Outfoxed

From Shifti
Revision as of 11:04, 25 August 2009 by Fibio (Talk | contribs)

Jump to: navigation, search

Outfoxed

Author: Fibio
Author's Comments

Writen in an afternoon this piece was a response to 'Dire Warning' on the list. Just for anyone who doesn't know the UGTFV is the Union of Gratuitous TransFormation Victims and are out to extract revenge on the authors of their suffering.


It was a normal day until the doorbell rang.

I got up, grumbling over being interrupted while doing nothing in particular on the internet, and thundered downstairs.

“Hello, can I help...” I petered out, as I found a fox on my door step. At about four feet tall, on his hind legs and dressed in rough woollen clothing he clashed utterly with the ordinary street behind him.

“Are quite you sure you’re in the right universe?” I asked, as the rather flustered looking vulpine as he fumbled with a sheet of paper and what looked like a gold amulet. There was something very wrong with this exchange, but no one on the quiet suburban road seemed to have noticed the fact there was something not known to mankind on my welcome mat.

“Greeting’s sir or madam as applicable,” he read, in a quavering voice. “I am here as a representative of UGTFV, here to ad...”

“UGTFV?” I said, wrestling my tongue around the syllables. “I heard about you guys, some kind of dire warning about writing transformation stories. Aren’t I supposed to get an angry mob?” I leaned forwards to peer up and down the road, just in case there was a transformed horde ready to descend on me hidden just out of sight.

The fox hastily flipped his typed sheet.

“While we regret that we could only send a single agent at this time you understand we have a very long list of targets to administer justice to. However we have taken great pains to ensure the irony of your punishment is not diminished.”

“That’s great kid... Kit, but I don’t write transformations, at all.”

This stopped him dead in his tracks.

“Um, are you sure?” he sputtered.

“Pretty much,” I replied.

He inverted the paper, scanning for a response, then flipped it again. On the third turn I just snatched it off him.

“I wasn’t briefed for this,” he explained, as I raised an eyebrow at him.

“Just go back to your bosses and tell them that not all the readers are writers,” I told him, as he stepped back looking a little panicked. I had to feel sorry for the little guy, its not often you face down someone with about two foot of height on you.

“I... Um... Ah, well you see...” he stuttered, ducking his head and flattening his ears against his skull.

“This is my first job,” he admitted, after a moment. “And, they’re going to be judging me on how I do.”

“Well I’m sorry, but you’re just going to have to tell them that someone made a mistake,” I said, shrugging.

“Yeah, but you could just let me use this anyway.” He held up the cat’s head pendent with a hopeful smile.

“Sorry, I don’t want to mess up your system,” I countered, maybe a might fast, as I tore my eyes away from the gold which shone all too invitingly. “I’m sure you’d get in even more trouble if you changed someone who you weren’t supposed to.

“Okay,” he replied, with such a forlorn expression I wondered if he’d bite my hand if I tried to pat him on the head.

“If that’s all I don’t want to keep you,” I said, smiling. Well showing canines at least. That pendant was seriously freaking me out.

“Oh wait,” he cut in suddenly, just as I was about to slam the door.

“Yes,” I hissed.

“What about this one?” he asked, with a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

“This what?” I queried, fighting the urge to slam the door in his face.

“This story,” he explained, brightening up. “If you’re transformed now then you have written a TF story and I have a legitimate excuse to change you.”

“But in order to transform me, you must first have changed me in the first place,” I pointed out, heart pounding in my ears. I had to get rid of him “I think that’s a bit of a catch twenty two.”

“Damn,” he sighed, somehow managing to click his fingers. “Well, I’d best be reporting back.”

“Best of luck,” I called after him, as he took about three steps before vanishing in a puff of logic. Then I slammed the door and bolted it, before sinking to the floor, panting as I tried to slow my heart to a less apoplectic level.

“Ha, dodged the bullet there,” I muttered to myself, getting to my feet, trembling a little bit more than I’d like to admit and making my quiet way upstairs. “He’s right though, this would make a great story.”

I settled back into my chair and brought up a word processor, chuckling to myself as I began to write the conversation down while it was still in my memory.

“It’ll take a better man than that to outfox me though,” I wrote at the end, unsheathing a claw to scratch an itch on my nose. “He should have realised that if an event requires itself to have happened in order to occur, then an event could also have to occur because it caused itself to happemn.”

I hit the wrong key for the umpteenth and looked down at my hands in frustration. Then turned them over and saw the leathery pads where my palms should have been.

“Oh f-