A Fox in the Works
                I'm Going to Break the Cycle

                             By

                         Fox Cutter

05/15/2000:

I had finally gotten the children down for their afternoon
nap. They had all been fussy and it seemed like once one had
gotten to sleep another would wake up crying. The stress had
gotten to me, just a little bit, and my fur was on edge
along my neck and shoulders. I had taken a seat in the
kitchen, closed my eyes and wrapped my tail around my hips,
trying to compose myself.

What little relaxation I had was taken away by the sound of
the fold room door opening. I cracked one eye and lifted my
ears, but decided not to get up just yet. Anyone who knew
the code for the door was a friend of ours and wasn't going
to be a threat.

Santhara thought differently. She took a few steps out into
the hallway. "It's Sora," she said, drifting back into the
kitchen with me.

I gave her a short nod and brushed my paws over my hair,
flattening it down a little bit, I then brushed them over my
skirt. A moment later Sora came into the room. There was a
bounce in her step that caused her wings to flutter around
her back. "Good afternoon, Oriana," she said, smiling as she
saw me.

"Afternoon, yourself. When did you get back on planet?" I
asked. She had been gone for about a week now, off on an
assignment for the Hunters.

She dropped down in a chair, her bushy tail flicking as she
pulled her wings around her back, the tips folding down over
her shoulders to meet just under her neck. "Two days ago. I
just finished my debriefing this morning."

"How did it go?" I asked, making small talk. I wasn't really
interested at the moment, but I didn't want to just ignore
her. Instead I got up and busied myself making something for
lunch. There wasn't much to choose from, so I just settled
for some crackers.

Sora smiled. "It could have gone better. Four species, none
with wings, and all paranoid. They spotted me the moment I
arrived and didn't waste any time destroying my Matrix Chip.
I got lucky and they got sloppy, so I was able to get away.
Left a bit of a mess in my wake, but I don't think I hurt
anyone."

"At least you're alive and in one piece," I told her as I
sat back down at the table.

She nodded and flicked out her wings. "In one piece now, I
have a few new scars to show for it, but nothing that wasn't
treatable."

I nodded in return and tried to think of something to say,
but my mind was steadfastly blank. "I'm sorry, it's been a
long day. The kids are asleep and I think I might just join
them, at least for a couple of hours," I finally told her,
rubbing the back of my neck with one paw as the other stayed
in my lap.

Sora nodded her head and flexed out her wings slightly. "I
understand, I'll let you get some sleep," she said, then
stood up from her chair. She was about to say something more
when the fold room door opened a second time.

Letting out a sigh I stood up and walked to the hallway.
This time it was Jadith walking towards me, a PADD held in
her hand and a slightly annoyed look on her face. "Oriana,
is Fox in his office?" she asked as she joined us in the
kitchen.

"He's not here. Brian called in a favor; apparently he
thinks there's a fold on Velar and he wanted Fox to check it
out. He'll be back in a couple more days," I explained.

The elf sighed and placed her hand on her head. "Of all the
times for him to go jumping around the multi-verse," she
said, the rest of her words muttered under her breath.

I shrugged. "It's Fox, he usually reasonable, but he still
has his moments."

"I wish this wasn't one of them. We managed to pull some
information from Keller's computer. There are a couple of
addresses in Corbin that look like safe houses. I was hoping
to look into them today," she explained, offering out her
PADD.

I frowned a bit, but took the PADD from her and looked it
over. There wasn't anything that interesting on it, but it
did have the two address called out. There were some dates
further down in the file, including today's. "You think
Clark might be in one of these places?"

"We can hope. The next day that file lists is two weeks from
now. I would rather not wait."

Samantha reached over and took the PADD from my paw. I had
not seen the young woman come into the kitchen, and I had no
idea how she even knew to show up. That question was
answered a moment later when Rhea sat down next to me.

"There are enough of us here to take care of these places,"
she said, reading over the PADD.

The elf took the PADD from Samantha and gave her a critical
look. "This is official business. I have the authority to go
to these places and so does Fox, but not the rest of you,"
she said.

"So call in someone else. It's not like you don't have the
people," she replied, her cloth tail sweeping slowly behind
her, showing a touch of annoyance. My own tail was flicking
in much the same rhythm.

"I would like to take care of this myself. Clark is a large
enough problem that if the wrong people learned about his
being around, it would be on the news in hours. He's not a
popular person around here."

I frowned slightly, the memory of the Hammerheads jumping
through my mind for a moment. I shook it off and took the
PADD from Samantha, resolving to take care of this little
problem myself. "None of Jenner's men are local heroes," I
said as I looked closer at the addresses, one was on the
outside of town, the other was closer to the Marble Hall.
"Which one is more likely?"

Jadith look between the two of us and shook her head. "One
is in a residential neighborhood, it's generally older, with
a mix of species. The other is a rundown section of town, a
bit of a commercial slum. It's not the kind of place that
Clark would stay, he's a little too arrogant for that."

I shrugged and handed the PADD back to her. "You take the
house then, Samantha and I will take the slum."

The elf frowned and reached behind her back, pulling a green
apple out of the air. She ran it between her hands, bouncing
it from one to the other as she thought. "You don't have any
authority, and even if you found anything you couldn't do
something about it."

"If we find anything I will call you for help," I said.

A moment later I felt a bump against my leg. I glanced down
and saw Rhea looking back at me. Here ears were pulled back
slightly and her eyes were narrowed. <<I'll get changed,>>.
she said, then rose to all fours and walked briskly out of
the room.

"This isn't a good idea. We need someone with some sort of
authority going with you," the elf finally said.

"I might not be my husband, but I still have some
authority," I said.

Samantha chipped in with: "We can handle ourselves, don't
worry. We won't try to make any arrests unless we have to."

The elf looked between the two of us, and then let out a
sigh, "We'll have to check both locations out at the same
time. We can't risk someone at one calling the other. Just
don't do anything stupid," she said, finally biting into her
apple.

"I'll do my best. Break out the information I need. I'll be
right back," I said, then turned away from my friends and
walked towards the bedroom.

Rhea was coming out as I was going in. She was morphic and
dressed casually in one of Fox's t-shirts and a pair of ill
fitting pants that she had cinched tight with a belt. "I'll
check on the children," my some-times wife said as she
slipped past me, giving me a quick smile as she did so.

I took a moment to watch her walk away. Even in her baggy
clothing she was attractive. It was a bonus that she had the
same figure as Fox did. Part of me wanted to get the pair of
them in bed at once, but he wasn't that interested in it as
he saw Rhea more as a sister than a wife.

Stepping into the bedroom I went right for the dresser,
opening the bottom drawer and taking out the lockbox where I
kept my needler. Punching in the code I pulled the weapon
free along with the holster. With a quick move I pushed my
skirt down off my hips and strapped the holster to my leg,
right where the small weapon wouldn't be noticed. Once it
was secure I pulled my skirt back up, patting the fabric
down to make sure it was concealed.

I pulled the weapon free, opening the base to check the
cartridges that were inside. Three were empty, so I swapped
them out with some tranquilizers. The rest of the cartridges
were fine, and all lethal in one way or another. I locked
the base back inside and set the dial to one of the
tranquilizers, just to be safe. Tucking the weapon back into
the holster, I put everything else back in the lock box and
returned it to the drawer.

Upon my return to the kitchen, I saw that Samantha had the
same idea. She had her own pistol tucked into her pants at
the small of her back, her tail flicking in anticipation.
Santhara didn't need to get her weapon, there was hardly a
time that she wasn't armed.

"There's a fold about half a mile away from the address. Do
you feel safe walking?" Jadith asked as she handed me a new
PADD. This one contained both the address of the safe house
and directions on how to get there from the fold.

"They will be fine," my bodyguard said, her paw coming to
rest on my shoulder.

The elf looked up at the tigress and shook her head. "You
had better be sure. If anything happens to Oriana, Fox will
have my hide," she said, then glanced up at Sora.

"Let's not waste any more time here," the bat-canine said,
then started down the hallway towards the fold room. The
rest of us followed after.

Sora and Jadith went first, jumping through quickly enough
that I suspected Jadith had been to the fold before. I, on
the other hand, had to use a fold control to get where I was
going. Taking mine out I punched in the correct address and
stood back as the fold flared to life.

The three of us stepped through and came out between two
dingy looking buildings. The place wasn't really a slum, I
had seen and lived in one before and this place was a better
than that, but not by all that much. The streets were dirty
and what little traffic there was seemed to pass through
without looking around. There were a few business open that
I could see, but they were outnumbered by the closed
storefronts.

There were a few people on the street but they seemed to
avoid us, with a few casting dirty looks in our direction.
Just as I was getting my bearings a car pulled up next to us
and the window slid open. The driver was an older lion with
streaks of gray filling in swaths of his otherwise blue
mane. "Hey dear, how much for an hour?" he asked with a
knowing smile.

I heard Samantha grunt but I motioned for her to stop
whatever it was she was about to do. I took a few quick
steps towards the car and smiled to him. "Sorry, hon, we're
not on the clock today. Maybe next time?" I asked in a sweet
voice.

His face fell into a frown and his ears pressed slightly
into his mane. It seemed for a moment like he wanted to
argue but it didn't go that far. "I'll keep an eye out for
you," he finally said, then drove off.

"I'm not a whore," Samantha said as I returned to the group,
a look of disgust on her face.

I smirked slightly. "I am, but it's been a long time since I
worked the street," I told her, then glanced at the PADD and
started on my way.

"I still would have kicked his ass," she muttered softly,
then with a flick of her hand summoned up a cigarette,
lighting it with another flick.

"If he could find someone in a better part of town he would
have done so. It's best not to piss him off," I explained,
old memories coming back for a few moments. It had been a
proposition much like that one that had started my carrier
as a prostitute. Luckily I had gotten off the street before
things went bad. My mind flashed to what had happened to
Tammy, and I suppressed a small shiver.

We walked on in silence for a few minutes and the area
around us never got much better. We passed a few other
hookers, but none that I would bother with. They were all
too thin, with too much darkness around their eyes. I wanted
to help them, pull them out of the mess they were in, but I
doubted I could. You didn't end up in a place like this if
you could just walk away from it.

Even so, the idea of opening a house on Prid fluttered
through my mind, but I pushed it off. That was a crime here,
and if I got caught it would look just as bad for Fox as it
would for me. It was best to avoid the trouble, but I still
wanted to do something. I made my mind up to try and find
some way to help the women I saw, either help them get out
of the business, or get them to someplace that would just be
better for them.

Our destination was soon in sight. It was a small corner
market that had seen better days. The front of the store had
once been lined with windows, but every one of them had been
broken in the past, now leaving the store with a series of
hastily attached boards to block the holes. The door stood
ajar, bent in the middle by something that looked like a
boot print, and didn't seem to be able to be closed.

Samantha let out a soft groan and came to a stop, rubbing
the side of her head.

"Are you alright?"

She snorted and nodded. "I'm fine. It's just a headache,"
she said, then started walking again.

I followed just behind her, watching her start to weave
slightly as we neared the buildings. I was worried about
her, and reached out to place a paw on her shoulder. She
shrugged it off and took a couple of quick paces, but
stumbled on the curve.

She spun her arms around, trying to regain her balance as
she started to fall. I rushed up behind her, catching her
before she hit the ground. She grunted at this but didn't
push away as she got her feet back under herself. "Are you
sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine!" she snapped, grabbing the side of her head
again, her eyes seemed a bit unfocused.

"You are not fine," Santhara said in a stern tone.

The human shook her head and pulled out my grasp. "It's just
a headache, I've had them before, but I'm fine," she said,
almost growling, her tail flicking rapidly behind her legs,
matching the look of anger on her face. With a gathering of
her resolve she stood upright and pushed open the door,
steeping inside the building.

She only got a single step inside before starting to wilt,
crumbling down onto the floor and landing with a dull thud.
Santhara and I were at her side in a moment. Her skin was
pale, almost white, and sweat was gathering along her brow
and rolling down over her cheeks.

Without saying a word, I slipped my arm under hers and my
bodyguard did the same on the other side. Together we lifted
her up and dragged her back outside. The fresh air seemed to
help her as the color started to return to her skin.

"Are you going to be okay?" I asked.

Samantha took in a deep breath and rubbed her forehead with
both hands. "It felt like I had been hit with a hammer, and
I've been hit with a hammer before," she said, her words
coming out slowly as if the effort of speaking hurt her. Her
tail was hanging limply against her legs.

"We need to get you to a hospital," I said.

She looked up, her eyes flashing. "We need to check this
place out first. I'll be fine. I'm already feeling better."

"You are looking better," Santhara said, then bent down to
take a closer look at our injured companion.

Samantha snorted and pulled away, then started back for the
building only to stop after a just a step. Very carefully
she started walking backwards, the life coming back to her
tail as it started to flick in curiosity. She stopped, and
then took a few steps towards us, wincing with each one.

"It's the building, there's something inside that's giving
me the headache," she said with a perverse look of joy on
her face.

I looked at my friend, then back inside the open door. "Then
you stay out here, we'll go inside and look around," I said,
pulling my needler free and resting my thumb on the firing
stud.

A flash of anger crossed her face, but she still nodded.
"I'll make sure no one gets out this way," she said, pulling
her gun free in the process.

She was still going to take a trip to the doctor when we got
home, but I wasn't going to tell her that until we were
there. Instead I stepped back into the building, looking
around the gloomy front room. The only real light came from
the boarded up windows, but it was enough to show what bad
condition the place was in.

The floor was littered with various debris: broken glass and
furniture, with cans and bottles mixed in. There was fire
damage in one corner, with soot reaching up the wall and
covering most of the ceiling. What had once been shelving
was piled up along another wall, each piece broken and
smashed. Two doors led out the room.

Santhara went to check out one and came back a moment later,
her nose scrunched up and a look of distaste on her face.
"That was once a bathroom, and the fact that it doesn't
appear to have worked in a couple years hasn't changed how
it's used," she said.

I nodded and started for the other doorway. It lead to a
back room that was in much the same shape as the front.
There was an old mattress with partly exposed springs in the
corner, a blanket covering the top of it. More cans were
piled along the wall. Most of them were food cans and all of
them had been opened.

My bodyguard walked over to the pile of cans, poking over
them as I went to the mattress. I pulled the blanket off
only to see how stained it was. Grabbing the edge of it I
lifted it up, finding nothing at all under it.

"It's a ripple," Samantha said, her voice strained.

I turned to look at her, finding her resting her weight on
the door frame. She looked nearly dead, her face almost
white and all of her skin beading sweat.

"What is?" I asked, hurrying over to her.

"A ripple, but it's not moving, it's here in this room," she
said, her eyes dilated, giving her a panicked look.

Santhara looked around the room, then pulled out her own
portal controller. She looked at the screen for a moment
then nodded her head. "There is a fold here, but it's
spiking like crazy. My controller is throwing errors just by
being in here with it."

Something was very strange, ripples always moved, that was
what made them ripples. If it wasn't moving something had to
have been holding it in place. "Are you sure it's a ripple?"
I asked.

She didn't respond, she just looked past me.

"Have you ever heard of anything that could do this?"
Santhara asked.

"No, but I've seen a device that could make a fold out of
nothing. If you can do that you can hold a ripple in place.
If it's in this room, so is whatever is holding it here," I
said, starting to look around, trying to find some sign of
technology.

My bodyguard looked around, her eyes narrowing briefly
before looking down at the floor. It was covered in wood
where the main part of the building had been cheap tile.
"Under the floor," she said.

I nodded and we both started to look around for some way to
open the floor. I debated going onto my paws and knees
before my eyes returned to the mattress. I decided that it
was as likely as anywhere else. I walked over to it and
flipped it up, taking a closer look at the floor under it.
It looked solid enough, but just to be sure I gave it a
stomp with my barefoot. The boards flexed under the impact,
then bounced back.

Throwing the mattress clear I did drop to my knees, feeling
around the floor with my fingers. There was one board that
seemed to move when I pushed it. I grabbed at the edges,
sinking my claws in and pulled at it. The board protested
for a few moments, then came free in my paws. Under it I
could see the soft glow of an orange light.

I grabbed more boards, pulling them away until I could see
what was under them. It was a simple box with a few buttons
and dials, all labeled in a language I didn't understand. A
trio of thick cables ran under the floor to the center of
the room.

Taking a guess I reached down and pressed the switch next to
the glowing light. The light blinked out and Samantha let
out a gasp.

I spun around to look at my friend. The color rushing back
to her skin. "It's gone," she said with a smile.

"So is anyone who might have been here," Santhara replied.

Samantha righted herself and walked across the room, looking
down at the device under the floor. "Why would anyone want
to hold a ripple in place?" she asked, her tail starting to
come back to life.

"If you can find a way to use it, it does give you an
unregistered and uncontrolled fold onto Prid," the tigress
replied.

"We need to call Jadith and tell her about this, and then
tell Fox. He has a friend who might be interested in this
thing," I said, putting my needler back into its holster and
brushing the dirt from my skirt. "And you're going to see a
doctor when we get back home," I told Samantha as we started
out of the building.

She gave me an over exaggerated pout. "Yes, mother."

I was going to say something in return, but was cut off by
the sound of an explosion echoing from the other side of
town.

* * *

The explosion came without warning, throwing Sora high into
the air before she ever realized what had happened. The
scalding heat of it blasted over her body, singeing her fur
and burning the inside of her ears. Flaming pieces of debris
pelted over her back and her wings as something sharp ripped
across her thigh.

She tumbled through the sky, the air around her black with
the smoke as more debris crashed into her. Acting purely on
instinct she snapped her wings open, the air catching in the
membranes and slowing her fall. The whole of her weight was
forced onto the muscles on her back which started shaking in
pain.

The air started to clear as she glided on her wings. She
felt a twist in her stomach as she saw that she was over a
hundred feet in the air and circling around a pillar of
smoke that had, just moments before, been the home she and
Jadith were investigating.

It had been only the greatest of luck that she had even
survived the explosion. Where Jadith had taken the lower
level she had taken the upper, and had been on the balcony
the moment before she found herself in the air. She looked
down at the house finding that very little was left of it
that wasn't on fire or larger than her wingspan.

Sora's more pressing concern was not the explosion, but her
current location. She knew that she was too high in the air
to fly for more than a few more seconds. Already her wings
felt like they were going to tear away from her shoulders.
She pulled her wings closer to herself and angled towards
the ground. It was going to be a hard landing no matter how
she landed, she just hoped she could reach the ground before
her wings failed her.

Time seemed to crawl as she descended, the pain arching over
her back and sides. Her whole body burned both inside and
out and her ears buzzed, but there was no sound, even when
another explosion ripped through the remains of the
building. It wasn't as strong as the first one but it still
sent debris high into the air. She tried to evade the flying
debris, but couldn't move fast enough. Her body was peppered
with pieces of debris that cut deep into her skin, points of
fire blooming over her chest and arms.

Other pieces hit the membranes of her wings, ripping neat
little holes though them. Any one hole wouldn't have caused
anything but more pain, but there were too many of them.
With a sickening feeling they started to rip under the air
pressure, the holes growing larger until her wings were torn
to shreds. Without any lift she plummeted the last thirty
feet to the ground.

Sora let out a scream as she crashed into the street below,
feeling her body give way under the force of the impact. The
pain rushed over, her growing past what she thought she
could take and forcing her mind into the black.

The pain was too great to allow her to stay unconscious for
more than a fraction of a second. It drilled through her
mind and pulled her back to the surface. Her eyes opened,
looking out onto a street and the debris around her. She
tried to move and let out a cry of pain. Her arm was still
intact, and it seemed like it was the only limb in one
piece. She tried to lift herself up but pain arced over her
body.

She could see the lights of emergency vehicles in the
distance, but couldn't hear them. She turned her head to
look back at the house. A part of her hoped that Jadith had
survived, maybe catching a ripple in the first moments of
the blast, but she knew that it was highly unlikely.

Closing her eyes she finally looked away and then down at
herself. She looked worse than she had imagined. Blood was
pooling under her on the ground, one arm was bent in ways it
shouldn't have and part of one leg bone had pushed through
the skin. From the rest of the pain in her body she
suspected she had even more damage inside, all in addition
to her loss of hearing.

She curled up slightly, trying to block out the pain, trying
to stay alive until help came, it was doing so that she
realized she could feel nothing from her lower body. She
arched her head back and tried to wiggle her toes, flick her
tail, or do anything at all, but it was all for naught.

Suddenly she felt hands on the side of her head, holding it
in place. She looked up to find an emergency worker standing
over her and another beyond him, their vehicle a few feet
away. He was saying something to her, but she tried to shake
her head to show her lack of understanding.

The man talked with his partner who pulled out a needle.
Giving up trying to talk with her they took her unbroken arm
and injected it into her. She felt warmth radiate for the
injection site. It made her feel very good before she
slipped back into the darkness, hoping that she wouldn't
stay.

-----

This story (AFiW #510) is copyright 2007 by Fox Cutter.
Hardcopy reprints limited to one per person, all other
rights reserved. This story may not be distributed for a fee
except by permission of the author, and this copyright
notice may not be removed.