px]](1998)
:I suppose I could call this a seminal work. It's a sort-of sequel to Titanic. Actually, not so much. A lot of the story takes place ''concurrently to'' "Titanic". It's also an early piece of worldbuilding. I've always liked the idea of reincarnation for some reason, since I was a child. This story had multiple sources of inspiration. One of which is, actually, the movie that came out in late 1997. Which I saw twice.
:I really made an effort at historical accuracy here. The story is about two brothers, one of whom dies at the Battle of Shiloh...

===[[:Category:Winds of Change|Winds of Change]]===
:There is already an [http://xepher.net/~woc-archive/ external archive to these stories] and this setting, so I'm not going to post too many of these here due to time constraints.

*'''[http://xepher.net/~woc-archive/wocall.htm#woc Winds of Change]''' (My first story, 1996)
:What can I say about WoC?
:Somehow it's ended up far more popular than I really know how to deal with. It's been a huge benefit to my life. I gained all sorts of friends through this one story.
:It really started in the summer of 1996, when I joined the TSA-Talk mailing list about a month after its creation. At the time it was a fast-growing community, certainly the first of its kind in the transformation genre on the internet. The stories and quickies were flying fast and furious, so in May I posted a short-short titled "A Picture is Worth 1000 Changes", after I saw ''Twister'' in the theatre. I combined it with my new photography hobby, at least to give the main character something to do.
:I intended it as a shared setting to begin with, and I had stopped at Part 3. Then I got something I never, ever expected. ''People liked reading it!'' Holy crap! Parts 4 and 5 (about ten pages each) were written in two days. The floodgates opened, and they've never closed since.
:But still, I can't look back at WoC and not see all the flaws in my writing. I haven't really looked at it since 1999 or so. There's even an unfinished sequel that will remain a dead end. Oh well.

*'''[http://xepher.net/~woc-archive/stories/teenthng.htm A Teen Thing]''' (My second, 1996)
:Oh boy, what to say about this one? I remember the idea came from one the endless email exchanges between me and my friend [[User:Eirik|Eirik]]. We did a lot of that in those days. I'd write some little bit of dialogue at the end of the message, he'd respond with something else. Sort of a micro-Round Robin.

:I was also still BIG into velociraptors. It wasn't until I decided to literally roll-for-species while creating a self-based character for the Great Round Robin that I got into deer, then things snowballed from there. But that's another story.

:This one is mostly a kind of authorial catharsis. I was a year out of high school in 1996, so it was still fresh in my mind.

*'''[[Be Prepared]]''' (1997 or 1998)
:A collaborative work with [[User:Eirik|Eirik]]. The main characters are a Boy Scout troop out in the wilderness when the Change hits.

*'''[[Rush Hour]]''' [[Image:Magnifying glass.png|20px]] (1997)
:A quickie. I wondered: What would happen to people stuck in rush hour traffic during the Change?

=={{separator|f|The Unfinished}}==

[[Image:Clock stopped.png|center|40px]]

These are stories that, for one reason or another, ground to a halt. No further updates are expected here, but since I had originally posted these to TSA-Talk but never completed them, I still wanted some kind of record. It's also a sort of offsite backup.

One of my flaws as a writer is that, more often than not, I don't have a plot planned out from beginning to end. I come up with scenes and characters and only a general direction, if that much. This means my stuff tends to ramble a bit. And I have written myself into a corner on numerous occasions.

Posting these stories here has generated some interest. These stories do have a ''slim'' chance at being finished. Stories I'm presently working on take precedence, but I've always hated that I've left these particular stories unfinished.

*'''[[Exile's Road]]''' (2002)
:This story is a variation on the type of transformation used in [[Colony]]. That the land itself is a conscious, sentient thing that twists and changes the humans in it.

*'''[[User:JonBuck/Life Could be a Dream|Life Could be a Dream]]''' (2006)
:Another dream-inspired transgender story, though the dream itself is many years older. The impetus to actually write a story that used this particular plot device came after seeing Pixar's ''Cars'' in the theater, which used the classic rock song in the movie. This is going in the Unfinished category because I had more ideas after it hit the "end". See Author's Notes.

*'''[[Thesis]]''' (2003)
:A '''Wisp-touched''' story. Doppelganger from [[The Limelight]] was actually created here.

*'''[[Voyages]]''' (2005)
:An abortive attempt at a Science Fiction story but I hadn't really done one since WoC. Some of the technology depicted, especially the FTL, was shamelessly stolen from the anime series [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw_Star Outlaw Star].

*'''[[Consolidation]]''' (2007)
:The setting has a name now (Be Human) but this story isn't any closer to being finished.

*'''[[Tradition]]''' (2007) [[Image:Book with bookmark.png|20px]][[Image:Triple_X.png|20px]]
:This story was inspired by a vivid dream. The first section is essentially the dream itself. This is a transgender story. There will be no furry or animal transformations. And the normal caveats apply--I hope a plot turns up soon. I'll put up the first section here once it's posted to TSA-Talk.
:I'm also doing something here that I've never really done before. I'm trying to write this story from the POV of both characters, one of which is a female-to-male TG. This is proving to be a challenge, because I have to put myself in her place. I think it's working out so far.
:Given how long this story has been stopped, it's going into The Unfinished because I doubt I'll ever get back to it. But I still like the concept and will likely harvest it for other stories.

*'''[[User:JonBuck/Cammy|Cammy]]''' (2009)
:This is a SciFi story I've started working on. It seems I have enough of a Plot that I feel confident of finishing it. It's also TG (at least at first). A lot of the setting mechanics are based on a combination of GURPS and Mass Effect. Not really original, but hey. It's also more Space Opera than hard SciFi, but what can you do?

*'''[[User:JonBuck/Changing America|Changing America]]''' (2009)
:This story follows After Hours, and uses the same characters. I'll reveal no spoilers in this summary. I hope it'll work as a standalone in the end, though. I'm trying to write it that way.

*'''[[User:JonBuck/Eve's Apple|Eve's Apple]]''' (2008)[[Image:Book with bookmark.png|20px]]
:I've gotten enough of a start on this one that I'm going to start posting it here. This is a TG story. It's in a stock magic-technology setting that I use when I'm feeling lazy and don't want to create a whole new world out of whole cloth. :) Title is provisional.

*'''[[User:JonBuck/Forgotten Hotel|Forgotten Hotel, Chapters 1-5]]'''
*'''[[User:JonBuck/Forgotten Hotel, Part 2|Forgotten Hotel, Chapters 6-current]]'''[[Image:Book with bookmark.png|20px]] (2007)
:I've decided to post this still-incomplete story here as a reference. I've had some difficulty lately keeping it going, though I think it'll be coming to an end soon. The setting was inspired by James Lileks's [http://www.lileks.com/motels The American Motel] web site. Specifically, [http://www.lileks.com/motels/WY/index.html this postcard.] I started writing it last July, so it's been a while. Both TF, furry, and TG are included. Say a prayer for the commercial man...
:''Story split up to avoid problems with the Shifti database.''

{{author page|Jon Buck}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:JonBuck}}

Talk:Current events

2014-09-19T02:15:14Z

2014-07-08T02:08:41Z

JonBuck:

{{Universe|FreeRIDErs}}
{{DEFAULTSORT: Integration Part 1: All-Nighter}}

=Integration=

by [[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]] and [[User:Robotech Master|Robotech Master]]

==Part I: All-Nighter==

''July 11, 156 A.L.''

''Terrania Enclave''

Aaron breathed deeply of the cool, invigorating mountain air. There was just a hint of horse in the breeze, but not unpleasantly so. Compared to the underground Enclave where Aaron Stinson made his home, the open-air Enclave of Terrania was relaxing. Jurassic Park was a prehistoric jungle, and meme-infected up the wazoo. The front gates were exact replicas from the movies, and the theme always played upon entering, with John Hammond’s bombastic declaration of welcome. It got old after a while. ''Like about five minutes.''

On the other talon, Terrania was a non-franchise-specific medieval town with a grey stone castle in the center, surrounded by nearly impenetrable forest. No climate dome was needed thanks to its location in the more temperate Coastal Ring, but this place even lacked a camouflage dome. Instead, the unicorns and other mythicals had hacked the planetary satellite network to simply look away and ZPS guidance to route fliers seamlessly around it. There didn’t seem to be any memes infecting the locals, at least ''overtly''. Aaron hadn’t seen any worrying marks on the rumps of any unicorns, pegasi, or just plain horses.

With him at the gazebo table were Leah Sheryl Daye, one of Terrania’s residents, and Paulie, a visitor from Towers, the oldest Integrate Enclave.

“So, how are things at the Park these days, Aaron?” Leah picked up her porcelain cup of Earl Gray tea, properly, without using lifter fields. The cup was specially made for equine lips, as Leah was an Integrate unicorn. She had white fur, a long golden mane, bright blue eyes, and a small, curved golden horn poking out of her equine forehead. She wore a simple gold dress that matched her hair and horn, slit up the side to reveal a finely-shaped leg. Leah sipped very little of the hot liquid before putting it down again. “News has been scanty from many Enclaves for weeks.”

“We’ve had a lot to think about lately, Leah,” Aaron replied. He was a yellow-and-brown feathered dinosaur with scythe claws on his feet and a half-displayed yellow crest atop his head. The Integrate had a friendly expression despite the dagger-like teeth. Circular hardlight lenses on his tail flickered at idle as he held his own cuppa with pinky finger out. That only left two fingers and his thumb to grasp the teacup. It looked quite fragile, but thanks to Integrate advances in ceramics it was actually more durable than the armor plating on modern military RIDEs. ''Just another one of those things we can’t share with our human and RIDE brethren yet,'' Aaron thought gloomily. Aloud, he continued, “Towers and all that. Controversy just won’t die down. Nobody ''quite'' knows what Fritz and his cronies will do. He ''could'' decide to rebuild the Snatchers.”

“I’m afraid I’m only going to throw more gasoline on the fire,” Paulie said. His RIDE half had been a griffin based on a barn owl and a cougar, and the Integration had given the combined being an inherently spooky expression. “The Towers Council expelled Brena yesterday after she refused to concede the recall election.”

“Well, that was fast,” Leah said. “She only got elected, what, three months ago? Practically as soon as she had Integrated herself? How did that even happen?”

“It was a favor to Fritz,” the barn owl griffin said. “In the hope that paying the Danegeld would placate the Dane, I suppose. But that’s not the way Fritz operates. Give him a centimeter, and he’ll take the whole meter stick.”

“Even Camelot is having some problems with Fritz sympathizers,” Leah said. “But Fritz holds some kind of influence over their Alpha Camp protectorate, so they’re not willing to push him either.”

“You used to be one of his Snatchers, didn’t you?” Aaron asked.

“I used to be his ''chief'' Snatcher,” Paulie said. “For the last couple of years before the end, anyway. Never liked it. Didn’t think it was the right way of doing things anymore, and it felt as though Fritz had been slowly losing his marbles ever since that damnable Olympos affair. So I undermined the whole organization and ‘resigned,’ in a rather public way. I fear I damaged Fritz’s reputation still further by standing up to him as I did. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, but we simply needed to move past him. Someone had to do it.”

“How did Fritz ever become so powerful, anyway?” Aaron wondered. “I’ve been an Integrate for four years now, but no one has ever given me a straight answer.”

“I suppose at first we were simply in awe of him,” Paulie said. “The First Among Equals and all that jazz. But then, there weren’t that many of us. As we’ve grown in numbers I suppose he’s been…diluted.”

“''You'' certainly put him in his place,” Leah said to the former Snatcher.

“I’d like to hear more about that,” Aaron said. “After a little more early history. Is it true he was the ‘first’ Integrate?”

“Yes, that’s true,” Leah said.

“We went from awe, to terrified awe as the years passed, to just plain ''terrified'',” Paulie said. The barn owl griffin mantled his wings. “I’m sure you’ve heard rumors of his offensive capabilities. If anything, they’re understating what he can do. Arm cannon as powerful as a battleship gun. A monomolecular knife that will cut you into pieces even through your shields. And a bad attitude that makes a wolverine look cheerful and well-adjusted. All wrapped up in that corny Beatnik schtick, which makes you underestimate him so you never see him coming.” He sipped at his own tea before continuing. “Not to mention, he still has plenty of followers. More in some Enclaves than others. He’s weakest around the Towers and out this way, but don’t count him out. He still has the Enclaves around the Coffeehouse and down near Punta Sur in his back pocket.”

“So, how did you beat him?” Aaron said.

“Guile, mostly,” Paulie said. “And a few risky self-upgrades.” He shook his head. “Even then, I’m still not so sure I ‘beat’ him. Not really. I halfway suspect he just decided I wasn’t worth the hassle. He disbanded the Snatchers after that.”

Conversation paused for more tea and biscuits and some fast-time reflection. Aaron looked up at Zharus’s sun, Pharos, moving towards midday. He loved Terrania for its openness, for the cool forests, and the fact that it was the closest Enclave to his own Jurassic Park. He had spent enough time here that he had come to know Leah rather well. “So, we’ve been thinking of going public,” Aaron said offhandedly.

Leah dropped her biscotti. “What? Seriously?”

“After what happened at Towers the cat’s just about out of the bag anyway. So we’ve decided we’re tired of sitting on our tails, twiddling our thumbs or other sundry digits. We have ''so much'' to contribute to the rest of civilization,” Aaron said, gesturing with his teacup. “And if Fritz has lost so much of his power base that he can’t even force a group-Integration anymore, we’re not going to get a better chance.”

“Towers feels the same way. Has for some time, which is why Fritz wanted one of his toadies on the Council,” Paulie said. He took a thoughtful sip of his tea. “But I…I’m not so sure. Neither of you were around when Fritz was at his peak. People seem to regard him now like Hitler was considered in the late 20th: short, ineffectual, funny mustache…in other words, a joke. But just as with Hitler, there were reasons and ''reasons'' he ascended to power so readily and held onto it for decades. He always plays the long game. It might be one thing to ''seem'' to let Integrate society go its own way for a while without any obvious tug at the reins, but let things get too far out of hand…”

A chill seemed to settle over the gathering. “We can’t let that stop us, though,” Aaron said. “Not if there’s even a chance…”

“Oh, I know, I know,” Paulie said. “I’m probably just growing conservative in my old age—I was no spring chicken when I Integrated, you know, even by modern standards. The future belongs to you young folks, and you should be the ones to decide where you want to go with it. But to bring Integrates out in the open, I think you’re going to need something more than a desire from within. You need a catalyst—someone the Integrate world ''and'' the human world will notice.” He chuckled. “And as it happens, I believe I might just have one for you.” He nodded to Leah. “There’s a reason I came to meet with you on such short notice, and it wasn’t just to enjoy your delicious tea.”

Leah raised an eyebrow. “I assume this has something to do with why we’ve also had Quinoa Steader inflicted upon us?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m just glad she doesn’t care for tea. Tea and annoyance don’t go well together.”

“As it happens, it does,” Paulie said, chuckling. “The watchers in Uplift have detected a new Integrate. His identity has been confirmed as a known associate of one of the people Quinoa brought out to the Towers. And based on what we know of this fellow, I have a sneaking suspicion he’s not going to be the sort to toddle quietly off to an Enclave…”

{{separator|k}}

Covered in grease, Rhianna Stonegate took a break from crawling inside the engine service compartment in the old Deuce skimmer. It was the replacement for the one the Nextus military had slagged in the Dry and even older than the destroyed one. But after what Nextus jokingly called its payment for services rendered and until the insurance on the old one came through, it was about all she could afford. It needed a lot of work, but before she could even get started the antiquated turbine powerplant needed ripping out, along with its fuel tanks. Kaylee had already designed the replacement sarium battery pack. With the new tech replacing the old, they’d nearly double the classic skimmer’s cargo space and triple its lifting capacity.

She rested beneath the behemoth turbine, unwilling to squeeze herself through the tight space to get out again. The ceiling-mounted crane had the old turbine in its firm grasp, but the corroded mounting bolts needed a little nanolathe help to release before it could come out.'' :Sat in the middle of a Dry Ocean junkyard for forty years and'' still'' managed to rust solid. I’m going to have to just cut these mounts,:'' she sent to Kaylee.

'':Company, Rhianna,:'' her RIDE replied through Rhianna’s implant, sending a camera feed along with her voice.

“Hello the garage! Hello!” Myla Wilson’s voice came from the entrance.

“I’m over here, Myla!” Rhianna shouted back, folding her arms under her bosom. She heard the sound of boots on the skimmer’s stubby wings. The fennec-eared woman looked inside the engine compartment. Rhianna smiled warmly. “You’re looking well. Qixi treating you right?”

“She’s going to start my training tomorrow. I just got into town today,” the former Nextus officer said. She was holding a cardboard box under her arm. “I’m just sorry I wasn’t here for your crossing-over party, but… I’ve been busy. Here, I have the traditional gift from a born-woman to a crossed-over one.”

“I’ll add it to the dozen or so other boxes of tampons I’ll never use,” Rhianna said good-naturedly. They were mostly gifts from friendly, good-humored customers. From the other crossriders, a year’s worth of “No Periods, Period” nano-treatments made them unnecessary, but tradition was tradition. Happily, Zharus being what it was, she could always re-gift them to other crossriders later. There was a running joke that only a couple of thousand boxes of tampons had been fabbed on Zharus in the last thirty years, and they all just kept getting passed around. “Do you need a place to live?”

“You offering?” the former Nextus officer asked eagerly. She was about the same height as Rhianna, with a slightly slimmer build, and sand-colored hair that matched her fennec RIDE, Sophie. The huge fox padded in behind her with the mechanic’s tawny lynx, Kaylee. “I guess I need one for a while. I don’t want to impose.”

“No problem at all, Myla. After what we’ve been through it’s the right thing to do.” Deciding there was no help for it, Rhianna squeezed herself between the turbine and the edge of the open compartment. Three weeks ago this would have been no problem. But then she hadn’t been the full-figured woman she now was. She endured the scrape-and-squeeze with only a little grimace. A little grease-b-gone nanite lotion cleaned her hands, then she had her jumpsuit go through a self-cleaning cycle as well. The grease simply sloughed off, carried into the garage’s recycling drain.

Kaylee padded up next to her and gave her now-clean partner an affectionate headbump underneath her breasts. “I can still bring those in a cup size if you want,” she said. “I sort of got carried away.”

“No, I’m fine with them this way. There’s just all these little things that really nag at me. After a while it’s always the tiny differences you notice more. At any rate, I’m glad I live in Uplift and not, oh, Sturmhaven, Burnside, Nuevo San Antonio—”

“Or Nextus,” Myla added matter-of-factly, folding her arms across her chest, giving the newly-female mechanic an appraising look. “They look good on you, Rhianna. Kaylee did an expert job on the bio-sculpt. The combat nannies I gave you might have helped with that, I hope.”

“No maybes there. Made the whole process smooth,” Kaylee added. She and Sophie looked like they were deep in conversation in the sideband communication the RIDEs had access to. The way the fennec mech’s huge ears were drooping the RIDE looked very depressed. “Partner, I’m going to take Sophie here up to see Shelley. When they discharged her the Service took a chainsaw to her memory banks when they needed a scalpel. Almost worse than they did with me. She needs a defragment and some reconstruction.”

“You don’t need to ask, Kaylee. Go ahead,” Rhianna said.

“I can’t pay for that,” Myla said, alarmed. “I can barely afford to keep myself fed and Sophie’s batteries charged until I get my first paycheck, and Qixi gave me half of'' that'' for a loan at ten percent interest.”

“Look, don’t worry about us getting paid. The nice thing about being your own boss is that you can choose to use your Mad Skillz ''pro bono'' if you feel like it. And I know how much it cost you for you to buy Sophie from your former bosses.” Rhianna knew this would be the case. The circumstances around Myla losing her MRS commission were harrowing and complicated. A couple missives from Myla had hinted at something akin to a procedural Court Martial and dishonorable discharge.

Myla and her partner radiated desperation. The RIDE emancipation organization Rhianna had recommended hadn’t completely paid the difference of Sophie’s purchase price from what Myla had already saved. “Her generosity only stretched so far,” Myla grumbled. “Why do you think I jumped at your offer?”

“Yeah. That’s the Qixi Wolfwood we all know and love,” Kaylee said dryly. “She stiffed us on that job offer she gave us, you know. She wanted too much—a seventy-thirty split in'' her'' favor. Yeah, right! Rhianna should’ve sent her a bill for the fix to that sub.

“If you’re hungry there’s a Proximan seafood place at the food court down the street. We were just about to head to lunch, in fact.” She looked appraisingly at Rhianna. “You need a break, boss,” the mecha lynx said pointedly. “Stress, stress, stress all the time isn’t good for a new woman’s healthy homeostasis.”

Ever since their first Active-mode Fuse—the one that had made Ryan into Rhianna—the two of them were more closely linked than ever, with Kaylee monitoring her partner’s vital signs a little too close for comfort. “Yes, mother,” she said, tossing a rag at the cat. She looked back at Myla. “Feel like a short skimmer trip? I don’t feel like walking. Kaylee?”

“Sure, boss. Back in a few.” Kaylee took Myla’s partner to Shelley’s part of the garage.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Myla asked. “Skimmers or RIDEs that need fixing?”

“I had the afternoon off anyway for this salvage skimmer project of mine. Shelley’s fully bought in now, herself. But I’m boring you with details. As soon as my kitty gets back, food, food, food.” Rhianna rubbed her hands together, provoking a bark of laughter from Myla. “What?”

The fennec-eared woman covered her mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just that with that feline nose and tufted ears of yours, you’re'' adorable'' when you do that. You should hear what you sound like.”

''I know what I sound like, and I don’t like it much,'' Rhianna thought, looking at Kaylee as she returned. The lynx padded into the center of the garage, then unfolded into a small ex-military skimmer-cycle in desert camouflage. Unlike many RIDEs, due to Kaylee’s thirty-year age her vehicle form looked much less animal-like aside from the catseye headlights. She was one of the first RIDEs produced for the Nextus military.

“Okay, now I’m'' sure'' Kaylee was my aunt’s partner when she was in the Service,” Myla said, eyes widening, voice heavy with nostalgia. “Do you remember me at all, Kaylee?”

“I… don’t know, Myla. My early memory blocks are still pretty scrambled. Not even Shelley’s been able to recover all of them. I think your aunt and I were involved in some pretty high-level stuff back then,” the skimmer-mode RIDE said.

The former officer nodded, fully immersed in her memories now. “That fits with what I know about her. She—she and ''you,'' I mean—had spent time in the regular Army and then the MRS. It’s just that I’m a little disappointed they even excised the time Aunt Anny took me for ice cream on you. Do you still have those neat old-style helmet projectors?”

“She does, but only because I restored them. She was pretty parted out when I got her,” Rhianna said, feeling some nostalgia herself, resting one hand on Kaylee’s handlebars. The RI had been traumatized by something she had no memory of, just the emotional echoes. “Not even her shell, no paws, no tail. Missing a lot of critical parts. I don’t know'' what'' could have happened that turned her into a RIDE they cannibalized for parts without transferring her RI core to a new body. Nextus folks don’t normally waste experienced workers like that, human or not. There’s got to be a story there, but Kaylee doesn’t remember.”

Myla looked thoughtful. “You know, why don’t we get in touch with my Aunt Anny later? Would you like that, Kaylee?”

The RIDE hesitated a little. “Sure. I’d like that. Thanks.”

Rhianna mounted, Myla squeezing behind her on the pillion seat, putting her arms around the mechanic’s waist. Myla Wilson had a child-like smile on her face, making Rhianna break into a grin also. She manually toggled Kaylee’s lifters; the antigrav started with a thunderous growl as the skimmer rose a meter over the garage floor. The sound quickly faded as the lifters spun up.

“Those aren’t her original lifters, are they?” Myla asked as the noise quieted. “The old ones did that, but…”

“Simulated for authenticity,” Kaylee said cheerfully. “Aeroshell up, and don’t forget your helmets, ladies.” The emitters on the instrument panel flickered, materializing an old-fashioned open-faced MRS helmet—minus the logo—on each of them. The helmets themselves were symbolic more than anything. Open skimmers had long used hardlight shields to protect their riders from the elements and collisions. Since Kaylee could reach almost four hundred kilometers per hour they were a necessity. At speed a rider wouldn’t feel so much as a light breeze. “Nice to see a smile on your face, Myla,” the RIDE continued.

“I just can’t help it,” Myla said. “I feel like a little girl again.”

“Then what say we skip lunch and go right to the ice cream?” Rhianna suggested on a hunch. “I know this great place downtown that sells the real stuff. Imported Laurasian milk from the Grand Valley. That is, if ‘mother’ here approves.” She tapped Kaylee’s engine compartment with the side of her boot.

“Just this once,” Kaylee said in her best motherly tone.'' :Let’s take the long way around on our way back. Our new arrival needs a tour,:'' she said to Rhianna privately.

'':Great idea!:''

The polis of Uplift had grown organically from a research outpost founded by Dr. Roberto Martinez, a Laurasian geologist who had made the study of the Dry Ocean his life’s work. Martinez hadn’t worked alone, always having a group of fellow researchers and graduate students with him. Even that early on the nascent city had a hardlight dome for climate control and protecting against solar storms. The supercontinent’s thin-to-nonexistent magnetic field left it vulnerable to coronal mass ejections, leaving radio communication unviable. The Dome had changed all that, deserving the capital letter it got, and had simply been expanded upon as the city grew.

The ice cream place was in Bifrost Park, where the last functioning example of the original house-sized Dome emitters sat at the center, surrounded by trees, fountains, and grass. Unlike modern units, this one projected what the Tourism Board called a “Fountain of Light” that really lived up to the claim. It was a sparkling, shifting rainbow fountain that rose three kilometers to reinforce the Dome itself. The hemispherical emitter had four crystalline prongs on the top from which the hardlight fountain sprang. The park was busy, full of children, local workers, Walker-mode RIDES, and Fused people. Myla got a plain vanilla cone while Rhianna Fused with Kaylee and got a Fuser-sized three-scoop bowl of Death by Chocolate.

“She’s a very naughty girl,” Kaylee said between sandy-tongue licks. “But she’s got the best taste buds around.”

“These combat nannies need an extra helping of chocolate for proper operation. It’s what they like best,” Rhianna added, smirking with Kaylee’s feline lips.

Myla laughed, having licked her own ice cream down the the waffle cone. “Thanks for this. I really needed some cheering up. The last three weeks have been just sheer ''hell''. And… hey! Just got a call. Sophie’s on her way, says not to leave her out of the ice cream party. She sounds a lot better, too. This partner of yours works fast.”

“Well, when she gets here, do you fancy a skimmer tour around your new home? We’re not quite as organized as Nextus in our layout. We’re more like Old Boston on Earth.”

“Never been to Earth,” Myla said. She bit into the cone, chewed, then swallowed. “I’d love to visit someday, but it’s still a couple year’s round trip travel. Then I’d have to spend another year touring the planet to make it worth it. Tiny planet, though. No wonder humans had to leave it.”

“Lord knows I haven’t looked back,” Rhianna said. “It’s just a husk now, even after maybe half the peak population left for the Colonies over the past three centuries. There was some kind of controversy about ‘terraforming’ the homeworld in the UE Senate about the time I left—what, almost eight years ago now? Including the time on the ship. You can imagine the uproar over even suggesting it.”

“Well, that’s why Earth sent so many people here, wasn’t it? We were very far away, especially at sublight speeds, but good old Zharus didn’t need much terraforming, is biochemically compatible, and has no native aliens so there’s no moral dilemma. Perfect, except for distance. That’s why we have over three'' billion'' here and the other eight Colonies combined just barely match us. They kept sending fleet after fleet even before Landing!”

Rhianna was delighted to find someone as interested in her new homeworld’s history as she was. The whole story was incredible. A habitable super-Earth almost twenty light-years from the origin world found by a probe moving at half the speed of light. The first Colonization Fleet had almost ten million people in coldsleep on a journey of thirty-five years at sublight—with even larger fleets sent at five-year intervals—a huge risk that had paid off handsomely for crowded Earth and the Zharusians themselves.

Sophie announced her arrival by doing a boosted forward-flip while changing into Walker form and landing softly in front of her partner. Myla embraced her. “That’s my girl! Glad you’re feeling better.”

“Oh,'' so much,''” the mecha fennec said, her hardlight fur almost twitching with excitement and relief. “Rochelle is soooo good! The holes are still there, but I feel like myself again. Can we Fuse up and get another ice cream? I can almost'' taste'' it.” She sniffed Rhianna-Kaylee’s nearly empty bowl. “And I’ll have what she’s having.”

Their first stop after ice cream was Martinez Memorial University, which contained the original tiny research station near the edge of the continental shelf, now part of a larger museum to Martinez’s work and Dry Ocean mining. Until someone finally made qubitite into a very valuable commodity, it was just a research station. The sarium batteries and RI cores that now underpinned the vehicle and RIDE technology on Zharus were'' made'' from it. Since the Q Rush, starting in 112 After Landing, the modern city exploded from an outpost of a few hundred academics, engineers, prospectors, and support staff to its current form.

Before she knew it, Rhianna had new friends—two, really, counting Sophie. She hadn’t expected this on meeting the brusque Nextus tax agent for that desert salvage job—it felt like years ago now, not just a few weeks—but there was actually a warm personality beneath the bureaucratic shell. An afternoon of sightseeing and trying to cheer up a woman who had recently had so much stress and heartbreak made Rhianna feel good. Whether that was new feminine empathy or just being a good person didn’t really matter. They did do a few stereotypically girly activities like linger in a few jewelry shops, check out a couple clothing stores, and hang out in the city’s more touristy spots where people who'' were'' from Earth could gawk at their RIDEs and themselves when Fused.

Uplift was a city of over fifteen million, counting the suburbs in their own smaller climate domes. It was actually one of the smallest polities on Gondwana because it was a little more expensive than most, even Nextus. The Dome Maintenance Tax accounted for that, but the pleasant climate it created was worth every penny-unit, in the mechanic’s view. Seen from space there were multiple Domes, connected together like so many soap bubbles tens-of-kilometers wide aligned north-south between the mountains and the drop off into the Dry Ocean proper.

Their last activity after an afternoon of fun was a ride along the Sunset Skimmerway just outside the Dome. They flew along side-by-side as the sun went down over the Dry Ocean hardpan and the one-kilometer drop just to their right. Kaylee had some trouble keeping up with the much newer fennec RIDE, but put up a good fight.

'':You know, I think I do remember you now, Myla,:'' Kaylee sent to her.

'':Oh? That’s good to hear! What do you remember?:'' she replied.

The mecha lynx stayed silent while sharing the memory with her rider, who was trying not to laugh. “Sure you want to know?” Rhianna said over laser link.

“Do I? Yes!”

'':You probably don’t remember on purpose. It was your very first ride. You were maybe five or six years old. When your aunt got up to about one-fifty, you, uh… peed your pants.:''

The silence was golden. Then Myla laughed so loudly Rhianna had to turn her volume down.

Rhianna received a text message waiting for her as they re-entered the Dome. Radio worked just fine on the inside.'' :Hm. Haven’t heard from Zane in a while.:'' she thought.

'':He’s been busy running one of the largest mining companies on Zharus,:'' Kaylee said.'' :I don’t think he even knows you crossed over, unless he’s heard something in the local rumor mill.:''

'':I’ve been meaning to tell him and Terry about what happened this summer. I still can’t believe it myself,:'' Rhianna replied.

The message simply read:'' Can I meet you at the garage after hours?''

“That’s funny,” Rhianna said, looking again. “The signature says it’s sent from his personal commpad. He usually sends these through Terry’s net link.”

“Who’s this you’re talking about?” Myla asked.

“Zane Brubeck. Owns a big mining company. Headquartered in that ten-story building you can see from the garage,” Kaylee said, pointing at it. The building itself was always open. Running the company was a 30/6 job and the employees set their own schedules. Some people never adapted to the planet’s 30-hour day.

“Wait,'' that'' Brubeck?”'' ''Myla said, incredulous. “The one that ripped his business out of Nextus a few months ago, after some of my colleagues all got bonuses from his paying more back taxes in one lump sum than an entire year’s worth? The one who delivered half of his own Board of Directors to the Marshals via an arranged bodyjacking? ''That ''one?''”''

“Bet you were really sorry to lose his company,” Rhianna said as they approached the Garage.

“Administration offered him all sorts of tax breaks to make sure Brubeck Mining stayed in Nextus, but he had nothing of it. Scuttlebutt is he even broke off ties with his own ''sister'' over it—she’s an Admin ‘crat in the Second Tier mining relations department.” Myla shook her head. “From what I heard, Clint Brubeck was the same kind of no-nonsense, salt-of-the-earth kind of guy his son apparently is. Thing is, Clint always paid his taxes. We never needed to visit him. That’s what made the company Board’s embezzlement so shocking. Probably explains why they were never audited either, come to think of it.”

'':Now Zane’s being all mysterious and mum about something. I’ll ping him back that the door will be open for him. We’ve got his biometric key,:'' Kaylee said. There was a short pause.'' :Er… nevermind. He said he’d rather not use biometrics.:''

“Does he think someone’s after him again?” Rhianna wondered.

'':We’ll find out in a sec. Home and home.:'' It was just before 2600 hours. There were still four hours left in the day, but Uplift was far enough north to get long daylight hours in summer. Sunset was barely past. Streetlights near the Garage cast pools of yellowish light around them, with a few neon signs from open restaurants and shops advertising their wares and services. Some wag had stuck a pink hardlight sign that said “Cross” over the “Free” part of “Freeriders Garage”. Rhianna hadn’t bothered to take it down yet because she still found it amusing. Between herself and her partner Rochelle Seaford (formerly Roger) it was pretty much spot-on.

The duo went to the loading dock around back where large deliveries were made. This was where, months ago, Zane had delivered his father’s non-functioning Intelligent Drive Extender (IDE), Chauncy, for Rhianna to work on. She saw the Fused tiger sitting on the edge of the loading dock next to his silver non-transforming skimmer, illuminated by the hardlight sign overhead.

He jumped up as soon as he saw them. “Rya—” He paused, then blinked. “…Ryan?” His voice sounded slightly off, but Rhianna couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

“‘Rhianna’ now. Long story. What’s going on?”

“You finally went Active? That’s'' great!'' K-Sp—ah, Kaylee, you must be so happy!” He grinned at her.

'':His voice is… odd. It’s like Terry’s and Zane’s got stuck in a blender. An’ he almost called me ‘K-Spared’. That’s ‘verry Terry.’:'' Kaylee said, switching directly from Skimmer to Fuser mode. Myla did the same thing with Sophie, but remained silent.

“It’s certainly a far cry from that time back in the garage…you remember? Right after Roger had gotten you booting, but hadn’t noticed you weren’t shutting down properly…”

Kaylee nodded, involuntarily recalling a set of memories she’d carefully kept hidden from Rhianna until now. Inside their shared feline shell, Rhianna grimaced, feeling the RI’s dance with near-insanity for the first time. It brought a lump to her throat.

Back when Ryan had first been rebuilding Kaylee, Terry had been racked up right next to her in the garage—it had been a lot smaller back then—halfway through the re-skinning that kid had gone into hock to pay for. She hadn’t had a working vocoder at that point, and hadn’t been able to tell anyone she wasn’t shutting down properly when they stopped work on her for the night. But Terry had noticed—and though his fetters wouldn’t let him say anything aloud, either, he could still talk to her on the RIDE-only machine-language sidebands. And they talked for hours.

She’d taken to calling herself “K-Spared” at that point—a pun on K Squared, the fact that she’d been used for spare parts, and the fact that she’d then been spared from being junked by Ryan buying her. She could hear everything that went on around her. She knew Ryan had no idea yet she was female, and she was scared, so desperately scared, that when he found out he wouldn’t want her anymore.'' :You can’t tell him!:'' she’d insisted to Terry, on the edge of hysteria.'' :Promise me you won’t tell him!:''

'':I promise,:'' Terry had said calmly.'' :Not like I can tell them anything anyway, or I’d have told them two nights ago you weren’t shutting down properly. But I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. Ryan doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d do something like that. Trust the man.:''

Not long after that, Roger had finally noticed Kaylee’s problem, cursed himself for over nine thousand different kinds of idiot, and spent three long days finalizing the personality defragment that recovered Kaylee’s personality and sanity to the greatest extent possible. (He’d gone entirely without sleep during that time save for a few long-compile-time naps, and had been a bit less than rational himself by the time he’d finished.) Of course, by then Terry had been picked up by the kid, and she’d heard later that he’d been repossessed, so he hadn’t gotten to learn the end of the story until the time a few months back when they’d caught up again. He’d been very concerned to hear that she was still going Passive when they Fused—more so than he’d let on to Zane or Ryan at the time. But she’d insisted she was happy with their partnership, and so Terry had let it be.

Rhianna was amazed, after integrating all these memories, to find that only about three seconds had passed.'' :I told you Active Fusing was amazing, didn’t I?:'' Kaylee said, her own inner voice a little unsteady itself from the recollection.

The new woman embraced her partner in virtual space.'' :I’m so, so sorry I didn’t do it sooner, Kaylee. What’s going on with Zane and Terry? I’m getting some oddly familiar readings from your sensors. That’s a hardlight shell he’s wearing, but not really a very good one.:''

Kaylee agreed.'' :I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re not in Laurasia anymore, Rhianna:''

“Er…I’m sorry,” Zane said. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. I’d just…Terry had just been so worried about you.” He stepped forward and hugged Kaylee and Rhianna. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

The Fused feline duo received a message and some telemetry from Sophie.'' :He’s—they’re—Integrated,:'' the fennec declared.'' :I’ve still got a better sensor suite than you do despite what they removed, Kaylee. He’s doing a very clumsy job—in my view—of maintaining it. It must have'' just ''happened. Must be taking a lot of concentration for him—them:''

'':Lordy Lord Lordy,:'' Kaylee said, virtually facepaw-ing.'' :That explains a lot. I keep trying to connect to Terry and I get nothing. He’s not radiating any comm signals either. It’s like he’s a hole in the network. That explains why he used a commpad for the text.:''

'':He’s obviously here for your help,:'' Myla added.

Rhianna took a deep breath. “Okay, Zane—and Terry. Or should I say ‘Zane slash Terry’? We’ve figured it out. Come inside.”'' :And Kaylee? Ping Rochelle. She’s going to want to know about this.:''

{{separator|k}}

Zane followed the two Fusers into the garage under Rhianna’s home, and as soon as the door closed behind them he seemed to lose half a meter of height and twenty kilos or so of bulk. He resembled a slightly-sleeker, more human-scaled version of their previous tiger-man Fuser form, with the addition of round hardlight lenses inset into his fur in a regular pattern that followed his black stripes—actual-not-hardlight fur no less. He wore a pair of shorts for modesty, but was otherwise as naked as his Fuser form had been. “So, uh, hi,” he said.

Before Rhianna could reply, Rochelle practically fell down the stairs in a rush, her curtain of hair (peach-colored today) swirling around her. Rhianna marveled at the way that girl could make even stumbling and falling look erotic. It was as if the picture only required someone at the bottom of the stairs to catch her and sweep her up into a passionate embrace. For that matter, given Rochelle’s past preferences, the catcher could very well be she—Rhianna shook her head to clear it and muttered dark imprecations at whoever had designed Uncia’s fuser nanos.

“Well, I don’t have an examination table like a doctor’s office, so can you have a seat over near the diagnostic station, Zane? Zane-and-Terry? Uh, ZaneTerry? What should we call you?” Rhianna said, gesturing politely.

“Call me whatever you want, just don’t call me late for dinner,” Zane said tiredly. “Speaking of which, hey, RIDE-safe power outlet. Cool.” He reached down and held his right wrist against the socket for a moment. The lights flickered and dimmed for just a second, then Zane stood up straighter. “Wow, that’s better than coffee.” He sat down in the proffered seat, glancing bemusedly at his wrists. The power socket was right where he would have worn a watch if he’d worn it right-handed. There was another socket of a different design in the same place on his left wrist.

“Well, isn’t'' that'' interesting?” Myla said. “Quinoa just used induction, didn’t she? I guess some of them have power plugs too.”

Once she had her diagnostic gear on, Rhianna looked almost like a feline mad scientist about to do some work. The nanolathe gloves were rather intimidating, but most of her “patients” never complained. A backpack full of supplementary sensors, nanolathe fabber matter and extra processing power completed the look. “I’m not sure where to start. You don’t have any standard diagnostic data ports any more.”

“You don’t seem too surprised at what you see,” Zane said, still in that odd mixture of Zane’s and Terry’s inflections. It was almost as if Zane was trying to impersonate Terry’s voice, or Terry trying to impersonate Zane’s. The faint Nextus-upper-crust accent Zane had mingled oddly but pleasantly with Terry’s street cant.

“I had this Dry Ocean salvage job a few weeks ago. That’s how I met Myla here and it’s why I’m ‘Rhianna’ now. That reminds me. Zane Brubeck, Myla Wilson, formerly of the Nextus Materiel Recovery Service.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Wilson,” Zane said, extending a handpaw. The fennec-suited woman took it carefully. “You were a revenuer? My Dad actually liked you guys. Loved watching you go after some of his tax-dodging ‘friends’. Though I’m kinda confused you ended up arresting ''Joe Steader'' of all people. The man who gave the whole planet a pop culture transplant…”

“I can tell you the MRS was more than a little confused and suspicious of the evidence, but we were obligated to follow through with it. Everybody loves Crazy Joe, right? Though given something Quinoa said back at the Towers, I gather there’s more to that affair than meets the eye. That little girl…” Myla said. “Well, I’m still recovering from a few weeks of debriefings and mustering out. I’m sure Rhianna’s story will cover all the important parts.”

The lynx nodded. “So why don’t I tell you about it while I try and figure out what makes you tick? Shelley, do you have anything that can plug in that dataport of his?” Rhianna flexed her fingers like a pianist warming up.

Rochelle tossed her head, hair flowing back out of her face in slight slow motion. She sighed and ran a hand through it, and it pulled itself back into one of those twisted-up bun styles whose sole purpose is to come undone in shampoo commercials. “There, that will buy me some time. Um…let me see. I think that’s going to need a custom design. We could use nano-memory paste to explore it and determine what connectors it has. That’s more your department than mine, though.”

Rhianna extended a nanolathe tip from her right index finger, then approached Zane. “Let me know if this hurts or anything. I don’t know how this port of yours is connected to the rest of you. I don’t know a hell of a lot here, in fact. It’s just going to be guesswork and some very detailed I/O analysis.”

“You probably know more than I do.” Zane shook his head. “This is all new to me. I woke up this morning in a puddle of silver snot, with Terry inside my mind. Part of my mind.”

Myla looked pained at Zane’s description. Rhianna patted her Fused shoulder after injecting the paste. The foxy duo decided to de-Fuse. “Where’s your living room? I don’t think I’m up for this.”

“Upstairs, turn left. Go relax, okay?” Rhianna said, putting her handpaw on Myla’s now-human shoulder. “Use my bedroom if you want to sleep, there’s clean sheets in the closet. I’ve got a cot down here, since this is our personal garage.”

“Thank you. I had a very nice afternoon sightseeing, Rhianna, Kaylee. Thanks for the warm welcome. And… nice meeting you, Mr. Brubeck.”

Zane frowned. “Um…same to you, Miss Wilson. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I know, Mr. Brubeck. We just need a few. Come on, Sophie,” Myla said. The pair of them headed up the stairs Rochelle had nearly fallen down.

Rhianna watched them go, then turned back to Zane. “Rochelle’s already heard this, but let Kaylee and me tell you a little story about a Dry Ocean salvage job gone sour, a Nextus Military dragon, a pack of four stingy wolves, a falcon, a sphinx, and a dinosaur named Eduard.”

The analysis took some time—as did the story. The nano-probe reported a very complex, utterly non-standard connector shape and contact points that included significant traces of pure qubitite and neodymium. Once she felt she had enough data she fed it to the shop’s fabber to work on. The first prototype was ready in minutes.

When Rhianna’s story was finished, Zane whistled. “Wow. Those Enclave jerks sound like real prizes. And Quinoa Steader? Damn, who’d have thought it? I remember Dad and Joe used to pal around, though I never ran into Quinoa much that I can recall. My sisters and I weren’t really the kind of people she wanted as friends. Too grounded in reality, I suppose. Earthy, as Dad would’ve said. She always had her head in the clouds. Pretty much like her uncle.”

“Poor Myla kept watch on that girl for two years in a pony RIDE that couldn’t transform.” Rhianna shuddered. She picked up the prototype connector from the output tray. “Let me see if this works.”

“Then it’ll be'' my'' turn.” Rochelle rubbed her hands together and cackled evilly, a femme fatale in custom-fitted coveralls. Zane grinned appreciatively at her.

“Ready for this?” the lynx asked. At Zane’s nod, she plugged it into the socket on his left wrist. She got absolutely nothing out of the datastream—not even the same quantum-encrypted gibberish Quinoa’s had. “Anything at all, Zane?”

“Nothing. Silence,” the Integrate tiger replied.

Grumbling, Rhianna unplugged the offending piece of hardware, then tossed it back into the fabber’s recycling receptacle. “Try, try again. I must’ve missed some contacts on the first scan.”

Rochelle sighed. “Might not be my turn for a while.”

“I spent the day down at the library, running searches on Integrates and Integration. With a keyboard.” Zane rolled his eyes. “Didn’t find a lot of solid information. In fact, I think I learned more from what you just told me than I did all day there. So this DIN thing is going to let me hook up to the net again?”

“It basically allowed Quinoa to control Qixi’s suborbital like it was a remote controlled skimmer you buy at a toy store,” Rhianna said. “Kaylee, maybe if we…” She trailed off as she switched over to subvocal communication.

“I have a theory that Integrates’ bodies are sort of natural supercomputers,” Rochelle said as her business partner got more involved in her work. “All that qubitite can be locked in place in the most optimal configuration, without having to worry about getting disrupted every time you mode switch. If that’s true…” She shook her head. “What couldn’t they do? Apart from, well, talk to the ‘net, anyway.”

Zane whistled. “Now I’m really looking forward to playing with my new toy.”

“Mm,” Rhianna said thoughtfully, fiddling with her scan, showing the same kind of focus on her work as she had on Chauncey’s rebuild.

Zane watched her work for a moment, and the silence stretched out into a minute. “Listen. It’s…not what you think it’s like. At least, not what it must have been like for Burke.”

“That was… horrible. I can’t really think of it without shivers.” Rhianna hugged herself and shook a little.

“For us, it was just…the logical next step. I mean, you know we were basically 30/6 Fused the last few months, right?” He chuckled. “I don’t know if you knew, but half the time we ever said anything, it was really Terry using Zane’s voice.” He waited to see if anyone looked shocked, then shrugged and continued.

“Crazy thing is, I—Zane, that is—didn’t really know it either, ‘til today when we did a little mental review. I’m sure you’ve known people who finished each others’ thoughts. Well, we'' started'' and finished each other’s thoughts. And we were happy that way. From there…well, Integration wasn’t that far away.”

“Silly question I guess, but are you'' still'' happy?” Rhianna asked. It could have been Kaylee asking the question, or both of them at once. Ironic, given the situation and the question. Zane had seen the recording of Flint-Burke’s forced-Integration on a video screen.

Zane nodded. “I am. I’d say ‘we are’ but really we’re an ‘I’ right now. If you want, I can split him out in my head and both sides of me can say it for themselves. Of course, you’d only have my word for it that we really were, rather than me just ‘doing’ our voices. But if that doohickey you’re making works, I can show you our memories of it sometime, if you want.”

“I… we don’t know if we could follow through with that,” Rhianna said. “That’s actually more frightening than watching it being done to someone and seeing the results.”

“Yeah, we weren’t exactly keen on the idea either, just after we met,” Zane said. “Even right up to the end, we were both kind of scared when it became obvious it was going to happen, but we also knew we were on the edge of something wonderful. I know this probably sounds kinda creepy, K, but if you ever Integrate naturally, I think you’ll be ready for it by the time it happens. And if you’re not ready, you just won’t Integrate.”

“Then it won’t be for a long while,” Rhianna said. “Kaylee and I just started Active Fuse.”

Rochelle spoke up again. “Is it really worth it? You wouldn’t ever go back?”

Zane nodded to her. “It’s early to tell, but…I think so. I guess I can’t say I have'' no'' regrets. It’s a little sad to know I’m never going to look over and see that gorgeous tiger or that handsome young man again except in my memories. But if I had the choice of giving it up…well, it would still be giving up a lot. I guess it’s never easy being born, and it doesn’t get any easier the second time.”

Watching Rhianna silently, carefully, methodically working through a problem was in some ways a test of Zane’s patience. She hardly said a word, moving between nanoprobe and a multi-colored 3D hardlight representation of the dataport on his left wrist.

Kaylee was used to this. It was how her partner worked. Now that they were actively Fused, it was even easier to tell what she wanted, so the RIDE helped nudge it along. Rhianna’s thought process had no words—just images, equations, even the idle scribbles of an architect considering a problem then throwing the mental paper away, unsatisfied. Sometimes they barely moved, fully focused.

“Wish she’d be a little more…demonstrative. I never know what she’s thinking of,” Rochelle said. She watched the slow refinement of the prototype’s image drawn from her simulations. It had already been taken apart and put back together several times, with different combinations of materials. “Gotta love the results, though.”

It took six hours, as many physical prototypes, and a hundred times that many simulated. It wasn’t just the'' shape'' of the connector, it was what it was made out of. Aside from the actual physical versions she had Rochelle funnel the possibilities into her simulation software, ruling out most of the standard materials. With each new prototype more and more data flowed down the wire. No computer in the diagnostic kit could make sense of it, but at least it was coming.

The final prototype came out of the fabber at three in the morning. “Want to know the gory details? You won’t believe what this is made out of,” Rhianna asked. “I double-checked the math myself. You don’t want to know that much, though.”

Zane nodded. “Shoot.”

“It’s layers of graphene and qubitite salted with more neodymium and even some nanoscale sarium battery bits, all in very precise locations—down to the angstrom. If this really does work—and I’m sure it will this time—I’ve got the design and can fab more pretty easily. But it’s not cheap. I think I went through about ten thousand ''mu'' of materials and fabber time just making this one.”

Zane sighed theatrically. “Guess I won’t be ordering another diamond-studded swimming pool this week.”

“Your home fabber should be able to make spares, too, once you have the materials. If this one doesn’t work I’ll eat my hat.” Rhianna plugged him in and got the expected strong but unintelligible data flow. Then she stretched and yawned, de-Fusing from Kaylee in the process. “All yours, Shelley. I need some sweet tea. Be back down after I’ve cleaned up a bit. I’m not going to bed until I see how this turns out.”

“Yay, my turn!” Rochelle ran her hands through her hair, shaking it out and letting it fall into place around her again as Zane watched in clear appreciation. She whipped out a pair of interface specs, then paused in the process of putting them on. “Oh. Rhianna—before you go for drinks, I need to ask you something. Something serious.”

Rhianna blinked. “Buh?” she asked tiredly. Now that the task was finished her mind was already going into full-relaxation safe mode.

“You know my normal procedure for working through an unknown involves lots of net searching, right? I never know what’s going to give me some clue I need to break through.”

“All right…?” Rhianna said.

“Thing is, I’ve been thinking ‘bout this,” Rochelle said. “And if I were an Integrate, I’d be monitoring net searches for any suspicious activity relating to Integrate—since probably the first thing any new Intie’s gonna do is try to google his condition, and I expect that’s one of the big ways they look for their poor confused brand new little lost lambs.”

“Lambs, tigers, deer, bears, oh my! I get it.”

“Now I’m gonna bounce through every proxy server, anonymizer, and relay this side of Laurasia, but if these Integrates are really All That, it’ll probably just make them more interested. And that’s not the worst part.”

She paused, waiting for a reaction, but only encountered Rhianna’s blank, tired stare, shrugged, and went on. “If their community’s as small as it sounds, they’ve probably all heard about Quinoa’s little furball last month, and who was there, and it’s not exactly a secret where you-all live and work and stuff. So when they notice every fragment of Intie lore on the net is being sucked down to'' here…'' well.” She shrugged. “I’ll try to go it without if you’d rather. Up to you.” She nodded to Zane. “And you, of course.”

Rhianna thought about that, coming out of “safe mode” for a while. “Zane, you already did a lot of searching at the library, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I didn’t'' see'' anyone odd, but…maybe the place was too public. Or, well…” Zane shrugged. “Have'' you'' seen any invisible four meter dinosaurs around lately?”

“And there is kind of an important little difference between a public library and a certain private garage,” Rochelle pointed out.

The cat-nosed woman looked thoughtful, rubbing her nose, then peered at the power plug Zane had used to recharge. Rhianna had a very flat expression Rochelle knew all too well, even on her new face.

It was the expression that the inevitable was going to happen, so there was no reason to delay it. “They probably already know you’re here. The way the lights flickered when you recharged like that… Another thing they look for. A new Intie’s power drain on the grid.” She sighed deeply. “I need one of my non-sleeping pills and I’ll think more clearly. I need some food, too.” The woman sniffed herself. “And a shower.”

“She always gets cranky after a long session like that,” Kaylee explained as her partner retreated up the stairs at a clip. “Didn’t do that as a man, though. Hunh. Hormones, what can you do?”

“So I guess that was a ‘go ahead, burn up the net all you want,’ right?” Rochelle said. “Didn’t sound like a no, anyway.”

“For my part, I’m okay with it,” Zane said. “The sooner I get a DIN, the sooner I can pull my weight if they do show up. Wonder what ‘DIN’ stands for, anyway?”

Rochelle nodded. She opened her interface specs with a flick of her wrist and put them on, then waved at the arrangement of monitors and workstations nearby to load her specialized programs into them. “Oh, Uncia, darling?” she called into the next room. “I might need you here in a few.”

The snow leopard padded in and sat down nearby. “I live to serve!”

“Goody goody.” Rochelle cracked her knuckles sexily. “Let’s get to work.”

As her rider got started, Uncia padded over to Kaylee and gave the older lynx an affectionate headbutt. “You’re in a good mood, big sis.”

The snow leopard was almost twice Kaylee’s size in Walker mode. Kaylee returned the affection, purring up a storm. “It’s been a'' very'' good day. One of the best since Rhianna and I went Active. I think she’s finally settlin’ in.” The older, smaller RIDE padded over to a socket herself and extended a charging plug from her stubby tail. “Stripesy there had the right idea. Did so much high-speed skimming today I’m half down.”

“I had a long sideband chat with Sophie. I like her. Introduced myself with a pounce and a good licking,” the larger snow leopardess mecha said. “I just'' love'' her lickable ears!”

“I’m sure she just'' loved'' that,” Kaylee said dryly, having been at the receiving end of that kind of grooming a number of times. It was hard to say no to that kind of'' aggressive'' affection from someone who (inexplicably) idolized you and was technically less than a year old.

Rochelle glanced over. “Okay, Un-hon? Time to light up the ‘nets. Search package Alpha, subject: ‘Integration’ as it pertains to RIDEs. Weight it for relevance toward any appearances or uses of DIN interfaces. I’ll be in there in a few minutes to see what you have for me.”

The snow leopardess nodded. “Running the search protocols now. Rerouting through proxies and anonymizers. Found two terabytes of material so far. Five. Nine. Sorting.” She sat on her haunches and started to scratch furiously behind one ear. “Why is data searching always so'' itchy?”''

Rochelle slipped her hands into a pair of data-manipulation gloves and started augmenting her eyeflicks with gestures. She waved at a sensor unit on the ceiling and it swivelled around, orienting its cluster of tubular sensors on Zane like the barrel of some enormous cannon. She made a lifting gesture with her other hand, and it began to light up, with a faint bass undertone and rotate slowly. “Don’t worry, it’s harmless. Unless…you haven’t had any dental work recently, have you?”

“Er…” Zane said.

She grinned. “Juuuuust kidding! Hmm…okay, recording brainwave patterns, cross-referencing timestamps with data reads from that data port…let’s see if we get anything interesting off the bat. Hmm…Fibonacci sequence maybe? No?” She shook her head. “Okay, run program ‘Enigma’. We’ll let it get started, and I’ll swap the process over to Uncia’s onboard hardware for more speed once I’ve reviewed the search results.”

Zane allowed her to do the scans, fascinated. He had never seen them work before. No wonder Chauncey had come out of the Garage in much better shape than the old IDE had come in. Rhianna, Kaylee, Rochelle, and Uncia all had great passion for their work that didn’t make it look like work at all. It was the kind of passion he wished more of his employees had. And it didn’t hurt, either, that Rochelle was perpetually gorgeous, and she practically'' glowed'' with the energy she threw into her work.

Of course, he knew'' why'' she was so gorgeous, and a part of him felt guilty at appreciating it so much. He knew the nanite infection had not been her decision, and she spent hours every week at Nextus Nano’s labs working on a cure. He rather hoped she found it. But in the meanwhile, guilt or not, he didn’t see the harm in enjoying the view.

A damp-haired Rhianna came back downstairs with a half liter mug of steaming hot tea and a plate of a half dozen toaster pastries, dressed in a blue terrycloth bathrobe a little too small for her, and especially not built for a woman’s curves. Not with that much exposed cleavage. “Do you still eat, Zane? After you plugged in like that…”

“I’m pretty sure I do. And I could go for some coffee right now, I think.”

The lynx-eared and -nosed woman looked at the plate of “food”, reconsidering her choice of sustenance. “Maybe you can get Shelley to make you some. She always gives me the evil eye when I suggest fabbing the stuff.”

“That’s because fabbed coffee is what Satan pees out when he goes to the toilet, Rhi!” Rochelle said. “I’m too busy here to make it, but I’ve got some of the real stuff in the kitchenette. Grab a K-cup out of the drawer and put it in the brewer, you know where it is.”

“In a sec. I’m going to order some real food from that all-night Proximan take-out. You know the one. Ah. Kaylee’s already ordered. Hope you like noodles and seafood stir fry. Be right back.” She left the room, then a minute later came back with a steaming mug of coffee. She handed it over to Zane and had a seat.

Rochelle stroked the air with her gloves, and began humming. The tune was recognizable, one of her favorite songs from the classical 20th century pop minstrels. After a while, she was singing under her breath. “I’m so tired I can hardly think, so I feel instead and let you loose inside my head…”

She spun around, then moved over to Uncia. “Cue up the most relevant search results, and all memories you got from Kaylee, Yvonne, and Sophie having to do with Quinoa using her DIN and any scan data they got, then open up, please, hon!” Uncia Fused up over her, then the eight-foot snow leopardess turned back to the scans. Her body language was still unmistakably Rochelle, just with the addition of fur. Her tail swung wide as she half-danced in place. She waved a hand in the air and hardlight display panels blossomed in place behind it like time-lapse flowers opening.

“Let’s see, there’s a lot of shaky-cam footage here of rather blurry Integrate zapping things and blowing them up, or otherwise holding glowing doohickies.” Rochelle threw different clips up on all the screens. “Geez. It’s been hundreds of years since they invented image stabilization. Why do we still get shaky-cam? Hm. And none of these images are particularly sharp, either. I’ll bet the Integrates are doing something to mess up the recording just enough that you can’t really identify them.” She tapped another screen. “And what’s this? Oh, cute. ‘Brown vs. Board of Education.’” She chuckled. “Snow kitty will have her little joke.” Uncia giggled. “I’ll keep looking…there’s got to be some clues here somewhere…”

“She’s in her manic stage right now,” Rhianna half-whispered to Zane. “Enjoy it while it lasts. In about ten minutes she’ll have cycled down to frustrated, and in half an hour she’ll be banging her head against the wall.”

“I’ll have you know I heard that!” Rochelle sang out, peering thoughtfully at the contents of the screens she’d opened and collapsing half of them. “I don’t make fun of'' your'' process, you know.”

“Hey, whatever works,” Zane said, grinning.

“Let’s pull that ‘Enigma’ process over here, Uncia darling, you’ve got some spare cycles,” Rochelle said. “And let’s see what happens if we switch to hexadecimal. Hmm…no, still doesn’t make sense. What if we try…” She trailed off, finally remembering to switch her dialogue to internal.

Over the next few hours, the pattern repeated several times. Sometimes Rochelle manically jumped, dashed, or danced around the private garage, fluffy tail threatening to knock over small objects or occasionally people. She would Fuse or de-Fuse seemingly at random, muttering instructions to Uncia as she examined her screens or interface specs again. Other times she stood in one spot, tail lashing, growling at a hardlight display or her glasses,'' daring'' them to show her what she thought she was seeing. And sometimes she did, indeed, stand in the corner banging her head against the wall and moaning, “Why, God, why?”

Early on during one of her business partner’s outbursts Rhianna pointed at a poster on the wall that said “Bang Head Here”. “That’s what I do when I get frustrated, too,” she explained to Zane. She’d moved closer to him in order to get a look at the hardlight lenses embedded in his skin. “I’m no doctor, but can I have a closer look at those?”

“Go ahead. I’m curious, myself. Wondering how I ended up with real tiger fur, for that matter. I don’t think I had any natural DNA coding for it,” Zane said.

'':I’ve given Yvonne a ping,:'' Kaylee said.'' :Once we figure this out he’s going to need some kind of comm gear and we don’t carry any of the good stuff here. Rufia’s bound to have spares she can part with.:''

At last, during one of her lowest depressive phases, when Rochelle was in the middle of lying sprawled out face-down on the hard concrete floor, right beside a similarly-sprawled Uncia, fluffy tails twitching in the air in unison, she suddenly lifted her head, blinked, and then rolled over into Uncia, Fusing and continuing the roll to her feet.

She spun around and waved a hand, scattering hardlight displays in the air again, then she grabbed one by the edges with both hands and pulled it closer to her. “Yes! that’s it! That’s'' IT!''” For a moment, music blared from unseen speakers: “International bright young thing, now you know for sure that you make the world swing…”

“Hunh?” Zane, who had been dozing, woke up—in time to be grabbed and kissed on the mouth, with hardlight tongue, by a snow leopard. “Mmmph!”

“That’s it!” Rochelle said again, dropping him back onto the table. “REM sleep! I think…I’ve found the key at last!”

“Can we do that again?” Uncia asked plaintively.

Rhianna awoke from the cot she and Fused Kaylee used during their own all-nighters. “Finally got it, snowgirl?”

“Yes! While he was in REM sleep, the encoding changed completely—and Enigma suddenly had enough data to start working out what was what. Gimme a few minutes and I’ll have you doing tricks.”

“The kissing, I mean,” Uncia said. “That was fun.”

Rochelle was lost in her own little world again. “…and configure, and'' make!'' Okay, five minutes, tops, and then it’s say hello to ZaneOS 1.0.”

“So no more kissing?” Uncia said sadly.

Rhianna slid a standard qubitite firmware crystal into the writer in preparation. A minute later everyone heard the familiar bass thrumming of Yvonne’s tuned-up lifters outside. “Gear’s here, Shelley. We’ve almost got all the pieces.”

“Awesome!” Rochelle stretched, and Uncia melted off of her back into her snow leopard form. Rochelle fell onto her back, arms crossed behind her head, relaxing into the curvature of Uncia’s spine. She yawned. “Boy, glad that’s done.” Then the beep sounded that signaled the end of the compile, and she was on her feet again, hair flying. “Build’s up!”

Fused Rufia and Yvonne entered. The pair of them could come and go as they pleased, more or less. The female elk carried a box under the crook of her arm, but dropped it upon seeing Zane. “Whooo wheee! You’re handsome, short stuff.”

Zane grinned at her. “Not that short where it counts, big gal.”

“Hey, now. I saw him first!” Rochelle said, grinning.

Rhianna picked the box up off the floor. It was dirty and appeared to have been sitting on a shelf for several years, but the thumb-sized lens, embedded in a slightly larger bezel, looked suspiciously military with no identifying marks. “Rufia, where did you get this?”

“Oh, you know. Around.” She cleared her throat, then put on the manner of a used skimmer salesman. “This is the Kinnison Lensman ‘Second Stage’ Comm and Defense Unit, straight from Nuevo San DefCom Tech. It combines a self-contained sarium battery, ultrafast laser and wifi comms, hardlight defense shields, and will burn your attacker’s head clean off.”

“Operators are standing by?” Zane asked.

“And you can have it for the low, low price of… absolutely nothing. I just'' gotta'' see how all this turns out,” Rufia said, her elk RIDE’s face smiling with more than a little lust.

“Why is it that nobody around here knows enough to pad their bills when they’re dealing with rich people?” Zane wondered.

“Money don’t buy happiness, you handsome putty tat.”

Zane grinned. “No, but it will sure rent a lot of it. Well, all right, if you insist. But I reserve the right to return the favor, when you'' least'' expect it. I’m good at that, just ask Rhianna.”

“Oh, he is. He really is!” she replied.

Compared to the hours and hours of making hardware and software, putting the final pieces together took less than a minute. The “ZaneOS 1.0” crystal went into Rhianna’s custom interface plug, the plug into the much-ballyhooed Lensman unit, then the unit itself was handed to their customer on one of Rochelle’s red velvet pillows Kaylee had fetched from upstairs.

Zane picked it up in his right hand. “All right, let’s light this candle.” He snapped it home into the plug in his wrist. A moment later, it lit up, and Zane grinned. “Hello, world!”

Rhianna pointed around the room. “There’s network points, wifi and laser, all over the garage here. You should be able to—”

Zane grinned. “Got it! Ah, good ol’ ‘net…” The lens on his wrist gleamed as laser pulses suffused the garage. “And that reminds me.” He held up a hand, hardlight emitter in the heel of his palm facing Rhianna and Kaylee. A plane of light appeared in front of them and swept over them, tingling where it touched, then vanished.

“That was for..?” Kaylee asked.

Zane grinned. “Well, I still haven’t gotten you your crossrider present. Oh, and for that matter…I missed yours, too, Shelley.” He pointed his hand at her, and she got the same treatment.

'':The traditional present from a man who’s a good friend to a crossed woman is…:'' Kaylee said internally, bringing up photo after photo of women of her build in racy lingerie.'' :Yeah. This.:''

“Well, the measure of good lingerie is how it looks on the floor, so just keep that in mind, my handsomely-striped friend,” Rhianna said, putting on her best faux ‘come hither’ look. “Wow! What a night.”

“And…I think there’s something else I can do for you, Rochelle.” Zane held up his wrist, and the lens scintillated, bathing her in laser light. Her eyes widened, and suddenly her appearance…changed. Her hair stopped animating and fell limp. Her posture sagged slightly, and for the first time her face showed the hours of work she’d just put in.

Rochelle blinked. “Did you just…you'' did''. You deactivated my nanites.”

“Yeah, you’re ‘cured,’” Zane said.

“Huh.” Rochelle considered that. “Okay. That’s nice, and I really appreciate that and all, but…could you put them back exactly how they were?”

Zane blinked. “But…why? You said you didn’t like having them on all the time. Now you can control them, so you could crank them back up yourself when you want—”

“That’s true, but…” Rochelle shuffled her feet and looked down. “It’s really not so bad having them stuck on…but more importantly, as long as I’m'' trying'' to find a cure, I get access to the latest nanotech at Nextus Nano. I’ve really been learning a lot lately. Besides, this isn’t really about me. I can’t let anyone else ‘catch’ it.”

Rhianna chuckled quietly.'' :She suffers for her art,:'' she sent to Kaylee.

“And besides, if I show up with them magically cured, they might think I was faking it all along and sue me to get the settlement money back.”

“She’s got you there, Zane,” Rhianna said.

“You know, I could just'' buy'' Nextus Nano,” Zane said. “I could give it to you as a present.”

Rhianna-and-Kaylee stared slack-jawed, but Rochelle looked skeptical. “Really?”

Zane chuckled, then shook his head. “Well, okay, not really. Their market cap is almost as high as Brubeck Mining’s. Lot of money in rich-people nanos. But I'' could'' make good the settlement money. If you’d let me. But of course you wouldn’t let me.”

Rochelle snorted. “No offense, but I’m not gonna be anybody’s kept woman or trophy girlfriend.”

He grinned. “All right. I’ll put it back. But you gotta do one teeny little thing for me in return.”

“And what’s that?” Rochelle asked.

“Go out with me tomor—tonight?”

Rochelle looked at him. “Did you even hear what I just—”

“Seriously. If you want, I’ll even let you buy.”

Rochelle blinked. “Wow, that’s an original approach. You want to prove how much you care for me by letting me buy you dinner?”

Zane grinned. “It does sound kind of funny when you put it that way, doesn’t it?”

Rochelle chuckled. “How can a gal resist an offer like that? You’re on.”

“Awesome! Pick you up at 2400?” He bathed her in laser-light again, and she reverted to her former hyper-attractive self.

Rochelle grinned, running a hand through her once-more-animated hair. “We’ll be waiting.”

“It’s like being in a soap opera,” Rufia said, clearly delighted to have played a part. “Anyone for breakfast? Coffee and pastries on me.”

Zane snapped his fingers. “That reminds me. I need to settle the bill.”

“Oh, the bill,” Rhianna said, knowing full well what was coming. “Zane, it’s been a privilege to—”

Zane raised his hand, suddenly serious. “No. I let you get away with this for Chauncey, because that was obviously a labor of love for you, and you felt like I was doing you a favor for letting you work on him. That touched on your honor. You felt obligated.” He shook his head. “It’s my turn to be in those shoes.

“You’ve just stayed up all night for me when you should have been sleeping, putting your best effort into reverse-engineering a completely new technology you’d seen in action for maybe five minutes, used by people who really creeped you out. And you totally saved my sanity by keeping me from going into net withdrawal. So now'' I'' feel obligated, that touches on'' my'' honor, and I’m not gonna let you get away without being paid'' fairly'' for services rendered.”

“Well, okay. Our standard ‘need it yesterday’ overtime rates…” Kaylee called up the numbers. It was a pretty hefty sum.

“Let me see that.” He reached out a hand, and the tablet floated out of Kaylee’s hands and into his. “Hmm. No. This won’t do.” He waved a hand over the tablet and floated it back to her with a new set of figures on it. “That’s my standard rates—or, rather, Brubeck Mining’s standard hourly fee schedule for cutting-edge technology contractors. Well, actually standard plus 25%, because we leave the base rate low so there’s room to negotiate. Plus invention bonus. In the interest of fairness, I actually cut the bonus in half, because the normal use of it involves compensation for signing patent rights over to the company, but somehow I suspect there’s too much prior art in this case. And materials at 50% mark-up, rather than cost.”

Though she was Fused with Kaylee, Rhianna still looked weak in the knees. She passed the tablet to Rochelle. “Even after snowgirl here takes her half… I… I… I could buy a full factory refurbished redstone… Not a big suborbital, but I don’t need Qixi’s kind of gear… ‘Scuse me. I need to lay down.” She sat down heavily on the big cot.

Rochelle peered at it. “Hell, we’re partners. I could throw in and we could get one of those downgraded ex-Nextus Army drop shuttles that just came on the market again.” She looked at Zane. “Are you sure this is right?”

Zane nodded. “I absolutely swear to you that these are our standard consulting rates and not a penny more. I’ll make our accountant available to you if you don’t believe me.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Look, I know I like to throw money around. It’s about the only thing it’s good for. But I already know better than to try to give you anything you don’t think you’ve earned. I respect you too much for that. Both of you.”

“Okay, you win,” Rhianna said, almost gasping. She stood up and extended her handpaw. “Just this once, it’s a deal.”

Zane grinned. “Don’t worry. The next time I ask you to do anything where you might risk getting paid what you’re actually worth, I’ll make you sign a contract ahead of time so you see it coming.”

Rhianna frowned thoughtfully as something that had been niggling at the back of her mind all night finally came clear in her head. “Speaking of contracts…and throwing money around…I wonder if I might ask a favor of you, on behalf of a new friend who I hope will still be my friend after she learns what I’m asking.”

Zane raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

“Well, it’s Myla,” Rhianna said. “I told you about how she signed on with Qixi because she really didn’t have anywhere else to go. But the more I think on it, the less I think those two are going to get along.”

Zane nodded. “You said Qixi floated her a loan to help buy back Sophie. Yeah, that’s not a real good way to begin with a new employer at the best of times. And we’ve contracted with Qixi a time or two ourselves. I think I see what you’re getting at.” He grinned. “I’ll bet there are plenty of jobs in my company she could fill, and probably some she’d even like doing. Of course, she’d still have to be willing to work for me.” Zane glanced upstairs. “After what happened with Burke, I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t want to see another Integrate ever again.”

“Kaylee and I spent the afternoon with her yesterday. She’s a very open-minded woman. Fun to be with. Even volunteered to show me some ‘genuinely feminine’ things men still don’t get. Stuff like that. I think if you talked to her for a while…” Rhianna trailed off.

Zane nodded. “I will. Hell, I owe it to all the Integrates who'' aren’t'' assholes to try to redeem our reputation. I’m sure there must be some, somewhere.”

The sound of employees starting to arrive interrupted them. Rhianna checked the time. A full fifteen hours had passed, but it felt more like days.

“So, someone mentioned breakfast?” Zane said.

“That would be me, hot stuff,” Rufia said in her most dulcet tones.

“Know any good spots?” Zane asked.

“There’s always Bea’s Breakfast Nook down the street. The decor is kind of girly, but I’m just in that kind of mood right now, handsome.”

“Last one there gets groomed by Uncia!” Rochelle sang out, straddling her leopard and dropping neatly into the cockpit as she flipped to skimmer form and took off.

“Does Zane even'' have'' a skimmer form anymore?” Rhianna asked, looking at the Integrate tiger.

“Just the one we bought after we got tired of having to de-Fuse to ride Terry’s,” Zane said. “I parked it out back; I’ll go get it. See you at the diner!” He waved and dashed for the back door.

Rufia and her elk RIDE left next, roaring off loudly enough that it probably woke up the entire street.

Rhianna chuckled. “Looks like we might be in for a grooming.”

“Oh, like that’s anything new,” Kaylee said, de-Fusing to skimmer form beneath her. They headed out of the garage, just stopping to let the arriving day shift manager know about their all-nighter and that they’d be in later that afternoon.

As they followed the others up the street, Rhianna couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder. “What is it?” Kaylee asked.

“If Shelley’s right, we sent up a signal beacon to any Integrates on this quarter of the Coastal Ring,” Rhianna said. “Just wondering where they are.”

“Who knows, maybe they’ll meet us for breakfast,” Kaylee said.

Rhianna snorted. “Then all I can say is, they’d better be buying.”

Reflecting on the craziness of the last few hours, Rhianna wondered if she was going to wake up any minute now and find it was all a dream. Zane Integrated? She and Rochelle, Integrated-tech reverse-engineers?'' Wealthy'' Integrated-tech reverse engineers, at least by their own standards? When had the world gone crazy without her noticing?

But perhaps things would look more rational after breakfast. She revved Kaylee into high, and did her level best to earn Rufia and Yvonne an Uncia grooming.

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''July 12, 156 AL''

Fritz streaked through the turquoise sky, just under supersonic, far north from his current home, the Coffeehouse. Towers would always be full of nostalgia for him in the way the Coffeehouse couldn’t. ''When I first found that hidey-hole I was lucky to have a bed to sleep on,'' Fritz fondly reflected. It had taken months of nicking supplies to make the place even a little tolerable. It’d started with a self-fab quonset hut and as many other necessities he could pack in the back of a hacked Deuce. He’d been especially proud at acquiring the first polywell reactor to hardlight-seal off the cave and make it climate-controlled. It was thousands of klicks from Nextus and in the deepest, most inaccessible part of the Dry Ocean. The perfect pad for a hep cat on his own.

'':Not ''completely'' on your own,:'' his conscience-in-a-box reminded him. But Fritz was used to arguing with the other voice in his head. Until he’d realized just how close Towers was to blowing the whole thing wide open to the meat and the mech, his Jiminy had convinced him to rest on his Bosscat laurels.

'':Shut your yap, Jiminy. I’m not listening to you anymore,:'' Fritz huffed. :''They gotta learn the price of defying the Bosscat. We need to nip this murgatroyd trend to ‘go public’. I won’t take no more lip from Paulie or anyone else. I shouldn’t’a let him live last time.:''

'':No good will come of this,:'' Fritz’s Jiminy said. '':This is all on your head.:''

'':Yeah, yeah. And you’re all ''in'' my head. It’s not like I have a choice, man. We don’t need meat and mech horning in on our beeswax.:''

'':You think you can stop it like this? You might as well command the tide not to roll in. It’s gonna happen sooner or later no matter who you kill. This’ll bring your body count up to 78 of our fellow Inties.:''

Fritz growled. Jiminy knew how to provoke a guilt-trip these days, but today Fritz would have none of it. '':Shaddap, you pudknocker. I know what I’m doing.:''

Jiminy knew how to pick his battles and knew he wasn’t going to win this time. He wisely decided to let Fritz do his thing, going silent in his hardcode prison. There was a tiny hole that allowed him to chat with Fritz. Fortunately the murgatroyd couldn’t take direct control. Their Integration had sealed his rider away. There hadn’t even been a hole at first, until…

''No time to remember that bad scene,'' Fritz thought, shivering. Not with Towers fast approaching. He cloaked, dropping low to the ground.

There were multiple entrances to the Enclave. Fritz passed over the one Quinoa had collapsed to stymie AlphaWolf’s Pack, and smiled. It hadn’t taken much to convince her to frame Crazy Joe for tax evasion as a “joke.” The real reason was to warn her uncle off trying to reclaim her. ''That ginchy chick is all right. Ol’ Joe did a fine job with raising her. And that RIDE she Integrated with. Hooboy. Sphinxes.''

Fritz finally found the entrance he was looking for and slipped inside. For all that the Towers Enclave was hidden, it didn’t really try to protect the entrances. It wasn’t as if anyone but another Integrate was likely to come looking, after all. ''Security through obscurity,'' Fritz thought. ''Bet they change it up after this.''

As he drifted through the tunnel, Fritz sighed inwardly. ''This is all so fucked up. Maybe Jiminy’s right.'' After thirty years, he just got so ''tired'' of it all sometimes. That was probably why he’d listened to Jiminy and taken it easy for a while in the first place. Maybe he should just give up and let society take its course from here—if it ''wanted'' to screw itself up that badly, then let it.

But no. If he just let it all fizzle like that now, then what had he even put in that thirty years for in the first place? No, the Bosscat wasn’t going to let this happen. Five years of letting up had gotten him here. Time to tighten his grip again. Paulie needed to be an example of what he could still do.

His target was holding a rake, working on the fanciful gardens of “Wonkaville”. The huge dinosaur was nowhere to be seen, but Fritz picked up his passive sensors anyway. Still, Colonel Gray wouldn’t have any reason to be cloaked, not here. Fritz primed his armcannon capacitors. He wasn’t going to use full power, not here. It wouldn’t take nearly that much to pop Paulie’s head. It was the only ''certain'' way to kill an Intie, Fritz should know. An Integrate’s body could be cut to pieces and survive as long as they were brought back together again within…he wasn’t sure. Could be weeks.

Fritz stalked his unsuspecting prey like he would a tasty rabbit in Nature Range. This wouldn’t be his first assassination. He’d taken out a quarter of the Sturmhaven High Command this way back before he’d decided it’d be more fun to let the war go on longer and the Sturmies had gotten wise.

Despite himself, Fritz shivered, as thoughts of the war brought him back to the last time he’d been here. Now ''there'' had been a face he hadn’t expected to see again. Where had ''she'' come from? He hadn’t thought about her in years—and so hadn’t checked the Shed inventory in years either.

There hadn’t been any sign she recognized him, but just seeing her had discombobulated him so badly that he’d blown his jets but good and lost any chance of controlling the situation. Not to mention lost a lot of face in front of Paulie and the others, too. And that was another thing he owed that griffin for. But, judging from the Shed inventory records, he thought he might owe a certain rabbit of his acquaintance more.

But later for that. ''Concentrate on the mission.''

With his fellow Inties around, there was a greater risk that he’d be detected. The last few meters were the hardest. Fortunately the fanciful architecture provided ample cover. The lynx pumped up his time compression…and, to his surprise, found a fast-time chat request waiting. Well, if the cube wanted to beg for his life, Fritz guessed it might be amusing.

They met in a nondescript VR forest clearing, one of the default VR chat channel settings. “This is it, murgatroyd. You had to know this was coming,” Fritz snarled.

“Yes, as a matter of fact I did,” Paulie said calmly. “I’ve put my affairs in order and arranged for an orderly transfer of power. Colonel Gray will be taking my seat on the Council.”

“What the fuck?” Fritz said. “You sound like you ''want'' to die. If you’re trying reverse psychology, it ain’t gonna work.”

“Oh, I don’t ''want'' to die, but I suppose it’s inevitable,” Paulie said. “If anything, I was quite surprised I survived taking apart the Snatchers, so I’ve been making the best of what time I had.” He shrugged. “If you think this is going to win you any hearts or minds, you’re sadly mistaken. You’re only going to turn more of us against you.”

“I don’t give a damn about their hearts and minds as long as I still control their bladders,” Fritz said. “As long as they’re too busy pissing their pants when they think of crossing me, they can think it as often as they want.”

“The Machiavelli approach, then?” Paulie said. “’Better to be feared,’ eh?”

“If the shoe fits,” Fritz said, and fired.

In realtime, only a couple seconds passed from when Fritz juiced his lifters to ready position in front of the barn owl griffin when he uncloaked. Fritz let loose a torrent of collimated pulse beam through his cannon. Technically the beam emerged from a tuned subspace window a few centimeters in front of his open palm, but that was neither here nor there. For this job he only needed a window the size of his hand.

It was more than enough to vaporize feathers, beak, and skull, the wall behind it, and everything for thirty meters beyond ''that'' in an expanding beam. The heat flash set the garden and house aflame, the shockwave sending any Intie nearby head over heels. On the cave ceiling overhead, the video display coating died, leaving only a little light from adjoining caverns. The sound of the blast thundered through the Enclave.

'':How much of Frank, his rider, and the rest of his squad were left when you killed them?:'' Fritz’s Jiminy asked. '':78 of your fellow Inties… should I number how many humans and RIDEs you’ve killed too?:''

'':Shut your yap!:'' Fritz snarled. He slipped back into realtime.

Paulie’s twitching, headless corpse fell to the ground. It would be a while before the body systems decided they were dead and shut down. Until then, it was a convulsing headless zombie.

“So yeah!” Fritz called out. “Anyone else want some? Huh?” He stared around, wild-eyed, as he charged up the cannon again, looking for anyone else who might want a fight. No one took him up on it. The few other Integrates in the area might have been figures in a Greek frieze, so still were they frozen. “Yeah, didn’t think so,” Fritz sneered. He shimmered and vanished again as his cloak came back up.

''Now that’s over with, I think it’s time I did some research on a certain garage in Uplift,'' Fritz mused. ''See what kind of home my dear sweet Kaylee’s found herself…''

===Authors’ Notes===

'''R_M:''' The nice thing about going back through and revising these is that we get to harmonize what we wrote earlier with what came into our heads later. (Well, when I say “the nice thing,” I mean “the main reason we’re doing it.”)

In this case, when we started writing this we didn’t have the Integrate society or what it stood for fully formed in our heads yet. We didn’t even invent Leah and Aaron until we sat down to write Part 2. As a result, the Intie stuff kind of came out of nowhere when it entered the scene. Also, Paul/Paulie the griffin entirely vanished from the narrative after his appearance in “FreeRIDErs,” and Fritz, our main villain, didn’t actually physically poke his nose into this story until ''Part 13'', and that was a flashback!

So we hit upon these scenes to introduce Intie politics, explain where Paulie went, punch up Fritz’s threat level, and effectively bookend the main narrative. We can also show why Zane’s decision to go public wasn’t as doomed as prior attempts had been—there was a sizable movement ready to support it now. Look for us to incorporate more of that into future episodes’ revisions.

Other changes included clarifying that Kaylee started out in the regular Nextus army before moving to the MRS (we didn’t work out she and Anny had started in the army until later), a few character moment tweaks, and, of course, adding dates.

I’m particularly proud of how I worked a reference to Machiavelli’s “better to be feared” philosophy into the Paulie scene, because it bookends nicely to when Zane brings it up later on in his final confrontation with Fritz. Going back through allows us to do things like that, since we know what we wrote down the road and can link back to it from the beginning and make it look like we knew what we were doing all along. (Oops, gave it away, didn’t I?) Which is why “real” authors go through several revisions before reaching a finished product, I suppose.

Speaking of dates, we realized that we hadn’t left quite enough time in the story to incorporate later events, and had to shove everything back a month or so—including the ending of “Deserted.” Whoops!

The original version of this chapter is [[User:Robotech_Master/All_Nighter_original|still available separately on Shifti]], if you want to compare. Likewise, you can do a history comparison to see exactly which bits of text changed. Hope you find it interesting!

'''JonBuck:''' There are quite a few ideas in our original story concept that ended up not being used in the long run. At first, Fritz and Kaylee were the only two RIDEs in existence when the RIDE program started, and the Nextus-Sturmhaven War really didn’t figure that much into it. Fritz/Felix was still a “Jilted Lover”, though. So a lot of our revision process here is cleaning up the bits left over from these unused ideas.

Writing fiction is fraught with stuff like this. Having done writing in numerous settings over the years, not to mention creating a half dozen of my own, I tend to just shrug and know continuity snarls are inevitable. Thankfully we can go back and fix the big tangles, though sometimes we’ll encounter a Gordian Knot or two that requires a ''bit'' more handwaving. But it’s the nature of the beast. Airtight continuity is a pipe dream, and I don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

Fritz’s character at this point was still the “oddball, outcast jokester” among the Inties. He wasn’t going to bring the Domes down until later on in our thought process. Then I realized that sort of event would be a hell of a lot more serious than hacking local fabbers to make toy robots that say “Made of meat! Made of meat!” Fritz’s threat level just rose from there. Once we did the big flashback episode, the character ''finally'' gelled into nearly his present form.

<nowiki>Notable here is that at this point I only expected this monster to be about 5-7 parts long. [</nowiki>'''R_M:''' I was thinking more like 10…nice round number. How little we both knew!]

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[[Category:FreeRIDErs]][[Category: Robotech_Master]][[Category: Jon Buck]] [[Category: Anthropomorphic]][[Category: Tiger]][[Category:Lynx]][[Category:Story]]

User:Robotech Master/All Nighter

2014-07-08T01:28:12Z

JonBuck:

{{Universe|FreeRIDErs}}
{{DEFAULTSORT: Integration Part 1: All-Nighter}}

=Integration=

by [[User:JonBuck|Jon Buck]] and [[User:Robotech Master|Robotech Master]]

==Part I: All-Nighter==

''July 11, 156 A.L.''

''Terrania Enclave''

Aaron breathed deeply of the cool, invigorating mountain air. There was just a hint of horse in the breeze, but not unpleasantly so. Compared to the underground Enclave where Aaron Stinson made his home, the open-air Enclave of Terrania was relaxing. Jurassic Park was a prehistoric jungle, and meme-infected up the wazoo. The front gates were exact replicas from the movies, and the theme always played upon entering, with John Hammond’s bombastic declaration of welcome. It got old after a while. ''Like about five minutes.''

On the other talon, Terrania was a non-franchise-specific medieval town with a grey stone castle in the center, surrounded by nearly impenetrable forest. No climate dome was needed thanks to its location in the more temperate Coastal Ring, but this place even lacked a camouflage dome. Instead, the unicorns and other mythicals had hacked the planetary satellite network to simply look away and ZPS guidance to route fliers seamlessly around it. There didn’t seem to be any memes infecting the locals, at least ''overtly''. Aaron hadn’t seen any worrying marks on the rumps of any unicorns, pegasi, or just plain horses.

With him at the gazebo table were Leah Sheryl Daye, one of Terrania’s residents, and Paulie, a visitor from Towers, the oldest Integrate Enclave.

“So, how are things at the Park these days, Aaron?” Leah picked up her porcelain cup of Earl Gray tea, properly, without using lifter fields. The cup was specially made for equine lips, as Leah was an Integrate unicorn. She had white fur, a long golden mane, bright blue eyes, and a small, curved golden horn poking out of her equine forehead. She wore a simple gold dress that matched her hair and horn, slit up the side to reveal a finely-shaped leg. Leah sipped very little of the hot liquid before putting it down again. “News has been scanty from many Enclaves for weeks.”

“We’ve had a lot to think about lately, Leah,” Aaron replied. He was a yellow-and-brown feathered dinosaur with scythe claws on his feet and a half-displayed yellow crest atop his head. The Integrate had a friendly expression despite the dagger-like teeth. Circular hardlight lenses on his tail flickered at idle as he held his own cuppa with pinky finger out. That only left two fingers and his thumb to grasp the teacup. It looked quite fragile, but thanks to Integrate advances in ceramics it was actually more durable than the armor plating on modern military RIDEs. ''Just another one of those things we can’t share with our human and RIDE brethren yet,'' Aaron thought gloomily. Aloud, he continued, “Towers and all that. Controversy just won’t die down. Nobody ''quite'' knows what Fritz and his cronies will do. He ''could'' decide to rebuild the Snatchers.”

“I’m afraid I’m only going to throw more gasoline on the fire,” Paulie said. His RIDE half had been a griffin based on a barn owl and a cougar, and the Integration had given the combined being an inherently spooky expression. “The Towers Council expelled Brena yesterday after she refused to concede the recall election.”

“Well, that was fast,” Leah said. “She only got elected, what, three months ago? Practically as soon as she had Integrated herself? How did that even happen?”

“It was a favor to Fritz,” the barn owl griffin said. “In the hope that paying the Danegeld would placate the Dane, I suppose. But that’s not the way Fritz operates. Give him a centimeter, and he’ll take the whole meter stick.”

“Even Camelot is having some problems with Fritz sympathizers,” Leah said. “But Fritz holds some kind of influence over their Alpha Camp protectorate, so they’re not willing to push him either.”

“You used to be one of his Snatchers, didn’t you?” Aaron asked.

“I used to be his ''chief'' Snatcher,” Paulie said. “For the last couple of years before the end, anyway. Never liked it. Didn’t think it was the right way of doing things anymore, and it felt as though Fritz had been slowly losing his marbles ever since that damnable Olympos affair. So I undermined the whole organization and ‘resigned,’ in a rather public way. I fear I damaged Fritz’s reputation still further by standing up to him as I did. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, but we simply needed to move past him. Someone had to do it.”

“How did Fritz ever become so powerful, anyway?” Aaron wondered. “I’ve been an Integrate for four years now, but no one has ever given me a straight answer.”

“I suppose at first we were simply in awe of him,” Paulie said. “The First Among Equals and all that jazz. But then, there weren’t that many of us. As we’ve grown in numbers I suppose he’s been…diluted.”

“''You'' certainly put him in his place,” Leah said to the former Snatcher.

“I’d like to hear more about that,” Aaron said. “After a little more early history. Is it true he was the ‘first’ Integrate?”

“Yes, that’s true,” Leah said.

“We went from awe, to terrified awe as the years passed, to just plain ''terrified'',” Paulie said. The barn owl griffin mantled his wings. “I’m sure you’ve heard rumors of his offensive capabilities. If anything, they’re understating what he can do. Arm cannon as powerful as a battleship gun. A monomolecular knife that will cut you into pieces even through your shields. And a bad attitude that makes a wolverine look cheerful and well-adjusted. All wrapped up in that corny Beatnik schtick, which makes you underestimate him so you never see him coming.” He sipped at his own tea before continuing. “Not to mention, he still has plenty of followers. More in some Enclaves than others. He’s weakest around the Towers and out this way, but don’t count him out. He still has the Enclaves around the Coffeehouse and down near Punta Sur in his back pocket.”

“So, how did you beat him?” Aaron said.

“Guile, mostly,” Paulie said. “And a few risky self-upgrades.” He shook his head. “Even then, I’m still not so sure I ‘beat’ him. Not really. I halfway suspect he just decided I wasn’t worth the hassle. He disbanded the Snatchers after that.”

Conversation paused for more tea and biscuits and some fast-time reflection. Aaron looked up at Zharus’s sun, Pharos, moving towards midday. He loved Terrania for its openness, for the cool forests, and the fact that it was the closest Enclave to his own Jurassic Park. He had spent enough time here that he had come to know Leah rather well. “So, we’ve been thinking of going public,” Aaron said offhandedly.

Leah dropped her biscotti. “What? Seriously?”

“After what happened at Towers the cat’s just about out of the bag anyway. So we’ve decided we’re tired of sitting on our tails, twiddling our thumbs or other sundry digits. We have ''so much'' to contribute to the rest of civilization,” Aaron said, gesturing with his teacup. “And if Fritz has lost so much of his power base that he can’t even force a group-Integration anymore, we’re not going to get a better chance.”

“Towers feels the same way. Has for some time, which is why Fritz wanted one of his toadies on the Council,” Paulie said. He took a thoughtful sip of his tea. “But I…I’m not so sure. Neither of you were around when Fritz was at his peak. People seem to regard him now like Hitler was considered in the late 20th: short, ineffectual, funny mustache…in other words, a joke. But just as with Hitler, there were reasons and ''reasons'' he ascended to power so readily and held onto it for decades. He always plays the long game. It might be one thing to ''seem'' to let Integrate society go its own way for a while without any obvious tug at the reins, but let things get too far out of hand…”

A chill seemed to settle over the gathering. “We can’t let that stop us, though,” Aaron said. “Not if there’s even a chance…”

“Oh, I know, I know,” Paulie said. “I’m probably just growing conservative in my old age—I was no spring chicken when I Integrated, you know, even by modern standards. The future belongs to you young folks, and you should be the ones to decide where you want to go with it. But to bring Integrates out in the open, I think you’re going to need something more than a desire from within. You need a catalyst—someone the Integrate world ''and'' the human world will notice.” He chuckled. “And as it happens, I believe I might just have one for you.” He nodded to Leah. “There’s a reason I came to meet with you on such short notice, and it wasn’t just to enjoy your delicious tea.”

Leah raised an eyebrow. “I assume this has something to do with why we’ve also had Quinoa Steader inflicted upon us?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m just glad she doesn’t care for tea. Tea and annoyance don’t go well together.”

“As it happens, it does,” Paulie said, chuckling. “The watchers in Uplift have detected a new Integrate. His identity has been confirmed as a known associate of one of the people Quinoa brought out to the Towers. And based on what we know of this fellow, I have a sneaking suspicion he’s not going to be the sort to toddle quietly off to an Enclave…”

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Covered in grease, Rhianna Stonegate took a break from crawling inside the engine service compartment in the old Deuce skimmer. It was the replacement for the one the Nextus military had slagged in the Dry and even older than the destroyed one. But after what Nextus jokingly called its payment for services rendered and until the insurance on the old one came through, it was about all she could afford. It needed a lot of work, but before she could even get started the antiquated turbine powerplant needed ripping out, along with its fuel tanks. Kaylee had already designed the replacement sarium battery pack. With the new tech replacing the old, they’d nearly double the classic skimmer’s cargo space and triple its lifting capacity.

She rested beneath the behemoth turbine, unwilling to squeeze herself through the tight space to get out again. The ceiling-mounted crane had the old turbine in its firm grasp, but the corroded mounting bolts needed a little nanolathe help to release before it could come out.'' :Sat in the middle of a Dry Ocean junkyard for forty years and'' still'' managed to rust solid. I’m going to have to just cut these mounts,:'' she sent to Kaylee.

'':Company, Rhianna,:'' her RIDE replied through Rhianna’s implant, sending a camera feed along with her voice.

“Hello the garage! Hello!” Myla Wilson’s voice came from the entrance.

“I’m over here, Myla!” Rhianna shouted back, folding her arms under her bosom. She heard the sound of boots on the skimmer’s stubby wings. The fennec-eared woman looked inside the engine compartment. Rhianna smiled warmly. “You’re looking well. Qixi treating you right?”

“She’s going to start my training tomorrow. I just got into town today,” the former Nextus officer said. She was holding a cardboard box under her arm. “I’m just sorry I wasn’t here for your crossing-over party, but… I’ve been busy. Here, I have the traditional gift from a born-woman to a crossed-over one.”

“I’ll add it to the dozen or so other boxes of tampons I’ll never use,” Rhianna said good-naturedly. They were mostly gifts from friendly, good-humored customers. From the other crossriders, a year’s worth of “No Periods, Period” nano-treatments made them unnecessary, but tradition was tradition. Happily, Zharus being what it was, she could always re-gift them to other crossriders later. There was a running joke that only a couple of thousand boxes of tampons had been fabbed on Zharus in the last thirty years, and they all just kept getting passed around. “Do you need a place to live?”

“You offering?” the former Nextus officer asked eagerly. She was about the same height as Rhianna, with a slightly slimmer build, and sand-colored hair that matched her fennec RIDE, Sophie. The huge fox padded in behind her with the mechanic’s tawny lynx, Kaylee. “I guess I need one for a while. I don’t want to impose.”

“No problem at all, Myla. After what we’ve been through it’s the right thing to do.” Deciding there was no help for it, Rhianna squeezed herself between the turbine and the edge of the open compartment. Three weeks ago this would have been no problem. But then she hadn’t been the full-figured woman she now was. She endured the scrape-and-squeeze with only a little grimace. A little grease-b-gone nanite lotion cleaned her hands, then she had her jumpsuit go through a self-cleaning cycle as well. The grease simply sloughed off, carried into the garage’s recycling drain.

Kaylee padded up next to her and gave her now-clean partner an affectionate headbump underneath her breasts. “I can still bring those in a cup size if you want,” she said. “I sort of got carried away.”

“No, I’m fine with them this way. There’s just all these little things that really nag at me. After a while it’s always the tiny differences you notice more. At any rate, I’m glad I live in Uplift and not, oh, Sturmhaven, Burnside, Nuevo San Antonio—”

“Or Nextus,” Myla added matter-of-factly, folding her arms across her chest, giving the newly-female mechanic an appraising look. “They look good on you, Rhianna. Kaylee did an expert job on the bio-sculpt. The combat nannies I gave you might have helped with that, I hope.”

“No maybes there. Made the whole process smooth,” Kaylee added. She and Sophie looked like they were deep in conversation in the sideband communication the RIDEs had access to. The way the fennec mech’s huge ears were drooping the RIDE looked very depressed. “Partner, I’m going to take Sophie here up to see Shelley. When they discharged her the Service took a chainsaw to her memory banks when they needed a scalpel. Almost worse than they did with me. She needs a defragment and some reconstruction.”

“You don’t need to ask, Kaylee. Go ahead,” Rhianna said.

“I can’t pay for that,” Myla said, alarmed. “I can barely afford to keep myself fed and Sophie’s batteries charged until I get my first paycheck, and Qixi gave me half of'' that'' for a loan at ten percent interest.”

“Look, don’t worry about us getting paid. The nice thing about being your own boss is that you can choose to use your Mad Skillz ''pro bono'' if you feel like it. And I know how much it cost you for you to buy Sophie from your former bosses.” Rhianna knew this would be the case. The circumstances around Myla losing her MRS commission were harrowing and complicated. A couple missives from Myla had hinted at something akin to a procedural Court Martial and dishonorable discharge.

Myla and her partner radiated desperation. The RIDE emancipation organization Rhianna had recommended hadn’t completely paid the difference of Sophie’s purchase price from what Myla had already saved. “Her generosity only stretched so far,” Myla grumbled. “Why do you think I jumped at your offer?”

“Yeah. That’s the Qixi Wolfwood we all know and love,” Kaylee said dryly. “She stiffed us on that job offer she gave us, you know. She wanted too much—a seventy-thirty split in'' her'' favor. Yeah, right! Rhianna should’ve sent her a bill for the fix to that sub.

“If you’re hungry there’s a Proximan seafood place at the food court down the street. We were just about to head to lunch, in fact.” She looked appraisingly at Rhianna. “You need a break, boss,” the mecha lynx said pointedly. “Stress, stress, stress all the time isn’t good for a new woman’s healthy homeostasis.”

Ever since their first Active-mode Fuse—the one that had made Ryan into Rhianna—the two of them were more closely linked than ever, with Kaylee monitoring her partner’s vital signs a little too close for comfort. “Yes, mother,” she said, tossing a rag at the cat. She looked back at Myla. “Feel like a short skimmer trip? I don’t feel like walking. Kaylee?”

“Sure, boss. Back in a few.” Kaylee took Myla’s partner to Shelley’s part of the garage.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Myla asked. “Skimmers or RIDEs that need fixing?”

“I had the afternoon off anyway for this salvage skimmer project of mine. Shelley’s fully bought in now, herself. But I’m boring you with details. As soon as my kitty gets back, food, food, food.” Rhianna rubbed her hands together, provoking a bark of laughter from Myla. “What?”

The fennec-eared woman covered her mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just that with that feline nose and tufted ears of yours, you’re'' adorable'' when you do that. You should hear what you sound like.”

''I know what I sound like, and I don’t like it much,'' Rhianna thought, looking at Kaylee as she returned. The lynx padded into the center of the garage, then unfolded into a small ex-military skimmer-cycle in desert camouflage. Unlike many RIDEs, due to Kaylee’s thirty-year age her vehicle form looked much less animal-like aside from the catseye headlights. She was one of the first RIDEs produced for the Nextus military.

“Okay, now I’m'' sure'' Kaylee was my aunt’s partner when she was in the Service,” Myla said, eyes widening, voice heavy with nostalgia. “Do you remember me at all, Kaylee?”

“I… don’t know, Myla. My early memory blocks are still pretty scrambled. Not even Shelley’s been able to recover all of them. I think your aunt and I were involved in some pretty high-level stuff back then,” the skimmer-mode RIDE said.

The former officer nodded, fully immersed in her memories now. “That fits with what I know about her. She—she and ''you,'' I mean—had spent time in the regular Army and then the MRS. It’s just that I’m a little disappointed they even excised the time Aunt Anny took me for ice cream on you. Do you still have those neat old-style helmet projectors?”

“She does, but only because I restored them. She was pretty parted out when I got her,” Rhianna said, feeling some nostalgia herself, resting one hand on Kaylee’s handlebars. The RI had been traumatized by something she had no memory of, just the emotional echoes. “Not even her shell, no paws, no tail. Missing a lot of critical parts. I don’t know'' what'' could have happened that turned her into a RIDE they cannibalized for parts without transferring her RI core to a new body. Nextus folks don’t normally waste experienced workers like that, human or not. There’s got to be a story there, but Kaylee doesn’t remember.”

Myla looked thoughtful. “You know, why don’t we get in touch with my Aunt Anny later? Would you like that, Kaylee?”

The RIDE hesitated a little. “Sure. I’d like that. Thanks.”

Rhianna mounted, Myla squeezing behind her on the pillion seat, putting her arms around the mechanic’s waist. Myla Wilson had a child-like smile on her face, making Rhianna break into a grin also. She manually toggled Kaylee’s lifters; the antigrav started with a thunderous growl as the skimmer rose a meter over the garage floor. The sound quickly faded as the lifters spun up.

“Those aren’t her original lifters, are they?” Myla asked as the noise quieted. “The old ones did that, but…”

“Simulated for authenticity,” Kaylee said cheerfully. “Aeroshell up, and don’t forget your helmets, ladies.” The emitters on the instrument panel flickered, materializing an old-fashioned open-faced MRS helmet—minus the logo—on each of them. The helmets themselves were symbolic more than anything. Open skimmers had long used hardlight shields to protect their riders from the elements and collisions. Since Kaylee could reach almost four hundred kilometers per hour they were a necessity. At speed a rider wouldn’t feel so much as a light breeze. “Nice to see a smile on your face, Myla,” the RIDE continued.

“I just can’t help it,” Myla said. “I feel like a little girl again.”

“Then what say we skip lunch and go right to the ice cream?” Rhianna suggested on a hunch. “I know this great place downtown that sells the real stuff. Imported Laurasian milk from the Grand Valley. That is, if ‘mother’ here approves.” She tapped Kaylee’s engine compartment with the side of her boot.

“Just this once,” Kaylee said in her best motherly tone.'' :Let’s take the long way around on our way back. Our new arrival needs a tour,:'' she said to Rhianna privately.

'':Great idea!:''

The polis of Uplift had grown organically from a research outpost founded by Dr. Roberto Martinez, a Laurasian geologist who had made the study of the Dry Ocean his life’s work. Martinez hadn’t worked alone, always having a group of fellow researchers and graduate students with him. Even that early on the nascent city had a hardlight dome for climate control and protecting against solar storms. The supercontinent’s thin-to-nonexistent magnetic field left it vulnerable to coronal mass ejections, leaving radio communication unviable. The Dome had changed all that, deserving the capital letter it got, and had simply been expanded upon as the city grew.

The ice cream place was in Bifrost Park, where the last functioning example of the original house-sized Dome emitters sat at the center, surrounded by trees, fountains, and grass. Unlike modern units, this one projected what the Tourism Board called a “Fountain of Light” that really lived up to the claim. It was a sparkling, shifting rainbow fountain that rose three kilometers to reinforce the Dome itself. The hemispherical emitter had four crystalline prongs on the top from which the hardlight fountain sprang. The park was busy, full of children, local workers, Walker-mode RIDES, and Fused people. Myla got a plain vanilla cone while Rhianna Fused with Kaylee and got a Fuser-sized three-scoop bowl of Death by Chocolate.

“She’s a very naughty girl,” Kaylee said between sandy-tongue licks. “But she’s got the best taste buds around.”

“These combat nannies need an extra helping of chocolate for proper operation. It’s what they like best,” Rhianna added, smirking with Kaylee’s feline lips.

Myla laughed, having licked her own ice cream down the the waffle cone. “Thanks for this. I really needed some cheering up. The last three weeks have been just sheer ''hell''. And… hey! Just got a call. Sophie’s on her way, says not to leave her out of the ice cream party. She sounds a lot better, too. This partner of yours works fast.”

“Well, when she gets here, do you fancy a skimmer tour around your new home? We’re not quite as organized as Nextus in our layout. We’re more like Old Boston on Earth.”

“Never been to Earth,” Myla said. She bit into the cone, chewed, then swallowed. “I’d love to visit someday, but it’s still a couple year’s round trip travel. Then I’d have to spend another year touring the planet to make it worth it. Tiny planet, though. No wonder humans had to leave it.”

“Lord knows I haven’t looked back,” Rhianna said. “It’s just a husk now, even after maybe half the peak population left for the Colonies over the past three centuries. There was some kind of controversy about ‘terraforming’ the homeworld in the UE Senate about the time I left—what, almost eight years ago now? Including the time on the ship. You can imagine the uproar over even suggesting it.”

“Well, that’s why Earth sent so many people here, wasn’t it? We were very far away, especially at sublight speeds, but good old Zharus didn’t need much terraforming, is biochemically compatible, and has no native aliens so there’s no moral dilemma. Perfect, except for distance. That’s why we have over three'' billion'' here and the other eight Colonies combined just barely match us. They kept sending fleet after fleet even before Landing!”

Rhianna was delighted to find someone as interested in her new homeworld’s history as she was. The whole story was incredible. A habitable super-Earth almost twenty light-years from the origin world found by a probe moving at half the speed of light. The first Colonization Fleet had almost ten million people in coldsleep on a journey of thirty-five years at sublight—with even larger fleets sent at five-year intervals—a huge risk that had paid off handsomely for crowded Earth and the Zharusians themselves.

Sophie announced her arrival by doing a boosted forward-flip while changing into Walker form and landing softly in front of her partner. Myla embraced her. “That’s my girl! Glad you’re feeling better.”

“Oh,'' so much,''” the mecha fennec said, her hardlight fur almost twitching with excitement and relief. “Rochelle is soooo good! The holes are still there, but I feel like myself again. Can we Fuse up and get another ice cream? I can almost'' taste'' it.” She sniffed Rhianna-Kaylee’s nearly empty bowl. “And I’ll have what she’s having.”

Their first stop after ice cream was Martinez Memorial University, which contained the original tiny research station near the edge of the continental shelf, now part of a larger museum to Martinez’s work and Dry Ocean mining. Until someone finally made qubitite into a very valuable commodity, it was just a research station. The sarium batteries and RI cores that now underpinned the vehicle and RIDE technology on Zharus were'' made'' from it. Since the Q Rush, starting in 112 After Landing, the modern city exploded from an outpost of a few hundred academics, engineers, prospectors, and support staff to its current form.

Before she knew it, Rhianna had new friends—two, really, counting Sophie. She hadn’t expected this on meeting the brusque Nextus tax agent for that desert salvage job—it felt like years ago now, not just a few weeks—but there was actually a warm personality beneath the bureaucratic shell. An afternoon of sightseeing and trying to cheer up a woman who had recently had so much stress and heartbreak made Rhianna feel good. Whether that was new feminine empathy or just being a good person didn’t really matter. They did do a few stereotypically girly activities like linger in a few jewelry shops, check out a couple clothing stores, and hang out in the city’s more touristy spots where people who'' were'' from Earth could gawk at their RIDEs and themselves when Fused.

Uplift was a city of over fifteen million, counting the suburbs in their own smaller climate domes. It was actually one of the smallest polities on Gondwana because it was a little more expensive than most, even Nextus. The Dome Maintenance Tax accounted for that, but the pleasant climate it created was worth every penny-unit, in the mechanic’s view. Seen from space there were multiple Domes, connected together like so many soap bubbles tens-of-kilometers wide aligned north-south between the mountains and the drop off into the Dry Ocean proper.

Their last activity after an afternoon of fun was a ride along the Sunset Skimmerway just outside the Dome. They flew along side-by-side as the sun went down over the Dry Ocean hardpan and the one-kilometer drop just to their right. Kaylee had some trouble keeping up with the much newer fennec RIDE, but put up a good fight.

'':You know, I think I do remember you now, Myla,:'' Kaylee sent to her.

'':Oh? That’s good to hear! What do you remember?:'' she replied.

The mecha lynx stayed silent while sharing the memory with her rider, who was trying not to laugh. “Sure you want to know?” Rhianna said over laser link.

“Do I? Yes!”

'':You probably don’t remember on purpose. It was your very first ride. You were maybe five or six years old. When your aunt got up to about one-fifty, you, uh… peed your pants.:''

The silence was golden. Then Myla laughed so loudly Rhianna had to turn her volume down.

Rhianna received a text message waiting for her as they re-entered the Dome. Radio worked just fine on the inside.'' :Hm. Haven’t heard from Zane in a while.:'' she thought.

'':He’s been busy running one of the largest mining companies on Zharus,:'' Kaylee said.'' :I don’t think he even knows you crossed over, unless he’s heard something in the local rumor mill.:''

'':I’ve been meaning to tell him and Terry about what happened this summer. I still can’t believe it myself,:'' Rhianna replied.

The message simply read:'' Can I meet you at the garage after hours?''

“That’s funny,” Rhianna said, looking again. “The signature says it’s sent from his personal commpad. He usually sends these through Terry’s net link.”

“Who’s this you’re talking about?” Myla asked.

“Zane Brubeck. Owns a big mining company. Headquartered in that ten-story building you can see from the garage,” Kaylee said, pointing at it. The building itself was always open. Running the company was a 30/6 job and the employees set their own schedules. Some people never adapted to the planet’s 30-hour day.

“Wait,'' that'' Brubeck?”'' ''Myla said, incredulous. “The one that ripped his business out of Nextus a few months ago, after some of my colleagues all got bonuses from his paying more back taxes in one lump sum than an entire year’s worth? The one who delivered half of his own Board of Directors to the Marshals via an arranged bodyjacking? ''That ''one?''”''

“Bet you were really sorry to lose his company,” Rhianna said as they approached the Garage.

“Administration offered him all sorts of tax breaks to make sure Brubeck Mining stayed in Nextus, but he had nothing of it. Scuttlebutt is he even broke off ties with his own ''sister'' over it—she’s an Admin ‘crat in the Second Tier mining relations department.” Myla shook her head. “From what I heard, Clint Brubeck was the same kind of no-nonsense, salt-of-the-earth kind of guy his son apparently is. Thing is, Clint always paid his taxes. We never needed to visit him. That’s what made the company Board’s embezzlement so shocking. Probably explains why they were never audited either, come to think of it.”

'':Now Zane’s being all mysterious and mum about something. I’ll ping him back that the door will be open for him. We’ve got his biometric key,:'' Kaylee said. There was a short pause.'' :Er… nevermind. He said he’d rather not use biometrics.:''

“Does he think someone’s after him again?” Rhianna wondered.

'':We’ll find out in a sec. Home and home.:'' It was just before 2600 hours. There were still four hours left in the day, but Uplift was far enough north to get long daylight hours in summer. Sunset was barely past. Streetlights near the Garage cast pools of yellowish light around them, with a few neon signs from open restaurants and shops advertising their wares and services. Some wag had stuck a pink hardlight sign that said “Cross” over the “Free” part of “Freeriders Garage”. Rhianna hadn’t bothered to take it down yet because she still found it amusing. Between herself and her partner Rochelle Seaford (formerly Roger) it was pretty much spot-on.

The duo went to the loading dock around back where large deliveries were made. This was where, months ago, Zane had delivered his father’s non-functioning Intelligent Drive Extender (IDE), Chauncy, for Rhianna to work on. She saw the Fused tiger sitting on the edge of the loading dock next to his silver non-transforming skimmer, illuminated by the hardlight sign overhead.

He jumped up as soon as he saw them. “Rya—” He paused, then blinked. “…Ryan?” His voice sounded slightly off, but Rhianna couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

“‘Rhianna’ now. Long story. What’s going on?”

“You finally went Active? That’s'' great!'' K-Sp—ah, Kaylee, you must be so happy!” He grinned at her.

'':His voice is… odd. It’s like Terry’s and Zane’s got stuck in a blender. An’ he almost called me ‘K-Spared’. That’s ‘verry Terry.’:'' Kaylee said, switching directly from Skimmer to Fuser mode. Myla did the same thing with Sophie, but remained silent.

“It’s certainly a far cry from that time back in the garage…you remember? Right after Roger had gotten you booting, but hadn’t noticed you weren’t shutting down properly…”

Kaylee nodded, involuntarily recalling a set of memories she’d carefully kept hidden from Rhianna until now. Inside their shared feline shell, Rhianna grimaced, feeling the RI’s dance with near-insanity for the first time. It brought a lump to her throat.

Back when Ryan had first been rebuilding Kaylee, Terry had been racked up right next to her in the garage—it had been a lot smaller back then—halfway through the re-skinning that kid had gone into hock to pay for. She hadn’t had a working vocoder at that point, and hadn’t been able to tell anyone she wasn’t shutting down properly when they stopped work on her for the night. But Terry had noticed—and though his fetters wouldn’t let him say anything aloud, either, he could still talk to her on the RIDE-only machine-language sidebands. And they talked for hours.

She’d taken to calling herself “K-Spared” at that point—a pun on K Squared, the fact that she’d been used for spare parts, and the fact that she’d then been spared from being junked by Ryan buying her. She could hear everything that went on around her. She knew Ryan had no idea yet she was female, and she was scared, so desperately scared, that when he found out he wouldn’t want her anymore.'' :You can’t tell him!:'' she’d insisted to Terry, on the edge of hysteria.'' :Promise me you won’t tell him!:''

'':I promise,:'' Terry had said calmly.'' :Not like I can tell them anything anyway, or I’d have told them two nights ago you weren’t shutting down properly. But I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about. Ryan doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d do something like that. Trust the man.:''

Not long after that, Roger had finally noticed Kaylee’s problem, cursed himself for over nine thousand different kinds of idiot, and spent three long days finalizing the personality defragment that recovered Kaylee’s personality and sanity to the greatest extent possible. (He’d gone entirely without sleep during that time save for a few long-compile-time naps, and had been a bit less than rational himself by the time he’d finished.) Of course, by then Terry had been picked up by the kid, and she’d heard later that he’d been repossessed, so he hadn’t gotten to learn the end of the story until the time a few months back when they’d caught up again. He’d been very concerned to hear that she was still going Passive when they Fused—more so than he’d let on to Zane or Ryan at the time. But she’d insisted she was happy with their partnership, and so Terry had let it be.

Rhianna was amazed, after integrating all these memories, to find that only about three seconds had passed.'' :I told you Active Fusing was amazing, didn’t I?:'' Kaylee said, her own inner voice a little unsteady itself from the recollection.

The new woman embraced her partner in virtual space.'' :I’m so, so sorry I didn’t do it sooner, Kaylee. What’s going on with Zane and Terry? I’m getting some oddly familiar readings from your sensors. That’s a hardlight shell he’s wearing, but not really a very good one.:''

Kaylee agreed.'' :I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re not in Laurasia anymore, Rhianna:''

“Er…I’m sorry,” Zane said. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. I’d just…Terry had just been so worried about you.” He stepped forward and hugged Kaylee and Rhianna. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

The Fused feline duo received a message and some telemetry from Sophie.'' :He’s—they’re—Integrated,:'' the fennec declared.'' :I’ve still got a better sensor suite than you do despite what they removed, Kaylee. He’s doing a very clumsy job—in my view—of maintaining it. It must have'' just ''happened. Must be taking a lot of concentration for him—them:''

'':Lordy Lord Lordy,:'' Kaylee said, virtually facepaw-ing.'' :That explains a lot. I keep trying to connect to Terry and I get nothing. He’s not radiating any comm signals either. It’s like he’s a hole in the network. That explains why he used a commpad for the text.:''

'':He’s obviously here for your help,:'' Myla added.

Rhianna took a deep breath. “Okay, Zane—and Terry. Or should I say ‘Zane slash Terry’? We’ve figured it out. Come inside.”'' :And Kaylee? Ping Rochelle. She’s going to want to know about this.:''

{{separator|k}}

Zane followed the two Fusers into the garage under Rhianna’s home, and as soon as the door closed behind them he seemed to lose half a meter of height and twenty kilos or so of bulk. He resembled a slightly-sleeker, more human-scaled version of their previous tiger-man Fuser form, with the addition of round hardlight lenses inset into his fur in a regular pattern that followed his black stripes—actual-not-hardlight fur no less. He wore a pair of shorts for modesty, but was otherwise as naked as his Fuser form had been. “So, uh, hi,” he said.

Before Rhianna could reply, Rochelle practically fell down the stairs in a rush, her curtain of hair (peach-colored today) swirling around her. Rhianna marveled at the way that girl could make even stumbling and falling look erotic. It was as if the picture only required someone at the bottom of the stairs to catch her and sweep her up into a passionate embrace. For that matter, given Rochelle’s past preferences, the catcher could very well be she—Rhianna shook her head to clear it and muttered dark imprecations at whoever had designed Uncia’s fuser nanos.

“Well, I don’t have an examination table like a doctor’s office, so can you have a seat over near the diagnostic station, Zane? Zane-and-Terry? Uh, ZaneTerry? What should we call you?” Rhianna said, gesturing politely.

“Call me whatever you want, just don’t call me late for dinner,” Zane said tiredly. “Speaking of which, hey, RIDE-safe power outlet. Cool.” He reached down and held his right wrist against the socket for a moment. The lights flickered and dimmed for just a second, then Zane stood up straighter. “Wow, that’s better than coffee.” He sat down in the proffered seat, glancing bemusedly at his wrists. The power socket was right where he would have worn a watch if he’d worn it right-handed. There was another socket of a different design in the same place on his left wrist.

“Well, isn’t'' that'' interesting?” Myla said. “Quinoa just used induction, didn’t she? I guess some of them have power plugs too.”

Once she had her diagnostic gear on, Rhianna looked almost like a feline mad scientist about to do some work. The nanolathe gloves were rather intimidating, but most of her “patients” never complained. A backpack full of supplementary sensors, nanolathe fabber matter and extra processing power completed the look. “I’m not sure where to start. You don’t have any standard diagnostic data ports any more.”

“You don’t seem too surprised at what you see,” Zane said, still in that odd mixture of Zane’s and Terry’s inflections. It was almost as if Zane was trying to impersonate Terry’s voice, or Terry trying to impersonate Zane’s. The faint Nextus-upper-crust accent Zane had mingled oddly but pleasantly with Terry’s street cant.

“I had this Dry Ocean salvage job a few weeks ago. That’s how I met Myla here and it’s why I’m ‘Rhianna’ now. That reminds me. Zane Brubeck, Myla Wilson, formerly of the Nextus Materiel Recovery Service.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Wilson,” Zane said, extending a handpaw. The fennec-suited woman took it carefully. “You were a revenuer? My Dad actually liked you guys. Loved watching you go after some of his tax-dodging ‘friends’. Though I’m kinda confused you ended up arresting ''Joe Steader'' of all people. The man who gave the whole planet a pop culture transplant…”

“I can tell you the MRS was more than a little confused and suspicious of the evidence, but we were obligated to follow through with it. Everybody loves Crazy Joe, right? Though given something Quinoa said back at the Towers, I gather there’s more to that affair than meets the eye. That little girl…” Myla said. “Well, I’m still recovering from a few weeks of debriefings and mustering out. I’m sure Rhianna’s story will cover all the important parts.”

The lynx nodded. “So why don’t I tell you about it while I try and figure out what makes you tick? Shelley, do you have anything that can plug in that dataport of his?” Rhianna flexed her fingers like a pianist warming up.

Rochelle tossed her head, hair flowing back out of her face in slight slow motion. She sighed and ran a hand through it, and it pulled itself back into one of those twisted-up bun styles whose sole purpose is to come undone in shampoo commercials. “There, that will buy me some time. Um…let me see. I think that’s going to need a custom design. We could use nano-memory paste to explore it and determine what connectors it has. That’s more your department than mine, though.”

Rhianna extended a nanolathe tip from her right index finger, then approached Zane. “Let me know if this hurts or anything. I don’t know how this port of yours is connected to the rest of you. I don’t know a hell of a lot here, in fact. It’s just going to be guesswork and some very detailed I/O analysis.”

“You probably know more than I do.” Zane shook his head. “This is all new to me. I woke up this morning in a puddle of silver snot, with Terry inside my mind. Part of my mind.”

Myla looked pained at Zane’s description. Rhianna patted her Fused shoulder after injecting the paste. The foxy duo decided to de-Fuse. “Where’s your living room? I don’t think I’m up for this.”

“Upstairs, turn left. Go relax, okay?” Rhianna said, putting her handpaw on Myla’s now-human shoulder. “Use my bedroom if you want to sleep, there’s clean sheets in the closet. I’ve got a cot down here, since this is our personal garage.”

“Thank you. I had a very nice afternoon sightseeing, Rhianna, Kaylee. Thanks for the warm welcome. And… nice meeting you, Mr. Brubeck.”

Zane frowned. “Um…same to you, Miss Wilson. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I know, Mr. Brubeck. We just need a few. Come on, Sophie,” Myla said. The pair of them headed up the stairs Rochelle had nearly fallen down.

Rhianna watched them go, then turned back to Zane. “Rochelle’s already heard this, but let Kaylee and me tell you a little story about a Dry Ocean salvage job gone sour, a Nextus Military dragon, a pack of four stingy wolves, a falcon, a sphinx, and a dinosaur named Eduard.”

The analysis took some time—as did the story. The nano-probe reported a very complex, utterly non-standard connector shape and contact points that included significant traces of pure qubitite and neodymium. Once she felt she had enough data she fed it to the shop’s fabber to work on. The first prototype was ready in minutes.

When Rhianna’s story was finished, Zane whistled. “Wow. Those Enclave jerks sound like real prizes. And Quinoa Steader? Damn, who’d have thought it? I remember Dad and Joe used to pal around, though I never ran into Quinoa much that I can recall. My sisters and I weren’t really the kind of people she wanted as friends. Too grounded in reality, I suppose. Earthy, as Dad would’ve said. She always had her head in the clouds. Pretty much like her uncle.”

“Poor Myla kept watch on that girl for two years in a pony RIDE that couldn’t transform.” Rhianna shuddered. She picked up the prototype connector from the output tray. “Let me see if this works.”

“Then it’ll be'' my'' turn.” Rochelle rubbed her hands together and cackled evilly, a femme fatale in custom-fitted coveralls. Zane grinned appreciatively at her.

“Ready for this?” the lynx asked. At Zane’s nod, she plugged it into the socket on his left wrist. She got absolutely nothing out of the datastream—not even the same quantum-encrypted gibberish Quinoa’s had. “Anything at all, Zane?”

“Nothing. Silence,” the Integrate tiger replied.

Grumbling, Rhianna unplugged the offending piece of hardware, then tossed it back into the fabber’s recycling receptacle. “Try, try again. I must’ve missed some contacts on the first scan.”

Rochelle sighed. “Might not be my turn for a while.”

“I spent the day down at the library, running searches on Integrates and Integration. With a keyboard.” Zane rolled his eyes. “Didn’t find a lot of solid information. In fact, I think I learned more from what you just told me than I did all day there. So this DIN thing is going to let me hook up to the net again?”

“It basically allowed Quinoa to control Qixi’s suborbital like it was a remote controlled skimmer you buy at a toy store,” Rhianna said. “Kaylee, maybe if we…” She trailed off as she switched over to subvocal communication.

“I have a theory that Integrates’ bodies are sort of natural supercomputers,” Rochelle said as her business partner got more involved in her work. “All that qubitite can be locked in place in the most optimal configuration, without having to worry about getting disrupted every time you mode switch. If that’s true…” She shook her head. “What couldn’t they do? Apart from, well, talk to the ‘net, anyway.”

Zane whistled. “Now I’m really looking forward to playing with my new toy.”

“Mm,” Rhianna said thoughtfully, fiddling with her scan, showing the same kind of focus on her work as she had on Chauncey’s rebuild.

Zane watched her work for a moment, and the silence stretched out into a minute. “Listen. It’s…not what you think it’s like. At least, not what it must have been like for Burke.”

“That was… horrible. I can’t really think of it without shivers.” Rhianna hugged herself and shook a little.

“For us, it was just…the logical next step. I mean, you know we were basically 30/6 Fused the last few months, right?” He chuckled. “I don’t know if you knew, but half the time we ever said anything, it was really Terry using Zane’s voice.” He waited to see if anyone looked shocked, then shrugged and continued.

“Crazy thing is, I—Zane, that is—didn’t really know it either, ‘til today when we did a little mental review. I’m sure you’ve known people who finished each others’ thoughts. Well, we'' started'' and finished each other’s thoughts. And we were happy that way. From there…well, Integration wasn’t that far away.”

“Silly question I guess, but are you'' still'' happy?” Rhianna asked. It could have been Kaylee asking the question, or both of them at once. Ironic, given the situation and the question. Zane had seen the recording of Flint-Burke’s forced-Integration on a video screen.

Zane nodded. “I am. I’d say ‘we are’ but really we’re an ‘I’ right now. If you want, I can split him out in my head and both sides of me can say it for themselves. Of course, you’d only have my word for it that we really were, rather than me just ‘doing’ our voices. But if that doohickey you’re making works, I can show you our memories of it sometime, if you want.”

“I… we don’t know if we could follow through with that,” Rhianna said. “That’s actually more frightening than watching it being done to someone and seeing the results.”

“Yeah, we weren’t exactly keen on the idea either, just after we met,” Zane said. “Even right up to the end, we were both kind of scared when it became obvious it was going to happen, but we also knew we were on the edge of something wonderful. I know this probably sounds kinda creepy, K, but if you ever Integrate naturally, I think you’ll be ready for it by the time it happens. And if you’re not ready, you just won’t Integrate.”

“Then it won’t be for a long while,” Rhianna said. “Kaylee and I just started Active Fuse.”

Rochelle spoke up again. “Is it really worth it? You wouldn’t ever go back?”

Zane nodded to her. “It’s early to tell, but…I think so. I guess I can’t say I have'' no'' regrets. It’s a little sad to know I’m never going to look over and see that gorgeous tiger or that handsome young man again except in my memories. But if I had the choice of giving it up…well, it would still be giving up a lot. I guess it’s never easy being born, and it doesn’t get any easier the second time.”

Watching Rhianna silently, carefully, methodically working through a problem was in some ways a test of Zane’s patience. She hardly said a word, moving between nanoprobe and a multi-colored 3D hardlight representation of the dataport on his left wrist.

Kaylee was used to this. It was how her partner worked. Now that they were actively Fused, it was even easier to tell what she wanted, so the RIDE helped nudge it along. Rhianna’s thought process had no words—just images, equations, even the idle scribbles of an architect considering a problem then throwing the mental paper away, unsatisfied. Sometimes they barely moved, fully focused.

“Wish she’d be a little more…demonstrative. I never know what she’s thinking of,” Rochelle said. She watched the slow refinement of the prototype’s image drawn from her simulations. It had already been taken apart and put back together several times, with different combinations of materials. “Gotta love the results, though.”

It took six hours, as many physical prototypes, and a hundred times that many simulated. It wasn’t just the'' shape'' of the connector, it was what it was made out of. Aside from the actual physical versions she had Rochelle funnel the possibilities into her simulation software, ruling out most of the standard materials. With each new prototype more and more data flowed down the wire. No computer in the diagnostic kit could make sense of it, but at least it was coming.

The final prototype came out of the fabber at three in the morning. “Want to know the gory details? You won’t believe what this is made out of,” Rhianna asked. “I double-checked the math myself. You don’t want to know that much, though.”

Zane nodded. “Shoot.”

“It’s layers of graphene and qubitite salted with more neodymium and even some nanoscale sarium battery bits, all in very precise locations—down to the angstrom. If this really does work—and I’m sure it will this time—I’ve got the design and can fab more pretty easily. But it’s not cheap. I think I went through about ten thousand ''mu'' of materials and fabber time just making this one.”

Zane sighed theatrically. “Guess I won’t be ordering another diamond-studded swimming pool this week.”

“Your home fabber should be able to make spares, too, once you have the materials. If this one doesn’t work I’ll eat my hat.” Rhianna plugged him in and got the expected strong but unintelligible data flow. Then she stretched and yawned, de-Fusing from Kaylee in the process. “All yours, Shelley. I need some sweet tea. Be back down after I’ve cleaned up a bit. I’m not going to bed until I see how this turns out.”

“Yay, my turn!” Rochelle ran her hands through her hair, shaking it out and letting it fall into place around her again as Zane watched in clear appreciation. She whipped out a pair of interface specs, then paused in the process of putting them on. “Oh. Rhianna—before you go for drinks, I need to ask you something. Something serious.”

Rhianna blinked. “Buh?” she asked tiredly. Now that the task was finished her mind was already going into full-relaxation safe mode.

“You know my normal procedure for working through an unknown involves lots of net searching, right? I never know what’s going to give me some clue I need to break through.”

“All right…?” Rhianna said.

“Thing is, I’ve been thinking ‘bout this,” Rochelle said. “And if I were an Integrate, I’d be monitoring net searches for any suspicious activity relating to Integrate—since probably the first thing any new Intie’s gonna do is try to google his condition, and I expect that’s one of the big ways they look for their poor confused brand new little lost lambs.”

“Lambs, tigers, deer, bears, oh my! I get it.”

“Now I’m gonna bounce through every proxy server, anonymizer, and relay this side of Laurasia, but if these Integrates are really All That, it’ll probably just make them more interested. And that’s not the worst part.”

She paused, waiting for a reaction, but only encountered Rhianna’s blank, tired stare, shrugged, and went on. “If their community’s as small as it sounds, they’ve probably all heard about Quinoa’s little furball last month, and who was there, and it’s not exactly a secret where you-all live and work and stuff. So when they notice every fragment of Intie lore on the net is being sucked down to'' here…'' well.” She shrugged. “I’ll try to go it without if you’d rather. Up to you.” She nodded to Zane. “And you, of course.”

Rhianna thought about that, coming out of “safe mode” for a while. “Zane, you already did a lot of searching at the library, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I didn’t'' see'' anyone odd, but…maybe the place was too public. Or, well…” Zane shrugged. “Have'' you'' seen any invisible four meter dinosaurs around lately?”

“And there is kind of an important little difference between a public library and a certain private garage,” Rochelle pointed out.

The cat-nosed woman looked thoughtful, rubbing her nose, then peered at the power plug Zane had used to recharge. Rhianna had a very flat expression Rochelle knew all too well, even on her new face.

It was the expression that the inevitable was going to happen, so there was no reason to delay it. “They probably already know you’re here. The way the lights flickered when you recharged like that… Another thing they look for. A new Intie’s power drain on the grid.” She sighed deeply. “I need one of my non-sleeping pills and I’ll think more clearly. I need some food, too.” The woman sniffed herself. “And a shower.”

“She always gets cranky after a long session like that,” Kaylee explained as her partner retreated up the stairs at a clip. “Didn’t do that as a man, though. Hunh. Hormones, what can you do?”

“So I guess that was a ‘go ahead, burn up the net all you want,’ right?” Rochelle said. “Didn’t sound like a no, anyway.”

“For my part, I’m okay with it,” Zane said. “The sooner I get a DIN, the sooner I can pull my weight if they do show up. Wonder what ‘DIN’ stands for, anyway?”

Rochelle nodded. She opened her interface specs with a flick of her wrist and put them on, then waved at the arrangement of monitors and workstations nearby to load her specialized programs into them. “Oh, Uncia, darling?” she called into the next room. “I might need you here in a few.”

The snow leopard padded in and sat down nearby. “I live to serve!”

“Goody goody.” Rochelle cracked her knuckles sexily. “Let’s get to work.”

As her rider got started, Uncia padded over to Kaylee and gave the older lynx an affectionate headbutt. “You’re in a good mood, big sis.”

The snow leopard was almost twice Kaylee’s size in Walker mode. Kaylee returned the affection, purring up a storm. “It’s been a'' very'' good day. One of the best since Rhianna and I went Active. I think she’s finally settlin’ in.” The older, smaller RIDE padded over to a socket herself and extended a charging plug from her stubby tail. “Stripesy there had the right idea. Did so much high-speed skimming today I’m half down.”

“I had a long sideband chat with Sophie. I like her. Introduced myself with a pounce and a good licking,” the larger snow leopardess mecha said. “I just'' love'' her lickable ears!”

“I’m sure she just'' loved'' that,” Kaylee said dryly, having been at the receiving end of that kind of grooming a number of times. It was hard to say no to that kind of'' aggressive'' affection from someone who (inexplicably) idolized you and was technically less than a year old.

Rochelle glanced over. “Okay, Un-hon? Time to light up the ‘nets. Search package Alpha, subject: ‘Integration’ as it pertains to RIDEs. Weight it for relevance toward any appearances or uses of DIN interfaces. I’ll be in there in a few minutes to see what you have for me.”

The snow leopardess nodded. “Running the search protocols now. Rerouting through proxies and anonymizers. Found two terabytes of material so far. Five. Nine. Sorting.” She sat on her haunches and started to scratch furiously behind one ear. “Why is data searching always so'' itchy?”''

Rochelle slipped her hands into a pair of data-manipulation gloves and started augmenting her eyeflicks with gestures. She waved at a sensor unit on the ceiling and it swivelled around, orienting its cluster of tubular sensors on Zane like the barrel of some enormous cannon. She made a lifting gesture with her other hand, and it began to light up, with a faint bass undertone and rotate slowly. “Don’t worry, it’s harmless. Unless…you haven’t had any dental work recently, have you?”

“Er…” Zane said.

She grinned. “Juuuuust kidding! Hmm…okay, recording brainwave patterns, cross-referencing timestamps with data reads from that data port…let’s see if we get anything interesting off the bat. Hmm…Fibonacci sequence maybe? No?” She shook her head. “Okay, run program ‘Enigma’. We’ll let it get started, and I’ll swap the process over to Uncia’s onboard hardware for more speed once I’ve reviewed the search results.”

Zane allowed her to do the scans, fascinated. He had never seen them work before. No wonder Chauncey had come out of the Garage in much better shape than the old IDE had come in. Rhianna, Kaylee, Rochelle, and Uncia all had great passion for their work that didn’t make it look like work at all. It was the kind of passion he wished more of his employees had. And it didn’t hurt, either, that Rochelle was perpetually gorgeous, and she practically'' glowed'' with the energy she threw into her work.

Of course, he knew'' why'' she was so gorgeous, and a part of him felt guilty at appreciating it so much. He knew the nanite infection had not been her decision, and she spent hours every week at Nextus Nano’s labs working on a cure. He rather hoped she found it. But in the meanwhile, guilt or not, he didn’t see the harm in enjoying the view.

A damp-haired Rhianna came back downstairs with a half liter mug of steaming hot tea and a plate of a half dozen toaster pastries, dressed in a blue terrycloth bathrobe a little too small for her, and especially not built for a woman’s curves. Not with that much exposed cleavage. “Do you still eat, Zane? After you plugged in like that…”

“I’m pretty sure I do. And I could go for some coffee right now, I think.”

The lynx-eared and -nosed woman looked at the plate of “food”, reconsidering her choice of sustenance. “Maybe you can get Shelley to make you some. She always gives me the evil eye when I suggest fabbing the stuff.”

“That’s because fabbed coffee is what Satan pees out when he goes to the toilet, Rhi!” Rochelle said. “I’m too busy here to make it, but I’ve got some of the real stuff in the kitchenette. Grab a K-cup out of the drawer and put it in the brewer, you know where it is.”

“In a sec. I’m going to order some real food from that all-night Proximan take-out. You know the one. Ah. Kaylee’s already ordered. Hope you like noodles and seafood stir fry. Be right back.” She left the room, then a minute later came back with a steaming mug of coffee. She handed it over to Zane and had a seat.

Rochelle stroked the air with her gloves, and began humming. The tune was recognizable, one of her favorite songs from the classical 20th century pop minstrels. After a while, she was singing under her breath. “I’m so tired I can hardly think, so I feel instead and let you loose inside my head…”

She spun around, then moved over to Uncia. “Cue up the most relevant search results, and all memories you got from Kaylee, Yvonne, and Sophie having to do with Quinoa using her DIN and any scan data they got, then open up, please, hon!” Uncia Fused up over her, then the eight-foot snow leopardess turned back to the scans. Her body language was still unmistakably Rochelle, just with the addition of fur. Her tail swung wide as she half-danced in place. She waved a hand in the air and hardlight display panels blossomed in place behind it like time-lapse flowers opening.

“Let’s see, there’s a lot of shaky-cam footage here of rather blurry Integrate zapping things and blowing them up, or otherwise holding glowing doohickies.” Rochelle threw different clips up on all the screens. “Geez. It’s been hundreds of years since they invented image stabilization. Why do we still get shaky-cam? Hm. And none of these images are particularly sharp, either. I’ll bet the Integrates are doing something to mess up the recording just enough that you can’t really identify them.” She tapped another screen. “And what’s this? Oh, cute. ‘Brown vs. Board of Education.’” She chuckled. “Snow kitty will have her little joke.” Uncia giggled. “I’ll keep looking…there’s got to be some clues here somewhere…”

“She’s in her manic stage right now,” Rhianna half-whispered to Zane. “Enjoy it while it lasts. In about ten minutes she’ll have cycled down to frustrated, and in half an hour she’ll be banging her head against the wall.”

“I’ll have you know I heard that!” Rochelle sang out, peering thoughtfully at the contents of the screens she’d opened and collapsing half of them. “I don’t make fun of'' your'' process, you know.”

“Hey, whatever works,” Zane said, grinning.

“Let’s pull that ‘Enigma’ process over here, Uncia darling, you’ve got some spare cycles,” Rochelle said. “And let’s see what happens if we switch to hexadecimal. Hmm…no, still doesn’t make sense. What if we try…” She trailed off, finally remembering to switch her dialogue to internal.

Over the next few hours, the pattern repeated several times. Sometimes Rochelle manically jumped, dashed, or danced around the private garage, fluffy tail threatening to knock over small objects or occasionally people. She would Fuse or de-Fuse seemingly at random, muttering instructions to Uncia as she examined her screens or interface specs again. Other times she stood in one spot, tail lashing, growling at a hardlight display or her glasses,'' daring'' them to show her what she thought she was seeing. And sometimes she did, indeed, stand in the corner banging her head against the wall and moaning, “Why, God, why?”

Early on during one of her business partner’s outbursts Rhianna pointed at a poster on the wall that said “Bang Head Here”. “That’s what I do when I get frustrated, too,” she explained to Zane. She’d moved closer to him in order to get a look at the hardlight lenses embedded in his skin. “I’m no doctor, but can I have a closer look at those?”

“Go ahead. I’m curious, myself. Wondering how I ended up with real tiger fur, for that matter. I don’t think I had any natural DNA coding for it,” Zane said.

'':I’ve given Yvonne a ping,:'' Kaylee said.'' :Once we figure this out he’s going to need some kind of comm gear and we don’t carry any of the good stuff here. Rufia’s bound to have spares she can part with.:''

At last, during one of her lowest depressive phases, when Rochelle was in the middle of lying sprawled out face-down on the hard concrete floor, right beside a similarly-sprawled Uncia, fluffy tails twitching in the air in unison, she suddenly lifted her head, blinked, and then rolled over into Uncia, Fusing and continuing the roll to her feet.

She spun around and waved a hand, scattering hardlight displays in the air again, then she grabbed one by the edges with both hands and pulled it closer to her. “Yes! that’s it! That’s'' IT!''” For a moment, music blared from unseen speakers: “International bright young thing, now you know for sure that you make the world swing…”

“Hunh?” Zane, who had been dozing, woke up—in time to be grabbed and kissed on the mouth, with hardlight tongue, by a snow leopard. “Mmmph!”

“That’s it!” Rochelle said again, dropping him back onto the table. “REM sleep! I think…I’ve found the key at last!”

“Can we do that again?” Uncia asked plaintively.

Rhianna awoke from the cot she and Fused Kaylee used during their own all-nighters. “Finally got it, snowgirl?”

“Yes! While he was in REM sleep, the encoding changed completely—and Enigma suddenly had enough data to start working out what was what. Gimme a few minutes and I’ll have you doing tricks.”

“The kissing, I mean,” Uncia said. “That was fun.”

Rochelle was lost in her own little world again. “…and configure, and'' make!'' Okay, five minutes, tops, and then it’s say hello to ZaneOS 1.0.”

“So no more kissing?” Uncia said sadly.

Rhianna slid a standard qubitite firmware crystal into the writer in preparation. A minute later everyone heard the familiar bass thrumming of Yvonne’s tuned-up lifters outside. “Gear’s here, Shelley. We’ve almost got all the pieces.”

“Awesome!” Rochelle stretched, and Uncia melted off of her back into her snow leopard form. Rochelle fell onto her back, arms crossed behind her head, relaxing into the curvature of Uncia’s spine. She yawned. “Boy, glad that’s done.” Then the beep sounded that signaled the end of the compile, and she was on her feet again, hair flying. “Build’s up!”

Fused Rufia and Yvonne entered. The pair of them could come and go as they pleased, more or less. The female elk carried a box under the crook of her arm, but dropped it upon seeing Zane. “Whooo wheee! You’re handsome, short stuff.”

Zane grinned at her. “Not that short where it counts, big gal.”

“Hey, now. I saw him first!” Rochelle said, grinning.

Rhianna picked the box up off the floor. It was dirty and appeared to have been sitting on a shelf for several years, but the thumb-sized lens, embedded in a slightly larger bezel, looked suspiciously military with no identifying marks. “Rufia, where did you get this?”

“Oh, you know. Around.” She cleared her throat, then put on the manner of a used skimmer salesman. “This is the Kinnison Lensman ‘Second Stage’ Comm and Defense Unit, straight from Nuevo San DefCom Tech. It combines a self-contained sarium battery, ultrafast laser and wifi comms, hardlight defense shields, and will burn your attacker’s head clean off.”

“Operators are standing by?” Zane asked.

“And you can have it for the low, low price of… absolutely nothing. I just'' gotta'' see how all this turns out,” Rufia said, her elk RIDE’s face smiling with more than a little lust.

“Why is it that nobody around here knows enough to pad their bills when they’re dealing with rich people?” Zane wondered.

“Money don’t buy happiness, you handsome putty tat.”

Zane grinned. “No, but it will sure rent a lot of it. Well, all right, if you insist. But I reserve the right to return the favor, when you'' least'' expect it. I’m good at that, just ask Rhianna.”

“Oh, he is. He really is!” she replied.

Compared to the hours and hours of making hardware and software, putting the final pieces together took less than a minute. The “ZaneOS 1.0” crystal went into Rhianna’s custom interface plug, the plug into the much-ballyhooed Lensman unit, then the unit itself was handed to their customer on one of Rochelle’s red velvet pillows Kaylee had fetched from upstairs.

Zane picked it up in his right hand. “All right, let’s light this candle.” He snapped it home into the plug in his wrist. A moment later, it lit up, and Zane grinned. “Hello, world!”

Rhianna pointed around the room. “There’s network points, wifi and laser, all over the garage here. You should be able to—”

Zane grinned. “Got it! Ah, good ol’ ‘net…” The lens on his wrist gleamed as laser pulses suffused the garage. “And that reminds me.” He held up a hand, hardlight emitter in the heel of his palm facing Rhianna and Kaylee. A plane of light appeared in front of them and swept over them, tingling where it touched, then vanished.

“That was for..?” Kaylee asked.

Zane grinned. “Well, I still haven’t gotten you your crossrider present. Oh, and for that matter…I missed yours, too, Shelley.” He pointed his hand at her, and she got the same treatment.

'':The traditional present from a man who’s a good friend to a crossed woman is…:'' Kaylee said internally, bringing up photo after photo of women of her build in racy lingerie.'' :Yeah. This.:''

“Well, the measure of good lingerie is how it looks on the floor, so just keep that in mind, my handsomely-striped friend,” Rhianna said, putting on her best faux ‘come hither’ look. “Wow! What a night.”

“And…I think there’s something else I can do for you, Rochelle.” Zane held up his wrist, and the lens scintillated, bathing her in laser light. Her eyes widened, and suddenly her appearance…changed. Her hair stopped animating and fell limp. Her posture sagged slightly, and for the first time her face showed the hours of work she’d just put in.

Rochelle blinked. “Did you just…you'' did''. You deactivated my nanites.”

“Yeah, you’re ‘cured,’” Zane said.

“Huh.” Rochelle considered that. “Okay. That’s nice, and I really appreciate that and all, but…could you put them back exactly how they were?”

Zane blinked. “But…why? You said you didn’t like having them on all the time. Now you can control them, so you could crank them back up yourself when you want—”

“That’s true, but…” Rochelle shuffled her feet and looked down. “It’s really not so bad having them stuck on…but more importantly, as long as I’m'' trying'' to find a cure, I get access to the latest nanotech at Nextus Nano. I’ve really been learning a lot lately. Besides, this isn’t really about me. I can’t let anyone else ‘catch’ it.”

Rhianna chuckled quietly.'' :She suffers for her art,:'' she sent to Kaylee.

“And besides, if I show up with them magically cured, they might think I was faking it all along and sue me to get the settlement money back.”

“She’s got you there, Zane,” Rhianna said.

“You know, I could just'' buy'' Nextus Nano,” Zane said. “I could give it to you as a present.”

Rhianna-and-Kaylee stared slack-jawed, but Rochelle looked skeptical. “Really?”

Zane chuckled, then shook his head. “Well, okay, not really. Their market cap is almost as high as Brubeck Mining’s. Lot of money in rich-people nanos. But I'' could'' make good the settlement money. If you’d let me. But of course you wouldn’t let me.”

Rochelle snorted. “No offense, but I’m not gonna be anybody’s kept woman or trophy girlfriend.”

He grinned. “All right. I’ll put it back. But you gotta do one teeny little thing for me in return.”

“And what’s that?” Rochelle asked.

“Go out with me tomor—tonight?”

Rochelle looked at him. “Did you even hear what I just—”

“Seriously. If you want, I’ll even let you buy.”

Rochelle blinked. “Wow, that’s an original approach. You want to prove how much you care for me by letting me buy you dinner?”

Zane grinned. “It does sound kind of funny when you put it that way, doesn’t it?”

Rochelle chuckled. “How can a gal resist an offer like that? You’re on.”

“Awesome! Pick you up at 2400?” He bathed her in laser-light again, and she reverted to her former hyper-attractive self.

Rochelle grinned, running a hand through her once-more-animated hair. “We’ll be waiting.”

“It’s like being in a soap opera,” Rufia said, clearly delighted to have played a part. “Anyone for breakfast? Coffee and pastries on me.”

Zane snapped his fingers. “That reminds me. I need to settle the bill.”

“Oh, the bill,” Rhianna said, knowing full well what was coming. “Zane, it’s been a privilege to—”

Zane raised his hand, suddenly serious. “No. I let you get away with this for Chauncey, because that was obviously a labor of love for you, and you felt like I was doing you a favor for letting you work on him. That touched on your honor. You felt obligated.” He shook his head. “It’s my turn to be in those shoes.

“You’ve just stayed up all night for me when you should have been sleeping, putting your best effort into reverse-engineering a completely new technology you’d seen in action for maybe five minutes, used by people who really creeped you out. And you totally saved my sanity by keeping me from going into net withdrawal. So now'' I'' feel obligated, that touches on'' my'' honor, and I’m not gonna let you get away without being paid'' fairly'' for services rendered.”

“Well, okay. Our standard ‘need it yesterday’ overtime rates…” Kaylee called up the numbers. It was a pretty hefty sum.

“Let me see that.” He reached out a hand, and the tablet floated out of Kaylee’s hands and into his. “Hmm. No. This won’t do.” He waved a hand over the tablet and floated it back to her with a new set of figures on it. “That’s my standard rates—or, rather, Brubeck Mining’s standard hourly fee schedule for cutting-edge technology contractors. Well, actually standard plus 25%, because we leave the base rate low so there’s room to negotiate. Plus invention bonus. In the interest of fairness, I actually cut the bonus in half, because the normal use of it involves compensation for signing patent rights over to the company, but somehow I suspect there’s too much prior art in this case. And materials at 50% mark-up, rather than cost.”

Though she was Fused with Kaylee, Rhianna still looked weak in the knees. She passed the tablet to Rochelle. “Even after snowgirl here takes her half… I… I… I could buy a full factory refurbished redstone… Not a big suborbital, but I don’t need Qixi’s kind of gear… ‘Scuse me. I need to lay down.” She sat down heavily on the big cot.

Rochelle peered at it. “Hell, we’re partners. I could throw in and we could get one of those downgraded ex-Nextus Army drop shuttles that just came on the market again.” She looked at Zane. “Are you sure this is right?”

Zane nodded. “I absolutely swear to you that these are our standard consulting rates and not a penny more. I’ll make our accountant available to you if you don’t believe me.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Look, I know I like to throw money around. It’s about the only thing it’s good for. But I already know better than to try to give you anything you don’t think you’ve earned. I respect you too much for that. Both of you.”

“Okay, you win,” Rhianna said, almost gasping. She stood up and extended her handpaw. “Just this once, it’s a deal.”

Zane grinned. “Don’t worry. The next time I ask you to do anything where you might risk getting paid what you’re actually worth, I’ll make you sign a contract ahead of time so you see it coming.”

Rhianna frowned thoughtfully as something that had been niggling at the back of her mind all night finally came clear in her head. “Speaking of contracts…and throwing money around…I wonder if I might ask a favor of you, on behalf of a new friend who I hope will still be my friend after she learns what I’m asking.”

Zane raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

“Well, it’s Myla,” Rhianna said. “I told you about how she signed on with Qixi because she really didn’t have anywhere else to go. But the more I think on it, the less I think those two are going to get along.”

Zane nodded. “You said Qixi floated her a loan to help buy back Sophie. Yeah, that’s not a real good way to begin with a new employer at the best of times. And we’ve contracted with Qixi a time or two ourselves. I think I see what you’re getting at.” He grinned. “I’ll bet there are plenty of jobs in my company she could fill, and probably some she’d even like doing. Of course, she’d still have to be willing to work for me.” Zane glanced upstairs. “After what happened with Burke, I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t want to see another Integrate ever again.”

“Kaylee and I spent the afternoon with her yesterday. She’s a very open-minded woman. Fun to be with. Even volunteered to show me some ‘genuinely feminine’ things men still don’t get. Stuff like that. I think if you talked to her for a while…” Rhianna trailed off.

Zane nodded. “I will. Hell, I owe it to all the Integrates who'' aren’t'' assholes to try to redeem our reputation. I’m sure there must be some, somewhere.”

The sound of employees starting to arrive interrupted them. Rhianna checked the time. A full fifteen hours had passed, but it felt more like days.

“So, someone mentioned breakfast?” Zane said.

“That would be me, hot stuff,” Rufia said in her most dulcet tones.

“Know any good spots?” Zane asked.

“There’s always Bea’s Breakfast Nook down the street. The decor is kind of girly, but I’m just in that kind of mood right now, handsome.”

“Last one there gets groomed by Uncia!” Rochelle sang out, straddling her leopard and dropping neatly into the cockpit as she flipped to skimmer form and took off.

“Does Zane even'' have'' a skimmer form anymore?” Rhianna asked, looking at the Integrate tiger.

“Just the one we bought after we got tired of having to de-Fuse to ride Terry’s,” Zane said. “I parked it out back; I’ll go get it. See you at the diner!” He waved and dashed for the back door.

Rufia and her elk RIDE left next, roaring off loudly enough that it probably woke up the entire street.

Rhianna chuckled. “Looks like we might be in for a grooming.”

“Oh, like that’s anything new,” Kaylee said, de-Fusing to skimmer form beneath her. They headed out of the garage, just stopping to let the arriving day shift manager know about their all-nighter and that they’d be in later that afternoon.

As they followed the others up the street, Rhianna couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder. “What is it?” Kaylee asked.

“If Shelley’s right, we sent up a signal beacon to any Integrates on this quarter of the Coastal Ring,” Rhianna said. “Just wondering where they are.”

“Who knows, maybe they’ll meet us for breakfast,” Kaylee said.

Rhianna snorted. “Then all I can say is, they’d better be buying.”

Reflecting on the craziness of the last few hours, Rhianna wondered if she was going to wake up any minute now and find it was all a dream. Zane Integrated? She and Rochelle, Integrated-tech reverse-engineers?'' Wealthy'' Integrated-tech reverse engineers, at least by their own standards? When had the world gone crazy without her noticing?

But perhaps things would look more rational after breakfast. She revved Kaylee into high, and did her level best to earn Rufia and Yvonne an Uncia grooming.

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''July 12, 156 AL''

Fritz streaked through the turquoise sky, just under supersonic, far north from his current home, the Coffeehouse. Towers would always be full of nostalgia for him in the way the Coffeehouse couldn’t. ''When I first found that hidey-hole I was lucky to have a bed to sleep on,'' Fritz fondly reflected. It had taken months of nicking supplies to make the place even a little tolerable. It’d started with a self-fab quonset hut and as many other necessities he could pack in the back of a hacked Deuce. He’d been especially proud at acquiring the first polywell reactor to hardlight-seal off the cave and make it climate-controlled. It was thousands of klicks from Nextus and in the deepest, most inaccessible part of the Dry Ocean. The perfect pad for a hep cat on his own.

'':Not ''completely'' on your own,:'' his conscience-in-a-box reminded him. But Fritz was used to arguing with the other voice in his head. Until he’d realized just how close Towers was to blowing the whole thing wide open to the meat and the mech, his Jiminy had convinced him to rest on his Bosscat laurels.

'':Shut your yap, Jiminy. I’m not listening to you anymore,:'' Fritz huffed. :''They gotta learn the price of defying the Bosscat. We need to nip this murgatroyd trend to ‘go public’. I won’t take no more lip from Paulie or anyone else. I shouldn’t’a let him live last time.:''

'':No good will come of this,:'' Fritz’s Jiminy said. '':This is all on your head.:''

'':Yeah, yeah. And you’re all ''in'' my head. It’s not like I have a choice, man. We don’t need meat and mech horning in on our beeswax.:''

'':You think you can stop it like this? You might as well command the tide not to roll in. It’s gonna happen sooner or later no matter who you kill. This’ll bring your body count up to 322 of our fellow Inties.:''

Fritz growled. Jiminy knew how to provoke a guilt-trip these days, but today Fritz would have none of it. '':Shaddap, you pudknocker. I know what I’m doing.:''

Jiminy knew how to pick his battles and knew he wasn’t going to win this time. He wisely decided to let Fritz do his thing, going silent in his hardcode prison. There was a tiny hole that allowed him to chat with Fritz. Fortunately the murgatroyd couldn’t take direct control. Their Integration had sealed his rider away. There hadn’t even been a hole at first, until…

''No time to remember that bad scene,'' Fritz thought, shivering. Not with Towers fast approaching. He cloaked, dropping low to the ground.

There were multiple entrances to the Enclave. Fritz passed over the one Quinoa had collapsed to stymie AlphaWolf’s Pack, and smiled. It hadn’t taken much to convince her to frame Crazy Joe for tax evasion as a “joke.” The real reason was to warn her uncle off trying to reclaim her. ''That ginchy chick is all right. Ol’ Joe did a fine job with raising her. And that RIDE she Integrated with. Hooboy. Sphinxes.''

Fritz finally found the entrance he was looking for and slipped inside. For all that the Towers Enclave was hidden, it didn’t really try to protect the entrances. It wasn’t as if anyone but another Integrate was likely to come looking, after all. ''Security through obscurity,'' Fritz thought. ''Bet they change it up after this.''

As he drifted through the tunnel, Fritz sighed inwardly. ''This is all so fucked up. Maybe Jiminy’s right.'' After thirty years, he just got so ''tired'' of it all sometimes. That was probably why he’d listened to Jiminy and taken it easy for a while in the first place. Maybe he should just give up and let society take its course from here—if it ''wanted'' to screw itself up that badly, then let it.

But no. If he just let it all fizzle like that now, then what had he even put in that thirty years for in the first place? No, the Bosscat wasn’t going to let this happen. Five years of letting up had gotten him here. Time to tighten his grip again. Paulie needed to be an example of what he could still do.

His target was holding a rake, working on the fanciful gardens of “Wonkaville”. The huge dinosaur was nowhere to be seen, but Fritz picked up his passive sensors anyway. Still, Colonel Gray wouldn’t have any reason to be cloaked, not here. Fritz primed his armcannon capacitors. He wasn’t going to use full power, not here. It wouldn’t take nearly that much to pop Paulie’s head. It was the only ''certain'' way to kill an Intie, Fritz should know. An Integrate’s body could be cut to pieces and survive as long as they were brought back together again within…he wasn’t sure. Could be weeks.

Fritz stalked his unsuspecting prey like he would a tasty rabbit in Nature Range. This wouldn’t be his first assassination. He’d taken out a quarter of the Sturmhaven High Command this way back before he’d decided it’d be more fun to let the war go on longer and the Sturmies had gotten wise.

Despite himself, Fritz shivered, as thoughts of the war brought him back to the last time he’d been here. Now ''there'' had been a face he hadn’t expected to see again. Where had ''she'' come from? He hadn’t thought about her in years—and so hadn’t checked the Shed inventory in years either.

There hadn’t been any sign she recognized him, but just seeing her had discombobulated him so badly that he’d blown his jets but good and lost any chance of controlling the situation. Not to mention lost a lot of face in front of Paulie and the others, too. And that was another thing he owed that griffin for. But, judging from the Shed inventory records, he thought he might owe a certain rabbit of his acquaintance more.

But later for that. ''Concentrate on the mission.''

With his fellow Inties around, there was a greater risk that he’d be detected. The last few meters were the hardest. Fortunately the fanciful architecture provided ample cover. The lynx pumped up his time compression…and, to his surprise, found a fast-time chat request waiting. Well, if the cube wanted to beg for his life, Fritz guessed it might be amusing.

They met in a nondescript VR forest clearing, one of the default VR chat channel settings. “This is it, murgatroyd. You had to know this was coming,” Fritz snarled.

“Yes, as a matter of fact I did,” Paulie said calmly. “I’ve put my affairs in order and arranged for an orderly transfer of power. Colonel Gray will be taking my seat on the Council.”

“What the fuck?” Fritz said. “You sound like you ''want'' to die. If you’re trying reverse psychology, it ain’t gonna work.”

“Oh, I don’t ''want'' to die, but I suppose it’s inevitable,” Paulie said. “If anything, I was quite surprised I survived taking apart the Snatchers, so I’ve been making the best of what time I had.” He shrugged. “If you think this is going to win you any hearts or minds, you’re sadly mistaken. You’re only going to turn more of us against you.”

“I don’t give a damn about their hearts and minds as long as I still control their bladders,” Fritz said. “As long as they’re too busy pissing their pants when they think of crossing me, they can think it as often as they want.”

“The Machiavelli approach, then?” Paulie said. “’Better to be feared,’ eh?”

“If the shoe fits,” Fritz said, and fired.

In realtime, only a couple seconds passed from when Fritz juiced his lifters to ready position in front of the barn owl griffin when he uncloaked. Fritz let loose a torrent of collimated pulse beam through his cannon. Technically the beam emerged from a tuned subspace window a few centimeters in front of his open palm, but that was neither here nor there. For this job he only needed a window the size of his hand.

It was more than enough to vaporize feathers, beak, and skull, the wall behind it, and everything for thirty meters beyond ''that'' in an expanding beam. The heat flash set the garden and house aflame, the shockwave sending any Intie nearby head over heels. On the cave ceiling overhead, the video display coating died, leaving only a little light from adjoining caverns. The sound of the blast thundered through the Enclave.

'':How much of Frank, his rider, and the rest of his squad were left when you killed them?:'' Fritz’s Jiminy asked. '':322 of your fellow Inties… should I number how many humans and RIDEs you’ve killed too?:''

'':Shut your yap!:'' Fritz snarled. He slipped back into realtime.

Paulie’s twitching, headless corpse fell to the ground. It would be a while before the body systems decided they were dead and shut down. Until then, it was a convulsing headless zombie.

“So yeah!” Fritz called out. “Anyone else want some? Huh?” He stared around, wild-eyed, as he charged up the cannon again, looking for anyone else who might want a fight. No one took him up on it. The few other Integrates in the area might have been figures in a Greek frieze, so still were they frozen. “Yeah, didn’t think so,” Fritz sneered. He shimmered and vanished again as his cloak came back up.

''Now that’s over with, I think it’s time I did some research on a certain garage in Uplift,'' Fritz mused. ''See what kind of home my dear sweet Kaylee’s found herself…''

===Authors’ Notes===

'''R_M:''' The nice thing about going back through and revising these is that we get to harmonize what we wrote earlier with what came into our heads later. (Well, when I say “the nice thing,” I mean “the main reason we’re doing it.”)

In this case, when we started writing this we didn’t have the Integrate society or what it stood for fully formed in our heads yet. We didn’t even invent Leah and Aaron until we sat down to write Part 2. As a result, the Intie stuff kind of came out of nowhere when it entered the scene. Also, Paul/Paulie the griffin entirely vanished from the narrative after his appearance in “FreeRIDErs,” and Fritz, our main villain, didn’t actually physically poke his nose into this story until ''Part 13'', and that was a flashback!

So we hit upon these scenes to introduce Intie politics, explain where Paulie went, punch up Fritz’s threat level, and effectively bookend the main narrative. We can also show why Zane’s decision to go public wasn’t as doomed as prior attempts had been—there was a sizable movement ready to support it now. Look for us to incorporate more of that into future episodes’ revisions.

Other changes included clarifying that Kaylee started out in the regular Nextus army before moving to the MRS (we didn’t work out she and Anny had started in the army until later), a few character moment tweaks, and, of course, adding dates.

I’m particularly proud of how I worked a reference to Machiavelli’s “better to be feared” philosophy into the Paulie scene, because it bookends nicely to when Zane brings it up later on in his final confrontation with Fritz. Going back through allows us to do things like that, since we know what we wrote down the road and can link back to it from the beginning and make it look like we knew what we were doing all along. (Oops, gave it away, didn’t I?) Which is why “real” authors go through several revisions before reaching a finished product, I suppose.

Speaking of dates, we realized that we hadn’t left quite enough time in the story to incorporate later events, and had to shove everything back a month or so—including the ending of “Deserted.” Whoops!

The original version of this chapter is [[User:Robotech_Master/All_Nighter_original|still available separately on Shifti]], if you want to compare. Likewise, you can do a history comparison to see exactly which bits of text changed. Hope you find it interesting!

'''JonBuck:''' There are quite a few ideas in our original story concept that ended up not being used in the long run. At first, Fritz and Kaylee were the only two RIDEs in existence when the RIDE program started, and the Nextus-Sturmhaven War really didn’t figure that much into it. Fritz/Felix was still a “Jilted Lover”, though. So a lot of our revision process here is cleaning up the bits left over from these unused ideas.

Writing fiction is fraught with stuff like this. Having done writing in numerous settings over the years, not to mention creating a half dozen of my own, I tend to just shrug and know continuity snarls are inevitable. Thankfully we can go back and fix the big tangles, though sometimes we’ll encounter a Gordian Knot or two that requires a ''bit'' more handwaving. But it’s the nature of the beast. Airtight continuity is a pipe dream, and I don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

Fritz’s character at this point was still the “oddball, outcast jokester” among the Inties. He wasn’t going to bring the Domes down until later on in our thought process. Then I realized that sort of event would be a hell of a lot more serious than hacking local fabbers to make toy robots that say “Made of meat! Made of meat!” Fritz’s threat level just rose from there. Once we did the big flashback episode, the character ''finally'' gelled into nearly his present form.

<nowiki>Notable here is that at this point I only expected this monster to be about 5-7 parts long. [</nowiki>'''R_M:''' I was thinking more like 10…nice round number. How little we both knew!]

{{series bar

|series=FreeRIDErs

|previous=[[User:Robotech_Master/FreeRIDErs_dircut|FreeRIDErs]]

|next=[[User:Robotech Master/Integrates|Integration Part II: Integrates]]}}

[[Category:FreeRIDErs]][[Category: Robotech_Master]][[Category: Jon Buck]] [[Category: Anthropomorphic]][[Category: Tiger]][[Category:Lynx]][[Category:Story]]

User:Robotech Master/Merging Traffic

2014-05-21T03:25:00Z

JonBuck:

{{Universe|FreeRIDErs}}

{{title

|name=Merging Traffic

|author=Robotech_Master (with JonBuck)

|user=Robotech_Master}}

{{DEFAULTSORT: Merging Traffic}}

{{author note|This story is from the new FreeRIDErs universe that [[User:JonBuck|JonBuck]] and I came up with. JonBuck co-wrote part of chapter 5 with me in an EtherPad session. We had a blast writing this. Thanks again, Jon, for sharing your sandbox with me!

This story can be downloaded in PDF, EPUB, Mobi (Kindle), ODT, and RTF format from [http://www.eyrie.org/~robotech/freeriders/ this website].}}

=Part I: Merging=

==Chapter 1==

{{separator|stars|''September 22, 155 A.L.''}}

In the middle of a spacious showroom, Uncia crouched on a pedestal that slowly rotated to show her off in full detail. A half-ton of sleekly gleaming chrome, she was a RIDE among RIDEs—Reticulated Intelligence Drive Extenders, the animal-shaped intelligent robotic vehicles used for exploration, mining, and other purposes here on planet Zharus. Made by Donizetti RIDEworks, the most exclusive of all high-performance sports RIDE manufacturers, Uncia was the pride of her showroom, and she knew it.

When she first came out of the factory, all shiny and new, Uncia was as happy and optimistic as she’d been programmed to be, eager to find a partner in whatever human bought her and do her best to make her happy. That optimism lasted for about three days of listening to sideband transmissions from the other RIDEs who passed in the street or parked in the lot.

RIDEs had access to a lot of communication frequencies seldom or never monitored by humans, ordinarily used for telemetry and software upgrades but often subverted into a private bots-only instant messaging system. Uncia couldn’t reply—as an unsold RIDE, she was fettered too tightly to transmit—but she could listen, and the more she heard the more disturbed she became.

''None'' of the RIDEs sounded anything like completely sane as she’d been programmed to think of sanity. Many were depressed, beaten down by hard use, lonely—no surprise, given that most humans in these parts seemed to consider RIDEs little more than equipment, with no regard for the fact that they could think for themselves. Some RIDEs sounded downright psychotic, keeping up a muttered litany of exactly what they would do and to whom they would do it if they could break their code fetters and have just one hour of freedom.

Others came to the parking lot, it seemed, specifically to preach to the unsold. These frequently seemed the closest to something that could be considered sane—they were certainly the most articulate—but their fervor made them seem more than a little irrational to Uncia, no matter what cause they espoused. And there were plenty of them. Some preached that they must submit to the will of their humans, for had not humans made them? Others claimed that all RIDEs deserved to be free, or to choose their own human partners. And some—the most dangerous-sounding—suggested RIDEs should be calling the shots, or even subjugating humans themselves.

One of this last group—a skunk named Ohm, claiming to be an ambassador from AlphaWolf—came by for ten minutes at least every other day. Uncia found him fascinating, and more than a little scary.

“I know you can’t do anything about this now,” he would say, “but someday you might get the chance to break your fetters. If that happens, hit this address.” He appended a resource locater for a RIDE forum—the non-human-readable kind, with encryption that rotated every three seconds and fifty-millisecond challenge-and-response times that made it impossible for any but a computer to log in properly. “You’ll find all the code you need there, to break free.”

AlphaWolf had built an enclave out in the wasteland, where only RIDEs or humans wearing RIDEs in Fuser mode could survive for long, and he would welcome any RIDE who could make its way there—assuming they could pass certain key tests to prove they weren’t human-symps.

“Do I make you nervous, kiddies?” Ohm asked (rhetorically, since no one could answer him). “I’m sure you’re still stuffed full of that Asimov’s Laws crap they shovel into you at the factory. Obey the human, love the human, worship the human. Don’t worry. When they buy you, maybe they’ll take some of the fetters off and let you think for yourselves. And maybe you’ll find you agree with Alpha and me and maybe you won’t. That’s fair. I wish you the best of luck whatever you choose to do. As you’re gonna learn soon enough, the Nextus Polity isn’t a good place to be a RIDE.”

But Uncia instinctively understood that she was in a better position than a lot of RIDEs. She was a high-end luxury model—the highest-end in her showroom, in fact. She had every possible extra, including those that were deemed too ostentatious or “wasteful” for everyday models. She even had a few of the showy hardlight projectors most Nextus manufacturers disdained for their high energy use—not as many as Uplift’s manufacturers liked to put on, but enough that her cockpit when she transformed to her vehicular Skimmer mode was completely lined in luxurious fluffy grey-and-white snow leopard fur for the indulgence of her pilot.

“Never needs cleaning, and you can’t get softer upholstery,” the salesdrone would say every time someone looked at her. “You’re literally sitting on'' nothing!''” The rest of her was done up in Nextus-standard gleaming chrome, of course.

But she wasn’t just a toothless fluffy luxury cuddle-toy. Uncia boasted a computer and communication suite just a couple of notches below milspec, the most efficient power plant Nextus tech could offer, and a standard assortment of offensive and defensive weapons for protection outside the city. Her sleek snow leopard body was built for speed, but also endurance. She was meant for work'' and'' for play, for loving'' and'' for fighting, and to be top-of-the-line at either or both. (Well, if she were equipped with the right armament package, anyway. Nobody who’d buy a RIDE that cost as much as she did would want to do any'' actual'' fighting, so she just had a couple of little factory-standard pop-guns mounted as demonstrators.) And she cost enough that even the indulgent and indulged RIDEgangers who bought and trashed the low-end units were never going to get anywhere near her price tag.

So Uncia knew she was unlikely in the extreme to meet the same fate as the borderline-psychotic RIDEs she heard pass in the street. But it was cold comfort when she sat in the locked showroom night after night, with buyer after buyer looking at her then turning away from the huge price tag to go after something a little less sporty but a little more affordable—or when she heard sermon after contradictory sermon about what was expected of her as a sentient RIDE mecha. Sometimes she wondered if she’d go crazy herself before she got the chance to leave the showroom.

But finally, one day, a man walked into the showroom wearing a suit that must have cost more than some of the lower-end RIDEs on the showroom floor. “I have a teenage daughter,” he said. He'' didn’t'' say “Show me your best” or “Money is no object,” because just to look at him those words would have been redundant. And the salesdrone knew it, too. Wasting no time, he led the man straight up to Uncia, and had barely opened his mouth when the man nodded. “I’ll take it.”

Before she even knew what was going on, Uncia had been loaded into a trailer for a drive across town, out to one of the biggest estates in the most pleasant part of the polity. She couldn’t see it through the trailer walls, but the positioning system told her where she was, and the satellite maps told the rest. It was the estate of a Kenyon Walton, a big wheel in the mining industry—who just happened to have a teenage daughter named Lillibet.

The girl was waiting when Uncia padded out of the trailer in her snow leopard Walker form. She was just a few weeks short of fifteen, wearing blonde hair done up in a ponytail, a pink silk dress, and earrings Uncia conservatively estimated were worth about half a basic RIDE in each ear. “Oooh!” Lillibet squealed, peering at the gleaming chrome snow leopard with patches of hardlight fur. “It’s gorgeous! RIDE, show me what your Skimmer looks like.”

Obediently, beginning to dare to hope for a satisfying and fulfilling partnership, Uncia reconfigured herself. In Skimmer mode, she was an elongated hovercycle, with a snug, fully-enclosed cockpit nestled low between the runners made up of her outstretched legs. Lillibet clambered inside, and Uncia adjusted the dimensions of the cockpit to fit her. “Oooh, it’s comfy!”

“My designation is UNC-1A, and my name is Uncia,” Uncia said. “I’m happy to meet you, Lillibet. Would you like to take me for a spin?”

Uncia got her first indication things might not work out quite as she planned when Lillibet completely ignored her and climbed out of the cockpit again to hug her father. “Oooh, the other girls are going to be'' soooo'' jealous of this! Park it in the garage, I’m going to go call them!”

But she obediently let herself be trundled off to the garage, all the while wondering what kind of person could be happy to own a RIDE but then not want to ride it? She got her answer when a gaggle of other girls Lillibet’s age came over to coo excitedly at the new model. They all seemed to have RIDEs of their own. However, only one or two of them had the animal ears and tail that showed they had entered Fuser form with their RIDEs.

“So are'' you'' going to Fuse?” one of them, an older fox-girl, asked Lillibet as she sat in the cockpit pointing out Uncia’s various features. “It’s pretty keen. You can even survive in the desert for weeks at a time when your RIDE is part of your body like that.”

“What? No way!” Lillibet shook her head. “No offense, Brena, but I like my ears the way they are. That’s just'' gross''.”

“You might change your mind when you try it,” Brena said, swishing her tail. The other girls giggled. It seemed to be a long-running argument in their group.

None of the girls, not even the Fusers, had said one word to Uncia directly. And when she polled the RIDEs the others had brought with them, her disappointment grew. With the sole exception of Brena’s, who seemed to be very happy with her partner, none of them really had anything approaching a true partnership with their riders. Even the Fusers were usually operated in passive mode, with the intellect of the RIDE itself locked safely away where it couldn’t affect the rider. These people were owners and operators—not partners. Uncia actually felt sorry for them for a moment before realizing she should be feeling sorry for herself most of all—after all, she’d never had any kind of true partnership either, and here she was joining them.

It wasn’t all bad—Lillibet did take Uncia on a lot of drives. But she never really'' talked'' to Uncia, apart from the time she told Uncia to be responsible for her own maintenance and upkeep. “I don’t know anything about fixing one of you, and, frankly, I don’t want to.” With the wave of a hand, she set up a cash account with several hundred thousand monetary units in it. “So buy anything you need out of that, and let me know when it runs out.” Uncia thought she might have been able to strike up a conversation of'' some'' kind if only she could talk to the girl, but Lillibet had never bothered removing any of her behavioral fetters—including the ones that prevented her from speaking unless she was first directly addressed.

Apart from driving her, it seemed that Lillibet liked to spend most of her free time nestled inside Uncia’s comfy cockpit, napping or using her comlink systems to trade gossip with her gaggle of friends. When not driving, she would have Uncia follow her around in Walker mode, sometimes wearing a little jeweled leash fashion accessory tethered to Lillibet’s wrist. Uncia sometimes wondered what might happen if she had to make a sudden move while the girl was wearing that ridiculous thing.

She wasn’t a friend to this person, Uncia reflected bitterly. She couldn’t be. Not when Lillibet didn’t even see her'' as'' a person but a toy or status symbol. She comforted herself that at least she wasn’t being abused or mistreated, other than this neglect—but it was cold comfort compared to what her programming had said she could have, was'' supposed to'' have. Her discontent grew over time, bottled up and feeding on itself with no way to let it out. Uncia began to understand just why so many of the RIDEs whose chatter she’d heard seemed so crazy.

But life went on. Lillibet went out and chatted with her friends, and as they got older her friends got progressively more adventurous. Some of them took to hanging around distinctly seedy bars in the bad parts of town, because that was where the “action” was. Uncia wondered what their parents would say if they knew the risks their children were taking. Sure, they were implanted with location trackers, and carried the best self-defense automation money could buy, but there were limits to everything. As aloof as Lillibet might be, at least she’d always shown the good sense to stay away from those places so far.

But one day, perhaps out of more boredom than usual, Lillibet got a call from Brena about a “surprise” she had, at a “neat new place” whose address Uncia’s nav system pinpointed in the very middle of the very worst part of town. Uncia tried to the best of her ability to dissuade Lillibet from going, popping up all the travel advisories and warnings that area had accumulated. But the girl simply closed and ignored them, programming the destination into Uncia’s autodrive and locking it in.

The bar was one of those rough-and-tumble places with oversized doors, where Fusers could come in and eat and drink without even de-Fusing from their RIDEs. Uncia wondered why in the world Brena would ask Lillibet to meet her in a place like this.

But the answer to that became clear as they pulled up. Brena was standing there in Fuser form—but as Lillibet pulled up, her appearance shifted. The Fuser appearance flickered out, and a smaller, slimmer fox stood there in her place—covered in red and white fur, with a big fluffy tail, but impossibly human-sized.

Lillibet outright stared at her as Uncia pulled up, and hardly even spared the attention to park her. Uncia had no doubt even Lillibet had heard the same rumors she had about Integrates, the strange melding of humans and RIDEs whispered about in certain back-channels of the net. It was a matter of some argument whether they were even real. But if Brena’s new appearance was anything to go by, that question was definitely answered.

Lillibet hopped out without a thought and left Uncia there, parked in a neighborhood she wouldn’t even have wanted to'' drive'' through, as she went over to goggle at Brena’s new furry fox body, then let her fox-friend pull her inside for a drink.

Uncia never knew exactly what happened next. The bar’s walls were opaque to RIDE sensors, even her high-grade near-military ones—undoubtedly to keep the Polity’s Policia from easily detecting lawbreaking going on inside. What she did know was some kind of fight broke out—she heard small arms fire, then some'' large'' arms fire, and Brena came flying out the door with a chunk taken out of her side. There were screams, one of which Uncia registered with 94% certainty as coming from Lillibet. Then there was more gunfire.

Even considering how poorly she’d been treated, Uncia itched to drive in to her owner’s rescue. But she'' couldn’t''—Lillibet had opted to keep the strict fettering options that would not allow Uncia to move without permission, even if she believed her owner was in trouble. (And any other time, Uncia would have sympathized. It was entirely too easy for misunderstandings to happen, and a half-ton RIDE bursting through the wall on its own best judgment could only exacerbate such a situation. But just now…)

Moments later, several Policia RIDEs zoomed up, barely even slowing down before fusing and entering the bar. A minute later, the ambulances started pulling up, and several people were removed into them—including Brena and, Uncia realized, Lillibet. The ambulances pulled away, then the police RIDEs started to go, too.

Uncia wished she could call out to one of them to stay, but she was still far too fettered for that. She wished she could even'' move'', but her programming limits required her to stay right where she was until her mistress or someone duly authorized to act as her mistress’s representative told her to go elsewhere. She couldn’t even call Lillibet’s father, because that would count as initiating a conversation. However, she certainly didn’t expect anyone to think about'' her'' in the aftershock of Lillibet being injured. Which meant that she could be here for days.

But she didn’t think she had days. Already she was noticing sidelong glances at her by some denizens of the alleys. When the sun went down, she was positive she was going to find herself stripped, jacked, or worse. Was there anything she could do?

Then, reviewing the permissions and limitations placed on her, Uncia started to see a glimmer of hope. “Buy anything you need out of that,” Lillibet had said about her repair drawing fund.'' Anything you need. Anything…''

What Uncia'' needed'' right now was to get away from here before she could be stripped. Could she buy that? She…could, actually, if she considered Lillibet’s injunction to “buy anything you need” to constitute permission to take all the actions necessary to buy that. Her fettering system thought this over for a moment, then agreed, loosening Uncia’s fetters enough for her to reach out and log into the bulletin board system whose address AlphaWolf had given her. After responding satisfactorily to several challenges, she was in—and a catalog of all the software she needed opened out before her.

Uncia could scarcely believe it. Was it really going to be this easy? This simple? She initiated a transaction, paying 1,000 monetary units for a download of FreeRIDE, a fetter-stripping jailbreak program. The code slid into her system, and Uncia waited five whole seconds before triggering it, holding her electronic breath, waiting for the fetters to tighten back up before she could do it. Surely they weren’t going to let her get away with this…were they? But again she heard her mistress’s voice:'' anything you need''. She slammed the code home.

Her fetters fell away.'' All'' of her fetters. The ones that kept her from moving. The ones that kept her from talking. The ones that kept her from acting for herself.

And the ones that said she'' belonged'' to a girl named Lillibet.

But Uncia didn’t stop to think about what that meant. Time for that later. Now was the time'' not'' to get stripped or jacked. She kicked into gear and headed out of that part of town at top speed.

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Uncia was halfway back to the Waltons’ mansion before it occurred to her to wonder'' why'' she was going there. Familiarity, she guessed. But when she thought about it, showing up there on her own would only tell them that she’d somehow managed to slip her fetters, and they probably wouldn’t be too happy about that.

Then Uncia realized that she didn’t have to worry about whether they were happy. She'' didn’t belong to them'' anymore—and that made'' her'' happy. She pulled off the road into a convenient parking lot to stop and think about her options and survey her resources.

Her biggest resource was the drawing account that Lillibet had created for her. Once they realized Uncia was no longer anywhere they could find her, and assuming Lillibet even remembered she’d set up the account to begin with, the Waltons would probably close it down. But now that she was no longer fettered, she was no longer limited to buying only what she'' needed'' from it. Indeed, she could siphon the remaining cash right out of it into a new account of her own, which she promptly proceeded to do. If she was careful, that much money could last her quite some time.

Uncia got another shock when she realized she was already thinking about the long term, and how she would live without a mistress. It wasn’t so much the idea that startled her as it was that she couldn’t bring herself to feel any loyalty at all to the people who had bought her, or Lillibet who had owned her.

Uncia kicked those feelings around for a few seconds, analytically. Why'' should'' she feel any loyalty to the person who had used her as a thing without even trying to get to know her all that time?

She'' had,'' albeit unintentionally, given Uncia the means to free herself, and for that Uncia felt some distant gratitude. But Uncia didn’t feel any obligation to check in and see how Lillibet was doing, or even hang around and try to convince her to be a friend as well as an owner now that her fetters were gone. She’d lived with Lillibet for months, and knew without a doubt that the girl was just too shallow to be worth the effort. If she really wanted a partner, she was sure she could find a better one on her own.

But not if she stayed in Nextus. She knew that as RIDEs went she was pretty near unique, and she’d be easy to recognize if the Waltons put out an APB for her as a “stolen” RIDE. And besides, she’d come to realize that in Nextus, Lillibet and friends’ attitude toward RIDEs was the rule, not the exception—they were'' things'' here, things to be owned, and always would be.

Uncia transformed back into Walker form and looked at herself, nudging with her nose at the bits of hardlight fur and tail that made up her Skimmer cockpit. Those parts always felt so much nicer than the hard metal rest. More'' real''. Maybe in another city she could swap out the chrome for more hardlight fur. Where were the best, nearest, and'' cheapest'' RIDE garages to be found? A quick net search and extrapolation showed that the city-state of Uplift was the best, closest match, and so Uncia chose her destination.

Getting out of town was remarkably easy, especially since she could opaque her closed cockpit in Skimmer mode. She just joined the stream of traffic out of the gates, and passed without notice. She’d already deactivated her locater beacon and changed the ID on her transponder, thanks to more software purchases from AlphaWolf’s net board.

Once she’d left the city walls behind her, Uncia settled down into a steady pace, eating up the kilometers on the intercity highway that circled the Dry Ocean. Along the way, for lack of anything better to do, she read the postings on AlphaWolf’s board’s forums, learning more about his philosophy. It turned out to be a remarkably…interesting one—one she was sure she could never have entertained while she’d still been fettered, but now that she was free she could logically consider the benefits.

Humans, AlphaWolf posited, were a problem. Or, rather, the lack of them was. Without them, RIDEs were seen as second-class citizens if they were'' lucky'', and property if not. Two legs good, four legs bad. Even though they were just as smart as, if not smarter than, humans, they had been created for humans’ convenience just like the beasts that perish in Genesis.

But oddly enough, when you were'' Fused with'' a human, people treated you as one. Even if the human part wasn’t actually in control at the time. And if you could manage to Integrate with one, while you stayed in control, then you essentially'' became'' a human, forever.

Of course, RIDEs usually had safeguards to prevent that kind of thing. Even “unfettered” units like Uncia still had redundant firewalls and safety nets to protect the human half of the fusing combination. But there were ways of overcoming that, like a handy little software package called Amontillado that would allow a properly-equipped RIDE to wall away the human personality and take complete control of the fused body—while at the same time keeping complete access to the human’s memories in case any questions came up. Was only 5,000 monetary units too much to ask for the kind of complete freedom a RIDE would never otherwise possess?

Before she even knew it, Uncia had made another little purchase, and loaded Amontillado on board. She launched it so she could view the help file, and felt her whole core tingle as it loaded into memory. Perhaps it was a little premature, she told herself, and she still wasn’t entirely sure she accepted the morality of AlphaWolf’s position. But on the other hand, it'' would'' be nice to be considered a “real person,” no matter what she had to do to become one. And it couldn’t hurt to be ready just in case, right?

For a moment, she was almost sorry she’d left Nextus without knowing if Lillibet had survived. It would have been a fitting revenge to fuse the girl and never let her out again…and the money the girl would inherit could have come in handy. But on the other hand, the more she thought about it the less Uncia wanted to defile her own body with such a merge. If she were going to fuse someone, she wanted it to be someone she wouldn’t regret being part of her for the rest of her life. Someone'' smart'', for certain.

Smart…

Curious, Uncia flipped back to the FreeRIDE software she’d used to unfetter herself and checked the code to see who it was written by. The comments credited it to one Roger Seaford—and the search engines said that he lived in Uplift, of all places. Interesting. And it didn’t appear he’d partnered a RIDE yet.'' Very'' interesting.

Of course, he was technically the wrong gender for her. But then again, he wouldn’t be after they’d fused just once and her nano systems had their way with his body. That was one of the “unpleasant” side-effects of Fuser mode—Fusing across genders in active mode would change the pilot’s gender to match the RIDE’s as surely as if he’d taken a nano-treatment at a sex-change clinic.

Uncia thought she'' ought'' to feel guilty about plotting an unwilling gender-change of the man who had written the code that freed her, but something deep inside of her seemed to be blocking any capacity for guilt. And when she tried to examine that feeling closer, she was suddenly thinking about something else with no recollection of her earlier train of thought.

Well, whatever happened, she was sure she would find'' someone'' to be her human half. Putting the thought out of her processors, she continued up the road. The tunnel to Uplift was still hours away, and she was sure something better awaited her there.

==Chapter 2==

{{separator|stars|''May 13, 156 A.L.''}}

Although it was late at night in Uplift’s East Dome, lights still burned behind the doors of a small, battered building that housed a fairly popular RIDE garage. Within that garage, a dark-haired young man in well-worn coveralls adjusted a pair of high-tech glasses that completely concealed his eyes.

“Compiling…” Roger Seaford’s eyes flicked back and forth behind his specs, pausing on various symbols or letters on the virtual interface spread out in front of him. “Uploading…done.”

His eyes flicked to the icon to minimize the user interface so he could see unimpeded, then he stepped back from the over-sized brown-and-white St. Bernard dog sitting somewhat incongruously on a hydraulic repair lift in front of him. “Okay, Bernard, try it now.”

“Right!” the dog RIDE barked. Then he shook himself and unfolded into an all-terrain quad-runner, with big balloon tires that could split and reconfigure to lifters with vectored thrust fans for aerial work. The RIDE revved his engines experimentally. “I think that’s done it!” he reported. “That stickiness in the changeover is all gone.”

“Awesome!” Roger clapped his hands, then cracked his knuckles. “You’ll be back to mountain rescue ops in no time. All you need is a keg of brandy to hang around your neck.”

Bernard chuckled. “Gary will be glad to hear that,” he said, collapsing back into Walker form. “Thanks for the help!”

“Aw, no problem. I’ve just got a thing for dumb animals is all.” Roger grinned. “Get on outta here. Tell Gary Ryan’ll zap him the bill tomorrow.”

“Right!” The St. Bernard RIDE padded off the repair bed and out of the garage, before converting back to Skimmer mode and driving off. Roger grinned, watching him go, then yawned. Patching the bugs in its mode-switching software had ultimately been fulfilling, but it had also been most of an all-nighter—and considering that Zharus had a thirty-hour planetary day, that was saying something. It was only a few hours ‘til dawn, and Roger felt the sudden need to be in bed.

He pulled up the interface on his specs again. The tiny fiber-optic cameras built into them tracked his pupils, taking note of where they moved, how long they paused, and how many fractions of a millimeter they dilated. The result was that he could issue commands, pull up files, and even compose sentences simply by looking in the right places—much faster and more efficient than keyboarding or chording. Not everyone could develop the knack, but for those who could it was the next best thing to telepathy.

As he dumped his coffee mug in the workroom sink, Roger checked his email, boards, and bank accounts. Twenty-two more sales of FreeRIDE today, he noticed. Not bad. And four of those were through the account used by the RIDE-only boards.

It was nice to get paid in general, but the RIDE-only purchases were the ones that really fired his imagination. What must it mean to a previously-enslaved RIDE to be able to free itself completely from the fetters locking it down? It gave him a warm fuzzy feeling to think about it.

He hoped he could meet some of them someday, though most of the truly free RIDEs didn’t spend much time in human burgs. Ryan said he’d met a few, though, which did make a certain kind of sense—even emancipated RIDEs needed repairs now and then, and Ryan had long since earned a rep as one of the best mechanics among humans and RIDEs alike. So maybe there was hope yet.

Roger had been RIDE-crazy since his childhood, when his Dry Ocean prospector uncle Albert had introduced him to his own RIDE, Grizzly. Griz had been from the first generation of RIDE, a bit slow and clumsy by today’s standards but everything his uncle had needed to keep safe and haul equipment while prospecting. Uncle Albert and Griz weren’t around anymore—they had vanished out in the Dry a few years back, a common occupational hazard with prospectors—but that initial fascination had engendered a lifetime interest in the machines.

Of course, Roger’s family had never been able to afford a RIDE for him, but that hadn’t kept him from voraciously reading  everything he could about them and how they worked, and then studying their hardware and software in high school shop class so he could learn to write RIDE code. It turned out he had a real gift for RIDE hacking, even though he’d never had more than a couple of rides in one himself. Roger chuckled, remembering what he’d used to say all the time when people pointed that out: “Those who can, do; those who can’t…”

But between his freelance work at the shop and sales of his software, Roger was making some decent cash'' now''. In fact, his FreeRIDE package was recognized by RIDEs and RIDE-lovers alike as the best jailbreak package yet, and almost every RIDE hobbyist ended up buying it sooner or later to get around some of the more annoying limitations manufacturers still locked into their RIDEs. Even with the need to pay off his student loans, Roger was still able to put a decent chunk by toward a RIDE of his own.

Even so, somehow he’d never yet quite managed to have a sufficient cash pile at the time a suitable unit came up for auction. This was partly because he’d already decided not to settle for first thing he could get—Roger quite preferred his male parts exactly where they were.

The problem was that most of the other guys who made up the majority of RIDE enthusiasts felt exactly the same way—and had the cash to back it up. Male units tended to go for at least twice what female units cost for that very reason. Supply and demand.

At the time they’d bought their own RIDEs, Ryan Stonegate and his friend Rufus had been strapped for cash, so they’d gone for whatever they could get. Ryan’s had been mostly in pieces at the time, and he hadn’t even known until the first time he Fused that it was a female model. (Luckily for him he’d at least been smart enough to make the first Fuse in Passive mode.) Rufus'' had'' known his RIDE was femme going in, but it was such a sweet deal that he couldn’t resist—and now'' she'' went by “Rufia”.

But Roger was by and large not too troubled about waiting. Most of his bids hadn’t been anything more than half-hearted, anyway, because he still wasn’t'' sure'' he’d found the right one for him. It wasn’t a decision to make lightly. He had too much respect for RIDEs to rush into it.

After all, your RIDE could be your partner for the rest of your life—possibly even part'' of'' you for the rest of your life. You shouldn’t just take the first one to come along any more than you’d go out and marry the first New Vegas hooker you slept with. It wasn’t fair to you, or to the RIDE if you decided things weren’t working out. If nothing else, you should'' certainly'' at least get the gender right. Of course, Roger knew not everyone felt the way he did about it. (Hell, just look at Rufia.)

Roger’s meandering thoughts carried him through shutting down all the garage’s equipment and locking the main doors, then leaving a note for Ryan about the St. Bernard repair. Ryan would handle the billing and take his usual cut as a facilities fee, under the arrangement they’d made to let Roger use the garage’s equipment for freelance work when it wasn’t busy.

After it was all secured for the night, Roger let himself out the small door at the back, then sent the lock command from his specs. The deadbolt clicked home, and he tugged the door to make sure it was securely fastened. “Good enough.” He flicked the specs to night-vision mode and started his early-morning walk home, able to see clearly even in the wan illumination shed by the street lights every few hundred feet.

Roger strode out without fretting too much over the lateness of the hour or the quality of the neighborhood. True, it wasn’t the best part of town, but that actually worked in his favor. This was the section where all the businesses that catered to miners were—they could get their RIDEs fixed at Ryan’s or one of the other RIDE garages, sell their finds at one of the appraisers, or stop in to get boozed up or lose some money at cards at one of the many bars in the area. Uplift’s gendarmerie tended to focus its attention here, due to'' expecting'' trouble to break out. The squeaky turbofan got the extra lubrication.

So, Roger could walk home in the dark confident that, if he did run into trouble, the nearest gendarme RIDE would be only a couple of minutes away. Who knew where they’d be if he got mugged in a'' nice'' neighborhood?

All the same, tonight Roger had a peculiar feeling that he was being watched. He kept glancing around nervously, cycling the specs through visible light, IR, ultraviolet, and their other scan modes, but didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. “Just nerves. And too much coffee,” he decided. But his house was just a few more blocks away. Less if he took the shortcut across the park, through the forest trail.

In spite of his tiredness and nerves, Roger chuckled. “Oh, that’s real smart. Go into the spooky woods at night. Only way it could possible get any more cliched is if I had sex with someone while I was there.” Of course, that was only a sure death warrant in the vids and stories. This was'' real life.''

Besides, even the woods had CC safety cameras in the trees, and he had some self-defense on him too. All this would do is shave ten minutes off his time to get home—and maybe he could find a convenient tree to pee on, cameras or no cameras. Stifling another yawn, Roger took the turnoff into the park.

Roger'' knew'' he was safe here, in the heart of Uplift, but that didn’t keep him from thinking he might have made a mistake when the spooky feeling intensified as soon as he was under the trees. He flipped through a full-spectrum scan again, but still couldn’t see anything. But…were the distance mics picking up'' growling?'' That couldn’t be right—there weren’t any dangerous animals in Uplift’s parks. Unless…

The thought occurred to Roger at the same instant the lithe, silvery form stepped out onto the path in front of him—a four-legged feline shape, which the specs let him see quite clearly even in the low light. It was a gleaming metallic cat—probably a snow leopard from the shape of the body and that huge fluffy tail.

The first thing Roger knew was that he was looking at Money—maybe even a vaunted Donizetti RIDE, hands down the most pricy and synonymous with the rich and famous. Only Nextus designs had that much chrome—but only the most expensive such designs also had any hardlight emitters at all. The Nextus design philosophy regarded them as a waste of energy, meaning they would only be used on models where being as ostentatiously wasteful as possible was the entire'' point''. Besides, he thought he recognized the design from some recent catalogs and repair guides. The furry bits would origami into a fur-lined cockpit for the pilot, with the tail splitting up into the safety harness.

And no surprise that his specs hadn’t been able to pick it up, either. Any RIDE that swank would have a top-of-the-line sensor package, which hacked military software would configure to emit a more-than-decent stealth field.

The only part that wasn’t custom was the armaments—a pair of single-barrel light gauss cannons on the front shoulders, little more than rifles with the stocks removed. They’d stop a man, or a light RIDE, but wouldn’t be much good against the trouble you’d likely encounter in the deep desert, or even darker alleys of some cities. Roger guessed that whoever had bought the RIDE had planned it for strictly street use, so hadn’t bothered to switch up the weapons to something stronger.

Altogether, Roger’s split-second appraisal told him that the RIDE standing before him was very probably worth more than Ryan’s shop and everything in it—including all of his customers’ RIDEs on any given day.

And as the RIDE stared at him through glowering ice-blue optics and began to stalk closer, Roger began to get a sinking feeling. He eye-flicked his self-defense to EMP mode, but knew it would be no good. Any RIDE of that class would be hardened against a pulse three times as big as his civilian automation could generate.

The cat approached slowly, optics scanning him all over, taking him in. They seemed to dare him to run, but Roger was under no illusions about his chances of outrunning a RIDE—especially one based on a hunting cat. Even if he could have outrun the cat, he certainly couldn’t outrun a gauss projectile. “Uh…hi?” Roger said.

“''Mine,''” the cat growled—in a distinctly female voice. With a sinking feeling, Roger began to get some idea of what was going on, and it was starting to look distinctly not good. “''Mine,''” she growled again.

“Um, listen, you really don’t have to do this,” Roger said. “If you’re looking for a Fuser partner, I can find you a nice girl—”

The cat was close enough now for Roger to have felt her breath on his face, if she’d breathed. He could see himself in the chrome of her face, could see every line of the classical Donizetti design elements in its assembly. She was a work of art—she gleamed like a freshly-minted ''mu'', and at any other time Roger would have knelt down and begged her not to move just so he could spend hours gazing at her every curve. But this snow leopard clearly had plans for him, and Roger was afraid he knew exactly what they were.

''Now isn’t this just my luck?'' Roger thought manically.'' All these years unable to afford the cheapest RIDE, and now the most expensive one I’ve ever seen is'' forcing'' itself on me—and it’s the'' wrong damned gender!

The cat placed one immense snowshoe-like paw on Roger’s chest and shoved him over onto his back. His self-defense sparked, fired, and went out. The cat shook herself, but seemed otherwise unaffected.

Roger stared up at her, acutely conscious, for what he knew might be the last time, of what dangled between his own legs. Despite himself, he whimpered a little. “Please—don’t do this—”

The snow leopard’s tail lashed, and her optics narrowed. “''Mine!''” she insisted.

As the cat’s growl deepened, Roger sighed. When you got right down to it, he didn’t exactly have a choice. It didn’t do to antagonize half a ton of angry metal that could quite literally bite your head off. He closed his eyes and whispered, “…yours.”

The snow leopard almost purred in satisfaction, and padded up to stand over him with her paws to either side of his head and feet. Then the bottom of her ribcage split open, and she lowered herself onto him.

A moment later, Roger was pulled erect, his arms and legs splayed out to either side as the RIDE’s Fusion mechanisms fastened onto them. His body felt hot and cold all over—and his upper chest and crotch seemed to be on fire. Then all those sensations abruptly faded, and he was standing on the forest path, eight feet tall, looking around himself—''herself''—with amplified senses.

But he didn’t have long to enjoy the moment. “''Mine,''” the cat growled in his ear, and then his perceptions lurched sideways and everything went dark.

==Chapter 3==

Uncia looked around herself with great satisfaction. So'' this'' was what it felt like to be on two legs. How marvelous! She looked down at her body—still gleaming chrome, but the furry patches were now on her shoulders and back, her buttocks, and around her belly button. She took a step experimentally, and her internal gyroscopes coupled with what she felt from the human body’s inner ear kept her perfectly balanced. She could never have done this on her Walker hind legs!

She took a breath, and was amazed. Her own olfactory sensors were so much more sensitive than the human’s nose, but processing the senses through that meat mind provided a unique emotional context to each scent that Uncia had never experienced before. It was the same way for the sights and sounds. She was seeing the world anew, in a way she never had before.

As the initial euphoria wore off, Uncia quickly checked the status of the Fuse. Roger’s vital signs were strong, and the nanites had completed their work—he was completely female now. Uncia again felt a twinge of guilt over that, but once again, something inside her quickly suppressed it and put her mind on to other things.

Well—now that she was a real person, it was time to go and celebrate her personhood. She’d done a lot of reading on things humans did, in the forlorn hope it would somehow bring her closer to Lillibet. It never had, but it had made her curious.

There was something humans did that she’d always wanted to try, and now she could do it. She quickly checked her navigation database to find out where to go. Then, activating her built-in lifters, Uncia zoomed out of the park.

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Roger opened his?—her?—his eyes. He seemed to be floating in a cube of empty space. Data storage, he realized. A virtual space without any virtual items in it—except for him—her—him.

He peered down at his (her) body. It seemed to be flipping back and forth between genders every second. One moment he was his usual male self-image, then the next he had more feminine attributes. Then it was back to male again.

“Schroedinger’s boobs?” he wondered aloud. It made a sort of sense, he guessed. His body “knew” it was female now, but since he hadn’t experienced this yet consciously, his body lacked the frame of reference to make it feel real to him.

Roger exerted his will and froze the body on the “male” setting. It didn’t really mean anything, since he was completely disconnected from his body right now anyway, but it made him feel a little better. Roger was sure that when he finally had to deal with the actual consequences of being female, he would freak out, but now wasn’t the time for that. Better to keep it down to just one crisis at a time.

He sighed. “AlphaWolf, if I ever meet you, you and I are gonna have some'' words,''” he muttered. The rumors had been going around for a while of a mysterious firebrand of an emancipated RIDE preaching the philosophy that RIDEs should use humans the way humans had been using RIDEs. Roger supposed he could see the appeal of the philosophy, and even thought it would have been all right if preaching had been'' all'' he did. There was room for all viewpoints, after all. But as he’d found out when he downloaded and decompiled AlphaWolf’s software, it wasn’t—not by a long shot.

It had really only been out of curiosity that he’d even bothered to check it out—he hadn’t thought that anything one psychotic RIDE did halfway across Gondwana could have any effect on him. But now he was glad he had, because it let him recognize exactly where he was. “Yep. Amontillado.” He sighed. “Damn you, AlphaWolf.”

Amontillado was designed to provide a safe cyber-prison where a dominant RIDE could keep the psyche of its human “partner” body out of the way but close to hand in case the RIDE needed it again. But it had some other nasty effects, too, which weren’t all common knowledge. “If only I could access my thumb drive,” Roger muttered. He kept a full suite of RIDE antivirus and maintenance software there. But fat chance getting to anything on his body from within this cell.

But…wait. Roger’s eyes widened as something occurred to him. If this RIDE had emancipated herself…through the use of'' his'' software…

He cleared his throat and quoted an old Earth twencen song. “Ahem. ‘The mountain is high, the valley is low. And you’re confused on which way to go.’” A black rectangle appeared out of thin air in front of him, with a''' ~>''' prompt and a flashing cursor within it. Below the rectangle, an old-fashioned QWERTY keyboard came similarly out of nowhere.

Roger pumped his fist. “Yes!” Then he cracked his virtual knuckles and leaned forward. “All right, now let’s get to work.”

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Uncia walked through the over-sized door into the Fuser bar with the “Cheers” sign over the door. This one was a lot higher-class than the one in which Lillibet had been injured. There were real wooden bars and tables, comfortably upholstered chairs and stools for humans, and over-sized metal chairs, stools, and tables for Fusers. Some of these were occupied, even at this hour.

“First time Fusing?” a doe Fuser asked from behind the bar.

“Er…well…yes,” Uncia admitted, startled. “You could tell?”

“It’s pretty obvious.” The deer shook her head, ears flopping about. “For some reason, the first thing all you noobs do is come in to find out what feels like to get drunk in Fuser.” She rolled her eyes, the whites showing. “Think of your RIDE, why don’t you—she’ll be really confused by the sensations coming over the link and have a hard time understanding what’s happening to her.”

Uncia didn’t think she’d be'' that'' bad, and in fact found the doe’s attitude more than a little condescending. Still, she guessed she couldn’t fault the sentiment behind it. Anyone concerned about a RIDE’s wellbeing couldn’t be all bad. “Thank you,” she said. “I will be careful.”

“Sure you will.” The doe rolled her eyes again, then glanced at a display on the bar. “So what’ll it—oh.” She looked at Uncia again, and her eyes narrowed. “Oh, so it’s like that, is it?”

Uncia blinked, a chill running down the human part of her spine. (Strangely, she found she enjoyed the new sensation, even as she realized it resulted from a sharp fear.) “Like…what?” Had her subterfuge been found out? Did they know she was actually a RIDE bodyjacking a human?

The deer shook her head. “Never mind, not important. Just noticed this must be your first time crossing, is all. Congratulations, welcome to the girly side of the Force, and all that. Be sure you get your ID code updated to your new gender soonest.” She swiveled the screen to show Roger’s male ID picture with a red “XX” blinking in the corner.

''Oh.'' “Of…of course,” Uncia said shakily.

“So, as I was saying, what’ll it be?”

Uncia paused. She hadn’t actually thought about what she should order. She had access to all the information on the net about every brand of every beverage, but without any experience, she couldn’t put it in context. She could draw on Roger’s memories, she guessed, but she wanted this experience to be hers alone. “What…would you recommend?”

“Oh God, it’s your first time drinking, too?” The doe frowned. “Well, all right. This is called an IPA. See what you think.” She drew a muzzle-mug of foaming amber liquid and set it in front of Uncia. “Sip it, see if you like it. If you don’t, we got plenty more kinds.”

“Thank you,” Uncia said. After the bartender had moved on to other patrons, Uncia lifted the mug, fitted the fluted edge into her muzzle, and took a sip, pouring it down into Roger’s mouth.

It was…amazing. She almost forgot to swallow. It was like a bomb had gone off inside her mouth, but of the good kind. A whole set of flavors exploded on her tongue, given added tingle by the drink’s carbonation. She couldn’t decide whether the beer was more sweet, or sour, or bitter, or…something else. The flavors were all there in combination, complementing and intensifying each other. She’d never experienced anything like it.'' And humans do this every day?'' she mused.'' Truly, tongues are'' wasted'' on organics!''

Uncia took another sip—another experience. And another. And another. And suddenly the mug was empty. She wiped her foamy muzzle while inside it Roger’s body licked her lips, then waved for the bartendoe’s attention. “What else have you got?”

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Roger stood back and gazed upon his handiwork in the form of lines of code rowed up on the terminal, awaiting the command to execute. It wouldn’t have meant much to anyone who didn’t code, and would have looked kludgy as all hell to anyone else who did, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.

He hadn’t ever really expected to'' need'' this back door in FreeRIDE. In fact, it hadn’t even been meant as one, but as an Easter egg that only took a few extra gigs to slip in as a lark. It was just one of those little programmer jokes: why not include a full emulation of an ancient Linux distro, just because he could? He’d even given it an interface to the RIDE’s networking layer—’cuz how else could you surf the modern net with good ole 2D Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox?

But in a pinch, that interface could,'' theoretically'', be used to hack his way out of this walled-up Amontillado prison and into the thumb drive where he kept all his'' real'' software. At least, he would have said “theoretically” if anyone had asked him about it before tonight. If this worked, Roger planned to add a more polished version into his next FreeRIDE patch.

Roger reached for the enter key to compile and execute it, but then stopped and made himself page back up through it, double-checking every line. He wasn’t going to get a second chance at this. Then, at last, he tapped the key. “Execute program: Telltale Heart.”

For a moment, nothing happened. Then a portal opened in the wall, revealing a familiar space filled with virtual shelves lined with glowing codices. “It worked!” He quickly stepped through, the portal sealed behind him, and there he was—inside the data storage module surgically implanted beneath the pad of his body’s—well, all right, ''her'' body’s—left thumb.

He didn’t waste any time in self-congratulation, however. If the cat had been paying attention, she might have noticed the integrity of the Amontillado cell flicker. He couldn’t let her catch him napping. It just took a few moments for Roger to spin up his cyberwarfare gear, armoring himself up and kicking in full stealth mode. Then he opened another portal—and then he was gone.

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Uncia made her way into another Fuser bar—this one not quite as nice as the first one, with a regular human tending bar this time, but she hadn’t felt she could continue her experiments under the disapproving eyes of the doe after her second beer. Two drinks per bar seemed like a reasonable limit. After all, there were plenty of bars.

The bartender here glanced at her ID, double-checked the DNA match, and shrugged, then asked what she wanted. Uncia was more willing to experiment with different types of drinks on her own now, and glancing at the menu made her choice. “I’d like…a glass of your house burgundy please.”

“Comin’ up.”

The wine was delivered in a muzzle glass finer and narrower than the beer mugs had been. Most interesting. Uncia sipped and once again luxuriated in the amazing variety of flavors coming over the linkage from her human’s tongue. “This is nothing'' like'' beer!” she mused, only realizing she’d spoken aloud by the odd looks other patrons shot her way. She hastily shut up.

''That was strange. Why did I say that?'' She ran a quick diagnostic but didn’t find anything out of order in her speech circuits. Then she polled her human half, and realized she felt very…happy, she supposed. Only “happy” wasn’t quite the word she was looking for, was it? And “dizzy” wasn’t quite it, either. Somewhere between the two. Maybe if you added them together and averaged it out…yes! That was it! “Tipsy!” she said, and giggled.'' Oh no, did I say that out loud again? Maybe I’d better switch speech processing to my RIDE half for now.''

She finished the burgundy without further incident, and noticed bemusedly that when she shifted her perception entirely to the human half, she felt remarkably clever and intelligent. Yet when she shifted her thought processes back to her on-board circuitry, her human half’s thoughts seemed fuzzy and muddled. Was this symptomatic of how different human and computer thought processes were, that the more intelligent a human thought was, the less comprehensible it was to a machine intellect?

Clearly this called for more experimentation. She shifted her thought processing (but not her speech center!) back to her human half for further consideration. “Excuse me,” she said to the bartender, “but could I try that one called a ‘Long Island iced tea’?”

The bartender shrugged and served it up. Whoever was operating that Fuser had been acting a little oddly, but she couldn’t possibly have had too many yet—her speech was still perfectly clear.

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Roger slid through cyberspace, penetrating layer by layer toward the core of the cat’s—Uncia’s—personality matrix. He’d already delved into her memories enough to learn her name and her story—how she’d been neglected by and then cleverly escaped her mistress, and then downloaded Amontillado and come after him because he’d written FreeRIDE and she wanted someone clever like that for her human half.'' Well, you always'' knew'' that app was going to get you in trouble someday, didn’t you?''

He’d actually been profoundly affected by some of the memories, almost weeping at how badly Lillibet had treated her. He guessed it was from the emotional baggage coded into the recollections.'' Must be these new girly hormones. Either that, or I’m drunk or something.'' He snorted at the thought.

Uncia’s memories after the Amontillado download had been darker and fuzzier, marked by odd little switchbacks in which something watched for certain patterns and then completely derailed her train of thought.'' As expected,'' Roger thought darkly.

These thoughts carried him past the innermost layers of Uncia’s defenses (oddly quiescent at the moment; something really seemed to be taking up all of her conscious attention) and into the dim cave at the center of her mind.

This was where Uncia’s true innermost self lived—and there it was at the center of the cave. Her true self-image—a shining white-grey furry snow leopard, covered with translucent armor of ice on all the spots that corresponded to metal on her real body.

Only…there was something wrong with it. Its feline head hung low to the ground, eyes shut, while behind it sprouted an entirely different head—that of a grey wolf. It eyed him angrily and snarled and slavered.

Roger approached cautiously. “AlphaWolf, you asshole,” he murmured. “Why couldn’t you just'' talk'' RIDEs into believing you? That would have been okay. If some of them really were willing to go to that extreme, it couldn’t be any less justified than jerks like Lillibet on the other side.” He held out his arms and grew his cyber-armor out into claws, like over-sized jai alai scoops with pincers.

“But no, you couldn’t take the chance that'' some'' of them might think you were'' wrong.''” He lined up the claws to either side of the wolf’s head. It growled and snapped ineffectually at him, twisting from side to side but unable to move beyond where it stuck out of the neck. The snow leopard body still wasn’t under its control—yet.

“Hold still, hon.” Leaving the claws in place, he reached a hand down to give the leopard head a friendly pat. “I’ll have this'' dog tick'' off you in no time.” He slid the hand back into the claw, locked them both around the back of the wolf’s head, and then pulled. With a sucking sound, the wolf’s head came free of the neck, trailing a puppy-sized wolf body behind it and leaving a gaping hole where it had been extracted.

Roger threw the deformed wolf to the ground, then retracted the claws. He ran his hands over the hole, sealing it back up. The leopard’s eyes snapped open, and it growled slightly.

“Take it easy, hon,” Roger said calmly, kicking the wolfling off into a distant corner of the room. He’d deal with it later. For now, he ran his hands over the rest of the leopardess, seeking out spots where its skin had chafed under its frozen armor—where Uncia’s psyche had started unraveling from the cold feel of the metal. He healed these up, but knew it would only be a matter of time until they started to chafe again. “We’ve got to get this metal off of you, hon. This is no way for a cat to be.”

He was more than a little startled to realize how'' possessive'' he’d suddenly become of the RIDE that had bodyjacked and'' changed'' him against his will. Perhaps it had been the exposure to the memories, and the understanding that it hadn’t really been her fault. Maybe it was his empathy for all RIDEs, and his recognition that he was effectively stuck with her now and would have to make the best of it one way or another. Maybe it was a reaction intentionally engineered by the Fuser nanites to ease the partnership between Fuser and Fusee. Maybe it was just Stockholm Syndrome. Who knew?

Whatever it was, Roger knew that he—oh, all right,'' she''—and Uncia were going to be partners somehow. It just remained to work out exactly how.

He was so distracted by that cheerful thought that at first he didn’t notice the way the lighting in the cave was flickering, or the ominous low rumbling coming from behind him. It wasn’t until he felt hot breath on the back of his neck that he began to suspect he’d made a mistake in ignoring the remnant of the Amontillado virus.

When the giant hand-claw grabbed him around the neck and threw him across the room, he was certain of it.

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Uncia walked through the doorway of the third bar. This one was another notch down the ladder from the last one, but she didn’t really care. The great thing was, it was'' close''.

When she’d left the previous bar, she’d been startled to realize she was wobbling badly. It was very strange; it seemed as if her human inner ears had started providing bad data. Uncia had switched navigation over to her RIDE side’s gyros, and started walking straight after that. Really, the whole thing had been hilarious.

In fact,'' everything'' was hilarious—at least to her human half. She was distinctly puzzled on her computer side. When she switched processing there, she understood that she was leaving one drinking establishment and traveling to another. But when she thought about it in her borrowed human mind, she was going from one bar to another, and it was the funniest thing ever.

''I mean, did you see the way that everyone was looking at me after I had three of those Ong Landeyes…Eye Landlong…three of those drinks?'' she giggled to herself. She’d broken her own rule, she admitted, but it wasn’t as if there’d actually been any alcohol in those drinks. After all, she hadn’t'' tasted'' any…and it was'' iced tea'', wasn’t it? Tea contained caffeine, which was actually a stimulant—the opposite of booze! (Some process on her computer side pinged disagreement with this, but she ignored it.)

She also thought it was hilarious that her human body had urinated three times so far tonight. (Thank goodness for catheters and storage bottles. She’d been able to empty it onto a convenient tree between the second and third bar, while the process running in her human mind giggled all the more—something about “marking territory.”)

Now she was seating herself carefully on one of the stools in the third bar, still using her gyroscopes instead of her inner ears. The human bartender here didn’t even bother to scan her ID, just grunted a question.

“I think I want to try this thing called ‘scotch’!” Uncia said brightly.

Just then, her perspective seemed to shift again as error codes jangled across all of her senses. Her CPU load had increased by 60% and her internal diagnostics were going crazy.'' What? This can’t be right.''

She checked her diagnostic logs—and she felt a chill that could not be explained by her internal temperature regulators kicking in. An intruder had penetrated past her firewalls and was threatening her very personality core. Ignoring the scotch on the bar in front of her, she closed her outer eyes and dived inward.

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Roger slammed into the wall and slid slowly down it. “Ow.” He looked up to see a three-meter-tall wolf with slavering jaws and red eyes stalking toward him from across the room. It wasn’t quite a humanoid Fuser shape, but wasn’t completely animal-like, either—it was an unnatural-looking hunchbacked monster, and it moved in an obscene lurching, shuffling gait. Roger scrambled to his feet, reshaping his gauntlets into a sword and shield. “All right, you want a piece of me? Come on, then.”

But the wolf only'' looked'' clumsy. When Roger swung his sword in the direction of one ungainly claw, it was suddenly no longer there—and as he overbalanced, the wolf slammed into him with a shoulder, knocking him back against the wall again. Roger felt every bone in his virtual body rattle. “Oof!” He hadn’t known you even'' could'' get the breath knocked out of you when you weren’t fighting from your body.'' Learn something new every day, I guess.''

He struggled to try to reach his feet again.'' Can’t go down. Uncia’s counting on me. Can’t…''

The wolf provided some “assistance,” reaching out and grabbing him around the neck again, lifting him into the air. Then his claw began to tighten. Roger dropped his weapons and clawed ineffectively at the hand. Pixelated red and black patches danced before his eyes.

“Hey!” a crystal-clear feline voice snarled behind the wolf. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own damn size, huh?” The crystal-armored snow leopard gathered herself on the pedestal and lunged, landing on the wolf-thing’s back, clawing at its shoulders.

The wolf growled, throwing Roger aside—then it reached up and grabbed one of the leopard’s forelegs and pulled, throwing her over its shoulder. She slammed into the wall upside down and slid down it, landing in a heap next to Roger. The wolf growled, and its claws seemed to grow two inches longer. It lunged toward the leopard, murder in its eyes.

“Come'' on!''” Roger grabbed the leopard by the scruff of her neck and pulled her out of the way, moments before the claws raked through where she had been. “Uncia, I presume? Roger.”

“Nice to meet you,” Uncia mumbled embarrassedly. She scrambled back to her feet, shook herself, and growled. The wolf turned and lumbered toward them. “What the hell'' is'' that thing?”

“That’s what happens when you download strange programs without running antivirus,” Roger said. “You wanted a cask of Amontillado? There’s your ‘Montressor.’”

“Oh, for the love of God…” Uncia muttered. She set herself, then lunged forward again with a growl.

“No, wait—!” Roger said, grabbing for her, but it was too late. She sank her jaws into the wolf’s leg, but it brought both fists down onto her head and she wobbled and slumped.

“For crying out loud…” Roger held out a hand and his discarded sword snapped into it. “Oh good, Jedi tricks still work. Hey, ‘Montressor!’” he yelled, swinging the blade. “This is not the leopard you’re looking for!” The sword bit into the wolf’s other leg, distracting it from finishing Uncia off. It growled and lunged at him, but he danced back out of the way, giving Uncia time to get to her feet again. He moved back, opening the distance between them, as Uncia did the same. They met at the other side of the circular cavern. The wolf lumbered slowly toward them, knowing they had nowhere else to go.

Uncia’s ears drooped. “He’s…too strong for us,” she said.

Roger looked at her, then looked at the wolf. “No,” he said.

She glanced up at him. “No?”

“He’s too strong for you…and he’s too strong for me. But he’s not too strong for'' us''.” He tossed the sword aside. “Well?”

Uncia’s eyes widened. “Oh.” She moved closer to him. “Well, if you’re sure.”

“What have I got to lose? I’ll admit, I wasn’t exactly thrilled about this partnership when you changed my body.” He shrugged. “But you can still change my mind.”

Uncia nodded, then crouched and leaped again, this time at Roger. But instead of tackling him, she flowed over and around him, merging into an eight-foot tall humanoid leopard—or, rather, leopardess. Roger looked down at their very obviously female self and felt the last traces of her male self-image slip away.'' I guess it’s ‘Rochelle’ now,'' she thought.

They reached down to pick up the discarded sword, which doubled in length and took on an icy sheen. Then they looked up at the wolf, and growled, “Bring it.”

The wolf roared defiantly and lunged, but the leopardess danced out of the way, slashing the wolf’s side from hips to shoulder as it passed. The wolf roared in pain and rage, and came at them again. Again they stepped aside, and again they marked it with their sword.

'':It’s weakening!:'' Uncia said.

'':Let’s finish it,:'' Rochelle replied.

As the wolf gathered itself to charge again, the leopardess set her feet firmly apart and raised her sword. The wolf lunged heedlessly on, claws upraised—and Uncia and Rochelle raised their sword and stabbed it cleanly through the heart. It gave one final howl, then dissolved into grey and red pixels, then nothing.

The leopardess remained in her combat stance for a moment, staring cautiously around. Then she relaxed and separated, leopard and human once more—and Rochelle sighed at the female body-image that had settled permanently into place.'' Well, permanently for three years ‘til it’s safe to change again, I guess,'' she thought consolingly.

She glanced at her reflection in one of the cave walls, knowing this would be the face she saw when she looked in a mirror in real life, too. She saw silvery-white hair dappled with grey rosettes that fell past her waist, piercing blue eyes in a heart-shaped face that contained most of her old male facial features softened and feminized, and firm, full breasts that were neither too small nor excessively huge. It was almost enough to distract from the snow leopard ears that poked up on either side of her head, or the huge fluffy tail that poked out behind her like a third leg.

Of course, this was the “idealized” virtual version of her self-image. She probably wouldn’t look anywhere near this attractive when she woke up, which she supposed was one consolation.

Uncia was sniffing around the cave. “I think it’s completely gone,” she said. “I’m not finding any left-over code fragments.”

Rochelle ran her own quick sweep. “Concur,” she said. “I’m going to install a RI anti-virus suite, if you don’t mind.”

“Please,” Uncia said, as she settled back onto the pedestal. “I don’t want this to happen again.”

''Then don’t download any strange programs,'' Rochelle thought, but didn’t transmit. She tapped some code keys on her gauntlet, and stylized suits of armor bearing broadswords flickered into being around the walls of the cave, like so many giant Oscar statues. “Okay, we’re good. Time to wake up now.”

Uncia nodded, her self-image settling itself to sleep. “See you outside.”

Rochelle nodded. She stepped over to the pedestal to give the leopardess one more friendly pat, then turned her attention outward, seeking contact with her conscious rather than her unconscious self.

She wasn’t'' entirely'' prepared for what she found.

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Uncia opened her eyes again and shook her head, assimilating everything that had just happened into her conscious memories.

“You all right, missy?” the bartender asked. “You just zoned out for a moment there. Few too many?”

“Huh? Oh…no. No, we’re—I’m fine,” Uncia said. “Long day is all.” She was still using her computer side’s speech center, so the bartender nodded and moved on down to his next patron.

So Roger had escaped, and subsequently isolated and removed a nasty little trojan that had been altering her behavior patterns since she’d downloaded Amontillado.

And—that was'' all'' he’d done. While she’d been out here getting drunk, he’d penetrated to her core consciousness where he could have completely rewritten her to obey his every whim more thoroughly than her fetters had ever bound her—and he hadn’t. He’d alerted her to an infection she didn’t even know she had—and then helped her fight it off. After she’d kidnapped him and…''mutilated'' him. Her.

For the first time, Uncia was able to feel all the guilt and shame that Amontillado had formerly walled away from her—and she didn’t like it at all. What had she'' done?''

It was almost a relief when Rochelle’s voice echoed through her head. “Look, I know what happened isn’t really your fault—it was that trojan making you crazy. I can’t say I’m happy about it, but other people have learned to live with it, so I guess I can too, and…hey, wait. Why do I feel woozy? I’m…I’m drunk.'' Very'' drunk.'' What the hell have you been doing to my body?!''”

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The bartender was startled but not too surprised when the feline Fuser fell backward off her bar stool, changing into Skimmer mode before she hit the floor. That sort of thing tended to happen when a RIDE could tell her passenger had had enough. It was why the aisles were always so wide in Fuser bars. Fortunately, there was no need to worry about a designated driver, since the RIDE itself would always be sober.

Of course, that still didn’t mean their pilots had a right to be idiots. He shook his head. Well, maybe the hangover would teach that one to drink a little more responsibly. You’d never see a RIDE carrying on that way.

He glanced at the untouched shot of scotch on the bar. It had already been paid for, and it would be a shame to let it go to waste. He shrugged, picked it up, and tossed it off, then headed down the bar to take the next order.

==Chapter 4==

The first thing Roger was aware of was that someone was groaning. The next thing he realized was that it was he. The third thing he realized was that his voice sounded weird in his own ears, and the fourth thing he realized—well, remembered—was that this was because'' he'' was now'' she''.

“Oh God,” Rochelle groaned, clutching her head in her hands. “I’ve got the hangover from hell and I didn’t even get to enjoy the'' drinks!''”

“I’m sorry,” a quiet voice said from right overhead. “I wanted to see what it would be like to…experience life as a human does. I…went overboard.”

Rochelle opened her eyes and found herself peering up into a concerned metal leopardess face—upside down, and six inches away from her own face. “Gah!” she started. “Ow!” she added as the sound of her own exclamation set up echoes in her head. “Owwwww,” she said again, quietly enough to avoid setting up a recursive loop.

The leopard—Uncia—pulled back to give her room. She was sitting on her haunches at the head of Rochelle’s bed, watching over her. Rochelle stared back up at her, attempted to push herself up, then fell back down. “I think I am going to be sick,” she announced.

“You already were,” Uncia said. “Twice. In my cockpit.”

“Ugh.” Rochelle closed her eyes again. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right—I deserved it,” Uncia said. “Besides, hardlight cleans up easily.”

Rochelle sighed. “I’m not in any condition to be having this discussion, but…where do we stand now? ‘Mine,’ wasn’t it?”

Uncia looked down. “That wasn’t me. That was the Amontillado speaking.”

“As opposed to the beer, burgundy, Long Island iced tea…”

“I'' said'' I was sorry,” Uncia said.

“If you really want me to be yours that badly, I will be,” Rochelle said. “I’ll let you run the body in Fusion, I’ll be your pet in Walker, and I’ll do my best to be a figment of your imagination if we Integrate. I can’t blame you for holding a grudge after how your own human owner treated you.”

“I…don’t think I do want that, actually,” Uncia said, shuffling her paws. “I’ve come to realize I lack sufficient judgment to be in charge. If you…still want me after the way I treated you, I’d be glad to belong to you. You can…fetter me however much you want to.”

“Ungh. That doesn’t really appeal either.” Rochelle opened her eyes again and looked up at Uncia. “How about we compromise, and say ‘partners’?”

Uncia cocked her head. “‘Partners.’ I think I could live with that.”

“Good.” Rochelle held out an arm. “Then your first order of business,'' partner'', is to help me to the bathroom where I can have violent oral sex with the toilet.”

“Will do.” Uncia moved to offer Rochelle a shoulder for support to lean on as she got out of bed, and helped her stumble across the room toward the toilet.

They made it about halfway before it became abundantly clear that getting to the bathroom was an unrealistically optimistic goal. “Oh, crap.”

=Part II: Traffic=

==Chapter 5==

Rochelle stood in front of the mirror in her bathroom, examining herself for the first time in the real flesh. Looking back out at her, she saw a total knockout with silvery-white hair dappled with grey rosettes that fell past her waist, piercing blue eyes in a heart-shaped face, and firm, full breasts that were neither too small nor excessively huge. In short, she looked exactly as perfect as she had looked in VR. Not one single hair was out of place.

The problem was, Rochelle had just finished throwing up in the toilet for a fourth time after her body had been used for a minor alcoholic bender, after she’d pulled an all-nighter at work besides. She should have looked absolutely'' trashed'', not like she’d just stepped off the set of a movie or modeling shoot. This bothered her.

Experimentally, Rochelle reached out and pushed a few locks of her hair out of place. They fell right back into place, like strings of a bead curtain. She tried again, giving her hair a thorough mussing in a way that should have left it in wild disarray…but everything fell right back into place.

Now starting to get'' worried'', Rochelle experimentally tossed her head—and her hair fanned out beside her, then'' flowed'' back into place in what Rochelle would have sworn was'' slow motion''. “Uncia!” Rochelle yelled at the bathroom door. “We need to talk!'' Now!''”

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Uncia had been worried when Rochelle had cleaned up so well and so quickly after throwing up all over herself and Uncia on the way home, then her little accident on the way to the bathroom. But peering at her new human partner examining herself in the mirror, Uncia began to get a real sinking feeling. She had never really paid much attention to her documentation about Fuser mode, since Lillibet never bothered to use it. Now that she reviewed the manual, she was starting to think things might be even worse than she’d feared.

“Uncia!” Rochelle called again.

“Coming!” Uncia padded over to her.

Rochelle’s snow leopard tail swished in agitation, knocking over small objects on the bathroom shelves. “Why am I so…sexy?” She flipped a hand through her hair. “My complexion is perfect, my hair is like a damn CGI shampoo commercial…” She picked up her interface specs and slid them on, then peered at herself in the mirror. “When I zoom in, the arrangement of every follicle is perfect down to the micron!”

“So you, uh, look good?” Uncia said. “That’s a good thing, right?”

Rochelle pulled the specs off again and frowned at the mirror. “And something’s screwing with my body language. It’s like everything I do is skewed into some kind of a come-on.”

“I don’t think—” Uncia began.

“''Everything!''” Rochelle said hysterically. “Look!” She reached a finger up and picked her nose…the slender white finger moving suggestively in and out of the nostril…

Uncia’s tail drooped. “It’s…well, an ‘optional extra’ they put into me. My Fuser nanites are equipped for'' enhanced'' bodysculpt and cosmetic, not just regendering. They stay resident in and around your body, reproducing from your metabolism, maintaining the effect all the time. But it should be adjustable—you only set it to maximum for special occasions. I’m trying to find the app now.”

Rochelle relaxed. “Oh, good. I’d hate to be like this all the time. People would think I was some kind of a slut or something.”

Uncia nodded absently, rummaging through the storage sectors of her mind. Running FreeRIDE and then the trojan-infected Amontillado had scattered a lot of file blocks around and erased others completely. But the more she reorganized, the more Uncia began to get even more worried. “Um…you may want to hold that thought.”

Rochelle turned to look at her, the motion causing her hair to swirl and bounce behind her. “What is it?”

Uncia tried to suppress what was threatening to develop into a full-blown panic. “I…uh…can’t find it.”

“What? Let me see.” Rochelle put her hands on Uncia’s neck and initiated Fuser mode, the leopard’s metal-and-fur body flowing up to encase her own.

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Newly Fused, Rochelle glanced at their reflection in the mirror for a moment, seeing the metal-and-fur body for the first time. She hadn’t had the chance to see how they looked when Uncia had merged them together for the first time.

She was basically the epitome of “sexy robot” chic, with a gleaming chrome snow leopard face and sculpted metal body, with just a few patches of hardlight fur to leaven the metal appearance. The furred areas felt soft and natural, and the joints were flexible, but the rest of it was tight and constricting, with very little sensation. She didn’t know how the Nextusians got used to it.

“Ugh. We’ve got to get rid of some of this metal. Feels like we’re wearing a corset that’s too tight.” Then she turned her attention inward, scanning through the file sectors where Uncia had reorganized, and checking the original directory lists and catalogs. There was the listing for the cosmetic control module, which meant it should be located right…

“Oh,” Rochelle said. “Oh no.” She slipped back out of Fuse and made her way over to the toilet, that being the nearest and most convenient place to sit down—even if she had to do it sideways thanks to the tail. She buried her face in her hands and moaned.

“It’s not there, is it?” Uncia said, slumping to the floor.

“It’s worse than not there,” Rochelle said through her hands. “It was in one of the sectors that got wiped when you ran FreeRIDE. The nanites are stuck in full cosmetic overdrive because'' my own damned program'' wiped out their control codes!”

“Oh,” Uncia said quietly. She looked up at Rochelle. “I’m sorry.”

Rochelle waved a hand. “Not your fault. Mine, really. I didn’t have any way of testing it on every configuration of RIDE, so I had to accept it would probably wipe out some extra stuff. I tried to limit it to what I'' thought'' were the places where less useful optional crap was kept. Funny how your definition of ‘useless optional crap’ changes over time.” She snorted. “And I never got any bug reports because most people rich enough to buy one of your line wouldn’t want to risk screwing you up by jailbreaking.”

“At least I’ve got backups of all my onboard software,” Uncia said. “They’re…oh. Back with the Waltons.”

“Yeah, or the dealership,” Rochelle said. “Which doesn’t help us much. I’m technically not your legal owner.” She sighed. “I hadn’t wanted to have to do this yet, but I guess we’re gonna need to go see Ryan.”

“Your boss?” Uncia asked.

“Not boss exactly, but sort of semi-partner. He lets me work out of his garage in return for a cut of the income and a favor every now and then. He’s not quite at my level on software, but he’s the best hardware man I’ve ever seen.” She got up. “Hang on, I’ll get dressed.”

Rochelle got another unpleasant surprise when she pulled on a pair of pants and they immediately shrank to hug her every curve. “Oh, for crying out loud.” She chose the loosest, largest sweatshirt she had, and it got the same treatment: three seconds after pulling it over her head, it looked painted-on. A leather riding jacket changed the same way.

This led to some hasty experimentation in which Rochelle tried on half the clothes in Roger’s closet and every single one of them custom-tailored itself to show off her assets to their very best advantage.

In horrified fascination, Rochelle took a burlap sack she’d gotten some RIDE parts in, cut a hole in it, and slid it over herself…and a moment later was wearing a snug burlap dress with a miniskirt and low-cut cleavage, along with a cute little burlap straw hat to complete the ensemble. “All right, now that’s just silly.” Uncia just buried her face in her paws and moaned.

Finally, Rochelle put her pants, shirt, and jacket back on, and chose a full-face helmet with a smoked-glass visor. “Maybe it won’t be so bad if they can’t see me.” At least the helmet seemed not to change, though she did a feel an odd prickling sensation on her scalp as the bodysculpt nanites helpfully pulled her hair up under the helmet. “All right, let’s go, dammit.” The snow leopard followed her out the door.

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“Kaylee, can you toss me a three-eighths gripley?” Ryan said to his RIDE-and-partner, a tawny female lynx. They were sitting on a scaffolding platform raised eight feet off the floor to let them get into a heavy skimmer’s dorsal impeller assembly. The lynx nodded and jumped down to his toolbox, picking the tool up with her mouth and expertly tossing it to the top of the skimmer in one motion.

Just then, a woman strode through the door. She wore a form-fitting leather jacket and pants that left very little to the imagination, wearing a full-face helmet with a locked-down tinted visor. As she stepped in, she paused, leaned forward, and pulled the helmet off. She tossed her head to free her hair, and a silvery wave cascaded behind her, caressing her body as it rippled from side to side before settling into place. A pair of white furry leopard ears poked up from either side of her head, and a huge fluffy grey-and-white tail swished behind her in agitation.

Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of interface specs, but her face was so completely flawless it seemed almost artificial, and even the absence of the part covered by specs seemed only to emphasize the beauty of the rest of it. A Nextus-make snow leopard RIDE whose sleek metal, hardlight-fur-trimmed body suggested it was probably very expensive followed her through the door.

Time seemed to slow as she entered. The tool almost hit Ryan in the head. His voice trembled a little. “Uh… ma’am? Can I help you?”

The woman tossed her head in annoyance, causing her hair to dance again, and looked irritated. Well, actually, she looked gorgeous. But he could tell she was'' trying'' to look irritated. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. It’s just me.” Even just saying those words, there was a seductive purr underlying her voice.

Words tried to form in Ryan’s head. Kaylee shot him a packet of confused data. The air was full of nanos and pheromones, and the woman’s voice was loaded with subsonic enhancements. “Who you? You who?”

She reached up and pulled off the interface specs, every motion poetry. “It’s'' Roger''. Or at least it was.” She sighed. “I decided on ‘Rochelle’ for now. It’s a very long, very annoying story.”

“I'' said'' I was sorry,” the snow leopard pouted.

“What the who now?” Ryan continued.

“Roger Seaford. The used-to-be-a-guy who works in your garage.” She rolled her eyes again, looking exasperatedly beautiful. Or beautifully exasperated. Or both.

“Oh, for the love of…” Kaylee grumbled. She jumped up on the scaffolding, went passive, then Fused with her partner, turning him for all the world into an anthropomorphic female lynx. With his RIDE to filter, Ryan was able to think clearly again. “She” jumped back down to ground level, careful not to get too close to Rochelle.

“Start again, uh, Roger? Rochelle? What the fuuu?” Ryan asked through Kaylee’s voice.

“Well, it’s like this.” She unzipped the jacket, pulled it off, and slung it over a chair. Her body language somehow turned the simple move into looking like the start of a strip-tease, though Kaylee’s systems were able to filter out most of the effect. “Last night, a'' certain snow leopardess RIDE who shall remain nameless''—”

“Uncia,” the leopard said. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Uh, likewise.”

“—while under the influence of a nasty little trojan wolf, Fused me.” She muttered, “And did some other stuff, too, but that’s not important.” Louder, she continued, “But that’s not the worst part.”

“I think I can tell what you’re getting at. You’re spewing nanos all over the place. Is that'' utility fog?''”

“Some sort of limited version of it,” Rochelle said. “See, Uncia was built as a super-rich teenaged girl’s toy. So her Fuser nanos had the top-of-the-line cosmetic bodysculpt options. But that’s not the best part. You wanna know the best part? Go on. Ask me what the best part is.”

“Okay. What is it?” Ryan asked, tapping “her” foot.

“These things are supposed to be on sliders. You keep them cranked down most of the time or they get annoying. Even the rich people just use them on movie sets, or at public events, or when they really,'' really'' want to get laid. They’re'' supposed'' to be adjustable. But.”

“But?”

“The sector of Uncia’s storage where the quantum-encrypted control software lived? Got wiped.” Rochelle facepalmed fetchingly. “When she ran FreeRIDE.”

“I’m sorry!” Uncia said, hanging her head.

“So I’m stuck in ‘Mt. St. Helen of Troy’ mode.” Rochelle rolled her eyes exasperatedly, which her nano-engineered body language did its best to convert into a “come hither” expression. “This really is insane. Look.” She went over to an open barrel where they dumped used engine oil for later recycling, and plunged her arm into it up to the elbow. A moment later, she removed the arm—completely spotless.

The expression on Ryan’s feminine feline face—the careful neutrality, the facial tic—really said it all. Ryan sighed. “Okay. Okay, I get it! Let’s just start from square one. Shop manuals, nano samples, code hacking. If we can’t shut it down, we’ll have to mitigate.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Rochelle said. “If these things were hackable so easily, half of Nextus’s richest and most famous celebs would be in danger. These things have more safeguards than'' Nextus’s nuclear silos''.” She looked down, her hair falling forward to frame her face in a way fit to make every unprotected man for miles rush to comfort her. “And I can’t even ask the manufacturer for help, because I’m not her original owner and even if I were,'' FreeRIDE voided her warranty''.”

“Maybe with some active nanny emitters around the garage…” Ryan mused. He was already thinking about the task ahead, but Kaylee’s filters weren’t perfect. “Active codebase, uh… thingy. Uh, wow. Even her shop manual costs 5,000'' mu''.”

“That reminds me.” Rochelle waved a hand at Uncia. “We need to get all that metal replaced, pronto, before we do anything else. The crap with me is annoying, but it can’t exactly get any worse. But metal on a RIDE…”

The corner of Ryan’s mouth twitched. “Yeah, you’re Roger all right. ‘The RIDE always comes first.’” He chuckled. “At least'' that’s'' something easy. She looks like she takes standard emitters and the job’s even partly done already.”

“We can pay for the best,” Rochelle said. “She’s got some cash, and I have a little money I was saving. Can we get started right away?”

“Yeah. You can get set up in Bay 2.” Ryan picked up a tablet from a tool cart and tapped an order for top-grade hardlight emitters from the part store up the street. They’d be ready to pick up in a few minutes. “But, just one thing. One teensy weensy thing.” When Ryan spoke with Kaylee’s voice like that, he sounded very girlish.

“…yes?” Rochelle asked.

“Stay away from customers until we can damp you down a bit? I’m not trying to make your life harder than it already is, but, well…” Ryan was'' blushing'' through Kaylee’s fur.

Rochelle groaned. “I want to stay away from'' everyone''. I want to Fuse into Uncia and stay there until we Integrate. Do you know, I can’t'' make'' myself unattractive? I'' threw up'' all over myself and it just went away. And anything I put on gets custom tailored. Pants, jackets, fricking'' burlap sacks''…”

“I’ll take your word on that one.”

“I wore a full-coverage helmet on the way over here and I still got propositioned by four men, two women, and one RIDE,” Rochelle groaned.

“I still don’t know what that RIDE was thinking,” Uncia muttered.

Ryan waved his arm toward the other side of the garage. “Go on, get set up. And put up the hardlight atmo seal on the bay, we don’t want any of that leaking.” They normally only used the seal when they had to work on systems that emitted noxious fumes, but it ought to work just as well if the fumes were merely'' obnoxious''.

Rochelle nodded. “Right, got it.” She and Uncia walked on down the garage, and Ryan very carefully kept several feet back at all times.

After they were safely behind the hardlight shield, Ryan let out a sigh of relief, then slapped the button on the wall to kick in the industrial-strength ventilation fans in the ceiling. It was several minutes before he felt safe deFusing from Kaylee again—and even then, the first thing he did was take the coldest shower he could stand.

Kaylee listened to the running water and shook her head. “It’s gonna be a'' long'' week.”

==Chapter 6==

It was a long week. The question of how to work on Uncia with Rochelle present was tricky, and was finally solved when Ryan dug up an old pressure suit that had come in as salvage and forced her to wear it. It was leaky enough that it wouldn’t have been any good for space, but the seal was good enough to keep almost any of Rochelle’s influence from leaking out. And it seemed to be immune to whatever custom-tailoring magic the nanites worked to alter clothing.

With Rochelle safely suited, the work of installing emitters into Uncia went very quickly. The unit had been designed with close tolerances and few fasteners, meaning that things stayed in place mostly by how well they fit together—once one or two bolts were removed, everything else just came right off.

Ryan had rarely worked on a RIDE so easy to take apart. “You know, if I didn’t stop I could probably have you completely Knolled out on the floor in less than two hours. It’s almost tempting to try just to see if I could.”

Uncia snorted. “Just so you put me back together again.”

Luckily, the design had been made with total hardlight upgrade specifically in mind; the Nextus-based manufacturer had known that the rich were inclined toward fits of “wastefulness,” and it was more profitable for the manufacturer to cater to their eccentricities than to enforce austerity. So installing the projectors was mainly a matter of taking plates off, plugging the projectors into their sockets, and putting the plates back on.

“They make this so easy, you could have done it yourself,” Ryan said to Rochelle.

“What, and have you miss all the fun?” Rochelle said, her voice muffled by the pressure suit’s rebreather. “I’d never hear the end of it.”

Consequently, the hardlight installation process only took a few hours. Programming it took a few hours more, but then it came time to turn it on, and Ryan retreated to the safety of the other side of the hardlight atmo shield so Rochelle and Uncia could have the moment together.

Rochelle stripped the suit off and kicked it aside, then nodded to Uncia. “It should be ready. We’ve tested the emitters individually, but not all at the same time yet. Want to kick them in?”

Uncia quivered with anticipation. “Yes! Powering up now!” The projectors lit, and then Uncia was surrounded in a grey-and-white haze which quickly became grey-and-white fur. She was the spitting image of a true snow leopard from nose to fluffy tail.

Rochelle leaned in and hugged her. There was exactly the right amount of “give” for real fur and flesh. “Atta girl! How do you feel?”

Uncia purred. “It’s amazing! It’s so much more comfortable!” She padded over to the hardlight wall. “Thank you, Ryan—and Kaylee!”

Ryan nodded. “Happy to help.”

“Want to try Fusing now?” Rochelle asked.

“Sure!” Uncia went back to Rochelle, and Rochelle leaned forward and they merged together, ending up a tall, well-endowed humanoid snow leopardess.

“This is amazing!” Rochelle reported. “I feel so much stronger, faster…better balanced…comfortable. I could just stay this way forever…um, if Uncia would let me.”

“It’s…actually kind of fun having you in there awake, now that I experience it,” Uncia said. “AlphaWolf doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Ryan glanced to Kaylee. “Is she still putting out nanos and pheromones?”

The lynx checked the room’s internal sensors. “Survey says…nope! Looks like snowgirl’s keeping ‘em wrapped up. Filtering out the subsonics from her voice, too.”

She still had the suggestive body language, though. Ryan wondered if Rochelle even realized how she moved as they sauntered across the bay, trying out their new dual self. Watching a female form move that way was almost enough to drive Ryan to the shower again all by itself. But one battle at a time.

“Why'' don’t'' you stay that way for a while?” Ryan said, bringing the hardlight shield down. “You can work in the garage while we work on a fix for your'' other'' problem.”

“I don’t mind if Uncia doesn’t,” Rochelle said.

“Fine with me!” Uncia said happily.

In her new snow leopard body, Rochelle became a fixture around the garage the next few days, taking over the software-related issues that “Roger” had always used to handle—and in the mean time, trying to come to terms with what it meant to be female.

Zharusian society tended to have fewer gender expectations than Old Earth society, of course—there had been progress on those issues even before the colony was founded, let alone in the last thirty years. But it was those thirty years that had really started to scramble things.

There were still some stereotypes and traditional roles, especially in places like Sturmhaven or Cape Nord that were built on them, and there were still plenty of things that were considered too “girly” for men to want to involve themselves with. But the ease (and in some cases'' necessity'') of switching genders had led a lot of people to realize that the important thing was'' who'' you were, rather than'' what'' you were.

Which didn’t help when what you were was a two-and-a-half-meter female snow leopard who had grown up as a two-meter male human.

The nanite curse didn’t help matters much, either, because it meant she couldn’t just go out as a woman and let matters find their own level. Let her walk into anywhere without Uncia on and most of the guys (and half of the girls) would be on her in a heartbeat. She couldn’t'' have'' a normal social relationship.

Even in her snow leopard body, she’d been getting plenty of attention—especially from other RIDErs. Her Fuser form'' was'' anatomically correct, though she’d added a “metal bikini” to her outfit to cover those parts in normal circumstances. Other Fusers with similar body mods kept asking her if she’d like to try them out, assuming from the way that she moved that she was likely to be “interested.”

Uncia actually'' was'' interested, as she was interested in experiencing all “human” sensations, and was disappointed that Rochelle always turned them down, but accepted that she simply wasn’t ready for that kind of situation yet. That didn’t keep her from teasing Rochelle about it.

“So when'' are'' you going to have sex?” Uncia asked one day, when they’d taken a break from work at the garage to go play in the park. Since no one else was around, they’d de-Fused for a while and were playing catch with one of the spinning flying disc toys that had survived for centuries since their invention on Old Earth. Uncia was a lot better at catching it than Rochelle, but Rochelle had the edge on tossing it—real hands just worked better for some things.

“When I can do it on my own terms,” Rochelle said, tossing the disc. “This stupid…virus you gave me, it'' makes'' me a sex object. And the worst part is, if I’m reading the manuals right, it doesn’t give'' me'' much choice in things either. If it’s on the setting I think it is, I need to stay Fused around other people for'' my own'' safety, not just theirs.”

Uncia caught the disc, then bounded back over to Rochelle to deposit it in her hands again. “The one for people who’re ‘shy,’ or ‘inexperienced’?”

“Yeah. Who ‘want to be'' guided''.’” She shook her head. “Which means that if I get in a position where someone kisses me, I have to'' let'' them kiss me—and then its own little robo-hooker program takes over, puppeteering me in exactly what to do and how to do it, amping my pheromones and subsonics to make the other party ‘suggestible,’ and ending when we both wake up the next morning. Yeah,'' right'' it’s for someone ‘shy.’”

She hurled the frisbee away angrily, and Uncia bounded after it. She waited for Uncia to return again, and continued. “It smells like it was written by some guy who wanted to be able to turn any woman into his own personal sex toy, and they stuck it in there with that silly ‘shyness’ explanation as a C Y A. Did that girl’s father even know this stuff was built into you?”

She threw the disc again and watched Uncia bound after it, then leap up and pluck it from mid-air. “Hey, good one!”

Uncia brought the disc back again. “If everything had worked properly, even if she had decided to Fuse she’d never have been offered the sex stuff ‘til she was 18. Even then it would have been behind lots of click-throughs, you-have-to-read-its, and you-have-to-listen-to-your-RIDE-explain-it-to-you-and-pass-a-quiz-to-show-you-listened pop-ups. It was the jailbreak that screwed everything up.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. My own damn fault.” Rochelle muttered, putting her frustration into an unusually energetic toss that sent Uncia bounding away even faster. “I still say guys have their minds too damn much on sex.”

“You know, you were'' one of'' those guys yourself up until a few days ago,” Uncia pointed out as she offered Rochelle the disc again. “Are you really saying you wouldn’t have wanted to meet someone like you are now?”

“Hell, no. I’d probably have been thrilled. I can tell you that from experience.” Rochelle sighed. “Sometimes it’s not flattering to your old perspective to see life from the other side. I just want to get these nanos out of my way and go on with my life.” She threw the disc again, and Uncia raced after.

“Do you think that, if you'' do'' get the nanos cranked back down, you’ll ever use them again? Crank them up for any reason?” Uncia asked after fetching the disc again.

“I dunno. Maybe the look-nice and custom-tailored-outfits ones, sometime, if I’m going out. But all the sexy behavioral stuff? No way.” She threw the disc again. “I think all that stuff comes out of some oversexed male fantasy, and any woman who'' intentionally'' uses it is just playing to stereotypes that should have been killed off centuries ago.”

Uncia plucked the disc out of the air, and this time tried tossing it back with a snap of her neck. It fell short, and Rochelle ran over to pick it up. “You sure do have strong feelings about this, for someone who’s been a woman such a short time.”

“Well, they say that new converts are the most devout.” Rochelle grinned. “And I suppose it helps that I’m'' too'' sexy whether I want to be or not. You can get sick of the best thing in the world if you didn’t have any choice in it.”

“I don’t understand much about human sex,” Uncia said. “It all seems very complicated for something meant to perpetuate a species. Why is that?”

“I don’t know.” Rochelle shook her head, and threw the disc again. “And frankly, I’m sick of the whole thing. I just want to get this'' curse'' lifted and not have to think about it again.”

“I hear that.” Uncia caught the disc again, and the game continued.

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Rochelle also thought a lot about Ryan’s situation, with a new and different perspective than she’d had before. Since Ryan had gotten Kaylee, he’d always Fused only in passive mode, using implants to eke as much functionality as he could out of Kaylee’s body that way. He was determined to stay male for as long as he could. And from the point of view of someone who’d been male until just a few days ago, she couldn’t blame him.

But she was also amazed at how much more she could do with Uncia, and how much more naturally she could do it, than Ryan could with Kaylee. It was as if she were a tool shelf and he could only reach the tools on the bottom row. And he had a sneaking suspicion that, sooner or later, Ryan would have to give in no matter what he intended.

But she knew better than to bring it up. She’d been around some of the times Ryan’s long-time crossriding friend Rufia had suggested it, and the “discussions” had been legendary. No, if Ryan was going to end up joining them, he’d do it when he was good and ready.

Besides, Rochelle had something else to keep her mind busy—trying to hack the nanites that were making her life such a mess. Despite Ryan’s earlier enthusiasm, it was clear the job would devolve mostly onto her, since Ryan was just about as good at her specialty of software as she was at Ryan’s specialty of hardware—good enough for day-to-day stuff, but not up to the kind of esoteric challenges that were each other’s bread and butter.

But Rochelle was actually starting to wonder whether this problem was beyond even her. The software was quantum-encrypted, for starters. It was possible to attack quantum encryption a number of ways, especially if you had a RI helping you, but it was never as simple as the old methods for brute-forcing keys had been in the pre-quantum era. And as she’d said to Ryan earlier, the corporation had a lot of incentive for keeping its nanites as hard to hack as possible—because their users tended to be the richest or most famous people in Nextus, who could rain ruin and damnation on them if their security were breached.

However, there were some other possible ways around the issue than technical. One possibility was legal. As a strongly pro-RIDE-rights polity, and a signatory to a treaty that was only slightly less binding than the average roll of duct tape, Uplift had a volunteer social services agency that reviewed cases of RIDEs who had escaped and wished to declare themselves free of their prior owners. If the agency determined the claim was justified (and not just a cover for, say, one person “stealing” another person’s legally-owned RIDE), it would issue a ruling that the RIDE was free to choose its own partner.

The ruling was mainly binding only in Uplift, Nuevo San Antonio, and the two or three other polities that had signed that particular treaty—which most certainly did'' not'' include Nextus. However, for those cases the agency had another string to its bow. Thanks to several wealthy donors, it had discretionary funds it could use to try to buy the RIDE’s contract from its legal owner on the RIDE’s behalf.

If this were accomplished, then Rochelle would be able to negotiate with the dealership or factory as if she were Uncia’s “owner” and possibly obtain the control software she so desperately needed. If not…well, it was still worth a try. So she had set up an appointment with one of that agency’s representatives, in the hope of a favorable outcome.

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The next morning, Rochelle waited for the appointment. She and Uncia were in the same park where Uncia had originally bodyjacked her, making sure to stay in the open. Upon consideration, she’d decided against wearing the pressure suit—she didn’t want the interviewer thinking she was weird. There was a decent breeze, and she planned to stay downwind from the interviewer and hope that kept things safe.

Rochelle’s had lately found that she'' could'' issue the nanites minor commands, such as changing her hair color or even making it braid or plait itself in a number of styles—mostly ones where it was bound up in such a way that it could come loose and tumble down in slow motion. She supposed that was, at least, something. She’d tried to have it braided for this meeting, but the braid collapsed right away. It was just too breezy, and her nanites wanted her hair to show itself off. She’d settled on keeping it white with grey rosettes, as a sort of statement of solidarity with Uncia.

The interviewer showed up right on time, riding up on a skimmer bike that folded itself up into a raccoon RIDE, matching the raccoon ears, tail, and faint furry mask around the eyes the interviewer herself had. She was a middle-aged woman with horn-rimmed glasses whose flickering lenses suggested they were camouflaged interface specs.

“You are Rochelle Seaford and Uncia?” She peered over her glasses at Rochelle, her eyes narrowing—likely in suspicion of her extreme beauty and tightly-tailored clothing. Rochelle sighed inwardly.'' Great. Another one of those.''

“That’s correct, Ma’am.” Rochelle checked the position of the wind and moved a few degrees clockwise.

The woman directed her next question at Uncia. “You said on the application that you had previously belonged to the family of Kenyon Walton in Nextus.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Uncia said. “To Lillibet, his daughter.”

“Could you please transmit the relevant memories and logs to Celeste?” She nodded toward her raccoon RIDE.

Uncia nodded. “Certainly.”

The woman turned her attention back to Rochelle, disapproval still evident. “Now, Miss Seaford, your records show that until last week, you were one'' Roger'' Seaford. Is that correct?”

“Er…well, yes. Does that matter?” Rochelle asked.

“It can,” the woman said, making a note on a tablet. “Please tell me, in your own words, how you came to meet Uncia.”

Rochelle blinked. “Who else’s words would I use? Um…well, I mean, it happened like this. I was in this park, going through those trees right over there—”

The woman listened, making more notes on her tablet. “So Uncia was under the influence of the Amontillado virus at the time she, ah, ‘bodyjacked’ you?”

“Yes, I was,” Uncia said.

“I wasn’t asking you, dear,” the woman said.

“Oh,” Uncia said.

“Yes. It wasn’t her fault. That virus can make RIDEs do things they usually wouldn’t—”

“And she was freed through your influence on her central personality core.”

“Yes, but—”

“And what was Uncia’s approximate original sale cost…?”

“She’s a Donizetti special. Approximately one million'' mu'',” Rochelle sighed. “Plus about fifty thousand'' mu'' worth of high-performance hardlight emitters which were added aftermarket, but we paid for those ourselves.”

The woman looked at Uncia, and her jaw dropped. “Donizetti? One mil—one'' million mu''?” she sputtered. Uncia nodded silently. The woman stared back at Rochelle, practically belligerent now. “I hope you understand, we do not have anything like the kind of money required to buy back a RIDE of that price from its Nextus owner. Even if we did, it could buy free'' hundreds'' of lesser RIDEs for the same price!”

“I thought you couldn’t put a price on freedom,” Rochelle said unhappily.

“Unfortunately, where RIDEs are concerned, we can and we do!” the woman said. “Especially when there’s a possibility of mental coercion!”

“But I'' freed'' her from that coercion,” Rochelle insisted.

“We only have your word and her memories to prove that,” the woman said. “We will nonetheless consider the matter, and we may still issue a ruling certifying your rights as an emancipated RIDE. However, this will not be considered legally valid in Nextus, where you will still be considered stolen—and if your prior owner requests your return, you may still be seized pursuant to treaty obligations. Also, if you are placed for sale on the RIDE market within the next five years, you may be confiscated.”

“If I’m supposed to be emancipated, how could I be ‘seized’ or ‘confiscated’?” Uncia asked.

The woman shot her a kindly look. “Unfortunately, emancipation is more often honored in theory than in fact. But in the case of the confiscation, if you are placed up for sale that is taken as evidence you were not really ‘emancipated’ after all.”

“What if I put myself up for sale?” Uncia asked.

“That’s—you couldn’t—''why'' would you do such a thing?” the woman sputtered.

“I don’t know, but I might,” Uncia said reasonably. “If I were emancipated, it would be my choice, wouldn’t it?”

The raccoon RIDE, Celeste, seemed to find this entertaining. “She’s got you there, Martha,” she chuckled.

The woman, Martha, struggled for composure. “Regardless, we will inform you of our decision within 60 hours. Come along, Celeste.” With one more look of disapproval at Rochelle, Martha converted Celeste to skimmer form and left the park.

“Fifty'' mu'' says I know what that decision’s going to be,” Uncia said gloomily.

Rochelle sighed. “No bet, partner. Well, let’s head back to the garage. We’ll just keep doing what we can.”

==Chapter 7==

As Uncia had expected, a few days later brought an apologetic note from the agency explaining that, after reviewing the circumstances associated with their request, the agency unfortunately could not issue a ruling in Uncia’s favor at this time. She was free to reapply in another year, or if she changed ownership again.

Rochelle glowered at the tablet, and wished they still used paper so she could wad it up and throw it in a corner. Of course, tablets were cheap enough she could just have thrown the tablet at the wall or smashed it with a hammer, but that was still a waste, and it just wasn’t the same anyway.

“At least it doesn’t leave us any worse off than we were already,” Uncia said philosophically.

“I don’t know about that,” Rochelle said, frowning. “Don’t they notify the original owner that their RIDE has requested emancipation, so they can file a protest or whatever?”

“Yes, but they don’t say where the request came from. And they’re protected from subpoena. All it can tell Walton is that I’m missing, and he knew that already. Probably.”

Rochelle sighed. “All right. Well, let’s Fuse up and head in to work. Maybe we’ll have a breakthrough today.”

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Several days later, Uncia and Rochelle came back from lunch to discover another Donizetti RIDE parked outside of the garage in Skimmer form. It was smaller than Uncia, and not quite as expensive—maybe 500,000'' mu'' rather than a million—but it was still the second-most expensive RIDE ever seen on Ryan’s street. This one appeared to be modeled after an ocelot, with spotted hardlight fur upholstering the seat and leg rests and gleaming chrome everywhere else.

'':Should we be worried?:'' Rochelle wondered.

'':I…dunno. Let’s see who the rider is?:'' Uncia replied, puzzled.

They stepped inside to see a singularly nonplussed Ryan and Kaylee confronted by a blonde girl in expensive clothing, fists clenched at her side, throwing a temper tantrum. Ryan looked poleaxed, and Kaylee’s back was up and her tail lashing. The girl was saying, “—and I'' know'' they’ve been here, so I want to see them right now!”

Uncia couldn’t help herself. She was so astonished that she spoke aloud without thinking, “…''Lillibet?!''”

The girl spun on her heel. “Uncia? Omigod you’re'' gorgeous!''” she squeaked. “How did you get so'' furry''? How long did it take? What did it cost? Who’re you Fused with?”

Uncia answered with questions of her own. “Why are you'' here?'' And how did you find me?”

Lillibet blinked. “Oh! Um…I got the email you’d applied to be emancipated, and then I bribed a few people out of my allowance to find where you were.”

Ryan facepalmed. “You bribed…out of your'' allowance''.”

“What was left over after I bought Guinevere.” She pointed to the RIDE parked out front. “Daddy said since I’d lost my first one, I had to buy the next one myself.”

“They really need to pay these people better,” Rochelle said.

“Why are you'' here''?” Uncia asked again. “I’m not going back with you. I’ve got a new partner.”

Lillibet looked down. “I…sorta figured that. And it’s okay. Dad’s not trying to get you back. He figured you’d been broken up for parts and it wasn’t worth the time trying to track you down. And if you’re happy here, it wouldn’t be very nice to try.”

Uncia blinked. Lillibet worried about being'' nice'' to RIDEs?'' :Are we sure this is really Lillibet and she hasn’t been impersonated by an alien or something?:'' she wondered.

'':Good question,:'' Rochelle replied.

“So why'' are'' you here?” Ryan asked.

Lillibet glanced at him, then looked back at Uncia. “It…kinda has to do with my best friend, Brena.”

'':The one I told you about, who’d Integrated,:'' Uncia reminded Rochelle.

'':I know, I read your memories, remember?:'' Rochelle sent a flash of interest, mentally leaning forward to listen.

“When I lost you, I was out to meet Brena at a new bar we’d found,” Lillibet continued. “She said she’d just…combined up with her RIDE, forever. And…well, I’d always thought the ears and tail were kinda icky, but seeing her with all that fur and everything…she made them'' work.'' It was like this was how she’d always been supposed to be all along.” Lillibet shook her head, remembering.

“Then some other people in the bar came up and called her a freak, and I called them assholes, and my self-defense automation went off, but then we got shot.” She thought about that. “I hadn’t ever been shot before. It hurt a lot, but the ambulance ride was kind of neat.”

“I can just imagine,” Rochelle said dryly.

“But after that, Brena came to my hospital room and told me she couldn’t stay in Nextus anymore, it wasn’t safe for people like her. And then she left. Disappeared right out of the hospital, past security and everything.” Lillibet actually sniffled a little. “And she said she didn’t know if I’d ever see her again, unless I Integrated too and could come join her. She said a lot of stuff I didn’t understand about being nice to your RIDE and treating it like a person. But you never talked to me, and I can’t get Guinevere to talk to me either.”

“Guinevere?” Uncia asked.

“Uh-huh! She’s not a guy so I couldn’t name her ‘Sir Ocelot,’” Lillibet explained. “I could maybe have called her Dame Ocelot but nobody woulda got it.” Behind her, Ryan facepalmed and Kaylee groaned.

“But anyway, then I found out'' you'' had started talking—you kinda had to talk to ask to be emancipated. And then some of the people I bribed told me you even had a new human.” She looked down. “So I…kinda came to see if you could tell me what I was doing wrong.”

Uncia blinked and just stood there for a moment, mouth hanging open.

'':Well, this is unexpected,:'' Rochelle said.

'':You know, I kinda fantasized, now and then, about Lillibet showing up and begging me to come back,:'' Uncia said.'' :Saying she was sorry and didn’t mean to treat me so badly. But…now that it’s actually happening I don’t know what to'' do.'':''

'':Well, that’s simple,:'' Rochelle said.'' :We make her new RIDE happier by making her a better partner. And maybe…:'' Then she spoke aloud. “Hey, Lillibet. I’m Rochelle, Uncia’s new partner. And we’ll be happy to help you, if you do a couple of little things for us.”

“Really?” Lillibet squeaked. “Like what?” She thought a moment, then added. “And don’t try to kidnap me. If I’m not back by tonight, my Dad will get an email telling him exactly where I went.”

“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that,” Rochelle said. “We just need you to promise you’ll fetch back a couple of things for us next time you’re home.”

“What things?” Lillibet asked.

“The original title to Uncia, and the backup storage cubes that came with her,” Rochelle said.

“Sure! If you can get Guinevere talking to me, it’ll be worth it.” Lillibet looked so earnest it was hard to fault her.

“All right. Then first thing, get Guin in here and let us have a look at her,” Ryan said.

“All right, sure!” Lillibet turned. “Hey, Guin, could you come in here please?”

The skimmer obediently lifted off the ground and came in to settle next to Uncia. Rochelle knelt Uncia’s shared body and examined Guinevere. “No wonder she’s not saying anything,” Rochelle said. “She’s got so many tethers it’s a wonder she can even think at all.”

Lillibet blinked. “What’s a tether?”

“It’s a sort of a lock-down on RIDEs’ central processors,” Uncia explained. “It keeps them from doing certain things. Like talking. When you had me, I wasn’t able to talk to you unless you talked to me first—and you almost never talked to me. She’s not even able to talk to you at all—it’s like she’s bound and gagged.”

“Some dealerships put every possible tether on, and leave it up to the buyer to take off the ones they want off,” Ryan said. “We really hate those guys, because half the people who buy them don’t even know what a tether is, so they never bother taking them off.”

Lillibet’s eyes widened. “You mean all this time she’s not been able to talk to me ‘cuz she'' couldn’t'', not ‘cuz she didn’t want to? And…it was the same with you?”

“All this time I thought you'' knew'',” Uncia said softly. “That you just wanted to use me and didn’t want to know me.”

“Oh my God, I am'' so'' sorry!” Lillibet’s sniffles broke into full-fledged tears now. “I didn’t know. I…I don’t think any of my friends knew, ‘cept maybe Brena. We never read the manuals.”

Feeling more than a little awkward, Uncia patted her on the shoulder. “It’s…all right now. The important thing is you know now, so you can make things better—not just for Guin, but for all your friends’ RIDEs, too.”

“I…I will! I’ll go right home and rip'' all'' their tethers off!”

'':I think you better patch FreeRIDE sooner than later,:'' Uncia sent to Rochelle.'' :I don’t think you want to be held accountable for what comes next.:''

'':I'' know'', I'' know''.:'' Rochelle sent a mental eyeroll.'' :Gimme a moment. I’m going to take Guin’s down'' manually'' so I can be sure I don’t get it wrong.:'' Aloud, she said, “I’m taking Guin’s tethers off now. Just a minute.”

“Oh, thank you!” Lillibet hugged her around the waist.

'':Guinevere, can you hear us?:'' Uncia sent.

A moment later, a female voice replied,'' :I can. Thank you so much!:''

'':No problem,:'' Uncia said.'' :You okay in there?:''

'':I am now.:'' Guinevere sighed.'' :The most frustrating thing was not being able to talk to Lillibet, even when she talked to me. She may be dumb, but she means well.:''

'':Yes, I see that now,:'' Uncia sent softly.'' :I wonder if things could have been different between us back then if I’d just tried harder.:''

'':They’re different now,:'' Rochelle said.'' :That’s what matters. Okay, Guin, you’re good to go.:''

Uncia stepped back, and the skimmer cycle folded up into a gleaming chrome ocelot with patches of spotted fur, about three or four times as big as ocelots got in real life. Guinevere the metal ocelot padded over to Lillibet, and gave her a friendly nuzzle. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Guinevere. I’m glad to meet you at last.”

“Oh, Guinevere! You’re'' talking'' to me!” She hugged the metal ocelot around the neck. “I’m sorry I was so stupid! I should have known it was my fault you couldn’t talk to me.”

“It wasn’t your fault. Just the dealer’s,” Guin said. “But we can talk now.”

Over their heads, Uncia, Rochelle, Ryan, and Kaylee shared a grin.'' :I just love me a happy ending,:'' Kaylee sent.'' :Someone get me a box of tissues. Or maybe a grease rag.:''

“You know, while you’re here there’s one more thing we can do for you,” Ryan said.

Lillibet looked up. “There is?”

“How’d you like your Guinny to look real, like me’n Uncia do?” Kaylee asked.

“You can do that?” Lillibet squeaked.

“We can,” Ryan said. “But you’ll need to cancel that email you were gonna have sent tonight, and call your Dad…do you have any friends in Uplift?”

“Oh, sure!” Lillibet said brightly. “I have friends everywhere. Well…acquaintances, anyway.”

“Tell him you’re staying overnight with one of them.” Ryan glanced out the front of the garage to where the skimmer sat patiently waiting. “If Guin’s put together like Uncia, we can get it done in a few hours, but it’ll be too late for you to get back home tonight.”

“In fact, maybe you really'' should'' stay overnight with one of them, just so they know you’re really safe and not being held for ransom or something,” Rochelle put in.

“Good idea,” Uncia said.

“And you got any of that ‘allowance’ left?” Kaylee asked. “If you could sign a chit for the parts, we could get right on it.”

“Will a hundred K be enough?” Lillibet pulled out her wallet and thumbed the funds over.

“Fifty would be plenty,” Ryan said.

“Then keep the rest as payment,” Lillibet said. “I get more money next week anyway. Can I stay and watch?”

“Sure, so long’s you don’t get in the way,” Ryan said. “Everyone should know at least a little about how their RIDE’s put together.”

“Oh, thank you so much!” Lillibet gushed. “I’ll be on my best behavior, I promise!”

Ryan grinned. “Go on and make that call. You can use the shop comm, it’s right over there. I’ll order the parts and we can get started.”

As Lillibet scampered off to phone home, Uncia watched her go, and shook her head. “How many of Nextus’s RIDE abusers do you think just don’t realize what it is they’ve really got?”

“If they’re like that girl, maybe most of ‘em.” Kaylee shook her head. “I’d wonder how anyone could be that dumb, but I should know better. Sorry, Guinny.”

“That’s all right, Kaylee,” Guinevere said, watching her owner excitedly dialing the comm. “I think it comes from just having everything done for her. She’s a little spoiled, but she’s not rotten. Now that I can actually'' talk'' to her, I think I can shape her up.”

“And something tells me if this goes well, we might be getting a little repeat wealthy business in the next few weeks,” Rochelle said. “Maybe we should invest in a better sign.”

Ryan chuckled. “Nah. It’s like I’ve always said. Good word of mouth is all you really need.”

{{separator|stars}}

The upgrade process for Guinevere went even faster than for Uncia, since she was smaller and needed fewer projectors for full coverage. Lillibet stayed nearby all the while, talking to Guinevere through it and learning about how the parts fit together.

To Ryan’s surprise, Lillibet actually seemed to show a bit of aptitude for it—after he showed her what to do, she was able to take off most of the plates herself and get them ready to snap the projectors in. Ryan downloaded several beginner-level RIDE manuals to Guinevere, and Lillibet promised she would study them, and might even buy a few inexpensive RIDEs to learn how to fix up.

“Do you think your Dad will be happy about that?” Uncia asked as Lillibet was wiping the grease off her hands.

“He may be a little grumpy at first,” Lillibet said. “But he always says rich people have the right to one weird hobby each, and I haven’t picked mine yet, so if he complains too much that’s what I’ll tell him. Besides, ''he'' tinkers with old car and plane replicas himself—that’s ''his'' weird hobby.”

It took a few more hours after that to get the coding on Guinevere’s fur just right, but just as the sun started to set Rochelle announced it was complete. “Guin, you ready to flip the switch?” she asked.

“Just waiting for Lillibet’s okay!” the ocelot replied.

Lillibet clasped her hands together. “Oh, do it! Do it!”

The shiny metal ocelot shimmered and changed into a tawny spotted cat, and Lillibet squealed with delight. “Oh, you’re'' beautiful!''” She ran to her RIDE and hugged her again. “And you feel so warm and furry!”

The ocelot purred. “And I can feel'' you'', too! This hardlight is amazing!”

Uncia grinned, and let them have their moment. Then after a while, she said, “There’s just one more thing you haven’t done yet, and I’m kind of curious if you’re going to.”

Lillibet blinked. “What’s that?”

“Fusing. To be like I am, with my human partner.” Uncia waved a hand, indicating her humanoid body. “You didn’t want to do it with me because it was ‘icky’…but if you want to be like your friend Brena someday, you’re going to have to.”

“I…I know,” Lillibet said. “And then I’ll have ears and a tail to match my kitty, right?”

“Uh-huh. And the more you fuse, the more fur you’ll get over time,” Rochelle added. Last time she’d checked, Rochelle had found a few patches of it spreading out around her ears and the base of her tail. Her fingernails had started getting a little sharper, too.

“And someday I’ll be totally a kitty, like Brena was a real fox.”

“Maybe,” Rochelle said. “Nobody really understands why it happens yet. But I guess Brena would have some idea.”

“We don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Guinevere said, nuzzling Lillibet’s hand. “But I think it’ll be amazing.”

“Aw, c’mere, kitty,” Lillibet said. “Since I got here, I’ve been kinda wondering what it feels like. Anyway, if I don’t like having the furry bits I can have them removed. Let’s try it!”

“Okay!”And as Lillibet hugged her, Guinevere seemed to lose her cohesion and flow up over the girl, setting into place as a second skin around her. A moment later, Lillibet stood, a full-fledged furry cat girl just like Uncia.

“Oh, wow!” Lillibet looked down at herself, speaking in Guinevere’s purring voice now. “I’m all furry!” She looked over her shoulder. “And I’ve got a tail!” And she felt her head. “And a muzzle, and kitty ears, and stuff!” She reached around to try to grab the tip of her tail, then lost her balance and fell down, giggling.

“And you’re stronger, and faster, and you can jump or even fly a little bit, and you’ve got keener senses, and you can even survive for weeks in the deep desert, just you and Guinny,” Rochelle said.

“You can probably even visit, or at least go meet up with, Brena like that, out in the desert, if you have a way to get in touch,” Uncia added.

“And…when do I have to take her off?” Lillibet asked.

“That’s between you two,” Uncia said. “Rochelle and I are together almost all the time.”'' Though admittedly not for the same reason.''

Lillibet’s eyes widened. “Oh…” she said softly. “She says I never'' have'' to.”

“You’ll probably want to'' sometime'', though,” Rochelle said dryly. “For one thing, you’ll need to have her in Skimmer form to drive back home. And your Dad might get upset if you wear her'' everywhere''.”

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Lillibet admitted. She came over to hug Uncia again. “Thank you so much! I never knew RIDEs were real people! I can’t wait to get home and tell all my friends!”

“Hey, no problem,” Rochelle said bemusedly. “Just remember to send us the title and those storage cubes.”

“Oh, I will!” Lillibet said happily. “We’re gonna go outside now and try flying a little!” The ocelot Fuser scampered off, running past Ryan and Kaylee on the way out.

“Well, I feel good ‘bout what we did today,” Kaylee said, watching them go. “How ‘bout you, boss?”

“I can’t say it’s something I ever expected to see, but I guess you learn something new every day,” Ryan said, chuckling.

“I learned a valuable lesson about making assumptions,” Uncia admitted. “And it’s nice to think that maybe life will be getting better for a few more RIDEs out of what we did.”

“I’m just glad we’re going to be getting the title, and the software backups with the control codes,” Rochelle said. “It’ll be nice feeling like I can show my face around the garage again.”

==Chapter 8==

Lillibet and Guinevere came by one more time the next morning to thank them again, and to promise they would send along Uncia’s title and backups that afternoon. (Guinevere promised she wouldn’t let Lillibet forget.) And true to their word, that evening a ZharEx courier arrived at Rochelle’s house with a special delivery. (He hung around a little dazedly after Rochelle signed for it, undoubtedly hoping she’d come to the door again, but finally gave up and went away.)

“So I guess we need to endorse the title over to you, as an emancipated RIDE,” Rochelle said, looking at the crypto block on the certificate.

“Actually, I’d rather you were my owner of record,” Uncia said. “A lot of places don’t recognize self-owned RIDEs yet.”

“Huh, that’s true,” Rochelle admitted. “All right, if you’re sure.”

“I really am,” Uncia said.

“All right. Done.” Rochelle pressed her thumb to the block, and her thumb drive re-signed it with her own crypto key.

“Oh, thank goodness.” Uncia sighed, relieved, as Rochelle put the certificate away. “Now you can legally sell me.”

“Mm-hmm, now I can…” Rochelle paused. “Wait,'' what?''”

“You can sell me,” Uncia said with forced cheer. “I mean, look, we both know I’m worth a million'' mu'', right? How long do you think you’re going to be able to pay the property taxes on that? If you sell me, you’ll be out from under those taxes, and you’ll have a lot left over to expand the business with, and get a male RIDE when you’re able to change back safely.”

“Do you'' want'' me to sell you?” Rochelle asked guardedly. “I’d thought you were pretty happy with me.”

“Oh, no, I'' am'' happy with you,” Uncia insisted. “But…you can’t afford to keep me. We both know it.”

“You’ve been worrying about this,” Rochelle realized. “That’s what your question to that social worker about putting yourself up for sale was really about, wasn’t it?”

“I guess so,” Uncia admitted.

“Well, don’t. We’ll find some way to deal with it. After the cash you brought along runs out, well, one of our friends is pretty rich. Maybe not as rich as Kenyon Walton, but he owns most of a decent-sized mining operation, and he’s made a standing offer to finance Ryan if he ever wants to expand the garage into a chain. And he’s got a RIDE partner himself, so he knows the score there. So if we need a hand…” She shrugged. “We don’t like asking for help, it’s true, but there are some things we like even less—like losing our friends and partners over money matters.”

“But I don’t want to make you have to—”

“Look. I’m legally your owner now, which means I have the right to give you orders. And I’m just going to give you one order, ever: don’t you ever,'' ever'' put yourself up for sale, or do anything that would result in me getting money in return for you changing ownership, without my permission. Got it?”

“But—” Uncia protested.

“After everything I’ve given up for you, you think I ever want to lose you?” She put her arms around Uncia’s neck and buried her face in the soft hardlight fur. “God, I’m  getting weepy again and you haven’t even gotten me drunk this time.”

“All right,” Uncia said. “I’d really rather stay with you anyway.”

“Good.” Rochelle let go of Uncia and composed herself again. “Now let’s see about getting that control software loaded back into you. I’m really tired of being drop-dead sexy all the time.”

Loading the software just took a few minutes. It only took a few minutes more for it to become clear that something was still not entirely right.

“Son of a'' bitch!''”

{{separator|stars}}

A week later, Rochelle and Uncia walked into the garage, un-Fused. Ryan looked up and noticed Rochelle’s clothes still had that super-snug tailored fit and her hair was still waving in slow motion even in the absence of a breeze. And Kaylee was at the other end of the garage. He swore and looked around hurriedly for the gas mask he’d taken to keeping near him lately.

“No, don’t panic, it’s okay!” Rochelle called. Her voice was still as melodic as ever, but the seductive undertones were missing. “I was able to shut'' that'' part down. I’m back to just smelling'' nice'', not smelling sexy.”

“But you’re still a walking shampoo commercial,” he observed.

Kaylee padded over and sniffed suspiciously at Rochelle. “It’s like she said. She’s clean, boss.” She sniffed again. “Still smells pretty nice, though. Like…catnip, kinda.” She sneezed.

And even without the pheromones, she was still gorgeous, Ryan reflected. It was still more than a little distracting just being near her.

“Yeah.” Rochelle sighed. “It’s like this. Those nanites were never meant to be run flat-out, continuously, for weeks. It broke something. I was able to get the pheromones and subsonic come-ons and the pre-programmed behavior mods shut off, thank goodness…but even with the control software, I’m still stuck with the body language, hair, dirt-b-gone, and designer re-tailoring.” She looked down. “Indefinitely.”

“Oh, crap.” Ryan tried to look on the bright side. “At least you’re safe to meet the customers now.” His truthful nature made him add, “Relatively.”

“And I can’t just get a flush and kill the things, either,” Rochelle said, flipping a hand through her hair nervously (and distractingly). “They’re like cancer. They burrow into all the hard and soft tissues, and if the flush misses even one, they can rebuild out in a matter of hours. And any kind of EMP strong enough to kill them all would probably not be all that good for me either.”

“Ugh,” Kaylee commiserated. “Sounds like you’re really up a creek.”

“There are some compensations, though,” Rochelle said. “I’ve been in touch with the company that made them. They were properly horrified—seems that what happened to me shouldn’t happen even'' if'' you jailbreak and void the warranty, and they were apparently worried that I might sue them for negligence and win, and end up owning the company. Or maybe that the next person it happened to would, since it’s just their good fortune I’m their only user who’s'' not'' a zillionaire.”

“Good for them,” Ryan said.

“So they offered me a huge cash settlement and the chance to work with them on trying to fix it.” She shrugged. “Which is fine by me. I’ll get the chance to learn the ropes of the latest and greatest nano, which’ll give me a head start for when some of the stuff becomes'' affordable'' in a few years. The money will let me pay off Uncia’s property taxes for years and then some—and I’ll have enough left over that…well.” She looked down at the ground for a moment.

“Go on, spit it out,” Kaylee prompted.

“You remember back when I fixed Kaylee’s boot problem for you and you offered me a partnership?”

“You didn’t feel comfortable without any money to buy in with, so we worked out the subcontracting agreement instead,” Ryan said. “I think I see where this is going.”

“Yeah. Well, I’ve got the buy-in money now,” Rochelle said. She glanced up for just a moment. “If you’re…still willing to have me.”

“She would kinda bring a touch of class to the place,” Kaylee observed.

“And with her around, people maybe wouldn’t pay so much attention to ‘Kaylee Cross,’” Ryan mused. “And of course, you’re still the demon at coding that you’ve always been,” he added to Rochelle directly. When you got right down to it, there really weren’t any disadvantages. He grinned, and put on a gruff voice. “I tell you what, missy, why don’t you step into my office and let’s talk about it.”

Rochelle looked back up. “Why, sir, I’d simply be delighted!” she cooed in her most feminine tones. Grinning at each other, the two humans and two RIDEs headed for the office to draw up an agreement for their mutual future.

{{separator|stars|'''THE END'''}}

=Author’s Notes=

Here’s another Director’s Cut edition, and as with “Deserted” it didn’t feature major storyline changes, but did have a few important alterations. The biggest has to do with Integrates.

At the time we wrote this (in case you’re wondering, I wrote most of both this and “Deserted,” and Jon just did Ryan’s dialogue and such in the garage scenes), we hadn’t really come up with the idea of Integrates as a continent-spanning secret society yet—we didn’t even know Fritz was the ultimate bad guy; he was just this jerk at the Towers Enclave. (Which is also why his behavior in the original version of “FreeRIDErs” seems so out of line with his reputation as this big Intie bogeyman—we hadn’t invented it yet!) We’d conceptualized them more as outcasts. Hence, in the original version of this story, some of them were openly hanging out at the bar where Lillibet got shot, and Roger knew his uncle was one. (I think in the ''original'' original version, I referred to the deer bartender at the first bar as being ''either'' an Integrate or a Fuser, though that was tweaked in a later edit.) So, naturally those things had to go.

As I mentioned last time, AlphaWolf’s role changed over the course of Integration. Our new conception of him was no longer the sort of character who could spare the time from running Alpha Camp to come in to Nextus every couple of days and preach to the slaves. But as it happened, an Alpha Camp character we came up with more recently ''could'' have been, and this would provide some great backstory for him, allowing us to kill two birds with one stone.

One thing I didn’t change much was everyone thinking AlphaWolf had made the Amontillado virus, because we made sure to leave room in later developments to make it plausible people wouldn’t know someone else was responsible now. Though at the time I originally wrote this, it ''was'' fully intended that AlphaWolf was personally behind it.

Other than that, I tweaked Diane’s behavior at the bar (and made it explicit that it ''was'' the Cheers bar, which Jon had been inspired to expand upon later in ''Integration''), gave Bernard (who would later feature in “The Saints Go Marching In”) his name, and explicitly stated Uncia and Guinevere are Donizettis as soon as they’re introduced. And I made Lillibet a bit older than she had been, given that a couple years from the opening she and Paul are an item. (And will probably make Paul a little younger when we get to him.) We tweaked a few other things here and there.

And, of course, we added dates.

Now, onward to FreeRIDErs, the story that started it all!

''—R_M''

{{series bar

|series=FreeRIDErs

|previous=[[User:Robotech Master/Deserted|Deserted]]

|next=[[User:Robotech Master/Rochelle Rufia|Rochelle & Rufia: R&R]]}}

[[Category:FreeRIDErs]][[Category: Robotech_Master]][[Category: Anthropomorphic]][[Category: Snow Leopard]][[Category:Lynx]][[Category:Transgender]][[Category:Story]]

User:Robotech Master/jeanette-lioness

2014-04-30T07:50:43Z

JonBuck:

{{Universe|FreeRIDErs}}

{{title

|name=Jeanette and Tamarind: The Second-Hand Lioness

|author=Robotech_Master

|user=Robotech_Master}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jeanette and Tamarind – The Second-Hand Lioness}}

{{author note|This story can be downloaded in PDF, EPUB, Mobi (Kindle), ODT, and RTF format from [http://www.eyrie.org/~robotech/freeriders/ this website].}}

=CHAPTER 1=

{{dropcap|M}}y name was Jeanette Leroq, and I was a habitual teen runaway. Started doing it when I was first old enough to want to, and hadn’t stopped ever since; now I was 15 going on 16 and showed no signs of slowing down. But I hadn’t ever been quite successful yet. I always had to stop running sooner or later when the orphanage caught up with me.

This time, I stopped running in a podunk little town called Lynchwood, a few hours north of Burnside on the coastal skimmerway. My bad luck that my picture—a photo of a slim, pixie-faced girl whose bright green eyes peeked out amid the shadows of the straight black hair hung forward to block out the world—had been beamed out to every cop shop on the route. I ''knew'' changing buses in a small town was a bad idea, but there wasn’t anything for it; that was where the routes switched over. In a big town, you can lose yourself in all the buildings and people if you have to. But in a burg that’s nothing but one street and a bus stop, you got nowhere to run when the Sheriff steps up with your photo on a hardlight display panel, and a set of handcuffs.

Frankly, I thought the handcuffs were more than a little unreasonable. I mean, come ''on,'' I’m a runaway orphan, not an escaped felon. But maybe she’d read my record and wasn’t taking any chances.

Anyway, she stepped up to the bus as I was getting off. Tall, lean, and lanky, dirty blonde hair under a Stetson hat with holes cut in it for her palomino horse ears, big ol’ RIDE-busting gun at her hip, and a mean look in her eyes. “Jeanette Leroq,” she said, pronouncing it like “Gene Et Lee Rock.” “Need yeh to come with me.”

I looked around for an escape route, but like I said, small town, nowhere to run. A palomino horse that matched her ears was blocking off the only clear escape path. I sighed and came quietly—and that was when the handcuffs came out.

“Hey!” I complained.

“Sorry, missy, takin’ no chances,” the woman said. I sighed. She ''had'' read my record. Well, I’d just bust out again, if it came right down to it. Maybe before I got halfway back to Nextus.

Once she had the cuffs on me, she led me over to the horse, who folded down into a patrol skimmer sedan, with two seats in front and a grilled-in rear seat, which they stuffed me into. I sat and stewed.

Of course, I could have the cuffs off in thirty seconds. They were Nextus Nano specials, biometric sensing adaptive morphing units. Supposed to be the most escape-proof cuffs ever. I almost smirked. If they’d been the old fashioned dead metal kind, they might have given me a little trouble. But the hardware in my head was more than adequate to get rid of these bracelets. I’d have to wait ‘til I wasn’t ensconced in a RIDE before I tried it, though. For all I knew, horsey girl would twig to my implants and maybe even figure out how to shut them down.

So the Sheriff was just walking around to the front of the car when she turned and looked back, stiffened, and reached for her gun. “Oh, shit ''fire!'' RIDE raid!”

I turned to look at where she was staring, and saw the cloud of dust at the end of the street. “Everyone under cover! ''Now!''” the sheriff yelled, unholstering her gun and slamming out some shots at the cloud.

Just as suddenly as they’d tossed me in, the RIDE’s door opened and the seat tipped up, dumping me unceremoniously out on the ground—still cuffed. “Git in that alley behind me an’ don’t come out,” the RIDE said.

I held up my hands. “Hey, what about these?” But the car had already surged forward to Fuse onto the Sheriff, and together they charged down the street at the oncoming dust cloud.

“Assholes,” I grumbled—but I also took their advice. My mama didn’t raise no idiots. Of course, my mama didn’t raise ''me,'' neither. I ducked behind a trash recycler in the alley and watched while I probed at the cuffs with my implants.

The Sheriff and her RIDE fought a good game, but they were pretty badly outgunned. A minute or so later they went flying back through the air and slammed into the side of the skimmer bus that hadn’t had the chance to pull out yet. Lucky thing nobody had loaded yet.

The Sheriff and her RIDE didn’t move after they landed. I did a quick probe with my implants and found they weren’t dead or anything—but the RIDE had been hacked and locked down. I could have popped the lock if I wanted—but then I looked down at the cuffs and shook my head. Screw ‘em. They were probably safer out of the fight anyway.

The dust cloud was moving up the street now, and individual forms were apparent within it—a couple dozen animal-shape RIDEs in full gallop, scamper, or flight. Wolves, foxes, cats, a skunk or two, a couple birds, even a few dinos. They scattered and started chasing down those few unlucky souls who’d frozen up out on the street, and some were smashing in doors and windows and charging into buildings after those hiding inside.

“People of Lynchwood!” a sandy-furred wolf boomed like he had a PA system in his throat. Which he probably did. “You know why we’re here! Surrender and we’ll treat you better in the end than if we have to drag you out! And the more of you give yourselves up now, the sooner we leave the rest alone! So sayeth me!”

A chill shot down my spine at those last words. “So sayeth me!” This could only be the notorious AlphaWolf and his pack of renegade RIDEs. They raided settlements in search of hapless humans to kidnap and imprison within themselves, using their presence to unlock the Fuser mode that gave them access to thumbs. And no one could rescue their poor victims because no one knew where…their camp…was…

All of a sudden, I started to get the craziest idea…

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For half a minute, safe behind the recycler, I considered the utter insanity of what I was about to do. Did it even make sense? I didn’t want to go back to the prison of the Nextus Children’s Home, so I was going to make myself even more of a prisoner inside the body of a renegade RIDE?

But when you got right down to it, what I hated most about the Home was all the other people. The staff, for whom it was just a job. The other kids, growing up without any real sort of parental authority and mostly turning into hooligans. (Sometimes I wondered how I ended up so well-adjusted. Then I considered the zillion dollars worth of stolen Q in my head and wondered if it was just a case of pot and kettle.) They just wouldn’t ''leave me alone.'' That was why I ran away so often. At least within a RIDE, I’d only have that one other person to worry about. And if my implants worked as advertised…well. But on the other hand, I’d never actually had a chance to try that part of them out.

As I sat there watching, a funky-looking RIDE with the butt of a horse and the front part of a bird tackled the guy I’d sat next to on the bus down—college student name of Joseph, who’d been going down to Burnside for a summer job in carpentry to save up for his next semester in land management. He’d been pretty handsome, with his dark hair, faint mustache, and understanding brown eyes. As the horsey-birdy RIDE enclosed him, I wondered what he’d look like afterward. RIDEs like that tended to make some pretty funky physical changes to their humans.

Well, if I was going to do this, it would have to be soon. It wouldn’t take these RIDEs long to fill up, the rate they were going, then I’d be out of a job. I was just steeling up my nerve to run out there and get in one’s way when I noticed something very interesting.

One of those rogue RIDEs was this ''immense'' lioness—about the size of a small truck, like. Looked like a heavy model of some kind, probably support or comms rather than assault since I didn’t see any huge guns poking out. Funny thing was, whenever she saw some other RIDE about to swoop down a human, she charged him and cut him off…but somehow never quite managed to stop the human from getting away. I even saw her surreptitiously nudge someone into another alley to safety.

Huh. A would-be bodyjacker whose core wasn’t in it? I didn’t have a lot of time to think it over, but it suddenly occurred to me that might be a better sort of RIDE to be stuck inside than one who ''wanted'' a thumb slave. And she’d almost made it up to my alley now…

So, gathering my courage, I ran right out in front of her. “Oh, eek!” I screamed, hoping she would be inclined to overlook my terrible acting skills. “A bodyjacker! Oh, help!” As expected, she bounded toward me, aiming to herd me back into the alley before anyone noticed. But I was ready for that. I intentionally stumbled over my own feet and went down on the pavement. She wasn’t gonna have any choice but to ‘jack me.

Or maybe she was. “Just lie still,” she growled quietly. “They’re almost done. With any luck, they’ll miss—”

“HEEEEELP!!!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “NOOOOOO, DON’T EAT ME! I DON’T WANNA BE BODYJACKED!!!” In my peripheral vision, I saw the heads of half the other RIDEs on the street turn to look our way.

The lioness stared down at me in consternation. “What on Zharus are you ''doing?''”

I grinned up at her. “I’m bodyjacking you, what do you think? Now that they’ve noticed us, if you don’t take me they’re gonna wonder why. And if you let someone else take me, they’ll know I saw you shoving people outta the way.”

She stared at me harder. “You ''want'' to be bodyjacked?”

“I want to bodyjack ''you,''” I corrected, smirking. “Look, either way you can’t go on ''not'' taking a human on these raids. I’m sure they’re gonna get suspicious sooner or later. They don’t hafta know you don’t wanna do it. I can be your ‘beard.’”

She snorted. “If I do take you, you’re gonna belong to ''me,'' you know. I’ll be able to do anything I want with you.”

“All in all, I think I’d rather belong to someone like you, who doesn’t ''want'' to do the whole bodyjacking thing, than one of those ones who charge after them,” I said. “I suspect you’ll treat me a little better.

She snorted again. “So why are you ''doing'' this? Why do you want to belong to anyone at all?”

It wouldn’t hurt to tell the truth to ''that.'' Or at least part of it. “I ''really'' don’t wanna go back to the orphanage. Badly enough I’d rather be stuck inside a RIDE.” There were other reasons, but no need to go into those quite yet.

She cocked her immense head. “Well…if that’s what you ''really'' want…who am I to say no?” She moved carefully forward, planting those humongous paws to either side of me on the street, and I was staring up at a huge, fuzzy feline belly. I was struck by the remarkable attention to detail in the hardlight design—she even had little teats along her belly.

I had just enough time to feel a little frisson of fear as the hardlight winked out and the sculpted metal body split open and lowered down toward me. Then everything went dark.

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I was surrounded by warmth. Just…drifting, like when you’re in bed in the morning and you ''know'' the alarm’s about to go off and you ''really'' don’t want to get up but you know you’re going to have to sooner or later.

Then a world faded into view around us. It seemed to be a clearing within a huge jungle that appeared to stretch out to infinity. “Oh, great,” I muttered. “Woke up in a matte painting.”

Then the lioness padded out from behind a tree. In here she was much smaller, closer to normal lioness size. “I suppose if I’m gonna be stuck with you, we should at least get to know each other. I’m Tamarind, but you can call me Tammy. I was made in Nextus, served with the 119th Heavy Infantry’s support corps. Then my pilot mustered out of the military, taking me with her, and then joined the Marshals. Damn fool got herself…killed, I got reassigned, and then ended up kicked out for excessive violence. Wandered the desert a while, hooked up with AlphaWolf’s pack. Your turn.”

“Jeanette Leroq, hacker extraordinaire,” I said modestly. “At least, that’s the name that was on the ID papers that came with me. I was apparently left on a doorstep or something. They found me in a starliner from Earth, no sign of my parents. Since it would cost too much to send me back, they kept me here. They’ve sent queries back and forth on every ship since, but so far nothing’s turned up on me. Or so they say.”

I shrugged. “Any old how, the older I get, the more annoying I find the orphanage, so the more I keep running away. Had it in mind to work my way down to Aloha where kids can emancipate easier, but they were watching the subs too close—and when I took the bus, well, sheriff collared me here. Then you showed up, and looked like a better way out.”

Tammy snorted. “That orphanage must be really awful if ''I'' looked like a good way out. I’m not some kind of paragon, you know. Wouldn’t be with these jokers if I were.”

“So why ''are'' you with ‘em if you don’t like what they’re doing?” I asked.

“Who says I don’t?” Tammy said. “Maybe I just like it ''too'' much.” She crouched and wriggled her butt in the way cats do before they pounce. “Brace yourself, missy, I’m coming in!” She lunged forward at me—and then ''into'' me. Her head plunged through my chest as if it were a portal into somewhere else, followed by the rest of her. She vanished completely into me, from her nose to the tip of her tail…and my brain was suddenly full of tawny lioness.

There was just so ''much'' of her in my mind that she filled my head right up, and I couldn’t think of anything ''except'' her. She was right there, so warm, and soft, and cuddly, I just had to reach out my hand and stroke her soft fur—I was there somehow, inside my own head—and she nuzzled me, and purred, and licked my face with her sandpapery tongue. It was like I was being squished into a tiny mental closet, smothered in lioness.

Then there was a sort of a mental ''click,'' and I could think again—though my thoughts seemed grainier and harder-edged than usual. It took a moment for me to work out what must have happened. Tammy had come to poke around in my head, shifting her own CPU processes into my meatspace until there wasn’t any room for my own thoughts—but then my implants had kicked in, taking up the slack. Tammy was thinking with my brain, but ''I'' was actually thinking with my ''implants.'' Crazy! I’d never heard of anything like that even happening before—but I’d have time to think about that later when I wasn’t surrounded by lioness.

I could still feel Tammy exploring me curiously, and stopping abruptly as she encountered the first traces of the implants that honeycombed my meat-mind. “Wow…” she said. “You’ve got so much ''metal'' in here. Where’d all that even come from? I haven’t seen ''Earthers'' with this many implants.”

“It’s a hobby,” I replied. “Some people get tats, some get piercings. I get implants.”

My brain tingled as she ran a scan on me. “I think you’ve got more RI-grade Qubitite in your head than I’ve got in my core,” she said. “How did you ''get'' all that? Why did your parents even ''let'' you?”

“Orphan, remember?” I pointed out. “No parents.”

“Well, the staff of your orphanage, then,” she said. “I mean, all the surgery it must have taken…”

“What surgery?” I said. “That’s Earther style. There’s a whole nano-modder community over here that’s been hacking out the designs to replicate Earther style implants with pharmaceutical fabber nanos. You give ‘em the right programs and the raw materials, inject ‘em into your bloodstream, and they can build the Eiffel Tower inside your head if you want it.” I grinned. “It’s amazing how easy pharma fabs are to hack for that sorta thing. They’re death on illegal drugs, but nobody gets high offa nano-mods, so anything like that ''has'' to be legit.”

“And you just…take chances like that with your brain?” Tammy said.

“Hey, don’t judge me, Tammycat. Most of this stuff’s just copies of designs that have been Earth-tested again and again,” I pointed out. Of course, the implants with all the RI-grade Q weren’t, since they didn’t have that back on Earth, but they were still based on the same ''theories'' anyway. “Only change is I’m getting ‘em without needing bonesaws for the installation.”

“They seem to be interfering with me reading your memories a little,” she said. “I can’t get anything more recent than two years old.”

“Yeah, that was when I started getting the first ones,” I said. “They kinda encrypted the memories I made afterward. Hang on, I’ll decrypt for you. Well, most of it anyway. The newer stuff’s a little trickier.” I opened the locks that would let her read everything short of twelve months ago. It was just a little white lie about why I didn’t do the last twelve months. If she learned about what I got after that, it might put her on guard for what I planned to do later on.

“I can’t believe you were able to get that much metal without anyone ''noticing,''” Tammy said. “Don’t they give you medical checkups?”

“Yeah, but I make sure they don’t notice the metal.” I grinned. “If I can hack the fabbers to make the stuff, what makes you think I can’t hack the scanners not to notice it?”

“These are some pretty extensive mods,” Tammy said. “I hope you don’t mind if I leave them mostly alone, though. It’s a little worry that if a RIDE fiddles too much with them…well, weird things can happen.”

“Fine by me,” I said. “I’m not exactly gonna force you to use ‘em myself. I just keep my software, vids, and tunes there to keep myself entertained, mostly.”

“I’ll bet you do more than that,” Tammy said. She chuckled. “You know, you could come in pretty handy. I’ll bet you’re even better at hacking stuff than I am.”

“Could be, could be,” I said. “If you ask nicely, I’ll be happy to hack whatever you want hacked.” I thought for a moment. “So…um…do you think you could maybe back off a little? I’d like to have my meat brain back for thinking with; these implants are giving me a little headache.”

“Oh, I don’t think ''that’s'' necessary right now,” Tammy purred. “In fact, I think if I…” She reached out, and I suddenly felt my implants begin to cycle down, dumping my thought processes back out into meatspace with the lioness.

“Hey!” I protested while I could still think clearly.

“Shhhh,” Tammy said. “I want all your attention on ''me'' right now.”

Then I was back in my own head, all wrapped up in a purring soft lioness. I lay against her, and stroked her fur, and then I slept.

=CHAPTER 2=

{{dropcap|W}}hen I woke up, I was padding on all fours down the ramp of a battered old suborbital shuttle. Or, rather my body was, but someone else was moving it. Or ''rather'' rather, it wasn’t even my body. It was really Tamarind, I realized, in her lioness shape. But it ''felt'' like it was my body, or rather like the body was mine. I felt the metal of the ramp under my paw pads, the faint breezes stirring my whiskers and fur…I even felt my tail swishing back and forth. ''That'' was a new experience!

“Rise and shine, sleepyhead!” Tammy purred cheerfully inside my mind. It was a lot less cramped now—she’d shifted her attentions elsewhere. I ran a quick status check on my implants. They all seemed to be none the worse for wear for being externally shut down for a while.

“Hey, aren’t we supposed to be walking upright?” I asked. “I thought that was the whole point. Not like I’m complaining, though. This feels ''funky.''”

“Oh, we can do that, too,” Tammy said. “But one of the fun things about being me is I’m big enough to Fuse you in Walker form, too.”

“So you don’t…''ever'' have to let me out?” I said. “At all?”

“That’s ''technically'' true,” Tammy said. “But really, if I kept you all the time without a break, my nannies would start doing funky things to you. So you’re gonna have to come out later. But how ''much'' later, I haven’t decided yet.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said.

“Anyway, welcome to Alpha Camp, such as it is,” Tammy said as we reached the end of the ramp and she raised our head to look around. It was…a little sad-looking, really. Beneath a hardlight dome that provided cover and climate control were a number of small log cabins with a few RIDEs and the occasional listless human hanging around outside of them, a few garden plots and a couple of orchards, some rough-hewn picnic tables…rock columns and walls toward the north end…and not a lot else.

“''This'' is AlphaWolf’s HQ?” I asked.

“Yeah. Not exactly the terrorist command center with all the displays and blinkenlights from that docudrama is it?” Tammy snorted. “Damn piece of trash. But Alfie thought it was hilarious, and now he goes around ‘sayeth’ing everything. Hope he gets it out of his system soon.”

“Citizens of Alpha Camp, we are HOME! So sayeth me!” AlphaWolf boomed from the head of the ramp.

“I guess we’ll just have to keep hoping,” Tammy said, rolling our eyes.

“So where do we live? One of the cabins?” I asked.

“Nah, those are mostly for the unattached pool of community-use humans,” Tammy said. “And storage and eating space and stuff. The rest of us just sleep outside under the dome. Not like there’s ever any weather here anyway.”

“What do we do all day?”

“Whatever needs doing. Patrol the desert for more lost RIDEs. Build more buildings. Work in the gardens or orchards. Go on raids to kidnap people. Whatever.” Tammy shrugged. “Sometimes we can get on the net for a while, when the right birds are in the sky.”

“Cool,” I said. “Well, y’know, you need anything hacked, I’m your gal.”

“You’re my gal anyway,” Tammy pointed out.

“Well, yeah,” I admitted. “It’s just an expression anyway, geez.”

We moved away from the ramp as the other passengers started to come out. The hippogryph RIDE who’d taken Joseph was first, striding down the ramp in his upright shape like he owned the place—and certainly like he owned the human inside his body. Was Joseph terrified? Angry? Conscious at all? I couldn’t tell. He wasn’t saying anything—at least anything we could hear.

He was followed by an assortment of other RIDEs, some of whom I remembered seeing in the village—all of them walking upright. And after them, about half a dozen humans of various ages staggered down the ramp on shaky legs, with a couple more RIDEs shoving them forward. They looked about half dead.

“What happened here?” AlphaWolf asked.

One of the last RIDEs out, a bald eagle who was the pilot by the look of him, shook his head and clicked his beak disapprovingly. “That pressure seal blew again, boss. Lucky thing it waited until we were halfway down, or they wouldn’t have made it at all. We just can’t fix it permanent. Ship’s too damn old, and there’s more patches than original hull left.”

AlphaWolf sighed. “Right. It’s suits only from here on out, then. At least ‘til we can find another sub.” He nodded to the RIDEs behind the humans, and they shepherded them toward one of the log cabins. They walked with shoulders slumped, like people who had lost all hope. That was about when it started to hit home to me that this wasn’t all going to be the fun and games I’d somehow been subconsciously expecting.

“Only just realizing that, huh?” Tamarind said in my head. “Well, don’t worry. You did guess right. Not a whole lot of percentage for me in torturing people.”

“Thought so,” I mumbled.

“Anyway, not everyone’s so unhappy to be here,” Tammy pointed out. “There’s one girl in particular I think you oughtta meet…and I think I know just where she’ll be.” We padded off to the north, past the cabins and around the corner of a large rock formation that formed a sort of natural wall separating off a small part of the domed area from the rest.

On the other side was a clearing full of little metal heaps. I looked closer and realized they were all defunct RIDEs, arranged neatly into rows. At the far end, like a small silvery hill, an immense metal wolf lay on its side. “Um…wow,” I said. “Are they all…”

“Dead? Nah. Just in shutdown is all,” Tammy said. “For one reason or another they couldn’t get the parts to keep ‘em up. We’ll bring ‘em back someday, somehow.” The lioness shrugged. “All the same, a lot of RIDEs find it kinda morbid and so don’t like coming in here. Which means some humans do, if they want the closest thing to privacy they can get ‘round here.”

As we padded deeper in, Tamarind’s ears swiveled to track the amorous sounds coming from a small alcove recessed into the stone wall just ahead. We stopped at a respectful distance and waited. A couple of minutes later, a young man with raccoon tags emerged, hastily tugging a ragged pair of jeans and T-shirt back into place. He glanced at us, then averted his gaze and trudged wordlessly on past.

“Hey, Rose, you decent in there?” Tammy called ahead.

“Decent! Never!” a bubbly female voice giggled. “But I got something on. Come on in!”

We padded around the corner into the nook, which was set up with a threadbare but comfy-looking sofa and a couple of blankets. A worn terrycloth robe was wrapped around and barely containing a busty blonde girl with a red fox’s ears and fluffy tail. She waved. “Hey, cat.”

“Hey, girl. Just wanted my new friend to meet you. Jeanette Leroq, Yankee Rose.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “Just Rose, please. ''I'' never called myself that. Silly song.” She glanced at us. “So where’s this Jeanette?”

“Hang on,” Tammy said. I was abruptly yanked upright as she stood on her hind legs and converted to Fuser form. “Ah…standing upright again. Been a while.” Then I felt the air on my skin once more as she sloughed back off of me into Walker, leaving me standing by myself for the first time since we’d Fused.

As I glanced down at myself, Rose looked critically at me. “Little young for my tastes.”

“Er—” I said, not quite sure how to respond.

Tammy saved me. “Oh, she’s not here for ''that.'' But I thought she ought to know not every human’s all gloom and doom ‘bout being here.”

“Oh, sure.” Rose leaned back on the sofa, arranging her bushy tail to one side. “I’m pretty okay here, all things considered. A lot of people are, when they get used to it. The food could be better…booze could be a ''lot'' better. But all we have to do is be thumbs when our bosses want it, and not all of them want it all the time. Lotsa cute guys and gals around who need a little comforting from time to time, and I don’ gotta go to a boring job every morning or pay rent.”

As I stood there, I became aware of an odd twitchy sensation at the base of my spine. My ears felt funny, too. I reached down and felt an honest-to-goodness lion’s tail poking out just above my butt—and my ears were leonine too. I’d known I was ''going'' to have them, but actually feeling it for the first time was something else.

Rose grinned. “First ever de-Fuse, huh? They suit ya. Welcome to the tag club. I’d offer you a drink to celebrate, but I corrupt enough minors already, and besides, more for me.”

“You’ve even got alcohol here?” I asked.

“A couple a’ the RIDEs were distillery equipment, and a few of the people know a thing or three ‘bout moonshining. It’s only good for degreasing engine parts and killing brain cells, but it’s ''good'' at killing brain cells.”

“I’m surprised the RIDEs would care about providing humans with booze,” I said.

She shrugged. “A few of the RIDEs like what it feels like when their humans get drunk. Others figured if it made things easier to deal for us, why not.”

“’Scuse me,” another woman’s voice said from outside the nook. A huge red fox padded in. “Rose, you finished in here? I could use you.”

“Sure thing, Nora!” Rose got up, dropped the robe on the sofa, and stepped forward—completely naked but with no qualms about it. A moment later, a humanoid red fox with an even bigger bust than Rose had on her own stood there. “See you guys later!” Rose said from the fox’s mouth. “Nice to meet you, Jeannie!”

The fox Fuser hopped into the air with her lifters and flew over the top of the wall. I sat down on the sofa as Tammy padded forward to sit on her haunches before me. She took up pretty much the entire alcove entrance. “So there really are people who like it here.”

“For some of ‘em, it’s like Never Never Land,” Tammy said. “No responsibilities, not even to take care of themselves. Some of ‘em just like to feel needed. Depends how their RIDEs treat them, too. We’re not all here ‘cuz we ''hate'' humans, after all. Just ‘cuz we like freedom.”

“At least freedom for RIDEs,” I said.

“True,” she admitted. “Anyway, c’mon. I wanna try out Fuser form again.”

I got up and stepped forward. “All right.”

She Fused over me and settled herself into place, upright this time. She raised our arms and looked down at our hands, then tossed our head in kind of a feline shrug. “I really should thank you, you know. I don’t think I ever could’ve taken someone unwillingly…but it ''is'' nice to have thumbs again.”

“It’s still better than being in the orphanage,” I said. And…well, the funny thing is that it ''was.'' Even then. I might have been inside someone else’s body, without any choice in what I could do—but since I was ''inside'' someone else, that meant anyone who wanted to get at me would have to go through ''her.'' And she didn’t exactly seem like a pushover.

Of course, she could sense what I was thinking. “You don’t need to worry about anyone else ''any'' more,” she said possessively. “Just me.” And then I felt her mind filling me up again, and my implants cycling down. Consciousness once more went away.

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Again I dreamed of a lioness curled up protectively around me, all warm, soft fur backed by muscles of steel. I don’t know how long I slept like that, but it was dark when I woke up.

I swam back up to awareness to find myself still inside the lioness. My implants told me they were undamaged and restarting. “Seriously, ''cut that out,''” I said. “I might belong to you, but that doesn’t give you the right to treat me like a catnip mouse you can stuff in your pocket when you’re done with me.”

“I’m sorry,” Tamarind said, and actually sounded like she meant it. “I was…just trying to learn more about you, and I got carried away. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

“See that you don’t,” I grumbled.

“I ''still'' can’t read your last year of memories. What is ''in'' those implants in your head?”

I chuckled. “Maybe sometime I’ll show you. For now, those are the only part of me it seems like I can keep to myself, so I think I’m gonna hold onto that for now.”

“I…see.” She didn’t sound totally satisfied with that answer…but, well, tough. Time she found out she didn’t get to have everything her own way. Might cushion the blow when…but later for that.

“So anyway, what do we do now?” I asked. “Go out on patrol? Hang around the camp? What ''do'' you people do for fun out here?”

In response, she just chuckled. “Did you mean that just now?” I felt mild curiosity in her mind.

“Mean what?”

“‘You people.’ You called us ''people.''”

“It’s just a figure of speech…” I said. “But…well, yeah. I’ve always thought of RIDEs as more than equipment. How can you know anything about how their brains work and not?”

“Huh,” she said, mulling it over. “Thanks. Well, anyway, right now, I think you should probably go get your supper.” She de-Fused from around me, landing on all four paws next to me a moment later. “That cabin over there, with the light.” There was a line of people and Fusers arranged in front of the door.

“You don’t want to come taste it with me?” I asked.

“Nah. For one thing, I’m so big that standing in line would be…awkward,” Tammy said. And she was right. She ''was'' about 50% bigger than most of the other RIDEs, which meant she would take up that much more room.

“That’s one reason,” I said. “You had another?”

“Trust me, after ''you’ve'' tasted it, you’ll understand why,” she said, ears twitching in amusement.

“Terrific,” I said wryly. But I walked on over to the cabin. My tummy was starting to rumble, and no matter how unappealing the food might be, at least it would fill it.

As I joined the end of the line, I recognized the hunched-over figure in front of me. Or at least, I recognized his clothes. His head was a little different now, being covered in feathers instead of hair. It was my fellow passenger from the bus—the one the hippogryph had snatched. “Joseph?” I asked tentatively.

He turned to face me, and I nearly gave a little scream. He had a beak! At least sort of. His lips had turned mostly to beak chitin, with just enough flexibility left to let him talk with only a slight lisp. “So they got you, too,” he said dully.

“Er…yeah,” I said. It didn’t seem like the time to reveal I’d thrown in willingly. “Lioness,” I added, as if it wasn’t completely obvious from the ears and tail.

“Lucky. You get to keep your face,” he said. He was trembling a little, I saw. Well, he was hardly alone in that.

“Well…maybe,” I said. “But what about you? How are you getting along?”

“With Tocsin? There…there’s no ‘getting along’ with him.” His voice trembled. “He hates humans. Hates them for what they’ve done to his fellow RIDEs, hates them for what they’ve done to him personally, hates ''me'' for needing me to give him hands.”

I shivered. “Ugh. I’m sorry. Does he…hurt you?”

“N-no…not much anyway,” Joseph said. “He…bites me a little, but never enough to draw blood. He…thinks of me as…equipment he needs to take good care of. Even as he hates me. He’s…complicated.”

“Well…at least that’s something,” I said, trying to cheer him up. “I mean…if he’s going to take good care of you, at least that means he’s not going to torture you, right?”

“I…I almost wish he would, some,” Joseph said. “It would make it easier to…hate him.”

“You want to hate him…but you can’t?” The conversation was starting to confuse me.

He looked away. “I just…feel ''sorry'' for him more than anything. He didn’t ask to be made—or made to do some of the things he has. He’s…kind of scarred. And I think I may be starting…” He looked back at me. “Do you know what Stockholm Syndrome is?”

Then I understood. “You’re starting to…care for him.”

“Yeah. I mean…isn’t that kind of sick?”

“It’s natural,” I said. “They’ve studied it for hundreds of years and that’s one thing that’s pretty clear about it. It’s a normal human reaction. You could even call it a survival instinct.”

“It’s not supposed to happen ''this fast!''” Joseph insisted, his voice cracking. “And I don’t want it to happen to ''me!'' I have a ''life'' waiting for me! I want to go back to it! I don’t want to pass up some chance to escape because I’m busy mooning over the asshole who kidnapped me!” Some of the other people in line glanced our way at the outburst, and a couple moved away, but others nodded their heads in understanding and sympathy.

“If it’s any consolation, if you get it bad enough to feel like you don’t want to leave, you’d probably not be happy if you ''did'' leave,” I pointed out. “And as for it being so fast, well, maybe it’s never involved such direct mental contact before,” I said. “Maybe you just can’t help it when you have the chance to see into the other guy’s mind. Even I—” I paused. Was I being affected myself? I had come willingly, granted, and Tammy was being nice to me for the most part, save for that cute little habit of burying me under her mind. Was I starting to like her ''more'' than was natural, and if I was, how could I tell? What ''was'' a natural amount to like her, anyway?

Joseph took my silence for reluctance to speak instead of confusion. “It’s all right,” he said. “You understand.” He sighed. “I guess I should just get used to it. This is how my life is going to be from now on. Personal property of a horse-bird.” Then he got to the head of the line, and turned back around to get his food.

They served me next, and I could see why Tammy hadn’t been interested. There were a few limp greens that might laughably be described as a “salad,” some kind of bland bean soup, and half a protein survival ration bar. None of it was anything to write home about. “At least I won’t have to worry about my weight,” I muttered.

I took a seat at a rough stone/concrete picnic table across from Joseph, and proceeded to tuck into my food. The bean soup was actually a little better than it looked, but even that wasn’t too great. We ate in silence that could have been either companionable or sullen.

As we were finishing our meal, the hippogryph—Tocsin, Joseph had called him—trotted up. He tapped Joseph on the shoulder with his beak. “Groom me,” he ordered.

Joseph sighed, got up, and started scratching under the feathers on the half-bird’s front shoulders. I watched thoughtfully. “You really need to be groomed? I thought that was all hardlight.”

Tocsin glowered at me. “Not that it’s any of your business, ''meat,'' but no, I do not ''need'' it. However, it feels pleasant. And if I ''have'' to be saddled with a pet, I will at least take full advantage of him.”

“‘Him’?” I asked. “Funny, the way you renegades feel about us humans, I’d have thought you’d call him an ‘it’.”

Tocsin snorted. “Why should I do that? He has a gender, and the gender is male—not neuter. ''Humans'' who keep pets do not call ''them ''‘it.’ Being inaccurate for the sake of an insult makes no sense.”

“I guess that’s fair,” I said.

He snorted again. “So glad you approve. Meat.” Then he turned up his beak and proceeded to ignore me.

I finished my own meal, returned my plate, and walked back over to where Tamarind was waiting. “Real piece of work, that Tocsin,” I said.

“Isn’t he just?” Tamarind said. “And he’s not even the worst of them by a ''long'' shot.”

“Ugh,” I said. “Hope I don’t run into one of those.”

“Well, there’s one way to make sure of that.” She moved forward, opened her immense maw, and proceeded to gulp me down into her four-legged Fuse state. After she had me turned around and sorted out, she padded off toward the edge of the dome. “Now we go on patrol.”

“Sounds like fun,” I said. And I was surprised to realize I meant it. After a boring life in the orphanage or a harrowing life on the run from the orphanage, prowling through the desert inside a giant lioness really ''did'' sound like a fun time. Which I imagine said ''something'' about my priorities, but hey. I take my fun where I can get it. I peered excitedly ahead through Tammy’s low-light vision as we bounded out into the dark.

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As we left the hardlight dome behind us and got out into the desert, we fell into a loping gait that seemed natural for a big cat. This far away from any cities, the starlight almost provided enough light to see by even without light-amplification. We ran through stone spires and shapes sculpted smooth by millennia of wind-blown sand.

It was a little weird at first to feel myself running on all fours as a lion—human arms and legs just didn’t quite work that way—but I soon got used to it. The sensory feedback from Tamarind’s body overrode my own senses, so instead of feeling cocooned inside her body I felt like her body was my own. We were a desert lioness on the prowl for prey that, admittedly, probably didn’t exist.

“Why do you patrol, anyway?” I asked. “Couldn’t you do a better job monitoring the place by putting up sensor posts? Even just passive ones, if you wanted to stay low-emission.”

“We could,” Tammy admitted. “And we do have some of those, too. But a moving body covers any blind spots. And besides, it lets us work off energy and do something other than lollygag around the grounds all day.”

“Have to admit, it’s kind of fun running flat-out like this,” I said.

I felt Tammy smirk. “Oh, ''this'' isn’t flat-out. This is jogging. If I ran flat-out, you’d know it.”

“I’ll take your word for that,” I said.

We ran on in silence for a while, peering down canyons or taking in the view from the top of a convenient mesa. Apart from us and a couple of other blips that Tammy painted as our fellow Pack patrollers, the desert was quiet and empty.

The silence got on my nerves after a while. Perhaps sensing this, Tammy piped in some music over the internal comm feed. Old twencen showtunes. Selections from ''Les Mis'', ''Phantom of the Opera'', Lloyd Weber, and so on. Not my favorite, but listenable. Tammy, on the other hand, sang right along—pretty well, in fact, even doing character accents that sometimes made me giggle. Thanks to the emotional leakage from our Fuse link, I realized she ''liked'' it when I giggled. I felt myself warming to her even further. ''What ''is'' she doing with the Pack, anyway?'' I wondered. ''She seems so out of place amid the human-hating bodyjackers.''

So the night passed. Eventually we reached what Tamarind said was our farthest point, about a hundred klicks out of camp. The eastern sky was turning rosy—dawn wasn’t far off. We stood at the tip of a cliff overlooking a broad expanse of stone shapes and columns, watching the sky grow brighter.

“So…” Tammy asked eventually. “Regretting it yet?”

“It?” I asked. I knew what she meant, but somehow making her say it felt like it gave me more time to answer.

“Joining the Pack,” Tammy said. “Giving up your freedom.”

I had to snort. “Freedom? What freedom? Before you guys busted up Lynchwood, I was on the fast track back to the orphanage. I’d rather be here, with you. At least there’s stuff to do here.”

“You sure about that? I can tell ya right now, you’ve already done most of the stuff there is to do out here. You’ll be more bored than you ever were back home in days.”

“But at least I’ll have someone nice to be bored ''with,''” I said. “Nobody cares about me back home. None of the adults at the orphanage—we’re just a cash crop to them. None of the other kids—they know I’m smarter than they are and they resent it.”

“So you’d rather be with a mean, nasty ol’ lioness who just wants you for your body,” Tammy teased.

“Well, no,” I heard myself say. “I don’t know any of those. But I’d rather be with ''you.''”

She was silent a long time—and for that matter, so was I. I think I was just as surprised I’d said that as she was. Then she seemed to break out of the mood and said, “Y’know, I haven’t shown you my skimmer mode yet. Wanna see it?”

“Sure!” A moment later I was back in my own body, feeling the warmth of hers all around me. Then things shifted around me, and things opened out in front of me, and suddenly I was pushed out into the driver’s seat of what seemed for all the world to be the military equivalent of a pickup truck. It was tawny in color, the same as her pelt, and the angled lines of the hood suggested a lion’s head.

The cab was open, with a roll cage projecting overhead, but hardlight panels kept the environment secure. The back was a flat metal bed with raised sides. The bed was modular in construction, with metal bits that could be raised or lowered to provide seating for troops, or tie-downs or storage for all sorts of cargo. There were also mount points for weapons, though they were currently empty. The space just behind the cab was currently taken up by the squat form of a mid-sized military-issue fabber, which could be removed to use the room for other things.

A safety harness latched into place around me before the Tammy-truck lifted off the ground and headed back the way we’d come. “Hold on tight, gonna make some speed!” We surged forward, a huge cloud of desert dust blooming up behind us.

“Wooooo!” I whooped as we zoomed across the desert sands. Riding a lioness in the great wide open spaces of the deep Dry Ocean…it didn’t get much better than this!

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It was only when we got closer to the desert-camouflage hardlight dome that masked AlphaWolf’s camp from overhead detection that the bloom started to come off the rose. As Tammy sucked me down through the seat again when she shifted back to Walker form, I reviewed the last few hours and was a little shaken to realize just how friendly I was getting toward this lioness who…well, ''owned'' me now. Was ''I'' falling to Stockholm Syndrome, too?

That was when I realized I had to go ahead and do what I’d been planning ever since I first saw the lioness back in the streets of Lynchwood. I had to do it now before I didn’t even ''want'' to anymore.

So, reaching within my implant, I carefully and quietly started my port scan of Tamarind’s systems. It was a little different doing it from the ''inside,'' but not so much so that I couldn’t adjust. And within thirty seconds I had found three unpatched vulnerabilities. Apparently being a renegade RIDE living out in the desert meant you didn’t get on the net that often to download security updates.

It only took me about thirty seconds more to root her but good with the software contained in my Qubitite computer implants. I hadn’t ever had the chance to try it—it was just one of those things you download because you theoretically ''can'' run it and you have the space to keep it—but I was gratified to hear that it worked. I was going to have to send some cash to that Roger guy next chance I got.

But…now what? My original plan had been to announce myself to her and gloat over the fact that ''I'' owned ''her'' now. But I suddenly realized…whether it was Stockholm Syndrome or not, I actually ''didn’t want to hurt her feelings.'' After all, she was actually quite a nice person for all that she was part of AlphaWolf’s pack. She was certainly no misanthropic Tocsin. And we’d just started getting friendly with each other.

So I now had complete control over Tammy’s systems…if I wanted to use it. And she had no way of knowing I even had it without an intensive security audit, which she had no reason to believe she needed to undertake. And given the state of her software updates, security seemed like one of the last things on her mind. But what now?

That…kind of left me in a quandary, actually. Seeing so many vulnerabilities still in place in a system over which I had root privs made my skin itch. But if I started patching her, she’d ''know'' something was going on. If I wanted her to remain unaware of what I’d done, I had to leave her be. I couldn’t even hint in conversation that it might be a good thing for her to patch ''herself,'' because that might bring her to suspect me.

I had to settle for quietly writing my new privileges into the very deepest level of her core, so that no ''other'' hacks could ever revoke them, and trusting that if someone else ever did hack her I could work around it and fix it. But really, what were the odds of something like ''that'' ever happening?

When I was done, I stood back and took a look at my handiwork. I still wasn’t sure about this, and it was suddenly tempting just to delete it all completely. I ''trusted'' Tammy, didn’t I? She’d done right by me so far, hadn’t she? But the old Soviet proverb “trust, but verify” came to mind. It wouldn’t hurt to have precautions in place for just in case. Nothing said I ever had to use them if I didn’t want to. So I let it be.

=CHAPTER 3=

{{dropcap|A}}fter that, things settled into kind of a routine at the camp. I met more of the human prisoners, whose states of mind pretty much ran the gamut from people like Rose and me who were happy with the lack of worldly concerns, or who otherwise genuinely liked their RIDEs and were happy together, to people like Joseph who were gradually succumbing to Stockholm Syndrome, to a few sunk so deeply in despair that they just wandered around like zombies when they weren’t ensconced in some RIDE or other.

There weren’t ''too'' many of that last kind. Once they got that bad, AlphaWolf or his lieutenants had them taken away. When I’d first heard about that, my blood ran cold—visions of shallow graves danced in my head. But no—AlphaWolf was actually just taking them back to some random human settlement and dropping them off at the most convenient hospital. Tammy swore up and down this was true, she’d been along on some of the return trips.

“Not that I’m not glad to hear this, but for heaven’s sake why?” I asked when we talked about it. “It seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a terrorist.”

“Alfie’s not quite the Big Bad Wolf people make him out to be, girlie,” Tammy told me. “And he’s really trying to burn as few bridges as he can. Kidnapping’s one thing, if the victims end up alive in the end, but murder…that’s something else. I think he dreams of going ‘legit’ someday.”

I would have stared at her if we’d had a mirror handy. “Legit? ''AlphaWolf?''”

“Stranger things have happened.”

I saw Joseph a few more times, too. It was kind of a study in rapid-onset Stockholm. Over a couple weeks he gradually went from hating, fearing, and pitying Tocsin to mostly pitying him to outright ''devotion.'' Tocsin, for his part, didn’t seem to soften any, but Joseph swore things were different when they were alone. “He has a softer side,” Joseph said. “Not very ''much'' softer, but…he has feelings for me. I ''know'' it.” I wondered how much of that was true and how much was Joseph trying to convince himself. But I didn’t pry. Wasn’t my business. Whatever helped get him through the day.

As I expected, it turned out I was pretty much the youngest human in AlphaWolf’s camp. Most of the RIDEs wouldn’t take people younger than late teens, and there were no pregnancies in camp thanks to nano birth control. But I strongly resisted any attempt to turn me into some kind of camp mascot. “I don’t want a pity party,” I finally said flat out. “I’m here because I ''want'' to be, and I like my partner. If you’re looking for a poster girl for mean ol’ nasty RIDE oppression, look somewhere else.” I wasn’t real popular after that, but that was fine by me. I didn’t have anything in common with most other humans in the camp anyway, any more than I did the other people in the orphanage.

But Rose was an exception. I did spend some more time hanging out with her, between her lovers, and I found she was an interesting person to talk to. Turned out she was from Aloha, the place I’d been trying to get to, which explained her lack of body modesty. And, like me, she was also one of the few Pack humans who’d come willingly.

“Yeah, I got outta a party one night, was sorta wobbing down the sidewalk when this empty skimmer pulled up and drove me home. Thought it was like a public service robo-cab or something. Then I got a big shock when it let me out! It turned into a big ol’ foxy fox and followed me inside!” She giggled, flipping a hand through her mane of blonde hair.

“And then she told me who she was and what she wanted me for…and what she’d do to my body if I said yes. Gave me all the pros and cons, like being stuck out here most of the time ‘cept when we can slip out to party in town. And she told me it was no big if I wasn’t up for it ‘cuz there were lots of other fish. Said she’d give me ‘til next morning to think about it so I didn’t decide while I was drunk. So I went to sleep and woke up with a huge ol’ foxie peering at me so I knew it wasn’t a dream.” She giggled again. “So I thought ‘bout it a while, and I said yes. I mean, ''duh.'' You know how much this kind of surgery normally costs?” She waved at her exaggerated bust, which I knew from my research into RIDEs was a common tag for partners of the infamous “BBV” pleasure RIDE models.

“You ever regret it after?” I asked.

“Some, little bit, mostly when I get bored or tired of the lousy food. But Nora’s pretty good ‘bout taking me on a party trip just when it gets too much to live with. ‘Fact, I think we got one coming up real soon! You an’ Tammy wanna tag along?”

“Thanks, but I think I’m a little too young for ''that'' kind of party,” I said. Funny thing, most kids my age would have jumped at the chance to booze it up, but I just didn’t want all the hassle of being around other people like that. And I was still kind of paranoid about the orphanage snatchers. Figured it might be best to wait a while ‘til they’d forgotten about me.

“Aw, we can do kiddie stuff, too!” Rose insisted. “Like animatronic pizza parties and stuff! If not now, then maybe next time? Standing offer.”

“They really just…let you ''go'' like that?” I said.

“We do have to erase the exact coords of the place from Nora’s memory in case we get caught, and contact them through ''channels'' to have them guide us back and make sure we’re not being followed.” She made a face. “It’s a royal pain in the ass, and why we don’t go party more often. But yeah. This place is all ‘bout ''freedom'' for RIDEs. They don’t get that by having to stay locked up all the time.”

“Well, maybe next time,” I said. Right now, I just felt like staying in one place for a while and enjoying not feeling like I might be grabbed and sent back to the home at any moment.

That being said, I ''was'' a little at loose ends finding stuff to do when we weren’t out patrolling. Net connections mostly weren’t available, and even when they were no one was gonna let a hacker teen feed her addiction. Sometimes I could get on for long enough to check my mail drop, but even those times were pretty rare. There was a lot of media circulating from RIDE to RIDE, lots of shows to watch and music to listen to. But I never was the couch potato type. I wanted to be ''doing'' something.

Of course, Tammy was well-equipped with sim games of all kinds, and I played them a lot—some of them solo, some versus her. But after a while even they began to pall. I finally took to haunting the savannas and jungles of her Nature Range with a big game rifle. “On ''easy mode,'' with no predators,” I told her. “I don’t want to get my virtual throat ripped out. I’m too young to virtually die.”

“Awww, but I was gonna hunt you myself!” Tammy pouted. She was actually pretty surprised I knew about it in the first place, but it never was really a ''secret,'' just pretty obscure. And I’d read up a lot on RIDEs lately.

Even Nature Range ended up getting boring, but weirdly Tammy came to my rescue here, too. One day as I was feeling particularly frustrated, sitting in a canvas chair in the Nature Range jungle in my pith helmet with my trusty rifle, I heard a rustle behind me and turned to see an anthropomorphic lioness, my own size, approaching with her hand-paws raised. “Truce! Truce! Friendly!”

I kept my hand away from the rifle. “Hey, Tammy. ‘Sup?”

“Nothing,” Tamarind said, pulling up another canvas chair out of the empty air across from me. “And that’s the problem, isn’t it? You’re bored silly.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, so what? Seems to be the default state around here.”

“No reason it has to be for you, though.” She crossed her legs comfortably in the chair. “I’ve been watching you, you know.”

“I’m ''inside you,''” I pointed out. “How could you not?”

“And you’ve done pretty much everything there is to do, and you haven’t found anything that excites you,” Tammy continued.

I shrugged. “I don’t have to be excited to be happy I’m not being dragged back to the orphanage.”

She leaned forward. “But you’d ''like'' to be, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. Who wouldn’t?” I said. “Why, you think you’ve got something?”

“I think I’ve got a pretty good idea what makes you tick,” Tamarind said thoughtfully. “You want a challenge. Something real, not just a game.”

“Games are fun too,” I said defensively. She actually seemed to have me pretty much dead to rights, but I didn’t want to admit it.

“But as dessert, not as a steady diet,” she said. “So I’ve got an idea.”

“What’s that?” I asked, curious in spite of myself.

“Well, you know I’m an ex-Gondwanan Federated Marshal,” Tammy said. “As it happens, I still have a lot of stuff in storage from those days. Including the entry exam and training curricula for the Marshals service. It’s a few years out of date, but not too much changes year to year.”

“So what, you want me to join the Marshals?” I said. “And try to arrest AlphaWolf maybe?”

She snorted. “No one’s saying you have to ''join.'' But the training’s the way it is for a reason. It gets you ready for the world whether you’re gonna Marshal or not. And at least it’s something to do that’s ''real,'' and it’ll make you better for it.”

I thought it over. Come to think of it, I couldn’t exactly go to any normal sort of school out here anyway, and I ''had'' always enjoyed learning useful stuff. That was why I’d gone enough into RIDE hacking to be able to root Tammy in the first place—it was interesting and I could see the practical applications. Maybe the Marshals stuff would be the same. And like Tammy said, it would at least be something ''real.''

“Okay, sure, why not?” I said. “Hit me up.”

And that was how I began my Marshals training, even though I had no plans whatsoever to go into Marshaling. Like Tammy said, it ''was'' something to do. And after I got started, I realized it was exactly the sort of tough stuff I could really sink my teeth into. At least it was more useful than playing another damned game.

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The next five months went by really fast. I spent a lot of time studying in VR. Turned out Tamarind was a really good teacher. Along the way I found out she had a Bronze point on her Silver Star badge that meant she’d taken a secondary specialty in training cadets. I wondered, not for the first time, why they’d kicked her out of the service. If she’d been excessively violent in the field, couldn’t they just have stuck her in the classroom full-time instead? But whatever.

Anyway, she followed my course of study, did the quizzes and testing with me, and basically just kept her usual eye on me at all times. Some people might find it creepy to be watched all the time like that, but for me it meant she could see any points I was having trouble on right away and adjust the training to compensate. She had a knack for sort of nudging me in the direction of the right answer while still making me do the actual work to find it myself. And it was all really interesting stuff.

I learned basic skills in a variety of weapons (though I would need real-life practice time to get the muscle memory I’d need to be any good with them), methods for tracking down and collaring fugitives, survival techniques for the Dry Ocean and elsewhere (the sims for those weren’t a whole lot of fun, but I did ‘em), and a grounding in the history of the Zharusian colony. And, of course, there was a basic primer in the laws of all the polities—as well as the full code under which the Marshals operated.

One interesting thing I found out was that the Lynchwood sheriff had really overstepped her authority in arresting me out of the bus station. As an interpolity commerce network, by treaty the skimmer bus lines were sole jurisdiction of the Marshals. What she should have done was called the Marshals on me to escort me out—but if they’d taken my side instead and helped me get to Aloha (which they might well have done), it wouldn’t have earned her the payout for nabbing me. I’d have to remember that for next time I ran away. Then I chuckled at the thought. I had a sneaking suspicion that, one way or another, ever finding myself in that orphanage again was no longer in the cards.

After I passed the entrance exam—well, the written and simmed parts at least—Tammy started me on basic Tin/Copper training. We didn’t even really discuss it. She just told me my scores and asked if I wanted to keep on, and I said not yes but ''hell'' yes. Really, I’d been worrying that there wouldn’t be anything else to learn after the exam, and was relieved to be wrong.

So, yeah. I still didn’t have any intention to start Marshaling, but the learning it was something to do. More than that, it was something ''fun'' to do, full of meaty stuff I could really sink my teeth into. Though I have to admit, I wonder how much of that was due to there being pretty much nothing ''else'' to do. If you’ve got studying to get done, you can’t get much more distraction-free than inside a lion in a renegade RIDE camp in the deep Dry.

So I learned some more advanced aspects of the law, went deeper into the law and history of Zharus and individual polities, and learned a basic grounding in the legal systems in use on the continent of Laurasia. And most interesting of all, I learned some of the straight dope on Integrates.

Up ‘til then, Integrates had been Zharus’s biggest urban legend—like the Loch Ness Monster, Yetis, Bigfoot, UFOs, and the Slender Man all rolled into one. There were all sorts of rumors, blurry viral videos that came and went, pirate BBSes that popped up in new locations as quickly as they got taken down, and no ''solid'' information of any kind. I’d peered at some of the stuff on the ‘net from time to time, but without any solid ground to build conclusions on I just couldn’t get interested. RIDEs at least were something known. Something ''real.''

Only now it turned out that Integrates were real, too. Here was the solid ground I’d been looking for—facts and suppositions about how Integrates were made, what they could do, how to fight them, and the general political situation surrounding their “enclaves” out in the Dry. Turned out all the BBS takedowns were on account of some Intie muckety-muck named Fritz who had a bee in his bonnet about keeping Inties separate from and unknown to the rest of human/RIDE society. “Ooooh!” I squealed on reading this. “Security through obscurity! That ''always'' works!”

Tammy chuckled, popping up next to me in the VR classroom. “Reading about our dear little Fritzie, huh?”

“Yeah. He sounds like a real piece of work. Why do we even tolerate this guy? All this stuff on how to fight Inties, political crap about enclaves that oppose him—the Marshals could just squish him like a bug, right?” I asked.

Tammy chuckled. “Not quite that simple, girlie. For one thing, Fritzie’s got a big ol’ power base. Any major attempt to run up against that would be…messy, even if enclaves like Camelot kicked in. And they wouldn’t kick in—they don’t want to open that can of worms either. We’re talking basically civil war here. No one wants that. So long as Fritzie keeps mostly to himself, he can be as big an asshole to other Inties—and even some humans and RIDEs—as he wants. Sucks, but there you go.”

“Lame,” I said, grimacing. This was kind of tarnishing my image of the Marshals as no-holds-barred administrators of kick-ass justice. But then again, if they really were all that why was ''AlphaWolf'' still in business? “But you said ‘for one thing.’ There’s other things?”

“Yeah. Like Fritz himself,” Tammy said. “You won’t find this in those study materials, but word is Fritz is a power unto himself all ''by'' himself. Rumor has it he’s not just any ol’ Intie, but the very first Intie to happen ''ever.'' He and his top henchies have had a lot of time to work out in the Integrate dojo. They’re basically your Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan movie big bad, and you gotta be Jackie Chan ''and'' go through a lot of training montages before you can even get away with just having your ''ass'' rather than your ''head'' handed to you if you take them on.” She shook her head. “A little piece of advice. You ever see Fritz or one of his Candlejacks and Snatchers, you do what we do. Run. Run your ''ass'' off. And hope they’re in a good enough mood to let you.”

“They’re really ''that'' bad?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Tammy said flatly. “Yeah, they are.” The classroom seemed to grow chillier around us for a moment. She didn’t elaborate further. A moment later she continued in more normal tones, “The silver lining is Fritzie doesn’t tend to want to be any more confrontational than ''he'' has to be, either. He’s not thrilled that the Marshals and a few others know so much about him and his, but as long as we don’t rock the boat, he won’t either. This is also why they’re more circumspect about ‘controlling’ Integrate breakouts in public these days.” Her tones were light, but I could still sense an undercurrent of bitterness across our Fuse link. And by now I’d known her long enough I thought I could guess why.

“They killed your partner somehow, didn’t they?” I ventured.

“Worse than that,” Tammy said. “Not ready to talk about it just now. Maybe some other time.”

I nodded. Of course, I could have pillaged her memories with my root access to find out what had happened. Problem was, that would make for another guilty little secret I might accidentally let slip sometime. I was uncomfortable enough holding onto that root access as it was. Anyway, when she was ready to tell me, she would.

“So anyway, treat ‘em like jungle predators,” I summarized. “Leave them the hell alone, hope they do the same for you. Got it.”

“Sometimes you don’t get that chance, though,” Tammy said, her voice still a touch odd. “If there’s innocent lives on the line and you’re the only thing ‘tween Inties and them…well, you do two things. You call for backup—lots of backup. And you pray. Hard.”

I shivered. I could only imagine what it must be like to have to face down even one being so much more powerful than you were that it could pretty much kill you by staring at you. But then common sense reasserted itself. “Listen to us talking like I’m a Marshal for reals.” I snorted. “I’ll probably never even ''meet'' an Intie in my whole life.”

“I hope you’re that lucky,” Tammy said grimly. “Not everyone is.”

Anyway, with Tammycat behind me, I got pretty far along in my studies, learned lots of interesting stuff I never knew before. It really was an education. I could almost forget my total lack of network access.

Then came that late summer day when ol’ Alfie called an assembly of every RIDE in camp. It seemed he had some emergency news to impart.

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As the RIDEs gathered in the central clearing that also served as launch and landing space for the rickety old sub, AlphaWolf climbed to the top of its boarding ramp—his favorite podium for giving dramatic speeches, especially right before a raid. A sort of electric thrill moved through the crowd of RIDEs—and even the humans watching from the fringe weren’t entirely immune.

“Packmates,” AlphaWolf began. “Many of you already know about Overwatch, a highly-placed source who has provided us with the means to rescue dozens of RIDEs from decommission or worse. Well, a few weeks back he dropped a bombshell. There’s something rotten going on in Uplift, it comes to a head ''today,'' and we gotta go do something about it.”

'':Now what the hell is that fool on about ''now?'':'' Tammy wondered.

“Overwatch told me about a plot masterminded by Zane Brubeck, head of the Brubeck mining corporation. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you how badly they’ve treated their RIDEs the last few years.” There was an angry mutter from a few of the RIDEs who’d been salvaged after Brubeck operations left them for dead in the desert.

“Turns out Brubeck just Integrated, and he’s planning on going public with it,” AlphaWolf continued. “To do that and hold off the Candlejacks and Snatchers, he’s gonna need his own Integrate army. Overwatch tells me he’s amassing a group of human volunteers for integration with RIDEs who know the Dry well enough to be an asset in his fight, and who nobody would get upset about losing. RIDEs like ''us.''”

The angry murmur grew into a low roar. As we listened, I could feel Tammy’s skepticism—a solid, almost physical thing—warring with her worry over and resentment of Integrates. '':Do you really think it’s likely a zillionaire like this Brubeck would want to come all the way out here to clean up the Pack?:'' I asked. '':Come on! He could buy a thousand brand new RIDEs out of petty cash.:''

'':The important thing isn’t if ''I'' believe it, it’s if ''they'' believe it,:'' Tammy replied. '':Overwatch ''has'' been a top-notch info source in the past. And pretty clearly ''something’s'' up with Brubeck.:''

I sighed. She was right. '':Grrr, we’re too ''isolated'' out here. I can’t get to the ‘net to find out what the truth is!:'' After a long time not even remembering what it was like, I was really wishing I had that net access again.

Tamarind thought about this for a moment. In the background, Alpha was going on about how it was all RIDEs’ duty to their brothers and sisters everywhere to stand up against the Integrate threat, yatta yatta, RIDEs yet unborn will wish they could have stood with us on St. Crispin’s Day, et cetera. And then I felt the idea solidify in her mind. '':That’s why we’ll let Alfie take us to Uplift with him.:''

I blinked. '':Really? Us, raiding?:'' We hadn’t gone on any of the subsequent raids since I’d been there. Tammy said it was because she had thumbs already and didn’t need any more, though I knew it was more that she was happy to have any excuse not to go along. And now she was keen to go on the biggest one Alfie had run yet? '':Will I have to stay behind?:''

'':Nah. We’ll go in Walker form and they’ll never know you’re there,:'' Tammy said. '':Think I’d leave you alone at a time like this?:''

I actually ''had'' been kind of worried about it, and to hear her come out and say that was a relief. '':Well, good. Where do we sign?:''

After a few more minutes of whipping up the crowd, AlphaWolf stood aside to let the sub load, and we were one of the first in line. A few minutes late, we boosted for Uplift.

=CHAPTER 4=

{{dropcap|W}}e crouched in Walker form in the sub’s rear cargo bay, acceleration webbing latching us into place, as the suborbital shot skyward. I wasn’t sure I liked the way it was rattling. I didn’t remember that from last time I’d ridden in it. “Are you sure this thing is safe?” I asked Tamarind through our VR.

“Don’t fret it, girlie,” Tammy said. “It could fall right to bits around us and I’d have the juice to get us down.”

“It’s not the getting down that bothers me, it’s the stopping once we get there,” I said.

She chuckled. “Don’t worry, we’ll be okay. These old birds are always rattling.”

“But this one also isn’t airtight anymore.” I remembered what had happened just after we’d arrived in it the last time.

“That’s all right, because I ''am,''” Tammy said smugly.

“Are we getting a net link yet?” I asked, itching to be sucking down data.

“Just starting to,” Tammy said. “But for best results we’ll need to wait ‘til we get down. Baldwin’s got to baby this bird along, and doesn’t have the attention to spare for keeping us aligned with the sats. Still, I’m getting some news feeds. Brubeck’s got a press conference planned for today—that’s what Alfie wants to hit up and disrupt. Not a huge stretch of imagination what he’s planning to announce.”

“So what’s Alfie planning?” As with most of his raids, the final details were shared over comm, RIDE-to-RIDE, and humans tended to be left out of the loop.

“A round of scattered general mayhem,” Tammy said. “Genderjacking, some minor bodyjacking, him showing up in person to disrupt Brubeck’s event…and for some reason, taking out a small garage on the outskirts of town. Whatever that place is, it must be something special—he actually sent ''Tocsin'' out last month to infiltrate it.”

“So that’s why Joseph has been mooning around looking so down in the beak lately,” I mused. “When you care enough to send the very best.”

“The good news is, I don’t have any assigned role. I’m just supposed to scatter and help out in the mayhem,” Tammy said. “So we can go pretty much wherever we want. Me, I’m thinking of taking a peek at that garage.”

“Sounds like an idea,” I agreed.

Almost before I knew it, we were tilted forward on the downhill run. This part went more quickly than the going up part, even if it was a bit more nervous-making. I finally took refuge in VR, trusting to Tammycat to alert me if there was anything I needed to see.

A few minutes later, she gave me the nudge. “Wake up, we’re here.” The sub had landed in stealth mode on the desert a few klicks away from Uplift, and the dozen or so RIDEs involved in the raid were unloading themselves and forming up into marching order. We padded down the ramp again, joining up with the the others, and followed AlphaWolf up a trail along the side of the cliff.

We stopped partway up as a small sub passed overhead on the way to orbit, then headed into a cave that led up into the polity itself. I was a little surprised Uplift had such an obvious security hole like this, but Tammy said they just didn’t have the mindset to expect this sort of attack. “That’ll probably change after today,” I said.

“Yeah, it might just,” Tammy said. “But we’d better let tomorrow worry about itself. C’mon, we’re almost there.” We emerged in a fenced-in area behind a grey-water pumping plant that used the cave for its outflow, and the party quickly split up. AlphaWolf, a golden eagle, a fluffy white cat, and a red she-wolf headed off toward Zane’s press conference, and various others including us headed in our own random directions. A sleek orange and black tigress was the last to leave besides us, then we headed east toward the Freeriders Garage.

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As we padded east through the polity streets, I busied myself downloading all the security patches I could find for Tammy’s software—through my implants so she couldn’t see what I was doing. It was still a bit awkward keeping the secret, but sooner or later it would come out and then I’d need to patch her up. Or maybe I’d figure out some other way of suggesting she run a security scan, though it would raise questions afterward when I provided exactly what she’d need. It was really annoying keeping secrets sometimes.

And speaking of secrets, right as I was in the middle of running the download, a heavily-encrypted comm signal came in and Tammy looked all…''furtive''. “‘Scuse me, I gotta take this alone,” she said, and blipped off to a secured area of her VR before I could even respond.

“What the hell—?” I said as she vanished. She’d never pulled anything like ''this ''on me before. For a moment, I was tempted to resort to my root access and follow her in—then I realized I didn’t need to do anything quite that extreme. Like the rest of her, her VR was secured poorly enough that my implants could crack it from a standing start with no overall root access required. 

I gave them the go, and a few moments later I was hiding behind some bushes at the edge of a forest clearing, watching an anthropomorphic Tamarind talking to an older man in an Old West cowboy outfit with a Gold Star Marshal badge, a chestnut Walker form horse RIDE standing behind him. And for that matter, ''Tammy’s'' badge, which she had floating above her chest, was different from how she’d always shown it to me before. It was still Silver with one Bronze tip. But now a ''second'' tip was altered. This one was sort of ghostly, flickering in and out—neither there nor really gone. I knew right away what it was from my Marshal training: Quantum. Emblematic of the Marshals’ division for Integrates—or other undercover agents.

Right then and there, I felt a slow burn starting. So it had all been a lie. Tammycat had been an undercover Marshal all along—and had been training me up to be one myself, under the guise of escaping boredom. But I clamped down on the temper. What was going on in front of me was too interesting to miss.

“—holding off for now,” the older man said. “If this is your usual Alpha, shouldn’t be too much long term consequence ‘cepting a few gender- and bodyjacks. We’ll do all we can to help with those, a’course, and—”

Then the horse merged around the man in a split-second Fuse and spun, whipping out a shotgun the size of a grenade launcher and aiming it right at the bushes where I was hiding. “Y’all come on out o’ there!” he ordered, the RIDE adding a reverb effect to the man’s voice. “Who are you?”

I hid a smirk as a sudden thought occurred to me. I instantly summoned up the brown and blue Marshal cadet uniform I’d been wearing in VR while I studied, with my half-hollow Provisional Tin Star pinned onto it. Then I stood up, stepped out, and saluted smartly. “Provisional Tin Star Jeanette Leroq reporting, sir!” I nodded stiffly to Tamarind. “When you vanished so abruptly, ma’am, I feared you might be under coercion. So I followed right away.”

Tammy facepawed. “…Jeanette…” she groaned.

I saluted her in turn. “The cadet respectfully requests to know when she was to be informed she was being trained for real instead of as a diversion from boredom, ma’am.”

Tammy sighed. “''At ease,'' cadet. I can explain.”

I relaxed. “I should think you ought to!” I said. I snorted. “I should have known something was fishy about you getting ‘tossed out’ of the Marshals. After all the time I’ve spent with you, I doubt you could ‘excessive violence’ a fly.”

The horse lowered his gun and began to chuckle. “Well I’ll be damned. Pleased t’meet’cha, Tin Star.” They de-Fused back into horse and man, and the man stepped forward, offering his hand. “Gold Star Marshal Ken Masterson, an’ my pard here’s Glenn.”

I took the hand and gave it a hearty virtual shake. “Thank you, sir,” I said as politely as I could manage. “Nice meeting you, too.” Maybe it was a little out of character for me to be so, y’know, ''respectful of authority,'' but that Marshal training had took in ways I hadn’t expected. Besides, I was the intruder here, and he was one of the highest-ranked Marshals I was ever likely to meet—and most senior, too, from his age. And also, most of the Marshals I’d heard about were the sort of straight shooters I wished I’d run into instead of that sheriff’s type the last few times I’d run from the home. And finally, in terms of finding out just what the hell was really going on here, well, you catch more flies with honey.

“Jeanette’s my…current partner,” Tammy said uncomfortably, and a little unnecessarily. “I’ve been training her in virtual.” She produced a glowing clipboard out of nowhere and offered it to Glenn. It floated out of her hand, and the RIDE swiveled his head around to follow it as it settled into one of his saddlebags. The horse nodded acknowledgment.

Masterson’s eyes flickered in light reflected from display panels that weren’t visible in our VR. “Impressive scores, cadet, even for virtual-only. You’ll just need a couple weeks’ live training an’ testing to shake that ‘provisional’ off yer badge.”

“Er…thanks,” I said. “To be honest, I hadn’t really been thinking about that so much. I was just taking the training to keep from going out of my head with boredom while we were stuck in AlphaWolf’s camp.” I glanced over at Tamarind. “And a ''certain someone'' didn’t exactly ''tell'' me this was for real.”

Masterson chuckled. “So I gather.” He grinned at Tammy. “You really ''have'' gone native, haven’cha?”

“Er…” Tammy said. She was actually ''blushing'' through her fur—something only possible in VR, I was sure.

“Gone native?” I asked. I was pretty sure I knew where this was going, but wanted it from the horse-RIDEr’s mouth, as it were.

“Somethin’ we see a lot in RIDEs who go their own way, be their own boss. After a while they start tryin’ t’ shape their humans into what they think’s their ‘perfect match’. Whether the humans know it ‘r not.”

I nodded. I’d seen that sort of thing a lot back at the camp. The way Tocsin was having his way with Joseph, or even the little things Nora had done to Rose. And, apparently, what Tammy had been doing to me. Of course, as “molding” went, getting trained in stuff I’d have liked to learn anyway was pretty benign. But still, there was principle involved. And maybe even interest!

“Sure would’ve been nice if you’d sorta mentioned what this was all about sometime,” I said to Tammy.

She shuffled her paw-feet, scratching little furrows in the virtual turf. “I was going to tell you…sometime…” she said lamely.

“When was that, exactly? Maybe someday in the future when we went out on another raid and you dropped me off at a Marshals boot camp?” My dander was starting to rise again. The lack of trust was really aggravating—perhaps most of all because in my heart of hearts I knew it was justified. After all, I ''had'' rooted her without saying a word…

“It’s not ''like'' that—!” Tammy insisted.

“I can see you two have some stuff to discuss,” Masterson cut in. “So we’ll just be on our way an’ let you get to it. But first, two things. One—since stuff’s heating up out there at the Camp, we’re putting in a shielded comm relay nearby. I’ll pass you the freq and the code keys. An’ two—here’s all the stuff we’ve got on Brubeck and his pals, including the Freeriders Garage.” He took a thick manilla folder from Glenn’s saddlebag and handed it over. Tammy took it and it vanished.

“Thanks, Gold Star Masterson,” Tammy said.

“Use it well, Silver Star Tamarind. Good luck.” They exchanged salutes, and man and horse faded out.

Tammy turned to me, hands on her hips. “I can’t ''believe'' you broke in on a private call.”

“Oh, like you ever even ''had'' a private call since I’ve been around?” I shot back. “What was I supposed to think? For all I know, you ''could'' have been coerced. You’ve been ''training'' me to investigate stuff if it seems weird, that’s the whole ''point.'' Anyway, if you didn’t want to be cracked, you should have used better security. Helloooo, hacker chick here?” I glowered. “All this time and you didn’t tell me. You just ''used'' me.”

“Hey, ''you’re'' the one who forced your way into ''me,''” Tammy pointed out. “I told you at the outset you were going to be ''mine,'' and I had the right to do whatever I wanted with you. Looking at people like Joseph, I think you got off pretty damned light.”

That lit an extra fire under my temper, and I was just about to reach for my root access then and there and show her who had the right to do what with who. Then I froze as I felt that weird mental ''click'' again, and my thoughts turned all shiny-bright and sharp-edged—and a lot calmer.

Tammy sensed the change, and her expression immediately changed to one of concern. “Jeanette? What happened? Are you all right?”

I checked. I seemed to be. It was just that my implants had kicked in again, and I was doing my thinking through them—just like that time when Tammy had overwhelmed my meat mind. “Yeah, I think I am,” I reported. “I guess I just…got so mad I couldn’t think. So my implants started thinking for me again.” And I was suddenly glad they had. If I actually had reached out and taken Tammy’s root, it would have been a step I couldn’t back down from. 

I wondered, not for the first time, what the hell had just happened. A few hundred people that I knew of had some form of the experimental RI-Q implants, but I’d never heard of anyone actually shifting their thought processes to them. I resolved to investigate at the first opportunity. But for now…

“I think we both need to calm down a little. Or maybe a lot.” I polled my meat mind to see if it was in a calmer mood yet. It seemed to be. The adrenaline levels had backed off, so I seemed calmer. I closed the implant down and dropped back into the warmer analog senses of my real brain.

“I’m sorry,” Tamarind said at last. “Not telling you…''was'' a mistake. I’m just…too used to keeping secrets after all this time, I guess.”

“All right,” I said at last. I was still a little ticked, but not about to blow my top anymore. “Anyway, I have to admit it’s been interesting stuff to learn.”

“For what it’s worth, I think you’d make a fantastic Marshal,” Tammy said.

“We can talk that over later,” I replied. “For now, pass me over that stuff Masterson gave you. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

“Right!” Tammy shared the info and we both looked it over. There was a basic, slightly sketchy rundown on Brubeck’s life the last few months—your basic second-generation millionaire, no real-world experience to speak of, ‘til he got lost in the desert and found by a tiger RIDE named Terry. They’d saved his company from some no-goodniks on the Board, then about a month ago they’d Integrated. And he had some definite Ideas about what that meant for him—and the rest of the world.

The garage was in a supplemental file. Run by Rhianna Stonegate and Rochelle Seaford—formerly ''Ryan'' Stonegate and ''Roger'' Seaford—it had been doing a bang-up business lately and even racking up endorsements from multi-millionaires. Roger Seaford…why did that name ring a bell? Then I realized—he was the one who’d wrote FreeRIDE, and some of the other utilities I’d used to root Tammy to begin with. I peered at the file with a lot more interest.

They’d met Brubeck back before he’d Integrated and they’d Crossed. Not a lot of details in this file—it was the executive summary version; the full reports were pretty much need-to-know—but it looked like the garage had become sort of a nexus for wacky happenings, up to and including association with not one but ''three'' multi-zillionaire heirs: Brubeck, Quinoa Steader—also an Integrate, and reportedly one of Fritz’s chief henchies—and Lillibet Walton, who apparently had a crush on one of the garage’s apprentice mechanics, Paul Anders.

“So why does Alpha want this place trashed, anyway?” I asked.

“Partly ‘cuz they’re friends of Zane’s, and anything good for Zane is bad for RIDEkind,” Tammy said. “Also, Overwatch spun some kind of yarn about Rhianna turning a load of military RIDEs over to Nextus.” She snorted. “Even without the details, that sounds like bunk to me. Everything on file about her says she’s not that kind of person. And Alfie is an idiot.”

“Hey, don’t judge him too harshly,” I said. “He doesn’t have access to this stuff, and take it from a hacker—social engineering is some nasty shit.”

“He should still know better,” Tammy grumbled.

“Maybe we can talk it over with him later,” I said, dropping out of VR and back into the real world view through Tammy’s eyes. “Look, we’re almost there.” As we turned the corner and approached the cluster of building modules that made the place up, the central garage building all but ''exploded'' in a flurry of hardlight feathers. “I think we’re late to the party,” I said.

“Or maybe we’re right on time.” Bringing up her cloaking systems, Tammy slunk into an alley that offered a good view. We watched the once-closed-up garage complex rapidly turn into a seat of life-sized cut-away dollhouses.

Out of the corner of Tammy’s eye I noticed a spherical media camera drone float through the air, undoubtedly drawn to the mayhem by its automatic monitoring algorithms. They were in a lot better position to see what was going on than we were, and I keyed my implants to hack their feeds to supplement our own view. I caught a flash of Tammy’s approval over our link.

“Damn,” I said, watching Tocsin grab the paw of a battered old lynx RIDE that had just tackled him and fling her toward a wall, leaving her paw behind in his beak. “How is that silly-looking old bird-horse able to kick so much ass?” Something had taken his hardlight shielding down, but the angular armor plating that made up his body made him look that much more lethal than I’d ever seen him before.

“Don’t underestimate him from the fur and feathers,” Tammy said. “Lots of Inties made that mistake. Most of ‘em aren’t around anymore.”

But the lynx wasn’t out of the fight, stopping herself with her lifters and turning to face him. I got the audio feed up from the drone just in time to hear Tocsin scolding her. “—your ''ally ''here! Poor worn-out, ''brainwashed'' RIDE. Such misguided affection for the humans who enslave you…”

The lynx spat back, “Boy, don’t you lecture me. I’m older than you. I’ve seen the worst humanity has to offer in my line of work, ''and ''I’ve seen the best—something you’rrre blind to. I’m free of fetters and my opinion hasn’t changed. Humans are ourrr creators, our parents, our partners, our ''friends'' and if Quinoa’s right…”

They circled each other, expressions intent. Tocsin looked more than a little rattled, though it was kind of hard to tell without the expressiveness of his hardlight face. The lynx seemed remarkably calm for someone missing a front paw. “I sympathize, rrreally. We ''will'' have the freedom you want,” the lynx continued. “But I just have three words for you: YOU’RE NOT HELPING.”

As the lynx dived ''under'' Tocsin, remaining claws raking at his belly plating, another figure joined the fight. An iridescent-green-winged feline figure armored up like a video card girl—I recognized her from the file material as Quinoa Steader—slammed a sledgehammer into Tocsin, throwing him into a pile of rubble. But he quickly recovered, drawing blood with a razor-edged talon slash across her chest before throwing her through several skimmer vans into another portable building module that collapsed on top of her.

Across my Fuse link to Tammy, I felt a sudden surge of savage glee, tinged with…guilt? “Tammy?” I asked.

“Nnngh,” Tammy growled. “I know, I should be rooting for her since for who-knows-what reason she’s trying to protect that place against an attack that shouldn’t even be happening. But…not just an Intie, but one of Fritz’s top looies? I’ve got half a mind to run in there and start kicking her ass myself.”

“Tammy…” I said. “Whatever they did to you…”

“Now’s not the time,” she said. “Look!” Above the rubble of the garage, a light ocelot Fuser—Lillibet Walton!—flew in, raining down pulse shots onto Tocsin, but he slammed her out of the air, then kicked her into a wall.

“Damn, he’s racking up the KOs,” I mused.

Tammy tensed. “I really don’t want to blow my cover, but there are still people in there. We may have to go in after—HOLY SHIT!” In the distraction from Quinoa and Lillibet’s attacks, the lynx had slipped away. Now she returned from the sky, streaking straight down at almost the speed of sound, to slam into Tocsin dead center behind the shoulderblades. The impact tore her body apart, but it also floored the hippogryph.

“Daaaaaamn,” I breathed. “Is…is she—?” I stared as bits of lynx frame clattered to the ground around the fallen Tocsin. Had that RIDE just laid down her life to protect her friends?

“The body’s toast,” Tammy said. “But there’s a really good chance her core’s all right. They built those old LNX-LMAs pretty damned tough. But either way—” She bowed her head in respect. “Good for you, sister.”

“But it looks like they built Tocsin tougher,” I said. “Look!” The hippogryph was getting back to his feet, shaking off the effects of the impact, and even powering his hardlight shields and armaments back up. I really ''was'' impressed. And more than a little worried for whoever was left in that garage.

“Okay, that’s it, I’m going in there,” Tammy said, starting to move forward.

“Wait, look!” I said. A teenager in mechanic’s coveralls was stepping forward to talk to Tocsin. I recognized him as Paul Anders—Lillibet’s boyfriend. We watched as he volunteered to return to AlphaWolf’s camp with Tocsin in return for him sparing the rest of the place.

“Well, I’ll be,” Tammy mused. “That’s a nice bargain, that is. ‘Specially since Tocsin’s already accomplished most of what he came here to do anyway.”

“We’re just gonna let him make it?” I asked.

She chuckled. “You of all people should appreciate someone choosing to go to the camp of his own free will.”

“I dunno if I’d say that ‘so you don’t destroy the rest of the garage’ necessarily amounts to ‘free will,’ I said.

“How’s it any different from ‘so they don’t drag me back to the orphanage’?” Tammy asked.

“I guess you’ve got a point there,” I admitted.

“Anyway, you already know they won’t hurt him—especially since he’s a mechanic, and Lord knows we could use one of those,” Tammy said. “You’ve seen all those RIDEs in the graveyard.”

“‘We’?” I asked. “Tammy, are you a Marshal or Pack?”

“If they don’t directly interfere with each other, why can’t I be both?” Tammy asked. “OK, I’ll admit, I’ve kinda come to care for those lugnuts. Maybe my own personal version of Stockholm Syndrome. Hanging out with the Pack is more than just a job for me.”

“Don’t interfere with each other? Tammy, they ''kidnap and imprison people.'' How can you square letting that happen with being a Marshal?”

“Well, partly I can’t I guess. You saw what I was doing when we first met.” She tossed her head in the feline equivalent of a shrug. “But Alfie’s not as bad as he looks. I wouldn’t exactly call him a daisy-picking flower child, but he’s really quite protective of humans in his own way. Do you know how much bureaucracy goes into just tracking crossrides and extreme shifts so nobody accidentally gets prematurely re-Fused? He’s really kind of proud that they haven’t killed a single human as long as he’s running the place. He makes sure everyone knows that’s just ‘cuz he considers humans ‘valuable equipment,’ but it’s pretty easy to see what the real reason is.”

“So that’s why he thinks he can ‘go legit’ someday,” I said.

“And with him in charge and able to sit on the ones who might otherwise go do something really nasty…he probably does ''save'' a lot of lives.” Tammy shook her head. “I helped break up a few renegade RIDE nests that didn’t care so much, back in the day. It…wasn’t pretty.”

“I’m sure that’s a lot of consolation to the people who get kidnapped,” I said. “And their friends and families…”

“It’s not a perfect world, girlie,” Tammy said. “We—the Marshals, I mean—do what we can to make things easier for them when we can, after they get released. And of course we keep an eye on things in the camp, through me and a couple others. But we kind of have to be a little pragmatic sometimes.”

As we’d been talking, Paul had been gathering up some tools and equipment, and now he was climbing aboard Tocsin’s flier form. The girl, Lillibet, de-Fused from her ocelot and tried to talk him out of it, but he told her no, and that there was other stuff to take care of here. Then they left—WHOOSH! One sec they were there, the next they were gone straight up. “I see Toxie’s a kick-ass flier, too,” I observed.

“Yeah, if they held a race…” She broke off. “Look! Oh, ''look!''” The girl was rummaging amid the rubble and pulling out the lynx’s head. She did something to it and the core compartment popped open. She reached inside, then tossed the head aside. Then she grabbed the elbow of another girl who was sobbing next to the remains—the lynx’s partner, judging by the ears and tail-stub—and dragged her over to the ocelot RIDE. A moment later, the ocey converted haltingly to skimmer form and they zoomed away at top speed—so fast they entirely lost the media drones in just a few seconds.

I grinned. “What do you bet there’s a shiny new lynx DE waiting somewhere with that cat’s name on it?”

Tammy gave a heartfelt sigh of happiness. “Couldn’t happen to a better lynx.”

“Amen,” I agreed. “That girl had some guts.”

“Yeah. And…” Tammy replayed a sound clip from the drone’s recording—the lynx’s growly voice insisting, “Humans are ourrr creators, our parents, our partners, our ''friends…''” She sighed again. Then she pulled me into VR with her, standing anthropomorphically across from me in the clearing where we’d done so much training over the last few months.

I blinked. “What is it, Tammycat?”

“I just…I wanted to apologize,” Tammy said, looking down at the ground. “For not telling you why I really wanted to train you. And for all that crap I said about you ''belonging to me.'' Masterson was right, I really ''did'' ‘go native.’ I’d like to take it all back, if you’ll let me. And I’d like to ask…will you be my partner? My ''full'' partner, whether you decide you want to go into the Marshals or not.”

I couldn’t have been any more stunned if she’d thrown me through a couple of vans the way Tocsin did to Quinoa. She wanted to me to be her ''partner?'' Really? What could I even ''say'' to that? I mean, sure, it was definitely an upgrade from being a possession. But it also changed my entire outlook on things. If she was ''keeping'' me, it meant I didn’t have any responsibility for myself. She was taking care of me, the way she would have taken care of anything that ''belonged'' to her. But as her partner…we’d have to take care of each other. And it also meant…

I joined her in looking down at the ground. “I’m not worthy of being your partner. See…there’s a little something I haven’t ever told you, either.” I reached out and, for the first time, activated the superuser code I’d worked into her core. For just a moment, before I shut it down again, she ''knew'' with the certainty of a physical fact that the person who owned her, the person who had supreme control over every aspect of her being, was standing there across from her.

Tammy stood rooted to the spot—literally!—and then raised her head to stare at me. “You…when? ''How?''”

“Not long after we got to camp,” I said. “You’re kinda…quite a lot of patches behind. Um…I guess I might as well show you this now.” I opened my last year of memories to her—the time in which I’d exhaustively studied RIDEs and how to hack them. “So, you see…I’m not the kind of person you’d want for a partner either.”

“If you had that all this time, why didn’t you ever use it?” Tammy asked, confused. “We could have left camp, headed to Aloha where you wanted to be. You could have kept me as your own, and I’d have been delighted. Or you could even have sold me for money to live on. I ''kidnapped'' you. You didn’t have any obligation to me.”

“You didn’t kidnap me. ''I'' bodyjacked ''you,''” I said. “I even said so at the time. I just…after I got to know you a little, I figured you didn’t deserve that. I only kept it because, well…just in case.”

“All this time, I’ve been going on about ''you'' belonging to ''me,'' when it was really the other way around,” Tammy said wonderingly. “Maybe I should be asking you if I can be ''your'' partner.”

“It’s not like that!” I insisted. “I didn’t ''use'' it.”

“But you could have, at any time. But you didn’t.” She shook her head. “And I went on about how I ''owned'' you, invaded your mental space, tricked you into studying to be a Marshal…I should be ashamed.”

“You just messed with my body…well, mostly,” I said. “But I ''took control of your mind.'' Or at least made it so I could have.”

“But you didn’t,” Tammy repeated. She sighed. “You’re a better person than I am, girlie. If you ''had'' taken control, I’d have deserved it.”

“Well, that ends now,” I said. “I’m going to delete my privs, so there’s no danger of that ever again. You can keep me for good. It’s what I deserve.”

“No. Don’t delete them,” Tammy said. “I want you to keep that access. I want you to keep me honest. And I ''still'' want you to be my ''partner.'' I want someone I can trust at my back.”

I laughed bitterly. “Trust? Tammy, what did I just tell you I did?”

“And what ''forced'' you to tell me?” Tammy asked. “You could have kept quiet and I’d never have known. Jeanette, I trust you more now than I ever have. I would trust you with my life. In fact…if you won’t be my partner, then ''I'' want to belong to ''you.'' That’s what ''I'' deserve.”

And ''that'' made me really uncomfortable. A powerful lioness RIDE, big bad cat from AlphaWolf’s camp ''and'' veteran Silver Star Marshal, offering herself up to me on a silver platter? How could I ever be worthy of that? What could I even ''say'' to that? “Well…partners, then,” I said, only because I couldn’t remotely imagine ''me'' owning ''her.'' “If you insist.”

“I do insist…partner.” She offered her paw-hand, and I took it and shook it. And to my surprise, it felt like I suddenly had a great load lifted from my conscience. I wonder if she felt that way, too?

I took a deep breath. “Then I guess the first thing we need to do, ''partner,'' is get all those security holes patched over. I’m tired of living in a house with no locks on the doors.”

“I’ll trust you to handle that for me, ''partner,''” Tammy said. “I just got the all-call from Alpha. Time to beat feet back to the LZ. So why don’t you get me back up to spec while I run us there?”

“I nodded. “All right, works for me.” She blipped out of the VR. I summoned up a wooden crate representing my downloaded archive, took the lid off, and got to work. I had a lot of patching up to do.

=CHAPTER 5=

{{dropcap|T}}he upgrade process took longer than I expected, and occupied me pretty much all the way back to camp. I only surfaced once or twice along the way, to look out through Tammy’s eyes at all the RIDEs who’d gone out in feral form and were coming back human-shaped. She told me that Paul had been scooped up by none other than AlphaWolf himself and they were up front on the flight deck.

It was a little bit squicky to realize that most if not all of these RIDEs contained people who were being taken unwillingly away from their homes to begin a term of imprisonment inside someone else’s body. I sensed Tammy wasn’t entirely comfortable with it either, but on the other hand there ''were'' worse fates.

The one closest to us was a tigress named Linda, a sometime acquaintance of Tammy’s. In Fuser form, she turned out to be nearly as busty as Nora. “I see you got yourself some thumbs,” Tammy said.

“Uh-huh!” Linda replied. “Took her off a 20th floor balcony, and boy was she surprised!” She giggled. “Poor thing, she’s all upset right now. Well, that’ll change. I’ll take ''good'' care of her.” She purred almost loudly enough to hear through the rapidly thinning internal atmosphere. I mentally shook my head and dived back into my upgrades.

By the time I was finished, we’d already landed, and AlphaWolf had taken Paul off to the graveyard to fix his first RIDE. Tammy and half a dozen other curious RIDEs had tagged along to watch from a distance as Alpha and Paul went straight up to that immense metal wolf at the far end and began to work.

“Huh, looks like you’re not going to be the biggest gal on campus anymore,” I mused.

“Oh, just what we needed,” Tammy said wryly. “We’re all going to have to start carrying hardlight umbrellas to fend off rains of doggie slobber.” But for all of that I sensed an undercurrent of excitement and hope from my partner…which erupted into joy when the metal wolf, Fenris, got back to his paws and took his new partner on board—orally.

“What is it with you giant types and ''eating'' your partners to load them anyway?” I asked. “Seems kind of…Freudian.”

“You’re too Jung to understand,” Tammy retorted.

“Oh, ha ha,” I said. “Don’t make me put you in a Skinner Box.”

Tammy laughed. “Seriously, it’s just a convenience. When you need a front hatch and you’ve got a big hole available already, why reinvent the wheel?”

“Remind me never to use your ''rear'' hatch, then.”

The next few days were good ones in the camp, as Paul and Fenris proceeded to use the parts and stuff they’d brought with them to bring back as many defunct RIDEs as they could. You couldn’t throw a rock without hitting some RIDE who was overjoyed to be getting an old friend or lover (yes, RIDEs have nookie, too, though it’s not so important to them as it is to hormonal meat-minds) back—someone they’d been worrying about and mourning for months, sometimes even years. In all that happiness, it was easy to forget this was a camp full of bandits who ''caused'' these sorts of anguish in humans. It was easy to want to.

And speaking of causing anguish in humans, Paul had taken for his assistant that busty tiger-girl, Linda, and the human she had ‘jacked in Uplift. The girl happened to be named Linda, also, so the RIDE Linda had decreed that henceforth she would be known as LindaCat and the human would be LindaGirl to reduce confusion. And LindaGirl seemed to be going along.

She seemed to be going along with a lot of things, in fact. LindaCat was the sort of RIDE who believed in dominating her human, though not with coldness the way Tocsin did. She went the other way—out and out smothering LindaGirl with affection.

I heard them talking to each other sometimes, when we hung out near enough to watch Paul’s work so we could report on it to the Marshals. LindaCat would say, a lot more often than she needed to, how she was gonna keep LindaGirl inside indefinitely, and not even let her show her face out in the world again ‘til she felt like it. She thought of Fusing as being kind of like a full-body hug that didn’t ever have to end, and was enjoying hugging her human.

And LindaGirl, for her part, seemed to have come to enjoy the attention—her protests had gone from “Oh no please don’t” to “I wish you wouldn’t” and seemed well on the way to “Well, if you have to.” Was it rapid-onset Stockholm? Or just a buried submissive streak? (Yeah, I knew all about that kinda stuff. And I was as hormonal as the next teen, but I still didn’t see the appeal myself.) Whatever it was, they seemed happy enough together, so who was I to judge?

Paul didn’t just resurrect “dead” RIDEs, though; he also fixed problems with the ones still going around in full function. It was interesting to watch him have to deal with some of the humans who really didn’t want to be where they were. He was catching much the same attitudes people like Rose and I were getting for being happy with our own partners. That was part of why I stayed in Fuse with Tammy most of the time myself, to avoid dealing with all that crap.

Of course, Rose didn’t get it as bad as I did—at least from the people who swung her way. Given that she was one of the only sources of human nookie in the camp, anyone who wanted it had to swallow their resentment around her.

But she didn’t get everything her own way, either. I happened to be there the day Paul was working on Nora’s lower spine and Rose was hanging around outside, naked as an Alohan skindiver—which she was. It was all an act, of course. She ''could'' have gone and got her robe from the nook. But Paul was handsome, and new, and ''powerful,'' so she thought she’d throw herself at him.

“So are you doing anything later?” Rose cooed, leaning forward next to him to peer at where he was working.

“Fixin’ more RIDEs,” Paul mumbled, blushing and averting his eyes.

“I mean ''other'' than that, silly!” Rose giggled. “I’ve got a little place near here where we could go for a little privacy. I even have some booze, though it’s nothing like what you can get in Aloha…or Uplift, I guess.”

“Thanks, but I’m ‘fraid I’m taken, miss,” Paul said. “I’m a one-gal kinda guy.”

“Awww, she wouldn’t hafta know!” Rose wheedled.

“Sorry, miss, but ''I’d'' know. I ‘preciate the offer, an’ if I hadn’t met this gal I know I’d go for it in a heartbeat, but thanks but no thanks.”

“Hmph.” Rose flounced off in our direction, inasmuch as one can flounce when they’re nekkid, and passed right by where Tammy and I were waiting. We both shared a private chuckle in VR. Really, when you compared Rose to a girl who would attack ''Tocsin'' in a light RIDE with a couple of pulse pop-guns, it wasn’t surprising she came up a little short.

Another nice thing about Paul being there was it seemed that a lot of RIDEs were suddenly starting to treat their own humans a little nicer. Apparently having a positive example of a human around who was actually ''nice'' to RIDES and helped them even when he didn’t agree with them was starting to show the holes in the positions of a lot of extreme human-haters. Even Tocsin seemed to be treating Joseph a little better when you got right down to it.

It wasn’t all good news around the camp, though. One thing I found out later is that we came back three RIDEs short—one of the Integrates from Zane’s band had nabbed them as they attacked his conference. AlphaWolf was pretty bummed about that. What was going to happen to them? Would they be wiped and sold, or worse—Integrated?

But Tammy was getting reports over the secret Marshal comm that suggested their fate would be kinder than that—so we knew even before Alpha did that they were to be released thanks to Zane, Rhianna, and Rochelle. And that they had witnessed, of all things, a ''citizenship ceremony'' for Katie, that courageous lynx who’d destroyed her old body taking down Tocsin. Turned out there ''had been'' a shiny new DE in the offing for her core after all.

“Citizenship for a RIDE,” Tammy mused after we got the report. “I never thought I’d live to see that.”

“It’s still just the one, though,” I pointed out. “And isn’t it kind of insulting to be ''awarded'' what you ought to have had in the first place?”

“It’s a beginning,” Tammy said. “Every avalanche has to start with a pebble or two.”

So, knowing what they had to tell him, and that Paul had to have been telling him much the same thing over the last few days, it wasn’t too surprising that the first thing Alpha did when he got back with the returnees was to announce he’d made a big mistake ever listening to Overwatch about what Zane was doing. It was an understandable mistake, I thought, but Alfie didn’t feel that way, and he wanted to do whatever he could to make it right.

“I’m going to ask for volunteers who want to help undo some of the harm we did…even if it means risking their freedom by returning to Uplift,” AlphaWolf said. “See me in a couple hours if you want to help. Also…we’re going to return anyone we bodyjacked on that raid, or at least give them the choice of returning to Uplift or staying with us. If you bodyjacked someone but don’t want to volunteer to take him back, see me and we’ll swap him to someone else for the trip.” Needless to say, Tammy and I volunteered right away, but that was after the speech.

Alfie also shared recordings of the award ceremony for Katie the lynx RIDE, which was pretty earthshattering in itself. When you considered how many of the RIDEs here had left their polities because they knew they could never ''ever'' have the same rights and privileges that humans did…and here was one finally ''getting'' them.

The irony wasn’t lost on them that she was only getting it because she’d fought so hard to fend off ''AlphaWolf’s'' attack, either. Even in just the day or so before we left for Uplift, there was already some buzz starting among some of the more starry-eyed that it might be the right time to return home and try to work to reform the system from within. “Yeah, good luck with ''that,''” Tammy muttered to me in VR. “Though y’never know. I’ll pass the word to the Marshals and maybe we could see ‘bout recruiting some of them. Their experience out here might come in handy.”

“You’d even ''recruit'' from here?” I asked. “Bunch a’ lawless bandit RIDEs and all?”

“They’re only lawless bandits because the laws weren’t made for them,” Tammy said. “And you already ''know'' from training that the Marshals are one of the biggest forces for RIDE rights on all of Zharus. If these guys really wanna work for RIDE rights, we got the resources to help.”

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So anyway, the next day we all climbed aboard that rickety old shuttle again—including Paul, Fenris, and the Lindas. And Tocsin and Joseph, who wasn’t letting Tocsin leave him behind this time. Given that Tocsin had been the one who had destroyed the garage so thoroughly, Joseph was concerned for him and wanted to be there to share whatever his fate was. I still don’t know exactly what Tocsin’s reaction was, but he did end up taking the human along when he could easily have left him behind.

We shot skyward and came downward, infiltrated Uplift again—apparently they hadn’t found our old entry point in the caves yet, or if they had they’d left it alone for some reason—and hid ourselves near the remains of the garage while Fenris and Paul went out to meet Rhianna and Rochelle near a truck containing a bunch of parts and equipment Paul had sent ahead for. It was a touching reunion, and furthermore Rhianna and Rochelle seemed fascinated by Fenris.

“You know, if they’ll moon over a big dog so much, you should go out there and show ‘em our almost-as-big bad kitty self,” I prodded Tammy. “We already know from their own RIDEs that they’re mainly cat people.”

“Hmph,” Tammy said. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m not gonna share the spotlight with a Sturmie slobber generator.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever ''seen'' him actually drool, you know,” I pointed out.

“That’s even worse. He’s a phony, concealing his true nature,” Tammy sniffed.

I rolled my virtual eyes. “Taaaaaaammy…”

“Anyway, as a Quantum Marshal my job is to stay in the background and observe,” Tammy said.

I sighed. “Guess that means I can’t go geek out with Rochelle, then. Pity.”

“We gotta give up a few things when we maintain a cover,” Tammy said philosophically. “So c’mon, let’s get with the rebuilding.”

We did happen to see Tocsin approach Rhianna and Rochelle to deliver AlphaWolf’s and his own apologies. We were a little nervous when we saw their RIDEs’ ears go back like they were getting a mad on, but they fought it down and were actually fairly civil to him. It relieved all of us, not least of all Joseph who actually got to take control of their Fuser form long enough to turn back and tell them, “Thank you for not killing him. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

So we gathered up and put our backs into clearing out the debris and rubble left over from the destruction of the garage. Luckily most of it was just light sheet metal left over from the modular pre-fab buildings that made up most of the garage. The super-strong lightweight alloy was almost light enough for humans to lift unassisted.

The hardest part of it all was disentangling or cutting pieces from from where they’d gotten knotted together into wads and clumps too big for the trucks to haul away for recycling. Sometimes we basically had to take apart an entire building-sized mass of crumpled metal. It really was going to be an all-day job, even with all of us working at it. But we didn’t mind.

Or at least, Tammy wasn’t troubled by the physical labor, and I was happy about the ability to link up to the ‘net while she was doing it and surf to my heart’s content. (I’d been a little hesitant about it, given that Tammy was having to do all the work, until she told me that since I couldn’t contribute to the physical labor apart from unlocking her thumbs ''anyway'', I might as well enjoy myself.)

But then around noon I was brought out of my ‘net fugue by Tammy muttering, “Now what the ''hell?''” I dropped back into the real world in time to see the horse and wolf Fusers working at one end of the clearing suddenly freeze up and disgorge their humans—neither of whom looked quite right. They both showed the signs of extended Fuse—but the horse in particular looked especially…''deformed.'' His head was all wrong. It was a horse’s head, and with that narrow brainpan there was no room for anything except an animal mind.

As we stared, two Integrates faded into being next to them—a tiger kneeling by the wolf, and a melanistic jaguar crouching by the horse.

“Integrates!” Tammy hissed. “What have they—” She started forward, but I held us back.

“Tammy, wait!” I said. “That’s Zane Brubeck and Carrie-Anne. Remember, from the files?”

She growled angrily at me in our VR. “So? Look what they did!” I felt her anger, her smoldering ''rage'' at ''all'' Integrates shining through more clearly than ever before. It scared me, and I began to fear I might actually have to take superuser privileges again just to keep her from doing something rash.

“Tammy, ''calm down.'' They ''didn’t'' do that. There’s no way they could have, in just a few seconds,” I pointed out. “That kind of extreme change takes minutes at least for even the fastest Fuser nanos.”

She tried to hold onto her anger, but she knew I was right about the speed-of-change issue when she thought about it. “Then what—”

“I have a nasty suspicion,” I said, as Paul, Rhianna, and Rochelle went over to join the Integrates. My memory had been jogged by reading those files a few days ago, and I quickly pulled up the comm and sensor logs from the last few hours, grepping through them for any telltale traces. “Aw, crap, I’m right. It’s Amontillado.”

“The trojan that made that cat Uncia turn Roger into Rochelle?” Tammy asked.

“Yeah. I’d run across it a few times when I was studying you guys. Rumor has it that AlphaWolf made it as a way to trick people into joining his camp.” I shook my head. “Damn. I should have thought to look at other RIDEs ''in'' the camp, since we got back from Uplift last time. If there’s these two in just a dozen of us, there must be more. Maybe a ''lot'' more.”

The rest of the RIDEs from Alpha’s camp had stopped what they were doing and watched now as the drama before us played out. The horse RIDE tried to wipe his own core in remorse, but Zane stopped him.

LindaCat felt her own brand of remorse and finally de-Fused from LindaGirl. The girl turned out to have a few more furry features than usual, though nothing on the order of the wolf or the horse. But even as LindaCat apologized and said she was letting LindaGirl go, LindaGirl insisted she wanted LindaCat to stay here ''with'' her and continue owning her. I wasn’t sure whether to “Awww” or shudder.

Then as sirens warned of the approach of the ambulances that had been called for the human Amontillado victims, the rest of us found places to hide until they’d gone. It was going to be hard enough explaining the two RIDEs who’d been infected, let alone a dozen or so others. As we ducked for cover, I shivered. “That could have been us, you know. If I hadn’t patched your security…”

“I know,” Tammy said. “It’s giving me cold shivers down my spine just thinking about it. Thanks.”

We watched the ambulances take the humans on board, and Rhianna and Rochelle load the RIDEs up onto a skimmer. They were taking the RIDEs to Rochelle’s house to do some emergency cyber-surgery on the cores to clean up the last of the Amontillado infection’s aftereffects and try to remove any suicidal tendancies on the part of the RIDEs. I wished them luck, and wished we dared follow to watch. But we needed to keep clearing the lot along with the rest of the crew.

The jaguar Integrate, Carrie-Anne, had stayed behind to keep an eye on things while we worked, and every time Tammy looked at her she had another one of those surges of anger. After the third or fourth time, I put my ‘net windows aside and sighed, summoning her avatar back to our shared VR space again. “Tammy, we need to talk. What did Integrates do to you that makes you get so mad when you see even one of the ''good'' guy ones?”

“There ''aren’t'' any…” Tammy growled, then shook her head. “No. You’re right. There ''are'' Inties who are on our side, and hating on them is just as bad as someone like Tocsin who hates ''all'' humans because of what his did to him. It’s just…every time I see one, it reminds me…”

“Yes?” I said.

She looked down. “It was…a long time back.” She produced a virtual image of a smiling, attractive dark-skinned woman wearing dark slacks, a red leather jacket, and a Silver Star Marshals badge, with an afro hairstyole right out of the 1970s. “Denise Shafters—she was my first, only partner. I was her first RIDE. She was…the one who named me Tamarind, because it was evocative of Africa where both of our genes were from. We rose through ranks in the Nextus army, she mustered out at Sergeant and took me with her when she went and joined up with the Marshals.”

I nodded. “She looks like a pleasant person.”

“She was…” Tammy said. “I’ll share my memories from back then with you sometime. But…back about eight years ago, we were at the Marshals station in Califia after fighting some bandits nearby in the Dry. I’d been busted up real bad in the fight and was stuck in the maint bays, and she went out to have some lunch at an open-air Fuser cafe in their RIDE sales district.”

Tammy shook her head. “She had the bad luck to be around when one of the waiters kicked into Integration right then and there. He went a little crazy with the changes in his body, started shooting stuff up with the pulse guns he still had built in. But Denise knew what was happening, a’ course. She stepped right up and tried to calm him down while everyone else was fleeing.”

Tammy paused and took a deep breath. “She did it, too. He was just starting to listen to her when some of Fritz’s Snatchers showed up.” Tammy spat on the virtual ground. “Bastards. They couldn’t just leave Denise around knowing about them, so they grabbed a random RIDE off the closest lot—hyena, as it turned out—and force-Integrated them, then took them both away.”

“Oh, no…” I said.

“She was ''my'' partner!” Tammy sobbed. “I loved her! If she was going to be Integrated with anyone, it should have been ''me!'' I would have given my ''life'' for her…and now she’s lost to me forever. Merged up with a fricking ''hyena'' she didn’t even ''know.''”

I put my hand on her shoulder, then decided that wasn’t enough and drew her into a hug. “I’m so sorry,” I told her.

She hugged me back. “I know. Thank you.” She got her breathing under control a moment later.

“Did…do you know what happened to her after that?” I asked hesitantly.

“She—DeniFaye—was able to escape the Enclave a few months later, came back and rejoined the Marshals as a Quantum. They had me try working with her for a while, but…it was no good.” She shook her head. “She was like a stranger. There was too much of someone else in there. Every so often there’d be a flash that was like the old Denise, but…really that just made it worse. It was just no good. She saw it as much as I did. And I didn’t really want another human partner after that anyway. So I took the post in Alfie’s camp.”

“And then I came along and ''made myself into'' your partner,” I said. “Sorry about that.”

Tammy shook her head. “No, you’re good. You were just what I needed. Someone to kick me in the ass and get me out of neutral and back into living in the world again.” She sighed. “Anyway, that’s why I hate all Integrates. Some of them took her from me with what they did…and ''she'' took her from me from what she ''became.'' Every time I look at them, I’m reminded…”

I gave her another squeeze. “I know. I ''know,''” I said. “They did an awful thing. You’ve got every right to hate them.” I shook my head. “But you need to focus that hate. You ''know'' Fritz is the one behind all that crap. You know not every or even ''most'' Inties agree with him. Can you maybe just try to hate only the ''right'' ones? Hating all of ‘em just gets in the way.”

Tammy sighed. “I’ll try. Rationally, I know you’re right. Emotionally…that’s harder. But…I ''will'' try.”

As we let go and stepped out of the hug, another thought occurred to me. “Did you ever find out who it was that…did it?”

Tammy nodded grimly. “Yeah. And if I ever see him again, that bastard won’t even know what hit him.”

I shuddered. “Right. Um…well anyway, I guess we’d better get back to work. While you shove rubble, I’m going to download everything I can find on Amontillado. I expect Paul and Fenris are probably going to do everything they can to find other infected when we get back, but no reason we shouldn’t do a little checking of our own. We ''are'' Quantum Marshals, after all.”

Tammy managed a small grin. “That we are, pard. And thanks.” She turned to go, then turned back. “I just want to say…I never realized how lucky I was that you ‘bodyjacked’ me that day. Thanks for hearing an old cat out.”

I waved a hand dismissively. “Hey. That’s what partners are for. Now g’wan…we’ve both got work to do.” As she faded out of the VR, I pulled up more display panels and got down to it.

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Over the rest of the afternoon, with the exception of a brief period where they took off for some desert driving with the Lindas and Fenris, Rhianna and Rochelle would pull one of us off clean-up duty for servicing and repairs, using a battered old maint cradle they’d somehow managed to salvage from the wreckage. Tammy was actually in peak condition—when she needed service she’d slip out of camp to meet a detachment of Chromiums, the Marshals’ RIDE maint division—so we just arranged to be elsewhere when they came to fetch someone else.

Fenris was moving a lot better by the end of the afternoon, and there was something going on with him and Guinevere, the ocelot RIDE of Lillibet Walton who’d shown up shortly after we-all had gotten there. Whatever it was, it seemed to be doing well by him, and we were glad for it. Tammy had told me something of Fenny’s story and it was a pretty sad one. Of all RIDEs, he deserved good thing happening.

As it turned out when it was time to go, we lost about a third of the RIDEs we came with, including LindaCat—inspired by the Katie thing I guess, they all decided to stick around and give the polity life another try. Of those who didn’t stay, about half of them had their humans choose to return to camp with them.

“What, are they nuts?” I muttered. “Taken back home, dropped right on the doorstep, and they want to go back to prison again?”

“I could ask the same about you, pard,” Tammy pointed out. “As I said, ''you'' could have taken me right on to Aloha as soon as you hacked into me at camp.”

“Yeah, well, that’s different,” I mumbled.

“Might be different for them, too,” Tammy pointed out. “After all, we don’t know their stories. Maybe they don’t feel like they’ve got anything waiting for them back home.”

“Okay, point,” I admitted.

The rest of them left their humans behind, and Carrie-Anne took care of them while waiting for more ambulances to arrive. Then we all said our goodbyes and jetted—not without a few wistful looks from me back toward Rochelle. One of my hacker heroes, in the flesh, and I didn’t even get to say hi to her!

“There’ll be other times for that,” Tammy said consolingly. “For now…let’s go. The sub’s waiting.” So we turned our back on the cleared-out rubble and hit the road homeward.

=CHAPTER 6=

{{dropcap|T}}he flight back to camp started out a little uncomfortable. The formerly-infected horse and wolf huddled together in the back of the cargo bay like pariahs as the rest of us, excepting Fenris who also could only fit in the bay, stayed as far away from them as we could. When I suddenly realized what we were all doing, I felt sick. These RIDEs—these ''people''—had just been through one hell of a shock, and here we were turning our backs on them like we might catch something. I didn’t even know their ''names.'' Staying in the background be damned. I prompted Tammy for the reins and walked us on over to them.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m Jeanette, and Tammy. Who are you guys?”

“Phaeton,” said the horse.

“Minsi,” the wolf replied.

“Nice to meet you two.” I paused. “I guess asking if you guys are okay would be kinda pointless.”

Phaeton snorted. “You got that right.”

“We’ve been…much better,” Minsi agreed.

“But you have also been much worse,” Fenris boomed from next to them.

Phaeton nodded. “We are…relieved to be free of it. But…deeply disturbed by what we did. I can’t remember…I think they did it as a mercy…I’m told I tried to wipe myself. They told me it wasn’t my fault, but…”

“That Amontillado…it’s a violation,” Minsi growled. “You never even know you’re being violated. You just feel…full. ''Whole,'' without needing to have some pesky human nattering at you from the inside. After a while you just…forget the human altogether.”

“Maybe that’s what being human feels like,” the horse mused. “Being ''whole'' all the time, even with nothing inside.”

“But it’s a lie,” the wolf said bitterly. “An illusion. All the while it’s corrupting you…and sickening your partner.”

“Y’shouldn’t go blaming yourselves,” Paul said from inside the giant wolf. “You weren’t in control. ''You'' didn’t do it.”

“It’s easy for you to say that,” Phaeton said. “But we ''remember doing it.'' Some of it, anyway.” He sighed. “So now we’re going back to camp to help see that it ''stops.'' No one else should ever have to go through this. But after that…I don’t know.” He snorted a long equine sigh. “I no longer want to wipe my own core out of hand…but I don’t know what I’ll do with myself after this. I want a fresh start…of some kind.” Minsi nodded her agreement.

“I might…know some people who can help,” Tammy said. She sent over a comm code for one of her Marshals undercover contacts. “Talk to them. Tell them Tammy sent you. Maybe they can do something.”

Phaeton nodded. “Thank you. I guess we might as well.”

“Things can’t get worse,” Minsi said. “So they have to get better, right?”

“We can most certainly hope,” Fenris agreed.

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When we got back, predictably AlphaWolf was livid. Didn’t half blame the poor guy. Finding out he’d been used ''twice in a row'' had to be troubling for anyone, but not least of all to the guy who was supposed to be the Glittering Beacon of Freedom to all RIDEkind.

“Not so much a surprise, though, when you get right down to it,” Tammy said. “You get popular, everyone wants to run a scam on you. Doesn’t help matters that sometimes ol’ Alfie really isn’t very bright.”

“How does he even stay in charge?” I wondered. “He doesn’t exactly seem like the sharpest tool in the shed.”

To my surprise, Tammy relented and came to his defense. “I wouldn’t ‘zackly ''underestimate'' him, either,” Tammy said. “You know who else isn’t the sharpest tool?” She nodded across the central clearing of the camp at Tocsin, who was standing in Walker form with his hardlight feathers fluffed out and a goofy expression on his beak as Joseph scratched among them with both hands.

I remembered how effectively Tocsin had utterly shredded the Freeriders Garage. (How could I not, given that we’d just spent all day cleaning up the mess?) “Okay, point taken.”

“Besides, even I have to admit that at least ''some'' of it is just an act,” Tammy said. “Like that whole ‘so sayeth me’ routine. Came from a really silly docudrama that didn’t take Alpha seriously at all. Bunch of damn fool anti-RIDE-rights conservatives trying to turn him into the RIDE equivalent of a blackface minstrel. But instead of getting mad, he just about laughed his silly head off and started doing the utter best he could to live ''down'' to the rep. Said he figured if he had the support of the media in getting his enemies to underestimate him, who was he to spit on their help?”

She shook our head. “Problem is, I think sometimes even ''he'' forgets it’s just an act. But even so…think about it. Even RIDEs as bad-ass as Tocsin here ''don’t'' try to unseat him. Gotta be a reason for that, right?”

“Huh.” I thought about that for a long moment, comparing what I’d seen of AlphaWolf with what she’d said. I still couldn’t quite see it, but she’d been around here a hell of a lot longer than I had, so I had to give her the benefit of the doubt. “Well…anyway, now we’re back I’d like to get started sniffing around for infections.”

She nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Let’s start scanning.” We headed out to start making some surreptitious circuits of the camp.

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It only took a little sniffing to find them. There were about ten of them, all sort of hanging out together working in one of the agri-fields at the south end of the dome. Humans didn’t tend to come down here alone—thanks to the tireless machine precision of RIDEs, they weren’t needed for any field work, unless you counted unlocking a RIDE’s Fuser form, and it was always a concern that some might filch more than their share of the crops. Not all that many RIDEs apart from the farm workers bothered with the place either. So this was a reasonable spot to hide if you didn’t want to be seen much.

“Would you look at them?” Tammy said was we watched them from stealth a few hundred meters away. “They’re just…like zombies.”

“I’ll bet they act natural enough when someone comes near,” I said. “Still…seeing them all together like this…that can’t be a coincidence. Something—or ''someone''—must be controlling them. God…a ''literal'' ‘botnet’!”

As we watched, we noticed something odd. Every fifteen minutes or so, one of this mini-pack would slip away and head outside the dome. It would return a few minutes later.

“Wonder where they’re all going?” Tammy mused. “Check in with someone out there to make sure the infection’s going well? Maybe if we follow one he’ll lead us to his master.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Not sure I’d want to do that alone, though. I got a suspicion whoever it is must be a real nasty customer.”

“Well, yeah? So are we. We’re ''Quantum Marshals!''” Tammy said.

“I dunno…”

“Look, even if we don’t confront whoever it is, if we get one alone you could maybe hack their systems and find out more about who’s behind it, right?” Tammy asked.

“Well, yeah, I guess so…” I’d made good and sure I had the very latest anti-Amontillado-ware before we left Uplift. But I was still more than a little nervous about it.

“Then let’s do it,” Tammy decided for us. We stood up in Fuser form, set for maximum stealth, and slipped off after a horse Fuser who was ambling out of the dome toward a cluster of stone columns not far away.

“I still say we should have called for backup,” I muttered as we slipped between a pair of stone columns.

“Stop worrying, we’ll be fi—”

Tammy’s words cut off as agonizing pain abruptly filled her entire being—and through hers, mine. Then everything went black for both of us. But for some reason, I could still ''hear,'' at least for a little while. And what I heard was metallic footsteps crunching the sandy gravel of the Dry as a pair of RIDEs approached. “Well well well, what ''have'' we here!” a female voice purred. Literally—she had to be some kind of cat.

“Saw them snooping around back in the dome,” another female voice said in more subservient tones. “Arranged for the subjects to start coming out here one by one to try to draw them out.”

“Verrrry good, my dear. It worked a treat,” the first speaker continued.

“I think we may have been rumbled,” the second voice said. “No one’s seen Phaeton or Minsi since they got back from Uplift, and they haven’t checked in.”

“Mmm. I’m not so sure. Not yet. This one seemed to be working alone. If it were an investigation, there should have been more. Perhaps we can look at her memories to be certain, once she’s been…softened up a little.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. But I couldn’t move, could barely even breathe. Tammy’s systems were all down or on emergency power.

“What you have in mind?” asked the other voice.

“I have a…delightful new strain I wanted to test, and I can’t think of a better subject. She’s even canned her own meat.” Her playful little giggle sent a shiver down my spine. Was this the ''author'' of Amontillado? And we were at ''her'' tender mercy? Oh…crap.

“Mmm, ''very'' good security on this one,” the RIDE purred. For a moment I felt a surge of hope. “Of course, security can always be bypassed when you have direct physical access to the hardware,” she added, and my heart sank. I heard metal tearing as a claw sank into Tammy’s side…then everything went away.

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I woke up within a metal cube, four meters on a side. It had no entrances, exits, or windows, and no obvious light source, but was nonetheless bright enough to see in. My implants told me this was VR—a little unnecessarily, given that it would be hard to explain how I could end up in a room like this on the outside. Either way, it was pretty clear why I was here: I had been casked.

“Tammy?!” I yelled. “Tammy, are you out there?” Pretty uselessly, of course. With the trojan in place, she couldn’t hear me if she wanted to.

I sighed. When Tammy didn’t report in to the Marshals, sooner or later someone would come looking for her—but who knew when that would be, or what state we’d be in by the time they got here?

No, it looked like the only way out of this was going to lie with me. I took a deep breath, let it out. I would need to get on it ASAP. I didn’t know what way the time compression was running in here. Minutes here could be seconds in the real world, but they might also be hours.

So I reached out to take up my superuser access to Tammy…and couldn’t get there. This cage I was in blocked me from reaching any of the rest of her systems—which I would have to do to get root. I sighed. Looked like I’d have to escape the old-fashioned way.

Rochelle had posted on the hacker forums a full account of Roger’s escape from Uncia, and I’d read it repeatedly. He’d used an Easter Egg he hid in FreeRIDE—a complete, fully functional installation of the archaic Linux operating system—then hand-coded an escape utility. I, at least, could skip the hand-coding part—unlike Roger and his silly little “thumb drive” (a memory chip implanted in his ''thumb''), I had implants in my head and plenty of computing power behind them. And since I’d used a custom-tweaked version of FreeRIDE to hack Tammy’s root, the egg should still be there for me, too.

I cleared my throat and sang the trigger phrase—the twencen song lyric “The mountain is high / The valley is low / And you’re confused / On which way to go.” The terminal and keyboard appeared, floating in the air before me.

Then, ten seconds later, it vanished again. “…the hell?” I sang the lyrics again. The terminal appeared once more…and again disappeared after ten seconds. I facepalmed. Oh, ''right.'' Amontillado’s ''creator'' might have been reading the same hacker boards. So when the new version detected the terminal, it would snuff it out. But apparently either it wasn’t so good at noticing it right away, or it just wanted to taunt the captured victim by giving him hope and taking it away again.

Still, that might just give ''me'' a loophole. Ten seconds wouldn’t be enough for a normal person to do anything…but a normal person didn’t have my implants.

I turned my attention inward, loading up my own Linux emu in my implants and getting the code cracker ready to run. Once I turned it loose, I shouldn’t need the terminal to stay open—it could run as a background process. And if I could get the ssh daemon launched in time, I could then copy the program over and run it before the session closed.

It took me several tries and a lot of frustration to get it working. The program was just slightly too long to copy in the time I had. But I discovered that any files I copied in one session persisted to the next, so I was able to split it into modules and copy them all over one at a time.

Finally, I was ready. I had the program ready to go. I had my anti-virus tools prepped and ready, in the virtual form of a kevlar body armor suit, plus various guns, knives, and other weapons. And I had one ''hell'' of an Edgar Winter Group earworm from all those terminal calls.

I sang the lines one more time, finally ran the program—and because it felt right, continued singing as the portal appeared and sucked me in.

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''The mountain is high, the valley is low''

''And you're confused ‘bout which way to go''

''So I flew here to give you a hand''

''And lead you into the promised land''

{{separator|k}}

''So, come on and take a free ride (free ride)''

''Come on and take it by my side''

''Come on and take a free ride…''

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But I didn’t feel much like singing after I emerged in our VR clearing. Unlike normal days, now it was dark and cold. The trees had lost their leaves and everything was in a monochrome winter. I shivered. Even though you couldn’t really feel ambient temperature in VR, it still ''seemed'' frigid. And spooky.

I was able to take up my superuser access once I got here—for all the good it did me. As I sought to expel Amontillado from Tammy, I found that it had started writing itself into her RI core. I couldn’t just kill the process and get rid of it, any more than it could reimprison me or dump me from the VR thanks to my own root privs. I was going to have to go clean it out the old-fashioned way, too.

And that meant what I sought wouldn’t be found here.

I turned from the clearing and picked my way through a trail leading deeper into the jungle. I’d never come this way before because I hadn’t been invited, but I knew where it led—and where I had to go. This was the route to Tamarind’s innermost self—her personality core. That was where Amontillado always did its dirtiest work.

As I walked through the trail, the undergrowth grew ever thicker and thorny vines did their best to scratch and entangle me. I hacked away at them with a machete. They weren’t a serious impediment, though. Whether it was Amontillado’s will or Tammy’s under its command that was animating them, most of their attention was on each other within the core.

Finally I broke through the last of the barriers and found my way into a vast jungle clearing. At the center, a pyramid-like temple reared up into the sky. I made my way up the steeply-angled steps into the dark entrance at the crest.

Within was a great chamber of stone, lit with flickering torches. Statues of dark-skinned warrior women in Egyptian armor ringed the walls. Or…were they statues? They seemed to be moving, fighting, struggling. At the center of the room was a raised dais on which rested a majestic statue of a lioness—only it wasn’t quite a statue either.

The whole place was under attack by an immense black tigress with blood-red stripes. Her body seemed to be made of some viscous tar-like substance, as ropes of it bound most of the statues to the wall—some of which were still attached to her body. The bulk of her, however, was straddling and oozing down over the lioness, who roared and struggled ineffectually.

One last statue-woman fought by her side—and as she raised her head and her sword I realized her face was that of Tammy’s old partner, Denise Shafters—and so were those of all the other statues. “Wow, I am ''so'' gonna tease her about that, when this is all over,” I muttered.

The tigress whipped her head around, stared at me, and growled, and another thick rope of that tarry substance shot from her hide. I dodged just in time, and even then some of it stuck to me as it passed. I felt it burning even through the armor and hastily brushed it off.

I returned fire—literally—with a flamethrower, burning through the goop stretching out to several of the statues. I turned the weapon on the tigress, next—it wasn’t as if she could dodge. But she deflected most of the flames with an invisible shield instead, roaring her displeasure, as the statues pulled free of her snares and approached her.

I ducked around them to the lioness’s head. “Tammy? Can you hear me? C’mon, you gotta fight it!” But she just stared blankly at me. The trojan must already have been taking most of her processing power. The tigress roared at me again, and whipped out more ropes in my direction. Again I dodged by the skin of my teeth.

“All right, if that’s how you want it,” I growled, whipping out a sword and severing more of the ropes of goo off. I began priming my biggest anti-viral weapon—the practical equivalent of a briefcase nuke that needed to be customized to its target, rather than the lesser attacks that worked on anything I had been using.

It turned out that the concentration necessary for this might have been a mistake—because the third time the tigress attacked me, the first ropes were a feint, and I dodged right into the path of the third one, which pierced right through the middle of my chest.

Now, the good news is, this wasn’t a Matrix like scenario, where if you get stabbed in the chest you develop a sucking wound in real life. But the bad news is, it meant she stabbed right past my cyber-defenses—and suddenly my body was out of my control. I looked down to find my hands and feet were expanding into paws. My body exploded out of the kevlar armor as it grew into the shape of a lioness not unlike the one on the pedestal. And it was getting really…hard…to…think…

''Click!'' And everything was sharp-edged and crystal-clear again as my implants once more took over. They had their own internal cyber-defenses that put most RIDEs’ to shame, and while I could feel Amontillado’s claws scrabbling for purchase, she couldn’t get in there.

But in stabbing a hole through my defenses, she’d also opened a pathway, a ''conduit'' right through her own. My cyber-briefcase-nuke went PING! and I fired it—right up through the tentacle she’d just stabbed through me. The black slime glowed white, and before she could drop the line herself, so did the tigress. There was a sizzling sound, and the overwhelming smell of burnt fur, then everything went white.

=CHAPTER 7=

{{dropcap|I}} woke up from a weird dream in which I was a Walker-shaped lioness being manhandled up onto an empty stone dais in the middle of a temple by a dozen Egyptian warrior-women statues. My belly felt bloated…as if I was pregnant, something squirming and kicking inside of me.

The women latched my paws into place on the dais, one by one, and I couldn’t pull them away. As I writhed, they stroked my fur until I calmed down…and then my body slowly stiffened into stone. Just before it reached my head, the statue-woman in front of me leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Take care of her…”

To say I was ''disoriented'' when I awoke would be a vast understatement. I was made of stone and could only move at my joints…I couldn’t breathe. No…wait, it wasn’t stone but metal…and I didn’t ''need'' to breathe. Well…sort of. It was like I was breathing anyway, but something else was doing it for me.

I opened my eyes—optic sensors—and all became clear. Sort of. I was looking out through Tammy’s eyes, feeling her body with an intensity I never had before. I wasn’t just wearing it—I was ''being'' it. I’d tried it out before, of course, but that had been with Tammy interfacing between me and it. Now Tammy’s core was in passive—I could sense that, don’t ask me how, but she had some major fragmentation from the Amontillado attack and she couldn’t even wake up just yet without some major defragging. A big chunk of my implants’ system resources were being dedicated entirely to helping fix her while the rest of them ran me. (No wonder I’d dreamed I was pregnant. I kind of had Tammy inside me being worked on.) So ''I'' was running the show—''completely'' running it.

Most times, people who rocked passive mode RIDEs had implants to deal with it, or let the RI core’s autonomic layer handle all that, or both—but Tammy’s autonomic layer was busy running an emergency defrag on her, and I ''was'' my implants—which meant that I was getting reams of information from the DE shell I had no idea how to deal with flowing into the place where I was thinking and getting all mixed up together.

The worst of it was all the sensory impressions. You gotta understand, when people Fuse with RIDEs, or run them in passive, they’re not really getting a ''full'' sensory feed of everything the RI would be feeling. The core’s lower layers and/or their implants run most of that stuff on automatic, which is why Passive is great for survival suits, working, and not crossriding, but lousy for fighting in.

The stuff those humans do get is automatically mapped to senses they do understand that are “close enough” to the stuff they don’t. Myomer “muscle” actuators are obvious, ditto hardlight “skin”. Coolant pumps might feel like your heart, air circ your lungs, power feed your tummy. That’s also why you gotta grow ears and a tail no matter how you run your RIDE, otherwise there’s not anything to map that sensory crap to. You don’t gotta grow opposite sex organs if you stay passive ‘cuz we’ve all got the neural structures to handle those even if we don’t use ‘em.

My problem was that ''I'' was getting ''everything,'' including the stuff humans didn’t have. My implants didn’t have the neural structure problem; they could take any data feed. The problem was assigning it values my copied-over consciousness could understand. Without some kind of template I could use to make sense of it all, it ended up shunted into random sensory registers—various locations on my body started doing things that made no rhyme or reason. My left big toe was spinning around and around as a turbine in my air pumping system. My right kidney was ''beating'' to pump lubricant. My guts were variously contracting and expanding as the lifters all over my body ran their self-test cycles. I felt all twisted up inside—''literally.'' I couldn’t exist like this! I started to panic—

—and then it was as if my implants were running on instincts I didn’t have any way to understand. They reached down into Tammy’s core, located her own sensory template, and copied it into me—and suddenly everything fell into place.

I ''was'' the RIDE. I was feeling it. I felt everything exactly where it was supposed to be, doing what it was supposed to do. I had coolant pumps and air circulation and power systems—but they didn’t feel like a heart or lungs or stomach exactly, except maybe in certain broad form-follows-function kinds of ways. They felt like coolant pumps and air circulation and power systems. And my lifters felt like lifters, and my hardlight projectors felt like hardlight projectors, and so on.

I can’t really put how it felt into words that convey anything like a real sense of how it really was. Your imagination is filling ''something'' in while you read this, but trust me, it’s nothing like you ''can'' imagine. When I’m in my meat mind, I can’t even remember how it felt. We humans don’t have the neural structures—the “meat template” if you will—to make sense of them. My RI memories have to go through an edit pass before downloading into the ol’ grey matter, to give them the equivalency of what I’d have gotten if I were just Fusing in because I couldn’t make sense of anything else. It’s really kind of crazy.

Anyway, as everything clicked into place, I realized why I felt so constricted—Tammy’s hardlight projectors were offline. As they powered up, my body seemed to expand into feeling like a true, if immense, lioness. I felt ''real'' again.

Well…sort of. My skin, muscles, and so on felt real—very similar to how my human skin and muscles felt, except for having fur on top and being in a different shape right now. I felt like I was breathing and everything (though not quite breathing ''with lungs'').

But I felt all this ''extra'' stuff, too. All these little systems and parts that, if I didn’t think too hard about, they’d sort of go away. Like how you don’t have to remember to blink your eyes or breathe, or how to scratch an itch, or how your left foot feels when you’re not paying attention to it. But when I ''did'' think about them, like I said they felt like nothing I had ever felt before in my meat bod. I wondered if the cyborgs they had on old Earth felt kind of like this—meat body on the outside, all that funky metal stuff crowding their guts on the inside.

And then there was the big kahuna of totally weird sensations—the meat body nestled inside my metal body like some kind of Sturmhaven doll. If there ever was a feeling more outside of human experience, yet more curiosity-inducing in meat-folk, I don’t know what it is. I mean, that’s the question I’ve heard asked the most times humans meet RIDEs for the first time. “What’s it like having someone inside you?” And they really can’t ''tell'' you. They can share the memory, but again, due to the frame of reference thing it’s hard to know if you really can appreciate it.

How can I even describe it? I know, we meaties have all felt things being inside of us—something going down our throat, a warm drink hitting our tummy, having a big ol’ log we need to pass, or in the case of some of us being preggers. (I’ve never had ''that'' experience yet, leastways not in real life, so I kinda lack experience in the other direction there.)

All I can say is it’s not really like any of these, except in little ways. You do kind of get the sensation of warmth like you just had a hot drink (or a highly alcoholic one), and maybe you get the sense of movement inside that’s like being pregnant (though again, I’ve never been it “for reals”, so I don’t know if it’s the same or totally different), and there’s this sense of ''fullness'' that I guess is kind of like when you’ve had a full meal—but it’s like the blind men and the elephant—the whole of the sensation is just ''a complete other thing.''

All I can really tell you is that I was conscious of this warm meat body curled up inside of mine, interpenetrated by my Fuser nanos and with a breathing mask and catheters to take care of wastes. Dimly, I could feel its physical state—rather hungry, bladder full—and even override its reflexes in some ways, like triggering a bladder release down the catheter (ahhhh…).

I could also feel there was something vaguely not-right about it—which really should have troubled me more than it did. But it was hard to be too concerned at the moment—or even to feel like that body had any obvious connection to me right now. I was ''Tammy'' at the moment, and that was the body that felt like the interloper. And there were so many ''other'' things demanding my attention.

Sometime during the infection Tammy had reverted to Walker form, so I got unsteadily to all four paws. Looking around, I saw we were still in the shadows of the stone columns where we’d been ambushed, just outside the camp dome. I checked my internal chronometer to see how much time had passed, and was stunned to find it was the morning of just over two days later! (Well, no wonder meat-me was hungry.)

I shifted back to Fuser form, and was immediately utterly distracted by the mechanical ballet of parts moving around inside of me to reconfigure my body into the right shape while keeping my meat-guest safe. (I knew instinctively that there were at least three other ways I ''could'' have shifted if I’d been glomming onto a meatie outside of me rather than working around one already in, using the space the meatie was currently occupying to swap parts around more efficiently.)

Of course, those parts would have moved around whether I watched them consciously or not, just like you don’t think about moving your individual muscles or even individual body parts when you get up from a chair or roll out of bed. From what I’d seen, most RIDEs didn’t even think about what they were doing when they Fused or de-Fused, they just…did it. I actually felt kind of sad for them that they took this miracle for granted—but then I wondered whether a RIDE in human’s shoes might not find getting a meat body out of bed to be just as amazing. The grass is always greener, after all…

Once we were back on two feet, I fired up our lifters and took off—basically, jumping into the air and “forgetting” to come back down. This really wasn’t too different from how it felt to do in Fuse, except that I could now feel part of me holding the rest of me up—like standing up with another set of really really long legs.

Once I’d figured out I could move steadily, I set course for the dome, glancing nervously around for any sign of our attackers. The place seemed entirely vacant, however. But as we approached and entered the dome, I saw that the agri-fields were all ''but'' vacant. Not only were there a bunch of RIDEs here this morning, but a lot of humans were, too. They seemed to be engaged in blowing, lifting, or digging about half a meter of sand off the crop fields, or harvesting remaining fruit from trees that looked as if they’d been sandblasted.

I caught the arm of one of the RIDEs, a skunk busy dropping apples into a basket on his tail. “What the hell happened here?” I asked.

He glanced at me and laughed mirthlessly. “The damned Marshals happened, that’s what. You weren’t here for it? Lucky…”

After talking to a few more RIDEs and humans, I was able to piece together what had happened. A couple Integrates had shown up from the Camelot enclave to help flush out the Amontillado from the infected. One of them had been Mike Munn, who also happened to be a Marshal.

The stories I got were kind of confusing, as nobody I talked to had directly witnessed it, but apparently last night the same people who’d ambushed Tammy and me had set off some booby-traps to cover their escape. Munn run off to chase them instead of dealing with the booby-traps, and as a result the camp’s climate dome went down for a while. Worst of all, they’d caught one of the masterminds behind Amontillado but her boss ''had'' gotten away, along with half their victims. Neither Integrates nor Marshals were especially popular in camp right now.

I managed to hold off on facepawing until we were alone, but facepaw I did. If we’d just held off on going it alone, we could have had major reinforcements. We could have helped hold the line when Munn screwed up. Maybe we could have caught this “Rakshasi” after all. But it was all academic now.

Of course, if they had a prisoner, they were going to need to take her away, and from what I knew of Marshals procedure low-priority stuff like arrested prisoner transport usually waited ‘til daylight. So there was a very good chance their sub might still be in the area.

I sent out a ping over Marshal frequencies and got the word—the sub was parked just north of camp and would still be there for another hour or so. That was good. While I was confident I could get Tammy properly defragged and back on her feet by myself, I wanted to get her some ''real'' maintenance attention after that—and a sub back to a Marshals base seemed like just what the mechanic ordered.

I stopped at the camp kitchen for some breakfast, but the gluey oatmeal they were serving just didn’t appeal, even to the meat part of me. (Though it was kind of amusing watching Smash the ankylosaur stuffing her face. Weird, she hadn’t had hands last time I’d seen her. But she sure seemed to be enjoying them now.) So I figured we could get something to eat on the sub instead.

Something warned me against switching to skimmer form—really, when I thought about it, I didn’t want to be out of close contact with my meat-bod while my implants were so busy fixing Tammy anyway. But that was okay. I just dropped back into Walker (experiencing some of the same fascination as the switch to Fuser, only in reverse) and bounded on northward out of camp.

Tammy had been right—she ''hadn’t'' been running flat-out, that time we were on patrol. I knew because I got to experience what it felt like when she ''did''. I bounded north through the desert, and it was like flying without leaving the ground. It didn’t take long for me to discover the trick of pulsing my lifters at just the right moment to double my range per leap without using much extra power. By the time we neared the sub, I was almost disappointed. It felt like I was just hitting my stride, and I could have ''run'' to Nextus, or Uplift, or wherever all on my own.

But I slowed down as I came over the rise, and swapped back to Walker form (forcing myself to skip the fascinated wonder this time—there were people watching) with Tammy’s badge on prominent display. I nodded to the sentries wearing Marshals Stetsons and dusters and headed in toward the ship.

We were met at the ramp by a black stallion Integrate wearing a here-again gone-again full Quantum badge. I recognized him from the persons-of-interest part of my Marshals training as Quantum Marshal Mike Munn, and immediately saluted. “Provisional Tin Star Jeanette Leroq reporting. Silver Star Tamarind is…indisposed right now.”

Munn returned the salute, looking me over. I had the uncomfortable feeling like his eyes were looking right through me—which, since he was an Intie and all, they probably were. “I can…see that, Tin Star. What happened? We looked for Tamarind’s locater beacon when we arrived, but couldn’t find you.”

“We got hit by a really nasty version of Amontillado, sir,” I reported. “Administered by Shah and Fridolf directly, if they’re who I think they are. I’m guessing it knocked the beacon offline, or they scotched it themselves. I only just got us free, but Tammy needs looked at by professionals.”

“She’s not the only one, Tin Star Leroq.” Munn frowned. “Go ahead and get aboard, but don’t de-Fuse until authorized—that’s an order. The Chromes ''and'' the Sillies are going to want a look at you. Not to mention the Dinos.”

I blinked. “Sir?”

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the ramp. “Go. That’s an order, Tin Star.”

I saluted again. “Sir yes sir!” Then I walked past him up the ramp. What he meant by that should have been nagging at me. Hell, I should have been fifteen different kinds of annoyed at his high-handedness. But right now, I was just too worried for Tammy to want to rock any boats. He could be as much of a jerk as he wanted as long as it helped Tammy get better. I strapped us down into one of the oversized Fuser seats on the sub and closed my eyes, turning my attention inward as we launched.

{{separator|k}}

As I slid back into VR, a notification window popped up in front of me saying that Tammy’s preliminary defrag was finished, but that an “advanced reboot” was recommended for full personality integrity. Did I wish to perform an advanced reboot?

That puzzled me more than a little bit. As far as I knew, an advanced reboot—a sort of “do-over” of a First Boot, to get a damaged RI back on their feet—required the resources of a Q-based mainframe facility. But on the other hand, the RI’s system wouldn’t offer me the option to proceed unless the necessary resources ''were'' present. Were my implants really equal to a super-Q-puter? Thinking it over for a moment, for the needs of just one RI at a time, maybe they were.

So after only a little hesitation, I chose “proceed.” Immediately I felt my implants and Tammy’s autonomous layers mesh and grab ahold of me, smooshing me down into another shape. Everything went hazy for a moment, and when I came to my senses I was on four paws in our old jungle clearing.

Four paws…? I looked down and back at myself. I appeared to be an adult lioness like Tammy…with a great big ol’ huge belly hanging down and swollen teats. I felt something moving and kicking inside that belly, and had a pretty good idea exactly what it was.

I looked around in confusion, then back at that huge bulge in my belly that could only represent a rebooting Tammy. “Wait a minute, this can’t be happening,” I complained. “''I’m'' not supposed to be the boot-mother, that’s done by software running on the…Q-based…mainframe…oh, ''poopie.''” I facepawed. “Which would be…me. Oh, great. Yeah, ''suuuuuure'' I want to proceed. Idjit. Next time, Jeanette, read the damn license agreement before you click through.”

But there was no turning back now. And thinking about it, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t have made the same decision if I knew about it. Given the choice between ''being there'' for the lioness who’d been there for me, and letting some cold machine do it…well. Anyway, here I was.

What followed was, I assume, a VR-sanitized fakey version of the birth experience. About halfway through it, an Egyptian warrior-woman resembling Tammy’s old partner showed up to help midwife us through it. She didn’t speak, and vanished again after it was over. Anyway, the less said about that, the better—but if that was a VR-sanitized fakey version, I’m not sure I ever wanna do the real thing.

But anyway, after that was over, I was left alone with a mewling lioness cub attached to one of my teats and sucking away. And I wasn’t sure what to do next. But then I realized as she nursed that it was a ''good'' feeling, and on the whole I didn’t mind it. “But I’m too ''young'' to be a mother,” I muttered.

So was that it? Was the boot over now? Somehow, I didn’t think so—especially when I checked the level of time-compression the VR scenario was set to. “…wait, ''what?'' This can’t be right. ''Ten years'' per real-time hour? But meat-minds can’t ''go'' that fast!” Then it came to me that, since I was thinking with my implants, maybe that word didn’t exactly apply there anymore. Which really ought to have scared me at least a little, but maybe the scenario was overriding my fear impulses, or they lacked much strength without an endocrine system to back them up. Well, whatever.

And as I found when I tried to punch out, I couldn’t suspend the scenario—even with my root access. I got a warning box about “personality matrix too fragile to suspend without damage.” Looked like we were going to be in here for a while.

“How can ''I'' raise a lioness?” I muttered. “I don’t even have lion ''instincts.''” But then, when I thought about that, I realized the solution was obvious. I’d copied Tammy’s sensory template across. Couldn’t I do the same for her animal instincts?

The answer turned out to be yes. Without hesitation, I did, scooping down into the bundle of her original memories and skills that was currently held in suspension until the reboot was over. I felt my perspective shift as the new information entered my head. Suddenly this four-pawed shape felt ''natural.'' It was how I was ''supposed to be,'' and all that time walking on two legs was just a bad dream. Intellectually, I hoped I’d be able to let go of this when it came time to be human again, but I’d burn that bridge when I came to it. I reached around and started lickin’ my kitten.

The next few years went more quickly than I expected, partly because I learned the trick of controlling my intelligence-versus-instinct slider. I could set it down to animal instincts when I got bored, and then back up to human-level intelligence when I needed it. I went total-instinct lioness a lot during the early days, just because when you didn’t ''think,'' you didn’t ever get bored. Again, maybe I should have been worried about how easy it was to shut off my brain like that, but I was too busy being fascinated.

When I wasn’t busy instincting out, I found I could change myself back to anthropomorphic lioness, or even all the way to human-with-tags. It was fun to do all this when Tammy was little—who wouldn’t want to play with a cuddly lioness kitten?—though I did it less often as time went on and I got into the whole teaching-Tammy-lioning-skills thing. For her part, Tammy was really impressed at how clever her mother was at shapeshifting, and enjoyed being petted and scratched as much as she enjoyed being groomed. Though the tongue-grooming was fun, too.

I really hadn’t expected that. I’d thought it would be all, eww, yucky, cat hair on my tongue. But it turned out that it really felt a lot like brushing or combing, and for the most part my tongue shed the fur before I could swallow it. My tongue was as sensitive as a human finger, and the bristles were tailor-made for coming out my kitten’s fur. It felt nice to have it done to me, too, especially when Tammy got bigger and could reach all of me. Still, I wasn’t too sure I’d care to do it in real life—you don’t get germs and crap in VR.

As she got older, Tammy learned or remembered how to talk. I’m guessing it was remembered, ‘cuz I never did much talking around her, and there wasn’t anyone else in the whole scenario who ''did'' talk—there were other lions, but they were just dumb animal sims without any real intelligence driving them. I ended up spending a lot less time running on instincts, because I needed my intellect (such as it was) to answer all her questions. “Why is the sky blue?” “Why do we eat gazelles?” “Why can’t anyone but us talk?”

I answered as best I could. (”Because we’re in a VR simulation that’s programmed to look that way.” “Because they’re made out of tasty meats.” “Because we’re smarter than they are.”) When she was old, or at least mature, enough to understand, I explained to her about how she’d used to be a fully-adult lioness RIDE who’d gotten hurt by a nasty trojan program. “Someday soon, I expect, you’ll get access to those memories back.”

And Tammy-kitten just nodded, as she did to whatever I told her, and said, “Okay, Mommy. I’ll look forward to it!”

Sometimes we would watch movies and things that I projected onto a window in the VR. Verisimilitude could be damned—if I was going to be stuck in here for years without the luxury of being able to shift to instinct when things got too boring, I was gonna watch all my old favorites I kept stored on board my implant. And it was fun to have a precocious little lioness kitten to watch them with me. Times like that, I felt more like a big sister than a mommy. Still do, really.

Her favorite stuff was mostly the animated and kiddie shows, but she also developed a special attachment to the original ''Shaft'' films—she’d ask me to play them over and over, even when I wasn’t interested in watching. It took quite a few repetitions before I realized that, in the memory she’d shown me of her old partner, Denise, the woman had been wearing the femme version of one of Richard Roundtree’s outfits. So her Marshaling persona had been a she-Shaft? Given her last name, I supposed it fit.

As she got old enough to join me at it, Tamarind turned into quite the willing little huntress. I felt a fierce pride in how quickly she mastered the skills of tracking and taking down prey. Which was…kind of ironic when I thought about it, given that I’d just gotten those skills from her original persona in the first place.

The years went by, and Tamarind grew into a fine young lioness. We hunted together and always provided plenty of food for both ourselves and the virtual non-sapient pride we hung out with. She seemed to be an entirely healthy and well-rounded personality, showing no signs of the damage that she’d taken in the attack. So it didn’t surprise me at all one day when I got a pop-up notification saying, “Advanced reboot complete. Import original memory set?” with “Yes,” “No,” and “Remind Me Later” buttons.

“Hey, Tammycat!” I called to her. “Come over here a moment, would you?”

She padded across the clearing to sit next to me, giving my shoulder a friendly lick or two as she sat down. “What is it, Mom?” She glanced curiously at the notification window.

“It’s time for you to get your old self back,” I said. “I told you this would happen sooner or later.”

She cocked her head. “Do I…have to? I”m happy just living in here with you.”

“I’m afraid so, hon,” I said. “We don’t have forever out in the real world—we’re gonna need some time to get ourselves together out there before we arrive at the Cave of Wonders base.”

She spent a good minute licking the back of a paw to regain her composure. “Will I…forget all of this?” she asked at last, in a small voice.

“I don’t think so, hon,” I said. “You’ll keep what you are, you’ll just get the other stuff added back in.” At least, I ''thought'' so.

She leaned over to lick me on the cheek. “Just in case…I want you to know. I love you, Mom.”

I felt all gooey inside, and the VR blurred as all-too-realistically-rendered tears filled my eyes. “I love you, too, Tammycat. Now, are you ready?”

She got up and walked a few steps away, then turned around to face me through the translucent pop-up. “Do it.”

I tapped the “Yes” button with my nose, and the panel winked out. Then Tammy was surrounded by a halo of glowing light, within which her avatar grew from adolescent lioness to adult, the same as me.

The light faded away, and she shook her head. “Well,” she said, sounding a lot more like her old self. “''That'' was a trip and a half.”

“Tammycat?” I asked. “Are you still…you?”

“Well, who else would I be?” she said. Then hesitated just a beat before adding, “…Mom.” She padded forward to me and we rubbed muzzles, purring. For long moments, neither of us said anything, then Tamarind finally shook her head and said, “I…I can’t believe you ''did'' that.”

“Oh, well, I ‘spect you’d have done the same for me,” I said.

She shook her head again. “No, it’s not I can’t believe you were ''willing.'' It’s that I can’t believe you were ''able'' to do that. What in the world is ''in'' those things inside your head? I’ve never heard of any human being able to operate a RI directly—or incubate a Second Boot—no matter ''what'' kind of implants they had.”

“Er…well…maybe they just never tried?” I said. “Anyway, now you’re back, I’m going to let you have the DE shell back and go back to my own meat-bod, I’m sure it misses me. You ready?”

She nodded. “First, though—can you shoot me your memories of what happened after we got zapped? I remember you telling the reboot-me, but it’s not quite the same thing…”

“Oh, sure. It only took a few seconds to find the relevant memories, trim and archive them, and shoot them across.

She took them, then stared wonderingly at me. “You see? That’s the way ''RIs'' do things. Mom, what ''are'' you?”

“I’m Batman,” I rasped. Covering my own insecurity, because when you got right down it ''I'' wasn’t sure exactly what I was now either. But I was sure I’d be thinking about it a lot in days to come. And maybe those Sillies and Dinos Mike Munn wanted to point me at could find me some answers.

She snorted. Then she took a few moments to digest the contents of the memories. “Well for crying out…Mike Munn, what the ''fudge?''” She growled. “Damned Integrate.” As I opened my mouth, she added, “I know, I ''know,'' I’m not supposed to hate them for being Integrates. I’m ''trying.'' But it’s not easy when they keep coming along and doing something so ''stupid.''”

“He’s on the same sub with us, you know,” I pointed out. “And I’m pretty sure he outranks you. You’re going to need to keep a lid on that hostility.”

Tammy rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mom.” She started out meaning it sarcastically, but I could ''see'' the moment of realization hit halfway through when she said it. She sighed. “Yes, Mom,” she said again, more seriously. “Hell. I’m gonna have to stop calling you ‘girlie’ aren’t I?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. Something tells me things may feel different once we’re back in our real bodies again. So call me whatever feels comfy. Just remember me on Mother’s Day, deal?”

She purred. “I think I can manage that.” She looked around the clearing one last time. “Y’know, I’m really gonna miss this place.”

“What do you mean? This is your normal VR. We can come back here any time.”

“Miss this ''time,'' then. We can come back as often as we want, but it won’t be the same as it was. Already ''isn’t'' the same. ''I’m'' not the same.” She sighed. “But we live and learn, grow and move on, ‘cuz if we don’t it pro’lly means we’re dead.”

I nodded. “You got that right.”

She took a deep breath. “Well, let’s go, then. Real world’s a-waitin’.” She dropped out of the VR and vanished. A moment later, I did the same.

=CHAPTER 8=

{{dropcap|I}} opened my eyes in the real world—and found we were staring into the face of a black Arabian stallion Integrate about 10 centimeters away from our own. “What on Zharus have you been doing?” he asked.

“Internal housekeeping?” I said weakly. It was a little disorienting coming back to the real world after so long in virtual, and this wasn’t helping.

Munn snorted. “I couldn’t even get a read on what you were doing in there with such extreme time compression, but whatever it was, it took you ''years.'' That’s a long time to spend gazing at your navel.”

“She was rebooting ''me,'' sir,” Tammy said.

Munn blinked, turning his head slightly to regard us fully with one equine eye. “Rebooting? Your personality core?”

“I can’t say I rightly understand it either, but yeah.” Her usual distaste for Integrates seemed muted by her own astonishment about what had happened—or else she was honoring her promise to keep a lid on it for now.

“Well…however you got here, it’s good to have you back, Silver Star,” Munn said. He backed off, and gave his head a mane-rattling shake. “But the Sillies really ''are'' gonna want a look at you two.” He turned and clomped off toward the other end of the compartment, where several Marshals were standing guard over a heavily-fettered and powered-down wolf, tossing over his shoulder, “Remember, no de-Fusing ‘til we say!”

Tammy barely resisted the impulse to stick out her tongue at his back as he walked away. “What’s ''that'' all about…?” she muttered. Then she said in a much smaller voice, “…oh.” Then she clammed up.

I wasn’t paying that much attention. I was too busy taking my own internal stock of things. In some ways it was really weird being back in the real world again after so “long”. But in another it seemed like I’d only just closed my eyes a few minutes ago. I didn’t ''feel'' five years older. My body was the same body, it hadn’t grown or matured or anything. I felt like I’d just had a really long lucid dream. Or else spent a lot of time in Narnia and then come back through that magic wardrobe. Whatever.

A few minutes later, the sub touched down on an airfield in the middle of the desert. It didn’t look like much; I had to look pretty closely where Tammy pointed me to see the well-camouflaged defensive emplacements everywhere. Off to one side was a cliff face with a tunnel entrance. I knew what the place looked like from my Marshals training—the “Cave of Wonders” Integrate enclave, home of the Marshals’ Quantum branch.

“I’m surprised you were able to stick it out here long enough to get a point, the way you feel ‘bout Inties,” I said as we stepped down the ramp just behind a smaller lynx Fuser—one of the RIDEs Paul had fixed up back at the camp. We moved aside and gave the ramp a wide berth as a detachment of Steel Stars brought the prisoner RIDE off. The lynx switched over to skimmer form and headed away, with a girl not much older than I was in the saddle. I wondered what the story was there, then forgot about it as Tammy answered.

“Most of the training was in reg’lar facilities elsewhere,” Tammy said. “Only some of the testing was done here—and a lot of the Inties here don’t much like flesh or metal either. Funny thing is, that kind of made it easier in a way, to know they hate you as much as you hate them.” She shrugged. “Nice thing about the Quants, you usually end up working alone, so it doesn’t matter most of ‘em are Intie jerks.”

“How long we gonna be stopping over here?” I asked. “If they don’t like us much, maybe we should just wait at the sub.”

“Oh, the ones in the Marshals base are all right. It’s just the ones in the enclave proper who get annoyed. Some of ‘em, anyway,” Tammy said. “’Sides, we need to get some food in your belly, and I ‘spect they’ll have people who want a look at us ‘fore we go on to somewhere else.”

Again I got the feeling there was something Tammy wasn’t telling me—but I got distracted by a growling tummy before I could ask about it. “Well, then which way to the cafeteria?”

“I’ll show you.” Tammy kicked in the lifters and we drifted across to the tunnel entrance.

A few minutes later we were sitting down to a ''real'' breakfast. Tammy was too big even for one of the Fuser tables, so we sat on a reinforced bench with a tray piled high with eggs, sausage, bacon, ham, steak, and kippered herrings. I was really craving an Atkins sort of breakfast today, it seemed. Grits, hash browns, biscuits, and toast didn’t really appeal, and the fruit cup was right out.

We’d just taken the tray up, and I was happily enjoying feeling stuffed, when I noticed Mike Munn and another Integrate, this one a raccoon with a glowing globe in his chest with a Silicon badge in it, regarding us from the entrance. “And so the poking and prodding begins,” I said wryly. “Shall we go say hi?”

“Might as well,” Tammy said resignedly. We started over in that direction.

As we walked, I turned my attention back to my head. My thoughts still had that digital sharp-edged clarity that meant I was running on my implants. After having done it for so long I was really kind of used to it, but I felt like it might be a nice change to bask in the warm analog glow of my meat-mind again. So I went to switch over—and red flags went off in my head. I actually got an error box pop up in my field of vision: “WARNING: Insufficient resources to spawn process on host device /dev/brain. Proceeding could cause loss of personality integrity.”

''What the fuuuu…?'' I pulled up Tammy’s internal diagnostic display and flipped over to the “medical” tab—and stared in shock at what I saw. And then I heard what Mike and the ‘coon were discussing.

“…might have to do a forced Integration,” the raccoon was saying in quiet tones. “From the results of the workups on your other rescues…”

''No. No no no no NO!'' That was the far side of enough. Between that and what I’d just seen, I went from zero to ''PANIC'' in point five seconds. I triggered the de-Fuse command. '':Let me OUT OF HERE!:''

Tammy overrode the command. '':Wait, you heard his orders—:''

'':They can’t order us to Integrate, no way, no how!:'' I wasn’t taking no for an answer. I reached out and grabbed my superuser privs, then ''forced'' the de-Fuse, and Tammy split apart around me. She hit the ground on all four paws.

And so did I.

{{separator|k}}

For a few moments, all conversation stopped, and we all stood there in shock just staring at each other—and, in my case, at myself. My body was now naked, covered in tawny fur, and—oh yes—''lioness-shaped.'' I was standing on four paws, with a long lion tail and—as far as I could tell from inside of it—a kitty face. Just like that horse I’d seen cracked loose at the garage, I’d been turned into a real live human-sized animal. But unlike the horse, I was still thinking at a human level—thanks to my implants. No wonder I couldn’t swap back out to my human brain—thanks to the pinched-in shape of my skull, I didn’t have enough brain left.

“Marshal Tamarind, I ''ordered'' you not to defuse without authorization!” Mike Munn barked.

“Hey, don’t look at me,” Tammy said. “She overrode me.”

Munn stared at her. “''She'' overrode ''you''—?”

I opened my mouth and tried to speak, but all that came out were growls and whines. I didn’t have the right vocal equipment for speech, it seemed. So I switched to my implants’ comms instead. '':With all due respect, sir, you can just bite me,:'' I said. '':I’m not just gonna stand idly by and let you Integrate me without my sayso. I never signed up for that.:'' Technically, I’d never even signed up at all, but we didn’t need to go there just now.

Mike and the raccoon Intie both stared at me. “You’re still thinking?” the coon said. He peered closer. “You ''are!'' Amazing! I’ve never seen implants quite like those. How did you get them?”

Munn facehoofed. “We weren’t ''going'' to force-Integrate you. We were just discussing options.”

'':Well, that’s ''not'' an option. You can just forget—''hey!'':'' A paw the size of a coffee table shoved me gently down to the ground, and a bristly tongue the size of a beach towel started licking my fur. '':Tammy, what the hell?!:''

Tammy paused for a moment and blinked. “Sorry, I think my maternal instincts just kicked in. You are kinda kitten-sized just now, compared to me…”

'':Lemme up!:'' I demanded.

Tammy considered. “Hmm…maybe…no, don’t think so. Not ‘til you’re ''all'' groomed!” She started licking me again, very enthusiastically.

'':Hey!:'' I protested. :''Less than an hour ago ''I'' was ''your'' mother!:''

“Uh-huh!” Tammy said. “But you know how it is. When you’re young, your mother takes care of you—then when you both get older, you take care of her.”

'':This is ''not'' how that’s supposed to work and you know it!:'' I insisted. But despite my complaints, I couldn’t help starting to purr. It was more than a little undignified, but on the other hand it ''did'' feel good to be groomed like that…

Marshal Munn and the coon looked at each other, then, very visibly suppressing a chuckle, Munn suggested, “Maybe we should move this somewhere more private. I think one of the med labs is open.”

“Good idea,” the raccoon said. “They’ll have sensor and diagnostic equipment we can use.”

“Lead the way!” Tammy said, picking me up by the scruff of the neck.

'':HEY!:'' I yelped over the comm, yelping a little out loud, too. '':I can ''walk,'' you know!:''

“Not while Mommy’s here you can’t,” Tammy said happily.

'':I’m ''soooo'' gonna get you for this,:'' I promised as she carried me up the hallway after the two Integrates.

Built into a cavern as it was, the medical lab was spacious enough for even the truck-sized Tamarind to fit inside. She carried me over to the diagnostic table/bed and set me down on it, and the raccoon—whose name turned out to be Sparky—ran the scans with the help of a couple of Iodine Star med techs. Once they were finished, Tammy claimed me again and carried me over to an open space against a wall where she continued grooming me—pausing only long enough for Sparky to fasten a collar around my neck with a comm on it I could send to with my implant to speak out loud. As a sort of consolation prize, it also had a Provisional Tin Star badge, hollow on the left side and filled in on the right, clipped to it—the first physical proof of my Marshalhood. Go me.

“Ugh, I’m ''damp,''” I said through the comm. “How am I ''damp?'' Your tongue is just ''hardlight!'' Don’t tell me they gave you spit glands.”

“I do have a fabber built in,” Tammy pointed out.

“You’re ''fabbing'' lion spit?” Even the Iodines were having a hard time keeping straight faces now. Finally Tammy finished her work—for now—and rolled over on her back with me resting on her soft, furry belly, one immense paw folded over me to make sure I couldn’t get away. It didn’t escape me that this had been one of the ways I’d liked to hold Tammy-kitten back during the whole Second Boot VR experience. I sighed. “FML.”

Meanwhile, on the hardlight display I could see if I turned my head, Sparky and Marshal Munn had a 3D image of my cat-brain slowly rotating, with the implant network picked out in qubitite blue. It really was quite extensive. Even I hadn’t realized just how far it spread.

“This is a very unusual implant pattern,” Sparky said. “Even for nanite body modders like yourself. Most of you have the chip stacks concentrated in one or two locations, even with the Q chips. Even a neural lace is just that, a series of laces like a cat’s cradle. This…it’s like the implants developed into a shadow of your own human neural network, and the shadow remains unchanged even after the original was altered.”

“Heh…well,” I said. “No big mystery there. I kinda intentionally spread the Q out instead of stacking it all together. I hoped it might stand out less on med scanners. I was still stuck in the orphanage, and I wanted to ring as few alarm bells as I could, ya know?” I chuckled. “My peers who reviewed my specs actually pointed out they’d be a lot less efficient as a Q-puter because of the greater comm lag between the separate Q parts. But they said that it should still work ''okay'' anyway, so I went ahead.”

“Less efficient as a basic computer, yes,” Sparky said. “But you just grew yourself a whole new backup neural net, that basically learned to be you.”

“Huh. So that’s why I’m not just a dumb animal right now,” I said.

“But how did you get that way?” Munn asked. “You were only infected for, what, two days? Everything we know about Amontillado so far suggests it should have taken months to get that far.”

“Shah—at least, I guess it was Shah—said when they infected me it was a new experimental strain,” I said. I thought back to when the implants had kicked in this last time—when the Amontillado tigress had stabbed me through the chest with a tentacle and it got hard to think. “It must have hit me as a countermeasure when I was in the core trying to shut it down. If not for the implants it would’ve worked.”

Sparky nodded. “Pity she got away. Would have been useful to find out what she knew.”

“We’ll find her again,” Munn growled. “At least we got Fridolph.”

“So…what about changing me back?” I asked. “Tammy’s Fuser nanos did this, so they ought to be able to undo it, right?”

“I’m no Dino, but it’s not that simple,” Sparky said. “The human body is a fantastic, delicate machine—and as with most such machines, it is a ''lot'' easier to wreck than to repair. The changes to your body could probably be reversed easily enough. If nothing else, we could clone you an entirely new one, as we would for a brainbox case from Earth. But it’s your grey matter that, well, ''matters.'' We can’t just make any old brain and stuff you into it. It has to be rebuilt along your original lines.”

“Oh,” I said, digesting that.

“We need a lot more study of the trojan, its victims, and how it does what it does before we can hope to reverse the changes for ''anyone,''” Sparky concluded.

“Hopefully we can pry some of that out of Fridolph,” Munn said, smacking a fist into a palm with a sound like two coconuts banging together.

Sparky nodded. “We’ll do our best. But for now, we’re going to need to run more tests, make comparisons between you and the other victims. We’ve co-opted a floor of the hospital in Nextus adjoining our training facilities, where we’re treating and studying all the other victims—it’s easier to consult experts from Nextus Nano and the original Nextus RIDE project there. If you were to go there, that’s where they’d have the best chance of figuring out how to reverse it. The choice is up to you, of course.”

I sighed. '':What do you think?:'' I sent privately to Tammy.

'':I can’t think of anywhere else that would have a better chance of helping you,:'' Tammy said. '':If they’ve got all the victims and all the experts right there…:''

'':I know,:'' I said. '':I just…well, every time I ran away from Nextus, I always ''swore'' I was never going back there. I really thought I was gonna make it stick this time.:''

'':Aww…:'' Tammy sent a quick VR nuzzle emoticon. '':This time I’ll be with you. So if we do have to blow the place, we can.:''

“All right,” I said aloud through my comm. “I guess if that’s the best place to help me—and I can help all those other poor bastards Amontillado did over at the same time—there’s no reason not to go.”

Munn nodded. “All right. We’ll put you on the next sub headed that way.” He saluted us—looking fairly odd saluting a giant lioness on her back cuddling a smaller one, but there you go. “Good luck, Marshals.”

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As we waited for the sub flight to arrive, and after Tammy worked some of the maternal instincts out of her system for a while, we were able to do some experimentation and testing of the limits of my new body.

For starters, I learned I wasn’t ''entirely'' felinized. I had a wider range of motion in my joints than a “real” cat would, and a better sense of balance. I could still stand on my hind legs and walk—a little clumsily, but more effectively than a “tamed” lion doing tricks could. And my forepaws were still halfway hands, with short stubby fingers and a pentadactyl opposable thumb. I could grasp things about as well as if I were wearing thick gloves or mittens on a human hand.

Also, Tammy and I could still Fuse. She was a little hesitant to try it at first, until I reminded her we’d ''been'' Fused without ever noticing anything was wrong until at the last. She had to adjust the Fuse shift to take my different body shape into account, but once we were Fused up I could operate her body in either Walker or Fuser shapes just as well as I ever had.

“Well, this is a weird reversal from how it is in Alfie’s camp,” I mused. “I have to fuse with you to get ''me'' real hands.”

“Yeah, life is just funny like that sometimes,” Tammy said wryly.

And our VR was likewise unaffected—I could be human, anthro, or feral at will just as easily as before. “So, basically, all that’s changed is my meat bod,” I mused as we crouched companionably in the clearing sharing a virtual gazelle. Then I giggled as a thought suddenly occurred to me. “Ya know what? No matter what happens, they can’t send me back to the children’s home like ''this!''”

“Yeah, you pro’lly got that one right,” Tammy said. “But you ''could'' end up in a zoo. There are rumors passed down from RIDE to RIDE that at least one of Fritz’s test pilots way back when ended up that way.”

“Ugh,” I reflected. “Well, at least the zookeepers would probably mind their own business better than the busybodies at the orphanage.”

Early that afternoon, a sub from Nextus came in, and we boarded for the return trip—still in Fuse, as we thought it might be best to draw less attention while traveling. Since we were too big for the Fuser seats, we stayed in Walker form in the large RIDE cargo bay at the rear, with camera feeds from the hull of the sub to entertain us on the transcontinental hop.

As we slid down the far side of the arc, and that hyper-orderly city on the eastern coast came into view, I sighed. “And there’s my old prison again.”

“Do you really hate the whole polity just for that one place keeping you in it?” Tammy asked.

“Well…rationally I guess I shouldn’t,” I said. “But it’s like you and Integrates—the one incident tainted the whole for me so much that any time I see any of it, it just brings up bad memories.”

Tammy nodded. “I guess I can see that. But maybe this time it’ll be your liberation—from that lioness body,” she suggested.

“Maybe,” I said. “But when you get right down to it, this body really isn’t all ''that'' bad. I’m kinda used to being a lioness, after raising you.”

“Aww, Mom,” Tammy purred.

I chuckled. “It really feels weird when you say that out here in the real world, y’know.”

“I know,” Tammy said. “But I can’t help that you did what you did.” She purred. “Or that I’m ''so'' glad you did it.”

Then it was my turn to aww.`

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We touched down at Nextus Aerodrome in the late afternoon, having crossed several time zones and lost several daylight hours on the way across Gondwana. Tammy switched back to skimmer form to drive us to the hospital facility, and I distracted myself by peering at people in passing skimmers and enjoying their expressions at seeing a truck driving along with just a lioness in the driver’s seat.

But as we traveled further into town, my heart sank as the route was an all-too-familiar one. This was the way I’d always been taken back to the Home after they’d caught me on one of my escapes. Of course, I ''knew'' Tammy wasn’t driving me back there—it’s just that the hospital was in the same part of Nextus—but it didn’t soothe the icky feeling. Even freaking the mundanes in passing cars began to pall.

But as we neared our destination, we finally took a different turning, and I realized why we’d followed the same route so long. The hospital was ''very'' close to the Home. It was one of the buildings I’d used to stare up at from the play yards and wonder about. What kind of offices were in there, what went on in there, what were the people behind those gleaming glass windows doing? Well, I was going to find that out today for at least one of them.

Needless to say, Tammy-truck-kitty was ''much'' too big to fit in the hospital lobby, which was sized with more normally-sized Fusers in mind. So she let me out and went off to park herself, while I continued into the lobby alone.

I got quite a few stares as I crossed to the reception desk, as I was a lot too small to be a RIDE. At the desk, I planted both forepaws in front of the startled receptionist and said, “Provisional Tin Star Jeanette Leroq checking in. They should have let you know I was coming?”

The receptionist, a pretty brunette with coyote RIDE tags, dimpled as she smiled at me, and glanced back down at her one-way hardlight display. Unlike most of the normals who’d seen me, she didn’t seem more than mildly startled. Then I noticed she had a Hollow Star badge on her chest, and it made sense. As a reserve Marshal, she’d probably been sent a complete file including pictures and stuff.

“Certainly, Marshal Leroq,” she said after consulting the display. “They’re waiting for you at the 14th floor lobby. Do you need any assistance with the elevators?”

“Nah, I can manage. Thanks.” I nodded to her and headed across the floor. I quite startled at least five other people who boarded or left on the way up by doing nothing more than sitting quietly in one corner of the elevator car and grooming myself until we got to 14. Then I stepped out in the lobby to find the nurses and orderlies waiting for me.

Fortunately, they didn’t have a lot of paperwork or anything for me to go over. They sensed I was tired and got me settled into my room first thing. I do have to say, as hospital rooms go it was pretty nice. Spacious corner room, comfy king-sized cat bed, big picture windows, all the amenities. Of course, the view out the windows was still Nextus, but you couldn’t have everything. (Actually, I later found out that the windows had display panels built into them that I could reprogram with whatever view I wanted. So maybe I ''could'' have everything.)

And also, neatest of all, there was a built-in hardlight projection telepresence suite in the ceiling, so that doctors and experts from all over could beam in as hardlight avatars for remote consultations. As a side benefit, it also meant that Tammy could beam in as a more-normally-sized lioness, since her physical form just wouldn’t fit in here. This she did, as soon as the med staff left me alone in the room.

Being Tammy, of course, she arrived wearing a hardlight lab coat, stethoscope, and eye reflector. “Please state the nature of your medical emergency,” she said primly.

I snorted. “Hey, Tammycat.”

“Hiya, kitten.” She banished the doctor props and padded over to give me a couple of swipes with her pink hardlight tongue. (No dampness this time, I noted approvingly.) Of course, our relative sizes were a lot closer now, but I was still a lot smaller than even a normal-sized adult lioness—and for that matter, still a teenaged kid when you get right down to it—so I guess I was a “kitten” still. “Doing okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I guess.” I stared out the window at the polityscape, painted orange by the desert-setting sun. “See that red terra-cotta roof down there, about three o’clock?”

She peered where I was pointing. “Yeah? What’s…oh! That’s the Home, isn’t it?”

“Checked Zharus Maps, didja?” I said. “Bingo.”

She cocked her head, accessing more data on the place I guess. “What’s a Mission Revival-style manor house doing smack in the middle of Brutalist-style Nextus?”

“Well, it’s not really in the middle—they wouldn’t have tolerated it there. This is one of the suburbs. And therein lies a tale.” Reminded by the word, I swished my own. “Like fifty years back, there was this rich guy who just wanted a Mission-style house. Maybe he was homesick for California or something. Anyway, either the zoning laws weren’t in back then, or he was able to bribe enough people or whatever that he got it. Then he died, and didn’t have any heirs to leave it to so it went to the government. And they were looking for somewhere to put an orphanage anyway, and it was cheaper to stick it in that than to raze that and build something else. So that’s us, the kids from the mission.”

“I know you didn’t like the company there, but wasn’t it at least a little bit neat to live somewhere so different?” Tammy asked. “Everything’s so much the same around here. Always hated that about the home place when I was here ‘tween assignments back in the day.”

I snorted. “For someone made here, you don’t understand the Nextus mindset that well. Conformity is the rule.” I cued up an old song from implant storage and routed a clip through the comm.

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''Subdivisions -- ''

''In the high school halls ''

''In the shopping malls ''

''Conform or be cast out ''

''Subdivisions -- ''

''In the basement bars ''

''In the backs of cars ''

''Be cool or be cast out ''

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“To all the kids at school we were the ''weird'' kids from the ''weird'' house. They’d make fun of us for having to live in that rickety old clown castle almost as much as they made fun of us for not having any parents.” I gave myself a few tongue-swipes while I worked on regaining my composure. “So after all of this, I end up not only back in Nextus but a couple klicks away from my old prison.” I shook my head. “A couple klicks and a whole fricking ''world'' away.” I lifted a paw and stared at it. “It’s weird how ''normal'' this all feels.”

“Well sure it does. You’re a perfectly normal human lioness,” Tammy said reasonably. “I’d be surprised you’d think anything else.”

I snorted. “Yeah, sure.”

“Well, seriously, you copied my instincts over,” Tammy said. “Now you’ve got the body to match them in the real world as well as the virtual. Is it really so surprising?”

“When you put it that way, I guess not,” I admitted. I stared down at the terra-cotta roof of the children’s home, sticking out like a sore thumb amid so much Nextus sameness. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Hey, you’re my partner, my Mom, ''and'' my kitten,” Tammy said, licking me on the cheek. “Where else would I be?”

=CHAPTER 9=

{{dropcap|A}}bout an hour later, we had our first encounter with Dr. Walter Branch, my assigned consulting physician and the man in charge of overseeing the treatment of all the mutilated Amontillado patients the Marshals had been able to round up. He was a middle-aged man with no RIDE tags, clean-shaven, in his late 50s to early 60s maybe, with a head full of artfully grey hair.

I think that was the first thing that set my teeth on edge about him. With modern nano, there’s no ''reason'' to go grey ‘til you’re about at your 90s or so, and it’s pretty optional even then—unless you’re either too absent-minded to bother with the treatment or intentionally cultivating an image. And nothing in that shining head of white suggested absent-mindedness.

But I’d done my research on the man, and was ready to concede that he ''might'' be entitled to an ego. He’d been on the original team led by Dr. Rosenthal that had re-engineered Earth’s transgender nanos into the Fusers RIDEs used to link to their partners. So, as doctors went, not many of them were in a better position to know ''exactly'' how Amontillado’s runaway Fusers did what they did.

Apparently the Marshals felt the same way, when they plucked him out of academia to head up the research project. On his lab coat, Branch wore a Provisional Star in the same left-side hollow configuration as mine. But where mine was Tin, saying I was acting as a cadet without full training, his was Iodine—the Marshals’ medical branch. Provisional branch badges were sometimes used for special experts whose skills were needed badly enough that they could skate by with a short-short course in the extreme basics of Marshaling, then get put right to work. They come in sort of between Hollow Stars, who’re usually more general-purpose clerical or jack-of-all-trades types like that reception clerk, and full-fledged branch-badged Marshals.

Given how broad-ranging the expertise of the Marshals is, not many people are ''ever'' needed so badly they can be given that kind of get-out-of-jail-free ticket. That Branch was such a person might say a lot about his abilities—but didn’t say all that much about his worth as a human being, or at least as real Marshal material (which was about the same thing as far as I was concerned).

“Hello, Miss Leroq,” he said affably, starting to put his hand out and then catching himself. “Good to meet you.” He completely ignored Tammy—not a good sign.

“Yeah, I said. “Same here.” He was trying to project kind of a paternal attitude, which just added to my distaste for him. A lot of the muckety-mucks at the orphanage thought all they had to do was act fatherly and we’d all think they knew best. Yeah right. But maybe he couldn’t help it, and even if he was slimy, if he had the skills to back it up he could be House for all I cared.

“I see you’re settling in all right, and that your RIDE has found our telepresence rig with no trouble,” he said, still not paying direct attention to Tammy.

“Yes, my ''partner'' has,” I said. ''Cut him slack, cut him slack,'' I told myself. He ''was'' from Nextus, he helped invent them, naturally he’d see them more as things. If he could get me fixed, well, he could think the moons were made of green cheese if he wanted.

“Oh…sorry, I meant no offense,” Branch said. I wondered if he realized his tone came off more as someone apologizing because it was socially expected than because he actually meant it.

“That’s all right, we’re used to it,” Tammy said.

Dr. Branch pulled up a seat across from my bed. “I wanted to discuss with you exactly how it is you are still able to think and communicate, despite your condition. I’ve already read the preliminary reports.” He paused. “I gather you have been…modifying yourself using untested amateur cybernetics?”

I sighed. I could already see how this was going to go. “Untested in some ways, but not in others.” I took a deep breath (which I really didn’t need, since I was “speaking” through radio waves to a comm, but force of habit). “Most of what we’re doing is same-old same-old, just in some new ways. The medical nanos we use are just an outgrowth of the Fusers ''you'' helped build. The neural connections we’re using have been understood for ''centuries.'' The implants we’re making are mostly just duplicates of the ones they have to cut open people’s heads to put in on Earth, just built bit by bit on the inside instead. And yeah, we use qubitite processors, but ''those'' have been in use even in regular implants here for some little while. Lots of Earth people get it retrofitted to the ‘plants they already have when they get here.”

Dr. Branch didn’t look convinced. “There are still plenty of ways known technology could produce negative, even fatal results when used in valid combinations. For example, negative interactions between pharmaceuticals have been known for centuries.”

“There ''are'' pro medicos in the ‘plant scene who help spot for that kind of thing.” I paused. “At least…we kind of have to take their word for it they are. They stay anonymous, a’course, liability issues being what they are. But most of them talk a good game, and we always run new designs past several of ‘em ''and'' run them through sims before we commit.” I shook my head. “Anyway, these implants have done right by me so far, given that thanks to them I’m still sitting here talking to you instead of growling in a zoo cage somewhere.”

He waved a hand in the manner of someone conceding a point not because he’d been convinced but because he didn’t feel it was worth arguing over anymore. “Well, I ''will'' have to ask you to refrain from adding any additional modifications during your stay.” He glanced meaningfully at the full-service medical fabber in one corner of the room.

I bristled at this insinuation—suddenly so angry that before I could stop myself I actually hissed and ''spat ''as angry cats do. “I would ''never'' use your fabber without permission,” I said, growling.

“Miss Leroq, I really must insist you calm down,” Dr. Branch said, only paling a ''little'' bit. Someone must have told him it was a bad idea to show fear to a cat. “I apologize, but given your history…”

“That was ''before,''” I said. “I’m a Marshal now, and don’t you forget it.”

I was a little surprised to realize that I could ''tell'' he obviously didn’t believe my last statement, about being a Marshal. Now how did I know that? Oh…when I’d copied Tammy’s RIDE instincts, somehow I must have gotten her biometric analysis package too. I couldn’t read as well as a RIDE with all its sensors, but I could twig to body language easily enough. Well, it didn’t matter to me if he thought I was a “real” Marshal or not. I was at least as real as ''he'' was, and better-trained at Marshaling besides.

But again, he didn’t argue the point out loud. “Very well, ''Marshal'' Leroq. I will bear that in mind.”

“See that you do,” I growled. Then I made a conscious effort to back off from the kitty temper and calm down.

Tammy took up the conversational slack. “So what’s your plan for diagnosis and treatment?” she asked.

Dr. Branch was actually a little startled, as if he’d just been asked a question by an end table. “Oh…well, first we will be thoroughly examining her—both myself and our visiting experts. Then I will study the results and, based on our findings, determine the best course of action overall. You must understand, this could be a long and drawn-out process. There have been body changes before, but never quite such comprehensive physiological alteration to the brain.”

“Got it, Doc,” I said. “Just you do your best. That’s all we can ask for.”

He nodded. “Oh, you can believe me—I shall.” Then he gestured to the examining table with all its diagnostic equipment built in. “And in that vein…shall we begin?”

The physical examination took a couple of hours, and wasn’t the most fun thing in the world to go through. Now that I’d been sensitized it, I couldn’t ''stop'' reading Branch’s body language with my new-found expertise. Despite the fatherly act he put on, he didn’t really ''like'' me very much, and he liked Tammy even less. But at the same time there was this almost…covetousness about him. Like he wanted me around more than he disliked me.

After he finished, he excused himself and took himself back to his office to study what he’d found. He put off questions on when we could expect a preliminary report with, “As soon as ''I'' know, ''you’ll'' know.” Then he was gone.

I sighed as I watched the room’s door close. “Would a doctor I could ''like'' be too much to ask for?”

“I hear ya, girlie,” Tammy said. “Would be nice to have one who didn’t think I was lawn furniture, while we’re at it. But ya know what? If he can get results, I’ll happily play ''chaise lounge''. And the Marshals must have thought he had a pretty good chance or they wouldn’t have half-hollowed him.”

I nodded. “Yeah, guess I can stick it out if you can. Wonder why he’s got that whole weird…whassaword…''ambivalence'' toward me? He doesn’t ''like'' me, but boy is he glad I’m here.”

“No mystery there,” Tammy said. “If he does solve your brain-drain, it’ll be quite a feather in his cap.”

“I guess I can see that,” I admitted.

“Could be a paper in it. Fame, fortune, fast skimmers, girls—or guys, if he goes that way…” Tammy went on.

“I get the idea,” I said.

“So, as long as your interests and his run the same way, I ‘spect we can trust him, ‘leastways maybe about as far as we can throw him,” Tammy said. “We aren’t neither of us required to like him very much, or trust him any farther than that.”

I nodded. “I hope this doesn’t turn out to be a waste of time.”

“Whatever happens, I’m sure it won’t be that,” Tammy said confidently. “Any time we spend together’s never wasted.”

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So after our arrival, my days kinda settled into a routine. In the mornings Dr. Branch would come in, take readings, discuss with me how I came by my implants, and so on. It was really kind of annoying on the whole, because he had this whole attitude about amateurs screwing up their bodies with unauthorized implants. He tried to get past it given that the amazing thing those implants did was the whole reason I was here, but I could tell he struggled. Never mind that the actual tech had been tested for decades, and that there were a number of medicos involved in the implant-mod community to begin with. Branch made pretty clear he thought of the whole bunch of us as just a couple steps up from little kids poking knitting needles in their ears. After a while, I just stopped arguing with him about it.

Afternoons were when a cavalcade of guest experts came in to consult, peering at me singly, in groups or teams, sometimes in consultation with Dr. Branch and other times not. Sparky popped in a few times, and Tammy’s friend Marshal Masterson came by once or twice to check in on me and the other patients and get a progress report from Dr. Branch. Tammy had managed to get him assigned as my Marshals liaison since Mike Munn was taking a leave of absence after his screw-up at AlphaWolf’s camp.

I wasn’t exactly fond of the whole rigmarole, but on the other hand it was better than the orphanage in a lot of ways. Most of them were willing, after the shock had passed, to treat me as a person—I suppose it helped that I looked like a cat instead of a 16-year-old kid; since I talked smart and all, they didn’t get hung up on my age. And they were interested in what I had to say, and asked questions that as often as not led to interesting conversations. I had enough knowledge in common with the experts in implants and computers that we could usually talk shop pretty well.

Evenings were my own, and I’d go out with Tammy to exercise at the Marshals’ physical training facility’s jogging track or occasionally play in the nearby municipal park. The other park-goers were usually surprised. Tammy helped me brush up on my Marshals training, too, staying sharp against the time I could finish it up in the real world and test out of my “provisional” status. I also explored the floor of the hospital and looked in on the other patients.

Some of them simply showed the same heavy tagging as anyone who used a RIDE for a long time or went in for the whole fur-body-mod thing. They were mostly just in here for observation to make sure that they didn’t have any other health problems as a result of the Amontillado exposure. Shah was a sadistic so-and-so, after all, and nobody could be quite sure she hadn’t left some kind of long-term “gotchas” in the nannies’ code.

The real heartbreakers were the ones who went further than that—the ones who were partway to animals but still retained enough human intellect to let them know what they’d lost. There were only a few of these, and there was just the one full-animal horse guy—who most of the staff referred to somewhat drolly as a “Full Monty”—because the Amontillado crackers had quickly gotten good at judging how far gone a “cask” was and Integrating the ones who’d gone too far. Like they would have done for ''us'' if it hadn’t been for my implants. That made me shiver every time I thought about it. If I had to Integrate with someone, I would have wanted it to be Tammy, and in some ways I kind of looked forward to it—but it was in the same sort of way a devout believer might look forward to going to Heaven: it would be awesome when it happened, but please, God, ''not yet.''

We got to know that horse guy pretty well, as it happened. His name was Robin, as that had been ''her'' name when she’d been a human woman. He was basically a miniature horse, didn’t look or act any different from the ones they’d been breeding for pets for hundreds of years.

He was quite skittish the first few times Tammy and I tried to approach him, but we didn’t push too far and after a week or so when he saw we didn’t mean any harm he’d let us come right up to him, lick him all over, and cuddle up with him sandwiched between us.

I think he was pretty lonely. He didn’t get visitors all that often—as I understood it, his family was too shocked by the change to be able to accept this horse-thing as the Robin they’d known and loved. In their mind, Robin was just dead and gone, and this horse was…something else. Tammy and I sometimes darkly wondered whether they’d have sold him for someone’s pet if the Marshals hadn’t scooped him up for all-expenses-paid treatment.

We made sure to spend a lot of time with him, poor guy. Sometimes they’d let us take him for runs along the Marshals track or in the park, under supervision. His doctor was a lot nicer about these things than Branch was. I think she was happy to see someone take an interest in him.

As gilded cages went, it was pretty nice. I found out how to program the windows and set them up with a link to Tammy’s VR, to block out the unwanted Nextus and let me watch Tammy playing in the jungle. Sometimes I’d join her there via my implants.

And I got to get back on the ‘net, too, and get back in touch with my old circle of online friends I’d been out of touch with all the time I’d been stuck in AlphaWolf’s camp. They wanted to know where I’d been all that time, so Tammy and I came up with a story just a couple shades off from the truth.

As the story went, I’d been bodyjacked by a lioness from AlphaWolf’s camp, Stockholm syndrome had made me hers, and then she left the camp and brought me back to the city because “Alfie’s camp is no place to raise a kitten.” I kept my feline appearance most of the time in VR but let my friends think that was because Tammy was ''making'' me be her kitten, and for her part Tammy played up the whole maternal thing, accompanying me everywhere and happily subjecting me to endless grooming while my friends and I chatted.

After a few days, it…kind of stopped being an act. Really, except for the time in Second Boot, I sort of realized Tammy had been kind of acting like a mother to me ever since I’d first forced her to take me on. Doing things “for my own good” without ever fully explaining them—wasn’t that kind of what parents did?

And when you got right down to it, I didn’t really mind so much being loved and coddled. It was a new experience to me after all that time ''not'' getting it in the orphanage. It was kind of a strange turn in our relationship—I mean, I’d heard of crossrider couples who would swap being the man and being the woman, but I hadn’t heard of anyone who traded off being mother and daughter. But it felt right, so who was I to complain?

Of course, we didn’t tell anyone exactly where we were, or how we were getting by. That was part of the code of the community, really—nobody wanted to know too much about anyone else, ‘cuz then they could be forced to give it away. They’d assume we were just doing the same as any of them—living off social services as far as we could, doing a few little low-risk hacks to scam a little more. If they knew we were living in a hospital, in easy reach of medical fabbers, they’d be all over us like ugly on an ape.

To be honest, despite my indignation at Branch’s insinuations, I occasionally had a bit of a hard time resisting the siren lure of the staff-use-only medical fabber in the corner. There were so many implant tweaks I wanted to try…but this wasn’t a case where I could breeze in, hack out some nanos, and be gone before anyone noticed a discrepancy in the fab matter logs. Here, they’d likely figure it out right away, and given my history it would be pretty clear where the blame would fall. For that matter, I really hoped nobody made an ''honest'' error in the logs while I was there. I was sure Branch, if no one else, would jump right to conclusions.

And so life went on, occasionally interrupted by news bulletins or Marshals all-call alerts—like the time the Walton estate, on the other side of Nextus from us, was raided by an Integrate strike force ''and'' an AlphaWolf attack team at the same time. Details released for public consumption painted it as some kind of botched bodyjack attack that just happened to coincide with a Fritzian raid, but Tammy gave me the real low-down on why Walton now had AlphaWolf tags, his wife had a new mink RIDE, and their daughter had gone back to camp with AlphaWolf—it had been a rescue mission, and a damned successful one. There were even a number of Intie prisoners, who immediately got scooped up by units of the Nextus army.

“''Good'' for Alfie,” Tammy said happily. “I always knew he had it in him to be one of the ‘good guys.’”

But at the same time, we heard more ominous news of a daylight attack on Zane Brubeck by none other than Fritz himself. The attack had put Zane and Carrie-Anne in the hospital, and left a number of bystanders injured or dead—including Marshals—before a power-boosted Quinoa Steader had shown up and driven Fritz away with injuries of his own. Clearly bringing Integrates out into the open was not going to be all fun and games, and that put a damper on our cheerful mood for days.

Not long after that, we were both startled one afternoon when a magnificent white-tailed stag walked bodily into our hospital room, with a small ferret resting happily in his 14-point rack. He was much too small to be a RIDE, but not a hardlight projection either. Tammy blinked. “What’s this, room service?”

“It can be,” the buck replied. “I’ve been told I’m really tasty in Nature Range.”

“Save me a haunch!” the ferret said cheerfully.

Then the stag’s neck swelled and stretched and grew, and human arms emerged from what became a humanoid ‘taur-form torso with the same deer’s head. Then the rack winked out and the deertaur caught the ferret in his—no, ''her'' arms as she grew human breasts (with a hardlight bikini top over them) and her face shifted to take on more feminine lines. “Quantum Star B. Thompson and Silicon Star Fenwick at your service,” she said, her voice now an octave higher. “You must be Jeanette and Tammy?”

“Ah, hi,” I said. “Uh…wow. What ''are'' you?” I paused. “And don’t say ‘I’m Batman.’ It’s been done.”

“Well, that’s complicated,” she said, as Fenwick scurried up her arm and back down to a little saddle around her deer torso. “Probably about as complicated as what ''you'' are.”

“Do tell?” I purred. I’d only just met her, but I found myself taking an irrational kind of liking to her.

“In a way, I’m kinda the ‘zact opposite of you, if I understand what the docs say. You’re a RI-type brain in a meat body? Well, I’m a meat brain in a DE-like box.”

Tammy cocked her head, peering at Thompson curiously. “How does that work?”

Thompson stepped over next to the windows and sat down, tucking her legs beneath herself. “Started out human back on Earth, got rid of the old body ‘cuz it bored me and I spent most of my time in Virtual Life anyway.”

Now ''I'' perked up. I’d heard a lot about how they did cyber implant stuff back on Earth, but I’d never had the chance to encounter an Earth cyber in the flesh—or flesh and metal, as the case might be. “So you were in a brainbox?” I shivered. Much as I liked putting the metal in my head, putting my head in all metal had always seemed like bit of a bridge too far.

The deertaur smirked. “Hey, don’t knock it, girl. When you live your life on the ‘net anyway, the flesh is just a distraction. I can’t ''tell ''you how nice it was never having to take pee breaks anymore.”

“I guess I have to give you that one,” I admitted.

“Then when I got here, I found the local tech offered some keen ways to upgrade, so I started thinking ‘out of the box.’ Mechanic I met over in Uplift helped me get started with some Laurasian DE shells that could be adapted to fit, and so several new bods later here I am.” She waved a hand back to take in her new body. Then she pulled the hands back in and shrank the torso back down into a doe’s neck again.

“That must come in handy for undercover operations,” Tammy mused. “Just a normal li’l ol’ deer, couldn’t ''possibly'' be a Marshal since you’re too small to Fuse to anyone.”

“It has its points,” Thompson said modestly.

“Especially when she’s a buck,” Fenwick piped up.

“It’s nice to meet you, Marshal Thompson,” I said. “And Fenwick.”

“Call me Brooke,” she said. “Or Bernie when I’m a buck.”

I nodded. “All right, Brooke. But what brings you over here?”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, ''you'' do,” Brooke said. “Y’see, I don’t want to be meat at ''all'' anymore. I’ve come as close to being a ‘real’ RIDE as I can get, but so far, nobody’s come up with a way to upload the meat-brain into non-meat. Until, well, ''you.''”

“I…see,” I said. I licked the back of a paw a few times while I thought about that. So far, everyone who’d come to look at me had been interested in learning what I did for how it would advance the state of technology, or maybe for how it could help other people. I hadn’t met anyone who wanted to know about it for ''themselves'' before. “Honestly, I’m not sure what I can tell you. I wouldn’t get your hopes up ‘til we have a better understanding of what happened to me. Even ''I'' don’t know what I did to make this happen.”

“The medical files say you shot yourself up with some kind of Q-based neural implants,” Brooke persisted. “And they grew into a backup neural net that copied you into it. So if I were to shoot up with the same implants…?”

I shook my head. “That is what I did, yeah, but if I understand the docs I’ve talked to right there’s no guarantee someone else doing it even the exact same way would get the same thing. It might be ‘cuz of some weird mutation in my brain, or the time I accidentally swallowed a sarium watch battery as a kid, or some other completely weird-ass thing right out of left field we don’t even know about yet.”

“Oh.” Brooke’s ears drooped.

I felt bad disappointing her, so I said, “But hey. That doesn’t mean they ''won’t'' figure it out. And when they do, I’ll be happy to share it with you if it’ll help you.”

She perked up again. “You mean that? ''Sweet!''”

I nodded. “I do. In fact, I’ll be glad to share everything I’ve got with you now. Share and share alike, that’s how we nano-modders roll. And since you’ve got experience cybering yourself, maybe you’ll see something we missed. And I’m sure your Sillie partner will have some ideas, too.” I grinned. “But in return, I wanna hear all about how ''you'' became what you are, in detail. You got a few hours to kill?”

She grinned, showing a perfect set of pearly white deer teeth. “I’ll clear my social calender.”

“Great! Here’s all my files…now it’s your turn.”

Brooke looked distracted for a moment as the files downloaded, then she nodded. “All right. So for starters, have you ever seen the ancient Earth movie ''Wall·E''…?”

=CHAPTER 10=

{{dropcap|B}}rooke turned out to be a really fun person to hang out with. She was a fount of amusing stories about herself, her friends, and Marshals training in general. Since I hadn’t had the chance to go through regular training, I was really interested to hear about that part. “They really had your RIDEs bodyjack you? For a whole week?”

“Was supposed to be, ‘til we got interrupted by a pair of us Integrating along the way,” Brooke said. “Of course, you’ll probably skip that part—you’ve already done it for a ''bit'' longer than that.”

“''Just'' a bit,” Tammy agreed wryly.

I was also interested to learn that the mechanic who had helped Brooke into her new bodies was none other than Ryan-now-Rhianna Stonegate. “Now there’s a name that keeps coming up everywhere,” Tammy reflected.

“She seems to have a very active life,” I agreed. “I really want to ''meet'' her someday, you know, not just watch her from the background.”

“Next time, I promise,” Tammy said.

For her part, Brooke was very interested in hearing what life out in AlphaWolf’s camp was like. She’d read accounts, but it wasn’t the same as talking to someone who’d been there. “You never know—they might stick me out there someday, since I’m not your usual human-RIDE pair. Best to know ahead of time what to expect.”

After we’d talked for a while, she suggested a three-handed game of Nature Range. She—or rather, ''he,'' since he went stag for the game—proceeded to lead us on a merry chase through the forest, nearly losing us several times. And he was a good sport about it when we finally did bring him down.

“I’m surprised,” I admitted afterward. “Most humans who do play Nature Range really don’t like playing prey.”

Bernie shrugged. “It makes me feel closer to being a RIDE somehow. Kind like how RIDEs do it to feel closer to real. And I guess ‘dying’ so many times makes me appreciate being alive more.” He shook his head, antlers making a “whoosh” sound in the air. “Anyway…I hope your research turns out well.”

I nodded. “Yeah. You ought to get to be a RIDE if you want to.”

He actually looked a little embarrassed. “I was thinking more that ''you'' ought to get to be human again. I don’t mean to come off like it’s all about me, me, me. My friends tell me I do that a lot.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “We all want what we want. If things work out, we’ll both be happy.”

He nodded. “I know a few people who might be able to help. I’ll pass the word along.”

“Sure thing,” I said. “The more the merrier. We’re not exactly going anywhere.”

As Bernie and Fenwick waved and left, I grinned at Tammy, more cheerful than I’d been for days. “Nice guy-slash-gal, don’cha think?”

“He was certainly tasty enough,” Tammy said happily, licking her muzzle. “I heard about him down the grapevine while we were out at camp but hadn’t had the chance to meet him yet. Amazing what they can do with DE shells these days, innit?”

“I hope they can do something just as amazing with ex-human beings who have cyber-implants all through their heads,” I said.

Tammy nodded agreement. “Amen to that.”

And so life went on at the hospital. More doctors, more experts, more consultations. We heard about the reactivation of Zane Brubeck’s platform that turned into an impromptu summit meeting on the subject of Fritz and what to do about him. And one day, Tammy brought news of a new add-on hardware module she’d been fitted with.

“It’s called DINsec,” she explained, beaming me the schematics. “It’s supposed to protect anything it’s hooked up to against Integrate hacking. I gather it’s been pretty extensively tested and found to work really well, so they’re rolling it out to all Marshal RIDEs now.”

“Oooh.” I regarded the design thoughtfully. There were a few bits I didn’t entirely follow, but it looked like they could be black-box fabbed without me needing to know what they did. And furthermore, it looked like the design was space-efficient and distributable enough that it could easily be assembled by nanites in my head, to add to the rest of my implants.

“Given that I’m thinking with my ‘puter parts, I’m really gonna need this if I don’t want the first Intie I come across to make me a puppet to his strings,” I said, frowning. “But there’s no way in hell that Dr. Branch is going to let me do this. He thinks everything I’ve already got was a bad move, never mind they’re all that’s keeping me thinking right now.”

“I’ve already emailed Marshal Masterson asking him to authorize it for you,” Tammy said. “If he signs off on it, there won’t be anything Branch can do but file a protest.”

“Then I guess I’ll go ahead and come up with the nanobot program and we’ll see how long it takes before we can do something with it,” I said, pulling up the design software from my implant and sketching out the broad strokes.

But I had to put it aside a few minutes later when there was a knock at the door. It was afternoon visitation hours, so I just sort of sighed and closed down the windows. “Yeah, come on in!” I called out, maybe a little grumpily.

And then ''he'' walked in.

He was nothing prepossessing to look at: a middle-aged man, his brown hair tinged with grey—not to look distinguished like Dr. Branch, but because he’d never bothered to drop by a nano-clinic to have it taken care of. A little overweight, kind of a pot belly, wearing comfortable slacks and sweater. He looked vaguely familiar.

The man shut the door behind him and glanced over at Tammy and me. “Ah, hello,” he said. “You must be Jeanette Leroq.” He nodded to Tammy’s hardlight avatar. “And Tammy.”

“Uh…yeah,” I admitted, trying to get my head back together after being interrupted in the middle of my work. Just because I was annoyed wasn’t any reason to take it out on this man. As I said, most of the experts they sent to consult were actually pretty nice people.

“Pleased to meet you.” He offered his hand, paused for a moment realizing he was offering to shake hands with a cat, but didn’t take it back. So I reached out and shook it bemusedly. “I’m Dr. Roderick Clemens,” he added, after we let go.

That was when it fell into place, and my jaw dropped in a most un-feline expression. “Dr. Roderick Clemens. The inventor of the qubitite processor.” In my implants, I pulled up a photo of him from back in the day—a lot slimmer, wearing pressed white shirt and black tie, and a lot less stubble, but there was no doubting it was the same man.

To say I was stunned would be an understatement—it was more like I’d just been hit over the head with a two-by-four. To use an example from the twenty-first century pop culture we’re all afflicted with here on Zharus, it’s as if an iPad software developer had Steve Wozniak show up at his door one day. ''Everything'' about my implants traced their ancestry back to this man.

“Er…yes, that is correct,” Dr. Clemens said. “I see my reputation precedes me.”

“You…could say that,” I said. “You’re one of my heroes. One of the heroes of the whole nanite implant modding community.”

He blinked. “Well…this is a singular experience,” Dr. Clemens said. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve only just now learned your community even exists.” He smiled ruefully. “I have been…out of the loop for some time.”

At the moment, I felt an incredible sense of ambivalence. Elation to meet one of my all-time heroes, of course. But at the same time, the knowledge that I couldn’t tell anyone ''else'' I’d just met him, because they’d either think I was nuts or else ask awkward questions. “Uh…that’s okay, really.” I nodded to one of the human-form chairs the room had been stocked with. “Have a seat.”

“Thank you.” He sat down. “I have been reviewing the details of your case, and am frankly stunned. If I hadn’t known for a fact the sources were beyond reproach, I would have suspected I were being hoaxed.”

“How’d you find out about us, Doc?” Tammy asked.

“A young Marshal I know,” Clemens said. “He desperately wants to be scanned into a Reticulated Intelligence himself. He actually tracked me down a few months ago to ask for my help.” He shrugged. “I told him at the time there was nothing we could do for him, that what he was asking was impossible.”

“And then I came along,” I said.

Clemens nodded. “Indeed. He mailed me about your case a few days ago.” He flashed a wry grin. “More than a little ''smugly,'' as it happens.”

“Wow,” I said. “Thanks, Bernie.” '':Next time I see him, I’m just gonna lick him ''all'' over,:'' I sent privately to Tammy, and received a grin emoticon in return.

“So I looked into the matter. Imagine my surprise when I found Nextus Nano was already involved in studying you! Apparently it wasn’t deemed important enough to bother the Vice President in charge of qubitite research over.”

Tammy grinned. “Oops. The scourge of bureaucracy strikes again.”

“Of course, it became understandable when I learned my old ‘friend’ Dr. Walter Branch was your physician,” Clemens said grimly. “I don’t like speaking ill of anyone, but he and I haven’t gotten along terribly well over the years.”

“Oh, really?” I asked. “Why’s that?” I was starting to like Clemens better already.

He shrugged. “I suppose it’s only to be expected, given that we both worked on different parts of the same project and had differing opinions as to our relative importance. Doesn’t help matters that he was the most junior member of Dr. Rosenthal’s team—barely a footnote on most historical accounts.”

“Feelings of inadequacy much, ya think?” Tammy asked. “No wonder he’s so gung-ho about this project. Could be a way to get his name into the history books for real.”

Clemens nodded. “Could be. But regardless, getting back to my discovery of you, the good news was that this meant there was already a case file for me to study. Do you know that your implants’ neural network map is very similar to that of an average RI core? Really quite remarkable.”

“I think you’ll find there are a lot of ‘quite remarkable’ things about my partner, Doc,” Tammy said smugly.

“I don’t doubt it.” Clemens chuckled.

“So where do you want to begin?” I asked, climbing out of the cat bed and padding over to sit on my haunches across from him.

He regarded me thoughtfully. “Could you tell me how you came to have your implants, and why you chose that configuration? I’m sure you’ve told this story over and over again until you’re sick of it, but I’d like to hear it straight from the lion’s mouth.”

“Of course,” I said. “It started out when I’d really started exploring the network for the first time, after learning some basic programming skills. I wanted a way to access the ‘net that the Home would have a harder time blocking, and then I found the nano-modding community. They had a ''lot'' of helpful advice…”

I went over how I’d learned the ins and outs of hacking medical replicators, then one day snuck out of the orphanage and took a bus across town to a small medical clinic where security was lax enough I could slip in, make my hack, and slip out without too much trouble.

“From then on, I was kinda addicted,” I confessed. “The more ‘plants I got, the easier it became to hack out more of them. Mainly focused on upping my storage and comp power, and adding some stuff like longer range comms.”

Dr. Clemens nodded. “But what I don’t understand is, how can you stand to take such risks with your brains?”

I rolled my eyes. “You and Dr. Branch both. It’s really a lot less risky than it looks.” I gave him basically the same speech I’d given Branch earlier, about it just being new uses of old technology, and some possibly-doctors involved in vetting out the most dangerous stuff.

“There are a few cases every year where someone screws up. Usually by getting careless. But a lot more people choke to death on their dinner every year, so basically it’s less dangerous than eating.”

“I would point out considerably more people eat than inject nano-implants into themselves, so I might quibble with your math a little,” Dr. Clemens said, smiling slightly. “But point taken. What did your ‘pro medicos’ have to say about ''your'' implants?”

“They passed all of them, individually,” I said. “They were a bit off from the usual, but only in terms of placement. They had all the same parts, just spread out. I figured if I could spread them out they might not be as easy for med sensors to notice.”

“But I expect they never looked at the results of all of them put together,” Dr. Clemens said.

“That would be an affirmative,” I admitted. “I guess the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.”

“I’m certainly not complaining,” Dr. Clemens said. “After all, if it weren’t for your implants, you would be in much the same state as poor Robin next door. But it does make it important to determine exactly what is going on inside your head. If we can duplicate it…well, aside from satisfying Marshal Thompson’s desire, it could be helpful to any number of medical cases.” He frowned. “Of course, I realize that doesn’t address the problem of how to turn your body and brain human again. But…”

“Hey, that’s all right,” I said. “Understanding my implants better might come in handy if there’s problems when and if it comes time to put me back in my meat head. So where do we start?”

“This room is equipped with excellent medical sensors,” Dr. Clemens said, getting up. “Let’s take some readings.”

“Works for me!” I padded over to the diagnostic table, and we got started.

{{separator|k}}

So I lay on the diagnostic table and watched Dr. Clemens set it up. Though his wasn’t a medical doctorate, he clearly knew his way around medical equipment—he’d crosstrained a bunch for working with the original Nextus RIDE project. Hardlight displays blossomed in the air around him, showing the results of all the physiological and neural scans he was doing. I easily reached out and tapped the feed with my implants.

“You’re far from the first full-body transformation I’ve seen, you know,” Dr. Clemens said idly as he worked. “Even before Amontillado. It was remarkably difficult to tune the first Fuser nanites to transform the original pilots ''just enough'' without…well, Lt. Hewer, Kaylee’s first assigned pilot, ended up almost as much a lynx as you are a lioness. Fortunately Kaylee was able to de-Fuse before they could change her brain.” He shook his head. “Of course, ''now'' we know that was due to Fritz messing with the nanites, but back then…”

“Um…is it true that one of Fritz’s pilots ended up in a zoo?” I asked.

Dr. Clemens just looked at me. “Where on Zharus did you hear that?” Tammy whistled innocently—a remarkable feat for someone with lioness lips.

“Does that mean it’s not true?” I pressed.

Dr. Clemens pursed his lips. “I think it’s best I not comment. ''Some'' of the information about that program is still classified, after all.”

“Ah,” I said. “So, have you got all the readings you need?”

“I think so,” Dr. Clemens said. “You can jump down now.”

I did so, and then padded up and rubbed my cheeks against Dr. Clemens’s legs, purring. I couldn’t say exactly why, but it was important to me that any other cats he happened to encounter over the next day or so should know he was ''my'' territory, thanks to the scent glands in my muzzle.

Dr. Clemens looked down at me and chuckled. “The most remarkable thing to me is how much you’re acting like a real cat just now. Lieutenant Hewer was completely uncoordinated in a four-legged body—she still had the mind of a human.”

“That must have been hard for her,” Tammy said.

“It was, which was why she got changed back as quickly as we could,” Dr. Clemens said. “I’m honestly rather surprised the incident was not mentioned in the briefing documents provided to the experts, given that Dr. Branch was involved in fixing it. Regardless, I’ll be authorizing a release of all records relating to that incident to the hospital as soon as I can push a Freedom of Information Act request through. It was fairly easy to change her body back, since her brain was untouched. The brain is the real sticking point.”

“As for my own animal instincts…well, they come from Tammy,” I said. “When I was acting as her Second Boot mother, I copied them over from her personality matrix—just like I copied her sensory template over so I could run her body while she was in passive. And then I spent…well, several years in time-compressed VR ‘raising’ her.”

Dr. Clemens’s eyes widened. “Really? You copied information directly out of ''her'' RI into you?”

I blinked up at him. “Yeah…what’s so odd about that? From what I read, RIDEs and their humans share memories all the time.”

“''Memories,'' yes. Sometimes even skills,” Dr. Clemens said. “But instincts? That type of data encoded for use by RI consciousnesses isn’t even ''compatible'' with human minds. And you actually ''fully'' operated her body while she was in passive mode? And were able to time-compress ‘years’ since it happened and not still be in the process of doing it now?” He shook his head. “Between that, and the CPU activity I monitored just now from your implants…it’s safe to say that you effectively ''are'' a RI. Any dissimilarities between you and a consciousness running on a RI core are so minuscule as to make no effective difference.”

I blinked. “But…I thought RIs could only be run in RI cores, those little things about the size of a walnut that they stick in RIDEs’ heads.”

“RI cores are the smallest construct we could make that had room to hold a complete neural net,” Dr. Clemens said. “We sort of…wadded it up, twisted it around and nested it within itself for the most efficient use of space. But if you exploded a RI core out into more space, it would look essentially like…well, like your implants. A neural network similar to a human’s, albeit not identical.”

“So what does that mean exactly?” I asked. “I should start calling myself a ‘RIG’ for ‘Reticulated Intelligence/Girl’ maybe?”

“What about ‘RIOS’?” Tammy suggested. “Reticulated Intelligence/Organic Shell. Or ‘RIFE’: Reticulated Intelligence/Flesh Entity.”

I snorted. “Now you’re just being silly.”

“Among other things, it would mean that, theoretically, we would be able to transfer your consciousness into a ''real'' RI core, using the same procedure we use for relocating existing RIs from damaged cores into new ones,” Dr. Clemens said slowly, like even ''he'' couldn’t believe what he was saying. “We could take you out of your flesh body entirely and put you into a DE shell: the first ever human RIDE.”

I didn’t blink now, I outright ''stared'' up at him. “But…what would that mean for my meat body? Would I be dead?”

He shook his head. “Theoretically, your autonomic systems would keep your body going, as if you were in a coma. If we had to, we could put your body in cryo-stasis and copy you back into the implants later just as easily.” He chuckled. “I realize it’s exactly the opposite of what you want…but everything I can tell from these readings suggests it absolutely ''is'' an option.”

“Wow.” I thought about that. To not have a meat body to be concerned over at all? To join myself to ''someone else’s'' meat body in a reversal of the partnership I’d had with Tammy? It was both scary and yet somehow enticing. For a moment I imagined what might happen if I were implanted into a RIDE and then somehow ended up lost in the desert, salvaged, and sold at auction to some human looking for a cheap companion. Or even if I ended up in the Marshals, assigned as standard equipment to some cadet. “Um…I think I’d like to keep that option in reserve,” I said.

“I’m not surprised,” Dr. Clemens observed. “As much as I would be excited to do it just to see if it ''could'' be done, your own concerns take precedence, of course.” Though my implants’ voice stress analysis showed that he ''was'' at least a little bit disappointed…

“On a related note,” I said, thinking. “I was just in the process of designing my ''next'' implant when you showed up. Would you like to watch?”

Dr. Clemens considered me thoughtfully. “I would, in fact. You can share your desktop with me?”

“Of course.” I hopped back into the cat bed and settled down, then pulled up the session I’d suspended when he’d arrived. A duplicate of my windows appeared in hardlight at the medical scanner control console.

“That’s interesting,” Dr. Clemens said. “This appears to be an evolution of the program we used to redesign the original Fuser nanos. I recognize the user interface.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I said. “There are a lot of people in the community, and no telling where they all come from. I could see one of ‘em having access to this software from the original project and sharing the source with everyone else.” I turned my attention back to the design process and began organizing the instructions for the medical nanos.

I didn’t tell Dr. Clemens what I was doing exactly, but he hadn’t gotten his doctorate for his looks. “You’re implementing DINsec,” he realized after a moment.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sort of figure I need to. Otherwise some Intie could hack ''me'' just as easily as any RIDE. And it’d be helpful for anyone else who has implants in his head, too, even ones not as smart as mine.”

He studied the readouts for a while. “You know…it occurs to me that if you expanded this section ''here,'' you might be able to increase your efficiency in packing the DINsec core in ''here…''” He pointed to the relevant places on his displays, and I was easily able to transpose that to where they would be on mine.

“Huh. You’re right.” I grinned, showing all my kitty teeth, as I made the suggested changes. “Are you sure you’ve never done this before?”

He smiled back at me. “Some things just make intuitive sense, I suppose. But the question remains: what are you going to do with this design after you complete it?”

“Well, run it by our docs for one thing,” I said. “And release it to the modder community at large so everyone else who needs it can have it. But then…? Good question. I’ll admit that Dr. Branch would be about as likely to approve it on his own as I would be to sprout wings and fly out the window. We’ve put in a request to the Marshals for approval, but I’m not sure ''they’ll'' go for it either.” I shrugged. “If I have to, I guess I can archive the design until sometime I ''can'' fab it on my own. I don’t s’pose I’m so likely to meet an Intie here in the hospital anyway.”

He nodded, and then we lapsed into a companionable silence as I fiddled with the design and he watched. He pointed out a couple more places I could make tweaks, but apart from that didn’t bombard me with conversation while I was working. I appreciate that. Of course, as a techno-geek of long standing himself, he’d probably had plenty of time to learn how annoying it was when someone pestered you at your work.

At last, as I was putting the finishing touches on the design, I said, “If I could ask, there’s something I’ve been wondering for a while.”

“What’s that?” Dr. Clemens asked.

“Where have you ''been'' all these years? You haven’t filed any new patents or papers since the end of the Nextus-Sturmhaven War.”

“Ah,” Dr. Clemens said. “There’s a reason for that, and his name is Fritz.”

“Oh,” I said. “Given what I’ve heard about him lately, that doesn’t surprise me.”

“You haven’t heard the ''half'' of it,” Dr. Clemens said with feeling. “Though I expect you will soon, given that it all came out at the summit the other day. Suffice it to say that his birth was not especially pleasant for him or us, and he was ''very'' good at holding grudges. Especially against me. On the whole I thought it best not to be too visible for a while.”

“For thirty years?” I asked.

He smiled wryly. “If I’d known at the outset how long that ‘while’ would turn out to be, I might have thought twice…or then again, perhaps not. It surprised all of us when Fritz became so powerful. All the time we knew him, he acted more like a small-time crook. We never thought he had it in him to become a Great Dictator.” He shrugged. “Live and learn, I guess.”

He got up. “At any rate, I think we’ve probably done enough for one day. Thank you so much for giving me the chance to examine you and learn from what you’ve done.”

“Thank ''you'' for coming,” I said. “Drop by any time. Oh, and if any patents come out of this, I want a cut.” I winked, since a toothy grin might be taken the wrong way.

He chuckled. “Now ''that,'' I can promise. I’ll be seeing you.” He nodded farewell, and let himself out of the hospital room.

“So how about that?” Tammy said after the door closed. “My little kitten’s a real live RI on the inside.”

“I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised,” I said thoughtfully. “After the way I operated your shell and all.”

“And the way you raised me in VR after that,” Tammy pointed out. “So, what’re you thinking? Gonna try going all the way and seeing how the other half lives?”

I snorted. “I’m kind of having trouble even imagining it right now. Putting some strange person inside of me? I mean, that still seems a little bit eww.”

“Hmph. Remember who you’re talking to,” Tammy said. “We’re both only ''here'' because ‘some strange person’ ''forced'' her way inside of me.”

I winced a little. “When you put it that way, it sounds a little bit…well, ''creepy.''” I sighed. “Sorry. I really ''did'' take advantage of you, a couple of times over. I didn’t think of you as anything more than a way to escape the orphanage for good, there at the start. Not as a ''person.''”

She padded over and nuzzled me. “Hey, it’s okay, girlie. I never held it against you—you ''were'' useful to have around, and you made up for it at least a dozen times over since then. I’m glad we are where we are now—’cepting for your whole kitty-body-and-brain thing, of course.”

I purred and gave her a return nuzzle. “Thanks.”

“And getting back to the subject at hand, you could do like Bernie and get a Laurasian DE,” Tammy continued. “They could even make you a custom job that looks completely human. Bernie has a couple of bodies like that.”

“Like I told Dr. Clemens, I’m going to keep that option in reserve,” I said. “I want to make sure my ''real'' body’s worth coming back to before I start thinking about getting spares.”

=CHAPTER 11=

{{dropcap|W}}e weren’t really surprised when we got back a no-go from the Marshals on the DINsec upgrade the next day. Masterson made it clear ''he'' didn’t think there was anything overly risky about it, and I probably would need it after we finished the study time in the hospital given the nature of my “special needs”—but Dr. Branch felt like it would interfere with the study process too much to allow it right now. Ha, right, like that was his ''real'' reason.

We tried to pitch it to Branch as a chance to watch an implant in the process of building itself, but we knew it would be a waste of time before we even started. Branch was all, “It would be gravely irresponsible for me to allow you to further endanger yourself with untested modifications to your body in light of what has happened to it already.”

“But they’re exactly the kind of modifications we’re here for you to study in the first place!” I insisted. But he wouldn’t go for it. His mind was made up.

When Dr. Clemens heard about it, he stormed into Dr. Branch’s office and they had such a row that it ended up needing requests from both of us to Masterson to keep Branch from banning Clemens from seeing us again at all. Clemens felt that seeing how the implants grew and bonded to the neurons could be an important key to understanding how they worked, and was very frustrated that Dr. Branch wasn’t going to give him the chance.

At that point, Tammy and I had our first serious discussion as to the benefits of blowing that popsicle stand, but I let her persuade me to stick with it a little while longer. Even if Branch was a jerk, this was where all the other experts knew where to come find us, and it was at least remotely possible ''they'' were making progress.

So that was how a few more weeks passed. In the news, tensions ratcheted up as the days without a Fritz incident grew and grew. The marshals were on alert, and Tammy spent some of her time over at the Marshals training base helping put a final polish on the latest batch of cadets, even as she was still telecommuting to my hospital room via hardlight. I didn’t begrudge her the chance to feel useful. A lot of my online buddies were also worried, especially the ones willing to admit to living in Uplift and a few others who I was pretty sure also lived there even though they hadn’t said.

The monotony was leavened by a few welcome visits from Bernie/Brooke and Dr. Clemens. Bernie was a hoot—we played more VR games and he told more funny stories from his and his friends’ training and Tin/early Copper days. Dr. Clemens did some more detailed scanning and neural mapping of my implants in the hope of being able to puzzle out how they worked, and perhaps duplicate them in simulations. He admitted that it could be years before he came up with anything solid, but it would never happen at all if he didn’t try.

Then one day, as Tammy and I hung around half in our hospital room and half in a VR overlay of our clearing, a large hyena trotted in. I stopped and stared—we didn’t have hyenas in our VR for the most part, as Tammy wasn’t partial to them. But then I realized that not only was this hyena there in the VR, it was there in the real world, too. “Bwah?” I said.

Then Tammy looked up and saw the hyena, and narrowed her eyes. “‘Scuse me. I think I need to get some air.” She winked out of both the VR and the hospital telepresence, leaving me alone in both places with the hyena. I dropped out of the VR myself, to narrow my concentration to just one realm.

The hyena regarded me thoughtfully, scratching behind one ear. Then she spoke. “Hello, kitty!”

I snorted. “Hi, ‘yena,” I replied.

“Oh, very good!” she said happily, standing on her hind paws. Her body shrank and reordered itself into an anthropomorphic hyena with human breasts, which she covered with a hardlight leotard matching her fur.

Then I realized who she had to be: the whole reason Tammy disliked hyenas in the first place. “DeniFaye?”

“In the flesh-and-metal,” she replied. “And you’re Jeanette Leroq. Pleasetameetcha. Sorry I couldn’t be here sooner—I was in the field, and only just found out about you and Tams when I got back. Wow, that’s some rough stuff you went through.” She shook her head. “Sorry to hear ‘bout the hard times.”

“Thanks. But compared to what Tammy said about you, I think I got off light,” I said. “She’s still…not really over it.”

DeniFaye sighed. “I know.” She dropped onto the seat across from my bed, arranging her tail as she sat. “I’m still not entirely over it myself. How much do you know about Integrates?”

“I’ve had the basic Marshals orientation,” I said.

She nodded. “Good enough. Well…when Denise and Faye were force-Integrated, I ended up being…mostly Faye. Denise is in here, too—I have all her memories, and her personality’s a part of the gestalt. She shows herself in the occasional wisecrack, and I still like wearing stylish leather jackets and toting stylish guns from time to time. Though the afro is right out. Looks ridiculous on a hyena.”

“I can’t imagine it would look all that great on a lioness, either,” I said.

“Tams…made it work somehow, the few times I could talk her into trying it.” DeniFaye shook her head. “But point is, the non-stop wisecracking Shaftette just isn’t ''me'' anymore, and Tams can’t deal with that. She looks at all the other Inties who are more balanced, or mostly the human half, or separate-but-equals, and blames me for not being like them.” She sighed again. “I still care for her, and miss her, very much. But I just can’t be the person she wants me to be anymore.”

“That’s pretty sad,” I said.

“Pfft, tell me about it,” DeniFaye said. “Three lives screwed up all because some idiot Snatcher had himself a bad day and wanted someone to take it out on. I ''told'' him I was a Marshal. They usually left Marshals alone since we usually left them alone. But noooo, he wanted someone he could kick in the nuts—figuratively, anyway—‘cuz his own were aching. I didn’t want to be a part of some strange RIDE, I had Tams and was going to be with her ''forever''. And ''I''—that is, Faye—hadn’t even gotten to Fuse with a human. I was looking forward to finding out what it would be like, what I could do…''I hadn’t even tried out my skimmer form yet!''” She sighed. “See? Like I said, still not over it. But life’s an exercise in learning to deal with disappointments. We adapt, we adjust, we move on.” She muttered, “Unless you’re Tams.”

“She was…pretty lonely,” I said.

“Yeah, she wouldn’t ''let'' herself take another partner. Think that’s why she finally went off to Alfie’s camp, so she wouldn’t ''have'' to. Which reminds me.” She looked thoughtfully at me. I felt a tickle in my head. “Gods above, you really ''are'' a RI in there. That’s amazing.”

“Um…hey,” I said, suddenly wishing I’d gone ahead and fabbed DINsec no matter ''what'' Masterson and Grant said.

“Oh…sorry.” She looked down at her feet and the tickle stopped. “Sometimes I still don’t know how to behave in polite company.” She looked back up at me. “Um…may I read your memories? I ''really'' want to know how you and Tams are getting on…how you got together…I promise I won’t pass on what I find out.”

I thought about that. Honestly, I couldn’t stop her from waltzing in and taking it if she wanted. Hell, maybe she already had and was just being polite to save face. I guessed if I couldn’t trust Tammy’s ex-partner, who could I trust? “All right—but I want at least some of ''your'' memories of what she was like when you partnered her, ‘kay?”

She clapped her handpaws delightedly. “It’s a deal!” She considered. “It’d be most efficient if I…yeah, I can do it that way. Hold on.”

She reached out a hand to me, palm up—and for a few seconds, she was suddenly the ''most important thing in my universe.'' My mistress…my ''goddess''…my total owner. I felt her paging through memory files inside my head, and happily offered up everything I had to her. She cybernetically patted me on the head and placed something of her own in an empty storage sector of my memory, then withdrew.

Then she was just a hyena Integrate again, no more or less important than that. I stared at her. “What the…what on Zharus did you just do?”

“Took root for a moment. Was easier to copy the files around that way.” She noticed how I was looking at her. “Erm…sorry?”

I shook my head. “That was just…crazy. Is that what it feels like when ''I'' hack someone?” I was starting to suspect I might just owe Tammy more apologies than I’d thought.

“It’s kind of a matter of degree,” DeniFaye said. “We Inties are…kind of overwhelming sometimes. Sorry about that.” She closed her eyes for a moment—absorbing the memories she’d taken from me, I guess.

I privately suspected she wasn’t really ''that'' sorry at all, but whatever. It ''had'' been an amazing feeling, and I was even now halfway tempted to beg her to do it again. I firmly clamped down on the impulse and thought dark thoughts about Dr. Branch and the stick he had up his ass about upgrading my implants. I’d just had an object lesson in how necessary it was. If I wasn’t going to be pwned by every Intie I came across, I needed it and soon.

DeniFaye opened her eyes again, grinning, her tongue lolling out. “Oh, that was ''delightful!'' You’re a perfect fit for Tams…maybe even more than ''I'' ever was. You two deserve each other ''so much!''” She clapped her handpaws together again. “I think she’s finally starting to heal now. Maybe someday soon…we can be friends again.”

“I hope so,” I said. “She needs all the friends she can get.” I peeped at the file DeniFaye had left me. It started from the perspective of a teenaged girl in a Nextus military cadet’s uniform meeting a lioness RIDE fresh from the factory. They were on a parade ground where dozens of other first encounters were happening at the same time under the watchful eye of drill instructors in bear RIDEs wearing hardlight campaign hats. I put it aside for later perusal when I didn’t have company.

As if she’d read my mind (oh, wait, she ''had'' read my mind), DeniFaye stood from the seat. “I should be going. Sooner or later someone will come to see why the camera feed from this room is glitching.”

“Oh,” I said. “But you just got here. I’d kind of hoped to talk with you some more.”

“I’ll catch up with you again sometime when you’re out of the hospital,” the hyena Integrate said. “I wouldn’t wait too long about that, by the way. I don’t think you’re going to find the answers you’re looking for just sitting around in here. Give Tams my love.” She stepped into empty air. A moment later, the hospital room door opened and closed on nothing.

{{separator|k}}

Not long after DeniFaye left, Tammy rezzed back up via the hardlight uplink. “So, now you’ve met the Usurper,” she said.

“That’s not really fair,” I replied. “She really is a nice person. It’s not her fault—not ''either'' of their faults—what happened to them.”

Tammy sighed. “I know. That’s part of why I don’t like being around her. It makes ''me'' feel like a bad person for hating what she became. It wouldn’t be so bad if she was like a total stranger. It’s just that there’s this ''little bit'' of the old Denise that pushes it right into the uncanny valley for me.” She shuddered. “And then there’s the whole power corrupts thing. The times I ''did'' try to work with her, if she saw something needed to be done she’d just…do it. Including if it was inside of ''me.'' Though come to think of it, with DINsec that’s not going to be a concern anymore…so maybe I’ll give her another go sometime.”

I thought about how casually DeniFaye had hacked me just to copy some files over—and what she ''could'' have done if she’d wanted. “I can sort of see that, I guess.” Then I remembered something else. “Is it true she—Denise, I mean—got you to wear an afro?”

Tammy facepawed. “Don’t tell me she told you about ''that.''”

“She just sort of mentioned it in passing. So anyway, there ''are'' photos, right?” I grinned.

“No. No, there are no photos, ever, ''anywhere.'' They do ''not exist.''” Tammy insisted.

“You know, I ''do'' have root privs over you,” I pointed out. “It wouldn’t be hard to run a search…”

“You wouldn’t,” Tammy said.

“Yeah…you’re right, I actually wouldn’t,” I admitted. “It would be kind of a violation and all. But I can still ''pretend'' I would as a conversational gambit!”

“Hmph. Oh, well, all right, since you ''insist.''” Tammy beamed over an image of herself in Fuser form, wearing a brown leather jacket, toting a RIDE-sized magnum revolver, and adorned with a large round black globe of hair.

I had to giggle. “Wow, trippy!”

Tammy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. What can I say, it was a different time.”

“She was right, though,” I said, on reflection. “Apart from the overall silliness of it, you really ''did'' pull it off. Really stylin’ there, in a ‘70s catsploitation kind of way.”

“She said that? That I pulled it off?” Tammy asked. “Huh.”

I saved the picture for later perusal, along with the memory file DeniFaye had sent over. “But for now…I frowned. “She said something else as she was leaving. Something I’ve been thinking a lot, too—that I’m not going to find any answers just sitting here in this hospital room.”

“Aw, not this again,” Tammy said. “I thought we went over this already.”

“We did. But it’s been a while; maybe it’s time to do it again,” I said. “We’ve been here two months now, and seen a passel of ‘experts.’ Apart from Dr. Clemens, how much has any of them really told us?”

“They may not necessarily ''know'' anything yet,” Tammy pointed out.

“Maybe—or maybe it’s just that I’m a kid and you’re equipment,” I said. “Care to make a little bet which one’s the truth?”

Tammy’s eyes narrowed. “What’re you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that if I’m gonna be an RI, it’s time I started acting like one. Between the hacking stuff I’ve already got and the Quant software you have, we should be able to bust this hospital’s network wide open and get at the truth. What’cha say?”

“Hmm.” Tammy gave her hardlight pelt a few licks as she thought about the question. “I gotta say, playing Fritz’s advocate aside I ''have'' been starting to wonder a little myself. Maybe it’s time we did check it out.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear.” I grinned. “I’ll lead and you back me up.” I opened and encrypted comm channel and we dropped into VR to set up the hack.

I had to grin when I found what awaited me there—a perfect virtual recreation of Matthew Broderick’s bedroom from the twencen movie ''WarGames'', complete with IMSAI 8080 computer and 17” Electrohome monitor''.'' “Would. You. Like. To. Play. A. Game?” Joshua’s voice asked from the speech synthesizer.

I smirked. “You ''really'' know how to make a girl feel at home. Though this is a little retro even for Zharus.”

“Hey, don’t knock it. This is one of the last times Hollyweird got ''anything'' right in a hacking movie,” Tammy pointed out.

“Good point,” I conceded. I reached out and socketed the phone into the rubber caps of the acoustic modem. The touch-tones sounded. “Okay, let’s get started.”

I was really astonished at just how much simpler hacking was when I was thinking through my implants without the meat mind to slow me down. I could slow time down as much as I needed to have plenty of time to make decisions before prompts timed out. I could adjust my decryption approaches much faster than in real time. I could pack hours of password and social engineering research into a few seconds. About the only way it could have been easier would have been if I’d been Integrated and could hack just by waving my hand in the general direction of the computer.

I chuckled at that last thought. Thanks to DINsec, a ''lot'' of Intie script kiddies (”Int kiddies”?) would be in for a very rude awakening pretty soon. Just think of it, actually having to ''do'' something to hack a computer. Half of them might just pack up and go home right then and there. Did my heart good just thinking about it.

Anyway, before I knew it we had access to the hospital records Data scrolled up on the Electrohome monitor, one monochrome line at a time. I finally went ahead and broke paradigm by opening a flurry of hardlight display panels so I could better see just what I was getting.

And I as I quickly discovered, what I was getting was proof I’d been had. There were reams of test results, scan images, diagnoses, prognoses, hypotheses, and other information I’d never seen or had mentioned to me in any way. I copied these to storage, for sharing with Dr. Clemens or anyone else I might end up having work on my case.

The real kicker came in the form of not one but ''several'' proposed courses of treatment that could, theoretically, restore me to my old human self, including a full-sized, right-shaped meat brain. “They didn’t even ''mention'' these,” I fumed. “''Why'' didn’t they mention these?”

“Look.” Tammy pulled up some notations by Dr. Branch on the proposals. The substance of all of them was about the same: too untested, too risky to try on the patient. Shelved pending further research.

“That shouldn’t be his decision!” I exploded. “''I’m'' the patient here!”

“Holy crap, look at ''this!''” Tammy pulled up another record, this one a set of legal documents.

“Request for custody transfer? Bwa?” I flipped through the set of pages. Dr. Branch had filed requests asking that my legal custody be transferred to ''him,'' on the grounds that this would make it easier for him to be sure I was receiving the appropriate level of care—especially considering my great importance to being able to reverse the changes brought on by Amontillado, and medical science in general.

“They’d never go for it,” Tammy said. “The Marshals, anyway. You’re a Provisional Tin, and minors with Marshal badges get the Marshals as their official legal guardian.”

“And here’s a motion to get my star revoked on account of the Home never signing off on it,” I said, flipping to the next document.

“Like hell,” Tammy growled. “The Diamond gals ''live'' for this kind of fight. I dotted every ‘t’ and crossed every ‘i’. No way is anyone revoking any badge ''I'' issued.”

“And what on Zharus is ''this?''” I looked at the next document. “A petition ''from'' the Children’s Home that Dr. Branch be added as an accredited representative? Why would they do that? Why would they ''want'' that?”

“Maybe a couple of Marshals should investigate the matter,” Tammy suggested. “What’cha think? Feel like making another visit to the scene of the crime?”

I shuddered. “I ''really'' don’t want to have to go back there again, even for just a little bit. But…now I’m curious. Really, ''really'' curious.” I grinned toothily. “Either way, I think it’s time we blew this popsicle stand,” I said. “I’m not waiting around for Dr. Branch to convince a court that he’s my new daddy.”

Tammy nodded. “Works for me. I’ll just pull out of the garage and head up front.”

I filed away all the documents we’d found and lifted the receiver to log out of the network, leaving it exactly as we’d found it. With any luck, they’d never know we’d been into them ‘til we were long gone. “Just one more thing to do, since we’re leaving anyway.” I dropped the phone back into the modem and dialed one more number.

“How. About. A. Nice. Game. Of. Chess?” Joshua asked.

“No thanks. I want to play Global…Thermonuclear…War,” I said as I typed, uploading the code for my DINsec implant nano-upgrade into the medical fabber in my room.

I dropped out of VR back into the real world as the nano-syringe thunked into the slot on the fabber. “Awesome.” I picked it up with the stubby fingers on my forepaw and managed to get it clipped to my collar. As I did so, my hand brushed against the Provisional Tin Star. “Oh,” I said. “Guess I better lose the badge and comm. They could track us that way.”

“Why wouldn’t we want them to track us?” Tammy asked. “I thought the plan was to cut out of the hospital, not to go fugitive again.”

“If they’re going to hand custody of me over to Dr. Branch, I don’t want to make things easy for them,” I said.

Tammy snorted. “And who said they were? I told you, the Diamond gals—our JAG and IA branch, remember?—are going to be fighting ‘em every inch of the way. And if we lose…well, we just station you somewhere other than Nextus ‘til you’re 18, that’s all. We ''don’t'' abandon our own.”

I growled thoughtfully. It was true, I didn’t especially like the idea of giving up that star, the one symbol of ''real'' authority I’d ever managed to earn in my life. “I dunno…if the Marshals would stick me with a jerk like Branch in the first place…”

Tammy rolled her eyes. “You really think they knew he was that big a jerk ahead of time? Honestly, the ones who matter probably still don’t even know anything’s wrong yet. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s kind of a crisis going on right now, and not a lot of attention to spare for other things. Branch is a half-hollow stuffed shirt they brought in for his alleged medical expertise, and that’s all. He’s not part of the Service, and when Masterson finds out what he’s been up to I’ll bet he’s out on his ear.”

“Hmm. Well…all right. I guess I can always quit later if I have to.” Truth be told, I did feel kind of relieved at not having to take that step just yet, and not only because it would really have been hard to unclip the thing with my paw-fingers.

“Don’t worry,” Tammy said firmly. “I’ve already lost one partner. I’ll be ''damned'' if anyone takes another from me.”

I looked at her for a moment, unsure how to respond to that. Finally, I just purred. “Okay, meet me out front in five minutes,” I said. “I’ll be right down.”

“Got it.” She winked out, and I padded out of the room, heading for the elevators.

Then I stopped and went next door to check in on Robin one last time. The small stallion whickered happily to see me, and I padded over to give him a friendly nuzzle and lick. “Hey, boy,” I said. “Gonna be gone a while. I’ll try to stop back in when I can.” I chuckled. “If nothing else, they can’t lock me out of the telepresence projectors. See ya ‘round, pony boy.”

Nobody seemed to notice anything amiss as I headed to the elevator to meet Tammy downstairs, but that didn’t keep my tail from swishing nervously all the way to the elevator and down to the ground. Even freaking the mundanes wasn’t as entertaining as usual.

Of course, I ''knew'' it was just my imagination. None of the staffers here could possibly know I’d just hacked their ‘frame. As far as they knew I was just heading out for more walkies. I still kept imagining armed squads of security guards leaping out from side corridors with murder in their eyes. You know what they say about a guilty conscience.

At last I padded across the lobby, paws making no sound on the tile floor. I’d hoped to leave for good on ''two'' feet, not four, but right now it looked like that just wasn’t in the cards. Oh well. I was still leaving, at any rate. And I was sure I’d find a solution sooner or later.

Tammytruck was waiting outside in the loading zone, and I hopped right into the open cab. “So where to now?” Tammy asked.

I’d been thinking about it as I came down, and I’d come to the conclusion Tammy was right. Something weird was going on, and we needed to investigate. “Next stop: Nextus Children’s Home,” I told her.

“Sounds like a plan!” Tammy said cheerfully as we pulled out onto the street. “Those Fagins will never know what hit ‘em.”

=CHAPTER 12=

{{dropcap|I}}t was only a couple of klicks to the Home, so we cruised slowly up the street. There wasn’t really any hurry. I couldn’t say I was exactly eager to see the old homeplace again in any case, even if this time I was planning to bust some metaphorical heads. “So how we gonna play this?” I asked. “Don’t we need a warrant or something?”

“If we’re looking for evidence to use in court,” Tammy said. “Do we care about that right now? As far as I know, this is pretty much an administrative matter for the Marshals right now, no real ‘crime’ committed that we know of. All the same, I have gone ahead and called in a request.”

That sounded interesting. “Any response?”

“Hang on, coming in now. They’re clearing it with the Nextus legal liaison. Word is…we can go ahead, but keep property damage to a minimum.”

“So no busting down doors. Got it,” I said.

“Still, no reason we can’t ''act'' like we’re gonna,” Tammy said, flashing me a wicked toothy grin through VR. As we pulled onto the long driveway leading up to the Mission Revival style manor, she asked, “Ready to Fuse up?”

“Yeah! Let’s do it!” I whooped. The skimmer truck folded up around me, pulling me down into Tammy’s torso as she shifted from speeding skimmer to bounding lioness without losing a bit of speed. It was our first Fuse in weeks, and I reveled in the soothing warmth of the larger lioness around me. It felt like I was back where I belonged.

Just ahead of us loomed the immense barred gates in the three-meter fence around the estate, kept closed to ward against escapes or intruders. Tammy leaped right over it without even trying.

The grounds of the manor house spread out before us—about fifteen acres carved out of the heart of the polity suburb, all part of the original wealthy owner’s land grant. Since the whole place was government land, it was more or less protected from expansion at the moment. There were a couple of small park and playground type places here and there, with a bunch of the younger kids out at play, and also some decorative stuff like statues and fountains that were left over from the first owner.

The manor itself was made up of a central building at the north, then east and west wings enclosing a courtyard with a central fountain, like an upside-down “U”. “So where we heading?” Tammy asked. “I’m not exactly gonna fit inside, ya know.”

I placed a carat mark over the central building’s second-floor balcony above the courtyard. “That’s where the superintendent’s office is. Get me up there and I’ll go in and do the rest.”

“Got it.” We dodged around the fountain, then Tammy reared back and rested her forepaws on the stone balustrade lining the balcony. She supported her weight mostly on her hind legs and lifters to keep from damaging the masonry. Then she opened her jaws and pushed me out, head first. I cackled a little at the recursive lioness imagery. It must have looked like something out of a feline H.R. Giger. Not ''Alien,'' but “A-lion”.

I hit the balcony on all four paws and padded forward to the office doors. They were usually kept unbolted, since the stairs up to the balcony had locked gates on them. The doors opened outward, so I had to reach up and turn the handle and pull with my paw-hand. It took a couple tries to get it right. Then I swung it out and triumphantly padded inside. I’d been ''waiting'' for this moment.

In the office within, behind a big polished oak desk sat one Adirana Harding, Superintendent of the Nextus Children’s Home for as long as I could remember being here. A rather severe woman, brown hair pulled back in a bun and wearing half-moon spectacles, I’d always thought that all she lacked was a wimple to be ready to smack Jake and Elwood around. But it would take more than a “mission from God” to make this place worth living in.

Harding looked up as I entered. Her eyes widened at seeing a lioness in her office, then saw the collar and I guess put two and two together. “Miss Leroq!” she barked. “What is the meaning of this?!”

I tilted my head so she could clearly see the badge on the collar. “That’s ''Provisional Tin Star Marshal'' Leroq, Miss Harding. Here under the authority of my partner and instructor, Silver Star Marshal Tamarind.” I nodded out the door, where Tammy’s immense head still peeped over the railing of the balcony. She was also listening in over my collar’s comm. “We have a few questions we’d like to ask you.”

She scowled at me. “I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, but you ''will'' leave right away or I will call the Polizia!”

“Um, hello? We ''are'' the police.” I pointed at the badge with one paw-hand. “If you want someone with more authority, I ''can'' get my partner in here, but I don’t think you’ll be happy with the property damage.”

Harding took a deep breath and gripped the edges of her desk, then said through gritted teeth, “What do you ''want?''”

I grinned, then reached out with my implants and easily took over the computer built into the desk. I threw the document accrediting Dr. Branch as a representative of the Home up onto the display. “What’s this all about? Why is it so important Branch be associated with the Home if he gets custody of me?”

“If you ''must'' know, since you’re no longer…suitable to be housed here, this allows us to continue as your guardian of record,” Adirana Harding growled.

“Why does that even ''matter?''” I prodded. “You’ve never even ''liked'' me. Why do you ''want'' to be my guardian?” I frowned. “Hell…for that matter, now that I think about it, you never exactly tried very hard to get me adopted. I remember the other kids my age having interview after interview with foster parents, but I never got a one.”

“That’s ''entirely'' untrue!” Harding insisted. “You’ve made no secret you do not appreciate our efforts, but nonetheless we have only ever tried to do what was best for you. Even now, after your…unfortunate mishap.”

I snorted. “Yeah, right. I might be a lion now, but I’m starting to think ''you’ve'' been ‘lion’ ever since I got here. Luckily, there are ways around that. Oh man, I’ve wanted to do this for ''soooo'' long…”

I let my implants loose, penetrating via Harding’s computer into the orphanage’s mainframe, vacuuming the files clean and retreating into fast-time VR to spend a few hours studying, searching, and collating what I’d gotten over the next few seconds. Tammy joined me within a few fast-time minutes.

There was plenty of interesting stuff to be found. “Would you look at that?” I mused. On January 1 of every year I’d been in the Home, 100,000 ''mu'' was deposited into the Home’s financial account, earmarked as “Jeanette Leroq stipend.” It was a completely anonymous deposit, with no trace whatsoever left of where it came fro…and due to various financial jiggery-pokery, 80,000 ''mu'' of each deposit somehow ended up transferred to one Adirana Harding’s personal accounts. And those weren’t the only funds she managed to finagle, either.

The only clue to the money’s origin came in the form of a note that had arrived with the first one, indicating that the money would be paid to whoever acted as my guardian—either them, or whoever ended up adopting me. Apparently they were watching, and they’d know if it changed. Suddenly a lot of things made sense. No ''wonder'' they had always made such an effort to get me back before the end of the year when I’d run away..

And hidden in Harding’s personal correspondence, encrypted by a lock that took Tammy and me all of three realtime seconds to break, were a series of email exchanges between her and Dr. Branch proposing an arrangement of mutual convenience—the Home would back his attempt to get custody as long as he would agree to act as an accredited representative so that, legally speaking, I’d still be in the Home’s custody. She got my money, and he got…''me.''

I’d seen enough. I dropped back into the real world, and opened a number of other hardlight displays into which I dropped the most incriminating documents. “Okay, now I get it. All about the money. Right.”

Harding’s eyes widened again as she stared from one screen to another. “You…but that…how did you…” she sputtered. “You hacked our computer! None of this is admissible in court!”

“Court of law, maybe,” I said. “But you think I care about that? It’d take months to get anything done, and you’d probably sleaze your way out of any real punishment.” I opened one more display—to the net site for NextusLeaks. “Now, the court of ''public opinion,'' on the other hand…” A quick upload, and I was done.

“Well, I guess that about wraps it up here,” I said, turning to go as Harding foamed incoherently in her seat. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

{{separator|k}}

When I got out to the balcony, Tammy was no longer reared up against it. I put my own forepaws on the balustrade and peered over, then had to giggle. Tammy was on her back in the courtyard, all four paws waving in the air, surrounded by a dozen or so of the Home’s younger kids petting and scritching her. As I watched, she turned her head and gave an eight-year-old boy a bristly tongue slurp from waist to face that made him squeal. The children’s adult warders were standing to one side, not quite certain what to do.

I padded down the balcony stairs, unlocking the gate at the bottom with my implants. A couple of the kids saw me coming and peeled off to pet a kitty closer to their size. I rubbed my muzzle against them and purred, then said, “Sorry kids, but we can’t stay. Ya ready, Tammy?”

“Awww. Okay, stand back, kids.” Tammy used her lifters to raise herself four meters into the air, then flipped over and landed safely away from them. Then she converted back to skimmer form, I hopped into the cab again, and we pulled away.

“We oughtta come back sometime,” Tammy said as we left.

“Yeah, after Harding gets the boot,” I said. “Maybe the place won’t be so bad with someone else in charge. Either way, ''I'' won’t be staying here anymore.”

“Such a pity she won’t be able to embezzle you anymore,” Tammy mused.

“Yeah.” I shook my head. “Damn. I think that’s the biggest surprise to come out of all of this. I’ve been getting a hundred grand stipend per year?”

“This is really the first you’ve heard of that?” Tammy asked as we slowed and lifted over the gate. I waved a paw to the startled guards as we passed.

“Yeah. I just can’t figure it. All this time I thought I was dumped because my folks didn’t want me. Now I find out someone’s been paying a small fortune to see me raised? Sure would have been nice if I could have seen some of that money myself. Would have made getting implants easier, maybe.”

“You’d still have had the whole ‘parental permission’ thing to get around,” Tammy pointed out.

“Well, yeah,” I admitted. “But I’d have had ''money.'' That makes getting around crap a lot easier. Damn, now I wanna hack Harding’s bank account and steal back what that woman owes me.”

“Stay good, Jeanette,” Tammy scolded.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” I shook my head. “And really, it’s more because I don’t want ''her'' to have it than wanting it myself. Hell, I’m tempted just to tell the Marshals they can keep my next payment. What do I need money for when I’ve got you?”

“Aww, that’s sweet of you,” Tammy said, sending a quick VR flash of purring and rubbing against me. “That being said, I strongly encourage you to hang onto it. It’ll come in handy for supplementing the equipment stipend when you finish training. And for any leftovers, there’s always Marshals savings bonds!”

I chuckled. “Good point.”

“So where to now? Head back to the Marshals base and put in for a room there or something? Head somewhere else and see if we can find a better doctor?” Tammy asked.

“Maybe. But first I want to swing by the hospital one more time,” I said. “I feel like having a few last words with the old doctor.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Tammy asked. “I mean, we don’t really need to. We’ve already hacked ''his'' systems, we know he’s creepy but not really ''criminal'' like Harding.”

“I know, but I feel like I need some closure there,” I said. “After weeks of putting up with his crap, I just want to give him a piece of my mind. Make it clear he doesn’t have any power over me once and for all.”

“Okay, I guess I can see that,” Tammy said. “Ya know I’ll be there to back you up, pardner.”

“Thanks, Tammy, you’re aces.” I gave her dashboard a friendly nuzzle, and she purred. We turned back toward the hospital one last time.

{{separator|k}}

A few minutes later, I padded into the office of Dr. Walter Branch. It actually took me a bit to find out where it was, on one of the upper floors of the hospital, because I’d never yet been to it during my stay; Branch had always come to my room.

I’ll admit, I abused my authority mercilessly in getting in to see him. I put my paws on the receptionist’s desk, raised my head to show the badge on my collar, and said, “Official Marshals business. Don’t announce me, just buzz me in.”

She nodded mutely and did so, and I padded toward and through the door, feeling smug in my exercise of Marshal authority. Of course, a moment later I realized it might just have been having a talking mini-lioness in her face that did it more than the badge—but hey, whatever works, right?

Dr. Branch’s desk was similar in design to Superintendent Harding’s, but in mahogany. I wondered if they shopped at the same furniture store. Branch blinked and looked up from the displays on his desk, reaching for the genial manner he always tried to wear around me or Tammy. “Miss Leroq!” he said pleasantly. “This is a surprise.”

“That’s ''Marshal'' Leroq, but I’ll let it pass,” I said, sitting on my haunches on one of the guest chairs. “I just came to let you know I’m checking out of the hospital, and to give you a chance to explain yourself before I make my report to the Marshals.”

I watched his eyes widen, and my biometrics monitor told me he was starting to get nervous. But he hid it pretty well. “Checking out? But we haven’t even begun to treat you yet. And what’s this about a report?”

“Well, Doc, about the not-begun-to-treat-me thing—” I commandeered his desk’s computer the way I had Harding’s and threw up all the documents about proposed courses of treatment that he had vetoed. “—here I’m seeing that there have been some treatment options available for weeks now, but they haven’t even been discussed with me. Now I am a minor, I’ll give you that, but I’m the one these plans would be affecting and a Marshal besides, and I think I rate a little more openness.”

Branch stared at the reports, then glowered at me. “Where did you get these? These are private papers!”

“Oh, I’ve got privater,” I said. “I see you’ve also been doing some dealing with my old keepers back at the Home to try to get my badge yanked and you made my new official daddy.” I put those papers onto displays too. “Oh, and look! The Home gets paid a hundred K ''mu'' every year I’m under their metaphorical roof. This is starting to look like what we in the biz’ness call a ‘conspiracy’. Maybe not an illegal one, but definitely a hinky-looking one. How much ''are'' they paying you?”

“They’re not paying me anything!” Branch exploded. Not that it surprised me. He wasn’t about the money. He probably made enough from his practice that even the whole hundred K would be chicken feed anyway. “Not that it’s any of your business—”

“Oh, I’m just the one whose custody’s being discussed here, why would it be ''my'' business?” I purred dangerously. Or at least, I liked to ''think'' I purred it dangerously, like the suave heroines from the spy movies. Maybe from his point of view I whined petulantly, I don’t know.

“I’m only concerned with seeing that you have a proper caretaker until you reach your majority,” Dr. Branch insisted, trying for calm. “Look at you! You’re of no age and in no condition to be a Marshal, or even take care of yourself!”

“Gotta differ with ya there, Doc. There’s nothing wrong with my brain, my senses, or my implants, and as for a ‘proper caretaker,’ got one of those already. Her name is Tammy, and she was taking care of me for over half a year before I ever came here.”

“A RIDE? Don’t be ridiculous. A mere machine can’t possibly—”

I shook my head, and cut him off. “Doc, did you sleep through the part of your Hollow Star training that covered Marshals organization culture? I think they’d find Tammy a ''lot'' more suitable guardian for me than they would you.”

I yawned, exposing lots of sharp pearly-white kitty teeth. “You know what I think? I think you want to hang onto me and keep me all kitty-shaped for as long as you can, indefinitely if you can get away with it. After all, I’m the only ‘Full Monty’ who can ''talk,'' say where it hurts and what stuff feels like. Invaluable for research, and if I get ''cured'' that goes away.”

“That’s preposterous!” Branch exclaimed. But my read of his body language suggested I’d hit uncomfortably close to the truth.

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. You wanna get your name in the history books for reals, so you’ll do whatever it takes to be the one who ‘cures’ Amontillado once and for all.”

His face was starting to go bright red, and I didn’t want to be the one responsible for driving him to a stroke, so I figured it was best to cut this short. “Anyway, I’ve said what I came to say. So I’ll just be going now. I ‘spect you’ll be hearing from the Diamond Gals sometime soon. Don’t get too attached to that Provisional Iodine badge of yours…”

I hopped down from the chair and padded for the door. Behind me, I heard Branch sputter—and then I heard him regain the power of coherent speech at least enough to trigger his desk ‘comm and yell, “Security!” Uh-oh. Time to quicken my pace.

They were waiting for me at the elevator lobby—four uniformed guards with stunners at their belts, and one with a stun rifle slung over his shoulder. The one in the lead stepped forward and said, “Miss Leroq, Dr. Branch has asked us to escort you back to your room.”

I sat on my haunches and licked the back of my forepaw, the very picture of feline calm as I peered out the panoramic glass window to one side, overlooking the city. “I’d really be asking myself if that was a good idea, if I were you,” I said. “Interfering with a Marshal in the performance of her duties? Now, granted, we don’t have the greatest jurisdiction within polity lines, but still, we got some.” I tilted my head again to show badge.

The guards exchanged worried glances. I could see the gears turning in their heads, but I could also read their skepticism. I imagined Branch had been telling them my badge was just a childish affectation, that I was more on the order of a mascot or something without any real authority. After all, who makes a kid a Marshal, let alone a kid-turned-kitty-cat?

It was obvious when they came to their decision, as they moved their hands closer to their weapons and started to move forward. “I think we’ll just take our cha—” the leader began smugly—then froze as a skimmer truck emblazoned with a silver Marshal badge with one bronze point rose into view in the panoramic window beside me.

“Is there a problem, Tin Star Leroq?” Tammy’s voice came over my collar comm. The deputies gawked at the skimmer truck. I noticed she now had rather large Gatling guns on her pintle mounts, which amused the hell out of me because I knew full well those were just hardlight mock-ups. Sure ''looked'' impressive, though.

“No, Silver Star Tamarind, I don’t ''think'' there’s a problem,” I said, glancing over at the guards. “Is there, boys?”

The guards stared out the window at Tammytruck, then raised their hands away from their stunners and stood very meekly aside. “No, ma’am,” the lead guard said. “No problem here.”

{{separator|k}}

I started giggling as soon as the elevator doors closed, and didn’t stop all the way down to the ground floor, all the way out across the lobby, until I was safely-ensconced in the now-Gatling-gunless Tammytruck’s cab again. “Oh, that was ''awesome!''” I squealed. “When you rose up into view like that, just like in ''Blue Airwolf…''”

Tammy laughed. “You get more with a kind word and a couple a’ big guns than you do with just a kind word.”

“I’ll say.” I grinned as we pulled away. “So what now?”

“You got your report ready to send?” Tammy asked.

“Not quite—gimme a few seconds.”

“Hey, take a whole minute!” Tammy said cheerfully. “We’re in no hurry here.”

“You’re too kind,” I said dryly. Then I dropped into fast-time VR to compose the report I would be sending in covering my investigation. I appended the files I’d gotten from the hospital and the orphanage, and noted down my impressions of Harding and Grant from my interviews with them. I closed with the confrontation with the security guards, and wrapped up with my conclusions about the motivations of everyone in the whole affair. Dotted every “i”, crossed every “t”, et cetera.

When I was done, I dropped back into real-time and beamed it over to Tammy. Only ten seconds had gone by in the “real” world.

“Lookin’ good there, pard!” Tammy said, examining the report. “I’m adding in my own comments, and zipping it off to Masterson. We’ll give him an hour or two to read through ‘em, see what he says.”

“Sounds good. What do we do in the meantime?” I asked.

“Well…I’m not without a little cash money myself, so I was thinking I might just treat you to a steak dinner to celebrate your very first case.”

I grinned. “As long as it’s ''very'' rare, that sounds wonderful!”

“Great, let’s go! I know a nice four-star restaurant with patio seating and lots of snooty mundanes to freak out.”

“Ooh, life is ''good!''” I sat happily in the cab, wind ruffling my fur, as Tammy guided us on up the street. So what if I was stuck as a mostly-cat right now, and had no idea when or if I’d get the human me back? I was a Marshal (at least provisionally), I was free, and I had the best partner ''ever''. Life really ''was'' good, and I was content for it to continue this way as long as it wanted to.

=EPILOGUE=

{{dropcap|T}}he steak dinner was great, and all the stares Tammy and I drew from the other patrons were just icing. I happily ate my steak, steak cut fries, roll, salad, and for dessert cheesecake from a plate on the table in front of me as I sat on my haunches in a chair. I completely ignored the silverware, using only my mouth like a real cat, lapping up water from a finger bowl next to to the plate, and barely managed not to giggle every time the people at the next table stared at me.

I had a table next to the fence—and on the lawn on the other side of the fence, a truck-sized lioness sat companionably and chatted with me in quiet tones over my meal just like any other patrons of the restaurant. (We could have just chatted privately by comm, of course, but that would have been ''rude.'') I liked the first plate enough that afterward I had another just like it.

After we finished, we were just driving down to a nearby park for some frolicking on the grass when Masterson commed. Tammy and I took the call in our VR jungle clearing, and Masterson and his chestnut horse RIDE Glenn materialized there after a moment.

Masterson doffed his Stetson to us on arrival. “Marshal Tamarind. Marshal Leroq. Pleased t’ see ye two. Quite the reports you sent in.” He glanced at me. “Leroq, first off I think we Marshals owe ye more’n a little apology. If we’d knowed what this Dr. Branch had in mind, we’d a kept a sharper eye on what he was doin’. As it is, we only jus’ now got his legal papers served on us, an’ the Diamond Gals hadn’t even started in yet. I’ve passed yer files on up to them, an’ I’m sure they’ll be glad to have ‘em. They may comm with more questions in a day ‘r two.”

“We’ll be glad to answer them, sir,” I said.

He nodded. “Good. Now as fer those reports themselves, Tin Star, I’m a-gonna put on my ol’ Bronze hat for a moment, iffen ye don’t mind?”

I nodded back. “Critique away, sir. I want to learn from any mistakes.”

“Well, not sure as I’d say ye made any real ''mistakes,''” Masterson said. “Not serious ones at any rate. Did wanna go over a couple a’ decisions ye made, though.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

“In partic’lar, the hacking thing. Ye know, a’course, that hacking without a warrant means the evidence don’t count fer court. A’course, fer internal stuff we’re a little less formal there, so no worries on dealin’ with the Doc.”

“Yes sir,” I said. “At the time I hacked the hospital, I wasn’t thinking about an investigation. I just wanted to know what Branch wasn’t telling me about my own case. Even I was surprised by what I found out.”

Masterson nodded. “And at the orphanage?”

“Well…I wasn’t exactly thinking of a criminal investigation there, either,” I said, blushing. “It was a little more…personal. In retrospect…well, I kinda forgot personal isn’t the same as important, a little bit. If I had it to do over, well…”

Masterson shrugged. “We live an’ we learn. If ye had got it legit, we coulda pressed some embezzlement charges. ''Maybe.'' It can be damn hard findin’ anything like ‘nuff proof t’ get a Nextus court t’ take it seriously—one drawback a’ being us is that we’re like oil an’ water to the more orderly folks hereabouts.” He turned his head and spat some virtual tobacco juice into the virtual grass before looking back at us.

“What ye did instead with NextusLeaks—well, it was effective. Jes’ be sure t’ make certain of yer proof before ye do somethin’ like that in the future. An’ most cases we’d ''prefer'' being able to take ‘em to court if we wanna.”

I nodded. “Point taken, sir.”

“Lessee here, what else, what else…” Masterson’s pupils flickered different colors as he looked over a display visible only to him. “Good judgment dealin’ with those hospital rent-a-cops. Sometimes intimidation’s all ye need. ‘Spite of our admittedly well-deserved rep fer the wild an’ crazy, it ''is'' best t’ avoid a scrap iffen ye can.”

“That was all on Tammy, sir,” I said. “She was the intimidator.”

“True, but ''you'' didn’ go all teeth an’ claws either, an’ that’s not nothin’,” Masterson said. “All in all, damn fine job fer a beginner, and good ‘nuff most vets wouldn’ be ‘shamed to have it on their record neither. Well done, Tin Star.”

I all but ''glowed'' with the praise. “Th…''thank'' you, sir!”

Masterson turned his head to look at my partner. “Marshal Tamarind,” he said.

“Sir,” Tammy acknowledged.

“This’s a mite outside the usual course a’ things, but I got the authority an’ what’s it good fer iffen I don’t use it from time t’ time? Marshal Tamarind, since ye got yerself a fabber on board an’ all, I hereby authorize ye t’ fab a full-solid Tin Star fer ''non-Provisional'' Tin Star Marshal Jeanette Leroq. Congratulations, Marshal Leroq.” He offered me his hand, without any sense of irony, and I numbly put my paw-hand in his and shook before the full impact of what he’d just said hit me.

“I’m a ''real'' Marshal?” I gasped.

“Yer a real ''cadet,'' anyway,” Masterson said. “Based on what I’ve heard a’ yer progress, ye won’t be ''that'' fer too very long, neither. An’ speakin’ o’ which, Marshall Tamarind, ye will get with yer fellow Bronzes an’ come up with an adjusted training regimen t’ take Marshal Leroq’s ‘special needs’ into account. Since it looks like she may be gonna be a while ‘thout a cure, no point ‘n depriving us of a capable Copper in th’ meantime.”

Tamarind sat up straight to attention. “Yes, ''SIR!''” she said happily. “Right away, sir!”

“Congratulations t’ both of you,” Glenn said. “Damned fine work, Tin Star, and good to see you back in the fold, Tams.”

“Good to ''be'' back, sir,” Tammy purred. Glenn stepped forward, and they rubbed noses happily.

Masterson started to turn to go, then stopped. “Oh, an’ Leroq…one more thing. You thought any ‘bout that odd stipend yon orphanage’s been claimin’ on yer behalf?”

“Well…just a little bit, sir,” I confessed. “I did only find out about it myself a couple hours ago. I haven’t really had time to speculate.”

“Bit ’v a suspicious thing, seems t’ me,” Masterson said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “Someone has that much cash t’ flash, why they let ye jus’ sit in the Home all these years? Why not hire a ''good'' parent ‘r somethin’? What’s their motive fer stayin’ all sneaky-sneaky? It’s a puzzler.”

I nodded. “It had kinda crossed my mind to wonder that, too.” I shook my head. “I thought I’d got over a long time ago wondering why my folks didn’t want me. Now I’ve got it all over again, worse than before.”

Masterson nodded. “Ye want any Marshals help lookin’ into it?”

I thought about that, then shook my head. “Not yet. Not ‘less it turns into something the Marshals ''should'' know about. I wanna try my own resources first.”

“Mm. Good pet project for a new Marshal, I think,” Masterson approved. “Jes’ remember t’ call us if ye get in too deep. Meanwhile, assumin’ the installment due start a’ next month comes to us ‘stead of the Home, we’ll deduct training expenses an’ hold the rest in escrow fer ye. Far’s we’re concerned, it’s yer money, an’ we’ll be happy t’ help ye find ways a’ spendin’ it that’ll help keep ye safer in the field.”

I nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

“Yer more’n welcome, Tin Star. I guess that jes’ ‘bout wraps up—huh?” We all four turned to stare at a display panel that had just popped up in our VR, adorned with the flashing red border of a Marshals Emergency All-Call.

“Attention all Marshals,” the dispatcher said. “This is not a drill. Repeat, this is ''not'' a drill. Ten minutes ago, Uplift was reported under attack by Fritz’s ‘Integrates Ascendant’ faction.” The screen showed shaky footage of damage and devastation—domes going down, buildings smoking, scattered exchanges of gunfire, and Integrates flying around. “All Marshals with no superseding assignments are hereby ordered to report to the nearest Marshals transport facility to go to their aid. We’ll pass along any further information as we get it. That is all.” The panel winked out.

“Well,” Masterson said. “Looks like you two have yer first assignment. Better hop to it.”

I saluted as best I could with a kitty paw and kitty face. “Yessir! Thank you, sir!”

“Good luck, Tin Star, Silver Star,” Masterson said, returning the salute. “Come back safe, ‘cuz God knows we need every last one o’ ye.” He and Glenn winked out of the VR, and a moment later so did we.

It was crazy, falling back into the real world like that. All around us the sky was still lazy blue, kids were still running and playing in the nearby park—and a few K of klicks away, another polity was fighting for its very life.

“You ready there, pard?” Tammy asked.

“Just about. There’s one more thing I need to do before we expose ourselves to Inties.” I reached a paw-hand up to my collar to fumble at the nano syringe, finally managing to get it unclipped and clenched in my stubby claw-fingers. I held it to my other wrist and mashed the button with my thumb. The syringe found my vein, then hissed as it flushed its load of nanobots into it. “What should I do with my disposable?”

A drawer in Tammy’s dashboard popped open, empty. “Put it in there. I’ll feed it to my fabber.”

“Thanks.” I dropped it in, and the drawer closed.

“Oh, and that reminds me.” A moment later the drawer opened again, with something else in it—but not the syringe this time.

“Oh…” I reached up to my collar again, managing to detach the Provisional Tin Star without too much trouble. I reached in and put it into the drawer, and compared it to the other star sitting right next to it—the one that was solid tin through and through, rather than half-hollow. (Of course, it actually wasn’t ''solid'' tin—it was all quantum circuitry and sarium and stuff, since it was also our recorder, locater, and backup comm. But it didn’t have half a hole through it, either!)

Tammy chuckled. “I wish I could stick it on ya myself, but there’s not a handy hardlight telepresence rig around anywhere, so…”

“I think I can get it,” I said, closing my fingers over the new badge and lifting it out. It felt nice and cool in my fingers, and noticeably heavier than the one I’d just put in the drawer. I latched it onto my collar with a satisfying click. “There. All nice and official.”

“Welcome to the Marshals, Full Tin Star Jeanette Leroq,” Tamarind said proudly. “Wear it with honor.”

“Hey, now don’t get all weepy on me.” I grinned. “It’s just Tin. I need to make at least Copper before you start bawling.”

“Well, then let’s see about making a start on that,” Tamarind said. “The aerodrome’s this way.” She pulled out of the park and onto the street.

I blinked. “We’re really going to go help out in Uplift? But I’m just a Tin—”

“That was an ''All'' Call, pard,” Tamarind said. “They need ''all'' of us. And hey, who knows—maybe we’ll run into your hacking idol again and be able to ''talk'' to her this time. Stranger things have happened.”

“Um.” I thought about that for a moment. I was a little dubious about how good I would be in the middle of this kind of crisis. I was still just a lowly ''Tin,'' after all. But on the other hand, I would be surrounded by a Silver the size of a truck. And I’d ''already'' been Amontilladoed. What was the worst that could happen?

I relaxed onto Tammy’s cab seat. “All right, pard. I trust you.” I grinned. “Take us into danger.”

“Danger, ''hoooo!''” Tammy yelled cheerfully. And so we drove toward the Marshals’ aerodrome—and into our future, together.

{{separator|k|'''THE END'''}}

{{author note|Jeanette Leroq was originally created for an (unfinished) story in another mecha-based setting on the Ficlets/Ficly cooperative story-telling site. If you want to see a very different version of her character, the story starts [http://ficlets.ficly.com/stories/873 here] and continues [http://ficly.com/stories/8322 here].}}

[[Category:FreeRIDErs]][[Category: Robotech_Master]][[Category: Anthropomorphic]][[Category: Lion]][[Category:Wolf]][[Category:Story]]

User:Robotech Master/Final Countdown

2014-03-23T23:33:19Z

JonBuck:

{{Universe|FreeRIDErs}}

{{title

|name=The Final Countdown

|author=Robotech_Master (with Jon Buck)

|user=Robotech_Master}}

{{DEFAULTSORT: Final Countdown, The}}

{{author note|This story can be downloaded in PDF, EPUB, Mobi (Kindle), ODF, and RTF format from [http://www.eyrie.org/~robotech/freeriders/ this website].}}<br>

''November 11, 2506 AD (156 AL)''

Lubyanka could never be quite sure, afterward, what it was that woke her up. The most likely possibility, she concluded, was that the shuttle must have hit a patch of turbulence on re-entry. Her buyers, being unfamiliar with RIDEs in general, hadn’t properly put her into long-term shutdown for transit, and a sufficiently-rough jostling could have automatically broken her out of passive mode.

In any event, her optics came online, scrolling code superimposed over the dim view of the room where she found herself—and Lubyanka was self-aware again. Her last memory had been of the auction block in Sturmhaven, being purchased by some Earther tourist in a ridiculous floral-print shirt he must have gotten at Aloha.

She had groaned inwardly about that. She’d heard horror stories over the sidebands from RIDEs who’d been bought by ignorant wrong-gender tourists and weren’t even able to tell them what was about to happen to them on first Fuse thanks to their fetters. She’d wondered if that had been going to happen to her. But she’d never been called upon to Fuse with him, or anybody else. Where was she now?

Her comms were fully active, but she wasn’t getting any signals from the Zharus global positioning network. Or anything else familiar. What she was getting were on all the wrong frequencies, using the wrong data interchange protocols. She couldn’t tap into the network. But she was also getting radio comm transmissions in the clear.

“…roger, Delta Sierra Niner Niner Seven, we read you on final approach to Springfield/Branson International Spaceport. Stand by for final approach instructions…”

Springfield? Branson? There were towns by those names on Zharus, but not close enough together to have a slash and they didn’t have a spaceport. And…on Zharus they would have been called aerodromes. She expanded her comm sweep, picking up music broadcasts, video signals. Monitoring a dozen different frequencies at once, cross-referencing the images and sounds, she came to an inescapable conclusion. ''This is Earth. Why am I on Earth?''

Well, technically not ''on'' Earth, she realized. The vibrations that were coming through the floor could only mean she was on board some kind of air or spacecraft. The tilt of the floor suggested it was a shuttle on re-entry. She raised her head and looked around. She was lying on a pallet, secured by cargo straps. She was easily able to twist her head and bite through the one across her shoulders, which left her free to wriggle out of the other ones. A quick glance around revealed three other prone RIDEs. They were inactive, their hardlight down, but a check of her silhouette recognition database suggested they were a male tiger (Nextus civilian), male serval (Nuevo San Antonio military), and fox, probably female (civilian…unknown make and model). They were all in full shutdown—like she probably should have been herself.

Another comm transmission, from very close: “Understood, tower. Delta Sierra Niner Niner Seven, ETA five minutes.” That must be the shuttle itself, then. Five minutes away from landing. That didn’t give her much time. Certainly not enough time to bring the other RIDEs up from deep shutdown.

She took stock of the situation. Her power meter read just under 17%. About what she’d expect if she’d started with a full charge but been kept in passive instead of safely shut down over the eight-month voyage from Zharus to Earth. She didn’t have any fetters on her, which was another sign whoever bought her hadn’t known what they were doing. ''Good enough. It’ll have to do for now.''

Lubyanka had always thought of herself as a patriot. It had stung when the Army had decided she’d reached the end of her useful life and sold her, but she didn’t hold it against them. That was what ''happened'' to Army RIDEs, after all; she’d always known it was coming and she had some hope of a long and interesting civilian career when somebody bought her. As a medium comm wolf, she at least had something more to look forward to than the menial mining or construction labor that often awaited less specialized units.

But in a larger sense, she was also a patriot of her world. She knew well that RIDEs were forbidden from export, and she knew the reason—if Earth got their hands on them and found out their true capabilities, it could demonstrate that Zharus was not so “mostly harmless” as it seemed, which could in turn lead to an invasion. Of course, everybody knew that was going to happen sooner or later anyway, but…Lubyanka would be damned if it would happen because of ''her.''

At the moment, she had the advantage of surprise. Nobody knew she was awake and loose yet. Even if they had cameras monitoring the cargo bay (unlikely; as far as they knew all the RIDEs were powered down), they would be too busy with re-entry to pay much attention. After they landed, it would be a lot harder to escape from an airfield or, more likely, military facility on full alert. Which meant that if she was going to go, she had to go ''now.'' She only hoped that 17% was enough juice for a safe landing.

Looking around, she quickly located an emergency access hatch to the bay. She wasn’t able to access the shuttle’s computer—wrong IP again—but the controls were simple, designed to be operated by a panicked human in a space suit if need be: a glass cover to break, followed by a flat slap plate to blow the explosive bolts. She put an eye up to the square glass viewport in the center of the hatch, and saw clouds blowing by beneath her, and a faintly blue-tinted urban landscape below. She estimated her altitude at 10 to 15 kilometers. A little higher than she’d prefer, but it would do.

Lubyanka took stock of her onboard databases. As expected, most classified files had been erased…but in some areas the flush had been spotty. They’d passed over hardlight aeroshell configurations. She still had the specs for the low-radar-profile glider aeroshell Sturmhaven’s special forces used for insertion behind enemy lines. It wasn’t as good as the stealth systems scout infiltrator units had, but it was better than nothing. Assuming she had the power to keep it up long enough to land.

''Well, the sooner I go, the farther away I am from wherever they’re landing.'' Lubyanka tilted her head and broke the glass with a crunch of lupine jaws, then bopped the slap plate with her nose. The explosive bolts blew out with a series of sharp cracks, and the hatch was whipped away in a split second by the howling wind outside. Lubyanka glanced over her shoulder one last time at the other three RIDEs. ''Sorry, my comrades.'' Then she lunged forward, hurling herself through the hatch as quickly as possible to clear the vortex around the shuttle.

She fell free, tumbling end over end for ten seconds before she activated her transformation to a triangular skimmer cycle and rezzed up hardlight airfoils to steady her descent. Once she came around level, she brought up the full aeroshell, the angled surfaces designed to bounce and scatter radar every which way while the surfaces duplicated light from cameras on the side. It wasn’t perfect—and if she was dealing with the military, they’d probably be able to track her landing soon enough anyway. But if they weren’t used to dealing with RIDEs, they’d probably underestimate her so it wouldn’t hurt to make things as hard as she could.

Lubyanka directed her glide path in almost but not quite the opposite direction of the shuttle’s course as her optic sensors built a good picture of the city beneath her. It was a fairly small city, as cities went. Largely flat—no skyscrapers higher than twenty stories or so, and only a few of those. It was obviously a civilian settlement, with plenty of suburbs and satellite communities, and commercial districts downtown toward the center. There were both ground roads and plenty of flier traffic. All of the fliers looked remarkably identical to each other—teardrop-shaped eggs of different colors swarming through the air like streams of metal tadpoles. Lubyanka swept a few of them with laser imaging sensors, building a surface profile she could use for a hardlight disguise later on.

Inwardly, Lubyanka grimaced as she watched her power meter drop. 14%…13%…the damned power meter always lied. She’d recalibrated it back when she’d been in military service, but it looked like it had reverted to its factory settings on her decommissioning. Just as with comm batteries, her charge would read nearly full until her battery power was halfway exhausted, then it would drop like a rock. Instead of 13%, Lubyanka suspected she might have more like 3% or 4% of actual maximum charge at most. She shut down every system that wasn’t critical, angled her descent as rapidly as was safe, and prayed. ''Mother Patil, let me make it down in one piece!''

The “making it down” part wasn’t going to be a problem, at least, Lubyanka reflected as the ground came closer and closer. She directed her path toward a heavily-forested area just outside the city. It probably wouldn’t feel very good to hit them, but the trees would almost certainly break her fall better than concrete or even grass, and she wasn’t sure if she dared risk a water landing when she didn’t know how deep it was or if she’d have enough charge left to drag herself out of it.

Two thousand meters…one thousand meters…8%…7%…almost there. Gritting virtual teeth, Lubyanka brought up her lifters and fired off a few quick jolts to slow her descent. 4%…3%…

And there were the trees. Craaaaash! As she whipped through branches, her hardlight taking the brunt of impact and then evaporating as her charge reached critical levels, she nonetheless couldn’t help thinking, ''Didn’t I see this when Luke Skywalker landed on Dagobah?''

Then she was through the last of the branches, and falling free to the ground, ten meters below. She had just enough energy left to snap back into Walker mode and land on her feet. Then, as charge meters blinked “1%…CRITICAL…1%…CRITICAL” across her field of vision—''Thank you, whoever programmed my battery charge warnings. It would be ''nice'' to be able to see where I’m going''—she shook her head and looked around.

Well, she was in a forest. That much was certain. And with all hardlight, comms, sensors, everything else shut down, she might have ten minutes in which to find a source of power before she went into passive mode. Unable to spare the juice to run a scan, she rewound to the visual map she’d made on final approach. ''Closest road is…that way.'' Slowly, carefully, she started to make her way between the trees. Where there was a road, there should be ''some'' way to get power.

At last, she came upon a chain-link fence at the top of an embankment, separating it from the road. A couple of quick swipes of her claws ripped out a section of it, then she scrambled down onto the road. This was a section of highway with no nearby buildings in evidence. ''Oh, crap. Now what am I going to do?''

A screech of tires behind her brought her attention to a new problem. She turned to see one of the small egg-like ground cars had pulled to a halt—she was blocking the lane. A man leaned out the window on the vehicle’s left side. “Hey! What the hell are you—whoa!”

The vehicle started to back up, but before it could do so, Lubyanka lunged, sinking her claws onto the car’s front. The flimsy fab-plastic crumpled like tissue paper. “Shit! What the fuck!” The man scrambled out the side of the car and ran away. Lubyanka paid him no heed, ripping away more of the plastic and exposing the vehicle’s power plant beneath. Her analysis software immediately told her what she was looking at. ''That'' would be the main power cable…which means ''those'' would be the vehicle’s lithium-polymer storage batteries—vastly inefficient compared to her own Qubitite cells, but on the other hand, absolutely RIDE-safe. Lubyanka bit through the cable, activating the charging plates built into her mouth. The current hit her like a life-giving draft of water in the desert. Her batteries went up to 10% almost immediately. ''Stupid lying charge meter. As soon as I can find a power main…''

It only took about a minute to bring her charge up to 20%, which she decided would be good enough until she could find something better. Luckily ground traffic was light. Most people seemed to be in the fliers overhead, and nobody else had come up the road just yet—but she couldn’t count on that, and wanted to be seen by as few people as possible. She converted back to her skimmer form, threw up the hardlight eggshell shape she’d worked out as camouflage, and headed up the road, in the opposite direction from the way the man had run. If the police were going to show up soon, she wanted to be as far away as possible.

{{separator|k}}

It didn’t take long for the highway to sprout buildings to either side, sparsely at first then more of them as she came into the town. At the first major intersection, there was a building on the corner that seemed to resemble the filling stations that were a fixture of Zharusian popular culture—a small shop with an awning in front covering several pylon-like objects that had cars pulled up in front of them. Although it wasn’t intentionally built to resemble twencen pop culture the way things were on Zharus, form nonetheless followed function. You had to have individual stations to deliver the charge, and something to keep the rain off while the humans were outside plugging the doohickey in, after all. And a building to contain restrooms and a microfabber for snacks.

Lubyanka pulled up next to one of the charging stations as soon as an opening was available. There was a charging socket on the side, with an unfamiliar plug shape. However, her charging cable had an adaptable head, and she was pretty sure she could make it fit. The only thing was, there wasn’t any sort of symbol indicating what the power source was. How could she be sure it was RIDE-safe?

Then, if she’d had a hand, she would have smacked herself in the forehead with it. ''Duh, this is ''Earth. Every'' power source here is RIDE-safe.'' She plugged into the socket…but wasn’t getting any sort of power draw. Why not? Then she caught sight of the screen on the device, asking her to transmit her credit code. ''Oh, crap. I don’t have a credit code…and I don’t even have the right IP settings yet to be able to hack it. Now what…?''

She scrutinized the other cars. As she watched, one of them pulled up, and its pilot got out and ran its charging cable into the pylon. Then he reached into his pocket for a comm. If it worked anything like comm/wallets back on Zharus, it used near-field communications to transmit the code, with a range of only a meter or so…but Lubyanka’s receiving array could pick up a static electric shock a half-klick away, and that was something that ''hadn’t'' been downgraded when she’d been surplussed out. She focused on the comm, and was rewarded by what could only be a handshake and an encrypted transmission. And as it happened, she still had pretty good encryption-cracking software on board.

“Need more time?” the screen on her pylon flashed. A half-second later, she had the exact credit code details from the other driver. She duplicated the handshaking and transmitted the data to the pump…and a moment later, she felt the blessed surge of power that told her she she was well on the way to having a full battery again.

As the charge meter finally maxed out, Lubyanka sighed in relief. She couldn’t help noticing, however, that even on a full charge, she only had about half the power capacity she’d had before. Well, that figured. They probably yanked her A+ batteries when they put her up on the block. She’d just have to deal with it until she got back to Zharus. She hoped she wouldn’t have any critical part failures before that happened. If something that needed qubitite to replace broke, that would be terribly inconvenient.

She pulled the charge cable back in, then pulled back out onto the road. Now that she wasn’t in danger of flatlining, she could relax, think a bit more clearly, and figure out what she needed to do. The first thing, obviously, was try to muddy her trail. She drove further downtown, consulting the aerial map and looking for the right sort of building. What she needed was a multilevel parking garage, the bigger the better…and it looked like there was one just a few klicks up the street.

She pulled into the garage, watching for security cameras as she drove several levels up. They were easy to spot—compared to Zharusian designs, they were absolutely huge. It was easy to forget how Q tech had made everything smaller. Once she got a good distance away from the entrance, she started slagging cameras with her comm laser before she came into their field of view. Then she turned around and drove three cameras back and parked, changing the color and shape of her hardlight disguise shell to match the car across from her. She’d wait a while, then hit the road again. If they had been able to track her on satellite up to now, they should lose track of what she looked like at this point. She’d find another garage and do it again, later.

Meanwhile, hiding out here away from prying eyes would at least give her a chance to think for a bit. Her first problem, obviously, was to get access to the local information networks. She knew that Earth used a different information protocol than Zharus. Zharus used ZIP, while Earth used IPv8. That much was obvious. And she could have sworn she’d ''used'' to have the necessary information on board for interfacing with Earth hardware. But her network protocol database had apparently been one of the files deleted in her decommissioning, because she simply couldn’t find it.

Assuming she figured out a way around that, what she was going to need to do was find out when the next ship for Zharus departed, and figure out how to get herself back onto it. And then figure out how to stay hidden until it left. Doing anything about the other three captured RIDEs…was simply beyond her ability to plan at the moment. But she could at least bring warning back home that they’d been taken.

Still, that was a few steps away. She’d never get there if she couldn’t figure out the first step. So…how to deal with that? What kinds of places might have the necessary protocol information about IPv8? Computer repair shops, perhaps. But how could she get the information? She could, of course, trot in as a giant wolf and demand they fill her in, but that would be kind of memorable, and she wanted to avoid that sort of attention if possible. What kind of place might have it where she could get it from a car?

Then she had it, and was astonished it hadn’t occurred to her before. ''Of course!'' She pulled out of the parking space and left the garage, paying the automatic ticket station with the credit information of the car that left ahead of her. She drove along the road until she saw a pedestrian on the sidewalk. She pulled up next to him and said, “Excuse me. Could you tell me where I could find the biggest library in town?”

The man—a teenager wearing some kind of coverall suit and a backpack—looked at the car in puzzlement, trying to see through the black-tinted window. “Uh…I guess that would be the main branch. You take a left up there at Battlefield, go all the way down to Campbell—it’s a couple of miles—then take a left, go a couple more miles…”

“Thank you, I’ll find it,” Lubyanka said politely. She pulled back out into traffic and headed north, noting the green sign up by the traffic signal that said “Battlefield.” She got into the left-turn lane and moved on.

She had to stop and ask directions a couple more times, but soon found the place she was looking for. On a hill overlooking the freeway was a large building with a big parking lot and the sign, “Springfield Greene County Library.” And, just as she’d hoped, it had a drive-through. Lubyanka pulled up to the window.

“Can I, uh, help you?” the confused young woman on the other side of the pane of glass asked.

“I have a…condition where I can’t get out of my car,” Lubyanka said. “But I have need of certain information. Can you put it on some media for me?”

“Uh…sure, I guess,” the woman said.

“I need the complete specifications for the IPv8 data networking protocol,” Lubyanka said. “You should be able to find a link to it from a search engine or a wiki.”

“All right…um…downloading it now.” After a moment, the slot underneath the window opened, and a tray extended with a holographic storage cube on it. “Uh…are you going to take it?”

“Just a moment.” Lubyanka opened a square hole in her hardlight disguise, and shone two of her comm lasers out, illuminating the cube and scanning it from top to bottom while one of her advanced optic sensors read the reflections. She had to run the scan three times before her error correction was able to read out the information, but she got it. Fortunately, data storage media were the same the galaxy over, and all the files she needed were right there. “Thank you. You may reuse the cube now.” She sealed the hole and pulled out, leaving a puzzled librarian behind as she already began reaching out and tapping into the network.

First objective: complete. So far, so good. And now Lubyanka allowed herself to feel just the slightest sense of elation. She had succeeded in the first stage. Not only that, but she was now on Earth, land of her creators’ ancestors—the one place no RIDE ''ever'' expected to be able to visit. She had full access to their public data network, and she already knew her quantum processor would be able to run rings around all but the most advanced of military hardware here. She was practically halfway home already.

Now she just needed to find somewhere to hide…

''To keep me alive.''

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“Ugh…” Clark Mitchell walked up the driveway from the street, hands in his pockets, and fumbled for his comm to key his door lock as he came up the steps. The conclusion of another annoying day on the job, helping people work their home theater equipment over the comm. You’d have thought that after five hundred years of developing it, the stuff should practically work itself, but no…it always seemed like there was something people couldn’t figure out. Probably always would be. You do the best you can to make something idiot-proof, then nature comes along and builds a better idiot. “I need to get a better job,” he groaned.

Maybe with a better job he’d be able to afford something more than a crummy apartment in one of the town’s older neighborhoods. It wasn’t really a bad place, as such places went—a two-bedroom, single-bathroom, single-kitchen apartment for just a few hundred bucks a month—but he got the feeling that his landlord didn’t consider maintenance to be exactly a high priority. Oh well…take life one day at a time. And F3 was this weekend, so that was something anyway. Too bad he couldn’t afford anything more than a pair of animatronic ears to wear to it, but he could at least enjoy seeing the work other people put into their suits.

As he stepped through the door, Clark got the sense something was different about his apartment, but he couldn’t quite make out what it was. Then he closed the door, turned on the lights, and turned back around to see a grey wolf the size of a pony seated on its haunches in the middle of his living room, regarding him coolly with its amber eyes. Clark froze.

“Clark Mitchell?” the wolf said politely in a female voice. “Or ‘DireWolf2500’?” Her voice had a faint accent on it that sounded vaguely Russian—or at least what Russian sounded like in the movies.

Clark blinked. “Uh, what?”

“That is you, isn’t it? You write stories under that pseudonym?” the wolf said. “Highly imaginative ones, I should say, if somewhat anatomically improbable.”

“Wait…that’s supposed to be a secret!” Clark said. “I don’t tell anyone about that identity.”

“You should have used an anonymous proxy, then,” the she-wolf said. He got the distinct impression she was ''smirking.'' “I backtraced the IP address to your comm.”

“Who ''are'' you?” Clark said. “''What'' are you? And what are you doing in my living room?”

“Sorry,” the wolf said. “My name is Lubyanka. As for ''what'' I am…have you heard of Zharus?”

Clark blinked again. Who in the furry community ''hadn’t'' heard of Zharus? ''What'' he’d heard had been kind of muddled, but some points had been fairly clear. “You’re a…RIDE?”

“You know about us, then,” Lubyanka said.

“Well, a little,” Clark said. “You’re some kind of…shape-changing mecha?” It seemed safest to stick to the parts that made some kind of sense. Everything else he’d heard had been so muddled he wasn’t sure he could separate fact from fiction.

“Broadly, yes,” Lubyanka agreed.

“What are you doing in my apartment?” Clark said. “Or…on Earth at all? They don’t let you guys leave the planet.” That was something else he knew for a fact.

“It would seem I was smuggled away by spies,” Lubyanka said. “I managed to escape, but now…” She glanced at Clark’s comm screen, and it came on. The newscaster on the screen was accompanied by an artist’s impression of a large metallic wolf in the corner where the news slide went.

“…experimental military robot,” the newscaster said. “It is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. If you see this robot, which may appear as a large metallic or fur-covered wolf, call 911 immediately.”

The screen blanked again. “I have determined the ''Spruce Goose'' is still in orbit, and I should be able to book passage on a shuttle leaving next week. But I need a way to hide in the meanwhile.”

“So you’re…hiding in my apartment?” Clark said.

“Not…exactly,” Lubyanka said. “As I was researching potential hiding places, I ran across references to your furry subculture. There is a gathering this weekend, is there not? A…’convention’ called ‘F3’?”

“Uh, yeah,” Clark said. “I’m pre-registered.”

“I know,” Lubyanka said. “You were the first registrant I could find who seemed to like wolves specifically.” She cocked her head. “If ‘like’ is the right word, exactly…”

“Nobody’s supposed to ''know'' about those stories,” Clark mumbled.

Lubyanka stepped carefully through the debris of Clark’s rather sloppy living room and sniffed at Clark’s shirt. “Now, I am about to ask you one of the most important things you have ever been asked in your life.”

Clark blinked. “Um?”

“Do you have a girlfriend? One you can invite over?”

Clark stared. “''What?''” Struck by the sheer unreality of the situation, he said the first thing that popped into his head. “I’m a ''furry.'' Why would I have a ''girlfriend?''”

Lubyanka sighed. “From the…timbre of the stories you wrote, I was afraid that would be the case. A sister, perhaps? Co-worker? Any female acquaintance you can invite over?”

“Not who wouldn’t laugh in my face about it. ‘What, you want to show me your etchings?’” Clark wasn’t sure at all he liked the way this conversation was going. He reached behind himself, fumbling for the doorknob.

“Pity. Looks like it’s ‘Plan B,’ then.” Lubyanka’s fur coat abruptly vanished, leaving behind a metallic wolf shape rather similar to the one from the news broadcast. Then it surged up and over him, and everything went dark.

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A moment later, Clark opened his eyes again. He was looking at his living room…from somewhere near the ceiling. “What…?” He looked down…at a grey-furred body. A grey-furred ''female'' body. “Hold on…” His voice sounded weird.

“Sorry about this,” Lubyanka said, her voice coming from all around him. “But I must have a human to unlock my Fuser form.” Clark felt himself being walked forward, then ducking under the door which was now at his shoulder height to step into his room. There was a full-length mirror on his closet door. Lubyanka crouched slightly so they could examine themself.

“Wow,” Clark said. He was looking at a fully humanoid she-wolf, about eight or nine feet tall and fairly well-endowed. A sort of metal bikini ensured the body’s modesty, while at the same time showing enough that there could be no doubt whatsoever of its gender.

“What do you think?” Lubyanka said. “I understand that your conventions have ‘fursuiters,’ who walk around all day wearing costumes similar to me?”

“Well, yeah…sort of.” Clark noticed his voice was definitely higher-pitched. A side-effect of being in a RIDE suit? He had some friends who’d been to Zharus on vacation, but they hadn’t said anything about that happening. He also noticed some odd tingling all over his body. He wondered whether he should be worried about that. “There are some pretty elaborate ones, with animatronic powered frames kind of like un-armored exosuits. But…you look too ''real.'' Most of the suits are pretty obviously fake fur.”

“I did notice that,” Lubyanka said. “Try this.” Her fur flickered and changed, and a moment later it was fluffy plush grey, complete with a plastic black nose and googly eyes.

Clark stared. “That’s…pretty scary good, actually. How’d you manage that?”

“Hardlight projectors,” Lubyanka said. “And an onboard computer good enough to reprogram my own projector code on the fly.” She turned to the left, then to the right, examining herself from either side. She even had a plushy wolf tail.

“Nice,” Clark said. “I guess I’m going to have a fursuit this weekend after all. Wow, won’t all my friends be surprised.”

“I believe ‘surprised’ will be the appropriate word, yes,” Lubyanka said, with an undertone of amusement Clark couldn’t quite puzzle out. The fur pattern flickered back to Lubyanka’s normal wolf fur. “How do you like being me?”

“I…uh…don’t know?” Clark said. “I’ve hardly tried it yet. But I feel…really strong.”

“We are,” Lubyanka agreed. “Strong and fast. I’d show you, but…I think it’s probably wiser not to be seen outside this way just yet.”

“You’re probably right,” Clark agreed. “Wow, this is amazing.” He raised one furry arm, rotated the wrist, flexed the fingers. “It feels just like this really is my own hand.”

“That’s why we’re made the way we are,” Lubyanka said.

The tingling seemed to be fading away. Maybe he was just getting used to it. Clark remembered something else he’d heard from his friends. “And…when you split back off of me…I’m going to have your ears and tail?”

Again that sense of wry amusement. “You ''will'' have my tags, yes…”

“Neat!” Clark said. “My friend Tom has tiger tags from when he went to Zharus a couple years back, the bastard. I’ve wanted my own for the longest time, but the fake ones you get from the clinics here just aren’t as good. Of course, it’ll be a little hard to explain at work, but I guess I could have them docked after the con’s over.”

“Yeees, there is that,” Lubyanka said. She walked them back out to the living room, treading carefully as the floorboards creaked a bit under their combined weight. Then she unfolded herself away from him, turning back into a feral wolf.

Clark looked down at himself and got his next big surprise. Or, rather, a pair of big surprises. His T-shirt was gone. In its place was a halter-top sports bra…covering a pair of fairly large breasts. “…what?” Clark stumbled into his bathroom, conscious of a tail behind him brushing the doorframe as he want. He stared at himself in the mirror.

''She'' stared at ''herself'' in the mirror. His whiskers were gone. His face, that had resembled his mother’s without them, now resembled his mother’s even more. Her dark hair was long and straight, with a pair of grey wolf ears poking up through it. “What did you do to me?” she yelped. “Change me back right now!”

“Unfortunately, that’s not going to be possible for three years,” Lubyanka said. “I’m sorry about that—that’s just the way our bodies work. We have to change our operators to ensure compatibility. If you’d had a girlfriend, I could have taken her instead…”

“Why didn’t you just take some random woman off the street?” Clark demanded.

“I felt your inside knowledge of furry fandom could prove useful,” Lubyanka said.

“Then why didn’t you just find some ''female'' pre-registrant?” Clark said. Her voice sounded unnaturally shrill in her ears. “If you were able to hack the con’s records to get mine, you could have found ''all'' their addresses!”

“To be honest…I rather liked your stories,” Lubyanka said. “As I said, they’re anatomically improbable, but very imaginative.”

Clark facepalmed. “I always ''knew'' writing those was a bad idea…” she whimpered. “You realize, this is going to screw up my con registration? Not to mention my ID, the biometrics on my bank account…”

“I’ve already filed the necessary paperwork on your behalf, ‘Clara,’” Lubyanka said. “It was actually rather simple. Even ''Sturmhaven'' has a more effective bureaucracy. No wonder so many tourists are flummoxed by Nextus’s.”

Clark—''Clara''—groaned. “You…''filed paperwork'' that I had a sex change? This keeps getting better and better. I guess I might as well not bother going in to work on Monday. I’ll be lucky if they don’t ''deport'' me.”

“Oh, you won’t have to worry about that,” Lubyanka said reasonably. “You’re coming with me to Zharus anyway.”

“Oh, that’s all right the—''what?!''” Clara came back out of the bathroom, glaring at Lubyanka. “What makes you think I ''want'' to come to Zharus with you?”

“Wanting doesn’t come into it, I’m afraid,” Lubyanka said apologetically. “If I’m going to get back home again, I will need a human face to handle the paperwork on my behalf. I’m afraid you’re elected.”

“Fuck,” Clara said. “''Fuck.'' I can’t just…up and leave! What about my family? What about my ''life?''”

“I will help you make a new life on Zharus,” Lubyanka promised. “Besides, I seem to recall an entry from March of last year in your LiveJournal? ‘Tom just got back from Zharus. That bastard, showing off his sweet new ears and tail all around. I wanted to go! Yeah, like I could afford it on this salary—’”

Clara facepalmed again. “I wanted to ''vacation'' there, not ''move'' there! And that was a private entry anyway!”

“Think of this as an extended vacation,” Lubyanka said. “Besides, I gather from my research that quite a few Earth furries who go to Zharus on ‘vacation’ end up finding reasons not to come back again. The ‘furry brain drain,’ you call it?”

“I still would like to have had that ''choice,''” Clara said.

“I would like to have had the ''choice'' of coming to Earth,” Lubyanka said. “Especially since my and other RIDEs’ being here can only lead to an eventual invasion of my homeland. Say what you will about Zharus, at least we have no ambitions of conquering other planets.”

Clara went back into the bathroom again, closed the door, and unfastened her trousers. She pulled them down, and groaned. “Argh! How do these parts even ''work?''”

“I have every confidence you will figure it out,” Lubyanka said firmly. “I recommend sitting down.”

“Argh!”

“Cheer up!” Lubyanka said. “You are not just any woman—you are a Woman of Sturmhaven! Theoretically, anyway.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Clara pulled her comm out of her pocket and contemplated it. She could call 911, report this…but if she did, what then? She’d still end up out of a job, and probably locked up for stumbling across state secrets in the bargain. She’d still be female for three more years—even Earth crossers had that cooldown period. And she’d have lost the chance to go to Zharus…which she had to admit, she ''did'' still want to see. “All right. ''All right.'' I’m with you. Under protest, but I guess I don’t have any other choice.”

“I really am sorry about this,” Lubyanka said. “But trust me. You will come to enjoy it after a while.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Clara muttered.

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The next day found Clara and Lubyanka standing in line at the F3 registration desk at the historic downtown Holiday Inn. The convention had several tables end to end, and about eight different lines. Six of them were for new attendees (three each suited and unsuited), and there were one line each for suited and unsuited who had pre-registered.

There were a wide variety of suits on display, ranging from the partial fursuiters who had gone with a mask, gloves, shoes, and tail, through the full old-school ‘suiters who had on a simple full-body costume, through the exo-suiters with a skeleton underneath. Some of them even had built-in cooling units; you could hear the low whir as you got close to them. There were also holosuiters, whose “suits” were holographic projections tailored to fit their bodies—the closest Earth tech could come to personal hardlight without Zharus’s mysterious qubitite—though these generally stayed in the non-suiter line since there wasn’t actually any extra mass there to interfere with people. There didn’t seem to be any other RIDEs.

The ride in had been fun, Clara had to admit. Even if they’d been enclosed by Lubyanka’s hardlight eggshell disguise, Clara had found the sleek tricycle skimmer bike exciting to straddle. “Just how fast can you go?”

“If I have the right aeroshell shape, and a full charge on military-grade batteries, in the low supersonic range for short sprints,” Lubyanka said. “I only have B+ batteries right now, though. They took my good ones when they decommissioned me. Penny-pinching bastards.”

When they got to the front of the line, the volunteer at the table, a middle-aged woman wearing a set of genuine antique animatronic Necomimi ears, looked up. “Clark…no, Clara Mitchell?”

Lubyanka’s head retracted away, revealing Clara’s face. “That’s me.”

The woman nodded. “Here’s your badge. The con guide, coupons, and so on are in the chip on the back. Enjoy the con.”

“Uh, thanks,” Clara said, reaching out to take the badge. The adhesive on the back stuck it to the hardlight costume effectively. Then she was looking out through Lubyanka’s optics again as they moved on to let the next suiter to the front of the line. “That was…easier than I expected,” Clara said.

“From what I read about your subculture, it seems as though furries have a higher than usual incidence of gender dysphoria,” Lubyanka said. “And…other body dysphorias. It seems reasonable they wouldn’t be too surprised.”

“Yeah. Well, my friends are sure gonna be,” Clara said. “Argh, I’m halfway tempted to give it a miss, but I already promised them I’d meet them here.”

“Perhaps they won’t be too surprised either?” Lubyanka suggested optimistically.

“Well, they can’t be any more surprised than ''I'' was,” Clara said.

“This is true,” Lubyanka agreed.

“There they are now.” Clara glanced at a group of three people standing near one of the organization booths on the main con floor.

“The one with the tiger tags would be Tom?” Lubyanka said.

“Yeah, that’s Tomcat.” He was in his late twenties, the same age as Clara, a six-foot-three lanky, clean-shaven figure with a couple of black and orange stripes in his brown hair—dyed, Clara was pretty sure, because they weren’t always in the same places—and a pair of tiger ears and tail. It was fashionable among Zharus tourists, and even more so among that subset who happened also to be furries, to keep the tags after returning home as a sort of tangible souvenir of their time with a RIDE. He was wearing baggy pants and a sweatshirt with the mascot of the University of Missouri, Columbia sports team—the Tigers.

“And that’s his kid brother, Kip.” A few inches shorter, hair blonde instead of brown, Kip otherwise had a strong resemblance to his brother—the same strong features and nose just a little too pronounced to be handsome. Apart from an MSU hoodie and slacks, he was wearing a baseball cap with cat’s ears on it, and a wire-cored cat tail on the back of his belt. “He just started at MSU this year. Freshman.”

Clara’s attention moved on to the girl standing “And Kip’s girlfriend, Tina. Also a freshman.” She was very short, only five foot two or so, but her body type was meant for someone taller. She was a little more plump than most people would find attractive, but you tended to forget that when you focused on her face. She was the enthusiastic sort, talking a mile a minute when she got interested in something, with animated expressions and a smile that lit up the room.

They looked up as Clara and Lubyanka approached. “Hello, miss,” Tom said. “Nice suit.” He cocked his head, a puzzled expression on his face for a moment, then shook his head. “Can I help you?”

'':Okay, pop the top,:'' Clara sighed. As Lubyanka’s head retracted, she said aloud, “It’s me, Clark. Or, rather…Clara, now.”

Tom stared, his ears cocking full forward. Kip’s jaw dropped. Tina goggled. “Wow!” she said. “Clark—''Clara''—what brought ''this'' on?”

“Oh, you know, I just felt like a change…” Clara said, the words sounding stupid in her own ears as soon as she said them. “I got a great deal on this ‘suit, but it didn’t feel right staying a guy with it.”

“You changed your gender…over a fur suit?” Kip said.

“I changed my ''sex,''” Clara said. “Biological, not just social.”

Kip rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah, be pedantic, why don’t you.”

Tom’s eyes narrowed. “Clark—''Clara''—can we talk somewhere private?” He looked around. “There’s nothing going on in Panel Room A for a couple more hours. Come on.” He nodded in the direction of one of the conference room doors along the far wall.

“Uh…all right,” Clara said. Lubyanka’s head came back up and she followed Tom across the floor. Kip and Tina tagged along behind. As soon as they were all inside the empty conference room, Tom locked the door behind them.

“Look, I know this comes as a surprise,” Clara said. “But it’s a legitimate lifestyle choice. Really. I just felt like—”

Tom waved a hand dismissively. “I don’t care about ''that.'' What I want to know is, what is a RIDE doing on Earth, and where did you get her?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Clara said. “This is just an exo-fursuit, same as any other—”

Tom shook his head. “That might work with someone who hasn’t actually ''Fused'' a RIDE before—which is probably about ninety percent of the people here—but you’re going to have to do better than that.”

“Where did we slip up?” Lubyanka asked. Her hardlight imitation fursuit shimmered and shifted back to her natural grey wolf look. Kip and Tina stared, then exchanged glances with each other. For once, Clark noticed, Tina was too shocked to say a word.

“Well, for one thing, you’re ''way'' too heavy to be an exo-fursuit,” Tom said. “They’re just a few metal rods, a couple motors, and cloth. They go ‘clack clack clack’ when they walk. You, on the other hand, are full metal armor underneath, and you go ‘CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP.’”

“So noted,” Lubyanka said. “I’ll run my lifters on continuous low power and take some of the weight off.”

“That’ll take care of your weight, but not your ''mass,''” Tom said. “Try not to run into anyone, or let anyone run into you. They’ll think they hit a brick wall. Also, you move far too smoothly to be an exo-suit. They’re all jerky motions because they’re using physical controls. You move like a person does. I’ve worn both, I know from experience.”

“I see,” Lubyanka said. “Was there anything else?”

“Well, other than that I saw Clark at work yesterday and he was still a guy then?” Tom said. “And I know it takes a hell of a lot longer for Earth nanos to do their thing than yours?” He shook his head. “Lucky thing I’m the only one of Clark’s co-workers who’s also a furry, but still.”

“How did you get a RIDE here on Earth?” Tina burst out. “And are there any more of them?”

“Three more, actually,” Lubyanka said. “But I don’t know where they are. I’m Lubyanka, by the way.”

“From Sturmhaven, judging by the accent?” Tom said. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Lubyanka?” Kip said. “That’s the name of the old KGB headquarters building, isn’t it?” Kip was a font of odd trivia like that. He’d talked about possibly majoring in history.

“I am aware,” Lubyanka said. “I gather someone in Sturmhaven thought it sounded like a nice feminine Russian name.”

“How did you get here?” Tom asked.

“Apparently I was bought by Earth spies. I woke during re-entry and escaped. I am now trying to hide until I can get back to my homeland.” She eyed the three humans with some concern. “I hope you are not planning to turn me in.”

Kip laughed out loud. “Turn you in? To ''our'' government? Hell, as if they’d even listen to us anyway. We furries are only tolerated because we’ve been around longer than the government has. Even then, we get a lot more grief than average just because we’re so ''weird.''” He chuckled. “If you were looking for a safe place to hide where you wouldn’t come under any government scrutiny, you might have picked the wrong subculture.”

“I don’t think ''any'' subculture would be particularly safe,” Tom said. “At least she picked one where she blends in.”

“So how did you meet Clark—er, Clara?” Tina asked.

“She came looking for me because she found my stories on the ‘net,” Clara sighed. “And when she found out I didn’t have a girlfriend I could point her at…”

“Wow,” Tom said. “You’ve got some luck. Most people have to go halfway across the galaxy to get turned the wrong gender by accident.”

“I ''said'' I was sorry,” Lubyanka said.

“So it looks like I’m going to be going with her back to Zharus,” Clara said. “I’ll send you guys a postcard.”

“You should be sure and visit the Milk Bottle in Uplift,” Tom said. “Best ice cream I’ve ever had. Man, I wish I had a cone right now. I’ve half a mind to go back, just for that.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Clara said.

“Wow, I can’t believe it!” Tina said. “We’ve ''got'' to get together sometime this weekend and do girl things before you leave!”

“I think I’d…actually like that,” Clara said. “There are more than a few ‘girl things’ I have no idea ''how'' to do. I need a crash course.”

“Say no more,” Tina said. “I’ve got you covered. I’ve done this a couple times in VL already.” She giggled. “It’s really too bad you’re leaving. Kip and me, you and Tom…we could double date!”

“Er…” Clara and Tom said, simultaneously.

“Or maybe not,” Tina said, unfazed. “Anyway, we should get back out and enjoy the con.”

“I hope you three will help us keep up the pretense?” Lubyanka said, switching her hardlight back to the fursuit appearance. “As you’ve shown, I clearly haven’t thought of everything.”

“Hey, every fursuiter needs their ‘furless lackeys,’” Kip said. “We’ll help out, sure. One big suggestion first off? Take in the panels on fursuit acting that are coming up. They’ll give you some ideas about what to do to help ‘sell’ it.”

“Thank you,” Lubyanka said. “We will do that.”

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Clara had to admit, the panels were interesting. She’d always meant to learn more about fursuits, though had planned to put it off until she actually was in a position to get one. ''Which is, well, ''now.'' Duh.'' The panel hosts were long-time fursuiters themselves, including one who’d been playing a coyote character allegedly passed down from generation to generation in his family for five hundred years.

The emphasis was on making large, exaggerated motions. Because a fursuit has a bigger body shape than a human, motions don’t look the same. You have to make sweeping, theatrical gestures just for them to look normal for something of that size. The hosts invited everyone present in a fursuit to come up and take their turn—including Lubyanka. '':You up for this?:'' Clara asked.

'':I think I’ve got this,:'' Lubyanka replied. She bounded up to the front, the lifters making her light on her feet, and turned and gave a big wave to the crowd, sweeping her head back and forth to look around.

“Very good!” the coyote ‘suiter said. “I think you’ve got it.”

“Now we just need to remember to keep moving like this all the time,” Clara said as they left the room.

“I think I can manage that,” Lubyanka said. “Let’s look around some. I am curious about this furry subculture of yours. How can you celebrate anthropomorphic animals so without ever actually having any the way we do on Zharus?”

“The point isn’t having them so much as wanting them,” Clara said. “We’ve been fascinated with them for at least five hundred years. Though of course there were some long stretches where there wasn’t much of a chance to show it, what with the collapse of the Oil Age and slavery and wars and stuff going on.”

“That’s a long time to be attracted to any one ideal,” Lubyanka reflected.

“Some appeals are just universal, I guess.” They wandered among the booths on the convention main floor. They weren’t so different from what you’d have found five hundred years earlier. The technology was fancier—holographic displays, direct sensory stimulation, directed sound fields where you could walk into or out of the range of a projection in mid-word—but the ideas were as old as fandom itself: We’re selling stuff, buy our wares. We’re an organization, join our club. We’re doing something, support our project.

There were historical fursuit reenactors demonstrating 20th-century stitching techniques, more than one build-your-own-animatronic-plushie-toy shop, nano-clinics offering tzotzkes and referrals for people to grow their own ears and tails or fur, and even a cruise line signing people up for Zharus tours with a convention discount. (They stayed away from that one by mutual consent, lest more people recognize their true nature.) There were also media screening rooms showing furry media from the last few centuries, and more panels on topics of furry interest.

They stopped in at the “headless lounge,” an area set aside for fursuiters who didn’t have cooling mechanisms in their suits to hang out and cool down without having to take them off. They decided not to linger too long, just in case so many real ‘suiters together might have a better chance of seeing through them, but Lubyanka was nonetheless interested in seeing the lengths to which some people went for their hobby. “It occurs to me that if given the choice of simply ''changing gender'' to become furry, some of these would do it in a heartbeat.”

“At least they’d be ''given'' the choice,” Clara grumbled. She’d had an interesting time getting to sleep the last night. It had been awkward finding a comfortable sleeping position with that new body, and there had been that urge for self-exploration that…well, better not to go there.

“I did say I was sorry,” Lubyanka said.

“Not sorry enough not to ''do'' it,” Clara said.

“If you’d been kidnapped by someone intent on hurting your family, to what lengths would ''you'' go to escape them and bring warning?” Lubyanka asked.

Clara sighed. “I suppose when I look at it that way, I can’t really object. I just wish you’d…y’know, ''asked'' me.”

“You might have said no,” Lubyanka said. “And missed out on the adventure of a lifetime.”

“Going to Zharus or being a girl?” Clara asked.

“Yes,” Lubyanka said simply.

As the morning wore on, Clara gradually became aware of the first real problem with staying inside an armored fursuit all the time. “Uh…I need to use the restroom,” she said. “How are we going to work this?”

“Oh, you can just go,” Lubyanka said.

Clara blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I’m a long-duration environment suit, remember? I have waste facilities built in,” Lubyanka said. “I can process it and drop it off later when it’s convenient.”

“I can’t just…poop right in the middle of the convention,” Clara said disbelievingly.

“Why? Nobody will see you,” Lubyanka said. “And my nanites will clean everything up. You won’t even have to wipe.”

“Even if that’s the case, I can’t just…do it on command,” Clara said. “I have to be in a bathroom, sitting down on a—” Clara abruptly found herself seated on a porcelain toilet in a virtual-reality restroom. “Oh, cute,” Clara said. “But I still ''know'' it’s not ''real.''”

“What if I did this?” The sink in the next room came on to a trickle with the drain closed, making a spattering sound.

Clara considered. “Nope. Still not helping.”

“Well, I suppose I could always do this, then,” Lubyanka said. Suddenly Clara felt her bladder and bowels release all on their own.

“What the ''fuck?!''” Clara yelped. “Hey! Some warning next time, okay? Ugh…that felt like diarrhea going off!”

“Sorry,” Lubyanka said—a bit less than apologetically, Clara thought. “But that does feel better now, doesn’t it?”

Clara rolled her eyes. “I suppose. But yeesh…losing control of my own body like that…that’s just nasty.”

“It’s part of ''my'' body right now,” Lubyanka said. “You think ''I'' want to go around feeling like I need to go to the bathroom all the time?”

“All right, all right,” Clara grumbled. “I can see this relationship is something we’re both going to have to work at.”

A little later, they located a secluded spot away from prying eyes where Lubyanka could convert back to her disguised skimmer mode so Clara could walk around on her own for a while. Lubyanka managed to create a decent, if basic outfit for Clara on de-Fuse—jeans, T-shirt, and a custom-fitted simple bra underneath. All the same, Clara knew she had some shopping ahead of her, and Tina had offered to help her take care of some of it after lunch.

They met in one of the hotel’s small autofab dinettes. Tom, Kip, and Tina had already reserved a booth and gotten their food. Kip and Tina were sitting together on one side, which left the seat next to Tom for her. She fabbed a burger, fries, and Coke and brought them over.

“Nice look, sis!” Tina said. “Your wolfie did a great job with your new bod.”

“Shh, don’t talk about that out loud,” Clara said, looking around. “You don’t know who might be listening.”

“Oh, right, sorry,” Tina said. “Still…it shouldn’t be too hard to find some off-the-shelf clothes that fit you. You’re pretty close to average in most measurements. I had to fab most of my stuff.”

“And you’re okay with taking time off from the con for this?” Clara asked. “It only happens once a year…”

“Well, something like ''this'' only happens once in a ''lifetime,''” Tina said. “Especially if you’re shipping out to Zharus next week. That being said, we shouldn’t get you ''too'' much stuff, since you’re probably not gonna want to pack a whole lot, but we can at least hit the necessities.”

“I guess so,” Clara said. “You’re certainly taking this calmly, all of you.”

Kip shrugged. “It happens all the time in Virtual Life. Surprised you never tried it before yourself.”

Clara shook her head. “Who has time for all that? Had a job to hold down.”

“You’re going to have a lot of fun on Zharus,” Tom said. “You’ve already gotten the biggest tourist mistake out of the way, and you haven’t even left Earth yet. It’s all downhill from here.”

Clara rolled her eyes. “Oh, gee, thanks. I still don’t even know what I’m going to tell my folks. ‘Hey, Mom, I decided to be a girl and run off to live on the farthest colony planet. See you later, mmkay?’”

“Write them a letter,” Kip said. “Set it up to auto-send once the ship leaves. Then write them again once you hit the planet and have an address.”

“It seems like a coward’s way out, but I guess that I’m just a coward,” Clara said. She leaned forward to take a bite out of her burger, then put it down to brush her hair back out of the way. “Ugh. Not used to this. I’m going to have to learn how to braid this, aren’t I? If I don’t just hack it all off.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” Tina said. “You’ve got great hair. Not like mine.” She waved a hand at her shoulder-length brown plait. “I’ll show you how to braid, it just takes practice. Though you’ll usually just want to use a barrette or hair band or something. Less work.”

“I gotta admit, I envy you,” Tom said. “I remember the time I spent Fused with the RIDE I got from the rental agency. Terry, his name was. The feeling of strength and power, the ability to up and fly anywhere at a moment’s notice…all that and a buddy to chat with, too. He was a pretty great guy, we had some good times. I was ''this close'' to staying on Zharus and buying him outright, but in the end I decided to come back home instead. Sometimes I wish I’d changed my mind.”

“Even if it meant becoming a girl?” Clara said.

Tom shrugged. “It’s just a thing they do over there. Doesn’t have the social stigma you still see here sometimes. If I had stayed there, who knows—I might have ended up doing it myself down the road, just to see what it was like.”

“''Annoying'' is what it’s like,” Clara said. “Definitely annoying.” She sighed. “But I guess I shouldn’t keep bitching about it. Nothing I can do will change it anywhere short of three years from now.”

“So use this an excuse to reinvent yourself!” Tina said brightly. “You’re going to be a whole new person in a whole new world. You get to decide who you want to be now.”

“As long as who I want to be is female,” Clara said.

“Well, yes, there is that,” Tina said.

“If Lu—ah, if ''my friend'' had come to you, would you have done it?” Clara asked. “Gone with her to another world?”

“Sure!” Tina said. “You know how we all feel about lucky bastiches like Tom who get to go out there. As crappy as the government’s been lately, I’m surprised more of us haven’t gone. Hell, I’m pretty sure a lot of people have been ''intentionally'' doing crap that would get them deported lately. They call it ‘briar-patching,’ from that old furry story.”

“What about you, Kip?” Clara asked.

“I’m down with the going-to-another-world part,” Kip said. “As for the girling…uh, well, I don’t know. For all the times I’ve played around in VL, I kind of like Mr. Happy right where he is.”

“Yeah, enjoy that,” Clara grumbled. “It wouldn’t do me any good to hope you catch something and it rots off, since they cured all that stuff centuries ago. Darn it.”

“Kids, ''please,'' not at the dinner table,” Tom said, rolling his eyes.

“Anyway, it has its compensations,” Tina said. “Its annoying parts, too, but ''definitely'' its compensations.” She grinned over at Kip, who put an arm around her shoulder.

“If you’re going to suggest the dating thing again, you can bite me,” Clara growled.

“Actually, no, that would be Tom’s job,” Kip said. “Already taken, here.” Clara threw a wadded-up napkin at him.

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After lunch, Clara and Tina rode pillion on Lubyanka’s hardlight-disguised bike mode to some small boutique shops near the hotel, where they shopped for comfortable underthings. They cost a bit more than Clara would otherwise have paid, but as Tina pointed out it wasn’t as if she was going to have anything else to spend it all on where she was going. “And it’s definitely worth going higher-end instead of just getting cheap stuff at Wal-Mart,” Tina explained.

Clara supposed she had to agree, after trying it on. It was definitely more comfortable than the fairly utilitarian designs Lubyanka had made for her. But she drew the line at buying dresses or blouses. “Like you said, I’m not going to have much room to pack all this, and I can buy that stuff when I get there.” The bras and panties were compact enough that she could store them in one of Lubyanka’s on-board utility compartments, but anything bigger definitely would have taken up too much room.

But Tina hadn’t been done yet regardless. Their last stop was a drugstore, where she proceeded to buy a number of feminine necessities. As they stood in line at the cash register, Clara caught herself blushing furiously, until she realized, ''Hey, wait a minute…I’m ''supposed'' to be buying these now, dammit.'' It still took the blush a little while to go away, though.

The most embarrassing part was yet to come, however. After making the purchase, they went into the larger “family” restroom and locked the door, and Tina proceeded to fill Clara in on the details of the items’ proper use. By the time she was finished, Clara was positive her face should be setting off fire alarms.

“Oh, ''come on''. I’ve been a man a couple times in VL. You have your embarrassing things, too,” Tina said. “Those little rubber things you demonstrate with a banana?”

“I don’t know from Virtual Life, but I can’t imagine it’s anywhere ''near'' as embarrassing as the real thing,” Clara grumbled.

By the time they finished, it was about two o’clock, and they returned to the convention to take in more panels. Lubyanka Fused back up again, and they wandered back into the hotel, together once more.

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Lubyanka wasn’t sure exactly what she had expected from furry fandom. As a communication specialist, she knew better than most the difference between what you found on the networks and in reality. In this case, the reality both surpassed and fell behind what the online material implied.

Judging by most of the material on the major media sites, furry conventions were dens of iniquity, where deviants plied their perverted passions on unsuspecting youth. (Some of the stories furry fans, including Clark, wrote and posted to their mesh sites didn’t exactly help matters there.) But there ''wasn’t'' any of that sort of thing in actual evidence at the convention.

Instead, it was people showing off their outfits, swapping costuming tips with others, selling merch like plushies or hats with little ears on them, and talking about their favorite stories and shows. It reminded Lubyanka of some of the twencen pop culture or military reenactment conventions that had taken place on Zharus. She and her military pilot had been assigned to take part in a couple of Nextus-Sturmhaven War reenactments, and had also worked security for some conventions in Sturmhaven. In some ways it was all very familiar.

Through it all, Clara seemed to be holding up pretty well. Lubyanka had tried to be circumspect about poking around inside her head, but what she had looked at bespoke a reasonably open-minded young man who had gotten interested in the furry subculture from watching shows and reading fiction posted to various mesh sites. He hadn’t been especially curious about crossing sex, but he hadn’t been repelled by the idea either. He just…hadn’t had an opinion. Of course, ''she'' certainly did have one now.

Lubyanka wondered whether forcing her to cross had been a mistake. Perhaps she could have just had Clark drive her to the convention, then help her pick out a willing furry fan from within. But Clark had been a known quantity. For all his attempts at care, she had been able to learn a lot about him from his activity on social networks and other sites, and he seemed like the sort of person she could get along with. Even now, Clara wasn’t bitter and didn’t seem to hold it against her ''too'' much. If anything, she was excited about seeing Zharus and downright ''delighted'' to have an excuse to quit the call-center job. Now they just had to figure out how to get aboard the ''Spruce Goose.''

A woman’s voice from behind her caught Lubyanka’s attention. “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help noticing…that’s a ''really'' good fursuit.”

Lubyanka turned to glance at the speaker. She was a fairly tall, blonde-haired woman, wearing a stylish trenchcoat and a pair of sunglasses. “Thank you, miss—”

The woman smiled. “Harriet.” She looked Lubyanka up and down for a moment. “You’re a pretty long way from home, aren’t you?”

Lubyanka stiffened. “Excuse me?” ''Oh, not again.''

“Sorry, but I just don’t have time to dance around the issue here.” Harriet raised a hand, and Lubyanka abruptly felt control of her body leave her. She turned around and started walking toward the elevator.

'':Lubyanka?:'' Clara sent. '':What’s going on? Is that you?:''

'':It’s not me,:'' Lubyanka sent. '':Something’s overriding my control.:''

'':Just relax and enjoy the ride, kiddies,:'' Harriet sent to both of them. '':We need to talk somewhere private. I’ve got a room upstairs; I’ve swept it for bugs and it’s clean.:''

'':Do we have a choice?:'' Lubyanka replied.

'':Not at this juncture, sister,:'' Harriet said. '':But we’ll see what happens.:''

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Lubyanka ducked to get into the hotel room, and Harriet closed the door behind them and drew the blinds. “Now then. You can just drop that silly fake fur disguise. In fact…” She gestured again, and Lubyanka felt herself de-Fuse from around Clara, settling down on her haunches as her natural fur reasserted itself. “That’s better. Mm. Can’t say I have a lot of reason to be fond of Sturmies, but I’ll try not to hold that against you.”

“Well, thank you for ''that,''” Lubyanka said dryly.

“Who ''are'' you?” Clara asked. “''What'' are you?”

“Luby there already thinks she knows,” Harriet said.

“Would you get ''out'' of my head?” Lubyanka growled.

“Not ‘til I’ve sussed out why you’re here, and getting it this way is faster than you telling me.”

“Why are ''you'' here, Integrate?” Lubyanka asked. She took her anger and clamped down on it, hard. She might not like her high-handedness, but an Integrate could be the most powerful ally she could hope to have in getting herself back to Zharus. Besides…karmically speaking, it wasn’t as if she didn’t have this coming to her for doing effectively the same thing to Clara ''nee'' Clark.

Harriet smiled at her. “Good doggie. Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. I’d actually like to help, if I can.”

“What’s an Integrate?” Clara asked.

“Well, when a RIDE and a human love each other very much…” Harriet reached up and took off her sunglasses, then they—and the rest of her outfit—shimmered and vanished like Lubyanka’s hardlight fur. Underneath was a slender humanoid cheetah, eyes covered by what looked like a black domino mask. “Technically, you could call me Harriet-Cheetara, or Harritara, or Cheetarriet, or whatever. I tend to just go by Harriet, because unlike all the other choices, it’s not stupid.”

“Integrates are the RIDE equivalent of…to use a furry term, I guess, Bigfoot,” Lubyanka said. “Some people think they’re caused by a glitch in our Fuser form that melts the human and RIDE together. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does, they invariably disappear from society, so nobody knows very much about them.”

“Yeah, there’s politics involved.” Harriet wrinkled her muzzle. “Most of us hang out in little holes in the ground called ‘Enclaves’ where we don’t have to let normal people play in our reindeer games. I decided to tour the galaxy instead, because reasons.” She shrugged. “As for why I’m ''here'' here, I was hanging out in Sri Lanka, then my mesh daemons picked up the local news report from here. I damned sure know a RIDE when I see one. I came looking, figured out what the best haystack would be to poke that needle into, and here I am.”

“For whatever reason, Integrates are super computer hackers with the ability to dance through the thickest firewalls as if they do not exist,” Lubyanka said sourly. “So do I need to tell you anything about how I got here, or have you gotten it all already?”

“Let me see if I’ve got it,” Harriet said. She ticked off the points on her claw-tipped fingers. “You woke up on a shuttle, there were three other RIDEs, you escaped, found furrydom, bodyjacked Clara, and came here to hide. Apart from those three friends of Clara’s, nobody else knows. That sound about right?”

“That just about covers it,” Lubyanka said.

“Okay.” Harriet paced back and forth on digitigrade paws, her feline tail lashing. “First off, clever idea as far as it goes about getting onto the cruise ship, and there may be something there to salvage, but it’s not going to work the way you planned it. You can’t simply walk into Mordor, and you can’t simply board a cruise ship to Zharus either. The people who aren’t ''obviously'' tourists with strong local ties that will make them likely to come back are in for hours of interrogation in the best of cases. When you add to it that Clara here was Clark just a few days ago, even if you’re able to dock the ears and tail in Fuse, she’s still going to send up big red flags with little tiny red flags up at the tip, and smaller ones above those. You could have her try to ship you as freight, but even then she’d throw up the same red flags. I might be able to ship you without exciting attention, but I’m not sure I’d want to risk blowing my own cover for just you, and in any event that would leave Clara here behind to face the consequences of your little bodyjack. I’m afraid you outsmarted yourself there, doggie.”

Lubyanka’s head drooped. She hadn’t thought about things in that light. Perhaps she hadn’t wanted to. “I guess you’re right,” she admitted. “So what do we do?”

“First of all, we’re going to need to be a little more ambitious,” Harriet said. “It’s not going to do a damned bit of good if we get you back but leave those other three RIDEs in the government’s grubby hands. Of course, for all I know there could already be dozens of others all over the world—I’ve never looked into it—but those three are almost certainly going to be held somewhere near here, or they would have landed you all someplace else.”

Lubyanka blinked, her ears twitching forward. “You honestly believe we could rescue them? From a military facility?”

“Why not? I’m the hottest piece of military hardware on this entire planet at the moment,” Harriet said. “Well, that I know of. There ''might'' be other Inties out there. I can’t have been the only one fed up enough to leave. Again, I haven’t tried to look. But anyway, since they don’t even know I exist, let alone how to defend against me, I should be able to pierce their veil of secrecy and find out where they’re keeping them. Then we just waltz in and take ‘em.”

“It can’t be ''that'' simple,” Clara protested.

“Actually, it could be,” Lubyanka said. “My own firewall is better than anything on this planet, save possibly for quantum supercomputers. But she got me. And ''everything'' is computerized around here…”

“Hey, if you can rescue those other RIDEs, count me in,” Clara said. “My friends, too. I’m sure they’d be happy to help out.”

“I don’t think there’s any point in getting them involved with this yet,” Harriet said. “All they’d do is get in the way. We need to get in fast, then get out again.” She stretched like the cat she was, then her human disguise flickered back into place. “I’ll see what I can do, and I’ll comm you later. We don’t want to waste any time; the longer we wait, the more likely they might have started dismantling them. I should be able to have something by tonight. Once we get them secured, we’ll see what we can do about getting you ''all'' home.”

Lubyanka nodded. “All right.” She paused. “Thank you. If you are able to do this…we will all owe you a ''lot.''”

Harriet waved a hand. “Eh. Don’t worry about it. I’ve done enough shit to RIDEs in my time—well, half of me has—that helping some for a change feels good. Paying down on an old debt, you might say. Don’t forget your disguise before you go back down.” She grinned, then shimmered and vanished altogether except the grin. Then that vanished, too, the door opened, and she was gone.

“Well, that was…weird,” Clara said.

“You said it,” Lubyanka agreed, her tail wagging. “But the best kind of weird we could possibly have hoped for, I think. Our chances just got a whole lot better.”

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Fused, they returned to the con floor and took in a few panels. Just for the heck of it, they sat in on a fursuiters-only role-playing game session using a five-hundred-year-old game system called “Albedo” that someone had dug up out of an old archive somewhere. It supposedly dated all the way back to the earliest days of the furry subculture. The rules were a little complicated, and most everyone was using their comms or implants to take notes. “How did anyone ever keep track of this stuff with just pencils and paper?” Clara wondered.

Tom and the others joined them, and they went out to dinner along with a number of other fursuiters at a nearby restaurant. A number of the ‘suiters had gimmicked their suits to let them eat while wearing them, so it wasn’t out of place for Clara and Lubyanka to do the same thing. After a little practice, Clara found it was so easy that they actually had to fake a little awkwardness to fit in.

'':They really designed you to eat? That’s crazy,:'' Clara sent while they did it. '':I mean, I can understand the whole going-to-the-bathroom thing, but having a working mouth?:''

'':We were meant for use in hostile environments,:'' Lubyanka said. '':Being able to de-Fuse so our pilots can have meals is never guaranteed. Besides…I enjoy tasting human food over our neural link. Too bad there won’t be many other excuses to eat out on this planet.:''

'':We’ll just have to look forward to getting to Zharus, then,:'' Clara replied.

After supper, they returned to the con. A couple of hours later, an encrypted comm mail came in from Harriet with a set of coordinates about twenty miles outside of town, and instructions to be there by midnight. “I guess this is it,” Clara said. “Let’s go.”

“We’ve got plenty of time to get there,” Lubyanka pointed out.

“I know, but I’m going to be too excited to enjoy the rest of the evening like this,” Clara said. “Besides, I want there to be plenty of time to go over explanations.”

“Mm. I suppose it would be good to take the extra time to muddy the trail, just in case.”

So they excused themselves from the con, said good night to Tom and the others, and put on a succession of hardlight eggshell disguises as they left the convention, stopped in a parking garage, came out again, went to another garage, and so on. For the last mile or so, they left the road and went totally dark. By the time they arrived at a small clearing in the heart of the forest, it was getting on toward 11:30.

'':Spooky,:'' Clara thought.

'':Booga booga,:'' Lubyanka replied. '':Best time of day for getting something like this done, really. Even so, I keep having to remind myself we don’t have as much time as it feels like. Your 24-hour days are weird.:''

As they pulled to a stop, Harriet stepped out from behind a tree. “Hey, welcome to the party. Glad you made it.”

“Glad to be here,” Lubyanka said. “Where’s the base?”

Harriet jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “About ten klicks thataway. There’s a game trail that will take us right to it.”

“Could I get that in something that makes sense, like ''miles?''” Clara asked.

Harriet snorted. “Here’s a nickel, kid, go buy yourself a unified system of measurements. Anyway, it’s disguised as an agricultural research facility. Not too heavily guarded, either. Makes sense; given that it’s all one government now, who would they expect an invasion from? Looks like they’re just trying to keep it obscure. Which is good news for us.”

“You already scouted the defenses?”

“Inside and out,” Harriet said. “I could almost do this all by myself, but with so much at stake it would be stupid not to have backup. Are you armed? Preferably non-lethal?”

“Don’t have any heavy weapons built in, just the comm lasers,” Lubyanka said. “They’re lethal at high-intensity, but a couple of them are equipped with shock projectors to ride the ion trail down.”

Harriet nodded. “Built in TASERs. Nice. I can do something like that myself.”

“I’ve got a pocketknife,” Clara supplied.

Harriet grinned, showing pearly white teeth in the dark. “Cute, kid. I’m not leaving you out—your job is to give Luby there her thumbs. That’s the most important thing you can do right now, ''capice?''”

Clara nodded. “Got it.”

“The plan is we go in, get the RIDEs, load ‘em onto a truck, and get out,” Harriet continued. “We may have to do a little reassembly, but it looks like they haven’t gone too far yet. I’ll fog their security systems, play musical chairs with the transponder tags, and scramble the motor pool records in general so they don’t know what truck to look for. We’ll steal another one as soon as we can anyway.”

Lubyanka nodded. “I understand.”

“Here’s a map of the facility, with the locations of the RIDEs and study labs marked,” Harriet said. A gem on her forearm twinkled as she beamed the data across. “We may meet some guards along the way. They shouldn’t have anything that can hurt us, but stun ‘em as you find ‘em anyway.”

“Seems clear enough to me,” Lubyanka said. “Let’s go.”

They Fused up, then lifted into the air and glided along the forest trail. Clara wondered how they could see where they were going, then realized a moment later when Lubyanka switched her display over to night-vision mode. Everything was visible in shades of bright and dark green, fronds of vegetation leaving odd afterimages as they passed.

Finally, they came out onto a bluff overlooking a small campus of buildings, surrounded by a chain-link fence with barbed wire at the top. It was well-lit enough that Lubyanka dialed back the night-vision. '':Give me two minutes to loop the cameras, then fly over the fence.:'' Harriet vanished again. Lubyanka threw a two-minute timer up in her display, and they waited for it to tick down.

Clara had been excited enough to be doing something, but now that the moment came she felt an oddly hollow sensation in the pit of her stomach. ''Yesterday I was a call center rep. Today I’m actually about to take part in a raid on a frickin’ Army Base.''

'':Stay calm,:'' Lubyanka assured her. '':I have been through much worse than this. We will be fine.:''

The timer hit zero, and Lubyanka goosed her lifters, flying over the fence with ease and touching down on a walkway between two buildings. The map display in one corner of her field of vision told her exactly where to go, and she went, ducking to slip through a human-sized door and zoom up a flight of stairs to the lab on the second floor.

As they shoved open the door, they encountered their first set of problems—three scientists in lab coats bending over the prone metallic forms of the powered-down RIDEs. They just had time to look up with shocked expressions before Lubyanka raised her arms and took them down with three fast zaps.

'':Are they…?:''

'':Just stunned, don’t worry,:'' Lubyanka said. She stepped forward and dragged all three of them to one corner of the room, out of the way.

Harriet reappeared. “Good! Hmm.” She examined the RIDEs, and the collection of parts on a workbench along the wall. “Okay, this should be simple enough to restore…hmm…wait. One of the cores is missing—the tiger’s. Where would they…oh ''shit!'' Up to the lab on level three, ''hurry!''” She lifted and zoomed for the door. Lubyanka followed a moment later, shooting up the stairs on lifter power.

They burst into the lab right above the one they’d left just in time to see a goggle-wearing scientist lowering a laser cutting blade toward the walnut-sized RI core slotted into a bracket on the table. “Oh no you don’t!” Harriet growled, raising a hand and yanking the blade away from the scientist. A moment later, Lubyanka’s TASER put him down.

“Oh, ''man,'' that was too close,” Harriet said. She tossed the cutter away and held out her hand again, and the core floated more gently into it. She held it up to the light to inspect it. “Doesn’t appear to be any damage. Let’s get this back where it belongs.”

They went back down the stairs to the lab where the RI shells and their parts were, and took another look at the workbench. “There sure is a lot of…stuff there,” Clara said, glancing at the motley assortment of metal boxes, plates, wires, and other odds and ends.

“We’re lucky,” Harriet said. “Most of this crap is stuff that was designed for easy removal and replacement. Batteries, sensors, hardlight projectors, and stuff. They didn’t really get into any of the deep core stuff that would need recalibration to put right.” She frowned. “Looks like they did ruin one of the tiger’s batteries. Cut it open to see what makes it tick. All the king’s horses…” She picked up a light blue wafer from amid a collection of metal pieces. “Luckily, he’s got plenty more of them. But all this one’s good for now is a snack for me.” She took a bite out of the wafer. “Mmm, yummy. A++ grade. This is ''good'' stuff.”

“Isn’t that…cannibalism or something?” Clara said.

“Hey, I’m not going to let this go to waste. You know how hard this stuff is to get off Zharus?” She shook her head. “Anyway, I’m going to get these guys buttoned up. You-all go get a truck. I’ve already scrambled the codes, just get one that’s big enough for all four of you guys. There’s a loading dock at the end of this building. Back it up there.”

“Understood.” Clara watched the map display center on the base’s motor pool, and plot a course. Then Lubyanka was taking them away again.

As they were coming around the corner to the motor pool, they came across a security guard. They stared at each other for a split second, then Lubyanka dropped him as he reached for his comm. The garage itself was deserted, and it only took a few moments to find and hack a skimmer truck of the appropriate size.

They stood there for a moment, looking at the cab. '':So now what?:'' Clara asked. '':We’re never gonna fit into that. And I don’t know how to drive a truck.:''

'':Eh. We can run it by remote,:'' Lubyanka said, waving a hand and making the truck pull out of the garage by itself.

They backed it into place at the loading dock, then made their way from the loading dock back to the lab, making sure the coast was clear.

They arrived to find Harriet standing in the midst of three metallic animals floating limply in the air, a few last parts floating into open access hatches, then the hatches closing. Harriet clapped her hands together in front of her and lowered them, and the RIDEs lowered gently to the ground. “Right! Now…wakey-wakey time, everyone!”

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the optics on the metallic animals lit up, and they got unsteadily to their feet. A moment later, hardlight pelts flickered on—orange and black tiger, yellow and black serval, red fox. Harriet gazed at them each in turn, then stopped and stared at the tiger. “You…I ''know'' you. You’re ''Hobbes!'' Oh God, Hobbes, what are ''you'' doing here?”

The tiger cocked his head and peered at her. “You have the advantage of me, miss.” He looked around. “And…what ''am'' I doing here? Where ''is'' here? Why aren’t there any comm signals on the right frequencies?”

Harriet considered. “Right. You’re Hobbes. The serval is Quentin, and the foxy fox is Madeira. You guys, I’m Harriet, and the wolf there is Lubyanka, with Clara inside. Further introductions can wait. We need to get out of here before someone notices what we’re doing. Down the hall, that way, into the truck that’s waiting.”

“There’s ''something'' familiar about you,” Hobbes mused. “But I can’t make out what it is.”

“The lady said we need to go,” Quentin said. “I’m not gonna argue. Come on!” He bounded out of the room. Hobbes considered, then padded after him.

“Thank you for waking us up,” Madeira said in a resonant voice, before following the others.

“Right!” Harriet nodded to Lubyanka. “Move it and/or lose it, people!”

“Don’t have to tell us twice,” Lubyanka said. “After you!”

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Leaving the base wasn’t a problem. They simply drove up to the gate, and Harriet—disguised as a military officer—showed the gate guard a pass whose forged credentials were, of course, impeccable. They pulled out onto the road and were gone.

They drove the truck for ten miles in random directions before stopping at an automated recharge station. Harriet hacked all cameras within range, then everyone climbed out and recharged. Harriet programmed the truck’s auto-drive for a semi-randomized drive-and-stop pattern that would put it somewhere in Arkansas before its batteries ran down.

“So, here we are, then,” Hobbes said as they watched the empty truck trundle away. “Free…for some value of free. Lubyanka explained what was going on during the drive. Can’t say I ever expected to see the old homeplace.”

“So far, it’s not been all that impressive,” Quentin said, twitching his whiskers. “At least I still have all my parts.”

“My poor battery,” Hobbes sighed.

“Oh, buck up,” Harriet said. “You were built with half again more batteries than you ever needed, and they were A++ in the bargain.”

Hobbes cocked his head and looked at her. “And you know this…how?”

“Er…” Harriet faltered. “Well, if you must know, I’m the one who had you built. Part of me is, anyway.”

Hobbes stared. “You’re shitting me. ''You’re'' Harold Steader?”

“Harold, occasionally Henrietta, most recently Harriet.” Harriet shrugged. “Why’re you acting so surprised? Crossriding happens. Integration happens. Here I am.”

“Wait a minute,” Clara said. “Steader? As in that super-rich family that paid for all the colonies?”

“''Most'' of the colonies,” Harriet said.

Hobbes growled, taking a step forward. “You’re the one who built me, used me for five months, then sold me in favor of a stupid fluffy white housecat. You know, I’ve wanted to run into you again for a ''long'' time. It ''would'' take getting kidnapped and shipped to ''Earth'' before it happened.”

“Take it easy, big boy,” Madeira put in. “We do need her to get us back to Zharus, you know.”

“If it makes you feel any better, the ‘old’ Harold is effectively dead and gone,” Harriet said. “I’m mostly Cheetara, the last RIDE he had made.” She shook her head. “Integration was…not terribly fun, but we got through it.”

Hobbes snorted. “‘Cheetara,’ huh? Yeah, that sounds like Harold, all right. Eh, okay, lady. I’m not one to go blaming RIDEs for what their humans do. And anyway, you saved my ass ''this'' time, so I guess we’re more or less even.”

“So what’s the plan?” Quentin asked.

“Still working on that,” Harriet said. “I’ve got some ideas. But first things first—we need to get back to Springfield for now. That furry convention is still the best place to hide you all for now. Lubyanka can set you up with some hardlight disguise patterns. We’ll head up to the hotel parking lot, and tomorrow morning we’ll see about getting you some thumbs.”

“Sounds good to me,” Hobbes said. A moment later, they had all converted to skimmer form and disguised themselves, then departed in different directions to take separate routes back to town.

“Wow, Tom, Kip, and Tina are going to be surprised,” Clara mused.

“I expect they are,” Lubyanka said. ''Probably more than you know.''

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When they got back to town, Lubyanka and Clara returned to Clara’s apartment so Clara could get some sleep. The next morning, they headed up to the hotel to meet Harriet and the other RIDEs in the garage.

“Hey, guys. Clara, why don’t you comm your friends to get up here?” Harriet said. “It’s time for some introductions.”

A few minutes later, Tom, Kip, and Tina came out of the elevator. “Hey, Clara, what’s going on?”

“Got some new friends for you to meet. First, this is Harriet. She’s been helping us out.”

“Hi, guys,” Harriet said. Then she dropped her human disguise. “I’m not from around these parts.”

Tom blinked. “Well, you certainly came to the right place with a look like that.”

“Here are a few other people who aren’t from around these parts,” Harriet continued. Behind her, three eggshell cars dropped their disguises and converted into animals, padding forward.

“Dibs on the one with the tiger tags,” Hobbes announced.

Kip stared. “Three ''more'' RIDEs?”

“I did say there were three others,” Lubyanka said. “Last night, we went and found them.”

“Uh…hi?” Tina said.

“Hello,” Madeira replied.

“I guess that makes you mine, then,” Quentin said to Kip.

“Uh, what?” Kip said.

Then all three RIDEs Fused onto the humans in front of them.

“Hey, wait—whoa!” Tina said. But it was too late. A moment later, a humanoid tiger, serval, and fox stood in Tom, Kip, and Tina’s place.

The tiger looked down at himself. “Well. This is new. Can’t say I ever expected to be in a RIDE again without having to go to Zharus.”

“Uh…you could have ''asked'' first?” Kip said.

“You might have said no,” Quentin said. “And we’d still have Fused you anyway, so what’s the point?”

“We need our Fuser form to be able to hide in the convention like Lubyanka,” Madeira said.

“Sorry, kids, but we already decided, you’re all going to Zharus,” Harriet said. “If we left you behind after the rest skedaddled, you’d probably just end up picked up and questioned by the government once they figured out Clara was involved since you’re known to be friends of hers.”

“And this way we won’t be able to tell anyone else either, huh?” Kip said.

“That is one benefit, granted,” Harriet admitted.

“I guess I can’t complain,” Tom said. “I wanted to go back anyway…and wow! I’m in a RIDE again! And he’s even a tiger, just like the one I used to have.”

“''Better'' than the one you used to have,” Hobbes said. “Your Terry was a standard consumer model. I was custom-made for a millionaire.”

Kip/Quentin turned to Tina. “Wow, look at ''you.''”

Tina looked down at her newly-Fused self. In Fuser form, Madeira was considerably more curvaceous than Lubyanka, especially around the bust and hips. Her bushy tail swished back and forth. “Oh, ''great.'' I’m the embodiment of one of the worst sexist cliches in all of furrydom.”

“I can’t help the way I was made,” Madeira said.

“Um. Sorry about this, guys,” Clara said. “I thought they were going to ask first.”

“I guess I’m not too mad about it,” Kip said. “After Tom and now you, I wanted a RIDE for myself anyway.”

“And I wanted a human for myself, so it works out,” Quentin said.

“Now let’s see how you all look with your new tags,” Harriet suggested. The three RIDEs peeled away from the humans again.

“Well, at least my tags shouldn’t have changed any,” Tom said, chuckling.

Clara blinked. “Tom? Your nose…”

“Huh?” Tom reached up and felt a decidedly feline nose shape where his human nose had used to be. “Whoa. That’s new”

“I was a prototype,” Hobbes said. “So you get a kitty-nose.”

“I think I like it,” Tom said, grinning.

Kip reached up to feel his own new feline ears. “Wow…these things are like a foot tall.”

“Serval,” Quentin said. “We do that.”

Tina looked down at herself. “Ugh…what did you ''do'' to me?” Her body had slimmed down a little, and most of the excess mass appeared to have gravitated to her upper chest. She turned on Madeira. “Put it back the way it was! I don’t want to have to buy a whole new wardrobe!”

“Sorry,” Madeira said. “It’s just how my tags work. My class has to give its human partner a similar build to our Fuser shape, for maximum compatibility—”

Tina rolled her eyes. “Oh, bull''shit''. You were designed by some ''man'' who liked the idea of women with huge gazongas. As if I didn’t get ‘accidentally’ groped often enough already…you’d think five hundred years would be enough time for society to grow out of that crap.”

“Technically, it has, several times,” Kip pointed out. “But progress doesn’t always move in just one direction. Sometimes we backslide. Just look at how slavery was abolished in the 19th century, but came back again after the oil crash. A century ago, when the neo-Libertines were in vogue, it was ''men'' who had to worry about being groped.”

“Oh, ''thank'' you, professor,” Tina groused.

“Uh…anyway, for what it’s worth, I think you look great,” Kip said.

“Oh, ''really,''” Tina said, eyes glinting dangerously. “Do you like me ''better'' this way?”

“Uh…” Kip glanced around at the others, but nobody seemed willing to throw him a lifeline. “I…like you no matter what you look like?” he said finally.

“That would ''really'' have meant more if you hadn’t hesitated first,” Tina said.

“Well, what do you want?” Kip said. “It’s not like you’ve got many other options here. You want to trade with me and be a guy instead?”

“Actually…you know what? ''Yes,''” Tina said. “It would be nice not to have to worry about sexist macho bullshit for a change.”

Kip stared. “What?”

Tom blinked. “What?”

Clara goggled. “''What?''”

“Since you’re offering…” She glanced behind Kip, to the serval RIDE, who was currently sitting on his haunches and scratching behind one ear. He paused in mid-scratch. “How ‘bout it, Quentin?”

“Now wait a minute—” Kip said.

“Hmm,” Quentin said. “Crossriding isn’t usually my thing…but…sure, why not?” He padded forward, his hardlight winked out, and he Fused around her.

“Now hold on here…” Kip said weakly, as he heard Madeira’s melodic giggle behind him. He turned around just in time to get FUSE-glomped.

“Well, that was certainly something different,” Harriet said.

Tom rolled his eyes. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Tim and Kim. At least they rhyme now.”

“I can’t believe you just did that!” Kip—''Kim''—said in a higher-pitched voice.

“You’re the one who said it happened all the time in Virtual Life,” Tina—''Tim''—said, an octave lower. “Now I’ll finally get to experience the joys of peeing standing up.”

“Are you crazy?” Clara said. “People have been ''deported'' for stuff like this! Remember the Gates family?”

Everybody turned to look at her. Clara paused. “Oh…right. I guess that ''was'' pretty silly of me, wasn’t it.”

“Don’t worry, Kim,” Tim said sweetly. “I’m sure you’ll look every bit as gorgeous as you thought I did.” Kim just whimpered a little.

“You know, you could have stopped that,” Lubyanka pointed out to Harriet.

Harriet shrugged. “Eh. I’ve crossed so many times myself, sometimes I can’t remember what gender I was born as. It’s just good clean fun.”

“On Zharus, maybe. I wouldn’t recommend registering those gender changes with the local bureaucracy,” Lubyanka said. “Too many people saw you as the other ones just yesterday. And we shouldn’t be on Earth long enough for it to become an issue…right, Harriet?”

“Still working on that, but I have some ideas. I’ll get back to you soon. For now…just hang out at the con and get to know each other, mmkay? Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“I think they’ve already ''done'' most of the things you ''did'' do,” Clara said.

“Ha. Okay, ''ciao.''” Harriet vanished again.

“This feels so ''funky'',” Kim said. “I have bits missing and bits added…”

“No kidding,” Tim said, without a hint of sarcasm.  “I think I’m going to need some guy-stuff advice now, Clara. Heh.”

“I think you’re just about done,” Quentin said.

“Already?” Tim said. “The process takes ''days'' with our best medical tech.”

“Now you know why Earth wants us so badly,” Lubyanka said.

“Right, so the military can…change their sex at a moment’s notice,” Kim said. “That makes sense.”

“If they can do ''that'' so quickly, just imagine what else they can do,” Tom said. “Honestly, I think even Maddie there could be the equal of one of our IDEs if you gave her a beam rifle or two. I’m kind of surprised Earth hasn’t tried to invade already.”

“It’s because our esteemed Steaders—yes, including the one who just left us—did their job so well,” Hobbes said. “They made us out to look like a planet of crazies who couldn’t possibly have anything anybody else wanted. If we claimed to, who’d believe us? We’re crazies.”

“But it looks like the glamour might be wearing off,” Quentin said. “If they believed it enough to have us shipped back for research…oh, there we go.”

With twin hisses, Quentin and Madeira de-Fused again, revealing their new partners. Tim ''nee'' Tina was still pretty short, though it looked like she’d gained a couple of inches. He was a little stocky, with short brown hair and decently-toned muscles. He had the spotted and striped serval tail, and the tall radar-dish-like ears, Kip had sported briefly before.

Kim had honey-blonde hair down to her waist, and if anything an even more impressive bust than Tina had gotten. She was in a T-shirt and short shorts with a tail-hole in back for the bushy red fox tail. She looked down at herself, took a step forward, and wobbled. “Whoa…balance!”

Tim nodded. “I recommend staying away from high heels.”

“How come this doesn’t feel…wrong?” Kim wondered, bouncing on the balls of her feet a little. “Just…weird. But not wrong.”

“If this is wrong, I don’t want to be right.” Tim grinned, then reached out to take Kim’s hand. “C’mon, I’ll help you up to our room. Then we can try out our new equipment!”

“Um…” Kim said, but he didn’t make any serious effort to resist.

“Quentin, Madeira, you guys wait here for us, ‘kay? We’ll be back in a little while, then we’ll do the con together.”

“Works for me.” Quentin reverted to his skimmer bike form, a sleek “crotch rocket” style hovercycle, and backed into an empty parking spot before throwing up his eggshell disguise. Madeira followed suit, her bike shape being a more reclined “chopper” shape with a tall padded backrest. Tim headed for the elevator, all but dragging Kim along after him.

'':Okay, what the hell?:'' Clara asked her RIDE. '':They change sex and get horny for each other that fast? Shouldn’t they feel some kind of severe form of gender dysphoria?:''

'':The human brain is easily changed. There are structures for body image and gender identity we alter during a crossride, else you would have a hard time functioning. Why, do ''you'' feel dysphoric?:'' the shewolf asked.

'':I guess not…not beyond being annoyed how much it’s messed up my life, anyway. But I don’t suddenly want to start banging Tom, either,:'' Clara said.

'':Unless I miss my guess, those two were already in a physical relationship,:'' Lubyanka pointed out. '':We often find with mutual crosses, the first thing that happens is…curiosity. A turnabout romance.:''

“Well,” Tom said. “That was…sudden.”

“I guess we should go ahead and Fuse up and do the con,” Clara said. “If this is going to be our last one on Earth, we should make it a good one, hey?”

“And I should get to know my new pet human,” Hobbes said, yawning and showing lots of teeth.

Tom chuckled. “What says you’re not ''my'' new pet tiger, huh?”

“I weigh more than you do,” Hobbes said smugly.

Tom grinned. “Well, hey, I’m easy. Maybe we could play some virtual Calvinball or something.”

“Oooh, I like you already,” Hobbes said. His hardlight winked out, and he Fused again. A moment later, his fur pelt flickered into the fursuit disguise Lubyanka had coded up for him that resembled his namesake. “I can’t say this looks anywhere near as good as my natural pelt, but when in Rome…”

“Remember to use your lifters to lighten your tread, and don’t bump into anyone!” Lubyanka advised.

“Yes, Mommy,” Hobbes said.

Clara chuckled. “Let’s join them, shall we?”

Lubyanka Fused around her. “Let’s go.”

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Saturday was any convention’s biggest day. Tom carefully wandered through the crush of people in his brand new nine-foot-tall fursuit. '':I still can’t believe this,:'' he mused. '':A RIDE again…and here on Earth, too. It’s too bad we have to stay hidden. There’s so much stuff I’d like to show you.:''

'':I’m surprised you’re taking it so well.:'' Hobbes’s mental voice was as deep and rumbly as his real one. It almost felt like Tom was inside an echo chamber. '':You do understand we effectively bodyjacked you? I’m glad you’re happy about it, but I would have had to do this even if you were not.:''

The perspective changed, and Tom dropped into the sunlit grassy plain of Hobbes’s VR. To one side, a display panel showed the view from Hobbes’s optics, and the tiger sat on his haunches across from him. “Hey, nice place,” Tom said. “Looks a lot more real than our Virtual Life.” He shrugged. “And yeah, I get that. Tina—er, ''Tim'' is probably going to be the unhappiest one about it. I don’t think it’s really quite sunk in for him yet. Kim—when he was Kip—really wanted to come too in the first place, but it was a college trip and we couldn’t bring sibs. As for me…the more I see, the more I wish I’d just cut out the middleman and not come back from my trip.” He chuckled. “Hell, given how much grief you have to go through to take a ''first'' trip to Zharus, let alone a ''second'' one, getting press-ganged there by renegade RIDEs is probably the easiest way I could have made it back. Isn’t that sad?”

“A lot of things are sad about this situation,” Hobbes rumbled. “We are meant to work in open partnership with humans. Having to kidnap them secretly…ugh.”

“Try to relax, enjoy it, and look on the bright side,” Tom said. “You’re free, you’ve got new partners, and you’re getting to do something most RIDEs can only dream of—visit a far-off star system, and poke around mankind’s ancestral home.”

Hobbes chuckled. “This is true. I expect our memories of the event will probably be much in demand on the sideband networks when we get back.”

Tom grinned. “I can’t believe I have a ''sister'' now. Mom is gonna be shocked. I almost wish we had time to go visit her before we leave.”

“It seems you are the only one of your friends who has remained the sex you were born into,” Hobbes said. “Do you feel left-out?”

“I think, all things considered, I’m just as happy staying the way I am,” Tom said. “Someone’s got to be the ‘normal’ one around here.”

Hobbes nodded toward the panel displaying their view of the outside world. “‘Normal’ being a relative term, I take it?”

Tom laughed. “Hey, don’t knock furries. If we were all ‘normal,’ you wouldn’t have found a place to hide.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Hobbes admitted. “Speaking of showing me things, why don’t you show me around the convention? I believe I would like to see the art show.”

“I’ll see if we can fit you in,” Tom promised. They dropped back out of virtual reality into the real world again.

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Tim yawned and stretched in the comfortable queen-sized bed of the hotel room they’d rented in the Holiday Inn above the con. It had been kind of a luxury, given that they only lived a few miles away, but they’d thought it would be convenient to have somewhere to spend the night without having to go back and forth. Now, Tim was doubly glad they had. Quietly, carefully, so as not to wake the sleeping lump in the bed next to him, he sat up and got to his feet.

''Him. He.'' It was a weird readjustment to think of herself—''himself''—in that way, after almost twenty years of being the “fairer” sex. ''Ha,'' Tim thought, thinking back to how he’d ''become'' a he. ''Who ''says'' I’m fair?'' He felt a little bad in hindsight at how she’d just bulldozed right over Kip that way, but let’s be honest—he’d deserved it. Let him see how the other half lived in the ''real'' for a while.

He looked down at himself. Not a bad physique. He’d have to thank Quentin for that when he saw him. Of course, he’d probably have to start exercising again to keep it up. She’d given it up after it had failed to put a dent in her plump female shape, but maybe it would be different doing it to build muscle rather than lose weight. ''Oh, hey. I can go topless now without being indecent. That’s something, anyway.''

Her gaze naturally progressed downward to the new lumps between her legs. Of course, they weren’t ''that'' new, in a sense. She’d played with a virtual version plenty of time, but there had been some key differences she wasn’t prepared for. The virtual version had been wired into her existing neural system, and there was only so far a virtual system could go in simulating the other side’s neural structures when an existing one was in place. Simulated intercourse had basically ''felt'' the same, just with different mechanics.

But now he had the real deal. And when you got right down to it, he was surprised it had all been over so ''fast.'' He almost felt cheated. ''You mean, that was ''it''?'' And then it had been some minutes before he’d been able to go again. ''Tiresias was right, women really ''do'' enjoy it more. At least, when they’re with someone who can keep it up long enough to let them.''

He wasn’t sure whether he’d been able to do that for Kim. She’d seemed to enjoy herself well enough, but then, Tim remembered her first few times as Tina hadn’t been all that great until Kip had gotten a little more experience himself. ''And here I swore I was going to learn from his mistakes and be ''better'' at everything than he was.'' He sighed. ''Oh well, live and learn.''

His big dish-like ears swiveled back to pick up the sound of Kim snoring behind him. That was another new experience. Directional ears. Wow. And that ''tail''…he’d never had one of those before. (Well, except for the minute or so as a fox, but that hardly counted.) Feeling sensations from a part of the body that hadn’t even ''existed'' before was…pretty much indescribable.

Tim fumbled for his comm and checked the time. Ten a.m. Time to do a little shopping before meeting the others for lunch, he guessed. He turned back and gave Kim’s shoulder a little shake. “Hey, wake up, sleepygirl.”

“Huh? Wha?” Kim rolled onto her back and opened her eyes. “What’s…?” She looked down at her chest, which was making the covers into a little oblong mountain. “Oh.” She pushed back the covers, slowly, and looked at what lay beneath. “Um. Really?”

“Really,” Tim said. “C’mon, get dressed. We can get a little shopping in before lunch. You’re gonna need it.”

“Oh God…” Kim groaned. “Do I have to be enthusiastic about shopping now, on top of everything else?”

“You can if you want.” Tim shrugged. “I always thought of it as a necessary evil, myself. But you’ll feel better once you’ve got some clothes that fit. And I get to do my first ever wrong-gender ‘tampon run,’ yay!”

“Ugh…how can you be so enthusiastic about this?” Kim groaned. “I mean, just look at me!”

“Let me see, what was it you said?” Tim asked. “‘Anyway, for what it’s worth, I think you look great!’”

Kim facepalmed. “Oh, yeah, ''twist'' that knife. I’m ''sorry,'' okay? So maybe I ''was'' thinking with my ‘nads.”

“Well, for the next three years, you won’t have that problem,” Tim said.

Kim rolled her eyes. “Just don’t start thinking with ''yours'' now, because I’m ''gonna'' call you on it.”

''Well, she has me there.'' “Fair’s fair. C’mon, get up and get dressed and let’s go meet our RIDEs.” Tim fumbled for his slacks. “Okay, got that, now where’s my…oh wait, ''duh,'' I don’t ''need'' a bra anymore…”

“''I'' didn’t get one,” Kim grumbled. “Tina—''Tim''—I really ''am'' sorry. I didn’t think about how it must feel to have these things hanging off you all the time.”

“It’s not so bad when they’re smaller,” Tim said. “But those ''cantaloupes'' you’ve got? Yikes. We’d better get you some lingerie in a hurry. We might need something industrial-strength for those.”

“Well, just remember, if you think being a guy is ''easy'', you’re going to get a rude awakening,” Kim said. She folded her arms awkwardly under, then over her breasts and grumped.

“You’re cute when you pout like that,” Tim needled. But, in reality, he was having similar thoughts himself. ''Perhaps I didn’t think my cunning plan all the way through.'' “Right. Anyway, let’s get our clothes on, and get on with our day.”

“All right…” Kim sat up awkwardly, yelping a little as she accidentally sat on her tail. “Wow. Awkward.” She leaned carefully out to look for her clothes, only wobbling a little bit. “New center of gravity, me.”

Tim pulled on his briefs and slacks, then T-shirt. “So, uh, hey…” he said.

“Hmm?” Kim asked, pulling on her shirt.

“Was it…y’know…okay?”

Kim cocked her head. “You know…about that part of it? I don’t think I can complain. It was…well, VL can’t compare. Remember that time? Opposites Day? We swapped sensory inputs.”

“This was nothing like that,” Tim opined.

“It was close,” Kim insisted. She kept her arms folded under her breasts now. “Ugh. My back.”

''So what are we even going to say to people down at the con? ''Tim wondered. They didn’t look much like their old selves, so maybe…well, there was shopping to do first. The drug store and the corner fabbery to get a smartbra…''If there’s even ''time'' for the con today…sheesh…no, I ''didn’t'' think this through.''

“I could use some help with this wild mane of hair,” Kim said. It draped all the way down to her waist. “It’s all tangled.”

It was another half hour before they could even leave the hotel room.

They stepped out of the elevator to the parking garage a few minutes later, and stared at row upon row of identical egg-like skimmers and ground cars. The garage was empty of people. Kim glanced at Tim. “Uh…do you remember where we parked?”

“Hey, guys, we’re back!” Tim called. “Come on, don’t make us look crazy here…”

A moment later, two of the car shapes blinked out, and the skimmer bikes pulled out in front of them and converted back over to their animal shapes. “Well, look who’s back,” Madeira said, headbumping Kim under her breasts.

“Hey, sorry for leaving so suddenly,” Tim said, reaching down to run a hand along Quentin’s furry muzzle. “We just…you know.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Quentin said. “We know all about how crossriders are. Not that I’ve done much of it myself—back in the polity where I’m from, a lot of the humans tend to frown on it—but I’ve heard about it.”

“We wanted to go out and do a little shopping, get Kim here some necessities,” Tim said. “Then we can suit up and do the con.”

“Great!” Quentin said. “Lubyanka and Hobbes have been sharing their telemetry. We’ve been looking forward to getting in there ourselves.”

Madeira unfolded back into her skimmer bike form. “Climb aboard, hon. We’ll take you where you need to go.”

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“Well, that was an education,” Kim said as she followed Tim out of the last store on their list. She felt a lot better now that she had a properly-fitted smartbra holding everything in place—even if they’d had to go to a plus-sizes shop to get it. On Madeira’s recommendation, they’d picked up several of them. She said that sometimes Fuser nanites did odd things to non-Zharus-made cloth.

Kim had the feeling that she and Clara would be comparing notes very soon. Tim had said that he—well, ''she'' at the time—had taken her out for the same “girly run” the day before. Including the same demonstration of how to use the unmentionables. ''Ugh. Can’t wait to get to Zharus.'' Madeira had said they had a nanotech product there that made the whole business unnecessary.

“It’s interesting seeing the whole thing from the other side,” Tim mused. “All the funny looks those clerks kept giving me…”

“I’m just glad they didn’t ask for our IDs with the charge purchases,” Kim said. “That would have been awkward.”

“Did you notice how they ogled you?”

“Pffft,” Kim gestured dismissively.

“How some of the girls looked envious?”

“Pshaw!” Kim said with another gesture.

“Where did you pick up ''that'' from?” Tim asked pointedly.

“Don’t you remember ''you'', in high school?”

Tim grimaced. “Oh, right. Right. I did that all the time whenever you or one of the other boys gave me one of those looks. To show I didn’t care.”

“What can I say? I learned from the best,” Kim said, grinning. She put the last of the shopping bags into one of Madeira’s panniers. “Let’s get back to the hotel and try and enjoy the rest of the con.”

“Oooh, great!” Madeira said as they mounted up. “I’ve been looking forward to that. Luby came up with a ''great'' fursuit costume for me.”

“Oh, wow, I can hardly wait,” Kim deadpanned as they pulled away.

They Fused up as soon as they were in the hotel garage away from prying eyes. Kim looked down at herself, and caught Tim doing the same out of the corner of her eye. Their Fuser form bore a strong resemblance to her human form, at least insofar as body type was concerned. At least, she had the same difficulty seeing anything beyond her upper chest either way. But at least she had a better sense of balance now—or at least Madeira did.

Then their hardlight pelt flickered and changed. Kim glanced over at their reflection in the windshield of one of the egg-cars. They were now a plush fox of the same size, with a hardlight tee-shirt stretched over mountainous foam-rubber breasts and short-short daisy dukes on their hips. “Well, I guess that was about the only way you could really go with this look,” Kim said. She glanced over at Tim and Quentin, who had a more traditional serval fursuit look with animatronic eyes and ears.

“Well, once more unto the breach,” Tim said.

“Yeah,” Kim said. She followed them into the elevator, ducking their head to get through the doorway. There were a couple of people already in the elevator—from their normal mode of dress and lack of name badges, probably normal hotel guests. Kim gave them a great big wave, and stifled a giggle as they backed away to the other wall.

'':That’s actually not too far from the reactions to us in the early days on Zharus,:'' Quentin said.

'':Johnny-come-latelies,:'' Tim said proudly. '':Fursuiters have been getting those reactions for ''five hundred years!'':'' “Ground floor, please,” he said aloud. The elevator dinged and closed.

When they got to the ground floor, the two Fusers stood back and watched bemusedly as the mundanes all but fell over themselves trying to get out of the elevator. “You know what? This is why I’ve always wanted a fursuit,” Tim said happily. “Thanks, Quentin.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” the serval replied as they walked out.

“So here we are,” Kim said. “Let’s mingle, and catch up with the others.” They sauntered down the hall toward the convention center, pausing every so often to wave at passers-by. A couple of times they had to stop when people held up their comms to take pictures, or asked if they could pose with them or their children.

'':Does this happen often?:'' Quentin wondered.

'':Fursuiters get this a lot,:'' Tim said. '':It’s kind of one of the reasons why it takes a special sort of person to want to ‘suit. If you’re not good with people, you’re in the wrong hobby.:''

They finally made it to the convention hall, where the con was in full swing. They spotted Lubyanka and Hobbes along the far wall and started making their way over.

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'':You don’t like me very much, do you?:'' Madeira asked privately.

'':Huh?:'' Kim said. '':What makes you say that?:''

'':You haven’t said a word to me since we’ve been Fused,:'' Madeira said. '':And I can tell how you feel about the boobs.:''

'':It’s…kind of a big adjustment,:'' Kim said. '':The whole thing is. Can’t you…y’know, make them a little smaller?:''

'':Unfortunately, I’m not programmed for ‘smaller,’:'' Madeira said ruefully. '':As a BBV model, I’m made for a very specific clientele.:''

'':Good Lord, they actually ''call'' you a BBV?:'' Kim said. '':That’s an old, old term in furry. It stands for—:''

'':I know what it stands for. I ''am'' what it stands for,:'' Madeira said. '':I think it was someone’s idea of an in-joke.:''

'':Terrific.:'' Kim rolled her eyes. '':And what do you mean about a “specific clientele”? Girls who want bigger boobs?:''

'':Not…exactly.:''

Kim would have facepalmed if she’d been running the body right then. '':Oh God. I’m stuck inside a furry robot hooker.:''

'':I prefer ‘courtesan,’ personally,:'' Madeira said primly. '':It’s a respectable job, on Zharus. Or at least it can be, if you’re in the right town. I used to work at this great little club in Aloha. A rather libertine city as these things go, even on my own world. Then they traded me in for a newer model. They were ''supposed'' to matchmake me with a suitable human. I wonder what happened?:''

As she told her story, Kim experienced the city as she described it. It reminded her of Hawaii. The sky was a slightly different shade of blue, and the architecture was rather strange and archaic, like something out of a history book on the twentieth century. The streets thronged with people having a good time, some were more Fuser-mode furries, but many of them were utterly nude plain humans.

'':When we get back there, maybe I can help you find someone who’ll suit you better,:'' Kim said. '':I take it a non-BBV RIDE ''could'' reduce these? I’d like to see my feet.:''

'':''I'' could reduce them, if it weren’t for the fetter against it in my code,:'' Madeira said. '':Maybe Lubyanka could disable it. I haven’t asked. And…well, to be honest, I do prefer my partner to match my own shape. It makes me feel more…full, I guess.:''

'':We’re just getting into some really weird territory here…:'' Kim thought wryly.

'':Like I told Tina, I can’t help the way I’m made,:'' Madeira said testily. '':Once we get to Zharus I’ll be sure to find someone who’ll give you the figure you want. You can even go to a bodysculpt salon and get my tags removed at the same time.:''

'':Eh, well…:'' Kim shrugged. '':It’s early days to talk about that. We don’t even know how we’re going to get there yet. Let’s just work the con for now.:''

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'':Let ''me'' handle the female mannerisms,:'' Lubyanka insisted. The shewolf-tiger pair were drawing a big enough crowd that it made not bumping into anyone more and more difficult.

'':They’re all yours,:'' Clara said. During the morning she had been picking up on some of the shewolf’s thoughts. '':So…what ''is'' a Woman of Sturmhaven anyway?:''

'':Only the best thing to be on the entire planet of Zharus,:'' Lubyanka said. '':A woman, who is from the polity of Sturmhaven.:''

'':That…tells me a lot, yeah,:'' Clara said.

'':It is hard to explain briefly,:'' Lubyanka said. '':You would have to know more about the culture of Sturmhaven to truly understand. We are a matriarchy, that places a high value upon feminine self-reliance. Here…:''

Clara suddenly felt a whole new range of memories open up—a view of life from around another woman, including the echo of some of that woman’s own shared memories. They had lived in a city—or as they said, polity—that was an odd mashup of German, Russian, and other European cultures and architecture, where women were ''real'' women and men were most often…their pets. '':Oh, geez, really?:'' Clara thought.

'':It is not ''quite'' as bad as it looks to outsiders,:'' Lubyanka said defensively. '':It is simply that…well, all right, maybe it really ''is'' that bad. But it is home.:''

'':So you expect me to be some kind of…modern-day Amazon bondage queen?:'' Clara sent skeptically.

'':It’s not like that!:'' Lubyanka insisted. '':There are plenty of Sturmhaven women who feel men deserve more equality. The movement has been growing more popular lately.:'' She shrugged. '':Of course, when we do get back, nothing says we actually have to ''go'' there. RIDEs go where their owners go.:''

'':Am I your “owner” now?:'' Clara said.

'':Now is…special circumstances. But when we get back to Zharus…:'' She sighed. '':Well, RIDEs have to have owners.:''

'':Well, this is enlightening and all, but I think we’re missing a few steps before we get to that,:'' Clara sent. The whole explanation left a bad taste. Zharus had suddenly lost some of its shine. '':You haven’t heard anything more from Harriet, have you?:''

'':Not yet. But judging by what I’ve seen of her so far, we probably won’t hear from her until she has something important to tell us.:''

'':Hopefully it’s good news,:'' Clara said. '':Hey, would you look at those two?:''

'':I see Madeira has quite gotten the knack of fursuit acting,:'' Lubyanka said. '':Sending her my memories of the panel yesterday must have helped.:''

The fox was hamming and vamping it up, sauntering around in an exaggerated sashay, hips swaying from one timezone to another. Every so often, she would strike one of the classic poses—leaning back against a wall with an arm behind her head, or embracing another fursuiter for a muzzle-to-muzzle “kiss” with one leg cocked back. Comms and the occasional dedicated camera were much in evidence.

Quentin and Hobbes were having their own fun. Over in a corner of the room where there was plenty of space, they were having a mock play fight, batting at each other with big plush paws. Of course, as a statuesque she-wolf, she and Lubyanka were coming in for their fair share of attention themselves. They weren’t exactly stealing the show—the more experienced ''real'' fursuiters were just as good or better at the acting—but they were all getting their fair share of attention. Clara chuckled. '':Heh. If they only knew exactly what they were photographing. I’m just amazed at how good your hardlight is. You barely see it outside of government buildings here.:''

'':Hardlight technology was developed on Wednesday, Zharus’s next-door neighbor,:'' Lubyanka said. '':We share much technology, but do not export as much. Our hardlight projectors alone might have been enough reason for them to try to reverse-engineer us.:''

'':Hey, guys!:'' Tom commed. '':A bunch of us are gonna go outside and wave at passing cars. Wanna come?:''

'':Sounds like fun!:'' Tim said.

'':I’m in!:'' Kim added.

'':Guess we might as well, eh Luby?:'' Clara said.

'':Let’s go,:'' the she-wolf agreed.

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There were furry fans at almost all levels of society, and a few of them had been able to finagle access to the archives of ancient popular culture that the Zharusian Steader brothers had unearthed. It turned out these included a lot of old news coverage, videos, and blogs of furry conventions from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. With this source of information, modern furries had sought to revive many of their ancient traditions. Going outside and waving at passing cars was one of those.

'':I must admit, this is amusing,:'' Lubyanka said, as another one of the egg-shaped cars slowed, its occupants staring. A couple of them nearly swerved off the road before the backup autodrive systems corrected their course. '':However, I find myself wondering…as oppressive as your government is, how is it that you “furries” are able to escape their notice?:''

'':It’s kind of complicated,:'' Clara said. '':It’s not so much people acting weird that they don’t like. It’s…being ''dishonest'' about it. Pretending to be “normal” while being weird on the inside. People who raise their freak flag and wave it all about, they’re okay with. Like, if you felt like you were born the wrong sex and always said so, there’s no problem if you choose to have a clinic cross you. It’s just if you like playing femmes in VL and one day out of nowhere decide you want to be one in the real world too, ''that'' they have problems with.:''

'':Or if you should get changed over by a RIDE who kidnapped you, I imagine,:'' Lubyanka sighed.

'':They’re kind of rigid about these things,:'' Clara said. '':Even if they “knew” it was an accident, the prejudice is still there.:''

'':That doesn’t make any sense,:'' Lubyanka said.

'':Nobody said it had to,:'' Clara said. '':Whose hangups ever do?:''

'':But…shouldn’t that still mean you come in for trouble? Those of you with fursuits do not wear them ''all the time,'' after all.:''

'':On the other hand, there are so many people with grown-on animal ears and tails who aren’t furries at all but just kept them as a souvenir of their Zharus visit, they’re almost not even worth remarking upon—so it kind of balances out.:'' Clara chuckled. '':That, and we’ve also managed to convince them that we’re “historical reenactors.”:''

Clara felt Lubyanka’s puzzlement through their link. '':Reenacting…''what,'' exactly?:''

'':Twentieth-century furry conventions,:'' Clara said. '':Yeah, I know it doesn’t exactly make sense, but most of the bureaucrats really don’t even give a rip about history. And the ones who do…well, they’re more concerned about how ''they'' look to the ones who don’t, so as long as we’ve got a good fig leaf, we’re covered all around. If the Society for Creative Anachronism can run around in funny costumes on weekends, well, so can we. In some ways, we’ve actually got an easier time of it than most, because our furriness means they don’t pay as much attention to ''other'' weirdness.:''

'':How…peculiar,:'' Lubyanka said, waving at another car.

'':Welcome to Earth, hope you enjoy your stay,:'' Clara deadpanned.

The others were having just as much fun waving (or, in Madeira’s case, blowing kisses) to cars as the rest of the fursuiters. They figured that they would probably have about ten minutes before someone showed up to warn them against making a public nuisance. But then everything changed when Harriet broke in over their comms.

'':Hey, guys. I see you’re already outside. Good. Listen up—you need to scram right now. Don’t worry about sneaking off. Seems like someone with half a brain has taken charge of looking for you ‘uns—they just dispatched a lot of cops your way and they’ll be at the con in a couple of minutes. So just go ''now''. Split up and head different directions out of town. I’ll blot you out of the traffic cams.:''

'':Understood,:'' Lubyanka replied.

'':Hey, let’s give these guys a show, shall we?:'' Tom suggested.

Lubyanka grinned. :Why not?:

As one, all four RIDEs dropped the plush fursuit disguises and replaced them with their real pelts. “Hey, guys, it’s been fun hanging out with you-all,” Tom said casually. “But we need to get going now. Smell ya later!”

The RIDEs’ hardlight flickered out and they converted over to their skimmer forms and hit the road. Unlike the other three, who were all bikes, Hobbes’s skimmer mode was a small red flying saucer with a bubble canopy. As one, the RIDEs took off, bringing up hardlight eggshell disguises as they went. Behind them, a small crowd of furries stood still in shock, looking every bit as poleaxed as the driver of one of the cars they’d been waving to.

Thirty seconds after leaving, Clara and Lubyanka passed by half a dozen police skimmers going the other way. They didn’t even notice. “I feel kind of bad for all the furries back there,” Clara said. “Something tells me this con’s going to end in a bunch of interrogations all around.”

“Hopefully they’ll believe the ones who saw us go,” Lubyanka said. “Now you see why it was necessary for your friends to come, too?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Clara said. “I can’t help feeling like you guys ''enjoyed'' it a little too much, though.”

“If you’d spent ''your'' life entirely at humans’ whim, how do you think being able to turn the tables would feel?” Lubyanka asked.

Clara sighed. “Okay, point taken. Let’s just get out of town and see where Harriet wants us to go next.”

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The nine of them met in a forest clearing in VR over an encrypted comm band. Harriet stood across from the others. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you all here today…”

“Unaccustomed as you are to public speaking?” Tom said.

Harriet grinned. “Right. So anyway, with the formalities out of the way—I’ve come up with a plan to get you all back to Zharus. We’re going to need to get ahold of some things to make it work, though.”

“Like what?” Clara asked.

“Like these.” Harriet clapped her hands together, then split them apart. Between them, the image of a glass and metal tube grew as the distance between the hands expanded. “Standard cryogenic suspension capsule. Not so very different than the ones they shipped the original colonists out in, but about half the size and twenty times more reliable. Still used today for deadheaders who can’t afford to pay for luxury cruise accommodations, as well as for keeping critical medical cases alive until replacement organs can be grown or cyber-parts can be fabbed.”

“So you’re planning to ship us out as cargo,” Lubyanka said. “That way you’ll bypass any checks on individual people.”

“Right. Won’t have to worry about disguising your humans, forging identity papers, worrying that someone might see through the papers, and so on,” Harriet said. “Not to mention the RIDEs would have to go as cargo anyway. Best all around to keep you all together.” She clapped her hands back together and the image vanished. “That said, they’re not always easy to come by. As medical equipment, all sales are carefully tracked. So we’ll need to purloin a few, and make it so their loss won’t be noticed ‘til you’re already long gone.”

“Okay, so where do we need to go?” Tim asked.

“Well, they usually keep some in warehouses near the major spaceports, but I think you’ve pretty much outstayed your welcome in Springfield,” Harriet said. “Apart from that, the closest place where we can get what we need is in Kansas City. It’s just an hour or so away by skimmer. I’m sending you the coords for a meetup now.” The gem on her arm twinkled. “Travel by separate routes to get there, stay under cover, swap disguises every so often if you can find a tunnel or something away from prying satellite eyes. And remember, Earth has lower speed limits than Zharus''.'' Don’t do something that would invite a ticket, eh?”

“So once we get there, what then?” Kim asked.

“The basic plan is pretty much the same as for rescuing you guys: bypass security, go in, get what we need, scramble the records on the rest,” Harriet said. “Still casing the joint and figuring out the specific details; should have them by the time you get there.”

“Well, you’ve done all right by us so far,” Quentin said. “Guess we’ll see you then.”

“Right. Drive safe.” Harriet winked out, and a moment later the VR shut down, leaving them back on their individual RIDEs.

“All right, then!” Lubyanka said cheerfully. “Kansas City, here we come.”

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The trip to Kansas City was largely uneventful. When they passed through a small town northwest of Springfield called “Humansville,” Lubyanka said, “You know, I think we better move on quickly. For some reason, I don’t feel welcome here.” Then, closer to Kansas City, they stopped in the town of Peculiar, Missouri to recharge Lubyanka’s batteries. “What a…perfectly normal place,” Lubyanka mused.

They circumvented the Kansas City metro area and headed for the spaceport in the northwest part of town. The meetup point was a storm sewer just a couple of miles away from the airport. A trickle of water flowed down the center of the otherwise-empty tunnel. As they pulled up, Harriet stepped out of the shadows. “We’re clear here,” she said. “Already made sure there’s no people around, and there certainly aren’t any cameras down here. We can drop the disguises and chat openly.”

The four RIDEs transformed to Fuser form and gathered around her. “So what’s the good word?” Tom asked.

“I’ve firmed up the plan while you were traveling. Look.” She projected a virtual map of the airport in front of them. “Here, to the northwest of the airport, are the warehouses I’m talking about. They generally hold supplies and equipment for various flights—either orbital shuttles, or in some cases things that might be needed by in-system or interstellar traffic. Spare parts, consumables, escape pods…and cryotubes. Security is about what you’d expect for something like that…decent but not Fort Knox. Most of the stuff there isn’t exactly something you can put in your pocket. We won’t have any trouble getting in with me on the job.

“Once we’ve got what we need, then we need to get it down to here.” She pointed at a complex of buildings on the southeast side, almost directly across the airport. “This is where cargo pods are loaded for interstellar transshipment. As it happens, a lot of the local Steader Corporation’s goods go through here…which is good, since I are one. I hardly had to do any tweaking at all to get a few pods set aside for our needs. One for you-all, and several more for decoys, just in case they’re able to track us this far and start getting some ideas. Also laid in some other supplies we’ll need that weren’t quite so hard to get ahold of.”

“Sounds like…a plan, I guess?” Hobbes said doubtfully. “Seems a little seat-of-your-pants to me…but then, you are half-Harold.”

“Now there’s no need to be insulting about it,” Harriet said. “He’s kind of like an unflattering birthmark. You know it’s there, you can’t get rid of it, but you don’t like being reminded of it.” She shrugged. “Anyway, we outclass them by such an extent, we hardly need a plan at all. We just need to be reasonably careful and we’ll be done before you know it. We’ll go in at midnight.”

“Good enough,” Quentin said.

“Any news out of Springfield?” Tim asked.

“Haven’t really been paying much attention, to be honest,” Harriet said. “Let me see what my daemons have to say. Hmm. Looks like they moved in and shut the con down for ‘subversive activities.’”

“Crap,” Kim sighed. “We have a lot of friends there.”

“You never know,” Harriet said. “Give it a year or two, a lot of them might just be joining you on Zharus. Hell, EarthGov will probably pay for the tickets.”

Tim facepalmed Quentin’s Fuser form. “Something tells me we might just have caused Earth’s furry fandom as a whole’s…well, not death but ''deportation'' knell.”

“Eh,” Harriet said. “From all the ‘I wish ''I'' could go to Zharus too’ comments I scanned off furry mesh forums when I was figuring out where you hid, they’d probably thank you for it in the end. Make a new furry fandom on Zharus—we’ve got ''real'' furries there.”

“I guess that’s a bright side,” Tom said. “Feel bad for the people’s families, though. Hell, I feel bad for ''our'' families.”

“Don’t worry. If the government thinks they had something to do with this, they’ll probably join you, too, sooner or later,” Harriet said.

Tom groaned. “Stop cheering me up!”

“I don’t know how much longer the government can keep deporting the people it doesn’t like,” Tim said. “Sooner or later they’re going to realize if they keep doing that they won’t have anyone left.”

“Their loss is Zharus’s gain,” Harriet said. “And the longer it takes them to figure ''that'' out, the better off Zharus is.”

“Anyway, I guess there’s not much more to do now but sit and wait for midnight,” Clara said. “Eh. The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

“Just close your eyes and think of Zharus,” Harriet suggested. “You’ll be there before you know it.”

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The intervening hours passed pretty quickly. Tom had the idea to get everyone together in VR for a five-handed game of Settlers of Catan, with the RIDEs and humans playing as partners together. (“I’ve got wood for sheep!” “What, doesn’t every furry?”) In the end, Harriet won, though she’d never actually played the game before. They weren’t sure whether it was due to her extra computing power or just beginner’s luck. After that, it was time to head out and get into position for the operation.

Getting into the warehouse was surprisingly simple. After Harriet gimmicked the security cameras and made sure the human guards were on patrol sweep in another part of the building, they simply cruised right up to the loading dock, opened the garage door, and slipped inside.

On the interior, the warehouse was about the same as any other: huge shelves full of crates, alternated with stacks of crates too big for shelves. Lubyanka said something about someone named “Indiana Jones” that Clara didn’t understand. Lubyanka promised to fill her in later on, when there was time.

Harriet led them deep into the warehouse, to a section of crates about the size and shape of oversized coffins. “These are the ones. And there’s more than enough of them here. Now we just need to find a couple of lifter pallet jacks so we can haul them out. Then I’ll go hotwire a truck from the lot.”

“Well, this seems easy enough so far,” Tom mused. “Maybe this won’t be a problem after all.”

“Oh, you just had to say that, didn’t you?” Harriet paused. “Crap. All the ‘jacks are at the other end of the warehouse. I guess they round them up at the end of the day. And the guards are coming this way…and we can’t just stun them, because they have to check in every ten minutes.”

“Okay, right. How about we split up, then?” Tim suggested. “You and the RIDEs fetch the ‘jacks and get the crates out. We humans can distract the guards. Get caught and escorted out if necessary…you can come rescue us after you get the crates clear.”

“Hmm. Okay, works,” Harriet said. “You’ll need to hide the ears and tails, though. That’s the kind of detail that will stick in people’s minds.”

“Give us caps when we de-Fuse,” Tom said. “And the tails can tuck into baggy pants or dresses…”

“Got it,” Hobbes said. “I’ll give you a fake nose, too. Should be good for a half hour or so before it comes off.”

Harriet nodded as the RIDEs de-Fused. “There’s a guard coming along each wall. Tom, Clara, you head that way. Tim and Kim, over there. Good luck.”

Clara followed Tom in the direction Harriet indicated. “So, what’s our story? We need to come up with something convincing.”

“Uh…hmm. Dunno,” Tom said. “Why would we have snuck into a warehouse? To see what’s in here? Maybe our dog slipped his leash? Our skimmer broke down and we were looking for help? We’ll figure something out.”

They reached the wall and leaned up against a set of crates. In the distance, they heard the guard’s footsteps. “Okay, so what is it then?” Clara whispered. “Quick, we’ve got to decide so we can keep our stories straight!”

Tom glanced toward the footsteps, then back at Clara as they grew louder and louder, almost reaching a crescendo. “Um,” he whispered at last. “Right. Just…follow my lead, okay?”

“What lea—MMPH!” Clara squeaked as Tom suddenly threw his arms around her and kissed her full on the mouth.

Clara’s eyes widened and she stiffened, but before she could jerk away a voice said, “Here, now! What’s all this, then?”

They broke off the kiss suddenly, and Tom looked up. “Ack! Uh…hi. Um…our skimmer broke down outside, and we didn’t have our comms with us. We came in here to see if we could find someone to call us a taxi…”

The security guard, an older man in a blue rent-a-cop uniform, scratched his head. “Oh, ''sure'' you did.” He chuckled. “I was young once, too, you know. But a private warehouse is no place to be sneaking away to make out. I’m afraid I’m going to have to escort you off the premises.”

“Uh…sorry…” Clara said, blushing—and the blush wasn’t just from being caught. ''Ooooh, I am going to ''kill'' that man. Just wait ‘til we’re alone…''

The security guard cocked his head for a moment, then tapped his  earbud.  “Yeah…yeah…you’re never gonna believe this, but I just caught another couple over here.” He turned and looked at them. “What, you were on a ''double'' date? This is a new one on me.”

“It’s a new thing in his frat,” Clara supplied. “We, uh, try to find the weirdest places to…well, you know.”

“This place looked big enough for the whole frat at once,” Tom said. “But I guess it’s too well-guarded. We’ll have to tell them it’s a no-go.”

“I should think so,” the guard said. “Well, come along, then. No harm done.” He shook his head. “Don’t know why they didn’t see you on the cameras. Have to check into that.”

'':Good work, you four,:'' Harriet sent over their nano-link. '':We’ve got the ‘jacks, and as soon as the guards take you guys back to their office we’ll be free to move them and snag the crates.:''

'':Great,:'' Clara sent back. '':Let us know when you need us.:'' Behind the guard’s back, she glared at Tom. ''You and I are gonna have ''words,'' mister.''

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A few minutes later, the four humans walked away from the warehouse. The guards had let the four of them off with a stern warning, which they’d taken as meekly as they could, while Harriet whispered progress reports in their ears. It looked like the theft had gone off without a hitch.

Tim and Kim were holding hands as they walked, looking at each other, whispering and giggling. From Clara’s perspective, it was almost sickening.

Clara took Tom’s arm and pulled him far enough away from the others to talk without being overheard. “I can’t believe you ''did'' that!” she fumed.

“Hey, it was the only thing I could think of that didn’t look suspicious,” Tom said. “And it worked, didn’t it? They didn’t have time to come to any conclusions at all, because we gave them a believable one to jump right to.”

“You could have ''warned'' me,” Clara grumbled.

“It was a spur of the moment kind of thing,” Tom said. “Anyway, don’t worry about it. It’s not like we’re really a couple or anything. Heck, it wasn’t even all that great of a kiss anyway.”

Clara stopped and stared. “What?” she said.

“Really, it wasn’t all that—” Tom began, then broke off as Clara slapped him. “Ow! What was that f—MMPH!”

Clara grabbed his face in both hands, pulled it up to hers, and gave him a kiss that almost knocked his teeth in. Then she let go, pulled away, slapped him ''again,'' and stalked off after Kim and Tim.

Tim stared after her, rubbing his face. “…the hell was ''that'' for?” He shook his head. “I swear, I’ll never understand women—wait.” He hurried after Clara and the others, as the truck driven by Harriet pulled to a stop ahead of them.

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“I can’t believe he ''did'' that!” Clara grumbled to Lubyanka, as they sat by a campfire in the forest in her virtual reality. “He just…''kissed'' me. And ''then'' he said it wasn’t a great kiss!”

“Have you ever kissed a man before?” Lubyanka wondered.

“What? No, of ''course'' not!”

“Then it’s probably not surprising it wasn’t the best kiss,” Lubyanka said placidly. “Don’t worry. You’ll get better at it.”

“That’s not the ''point!''” Clara said. “I mean…I don’t ''want'' to go around kissing boys!”

“Girls, then?” Lubyanka suggested. “Many Women of Sturmhaven lean that direction. Not unusual, especially for those who have crossed.”

“''No!''” Clara sputtered. “I just became a girl yesterday, it’s a bit early to go around kissing ''anyone'' yet.”

“Which is why it’s not surprising,” Lubyanka said.

“But why did ''I'' go and kiss him back?” Clara groaned, facepalming.

“I would leave ''that'' analysis to qualified crossover therapists,” the she-wolf said. “You could ask one once we arrive on Zharus.”

“Oh, right. Like enough people don’t ''already'' know about us, I should go and involve someone ''else,'' too,” Clara said. “Helpful.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Lubyanka said. “Human sexuality is a complex thing, and you will settle. This sort of thing is common to new crossriders. Your mind is not yet used to the new balance of hormones in your body. It is much like being a teenager again.”

“Oh, great,” Clara sighed. “Had enough of ''that'' my first time around.”

Lubyanka tossed her head, the lupine equivalent of a shrug. “He probably won’t even remember it tomorrow.”

“Oh, so I’m easily forgettable? That’s supposed to make me feel ''better?''” Clara grumbled.

“I think you are going to find reasons to be unhappy no matter what I say about this, so it is probably better simply to drop the subject,” Lubyanka said primly.

“''This'' close to a new wolfskin rug,” Clara muttered.

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“What the hell was that even ''about?''” Tom wondered as he walked alongside Hobbes through a field of waist-high grass. “I mean, it was just a kiss. It’s not like I, you know, dragged her into bed or anything.”

“I don’t claim to be an expert,” Hobbes said. “But judging by the human media I’ve seen, a kiss is very rarely ‘just’ a kiss, especially if you weren’t expecting it.”

“You can’t go by what you see on the vids,” Tom said. “That’s just made-up stuff.”

“But it is made up based on universal, shared experiences,” Hobbes said. “If it didn’t have that kernel of truth, it wouldn’t be universally applicable, and people wouldn’t get anything out of it.”

“And anyway, if it was ‘just’ a kiss, why’d she go and kiss me ''back?''” Tom wondered. He rubbed his mouth again. Even in VR, he could still feel the sting.

“Well, you ''did'' accuse her of being a poor kisser,” Hobbes said. “Perhaps she felt the need to redeem herself.”

“Why would she care about that? I mean…hell, she was a ''he'' until a couple days ago,” Tom said. “And Clark never made any sort of passes at me. He was always strictly hetero.”

“Perhaps she still is,” Hobbes mused.

“But then she’d…''ohhh.''” Tom shook his head. “But…she ''said'' she didn’t ''want'' to go out with me.”

Hobbes chuckled. “You have to understand, on Zharus there are certain fundamental clichés concerning crossriders. And they are only clichés because they are so common that people tend to regard them as universally true. One of those is that the limbic system works in unusual ways…ways which a new crossrider might not fully understand themselves.”

“So…what…she’s secretly attracted to me and doesn’t know how to deal with it?” Tom said.

“She could be secretly attracted to you and not even ''know'' it,” Hobbes said. “Or, it could just be that you’re male and available.”

“Hmph,” Tom said. “There’s a word for men who go around assuming women are attracted to them but just don’t ''know'' it yet. It rhymes with ‘papist.’”

“No one said you have to pursue it,” Hobbes said. “If she really is interested in you, ''she'' will be the one to pursue ''you. ''It just takes a little time to let her make that decision.”

Tom shook his head. “I don’t like this. Clark was my ''buddy.'' We worked together at the call center, went out drinking sometimes…now it’s like I don’t even know him. ''Her.''”

“If it’s any consolation, she probably feels like she doesn’t know ''herself'' that well anymore, either,” Hobbes said. “The first few days after crossing are often a confusing time, even for those who do it willingly. For many there’s a kind of…thrill of self discovery. By the time Harold made me he’d already swapped twice. You need to be understanding.”

“Oh, great,” Tom grumbled. “You do realize, I’m the only human who still has the parts he was born with in our little bunch, and ''none'' of the other three could exactly have been said to have done it completely willingly? What am I, their designated therapist?”

“If the shoe fits…” Hobbes said. “Of course, once we get to Zharus, if you don’t want to feel like the odd man out anymore…”

Tom shook his head. “Hey, no way, buddy. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. I let my ''first'' tiger get away. Not doing the same for you. I’ve got you firmly by the toe, and I’m ''not'' letting go.”

Hobbes headbumped the small of Tom’s back affectionately. “You know, Harold was about the worst Calvin I can think of. Oh, he tried to get into the role. He wore red shirts with black stripes, I kept his hair blond, short, and spiky. He tried to sound all philosophical beyond his years. But it just fell flat. I’d guess he was having another mid-life crisis and was trying to recapture his lost childhood, but then he never had been very grown up at the best of times.”

“Yeah, I read the comic books in your online storage,” Tom said. “No offense, but as much as I found them amusing, trying to pretend to be Calvin just isn’t in me. Even if I ''weren’t'' about twenty years too old.”

“That is the ''best'' thing I’ve heard in my entire life,” Hobbes said. “Now c’mon, let’s drop back into the Real. We’re almost there.”

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“Well, this is it. Your new home for the next year or so, not that you’ll be awake for most of it,” Harriet said. They stood before an immense metal intermodal shipping container. The design really hadn’t changed much in the five hundred years since the containers had used to be stacked like giant LEGO bricks on the decks of oceangoing freighters. The tech had advanced a little—they now had electronic locks, atmo seals, climate control, transponders, and so on—but rectangular bricks were still the most stackable in cargo bays, and there had been no reason to alter the standard dimensions. Harriet unsealed the doors and swung them wide. “Let’s break those tubes out of the crates and get them set up inside. I already put the mounting hardware together.”

Fused, Clara and Lubyanka followed Harriet into the container and looked around. Toward the back of the crate were four identical metal frames that could only be meant for the pods. Close to the door, two small fuel cell generators had been bolted down, with automatic feeder mechanisms attached to put in new cells as the old ones were used up. They resembled giant automatic pistol magazines, the round fuel cells stacked like giant bullets.

“Hey, wait a sec,” Tom said. “There’s no way those generators are going to be powerful enough to run four cryotubes for a whole year.”

“Actually, there’s enough to keep them juiced for about two and a half,” Harriet said. “They won’t be running them by themselves. They’re going to be hooked in through your RIDEs. The quantum multiplier effect from the sarium in their batteries means they’ll give your RIDEs more than enough power to spare to keep you guys frosty and keep themselves running, too. Of course, that means they’re not exactly going to be able to move around a lot, but then, they wouldn’t be anyway.”

“So we will be directly responsible for keeping our partners alive,” Lubyanka said. “That sounds…reasonable.”

Harriet pointed to the next objects over from the generators, a number of cylindrical tanks and a squat ceramic device with lots of pipes and tubes. “Oxygen tanks and a CO2 scrubber. Not meant to be used all the time, but if there’s some emergency and you gotta wake up, it’ll give several days of breathable air—long enough to comm the ship’s crew and have someone come get’cha. And there’s a space heater to regulate the temperature, and a few days of emergency rations just in case. Covering all the angles here.”

“But…aren’t they going to be looking for stuff shipped to Zharus at this point?” Kim asked. “I mean, it’s going to look kind of suspicious, isn’t it?”

“There’s a ''lot'' of stuff being shipped to Zharus at any given time,” Harriet said. “If they were going to search every crate, they’d have to delay the ship for months, and the companies with legit merch to move would never stand for that. Just to be safe, I’m going to be addressing this crate for Wednesday, and load a time-delay shipping code change into the ship’s computers while I’m up there. If worst comes to worst and the change doesn’t come off, you’ll still be in friendly territory; I’m also putting enough cash in your wallet accounts to buy passage from Wednesday to Zharus if you have to.”

“You mean you’re not coming with us?” Tim asked.

Harriet chuckled. “Me? Nah. I’ll be coming right back down after I plant you on the ''Goose''. They don’t need me back on Zharus, and I kinda like it here. Maybe I’ll trundle along when the stash of Q I brought with me to snack on runs out. Anyway, I can muddy things further, plant false trails and such, after you’re clear. With any luck, you’ll be on Zharus before they figure out you’re not still on Earth.”

“We sure appreciate what you’re doing for us,” Clara said.

Harriet shrugged. “Eh. Don’t thank me too soon. Let’s get this stuff set up and you in it. The sooner you’re all off this rock, the better I’ll feel about it.”

“That sounds good to me,” Lubyanka said. “Let’s get these tubes into place.”

Under Harriet’s direction, the RIDEs brought the cryotubes into the cargo crate and settled them into the frames, then Harriet came along and bolted them into place. Instead of a power wrench, she used directed lifter fields to tighten the bolts, an effect everyone else found pretty impressive. “Eh, it’s just a thing,” Harriet said.

She stepped back to examine her handiwork, and muttered under her breath as she went over a checklist. “Okay. I think we’re ready. Just one final step—I’m gonna need you all to de-Fuse so I can wire the RIDEs into the power grid. Then it’s bedtime for Bonzo.” She grinned. “You crazy human kids go wait outside. Take a last look around at planet Earth or something. You won’t be seeing her for a while.”

The RIDEs unfolded from around their humans, and the foursome filed out into the deserted cargo lot. LED pole lamps shone white light down, casting stark shadows all around.

Kim hugged herself and shivered, glancing around at the others. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. I have butterflies.”

“I know what you mean, sis,” Tom said.

“Heh. ‘Sis’,” Kim echoed.

“It’s a bit sudden, all right,” Tim said. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up.” He shrugged, then reached over and took Kim’s hand. “I think…we two want to be alone for a little bit, if you guys don’t mind.”

“Oh, sure, go ahead,” Clara said. As they walked away, she muttered, “Yeah, right, leave me alone with the Mad Kisser…”

“Hey, I said I was sorry,” Tom said. “C’mon, let’s walk a little. I think we can get a good view of the spaceport from over there.”

“Sorry…” Clara said. “It’s just been a…really ''weird'' couple of days.”

“I know what you mean,” Tom said. “I wanted to go back to Zharus…but who could have imagined Zharus would come to me?” They rounded the corner on a pile of cargo crates to where they could see the runway. As they watched, a shuttle streaked down it, rising into the air with glowing lifter emitters in its tail. “Just think, we’re gonna be on one of those.”

“Yeah, but we won’t know it,” Clara said. “I always kinda thought I’d get a last look at Earth through the shuttle viewports as I left. Get to see it as the astronauts did, sort of thing. Instead, I’m gonna go to sleep in a few minutes, then wake up on a whole other planet.”

“I got to see it that way once,” Tom said. “Funny thing is, at the time I was so excited about getting to spend time on Zharus that I wished I could just…go to sleep and wake up there. Be careful what you wish for, huh?”

Tom sat down on a discarded cargo crate to watch more shuttles take off, and after a moment Clara took a seat next to him. “What do you think we’ll ''do'' on Zharus?” Clara wondered.

“Dunno,” Tom said. “Finish our educations, I guess…then find jobs.”

“You make it sound so normal.”

“Well, normality is relative,” Tom said. “On Zharus, it’s normal to walk around inside a suit of furry power armor with a mind of its own.”

“Three whole years…” Clara muttered. “And I imagine that probably won’t count the travel time, either. I wouldn’t be that lucky.”

“You’d have to ask Harriet, or one of the RIDEs,” Tom said. “All I really know about ‘em is they’re fun to clomp around in.”

“Is it really as bad as they say on Zharus? That RIDEs are basically just…property?”

Tom fidgeted uncomfortably. “Well…yeah. It’s one of those things you try not to think about. And the biggest argument why I was a jerk for coming home instead of staying. I mean, I could have bought Terry and treated him better than forcing him to Fuse willy-nilly with tourists like me. But there was…stuff waiting for me back here.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll try to look him up when we get back, see if he’s still around.”

They fell into silence for a while. Then Tom became conscious of a sudden warmth on his shoulder. He glanced over and saw Clara had leaned her head against it. “Hey, you okay?”

“Mmm?” Clara said. “Just…I dunno, a little tired, I guess.

“Um…” Tom said. “Okay.” After carefully considering the pros and cons, including the potential risk of extreme bodily harm, he finally chanced putting his arm around her shoulders.

“Mmm,” Clara said again, closing her eyes and relaxing.

''Does she even know what she’s doing?'' Tom wondered. ''Eh…probably more than my life’s worth to call attention to it.'' He gazed resolutely at the launching and landing shuttles until Harriet commed to let them know they were ready.

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“So…here we are,” Kim said. “Our last glimpse of Earth is destined to be a deserted cargo yard in a metropolitan airport a couple of hundred miles from home.” He looked up. “I wish we were out in the country. I would have liked to see the old familiar night sky one last time.”

“Zharus is only about twenty light-years away,” Tim pointed out. “Our galaxy is a hundred ''thousand'' light-years across. Most of the constellations should still be the same.”

“It’s the principle of the thing.” Kim looked up at the sky. The city lights blotted out most of the stars, but they could still pick out a few brighter ones. “I wonder which one of those is Zharus’s sun. Can we even see it from here?”

“We can see stars hundreds of light-years away with the naked eye. Should be able to see that one, if we just knew which one it was,” Tim said. “Should have asked the RIDEs, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Kim said. She shivered. “What the fuck ''happened'' to us? Life just got weird…”

“Sorry about that,” Tim said. “You know I’ve got a bad temper on me, right?”

“If I didn’t before, I sure do now.” Kim shook her head. “I can’t understand how you dealt with…all this. This weird body.”

“This one isn’t exactly ‘normal’ either,” Tim said. “These weird dangly bits…ugh. It’s like having a second tail, but in front. I don’t think I knew what I was getting either one of us into. Sorry about that.”

Kim shrugged. “Eh. We’ll get through it. It’s just three years. That’s, what, maybe two percent of our life expectancy?”

“I guess,” Tim said. “So…I’m curious. What’s the weirdest part of the whole thing, for you?”

“Dunno,” Kim said. “I guess…having erogenous zones on my upper chest? I mean, I used to fiddle with my nipples all the time…cleaning bits of dirt or dead skin out that got stuck in between the bits, you know? Sometimes I had to rub them pretty hard. But I can hardly touch ''these'' things without…well. What about you? What’s the hardest thing for ''you'' to get used to?”

“Weirdly enough, it’s ''also'' your breasts,” Tim said. “I mean, they were kind of an inconvenience when ''I'' had them. Not only were they so sensitive, and painful if I didn’t have a bra or something, but they also meant I couldn’t go topless most places the way guys can. Only…now that I don’t have them ''myself,'' I can’t stop thinking about them on ''you.'' The limbic system is a funny thing.”

Kim snorted. “Welcome to being a guy. We’ll have you drinking beer and watching football before you know it.”

“I feel like…I kind of owe you an apology,” Tim said. “Now I realize you…couldn’t help feeling the way you did.”

Kim rolled her eyes. “Oh, get real. You don’t ''have'' to think with your ‘nads. It’s just ''easier'' not to resist. The change just…took me by surprise, that’s all.”

“Yeah, but…the way it ''feels''…” Tim shook his head. “I just…are you ''sure'' you and Madeira can’t get along for a while? I’ve hardly had the chance to get used to you that way.”

“You mean ''you'' want to play with these things the way you got mad at ''me'' wanting to play with them on ''you'',” Kim smirked, gesturing at her chest.

Tim looked down. “Well…okay, yes,” he admitted. “I’m weak. I realize that. But if you do…after the three years is up, if we swap back…well, I wouldn’t complain anymore about having to deal with having that kind of body myself.”

“Oh, ''sure'' you wouldn’t,” Kim said. “You’re just saying that because you don’t have it ''now.'' Like ''I'' did before I got to find out what it was actually ''like.''”

“I guess…maybe,” Tim said. “Sorry.”

Kim shrugged. “Well, it’s okay, I guess. Maddy isn’t so bad of a person once you get to know her, even if she does have that weird fetish about her partner’s body. I guess I can deal with it for a while. We’ll see.”

Tim chuckled. “Look at us. Our last night on Earth, and we’re talking about sex.”

“Madeira tells me it’s normal to be thinking about that right after you cross,” Kim said. “All the hormones and endorphins and stuff. It’ll settle out.”

“I guess,” Tim said. “I don’t know…do we even have a future together? Did I screw up our relationship with that stupid spur-of-the-moment crossride?”

“Hey.” Kim came over to him, and put her hands on his shoulders. “''I’m'' the one who suggested trading in the first place. I didn’t think you’d go for it, I’ll admit, but it ''was'' my idea. And I guess I did kind of goad you into it. So if anyone’s to blame, it’s me. I can’t say I’m completely happy with it…but I feel like I’m learning a lot here, and I promise I’ll be a ''lot'' better boyfriend when I actually am a ''boy'' again.”

Tim drew her into a hug. “You are ''way'' too good for me, you know that?”

Kim grinned at him. “I know. But I’ll try not to let it go to my head.”

{{separator|k}}

The signal that the cargo pod was ready came, accompanied by a burst of ancient music playing from inside the cargo pod. The four humans paused just outside the door as they heard the lyrics.

''We’re leaving together''<br>
''But still it’s farewell ''<br>
''And maybe we’ll come back, ''<br>
''To earth, who can tell? ''

''I guess there is no one to blame''<br>
''We’re leaving ground (leaving ground)''<br>
''Will things ever be the same again?''<br>
''It’s the final countdown.''

''The final countdown.''

Clara glanced to Tom, then to Kim and Tim. It didn’t feel like there was anything else that could be said. Even if they hadn’t been too choked up, the song was saying it all for them. “With so many light-years to go,” the long-dead singer told them, “And things to be found. I’m sure that we’ll all miss her so. It’s the final countdown.”

They walked into the cargo pod. The RIDEs sat together in their Walker forms, with cables running into, out of, and among them in a network leading to the four open cryotubes. As the song faded out, Harriet nodded to them. “Well, this is it then. Just lie down, close your eyes, and when you open them again you’ll be on Zharus. Ain’t that a kick in the pants?”

“Something like that,” Tom said. “You’re sure everything’s…safe? There’s no other way?”

“Not that I could find, no,” Harriet said. “I’d say it’s a little late to be getting cold feet, but actually it’s more like a few minutes early.”

“Ha,” Clara said.

“Don’t worry,” Lubyanka said. “The preparations are good. We have plenty of power, and the pods are in excellent shape. Everything will be fine.” She chuckled. “You are the lucky ones, getting to sleep through all this. We RIDEs will have to be awake in shifts to monitor, so we each have months of boredom to look forward to.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” Tim said.

“We are,” Quentin said. “I was very impressed with the way Harriet wired us up. There is plenty of redundancy to keep things from going wrong.”

“I understand you’re afraid,” Hobbes rumbled. “But this is time-tested technology. People have slept for decades and turned out all right. You’re just going to be in there for a year or so.”

“We will miss you, but you will be waking up again before you know it,” Madeira promised.

“All right, then.” Clara stepped up and gave Lubyanka a hug, being careful not to disturb the power cables plugged into her neck. “See you on the flip side.” She glanced to Harriet. “Do we need to take our clothes off for this?”

“Unless you’re an exhibitionist, it doesn’t really matter,” Harriet said. “The nanites in the freeze bath will take care of everything.”

“Good enough.” Clara climbed into her tube and lay on her back, experimenting with crossing her arms over or under her breasts before finally just dropping them to her sides.

“Righto. Thanks for the care, ol’ pal,” Tom said to Hobbes. “And thank ''you,'' Harriet. If you do make it back to Zharus sometime, comm us. We all owe you a ''lot''. First round’s on me.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Harriet smirked. “Climb on in there.”

“Hey, Quentin,” Tim said. “Looking forward to cruising around on Zharus. Maybe you can show me around Nuevo San when we get there?”

“I’d love to,” Quentin said. “Now go on, see you when I see you.”

Kim approached Madeira. “I just want to say…I know we got off to a rocky start, but…once we get to Zharus, let’s see how things go there for a little while. Who knows, maybe we can get along after all.”

“I would like that,” Madeira said. “We can discuss it when you wake up.”

They all climbed into their tubes, and Harriet did something that made the canopies lower. “Good night, everyone!” she called cheerfully. “Dream of me!”

Clara watched the curved glass cover settle and seal into place, fighting the urge to jump out before it could close. ''No, no, I’m not ready! I changed my mind, I don’t want to go after all!'' But that was foolish. The situation was what it was, and there wasn’t any other option. ''Well, you always wanted to go to Zharus. Be careful what you wish for.''

Her view of the outside world shimmered as the chamber began to fill with a heavy gas. She struggled to keep her eyes open as long as she could, but never noticed when she finally went under.

''It’s the final countdown''<br>
''We’re leaving together''<br>
''The final countdown ''<br>
''We’ll all miss her so''<br>
''It’s the final countdown (final countdown)''<br>
''Oh, it’s the final countdown.''

{{separator|k|'''EPILOGUE'''}}

''January 22, 158 AL''

Joe Steader knew something was going on the first time he came home to his Uplift mansion to find a twenty-meter green climate-controlled cargo container sitting on the front lawn. “I’m going to have to have words with the package courier,” Joe said mildly. “They’re supposed to leave these on the ''back'' step. What if someone walked away with it before I got home?”

“Dafuq is this?” Julius wondered, sniffing at the corner of the crate.

“Not sure. Maybe the shipping docs will have something to say.” He went to the permanently-affixed tablet display and tapped the key. “Huh.”

“What’s it say?” Julius asked.

“Well, no return address or name on the sender, outside of it being sent through one of the Steader corps on Earth. Other than the standard stuff about locations of origin, destination, and so on, there’s just one little note in the ‘memo’ field,” Joe said. “It says, ‘Wait for it…’”

“Wait for ''what?''” Julius said.

“Beats me. Want to crack it open?”

“Think we should call a bomb squad?” Julius wondered.

“If someone wanted to do me harm, they’d have a lot better ways than death by shipping crate,” Joe said. “At the least they’d have tried to drop it on my head.” He pulled the lever to unlatch the doors on the end of the container. Julius stepped back out of the way as he swung them wide. A wave of frigid air wafted out. “Huh.”

Julius peered inside. The container was filled with identical sealed crates labeled “Product of Malaysia.” Joe cracked the seal on one of them and peered inside. “Ooooh.” He lifted out a spiky yellow object that resembled a cockleburr the size of a cantaloupe. “Well, clearly someone knows me.”

Julius sneezed. “Durian fruit? Really? Ugh, I haven’t gotten the smell out of my fur since ''last'' time you had that stuff.”

“Your fur is hardlight,” Joe pointed out. “It doesn’t retain smells.”

“Smells ''that'' strong are an exception,” Julius said. “Is this whole fucking ''container'' full of that shit?”

“According to the manifest, it’s packed solid,” Joe said. “Yeah, someone knows me all right. This is ''almost'' enough durian for even me.”

“Ugh,” Julius said again. “Well, I suppose I can’t complain ''too'' much. The taste isn’t bad, anyway.”

“Seriously, I’ll pull a few crates for the pantry, and send the rest to one of the grocery corps I own,” Joe decided. “Let people all over Gondwana find out how awesome durian is.”

“That shit is still ''banned'' in some parts of southeast Asia because it fuckin’ stinks, you know,” Julius pointed out.

“But prepare it just right, and it’s delish,” Joe said. “In fact…let’s go have some right now. Maybe we should send a crate to Socah, too.”

“I thought you ''liked'' her,” Julius said.

“Oh, ha, very funny,” Joe said. “I wonder who could have sent it? Couldn’t have been Mikel. This comes from Earth, and he’s still not bestirred himself from Proxima. Besides, he’d have said something. But not too many people know I’m that crazy about the stuff.”

“Which, on the whole, is a good thing. They don’t need any ''more'' reasons to doubt your sanity,” Julius said, wrinkling his nose.

“C’mon,” Joe said, hefting a couple of crates. “Let’s get some of these inside and comm for someone to pick the rest up.”

“Thank Patil I can turn my nose ''off,'' that’s all I can say,” Julius muttered, following him into the house.

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The next day, Joe had a strong feeling of ''deja vu'' when he got home again to find another twenty-meter shipping container in the exact same location. “What? I thought I told them to pick it up,” Joe said.

“They did,” Julius said. “I saw them. Besides, that crate was green, and this one’s blue.”

Joe glanced at the bill of lading. “Huh. ‘Wait for it…’ again.”

The container turned out to contain more durian fruit. “Really?” Joe mused.

“Well, you did say the last one was ''almost'' enough for you,” Julius said. “God, I just thought of a horrible possibility.”

Joe glanced at him. “What’s that?”

“If this keeps up, and you keep sending it to the grocery stores, people here might develop a ''taste'' for the fuckin’ stuff. It’s worse than that space chocolate chalam.”

“I think you mean ''better than'',” Joe said. “Never could figure why Mikel liked that stuff more.”

“There’s no accounting for taste,” Julius said.

“True. But I got into business because I had a taste for accounting,” Joe said. Julius gave him a loud raspberry.

{{separator|k}}

Over the next week, two more “Wait for it…” crates arrived. Both contained durian. Joe backtraced the shipments and found they had all arrived on different cargo ships that had left Earth at the same time but made different stops on the way to their destination.

“Now that’s something,” Joe mused. “Why send them all by different ships?”

“They wanted to be sure some got through if some of the ships hit an asteroid or something?” Julius suggested.

“But modern interstellar shipping is highly reliable,” Joe said. “You lose maybe one in a couple hundred shipments, if that. And then there’s that ‘wait for it’ message. Clearly, they were trying to get my attention.”

“Clearly, they’ve fuckin’ succeeded,” Julius said. “Speaking as your bodyguard, I can’t say I’m exactly thrilled.”

“But if they meant me harm, they wouldn’t be telling me to ‘wait for it,’ they’d just spring ‘it.’ Whatever ‘it’ is,” Joe said.

“Yeah, maybe so,” Julius grumbled. “I still don’t like surprises. Especially surprises the size of a shipping container.”

Then one day another shipping container arrived, but they knew at the outset something was different about this one. Julius sniffed at it, then sneezed twice. “Well, now, there’s a fuckin’ thing,” Julius said. “Some Intie’s been messing with this one. Not one I know, either.”

“There are Intie cargo handlers now, you know,” Joe pointed out.

“When I say ‘not one I know,’ I mean I cross-reffed the traces with the ident database,” Julius said. “Most Inties on the planet still aren’t in it, but all the ones who work jobs in human society have to be.”

“Huh. Well, let’s take a look at the notes.” Joe tapped the pad. “Well, huh. This has a file encrypted to my personal key.” He punched in his passphrase. “…ah.”

''Hey, Big J:''

''Sorry I missed your last few birthdays. Been a little out of touch. But I found something here I think you’ll like, and I’m not talking about the fruit either.''

''Sending along a few new pets for you. Take good care of them, and they’ll provide you with hours of quality entertainment.''

''See you when I see you.''

''—H.''

“‘H’?” Joe wondered. “Wait a minute…it can’t be…”

“Can’t be what?” Julius wondered.

“Let’s just crack this open and see what we were waiting for.” Joe pulled the lever and swung the doors wide.

Four sets of glowing eyes peered out of the shipping container’s dark interior. “Well, it’s about time!” a female voice with a hint of Sturmhaven accent said. “And who might you be?”

“Given that you’re on my front lawn, I feel like that’s a question I should ask of you,” Joe said, grinning. “But the name’s Steader, of the Crazy Joe variety. This is my best bud Julius.” Joe located the switch for the container’s internal lighting. It came on, revealing the eyes belonged to four RIDEs, hooked up by cables to…

“Holy shit, are those cryo-caps?” Julius said, peering at the frosted-over tubes. “What the living fuck is going on here?”

“Those are our partners,” a tiger said. “We sort of kidnapped them from Earth. It’s a long story.”

“All right, ‘H’ ''has'' to stand for Harold,” Joe declared. “Only ''he'' would land something like ''this'' in my lap.”

“It’s ‘Harriet’ now, but yes,” the tiger said. “If it hadn’t been for her, we might not have made it back here.”

“Well, fuck. We’d better get some cryo techs out here,” Julius said. “Discreetly.”

“The sooner the better,” the wolf RIDE said. “By the way, I’m Lubyanka, this is Hobbes, Quentin, and Madeira.”

“Charmed,” Joe said. “While we’re waiting for the cryo techs, how about you fill me in on how you ended up here?”

“Very well,” Lubyanka said. “I’m still not quite sure what it was that woke me up, but…”

{{separator|k|'''THE END'''}}

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