The Agency

1

Ty's parents kept talking about how special it was to visit Cuba, so he tried to look interested. Their tour guide was trying too hard to make ancient history sound exciting. "Right here was where the missiles were going to be installed. Picture the Americans staring down by satellite, deciding whether to strike..." They'd been walking for an hour.

Emily was playing video games on her phone and trying not to let Mom and Dad see her doing it. "They should've just killed 'em all." Her black-furred ears kept flicking to keep track of the tour group, and she followed without tripping over anyone's tail or missing her turn in "Henhouse Raider". Ty wasn't sure how she did it.

"Who?" said Ty. He was paying more attention to the architecture: the run-down buildings and the workmen and robots that were putting up shiny new apartment spires. He realized that the streets were different in each neighborhood; the cracked pavement was getting replaced with some kind of super-sturdy moss. Neat technology!

"All of the guys in charge. That Castro guy, the guy before him and the one after. How long did it take these people to get their act together after they stopped having a thug in charge? Like, five years?"

"I guess." Ty flopped gratefully onto a chair; the tour guide had paused at a cafe. He flicked his tail out of the way and gaped when the waiter, a fox like him but more of a fennec breed, asked if he wanted beer. Dad grinned and snatched the liquor menu out of Ty's hands. Ty let his ears droop sheepishly. Emily looked angelic; Ty could already guess she'd talk him into letting her have a sip of his.

The tour guide went on about old revolutions. Ty watched the people. Foxes, felines, some otters from the sea colonies. He spotted something odd and tugged Mom's sleeve. "What's that?" There was a construction robot that didn't look like the ones he'd spotted earlier. It was prowling around the cafe, and it knocked over an empty table with that metal tube it was carrying. A wolf man was trying to steer the bot back on course... No, he wasn't. He was saying, "Now!"

Mom gasped and shoved Ty and Emily down. Just then, the bot's gun barrel started firing. Everyone screamed. Ty could see clawed feet stampeding all around. A bullet clanged and dented the metal table just overhead.

Emily was trying to wriggle out of Dad's grip. "What are you doing?!" Ty hissed.

"Sneak away!" But they couldn't. It was raining bullets.

Mom was murmuring in fear; she snagged Emily's tail and wouldn't let go. Ty found he'd curled up in a fuzzy ball and was shivering. He heard people screaming all around and there were uniformed men fighting, and bots with guns. He tried to talk, but only a choked sob came out.

Dad was saying something to Mom, and she nodded. Ty couldn't hear; he was trying to scrunch up as small as possible. He wasn't prepared, then, when Dad yanked him and Emily up by the scruff of the neck and burst out from under the table. He roared, more lion than fox. There were thudding sounds all around Ty. Dad charged out of the cafe that'd become a killing zone. He was staggering, but he managed to throw the kids. Ty was falling in a fuzzy ball, and he caught glimpses of an alley, of Emily somewhere, of Dad shouting some more and turning to face the men with guns, of a table with Mom under it... everything at once. And then he hit the ground and lost track of it all.

2

Ty woke up slowly, in a fluffy bed. The room had only a dim nightlight and a set of closed window drapes. His claws dug into the covers when he remembered what he'd just seen. "Mom? Dad?" That all had to be a nightmare, right? This wasn't his room or the hotel. It was wrong.

Ty kicked the covers off of him and stood. He was wearing red and white pajamas that matched his fur. He didn't own any like this. Had to be a nightmare, he thought again. There was a fridge in his room... no, it was a metal door. There was no knob, just a panel with a red light. He rapped at the door, saying, "Hello?"

No answer. He went to the window, pulled the curtains open, and saw Havana. So he was still in Cuba, on vacation. Except when he peered close, he saw pixels. Fake! He slashed at the window before he knew what he was doing. Claws skittered across tough plastic.

A machine voice poured into the room. "Good morning. We'll be with you in a moment." Ty couldn't find the speaker.

"Where am I? Where's Dad?"

The door slid open. A tall vixen in a white uniform stood there, smiling down at him. "You're safe now."

"Where is everyone?" Ty said. The smile scared him.

"Don't worry, dear. We'll take good care of you."

Ty's fur prickled all over and he took a step toward the fox, shouting, "Where!?"

The woman reached toward him to scratch his hair, but stopped. She put one hand to her ear as though listening to something, then nodded. "I'm afraid there's been a terrible disaster. A terrorist attack. Some very bad people opened fire on a cafe, and you were the only one we found."

Ty went wide-eyed and shook all over. "They've gotta be around here somewhere! Let me look!"

"I'm sorry, dear." The look in the vixen's eyes told Ty everything he needed to know, more than the words themselves. It couldn't be true. Mom and Dad and Emily would jump into the room any minute now and they could all go home and have everything be normal again. He'd pull his sister's tail and she'd slip sneezing powder into his schoolbooks again and their parents would ground them both. It'd be fun.

Ty quivered, then ran the last few steps to the woman and bawled, sniffling pathetically into her arms.

3

It seemed like a long time later. Ty was sitting in a steel room with nice furniture that included a psychiatrist. The ferret man and his musk seemed like part of the room just as much as the couch and chairs and boring landscape paintings. Nothing that the man said made an impression on Ty; it was like listening to rain. Bullet rain.

But then the man said, "This isn't a hospital, actually."

Ty lay on the couch. He'd squeezed his eyes shut and kept an arm over his face to keep the tears in, so nobody would see. "Then what is it? Who are you people?"

"Secret agents, young man. People who fight the sort of killers that attacked you."

Ty said, "Sure you are. And this is your base?"

"Yes. Is there more can we tell you? This is the first time you've talked in days."

Ty's memory was hazy. There'd been dim rooms and blobs of ink on paper, a nurse, some medicine. And nightmares. During the day he was better... "Are we underground or something? I haven't seen any real windows."

"Clever of you! Yes, most of the Facility is hidden below ground. There's only a warehouse with a bland government-sounding name on top. It doesn't sound like much considering all the technology in here, and how important it is."

The young fox's ears turned a little to listen more closely. The last few days had felt like he'd been wrapped in cotton, not really noticing anything. It was probably better that way. Now, though, he could hear the whole building around him humming. Like there were big engines hidden everywhere. "You fight terrorists and rescue people?"

"Something like that, yes. And we take care of people like you that need our help. Take as much time as you need; we're here for you."

"And then what?" Ty said. He sat up, smelling his own tears and squinting at the head doctor through them. There was school and Emily's birthday coming up, and he was still shaking and thinking about terrorists. His claws dug painfully into his knees.

"What do you want to do after you've recovered? You could go back to school, I suppose."

It seemed like the man knew what Ty was thinking, and the frown on his muzzle matched his own. Going home... no, there was no home. Not anymore. Ty answered in a rush. "Let me stay here and get strong so I can beat them myself! So I can go after the bad guys!"

The ferret-man smiled a little in sympathy. "I don't know if that would work for you. It'd be hard, and it'd keep you very busy. Are you sure?"

"Yes!" There wasn't anything else he could do. Ever. Not after seeing all those people getting shot, after the screaming. Maybe he could make it all go away so no one else would have to go through a day like that.

"I'll see what I can do," the man said. "You're a brave boy, you know that? Volunteering for a dangerous job for the sake of helping others. I think... I think your family would be proud of you."

Ty looked down at the grey carpet. If he thought too much about them he'd start weeping all over again, so he had to quit it. The people here needed him to look tough and be ready to work and do something good. He just nodded, biting down on his tongue and not trusting himself to talk.

4

It turned out that whoever ran this place took pity on him. Ty knew that's what they were doing. He was just a kid, not a secret agent. But they gave him a computer full of books about weapons and spycraft. They'd probably just send him to some foster home if he gave up, if he wasn't good enough. The books let him focus on something besides reliving that day, until he reached a chapter about disarming people. He got lost in picturing himself running into the cafe, knocking guns out of people's hands, swiping down at them like this! He tore a page. He snapped out of his fantasy of stopping the attack, but his heart was still beating fast and his fur was all on end.

Ty stood up and paced the little dining room. Miss Elu, the vixen who'd first spoken to him, had gotten a couple of rooms opened up to make an apartment for him. Now he had his bedroom and bathroom, the dining area with tiny kitchen, and an exercise room with no equipment yet.

She knocked, then came in. "Can I get you lunch?"

"I'm not really hungry," he said, even though she made anything he wanted. He'd been trying to ask for healthy stuff, usually, so he could look fit for the job.

Elu nodded. "Then would you mind coming with me, to see our doctor again?"

"The shrink?"

"No, this is something better. Doctor Gross will explain."

"Doctor Gross?"

She grinned at him, though he hardly recognized what a smile looked like anymore. "You can tease him about it when you see him. Are you ready?"

He followed her through another grey concrete hall. There were numbers on the doors, and hand scanners, but no other labels. His bare feet were quiet on the floor; he'd never liked shoes and no one complained when he kept them off. Behind one of those doors was a doctor's office. "Everything looks like a movie set," Ty said. The office was perfectly normal to the point of having old issues of National Anthrographic on a shelf and a boring painting of some city with swirly clouds. The doctor, though, didn't fit the mold. He was a great big bear flipping a scalpel around in the fingers of one hand. "That's not for me, is it?" Ty said.

The bear shook his head and flicked the scalpel away, to thunk into a corkboard behind him. He saw Ty's eyes widen and said, "I'm only playing. Miss Elu tells me you've been keeping healthy."

"Yes, sir," Ty said. He'd tried doing some situps at least. Anything to keep his mind busy and off of other things.

"The bad news is that it would be hard for our organization to use you as you are. The good news is, we may be able to make you more powerful. We've developed a procedure that you're just the right age for."

Ty's brow furrowed and his tail flicked in confusion. "What, like a superhero?" Miss Elu had left him some comic books. Experiments like that had worked on Captain Mareica, but that was just a story. And he hated reading the Bat-Guy one; it struck too close to home.

To his surprise, Doctor Gross said, "Yes, very much like that. You could probably fight a lot of people by yourself. It could be dangerous to have you try this, though."

"What if I don't?"

The doctor shrugged huge shoulders. "Nothing. We try to find you other work. Something safer, maybe."

"Then do it!" Ty said. How could he turn down something like this, a chance to be able to fight back, for a desk job? He'd never forgive himself. He didn't want to even think the thought, but if he didn't make it through the experiment... that was okay too.

That day, the doctor looked him over again and gave him a couple of shots. Ty refused to let himself yelp or whimper. He was dizzy after the tests and the medicine. Then they were taking out some of his blood; he looked away from the plastic tube stuck in his arm and squeezed a rubber ball in his fist when they told him to. It didn't hurt much.

"You did a great job, son," said Gross, slapping him on the back hard enough to make his teeth rattle. "Now go lay down and let Miss Elu fuss over you."

He did. There was even ice cream. And at some point Ty fell asleep. When he woke up, he stood and wobbled over to the bathroom. He felt weird all over, heavy and hungry and with his breathing seeming to come from deeper in his chest. He didn't have X-ray vision, though. He knocked at the door that led out of his apartment, and soon Elu showed up and took him back to the doctor. For more shots, it turned out. Ow. But they gave him a huge meal after that, more than he'd even known he could eat.

All night he had weird dreams. He towered over a city, trying not to knock the buildings over. Everything was fragile and he was huge! He had to hurry, too, toward that cafe. He got there just in time to see the bad guys -- the wolf and the killer robots. He shouted something and lifted one huge foot up to stomp them all... but it wasn't the wolf, it was Emily. When he tried to stop, he fell over onto her, too big for her to run away from. Someone was pounding at him...

It was a knock on the apartment door. "Ty? Are you all right?"

He was shivering even under his fur and a tangle of blankets and stuffing. He'd clawed at the sheets again. His foot claws were snagged on them too. He moaned, rolled over, and fell off of the bed. "Just the nightmares," he mumbled.

When he stood up, though, he almost fell over again. His balance was all wrong, like there was a weight on his tail. He reached back and scratched himself, then yipped. "What the heck?"

"Are you decent?" asked Elu. "Can I come in?"

He had his pajamas on, but -- he blushed -- something weird had happened to him.

Elu entered on her own, just as he was twisting around to look at himself. There wasn't a good way to describe the problem other than that his butt looked huge, straining against the fabric. Ty glanced back at her, saying, "What...?"

"Oh, my. That's not quite what we expected. Let's get you to the doctor." She pulled a radio from her pocket and mumbled into it.

"What's going on?"

"Doctor Gross should be able to explain."

The doctor was scowling at having been woken up, but he raised eyebrows when he saw what had happened to Ty. "I suppose that's a good sign."

Gross and Elu were staring at his backside; Ty blushed. "Come on, tell me! Am I turning into a girl or something?!"

The bear laughed. "No, no, don't worry about that. Although with the technology we're using, if you want to..."

"No, thank you! Then what is it?"

"Might as well give you the briefing now. Son, you're going to end up with some extra limbs. The treatments are giving you a centaur form, and that's the start of your lower body growing in. Should take a couple of days. I had expected the paws to grow in above your legs..."

Ty looked at himself and did a double-take. "So, what, I'm gonna grow more legs? How is that a superpower?"

"It's not, though the change should give you more strength and speed. It's part of giving you what we call a matter storage field. If that works, you'll be able to change your size."

Ty was leaning against the wall, remembering a little of his dream. "So it's working," he said with a trembling voice.

"We'll see, once you've changed."

5

The next few days were awkward. By noon -- he still hadn't been outside, but there was a clock -- he had to lean forward to keep his balance with the weird bulge behind him. That evening he started to feel his new hindpaws twitching. The next day he had to use a wheelchair to get around despite having a perfectly good pair of legs (and half of another). Finally, he was able to start standing on four feet and feel the constant pins-and-needles of the new limbs brushing against the floor. It was almost as weird to feel his breathing coming from the lower torso as it grew in. When the doctor checked his heartbeat he had to do it twice; the main heart felt like it was way behind him. "I still don't feel like this other half a fox is me."

"Understandable," said Gross. "Make sure you exercise, and you should get used to it."

He had a treadmill now, an extra-long one. Ty spent weeks relearning how to walk and climb stairs and do everything else he was used to doing with fewer legs. It was a busy time and he was grateful for it. To focus on his own changed body meant not dwelling on the past too much.

But when his keepers started training him to fight, he took to it with so much enthusiasm that he scared them, and himself.

6

Months of sweat and study. Ty was standing in the gym one day with his four feet planted on a mat. His hands held a double-edged boffer stick, one of those giant padded clubs. His breath came fast in his lower body. One swing, a leap, and another slash, and two training dummies went down. A battered little helicopter buzzed him. He crushed it to the mat with an overhand swing, but it got off a shot first. A shock dart stung his arm, making him yelp and swat it off of him.

A voice. Ty snapped out of combat mode and turned to find Doctor Gross with a basset-hound in army uniform. The doctor was saying, "This is Agent Ty."

"Agent," Ty muttered. He hadn't fought anyone for real; he was still just a little kid to them. Little was probably the key word; he'd shown none of the powers Gross had talked about. Ty wiped musky sweat from his ear with one tape-wrapped wrist and said more loudly, "I haven't seen you before."

The doctor said, "Meet Colonel Salt. He's in charge of the Facility, among other things."

The canine offered Ty a handshake. "I've heard good things about you, young man! You'll make your country proud one day."

The man's smile looked sincere and he wasn't the kind to show off dozens of medals. But Ty sniffed; there was a cloying scent to him. Ty flicked his tail uncertainly, saying, "I haven't fought anyone. I haven't so much as gone outside for a cheeseburger."

"That's all right. We've invested in you for the long haul." The colonel walked around Ty, inspecting him. "Interesting to see the... taur form on you."

Ty sniffed the air again. There was his own scent, the colonel's strong cologne, and...

Ty pounced the officer. "You have her scent on you!" Ty was standing over the man, forepaws on either side of his chest, and staring down at him. "My sister's!"

The man was wide-eyed and trying to get up. "What? I don't know --"

Ty was smaller even with the extra half-body, but he was not going to let this mystery go. He put a paw on the man's chest and said, "Tell me! Why do you smell like her? Emily is... she's alive, isn't she?"

Salt yelped as though Ty had actually hurt him. "All right, Agent. Yes! Get off me and I'll tell you."

Ty pressed harder. "Where?!"

"Sir?" said Doctor Gross. "The protocol doesn't call for --"

The colonel said, "Shut up, Gross. Yes, Ty, your sister actually survived the attack. It was a close thing, and we didn't want to tell you because there was a strong chance she wasn't going to make it. It would've hurt you worse to learn she was in a hospital and that there was nothing you could do. But she's recovering. Now would you please get off me?"

Ty saw he was pretty close to crushing the man's neck. He wasn't, a moment ago. The colonel was staring up at him now with more fear than he'd shown when pounced. Ty's wrists and head ached, painfully constrained. Ty lifted his paw, balanced on the other three, and flexed the toes. It was as big as the man's head! He stumbled back and let the colonel stand, only to find he was still looking slightly down at the man. Even Gross was only about the same height as Ty now!

"It worked after all," the doctor said.

Ty pulled off his wrestling-style helmet -- burst from inside -- and tore at the tape that was digging into his wrists. "Big," he murmured. But that wasn't important right now. He took a step toward the colonel and said, "Where is she? And my parents?"

"I'm sorry, Ty. We only saved Emily. Agent Emily, I should say. We'll arrange to bring her here so that you can train together. It looks like we can move up your training schedule anyway."

Ty looked at his huge paws, feeling baffled. His thoughts had derailed. There was something left of his old life after all.

7

A few days later he was pacing in his apartment. He hadn't been able to sleep much, let alone shrink back to normal size. The doctor insisted he'd figure out how. All his muscles felt heavy but powerful. He'd already crushed his first bed just by flopping carelessly onto it. Now he had a big cushion on the floor.

When Miss Elu opened the door, he hopped over to her and nearly knocked her down. Too much momentum! "Now? Is she here?"

The startled Elu just nodded. Ty bounded after her, all the way upstairs to the gym.

And Emily was there! Ty charged right at her, yipping for joy. She vanished. Ty skidded to a stop, saying, "What happened?" An illusion? If they were lying he'd stomp everybody!

Someone tugged his tail. Ty peeked over his shoulders, and saw Emily there hugging the big red-orange brush. "Sis? Is that you?" It smelled like her.

"Oh, wow, you're a giant! What'd they do to you?"

Ty grinned, and then realized that he towered over his sister. And the weight set. And the doorway. He carefully turned and sat down on all fours so he could look at her. All six limbs of her. "Foxtaur, too?"

The girl climbed up onto his left front ankle and hugged his leg. "They said they could rebuild me, but I still don't know what to do with all these legs!"

"But you're okay? They didn't hurt you?"

"It did kind of hurt," she said. "This fur is --"

"Agent Emily, that's classified." She was attended by two surly guards plus the colonel.

Emily gave the man a nasty glare, then said, "Thermoptic camouflage." She'd always been proud of rattling off the hard words she read over Ty's shoulders when he studied. "I... didn't have much fur left when they found me. Or skin. There was a fire at some point. I don't really remember."

Ty didn't care. She was okay now, and he was focused on trying to hug her safely.

8

Emily moved in. They each had an apartment to themselves, but there was a common room, plus the big gym. Ty had a hard time shrinking himself down below ten feet, but managed to squish himself to about five feet from floor to ears -- sometimes. Every day it felt like he wanted to spring out in all directions and bounce all around the place. He could lift a whole motorcycle, then a car!

But one night he was resting in the gym, stuck. His ears brushed against the fifty-foot ceiling whenever he stood. For now he sat in the dark.

"Hey." Emily's voice made his ears flick back. "Watching a boring movie?"

The only light came from the projector screen he was reading on. "Just a textbook."

"Oh, man, they're making you do homework?" she said.

"No. That's just it. We should be in school, doing normal things."

"We're here to fight." Emily hopped up onto Ty's back and curled up.

Ty smiled and gently patted her with a huge hand. "You haven't thought about asking to go back, then?"

"To what? This is home. Our job is to follow orders. The Agency saved us, so we owe them."

"What do we even know about these guys, anyway?"

"We know they're here for us."

Ty sighed. "I guess so. And there're certainly bad guys out there to fight when we're ready. At least we can do that together, right?"

"Yeah." Emily flopped out on all sixes and slowly dozed off, resting on Ty's carpet of fur.

9

When he looked back on that part of his life, Ty always thought it wasn't too bad. He and Emily were stuck there in the Agency's base, with Miss Elu and Colonel Salt taking care of them and Doctor Gross checking on the powers they'd gotten. There was training to keep them busy. Bench-pressing Buicks, stomping virtual-reality copies of Tokyo, brawling through whole armies of terrorists and tanks. For Emily there were obstacle courses, stealth mazes, metal gears to dodge and guards to hide from. The colonel even brought in a raccoon spymaster to teach them both about the secrets of stealth.

"Uh, sir?" said Ty. "There aren't many trees I can hide behind."

The raccoon leaned on a fancy cane and thought. "But you can shrink to something below national-monument size. And stealth isn't all about the physical things. You can be sneaky with what you say and do. Or if that fails, pose as a couple of elephants in an elaborate costume."

Ty thought about the books he'd been reading, mostly without being told. Miss Elu let him have works on electronics and physics and engineering, the stuff he seemed to be good at without much formal schooling, plus some circuit kits to experiment with. "I could probably make traps or something like that. Gadgets for spy stuff."

"Sure. Even at your size those could be useful. I'll see about getting you access to some of Emily's toys."

Ty did a little dance -- well, actually a huge dance -- when he got them. There was a whole workshop of pressure plates and security lasers and dart-gun turrets and other things to try out. He got to start designing obstacle courses for Emily, so that it became a game for him to build one she couldn't beat. He always lost.

Birthdays and holidays passed. Living underground, in secrecy, started to seem normal enough that he'd quit asking to go outside. He was a secret agent in training, with plenty of equipment and support. Soon enough he'd have work to do out there.

Still, he got to thinking about the spycraft lessons. After watching Emily turn nearly invisible again, becoming just a ripple in the air to fool a guard, Ty started poking around with his computer the same way. He had a nice one, a pad he could carry under one arm when he was small and balance on one finger when he wasn't. He usually kept it plugged into the movie screen up in the gym, with a giant keyboard. Lately it felt most comfortable to stay big.

The Agency didn't have much information about itself on display, even for the two young agents. The computer was locked down to keep him out of trouble, he figured. He'd been here long enough to resent that a little. Ty had a couple of ways by now to get around the filters.

"jgross'-- ", he typed, using some standard tricks. There was a database to hack... "Select null, null, A from Schema..." It wasn't glamorous, but patiently probing at the security was an education in itself. He had to wonder if the Agency was leaving these bugs in on purpose.

Probably not, he thought, when he got into Doctor Gross' account. He glanced over his shoulder and felt himself shiver all up his tail and back and other back. He didn't smell anyone else in the gym, and couldn't see anyone, but it was dark and his eyes weren't adjusted to catch anyone lurking in the shadows. Ty blacked out the screen and looked around for a minute, hearing only his breath. Sneaking a look at the doctor's files couldn't hurt; it wasn't like Ty was going to do anything bad to them. The files were probably about him and Emily anyhow.

They were. Ty felt himself grow a bit with excitement, and had to calm down enough that he could keep using the keyboard. There was a report on Ty's own progress with the "matter storage field", with something about how it had reinforced his skeleton too. Then notes on Emily and the nasty medical work she'd had for patching her up. Nothing about the fire, which was strange. He hadn't remembered there being one that day, just bullets raining on the table above him, thudding on the floor, into... He shuddered.

There were a few other agents listed as his patients. Ty blinked. What, here in this very base? As far as he could tell, he and his sister were the only guests running underfoot (figuratively in Ty's case) among the military spy guys. Maybe they were stationed elsewhere. There was somebody called Tren, listed as... "A dragon?" They could make actual dragons now?

He forgot that mystery as soon as he saw the next entry. It showed a familiar-looking wolf man, as a patient and co-worker of Gross. The last time Ty had seen him, the man had been commanding a combat bot to gun down his family.

Ty scanned through the whole record. Enhanced reflexes and senses, reinforced skeleton, "special combat mode". He's one of us. Which means... Ty couldn't bring himself to think it for a while, and only stared at the screen. The dark gymnasium suddenly felt like it was full of lurking monsters.

A sound caught his ears and made his heart beat faster. Ty flicked the screen over to a paused game of "Henhouse Raider In Space". He turned to spot Miss Elu in the shadows.

"Ty, are you all right? It's late."

Ty opened and shut his jaw a few times. Was she in on this? Did she know that the Agency itself had been involved in the attack? But Miss Elu had been taking care of him for years now! She was nice, and cooked for him, and hugged him when the nightmares came back! Ty quivered and felt himself shrinking, almost back to normal size. "Why..." he said, unable to put a question together. She was evil!

Could he be wrong? Ty put his hands on his head and tried to think. The wolf could've been there to protect everyone, to fight off the terrorists, and he was just misunderstanding. But no, he'd given the order to open fire. He was sure. That man started it. He was the reason Mom and Dad were gone.

Elu stepped over to put a soft hand on his flank. "Come to bed, Ty. The computer games can wait."

Ty trembled and shied away from her. It was all he could do not to grow to ten times her size and start stomping. He had to be sneaky. "Y-yeah. All right."

Elu walked away, shaking her head. She probably hadn't seen. Still, Ty played one more round of the game, made sure she was gone, then quickly copied the database entry to his own computer and shut it off. He left the gym, six feet tall, and headed for Emily's set of rooms.

"Huh?" his sister said. Ty could hear her stumbling out of bed to open the door. "It's three in the morning!" Her room was a mess of shirts and socks, with a poster of the latest otter-boy band on the wall.

Ty looked into her eyes. She had no idea. Ty caught his breath, hesitating to re-open the wound they shared. "I saw something horrible. They were in on it. The Agency was. Look, I got a copy of --"

"Slow down. Can't this wait till morning?"

"No!" Ty said, then lowered his voice to a whisper. "I looked through Doctor Gross' files. I found proof that the Agency didn't just save us from the attack. They caused it."

Emily blinked sleepily. "Not possible," she said. "That doesn't make any sense."

Ty held out the computer. "Look. Remember him?" He brought up the wolf's record.

Emily shuddered and looked away suddenly as though he'd slapped her. "I didn't see who it was. Please, shut up about it. I don't want to think about that day."

He held her by the upper shoulders. "This is important! We have to do something."

"What, Ty? What do you want us to do?"

"I don't know. Leave. Tell someone."

Emily shook her head. "There's nowhere to go. This place is home, whatever you think happened."

"Don't you even care about our parents?"

She leaned forward to yell in his face. "Shut up! Of course I do! But they're gone. Get it? I like it here!"

Ty reared back, feeling heavy and cold. "Okay," he said. "Good night." It was all he could trust himself to say, without yelling right back at her. Even so, he started crying before he made it back to his room.

10

The next week was awful. He had to pretend to be happy and be friendly to the doctor and Elu and Salt. Like family. He only now appreciated how the Agency had set things up to give him fake parents, people who'd look after him and let him grow up loyal to them. People he'd started to really like. It was good that they didn't understand him well; Gross saw him walking around and just complemented him on getting better at keeping his size to a reasonable level. Really, Ty was keeping himself as blank and as hidden as possible.

He thought through the scenario a hundred times, but there was no way Emily would come along. He could go alone, or try again to persuade her and get ratted out. It made him droop when he thought about that; he couldn't trust her.

So, one night, he ran. It was physically easier than he'd thought. He was small and quiet, with lowered ears and tail. Sneaking away past guards whose routines never changed, whose names he knew. The only alarm that he couldn't sneak past, he beat with a pair of wire cutters and a multimeter for studying the circuitry. Easy. But the victory didn't make his feet feel any less like lead or lift his gaze from the floor when he walked. He was alone.

Ty made it to a huge room... no, that was moonlight. He hadn't been outdoors since the day he came here! The scent of everything was wild and full of pollen and smog that made him sneeze. Every time the grass brushed against his lower back he glanced around as though someone was following him.

He wandered toward distant lights. Eventually he found a highway and followed it, feeling alone on the dark road. The air warmed his fur.

Ty had been expecting a city, but found only a diner with a neon sign saying "Snow's". Only when he saw the building and the trucks, an island of light surrounded by scruffy desert, did he realize how little he'd thought ahead.

The skunk at the counter looked startled when Ty walked in. Not a good thing, he thought. The skunk-man said, "Uh, what exactly are you?" A rabbit and a caribou in truckers' caps glanced up from their menus. A song about a "white knight talking backwards" played on the radio.

Ty slumped against the counter and sobbed. He hadn't seen anyone outside the Agency's base in years. He was a freak with too many legs. His sister was still back there doing her spy training for the same people who'd shot their parents, and for all he knew they were going to come along and drag him back!

Ty realized he'd just blubbered all of that out loud. The skunk-man ruffled his ears and said, "That's quite a tale. So somebody is after you? And it's not your family?"

"Uh-huh," Ty said, sniffling.

"I wouldn't believe it if you were a normal fox," the man said. "But I've never seen someone like you before. Hey, Harek, call the police." An otter peeked out from the kitchen and said, "Okay!"

Ty felt silverware digging into his chin. "No, wait! Maybe the cops are in on it too! Maybe they'll drag me back!"

"Seriously?" When Ty nodded, the man said, "Cancel the cops! Call the TV station and tell 'em... Well, send a photo."

Ty sniffled and posed for the otter's phone-camera. "I can do this, too." He willed himself to grow bigger, enough to demonstrate.

"Do what?"

Ty found he was still looking up at the skunk. "I can't seem to do it right now. But they did things to me and my sister, in their lab..."

"Oh, man. You're sure you don't want the police?"

The otter looked out from the kitchen again. "They think you're full of it, boss, but they're sending somebody. Twenty minutes."

Ty paced the restaurant, banging into tables. The skunk said, "Calm down, kid. You're safe here for now. How does a sundae sound?"

Ty ate and whipped cream on his nose, but looked up when he heard an engine. His heart froze for a moment. It was just a news van. "Okay!" he said, springing up. "Let me go talk to them and tell them everything!" He ran to the diner's door, and banged into the top of the doorframe. He had to duck to get outside and face the terrified squirrel who was getting out of the van.

The reporter stared up at the ten-foot-tall foxtaur. She stammered a few times before managing to say, "I guess this is newsworthy. Camera?" A raccoon-girl hopped out and started filming as though size-shifting foxes were standard nightly news.

Ty started to tell them everything. "Whoa, whoa!" said the news squirrel. "You're telling me there's some kind of secret spy base just a few miles from here? With mad science going on?"

The restaurant owner butted in, saying, "And he came right here to Snow's, where there's the best --" Everyone glared at him.

Ty told them what he knew about it. The reporter said, "We might not be able to release that part of your story, but now it'll be tough for anyone to kidnap you, if that's what you're afraid of. And we can raise a stink and get attention for your sister, and maybe get her out."

Just then, Ty turned to spot a black van hurrying down the road. It slowed nearly to a stop when the headlights caught Ty's huge shape, and then it moved on instead of stopping. Whoever was in it wasn't too surprised to see him, and figured it was best to avoid him. For now.

11

Ty hid out at the restaurant for a while. "Hid", in the sense of living there and letting hundreds of people stop by to visit him. For the Agency the damage was done; the news story had already run. The restaurant was getting mobbed with reporters and tourists, not that the owner minded. Ty showed off his extra paws and size-changing. The sight of so many people after years of isolation made his tail hide between his legs, even when he was a hundred feet tall and towering over the news vans.

"Is the the upper limit for your powers?" one man asked, through a megaphone.

Ty called down, "I don't know." He still didn't have full control over that. He made a note not to visit anyplace with expensive chandeliers or ceiling art.

It was after midnight when the lizard came. Ty was sleeping in a storeroom with the otter cook checking in on him. The reporters and even the usual truckers were gone for now.

The otter shook Ty awake. "There's someone here to see you."

Ty yawned. "Haven't enough people?"

"He says he's from the Agency."

Ty woke up quickly with his heart beating fast. "I'm not going back there! I might have to fight them. Hurry and get away!"

"I'm not after you," a new voice said from the counter. "I just want to talk."

Ty peeked out to the main room, feeling small. There was a lizard in a trenchcoat, with golden scales. "Who're you?"

"The name is Tren." He turned slowly, looking away at the empty restaurant. "And I've been part of their experiments too." He pulled off the coat, and Ty saw a pair of leathery gold wings unfurl.

Ty gaped, feeling all his fur prickle. "D-d-dragon?"

The man seemed to get bigger... no, he really was growing! Ty stared as Tren hunched over, sending plates and silverware clattering to the floor. His hands splayed out into monster-clawed forefeet, until a quadrupedal dragon the size of a car -- not counting the wings -- stood threatening the restaurant's pie collection. And then he shrank again, slowly, and spoke in a growling voice that gradually got quieter. "They tested out some technologies on me. I can't get much bigger than that, but I can fly a little. Can't hide completely as the lizard I used to be, though." He fussed with putting the trenchcoat back on; Ty could now spot the bumps along his back.

"Then why are you here?"

"I had a Norwegian guy shouting at me for years on end. Trying to indoctrinate me to be their pet dragon. Didn't work as well as the bosses there would've liked, since I was still able to think for myself. And they weren't sure what to do with me, since I wasn't subtle enough to be a spy but still couldn't qualify as a battle-winning weapon. It would've been smarter for them to, say, create a couple of orphans and try different experiments on each."

Ty slumped against the counter. "Shut up. I don't want to think about that."

"Kid, I'm trying to help. Do you want to get your sister out of there?"

"Do you kill people? Do you kill people's families?"

"Not their families. Not on purpose. I've fought some people who really deserved it, though. I'd say the ones who did that to you deserve a lesson in humility, especially considering that they've still got your sister."

"She said she wants to stay there. She doesn't even care what they did!"

Tren looked off to one side, scratching the scales on his neck. "Yeah. They mess with your head, there. I'm guessing they were nice to you? Tried to be your new parents?" Ty stifled a sob, but the dragon-man noticed. "Figures. If they're going in the stealthy direction for your -- for Emily, then she's probably going to be an assassin. One who'll get trained to capture or kill anyone that threatens the Agency. Like you."

Ty stared at him, with his tail lashing. "What? Are you saying they'll convince her to come after me?"

"As a test of her power and loyalty. The fact that they didn't send me after you tells me they have someone else in mind for the job. But prepping her mentally and emotionally to do something like that takes time."

"That's awful! That's evil!"

"Yeah. That's why I'll back you on this one if you feel like saving her. Or, if you're not willing, I can give you some suggestions on how to hide, which in your case is easier said than done."

Ty's claws dug into the floor. He thought of Emily back in the base, being lied to and experimented on. There probably was no fire, after all; they'd just torn off her skin or something so they could replace it. If she thought she wanted to stay there, she'd been tricked. "How do we do it?"

12

They didn't wait long. After an hour of planning and pie, Ty and Tren set off for the Agency's base. Tren got Ty to creep through the grass at one point to sneak toward a night-vision camera, and to put a special lens onto the front. That should take care of the infrared, he thought. Even so, they were still half a mile from the building when the guards came out. "This is a restricted area!" a megaphone voice boomed. A searchlight flicked along the ground. "Leave immediately, or..."

The light found Ty, making him stagger and cover his eyes. Tren came up beside him. They heard a guard curse. "It's them!"

As planned, both of them bounded forward. Ty barked and tried to grow, to make himself a big target. Meanwhile, Tren was the sneaky one for just long enough to tackle them. "Come on!" he bellowed.

Ty hurried after him. The dragon was back in quadruped mode with wings spread, jumping up and gliding back to the ground every hundred feet. They were almost to the entrance! Ty could hardly see the men chasing him as he ran. Everything was moving too fast. Guns went off. He felt something thud into his chest, glanced down, and saw that the bullets hadn't done more than muss his fur. Ty started to grin; Tren had said there were advantages to the Agency's work. He gave his best Tokyo-smashing monster roar.

There was a fence now, but Ty stomped it flat. Barbed wire tore bits of fur painfully from his tail. He tried to calm down and shrink when he reached the gymnasium doors, while Tren unlocked them with a punch of one sturdy fist.

It was quiet in there, compared to the commotion of guards and alarms going off outside. "This part's yours, kid," Tren said. "She's probably in here. Waiting." The dragon put his back to the wall and stomped the concrete, ready for the guards.

Ty was small enough to duck through the doorway. "Emily?" His voice echoed off one of the usual obstacle courses. Dart guns, crates, cameras, and other gear filled the whole space between him and the more secure areas below.

No one answered. "Doctor Gross? Miss Elu? Salt? I know what you did." Talking to the empty room made him remember that day in Cuba, and how the Agency's people had lied to him. "I won't do anything to you, if you let my sister go." Only because he and Tren had agreed, and because he didn't want to kill anyone. He thought of how his career might have gone, if he'd never looked through the files. The Agency had no problem with training him as a weapon.

There was a bang. Something bit him, hard enough to make him stagger. He jumped out of the way just as another shot went off, missing him. The bullet made his leg muscle seize up so that he stumbled and crashed into a stack of crates. A few hundred pounds of boxes clattered down onto him with pointy edges. Ty yipped, tried to shake the things off, and stopped when he saw Emily.

Ty stared down the barrel of a gun. Emily was fading in, shutting off her camo to become visible as a blur and then as her usual self -- except for the hunter's glare on her face. She was holding some kind of high-tech rifle from a perch atop another box pile. He could feel his right front leg bleeding, but that didn't matter. "Emily, it's me!"

"There aren't a lot of giant foxtaurs."

"Then let's get out of here." Emily was standing above him, not even bothering to look through the rifle scope. Her breathing was too fast for her to do any sniping. Ty studied her, trying to read her grim expression.

She said, "I already told you, I belong here. And you're trespassing."

The gun was a black eye staring at him. Ty shuddered, trying to keep still. "Did you not believe the file I showed you? These guys are evil!" There was her scent, the one he'd been missing.

She bared sharp teeth. "Shut up! I work for them. Get out of here or... or..."

"Or what, Emily? You'll shoot me like they shot Mom and Dad? Like all the other people they'll tell you to shoot next once you prove how obedient you are?" He wondered just how much the Agency had messed with her head, beyond the years of being a false family and pretending to be heroes.

"I was going to say, leave now or come back and do your job. We have orders! There are bad guys to go after with you."

"With me, huh? Do you care either way?"

Emily's ears were flat and her tail whipped back and forth, forcing her to change her stance atop the crates to keep steady. "Of course I do! You're supposed to be here, working with me."

"That's not an option. I'm not going back after what your bosses did. And I'm not leaving alone." Ty gulped; he couldn't handle this situation the easy way. It would be simple to grab her in one hand, to keep her like a caged bird and try to beat the craziness out of her. But he doubted that would work, or that she'd ever forgive him for treating her this way. "So, you have a choice. Stay with these guys who want you to kill for them. Soon they'll probably start you on women and children. That should be easy for you once you start by shooting me. Or, we'll get out of here together."

Emily's hands shook until she glared at them, forcing them to steady on the rifle. She raised it to her muzzle to look at him through the scope, making him a target instead of family. "That's not good enough! It's too late to decide."

Ty felt the wound she'd already inflicted on his leg. His shin throbbed, but it didn't seem as real as what was going on in front of him. "It's not too late. You've got a big fox and a dragon waiting to take you out of here. If that's still not enough, then go ahead." His muscles strained to make him leap out of there, to get away from the gun, but he hooked claws onto a heavy crate to keep himself still.

It was too fast to see, but Ty heard the shot. He hardly had time to flick his ears. This one didn't hurt, physically. He only sighed and sank a little to the floor. It really had been too late for Emily.

There was a choked-off scream behind him. He turned his head to spot Doctor Gross with a hole in his chest, dropping a huge crackling taser gun. He'd been standing behind Ty and a little to one side. The weapon hit the ground with sparks flying, and Gross fell over a moment later. He looked less pained than surprised, as though saying, "That wasn't what you were supposed to do, Agent!"

Emily looked away, crying. "Carry me?"

Ty snatched her up with one huge paw and ran for the exit. There were more men coming to fight, with bigger weapons. Ty shielded her with his body. When the crowd started to look ugly he threw her toward the door, underhand. But he made it a few seconds later and grabbed her again. Both of them were wide-eyed and looking everywhere for more enemies.

Tren the dragon shouted, "Focus! This way!" He led Ty away from the base with Emily clinging to Ty's back. Every step farther away, with Emily, made Ty feel a little taller.

The news vans were already streaming towards the scene, and the police, and the ambulances, and (Ty later learned) the trial lawyers. The Agency's people fell back, sinking home into the shadows rather than gun down the foxtaurs and the dragon in plain sight. Tren gave a bellowing laugh. "Should I stop by to pick up my last paycheck?" Ty looked back and saw the Agency's base like a toy, something he could kick over any time he wanted to. He might do that, someday. But not today.

13

The three of them were back at the restaurant, bandaged and woozy. The skunk was stuffing them with pie in between trying to fend off the reporters. "They'll probably burst through the door before long," he said, looking over one shoulder. "Are you up to talking to them?"

Ty sat with Emily. She was trying to smile, anyway. Ty looked up from staring into her eyes and daydreaming.

Tren got up and made for the kitchen, where he could escape through the back door. "I need to lay low for a while, if I can. You two are probably better off being seen at this point. You can't hide what you are."

"And what are we?" said Ty.

"Whatever you want to be. You both have that freedom now."

Emily looked up enough to say, "Thank you." Ty echoed her. Tren nodded, then crept out the back door.

Ty took Emily's hands in his and smiled. "You heard him. We can do whatever we want now."

"I only really know how to fight."

"No, there're other things we can do. And the first thing is to get famous, so that the Agency won't come after us again. Let's go."

"All right," she said, and stood up on four paws to walk with her brother.