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Nobody's happy to be working over the holidays. Matt, in particular, isn't happy with this 'snow' thing currently attacking Boulder, Colorado. The red wolf will need to be taught a lesson. Fortunately, that's in the cards...

Here is the Christmas Story for 2016. You know what to expect by now! It's some nice, good-natured dog smut to warm your hearts and... well. Whatever else :) If it sounds like I'm writing from experience... *coughs* Mm. Yes. Anyway, this story is for all the people who have made this year absolutely fantastic and who I am utterly blessed to be on the same planet, in the same slice of time, with. Thank you so much for being the wonderful people you are :).

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

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"The Most Wonderful Time of the Year," by Rob Baird

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"You look ridiculous." That was the first thing Matt McKinney heard,you look ridiculous, and had he not felt ridiculous, too the red wolf might have tried some kind of protest. As it was, he didn't really see the point in arguing.

He still glared at Tammy Paz, on principle. Snow sprayed from the bag of pastries he thumped on the table before the ocelot, and the box of coffee that followed. "You're welcome," he said.

"Maybe it was a compliment?"

Matt ignored her and started undressing. First the gloves, then the scarf, then the parka. Then the windbreaker, and then the hoodie: the office was warm; the snowflakes had already melted. At last, finished, he dropped into his chair.Ergonomic, my ass. His back ached. "Where are we at?"

Pete Cioffi seemed to have been focused on his Macbook, earbuds firmly planted, but a rabbit's ears were awfully sensitive. He popped one earphone out, and flashed a smile. "You want the bad news, the worse news, or the_really_ bad news?"

"Oh, fucking hell." Matt rubbed the bridge of his long muzzle, still wet from the snow outside. "Whichever comes first."

"Start with the bad news," Tammy suggested.

"They like the slideshow."

I'm being set up, the red wolf realized, but asked anyway: "How is that bad news?"

"They want more of it. They say it should run for at least a minute now."

Oh. Is that all? Well, that could be worse. "Not a problem. I wrote it to be flexible. Just give me which ever ones you want and I'll add 'em in."

Pete grinned, and pointed down the table to a scowling wolf, staring with laser focus into his own laptop and stabbing the keyboard every few seconds. "Take it away, Timmy!"

"Don't have any more," the wolf growled.

"I thought you said you had two memory cards full?" Matt asked. Tim Dunn was their photographer. He could be a little prickly -- for some reason he was awfully sensitive about his job -- and Matt could already see the hackles coming up. "Did something go wrong?"

Tim jabbed his keyboard several times in heavy, irritated succession. "It was a huge room. In the dark. When they wouldn't give us a press pass to get in early without the crowds. And they wouldn't let me use my flash. You. Have.Everything salvageable."

"Twelve shots," Pete reminded them.

Matt looked over his shoulder at the corkboard studded with their project plan. The card with 'slideshow' written on it had been in the 'finished' column when he'd left for coffee. "Great. There's worse news?"

"They're not happy with the budget," Tammy said, "but I'll handle that. They say we should've delivered last week." The ocelot giggled when she saw the look on Matt's face. "Yep."

Tammy had told the team when they started that the project would be difficult. Their client, a big northwestern tech company, wanted a kiosk built for a trade show so they could show off the image-recognition AI they'd been working on. The show was in early January. They'd given the brief just before Thanksgiving.

At first the client just wanted a tabletop for some drones to land on. Then Microsoft had launched that fucking huge touchscreen and they decided the table should be 'interactive.'What if, their representative had asked on a conference call, we used it to show some videos and things like that?

No way, Tammy had mouthed to their manager.

But Christine, their manager, was under pressure to get her books into shape by the end of the fiscal year. So Chris had ignored Tammy and said: "We'll take a look." That was December 5th. The deadline was the 16th. They'd all still been in Berkeley.

Now it was the 21st. They were not in Berkeley.

They were in Colorado, at the office of the vendor they'd contracted to build the kiosk. Against all odds, the kiosk itself was done -- six thousand dollars over budget, but it was done. In the time that it had taken to build, the project scope had changed again.

That sucks, the kiosk designer had said, on a Monday that seemed an awfully lot longer than two days ago. And then, sympathetic but not that sympathetic, he and his team had gone on vacation.

Matt spared a second for a helpless glance at the code on his monitor.Build finished with 0 errors and 9 warnings, it said. The warnings were all unimportant. It was supposed to be a good sign. He was supposed to be done. "You said there's even worse news?"

"The forecast calls for more snow tomorrow. They might start canceling flights outta DIA." Calling this 'worse news' referred to the bizarre pipe dream that they might leave Boulder in time for Christmas. That, in fact, they might_ever_ leave. "Tammy said if Tim and me..."

"You're leaving us?" he asked the rabbit.

Pete looked to Tammy for support, and Tammy shrugged. "If this is signed off on, all they have to do is touch up the brochure. They can work remotely for that. Tim already had to push his flights back twice, and..."

Matt sighed. He couldn't argue. Tim wasn't flying back with them to California; he was taking some time off in France, and plenty salty about how much of his vacation had already been sacrificed.He's earned it, I guess. We've been riding him pretty hard.

They were all being ridden hard. That was life at the agency, particularly the team Matt worked on. Tammy Paz and her crew specialized in making complicated technology understandable to everyday people. A lot of their work involved trade shows; it meant periods of quiet punctuated by weeks of panicked energy.

Their client, for example, was working on real-time image recognition and processing.We can take a live feed from a camera-equipped drone and tell you what it's looking at, they said. What does that mean? Tammy asked. The ocelot was smart, but she knew when things weren't as obvious as a bunch of programmers thought.

The technology could look at a crowd of people, count how many there were, and estimate where they were going. A shopping mall owner could analyze foot traffic, or a city government could predict where street layouts and traffic lights needed to be changed.

"Or," Matt had suggested, "they could really do a number on watching protestors."

"Hush," Tammy had said.

In the end, because their client was in love with drones, the kiosk design used drones. The drones lifted off and provided an analyzable video feed. In the original demo script, a computer showed a graph of the results.As you can see, there are 65 people around the booth, and five of them are predicted to be walking over here now. Look, there they are. It was a simple demo script.

Too simple.

Now they synthesized the video feed from the drones on the fly, using their client's image processing to identify fixed objects -- signs and other booths -- and present a three-dimensional render on a huge, interactive touchscreen. The demoer could tap on any individual and the screen would show where they'd been and where they were likely to go.

Matt had to admit it was fairly impressive, and he was happy with his work. Of course, up to that point, it was all hypothetical, based on sample video streams provided by the client's engineers. The drones were the responsibility of another company, two employees of which had been similarly shanghaied and had set up camp in a corner of the same design studio that now served as Matt's prison.

One of them made her way over now, giving Matt a little wave. "Got a moment?" They were both shepherds, he thought, and both engineers. Matt figured them for a couple; they hadn't protested being stuck in town, at least.

That part was kind of unfortunate. Lynn, a short black-and-tan dog with excessively thick fur, had a cute smile and a readily wagging tail. He liked her company, even if she always seemed to be in_far_ too good a mood. "What's up?"

Lynn held up a little box, half the size of her already diminutive paw. "Want to test this. I_think_ we maybe have it licked."

"Licked, huh?"

"Like a candy cane," she insisted, winking. When he didn't take the bait, she poked the red wolf's shoulder chidingly. "Oh, c'mon, Mr. Grinch, it's the holidays." The broom-wielding snowmen on her aggressively woolen sweater seemed to be making the same argument.

"People aren't supposed to work on holidays," he felt he had to point out. They weren't really so much on holiday as they were being taunted with the prospect of work-release. The red wolf turned to his computer, and checked to make sure he'd deployed the latest build. "What's your IP?"

"10-10-10-90," Lynn told him, and leaned on his shoulder to watch the results. "Good?"

"Connected, at least. Yeah, I'm getting data." Still leaning on him, she held her gadget up in her left paw, tilting it back and forth slowly. Numbers raced down his monitor. Now it was his turn to ask. "Good?"

"Mmph."

"Guessin' that's a 'no.'"

"Pause it. Can we see the log?"

He did as he was told, letting his eyes glaze at the reams of numbers. "This is like... half a megabyte..."

"Yeah."

"We were only running for thirty seconds."

"Yeah," Lynn repeated, holiday cheer momentarily suppressed. "Can I? Want to filter it a bit." She pointed to the keyboard, and he scooted back for her. He hadn't decided what was cuter about her, the fluffy black fur and perky ears or how quickly she code-switched from_oh, c'mon, Mr. Grinch_ to grep -E A3 "(err_orient)((3|6)$)" log.txt. "Oof."

"So much for filtering." There was a lot to scroll through. "What even is this?"

"Throws an error when the gyro mismatches what the computer's predicting. This is the error margin, this is how long it takes to correct, and this is how long since the previous error. See?"

"No," he admitted.

Every frame, she explained, the module made sure it was acceptably close to what its control software predicted. If they mismatched, the software sent a correction. If that took too long, they would be out of sync at the_next_ frame and the whole mess would start all over again. "The drones are supposed to be high-precision. They update so fast you're basically... you're getting OR errors, these orientation-resolution errors where the slow sample rate is aliasing position errors into existence."

"Can't you increase the time between frames?"

Lynn's muzzle briefly conveyed the same sense of horror Tammy's had, every time their boss agreed to change the scope of the project. "No... not really. We customized this firmware back in the lab. And by 'we,' I mean the drone team."

"Let me guess. They're already on holiday?"

"The software's supposed to be running on dedicated hardware with an RTOS. We were told it would be. Nobody said it needed to run on Windows 10 with... whatever embedded mobile damned -- darned --_gosh-_darned -- processor this is..."

"If it helps," he offered, "we weren't even told it would_have_ software."

She stepped away from his keyboard, sighing heavily. "So much for licking it. Back to the drawing board."

"You have a plane to catch, too?"

"Dave and I, yeah. There aren't a whole lot of flights to Raleigh. Oh, well." She patted him on the shoulder comfortingly. "We'll get through this."

Four hours later, a pile of discarded bags from the burritos they'd had delivered spoke to an abject failure to get through much of anything at all. Tammy's phone had been chirping about its battery status for half an hour before the ocelot finally, listlessly, plugged it in. "Maybe they'll call and say we're all fired," she said.

"Don't tempt me. We're all on at-will contracts." Matt couldn't tell if Pete was being serious. "Did you get any feedback on the new designs?"

"Nope." Tammy shut her eyes, taking a mindful breath that spoke to the effort of maintaining her composure. "Okay. Guys. It's 10:30. Let's see where we're at. Pete?"

The rabbit waved his paw over an array of index cards like some particularly low-rent magician. "Wireframes are done. User flows are done. All up to Matt. Until Seattle tells us to start from scratch, I mean."

"Matt?"

"The stories above the line are done. I made the changes Pete wanted for the map graphics, and I redid the transition animations. I coded the new UI for their press demo thing, too."

"It's ready to ship?"

The red wolf shrugged. "Right now it's called 'fucking dumb press demo thing.exe'. Your call."

Pete laughed, and Tammy had to work on suppressing her tired smile. "C'mon, Matt. Change it. We're professionals. Some of us. What about the new designs?"

"Not yet." He hadn't even written an index card for it, let alone any of the code. "I was waiting."

The ocelot looked at their corkboard. "Right. Tim?"

The black wolf raised his eyes to look at her, and nothing else. "Tam?"

"The slideshow?"

Without moving his head or changing his expression, he spun his laptop around. A picture occupied the entire screen; the contrast had been pushed up; smears of light in the blurry darkness made the shadowy figures seem even more ominous.

"That's horrifying, Tim."

"Welcome to my world."

The ocelot grimaced, picked up her phone, and went off to make a phone call -- back to agency headquarters in Berkeley, Matt assumed. "How bad is it, really?" he asked the photographer.

"She hasn't asked me if I can fix it in Photoshop yet. So it could get worse."

Matt felt a little sorry for the guy. He was a fellow wolf, after all, with a wolf's sense of pride. He was also the most junior of the team -- he came from a good agency, but he seemed to feel like he had something to prove. "Maybe she won't?"

"If I'd known they were going to use these again, I would've done things different. I just...fuck." The long days were getting to all of them. The long days, the constant demands -- the snow, the fucking snow...

"Tammy understands," Pete spoke up. "You check the flights?"

"Still on.If US-36 stays open. Have to leave by two, though."

"You'll make it."

Matt had tried to sound hopeful, but the other wolf clearly wasn't buying it. He fiddled with his computer, and then turned it back around. "Maybe like this?"

"It's not better in black and white," Matt admitted.

Pete was more blunt: "It looks like the_Blair Witch Project_."

Matt heard the door of the meeting room open, but Tammy went to the office's kitchen first. The ocelot returned with two bottles of beer in each paw. "So," she said, and set the bottles down on the cluttered table. "Here's the thing."

"The thing," Pete said.

"Pete, we'll wait to hear feedback. Matt, no point in coding anything until we_have_ that feedback, so..." She shrugged. "Tim, I sent a couple of the photos over to Chris and CCed Big Boss. It kind of seems like the color stuff is the only problem. Why don't you just fix it in Photoshop?"

"Oh for the love of --"

She slid a bottle down the table, so expertly that it clicked softly against his computer and went no further. "I'm kidding. I overheard ya. We'll just tell 'em it can't be done. Which means that for_now_, we might as well take a break. You've earned it."

Matt scanned the label. Local beer, from wherever Fort Collins was; some kind of craft IPA. Pete, having taken a drink, was having the same reaction. "Lessee. Notes of blackberry and lemon accent this bold statement of radical hoppiness. How was that?"

"Should be a copywriter," Tammy said. "Matt? Your take?"

"It's beer." He didn't taste any blackberry.

"He's a programmer, Tammy." On the other side of the table, Tim had downed half his bottle on the first swig, and took another drink before clarifying. "They live on vodka and Mountain Dew."

"The '90s want their joke back. Five-Hour Energy and gin, thank you very much."

"Prove it?" Tim finished the beer and went to the kitchen to prowl.

The design studio had clearly been assembled from some kind of San Francisco template, delivered no doubt via Amazon Prime. Half of it, the working area, was all open tables with plenty of electrical outlets and ethernet cables. The other half had a kitchen, a pool table, some bookshelves, and a collection of comfortable furniture -- two armchairs and a long sofa -- posed around a low, stylish table.

Matt imagined some kind of Mandatory Employee Fun Hour: the first Wednesday of every month they'd have drinks and play Catch Phrase or something like that. Tim skipped games and went straight for the hard liquor, setting a few bottles down on the table and calling the others over to join in.

Nobody protested. They all needed the chance to get away from their computers. Matt was tired enough to wave away the bottle of Tanqueray that Tim held up, but he took a second beer and settled in one of the nice, plush armchairs. "I could fall asleep here. You know?" It was almost big enough for two people, and definitely soft enough for a good nap.

"Couple more days, guys." Tammy poured herself a little helping of Southern Comfort, and dropped onto the couch. She held her cup aloft. "To making it through Wednesday."

"To Wednesday," Pete Cioffi agreed. He clicked his beer against the ocelot's cup, then joined her on the sofa. "So much for 'hump day.'"

"Maybe. You know what humping is, Pete?"

"Trust me, Tim, I know what humping is. Somebody's lonely, eh?"

Tim took it in good-natured, or tired-and-drinking, stride. "Out of the gutter, rabbit. Nah, it's a real word. Say you have a train --"

"Humping_and_ a train?" Pete looked very skeptical.

"A_freight_ train. In a switching yard, you have a line of cars that you want to split up into different trains. Rather than waste time having an engine shove 'em around, they have this hill you push the line of cars up, and let them roll down one by one. Then you just have to put them on the right track and they have enough momentum to lock into the train that's already on that track. The hill is called a 'hump.'"

Matt wasn't certain the wolf was telling the truth. Had Pete said it, he would've known the rabbit was just making shit up for laughs. "For real?"

"Mm-hm, he's telling the truth," Tammy said. "I learned about it on a contract with CSX. You see these trains with signs on them saying 'Do Not Hump,' if they have fragile cargo. I thought it was pretty funny, but the CSX guy hinted they'd all heard the joke before."

Tim continued: "Think about it, though. Somebody wants to do as little work as possible, so they just ram shit together and hope it doesn't explode or derail? Sounds pretty accurate,ne c'est pas?"

He hadn't seen the chaos of a train yard before, but from the description, at least, Matt had to admit the photographer had a point. "Guess so."

Pete Cioffi didn't seem to care about the story. "When did you start speaking French all the time, anyway?"

"I'm not speaking French. It's just an expression."

"Yeah, but you're always doing that.Excusez-moi and sacre bleu and escargot and all that. Aren't you from Bozeman? Practicing for your Marseille friend, I guess. How's her English?"

Tim's grin was clearly designed to show amusement and fangs equally and simultaneously. "It's fine, but I might as well learn French, right? You know, Pete, I'd use the_other_ language you rabbits understand, but you're not my type."

"Get a few more in you and we'll see about that."

A new voice interrupted. "Office Christmas party?"

Matt leaned back until, upside-down, he could see Lynn's face. "I guess."

"Join us," Tammy ordered. "Both of you. If you drink."

Lynn took the space next to Matt, although it took a bit of contorting for him to be able to make room. Her partner went for the sofa with Pete and Tammy. He was a tall shepherd, he asked to be called 'Dave,' and it was only through an idle LinkedIn search that Matt learned he had a PhD in artificial intelligence. "I never_used_ to drink," the man said.

"Now?"

Dave looked over the bottles, picked the Jim Beam, and filled one of the red plastic cups half full. "Cheers." The toast did not sound particularly heartfelt. "How are you guys doing?"

Nobody answered with anything but a blank stare. At last, Tammy Paz laughed. "You want to know something awful? Not our worst contract."

"Not for us, either. Got pulled into one for ITS last September. They said it would take two weeks. Simple visualization of traffic through the city. When I asked for the routing graphs, they sprang it on us that they didn't actually have any maps. Or traffic. Or data."

"So you took the option to back out of the contract, of course," Tammy said.

"No, I booked a flight to Melbourne."

"Yeah." The ocelot didn't sound very surprised. "We decided to come here the same day we flew out. God, I hope it's worth it. They better use the_fuck_ out of this kiosk."

"Hell, they better_keep_ it a kiosk," Pete said. "I'm half expecting to get here tomorrow and they tell us it's supposed to be a moving table thing you control by interpretive dance."

"Ask Lynn about 'visibility,'" Dave suggested. "That's fun."

Tammy turned to the canine girl. "What about visibility?"

Lynn narrowed her eyes. "They have the craziest... mrf!" She shook her head, scowled, and then plucked the beer from Matt's paw, taking a drink before he could protest.

"Uh."

"I need it more than you."

"But..."

"Please?" She dipped her muzzle and turned soft, soulful puppy-dog eyes on him over her glasses. "Thank you," Lynn said, preempting any further protest, and took another sip. "First they wanted four tiny drones. Then they said that wouldn't be visible enough, so they wanted two_big_ drones. Then they said that was too... uh... they had this dumb way of putting it."

Dave gave his partner a hand with the explanation. "'Dramatic,' was their word. The big drones reminded them of_Terminator_. They called it Predator, but they meant Terminator."

"Yes!" Lynn huffed, and satisfied her growl with another, longer drink. Matt felt something cold on his paw, as Tammy obligingly handed him a fresh bottle. He sipped it sympathetically as the dog went on. "So we went with a smaller model. That wasn't visible enough, so we added lights. That was too distracting. Lights went inside. Now they're too dim."

"Jesus Christ," Matt muttered.

Lynn shook her head, and slumped against him. "The things we do for love..."

"You love the kiosk?" Pete Cioffi asked, raising an eyebrow.

She thought it over. "The things we do for a paycheck," she clarified, putting the exact same intonation on her breathy, sing-song sigh. "Though it_is_ cool. Dave can show you some neat visualizations from the neural net."

"The upside to the changing specifications is we're managing to do a lot of training on new scenarios. So when they ask us to add a third drone, we'll be fine."

"Don't even_say_ that," Lynn gasped. "Dave!"

"There's still time," the shepherd pointed out.

Lynn lifted her bottle up, found it empty, and took Matt's again. "Just borrowing it," she promised him, before a long drink during which she kept glaring at her partner. She returned the bottle, tilting her head back to look at the red wolf with a grin. "Told you."

"I guess I should be finished, anyway. Right, Tammy? We have a call with Boston, I think."

The ocelot's whimper was a very telling confirmation, indeed. "Why'd you have to remind me?"

She stood and stretched, though, and when Lynn let him up Matt did the same. One by one, the others followed, donning the suits of thick-insulated armor that would shield them against the snowstorm outside. Tammy's team was staying at the same cheap hotel a block away. Dave and Lynn had snagged an Airbnb. "Dave doesn't like motels," Lynn said.

"The Internet's awful," Dave added. "And we use a lot of it. Bit further away, but... well, you do what you have to..."

"Stay warm, wolf." Lynn gave Matt's side a pat he could barely register through the parka.

Red wolves, after all, had not been meant for the cold. 'Cold' in Austin meant 40 degrees. It didn't snow in Berkeley, either, and Matt was perfectly happy with that. Four layers of clothing atop his fur wasn't enough to keep him warm even on the short trudge to the Best Western.

The 'Do Not Disturb' sign had worked well enough to keep the maid at bay, which meant the room was toasty.Internet be damned, Matt thought to himself; who had time for that? He barely managed to get his teeth brushed before toppling into bed.

A demanding buzz from his cell phone startled him awake. For a discombobulated moment he was able to indulge the hope that, perhaps, they_had_ been fired. But it was just the alarm, set as late as he dared to still have time to make it over to the design studio's office.

In the car ride from Denver International, as the four of them realized just what kind of weather they'd gotten themselves into, Tammy swore over and over again that the hotel was "right around the corner" from the office where they'd be working.

Really, guys, it'll take a minute. You don't have to worry about the cold. I don't like it either! I'm from Portland, remember?

Short as the walk was, Matt had already begun to regret the entire concept of winter by the time he made it to the door. He thumped the matted snow from his shoes and ducked inside, hoping that frostbite was a problem that had been solved by modern medicine.

He wasn't the last one in; Pete had yet to show up. Tim's fur was still damp where it had been exposed to the snow. Tammy's was dry, and she looked to be fairly composed. She'd even brought in coffee and croissants. Matt poured himself a mug. "Do you_ever_ sleep, Tammy?"

"If I told you once," she answered, "I've told you a thousand times. The creative industry runs on cocaine."

"It's seven in the morning." Technically, it wasn't even that; they had a few minutes to go.

"Start of the day in Boston," the ocelot pointed out. She set a speaker up on the desk, plugged it into her phone, and dialed them in for the meeting. Pete Cioffi joined them exactly on the hour, knocking the snow from his boots and tossing his jacket in the general direction of the coatrack. No sooner had the rabbit taken a seat than the speakerphone chimed to announce the start of the meeting. "Hi there! It's Tammy, out in Boulder!"

"Hi, Tammy. Will and Toby here in Boston. How are you guys?"

"Doin' great!" the ocelot answered, as Tim rolled his eyes and Pete buried his head in his paws. "Got the whole team here. Let's talk about these wireframes!"

"Cool, cool," Will said over the phone. "I want to talk about the wireframes, if you have a moment."

"Yeah, we've got everybody here and --"

"You there? Did we lose you? Tammy?"

"I'm here. We're here. Hello?"

"Did you -- oh! Sorry, you guys were on mute."

Pete raised one paw, formed it into the shape of a gun, and pressed it to his temple. Tammy set her muzzle into a forced grin. "That's fine," she told the other end of the line, through gritted teeth. "So have you had a chance to look at the PDF we sent over yesterday?"

"Yeah, we're looking at it now. It looks good. We just have one comment? We think that the blue you're using for the header feels a little too old, you know?"

"Old?" Tammy asked.

"Yeah. It's not really giving an open feeling, you know? You know?"

Pete opened one eye, and growled under his breath into the table. "It's their own fucking brand colors. From the guidelines they_insisted_ we use."

Tammy reached over to pat him consolingly. "It's, ah. That's the color from your brand book, Will. We can use another one, but --"

"Oh, yeah, but, well it's -- I just think we... what did you say, Toby? You said --"

A different voice cut him off. "It's really more -- can you guys hear me? You can hear me?" Pete pantomimed pulling the trigger, and went sprawling on the table, tongue lolling to the side of his buck teeth.

"You sound great, Toby," Will said.

"Okay, so I think what we're going for is... is that color, it really feels too... clinical."

"Cold," Will added. "Brr."

Tammy opened her mouth to answer, and didn't seem to know what to say. Toby stepped in to fill the void. "We want something that's a bit less IBM, a bit less Nokia, a bit more Tesla. You know? Think_Tesla_."

"Red," Pete croaked. "They're red."

Matt watched the ocelot take two deep, silent breaths, and then put the grin back on. "So... I think I follow, but again... this is your company's color. Your company's color is blue. It's a nice, techy color. Tesla is red, it's different, it's --"

"Yeah, but what we're saying is --"

"Think Tesla." One of the two men had spoken, the other had interrupted, and Matt could no longer tell which. "Can you do that? Otherwise, we're really happy with the layout."

"Peter Cioffi, our designer, he's telling me we can try some options." Pete had done nothing of the sort and, hearing his name used in that way, lifted the middle finger of his limp paw. "But we'll really need your signoff this morning, okay? I need to stress the deadlines. Things are getting really tight."

"Sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah."

"Great. So if that's it, then --"

"Oh, one more thing." Every head around the table turned to stare with the same baleful expression at the speaker. "I noticed you still only have the twelve pictures in the slideshow. I thought we agreed that we'd increase that, right? Because it's only thirty seconds?"

"We didn't agree, no," Tammy said cautiously. "Your request was for a thirty-second loop."

"We really need it to be a minute."

"If we need to more work on this, we'll need to discuss the budget. When I talked to --"

"No, no, no," the man on the other end jumped at the word_budget_. "Not more work, just make it a minute long."

Tammy's smile was, by degrees, turning into more of a pained grimace. "I can't promise anything."

"It should be easy. Just add more pictures. Anyway, great work, keep it up, guys. You're the best."

"Thanks," the ocelot said, reached to her phone, and ended the call. Even as her finger lifted from the screen, her sharp claws came out.What. The. Fuck. she mouthed.

"Kill me," Pete growled. "Actually kill me. Tesla? Do they_want_ it red? I can make it red! Sure, every color in their guidebook is a shade of blue, but who cares?"

Tim had come away from the call no more enthused. "I'm gonna miss my plane." His voice was flat, too dejected even for Pete's anger. "I'm gonna miss my plane and spend Christmas here."

"Let's see." Tammy was trying to stay calm; the extended claws and the gentle twitching of the ocelot's tail gave her away. "Let me call Berkeley. Maybe if we..."

The wolf shook his head softly. "It doesn't matter. Even if we_had_ more pictures, it took like three days for them to sign off on those twelve. And we don't have them, so..."

"Berkeley," Tammy repeated, grabbed her phone, and went off to find a private room.

"Boulder," Tim said, to nobody in particular. "Boulder, Colorado. I mean, it's no Marseille, but... hey... at least we get a winter fucking wonderland out of it. My girlfriend won't mind, I'm sure. We're doing important things here."

"She'll understand. Didn't you say she had to cancel coming out to Cali back in September for some work thing?"

Tim flicked his eyes over to the rabbit. "The irony isn't lost on me, Pete."

Matt had been, officially at least, left off the 'pile more work on' shit-list. He wanted to help. "Can I ask a dumb question? I'm not a photographer, but..."

The wolf shrugged. "It's fine."

"Your pictures are, like, twenty megapixels or something. The slideshow is only six hundred by eight hundred. If it's scaled down, would the quality be okay?"

Tim looked beaten, more than anything else. "It isn't that. It's the colors, the lights -- you could_retouch_ a few more into shape, yes. If you had a week. Fuck. Ugh. I guess I do, don't I? What about you, Matt? Is the code ready?"

"Until they think of something new. The UI stuff is fine; I'll take Pete's stylesheets and implement them now. That won't take long." He looked at the corkboard over his shoulder. "Then it's just the drones, but they gave us the API last week and I'm ready whenever they are."

"That'll be neat. I saw them testing one at lunch yesterday. Your girl is really good with it."

"She's not --"

Pete, who had already started work, abandoned it and pulled out his earphones. "Hey, yeah, what's up with that, anyway?" Matt shot him a look, but the rabbit didn't seem to notice. Or, and more likely, he was trying to get his entertainment where he could. "I don't even know where you got_time_ to hit that."

"It isn't like that."

Tim, too, seemed to want the distraction. "It's like that," he said in a flat stage-whisper from the side of his muzzle in Pete's direction. "His ears are back, see?"

They were, and the red wolf was having a time lifting them up for some reason. "It isn't. It's not a thing. It's just a... friendly we're-all-in-this-together sorta... sorta... I dunno."

"Uh huh."

"You hear her accent, right? She's Canadian or something. They're just polite."

"Uh huh," the rabbit repeated, as if he'd made some kind of point with the utterance. "Probably wants to know if it's true what they say about Texans."

Matt bristled, although he wasn't completely sure why. The rabbit was from Fort Worth, himself. "The hell do they even say about Texans? Good God, Pete, you're bent." Pete shrugged, and popped his earbuds back in. Tim kept smirking. "What do you want?"

"Nothing, nothing."

"Slideshow, then," Matt decided, calling up the program on his computer and motioning for Tim to join him. "We have work to do. You want to go over this?"

Tim poured a cup of coffee and ambled around the table. He crouched down next to his fellow canine, staring at the screen. "So, okay..."

"This the sequence you sent me. One. Two. Three." One at a time, he clicked through the photos.

"All I'm saying is, if you're stuck here and you're_not_ chasing that girl, I will deck you."

The red wolf rolled his eyes. "You need a better hobby."

"I_need_ to be on a plane. We're both outta luck, huh?"

Matt decided ignoring him was the best policy. "What if we delayed it from three seconds to six?"

"The original was ten. It feels too slow. The idea with the slideshow is it's supposed to be vibrant and eye-catching, like there's a bunch of stuff going on. Ten seconds, and it's more like a...really lame screensaver, instead of one that's just a little lame. They only want a little lame."

"If we randomized the sequence, it would be less obvious how many pictures there were."

"If it's worth trying."

"Or... or... don't shoot me. But. You can zoom in on these pictures, yeah? The quality's okay?"

The photographer wiggled his paw. "Quality's a dimensionless number. They're good enough."

"So then what if we just cropped these pictures to get more little pictures out of them?"

"Then you run into a different problem," Tim said. "They're shitty. Not like I think I'm an_artiste_, but a press conference filmed in the dark is not super interesting. But... if you cropped it, can you, like, move around and stuff?"

"Animate it, you mean? Go all Ken Burns?"

"Exactly."

Matt broke the problem down in his head and didn't see any immediate obstacles. "Sure. Tell me the path you want to move along, and..."

"Different ones for each picture?"

"Sure, why not?"

Tim gave him a thumbs up and scooted back to his laptop, some semblance of his mood restored. When Tammy came out of her call, fifteen minutes later, Matt had already mocked up the basics of what he'd need to do. It felt good to have problems to work on.

"Team," the ocelot raised her voice. "Updates. You want updates?"

"Are they good ones? How Tesla are they?"

"Pete, you poor soul. Fine. I called Berkeley. Chris called Big Boss. Big Boss called Seattle. We all called each other. Words were exchanged. Here's our new plan. Final design screens go to Boston and Seattle at lunchtime, with feedback from them by four this afternoon. That is their swear-to-God last chance for changes. We make final delivery tomorrow at noon, with a live stream of the kiosk. Good?"

"They said 'Friday noon' last week," Pete pointed out.

"They're running out of time, thankfully. Pictures for the slideshow will_also_ be reviewed at four. If they don't like them, they give us new ones. But, since we're charging them for the pictures, it would be nice if that didn't happen."

"Matt and I have an idea for that."

"Great. Now, that's the bad news. Good news: they're approving a new SOW for all the new work and Chris was so happy she's approved double time for everybody, including this weekend. Think of it as a holiday bonus."

Tim coughed, and asked the question on all of their minds. "Does that mean we're_here_ this weekend?"

"Hopefully not. Pete, Matt and I have tickets on a flight back to SFO Friday evening. Tim, you leave Denver at 8 AM, connect in Detroit, connect in Amsterdam; land in Marseille at 11-something Saturday morning. You can dial in to the test from Detroit. Merry Christmas."

The wolf's eyes had gone wide. "Oh, thank you."

"De rien," she answered. "Now please, let's make sure we deliver."

With escape dangling as a carrot in front of them, nobody was about to argue. Writing up a quick script to animate the pictures in the slideshow took less than half an hour. Tim took a seat next to him and -- any teasing about Lynn completely forgotten -- went through the pictures one at a time, pointing out where he wanted the movements to start and stop.

That was done by ten. He walked over to the kiosk with Tim and Tammy, to see how it looked live. Tim plugged his USB drive in, they moved the pictures over, and both canids watched to see how Tammy would take the result.

"Nice." She nodded to the two in turn, genuinely impressed. "I'm sure they'll like it."

Matt thought so, too. The effect itself was simple, but Tim had a good eye for the best parts of every photo, and his guidance for the movements showed an artist's sensibilities. "Give him the credit," Matt said. "Can we send it over for review now? Just in case?"

"Sure," the ocelot said. The pair went back to the table; Matt hung behind, to make sure the animation was as polished as it could be. The computer that drove the kiosk was underpowered, and being asked to do a lot of work.

Lynn padded over and stood next to him, looking at the image on the screen. "It's good?"

"As good as it's going to be, for now, sure. How are you and Dave?"

"Same! I wanted to talk to you, though. Got a minute? Can we do another test?"

He nodded. "You think you have it licked again, eh? Like a candy cane?"

To his curiously mild surprise, Lynn snapped an actual candy cane into her paw from where she must've been concealing it in the sleeve of her sweater. She reached up, and tapped his muzzle with it gently. "Yes, I have a candy cane. Yes, you're very predictable. Yes, I think I have it licked. Test."

She twirled the candy around in her finger and dropped it smartly into the neck of her shirt, and they returned to his laptop so that he could start up the remote connection and his debugging software. "Ready. Same IP? We're... we're... wait-for-it... live. Took a bit."

She waved the module slowly, twirling it in figure-eight patterns and aerobatic loops. "Pause."

Matt halted the connection and started to bring up a terminal window. Lynn's gasp interrupted him. "What?"

"Not the test! I meant yours! You have nice paws." She let him stay bewildered for a few seconds before snickering, shouldering him playfully. "Okay, okay, I meant the test. Here we go." The_grep_ command was still saved in the console history; a few keystrokes was all it took to bring back the results. "Hey, see?"

"No errors? Not bad. How'd you do that?"

"You don't want to know." With the way she was leaning on him, she couldn't turn fully to stare at him without her muzzle getting in the way. As it was, she stayed a little close for comfort. "This time I'm serious: you don't want to know.I don't want to know!"

"It works... it can't be that bad..."

She raised her eyebrow, trying to look severe. The attempt failed. "I meant it."

"Come on. Hit me."

"You know how Santa Claus was your dad all along? And how the letters you wrote to Santa Claus went to your dad all along? And he ate the cookies you left out for him?"

"You're ruining a lot of things for me all at once. But... sure."

"Okay so. What if your dad was actually a repurposed ASIC that Dave reimplemented eighty percent of the communications stack for the control software on to mitigate the latency in the uplink between you and Santa Claus by buffering all transmissions and programmatically removing spurious orientation-resolution errors on the downlink side?"

Matt blinked. "What."

"Yeah."

"You're proxying all the commands between here and the drone?"

"Yeah. And the ASIC decides what to send back to you, and what to tell the drone you said."

"Jesus."

Lynn grinned, and pushed herself upright. "You were happier when you thought it was elves, weren't you? Well, and I don't blame you. But it wasn't, we've got this, and now all I have to do is... uh. Make the drone work."

"Shouldn't you have done that... already?"

"I didn't know the final specs until yesterday, and I didn't know if the controls would work until now. I think it won't be too much work, though."

"You can get it done?"

"Of course! Don't you worry. Thanks for your help, Matt." She gave him an unsolicited, untelegraphed peck on the cheek and then skipped off back to her corner.Trying to embarrass me, he realized -- and his flattened ears proved she'd done the trick.

Only Tim was watching, but the way he rolled his eyes and shook his head, smirking, kept Matt's ears pinned for a good ten minutes while he stared at his laptop. He told himself it was a good opportunity for writing some new tests into the code. That was boring, it was formulaic, and it looked like hard work that nobody would want to bother him from.

Eventually, they did anyway. "Lunch time, maybe," Tammy said. "Anybody feel like lunch?"

Pete raised his hand without taking out his earbuds or looking up from his computer. Tim Dunn nodded. "Starving. I mean, we've been here since seven."

"Where's everybody at? Matt, the software?"

"Waiting for feedback, but other than that, done."

"Pete? Tim?"

Their client had requested a small brochure to go along with the kiosk. They'd been given the text and photos, but since some of the images in the document relied on the kiosk everyone had agreed the layout could wait until the end. "Almost done," the rabbit answered. "Maybe an hour; hour and a half."

"Can you get this, Matt? Just run to that sub shop, that's all."

Even if the prospect of going outside grated, Matt didn't bother arguing with Tammy. His part of the project was done; he could be spared. "Sure, yeah. Hey! Lynn, Dave -- I'm going to go pick up lunch. You two want anything?"

Lynn looked up from the dogs' desk. "Hey, that sounds like a plan. Mind if I come with?"

"You sure?" Dave asked.

She nodded, already crossing the room to the coatrack. "The print won't finish for another hour, anyway. Might as well make ourselves useful, right?"

Even though she'd started getting dressed after him, she finished first -- of course, all she had to do was throw a peacoat on over her sweater. Thick fur, apparently, counted for a lot. Matt braced himself, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open to the winter outside.

"Scarf too, huh?" Lynn fell in next to him; another inch of snow had fallen since that morning. "It's a good look."

"It's from Target," he admitted. "I didn't know how cold it was going to be."

The dog laughed. "Not very. I thought wolves were supposed to be hardier than that!"

"Red wolf," Matt corrected; at least she hadn't mistaken him for a coyote. "I'm unadapted. It's never like this in Austin."

She reached her unmittened paw out, running it through the drift of snow atop a newspaper box. "That's too bad! It's beautiful -- did you see the sunrise this morning? Gosh, it made me wish I had a camera."

"One designed for harsh conditions, maybe."

"This? This is_warm_. You thin-blooded southerners... sheesh. First time in the snow?"

"Not my first, no. Second, I think. I have to say I'm not a fan." Lynn, for her part, didn't even seem to notice the flakes drifting down on the perfect triangles of her perky ears. "But fine. Where are you from? What..." He adjusted his scarf, which was starting to trap the moisture of his breath so it froze when he breathed in. "What arctic wasteland?"

She laughed, as though it was perfectly normal for her black and tan fur to be disappearing beneath a covering of frosty white. "Hardly. You want to know?"

"I want to know what it's like north of the Wall, at least."

"You have to promise not to laugh, though. No, I mean it!"

"Fine. I promise."

"Fargo."

"Like the movie?"

"Yes. But it's a real place, too. A real place with block heaters."

"Block heaters?"

She nodded, and gave a quick toss of her head to clear the worst of the snow from it. "For your engine block, so that it starts in the morning! Otherwise, sometimes it gets so cold that it won't work."

"I know the feeling."

"Wimp." She grinned, despite the accusation. "It's good you're a red wolf, Matt; you'd make a bad Lapphund."

"Is that what you are? I thought you and Dave were shepherds."

"Dave is. I'm a Finnish Lapphund, except that -- since I was born and raised in Fargo and all -- I'm not really very Finnish. Just North Dakotan. So you don't ever leave the tropics? Not even for school or vacation?"

"Berkeley isn't exactly tropical -- but no, I avoid the cold if I can. None of this... winter wonderland stuff. And I didn't go to school."

"No?" She pulled her phone out quickly to check where they were on the map. "Just on the other side of this next street. You didn't go to school?"

"For a year, at UT, but the company I did my internship at hired me after my first summer. Pure computer science wasn't my thing. I got bored."

Lynn pushed the button for the streetlight, looking up and down the mostly bare, slushy asphalt. "Not sticking yet," she said offhandedly. "So there's that. But -- huh! Were you one of those kids who got in trouble for hacking his grades in high school, then?"

He had to smile at the thought of it. "No. My parents would've_killed_ me if I'd gotten into any trouble like that. I never got into any trouble -- never even got a teacher's note."

"Straight As?"

"Not quite. School didn't hold my interest well enough. Dad..." The light changed, and he watched Lynn hop over the worst of the slush in the gutter. Matt used his longer stride, instead. "Dad was good about that part... especially when I started taking on side jobs coding. He's a geek, too. Are Lapphunds?"

"The opposite.I got into mischief. But I had good grades! Scholarship and everything!"

"So you settled down."

She leapt up onto the sidewalk and spun to look at him, eyes a-glint. "Does it look like it? I guess I'm kind of settling down, now that I have a full-time job and an actual topic for my dissertation, but settling is overrated. Look at that, huh?"

He followed the way she was pointing. In the afternoon light, the cold air gave the white-framed cliffs of the Boulder Foothills a knife-edged sharpness, before they demurely receded into the ghostly pale of the low clouds and still-falling snow. "Pretty," he said. "It looks a little like_Skyrim_."

"With an HD texture pack? Maybe. But it's real! And so beautiful... I think I could live here, if I learned to ski. Can you ski -- no, I guess not. You're missing out, Matt. That's fun, too! Oh, winter..."

She seemed happy about it, as only a northern breed could. Of course, her glasses fogged up the moment they entered the sub shop; it was, for a moment,her opportunity to be made ridiculous by the cold. "I bet in summer the mountains look nice and you don't have to deal with that."

"Or I could stop being lazy about my contacts. I'll bring you around yet, just you wait and see."

He put in their order to the bored teenager behind the counter, took a number -- the restaurant was nearly empty, but the teen insisted they needed the number -- and found a booth to wait. Lynn settled on the other side, and lifted up his gloves one at a time for inspection. "Also Target. I figured if suffering was my lot in life..."

"You poor guy. What about mulled wine and eggnog, Matt? And hot buttered rum? What about chestnuts? What about snowmen and stuff like that? And a healthy fireplace! And --"

"And not freezing your nosepad off?"

"Or emptying a bottle of Kahlua in your morning coffee. You just need help to keep your nose warm, wolf. Winter is why we invented good company, or... or at least delicious things to bribe them with. Sub sandwiches don't count. Pies -- ooh, pumpkin pie would hit the spot right now, wouldn't it?"

He found that the most curious part of her enthusiasm was how genuine it appeared to be. No sense of irony informed her sweater, which was different from the previous day's item and featured a bright green Christmas tree replete with metallic threads sewn in for tinsel. No qualification preceded her ears perking at the sound of 'Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas,' or the way she hummed along with the melody.

The only problem was that it complicated her attitude towards him. She_was_ quite affectionate, and he wouldn't have minded reciprocating... but maybe that was just her personality? She is spoken for -- right? She has to be. And Dave seemed like he didn't know about her going along for lunch...

And... really, what are you even thinking about? You're both here to get a job done, that's all. When it's over, she'll go back home, and you'll go back home, and that's... that. Like you have time for anything, anyway? Look how hard it is for Tim and his partner. She probably just likes poking fun at you, the same way Tim and Pete do. That's all there is to --

"Order 5!"

They got up from the booth, and each of them took one of the heavy brown bags they'd been given. "Merry Christmas," Lynn told the cashier; he nodded, disinterested, and ignored the pair while they started walking to the door. "And the scarf goes back on. You and your scarf." She shook her head with a teasing smile. "You want to get some paw-warmers, too?"

"They make those?" She reached over and, before he could pull his glove on, squeezed his paw snugly. "Oh."

"For real, they make little chemical packs you can use -- geez, do you really not know_anything_ about winter?"

"I know lots about_winter_. It's when Christmas is, it's when Star Wars movies come out -- I just don't know much about... okay. Here. You want to hear a true, really sad story? My first job at this agency was a Flash ad they did for some public lottery in... I want to say Chicago, maybe? They wanted to make a game sorta thing where you'd shovel your sidewalk and as you cleared it, you'd occasionally find money. Because, you know. Lotteries."

"Uh huh..."

He held the door open for her, and followed the dog out into the brisk -- meaning_god-help-us-all-it's-really_ -- cold of the Boulder afternoon. "So I heard 'shovel,' digging up treasure... I didn't know there was such a thing as a snow shovel -- I figured people just scooped it up like dirt or something."

"I'm pretty sure I see where this is going..."

"Pete -- that's, uh, Pete Cioffi, the rabbit on our team. Brilliant designer; kind of a character. He didn't tell me anything about 'snow shovels' until after the first client meeting when I showed a demo of... well... basically, somebody digging up snow with a garden shovel. He thought it was real funny."

Lynn coughed, obviously trying very hard to keep a straight face. "You thought..."

"Look, it never even occurred to me! I heard 'shovel,' I heard people talking about 'a foot of snow' -- how was I supposed to know you'd invent some... weird... flat... square thing for it? Does that_sound_ logical? 'Oh, we call it a shovel, but it's actually more like some left-over sheet metal with a handle.'"

"And... snow plows... snow blowers... uh. Wow, that face you're giving me, Matt. Eesh. Well, so_that's_ a snow plow there, right?" The dog pointed to what looked like a wheeled bulldozer.

"But that just pushes it to the side! How is that helpful? Couldn't you melt it with fire?"

With a look of growing incredulity, the dog rubbed behind one of her ears with her free paw. "Studded tires and chains? Drawing a blank?"

"I don't live in a place where your tires need bondage gear!"

"Oh, my sweet summer child," she said. "Hey -- when do I ever get to use a line like that for real? But honestly, I have so much to teach you..."

"I'm not certain I want to learn. I went a blessedly long time without knowing how much a parka rustled when you wore it. How much it cost, too!"

"Sure, if you want to be_negative_. But then I have to think about this poor guy who's gone a -- a blessedly long time -- without ever having a snowball fight. That's real simple stuff."

"Am I missing out?"

"Let's find out!" Lynn bent over, setting aside her bag for a moment to scoop snow into her paw and press it into a neat, practiced ball. "See? It's simple."

"Lunch, though..."

"Wouldn't take long!"

"But I'm hungry."And I don't need anybody trying to make me even more cold. "Aren't you?"

The Lapphund sighed dramatically, and threw the snowball at a tree a little ways ahead of them. It hit dead on, exploding in a flurry of snow that caught the afternoon light with all the brilliance of a sparkler on the Fourth of July. "You're not getting out of Boulder without one, Matt."

"We'll see..."

"I'm not kidding! That's a promise."

'Threat,' he felt, would've worked too. They returned to the studio, and he availed himself of the opportunity to focus on lunch, first, and then on whatever work remained ahead of them.

The 'Finished' column on their project planning corkboard started to fill up quickly. Tammy began taking the index cards off, instead. It added a bit of clarity, too: they could tell at a glance how much there was to do.

Plus, there was the undeniable psychological benefit of seeing the board empty. He was reviewing it, looking over the handful of tasks assigned to him, when it -- and the rest of the office -- fell into abrupt darkness.

"What happened to the lights? Did we blow a fuse?"

"Beats me, Matt." Pete got up, went to the window, and looked around. "The traffic light's out, too."

"Maybe it won't matter," Tammy said, checking her phone. "We're just waiting for feedback, and I still have service, so we'll be fine. Until we freeze to death." The ocelot shared Matt's thin blood and warm-weather constitution.

The red wolf took his seat and went back to work: his laptop battery was full, and he had a couple of minor bugs to fix that didn't require a network connection. "I hope there's a 'hazardous working conditions' clause in our contract..."

Lynn had wandered over from their workbench in the office corner. "You Californians are so silly. You'll be fine. This building has great insulation! Just take a moment to enjoy the snow! Gosh, a little power outage and you guys start going all 'To Build a Fire' on us."

"We can't all be from the Yukon."

She rolled her eyes at Pete, and tapped him on the nose with her candy cane. "It might help. Of course, Dave is the same way. He turned down a conference in Helsinki this year 'cause it was in February."

"Maybe I just don't like Finnish food," Dave called over from their desk. He was still on his laptop, working. "Ever think of that?"

"Perkele! Sisu, Dave," she called back.

"Yeah, that's the worst. I hate the way they make_perkeley-sisu_ over there."

She laughed, shook her head, and ambled over to Tim and Matt's side of the table. "I expected better from wolves, but_no_..."

"Hey, don't blame me. That's all on Matt -- I'm from Montana."

"Really?" She was by Matt's side, but leaned against his chair to cock her head at the photographer. "So you know how much fun winter can be, right? You need to make Matt understand that, too!"

"You'll notice he's getting on a plane to Marseille."

Lynn swiveled around, staring at him, and then turned back to glare at the black-furred wolf. "I feel betrayed..."

"It wasn't because of the snow, if that helps. I just have better things to do over there. If the governor pardons us in time for me to make my flight..."

They had to wait for any word for the governor. In the dark, lit only by the laptop screens, they did what they could as the afternoon wore steadily onwards.

"Got an E-mail from Will," Tammy announced finally, just after four in the afternoon. "The subject is 'review' and the message is... uh. 'Let's talk ASAP, call me.'"

Pete Cioffi groaned. "Oh good. Am I a hooker? Is this a Tijuana brothel, Tammy? Because we're getting fucked and not making nearly enough for it."

"I'm sure it's nothing." She plugged her external speaker in, waited, and sighed. "Right. No power. Let me borrow a USB port, Pete."

The rabbit shoved his laptop towards her with a dramatic huff. "I feel like I'm giving you the bullet for my own fucking firing squad."

"I'm sure it's nothing," she repeated.

"Should've known you'd do me like this. We've known each other all these years..."

"I'm sure it's nothing. They'll be happy. They just want to wish us a Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Whatev -- hi guys! This is Tammy; how are things over there in Boston?"

"Oh, they're pretty great. I've got Toby with me. We're just about to head out for the day. It's starting to snow -- looks like a white Christmas; isn't that something?"

The ocelot's bubbly voice showed none of the caution of her expression. "Yep, coming down here, too. We actually lost power a couple of hours ago, so we're in the dark. Getting ready to break out the eggnog as soon as we hear back from you on the designs." The electricity came back even as she said it; she held her paw up, so the team could see her crossed fingers.

"Right, you wanted feedback. Anyway, Toby and I had a talk and I think we want to go back with the blue color you used originally. The new layout is good, but can you make it in blue? It's one of our brand colors."

Pete pumped his fist in silent triumph. Tammy gave a quiet, relieved sigh. "We can do that, yes. Is that it?"

Matt was neither triumphant nor relieved; he was distracted, trying to log in to the kiosk computer to see if he'd managed to push the latest versions of the software over. The connection kept timing out.Give it a moment, he told himself. The computer, and the office network that connected them, needed time to start.

He unplugged his laptop and went over to the kiosk, which was still open from the morning's work. He could see lights on inside, and he heard running fans. The top of the kiosk was made of glass, connected to a projector on the inside. It worked the same way as any monitor did.

The company's salespeople would be able to see data from the drones right on the screen. They would also be able to see their slideshow. And a map. And the company website. And a video of their CTO talking, because Tammy and Pete hadn't been able to persuade them that the image of a silent head talking from the middle of a sheet of glass was unsettling.

Not that it mattered, because Matt was seeing something completely different:NON-SYSTEM DISK OR DISK ERROR. REPLACE AND PRESS ANY KEY WHEN READY.

The red wolf bit his tongue. The UI software was on his laptop; that could be redeployed quickly. But the vendor had described a host of other software running atop it for the touchscreen and the lights and buttons on the kiosk itself. He didn't have those.

Footsteps. Lynn padded over to join him. "You look like you've seen a ghost," the Lapphund said. "It can't be_that_ bad, can it? 'Non-system disk or' --"

"Shh!" He cut her off before she could say anything that might be overheard. "I couldn't log in to it from my computer. I was hoping it was the network interface."

"You tried restarting?"

"Not yet. Disk errors aren't really something that get better when you restart, are they?" All the same -- crossing his fingers like Tammy had -- he knelt down, reached into the guts of the kiosk, and held in the reset switch.

He could see the results from Lynn's expression even before she said it. "Same deal."

"Fuck.Fuck." Matt pulled the power cord from the kiosk, counted to thirty, and plugged it back in. "This could be a problem."

"Maybe the boot sector got corrupted. I wouldn't_think_ that would happen... does Windows have some kind of a recovery console you can use?"

"It doesn't recognize the disk," Matt pointed out. "We'd have to... I don't -- I don't even..."

"Calm down," she urged.

Although the failure of the kiosk technically put them all in the same boat, he felt a particular ownership for the software -- without which there was no evidence of his agency's involvement at all. At least the drones_looked_ cool. "How?"

"Well..."

"If this is fucked, we..." The red wolf tried one last reset, aware that he was beginning to panic. "I can't fix this! I don't have an image for the disk -- even if we could -- God_damn it_, the snow! Don't think UPS is gonna be able to get us one here next-day -- how am I --"

The next thing he felt was her teeth. She'd bent over, getting closer to his level, and silenced him by biting gently on his ear. "Calm down. Let's take it a step at a time."

He clenched his jaw. "Okay."

"If it's just the boot record, the rest of it might be okay. Is it a SATA drive? Probably is, right? I have an adapter we can use. You want to try that?" The sound of her voice was remarkably soothing, considering her teeth were still resting lightly on his ear.

"Yes."

While she went to get it from her toolbox, Matt did what he could to_actually_ calm down. He shut off the computer, disconnected it from the power strip, and slid the hard drive free from its quick-release bay.

Lynn sat next to him, legs crossed, and balanced her laptop on her knees. He connected the adapter, waited for her to plug it in, and hoped for the best. "It's not asking you to format the disk -- that's good."

"See?" She gave him a pat. "Looking up already. We can run a check on the disk and repair it, and then it's all good. Right?"

"Right." He was being more hopeful than anything else.

Tammy's shadow falling over them didn't help his apprehension. "Hey, Matt. They signed off on everything, so we're ready to go for the test tomorrow. Good work."

"Thanks, Tammy."

"Do we know how we're going to want to stream the test?"

"Webcam," he said. He looked up at the ocelot, trying to divide his attention between her and the disk repair utility Lynn was running. "That way they can see the drones."

"Can we show the kiosk screen, too? It's just a desktop, right, so you can use, um, VLC or whatever you used last time?"

"Depends. Bandwidth. We can try."

"Good, good. What are you two doing now? Setting up the drones?"

Lynn spoke for him. "Checking the hardware one last time, since it's going to Las Vegas and we're not going with. At least, nobody's told me I have to yet."

"Nice. Smart thinking." And then the ocelot left them in peace.

"Thanks."

"I wasn't_lying_. I'm a good dog, Matt. It's already found a couple of errors. Must've been simple, after all... we just got unlucky. Soon as it's finished, we'll be right as rain. And then you can enjoy the afternoon! It's still snowing a little bit..."

"You're not going to convince me to like the snow as much as you do," he warned. But his mood_was_ improving. She'd been right to talk some sense into him. He needed that.

"There. Done. Now we'll just eject it, and... here you go! Thank me later."

Matt slid the drive back into place, reconnected the electricity, and pushed the power button. He heard the fans spin up, and the beep of the system speaker.So far, so good. He got to his feet -- and then immediately dropped back down. "Nope."

"But the drive seems to be okay. Maybe it's that SATA port."

"I can try another slot," he said. There were three others available in the bay. They went through them one at a time; nothing helped. "If we're_really_ lucky, maybe it's something wrong with this riser. If we're lucky."

Without saying a word about luck, Lynn pressed a screwdriver into his paw. He dismantled the drive bay, pulled it out, and found a free SATA port to connect the drive to. It didn't help. Lynn cocked her head, scanning something on her laptop's screen. "This mainboard has two controllers. Did you connect to an orange port?"

"Yeah."

"The orange ports are on the same controller as the drive bay. There are two legacy_green_ ports -- you see them? Try that?"

"Trying..."

Nothing. They'd been at it for two hours. Tammy ordered pizza, and Matt was only dimly aware of hearing himself say that anything would be fine, he wasn't really hungry, still just going over that hardware integrity check...

Lynn flipped her laptop on its back and unscrewed the cover. "What are you doing?"

"Try the one from this computer. It's our Windows test machine. We know it's good, by definition."

"Yeah..." But if it worked in the laptop, it definitely didn't work in the kiosk. "Nothing. So it's not a problem with the drive -- or not just the drive. If it's the mainboard, though... shit, I dunno what we're gonna do. We could try an IDE disk, but I don't have one..."

"This motherboard doesn't have an IDE socket, either. The DVD drive doesn't work, right?" Lynn was busy reassembling her laptop, continuing with her debugging even as she did so. "Dave has a version of Linux that will run off CD if you've got a working DVD drive."

"Yeah, but it doesn't have one. Just the SSD. I think they just cloned the OS onto it, or they used some kind of USB media. We could call and ask, but what are the odds they'd even pick up?"

Lynn nodded.Her computer, of course, turned on without a hitch. "I checked, and there's no way we can get a replacement mainboard before Monday. They don't have them in stock at the Microcenter on... Quincy, wherever that is, either."

"Probably up in the mountains or something."

She patted him on the knee. "Probably not, wolf. Why don't we do this, okay? We can order a replacement mainboard and hard drive and you can try again when they come in. Ship them to Vegas or Berkeley or wherever this big thing goes next -- you've still got time to work on it."

He wasn't exactly in the mood to be consoled. "That doesn't help, though. We have the demo tomorrow morning. If they don't see a working booth..."

Matt could see the realization dawning on the Lapphund's face. She blinked, and chewed on her lip, starting to share his nerves. "Right... that's a really good point..."

"So we're fucked."

"It's an HDMI interface between the computer and the monitor, yeah? So let's set up a virtual machine and just... you know... fake it. I'm sure they're marketing people; they won't know the difference."

"That'll work with your drones?"

Her ears started to go back. "Maybe. Well. No..."

"So."

"Yeah. We're screwed."

Tim Dunn walked over to see what was going on.At least it's not Tammy, Matt thought. I can maybe talk my way out of it with Tim. "Hey, Matt. Hey, Lynn. You've been over here a while, huh?"

"There might be a slight... problem..." Lynn started.

"When we lost power, the computer --"

The black wolf's eyes filled with panic, and he raised both his paws. "No -- hey, no, I don't want to hear about it. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. No problems! I just came over here to get my jumpdrive. Keep your problems --"

"Your what?" Lynn asked. Her voice was flat.

"The stick with my photos on it. I'm getting my stuff together."

Lynn looked at Matt. He looked at her. "Aw, geez..."

"The USB ports are behind a little hatch," Matt said, enunciating every word. "Under the two dials on the far side. It should be plugged in there."

Tim walked around to the other side of the kiosk, nodded, and held up the drive. "Yep. Got it. Weird place to put 'em."

"It was supposed. To look. Clean," Matt explained, gritting his teeth. He reached out, and pushed the power switch for the computer. "Tim. Can you tell me what you see on the screen up there?"

"Uh. Black screen, buncha white text. White text. Windows logo and these spinning dots..."

"Yes!" Lynn was a squeal and a blur of black and tan fur as she leapt for the red wolf, pouncing him to the floor. "Yes! Matt!"

Tim had jumped back, and he looked momentarily bewildered -- from what Matt could see of him, now that his vision was mostly full of ceiling and Lapphund. "Uh. Something I should know about?"

"N -- mf!" Lynn was grinning at him, and her nose on his made it a bit difficult to talk. "No -- it's fine, Tim."

"Should I leave you two alone?"

"It's fine, Tim."

"You guys." The black wolf shook his head, and wandered from the kiosk. "Tammy, you don't have a spare leash handy, do you?"

His voice trailed off as he walked away and Matt's concern dissipated. At length he pushed Lynn off, and sat back up. "God damn it." With the stress, even his elation proved to be a bit difficult to articulate. "God... god damn it..."

"We should've checked," Lynn pointed out.

"The USB ports are hidden. They're just there for debugging. Easy to overlook."

"Still should've checked." She stood, holding out a paw so that he could get back to his feet. "Does everything look okay on the screen?"

"It looks fine. Perfect. Oh, I did_not_ need this excitement..."

Lynn made a show of dusting off his shirt with her paws. "A little excitement never hurt anybody. When do you suppose we would've figured it out without him? Do you think we would've reassembled the whole computer with the new mainboard and been surprised when it didn't work? Or when we disconnected the USB connector from the board, would that have been a clue?"

"Beats me. I even said it, didn't I? Didn't I say I thought they probably used a USB drive to install Windows? God -- feel a bit stupid. All these long days aren't good for a man."

"No," she agreed. "But it_is_ fixed. Right?"

"Right. Thanks for the help."

"Don't mention it!"

By the time pizza arrived he was ravenous. They all clearly felt the same way -- a weight had been lifted off their shoulders, and the light at the end of the tunnel was_finally_ in sight. Tammy was the first to get into the alcohol, and skipped the beer to head right for a bottle of whiskey.

"To finding a new line of work," the ocelot said.

"I'll say." Tim helped himself to the whiskey, too. "If I'd known what you were getting me into, I never would've left my last gig."

Pete Cioffi laughed. "Your last gig sucked. You bitched about it for a month straight after you joined us. Uh -- Tammy, you okay there? That's awfully good rye to be chugging."

"Bite me." The prospect of having all their work finished was enough to wear down even the ocelot's professional demeanor. "You can bite me, Pete."

The rabbit flashed his buck teeth. "Just meant leave some for the rest of us."

Lynn settled on the floor in front of Matt's chair, leaning back on it -- and the red wolf's leg -- and brushing away his offer of the seat itself with a wave of her paw. "So we're all ready for the live demo tomorrow?"

"Should be simple. The idiot duo in Boston just want to see flashing lights, and as long as the guys in Seattle see_anything_ working, they'll be happy to go on holiday. They're as done as we are." Tammy finished the rye and poured herself another helping. "Thank Christ."

"You're the project manager, right?"

Tammy nodded to Dave. "Yeah."

"Ours is back in Raleigh. He said that as far as clients go, they're pretty good. Is that true? If that's true, I really_do_ need a new job."

Pizza, an empty corkboard clear of open tasks, and the cup of rye had put the ocelot in a talkative mood. "They were okay, at first. The director who hired us doesn't have his head up his ass, anyway. It's the middle management -- they like having people to boss around. Once it got handed down the chain... massive fucking clusterfuck. I'll be having words with my manager."

Pete stopped with a folded slice of pizza inches before his mouth. "Why? This is the life, Tammy. Remote work with no per diem, two days before Christmas? Drinking Whistlepig out of a Solo cup? What's not to love? It's like being a rock star, except you fly economy."

Tammy snorted. "I'm betting we're not getting out of here, by the by. Just so everybody knows."

Dave looked over. "I was wondering about that, actually; the weather radar seemed to be saying more was coming in tomorrow morning. Will it be bad?"

"We'll find out then. I'm not optimistic." The ocelot shrugged, sawed a piece of pizza free with her fork, and popped it into her mouth. And she gestured to the bottle of whiskey with the fork, to indicate how she was replacing the optimism.

Shop talk was only good for an hour or so. By the time the bottle of whiskey was half empty, Tammy and Pete were arguing about whether Portland would be a better place to live than Berkeley.

The topic of weather came up again, when one of them remembered, freshly, that the additional snow in the Colorado forecast put their outbound flights in jeopardy in a way that was more serious than casual pessimism. "Fucking snow," Pete grumbled.

Lynn had unwrapped a candy cane from a cup of them she'd placed on the table -- the only one to consume any -- and was sucking on it slowly. "It's good for your character," she said around the peppermint. The effect, even with her pontification, was very far from Winston Churchill.

That was probably why Pete wasn't convinced. "Lots of things are good for your character that_don't_ involve freezing."

"Oh, yeah. Sure. But the snow, that's definitely good. Get you some good shoveling in, that'll teach you the virtue of hard work."

Matt felt the previous week was a perfectly fine testament to their character, and it didn't require bundling up. "We've been working pretty hard as it is, you know..."

Lynn leaned back, half-sprawling, grinning at him. "Sure, but it isn't the same. You put in your nine-to-five here, that's just you being nice and warm at a desk. Outside, now, that's pretty different."

"'Different' isn't always 'better,' though. Don't you notice you're in a minority of one here?"

"A lone voice in the wilderness! I have half a mind to drag you outside and show you, if you're not gonna stop complaining."

"I'm not complaining, I'm just --" He found the candy cane shoved between his lips, and then she forced his muzzle closed.

"You were complaining. Wasn't he complaining?"

"Mmrf mm," Matt said. "Mff."

"Hush. Just suck on it and stop trying to talk."

Pete coughed. "Oh, my. This escalated quickly."

She let the red wolf's muzzle go, sitting straight and giving the rabbit a mock-offended, bright-eyed glare. "Geez, now,that wasn't called for. He's got a candy cane in his muzzle; that's how they work. You suck on them."

"Pete just means Matt never listens when_he_ tells him that," Tim suggested. "Guess you have him better trained."

Lynn pushed herself up, sliding into the armchair next to the red wolf and leaning on him protectively. "He just knows how to behave with the right people. You know how to behave, don't you, wolf?"

His mouth slowly filling with the taste of peppermint, Matt could only shrug.

"You having fun there, Lynn?" If Dave wasn't actually_upset_, Matt at least felt sure the shepherd wasn't finding as much humor in the situation as the rest of them. It sounded a bit chiding. "Acting very professional, I see..."

"I_am_ a professional. I'm a professional... wolf... shutter-upperer."

"I'm a wolf," Tim pointed out. "Didn't work on me."

The Lapphund stopped leaning on Matt to stretch out for the table, snagging a fresh candy cane and tossing it at the black wolf, who let it bounce off his chest before picking it up and examining the striped candy skeptically.

"I dunno. Not feelin' it."

"Maybe it only works on_good_ wolves," she huffed, and returned to Matt's side.

The advantage of the candy cane was that it required him to pace his drinking. Pete and Tammy finished the whiskey, Tim and Dave went after a six-pack of pale ale without remorse -- but Matt was allowed to sip quietly, with Lynn half on his lap, watching the conversation.

The red wolf still thought she was acting out for their benefit. Even so, he had to admit the appeal of having her so close the wool of her sweater tickled him when she breathed. If the others hadn't been there... if Dave wasn't around... maybe he would've done more than idle musing.

Or maybe not. Maybe alcohol would've helped, too. He was mostly sober by the time, just after midnight, that the rest of them started losing steam. Lynn gave him a discreet peck on the cheek and went off with Dave -- who, unlike Tammy's team, at least seemed to be capable of holding a straight line.

Matt guided them along the short walk in the stingingly cold evening. Pete and Tammy were staying on the first floor of the motel; Tim was on the second, his room just a few doors down from Matt's. The black wolf didn't stumble on any of the steps, but that plainly took a great deal of concentration.

Matt stopped at the door of his coworker's room. "Are you gonna be alright?"

Tim raised his paw, which wavered unsteadily as he wiggled it back and forth. "I think so. I might... I might set a few different alarms."

"Make sure you leave enough time to get down there." The snow had let up, for the moment, but the winter sky still had an electric, purple cast to it. Between the light pollution of the city and the heavy clouds, it looked like it could start again at any moment.

"Mm, yeah. What about you? You gonna stick around if it's as bad as they say?"

"We don't have a choice," he reminded the wolf. "We have that demo. If we can get a flight out, good. If not... well, I guess it's a few more nights in this place. Not the nicest Christmas ever, but I can deal with it."

"And you have company." Tim's grin was lewd, and a bit lopsided. "Take advantage of that."

"Oh, for God's sake. This again?"

"Remind me which one of us had candy shoved in their muzzle?" The wolf gave Matt's chest a little shove. "Hey, it was you, wasn't it? Here's what you do, Matt. Okay? After the demo tomorrow -- when Pete and Tammy fuck off and little dog girl decides to stick around and keep ya warm and all?"

"Not going to happen," Matt said tiredly. "But what?"

"Lock the door, get her pants off, bend her over the sofa and give her a fuck worth two days of teasing. That's what you do."

"Is that a fact?"

Tim grinned, one last time, and slid the keycard into his door. "If it isn't a fact, at least it'll be fun, right? Enjoy yourself."

Matt rolled his eyes. "Have a good flight, Tim."

The door swung closed -- or almost closed. At the last second Tim caught it, leaned his head through the opening, and waggled his eyebrows. "And ask Tammy about that leash again." He pulled the door shut before Matt could say anything else.

Lying in bed in his own room, Matt found himself wishing, mostly, that he'd had more to drink. Maybe he could've appreciated Tim and Pete's sense of humor more if that had been the case. As it was...

Well, she_had_ been teasing him. The candy cane had been rather forward -- he would've thought it outright flirtatious, but... there was still the German shepherd to consider. He wasn't reading those signs wrong, was he? It had made him feel just a little weird about enjoying what had happened so much.

Maybe the weirdness is a sign. He was supposed to be focused on work and, drinking or not, they still had one last hurdle...

He managed to be the first one in the office the following morning, even though it was already past ten when he arrived. The snow had returned with a vengeance, thick enough that he even had trouble seeing, at times. Tammy Paz showed up fifteen minutes later; the previous night and the walk had taken an obvious toll. She scowled fiercely, stomping the snow from her shoes. "Whose idea was this, anyway?"

"The meeting? Yours."

"Where's Pete? No, fuck Pete. Where's coffee?" The pot had just barely finished. He poured her a mug, leaving room for creamer. She added cold water instead, straight from the tap, and drank half the cup in a handful of greedy swallows. "Thanks. More?" Ordinarily the ocelot showed a manifest disdain for the office coffee, but he hadn't been motivated enough to go to Starbucks and she, clearly, was not in any condition to do so.

Matt topped her off, and poured a second mug for himself. "At least it'll be over soon? Does that help?"

"The call, maybe. The hangover might have to wait until 2017.Ugh, why didn't anybody tell me I'm not in my twenties anymore?"

He chuckled, trying to be sympathetic. "We were all just trying to blow off stress, Tammy. At least you could walk straight last night. I thought Tim was gonna have to make it on all fours."

"I called him to make sure he got to DIA okay. He sounded like he'd had better days."

"Flying with a hangover is the worst. It's one of the circles of Hell."

The ocelot stared bleakly into her coffee, and then went back to the pot to add some more. "If they sentenced me to death or flying hungover, I'd grab the needle myself." With a taxed groan, she settled heavily in her chair. "I don't think we'll have to worry."

"I got that impression. The airline sent me a text message saying my flight was delayed by six hours."

"They'll cancel it. Calling for eighteen inches. I extended our hotel rooms, just in case we wind up spending Christmas weekend in Boulder. You're supposed to be taking next week off, aren't you? Same as me."

"So much for that, huh?"

The door opened again at around eleven; Tammy didn't bother looking up from her laptop. "Fresh pot of coffee and I've got aspirin in my purse, Pete. Glad you could make it."

"Er. I'm not Pete." Lynn closed the door behind her, shook the snowflakes from her head, and started taking off her jacket. "But thanks for the hospitality!"

"You guys didn't leave?"

"Dave did. He offered to take me with, but I thought I might stick around." She spun one of the office chairs around to sit backwards in it, resting her muzzle on its straight back. "Seemed like a safe bet that you'd want somebody who could debug the drones, and... well... the way the weather's going, I didn't think I'd get lucky at the airport."

"And you didn't want any of us getting lonely."

The Lapphund grinned cheekily. "Well, no..."

Pete Cioffi staggered in ten minutes before noon, while Lynn and Matt were setting up the kiosk. When Tammy asked how he was doing, the rabbit stuck his thumb up. "Great. Just great. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I've_never_ been better."

"Join the club. You know they canceled our flight, don't you?"

"Yeah, I got that text. Eighteen inches. Eighteen." Pete sighed, grabbed some coffee and, muttering, walked over to the kiosk. "Like I told my husband: three inches should be enough for anybody... how are you two holding up?"

"I stayed pretty sober," Matt said.

"Anything's sober if you let him set the standard." Lynn winked at Pete's direction, failing to offer much concern over whether or not he was in the mood for humor. "Matt and I got the demo ready, so we're holding up fine."

They used a webcam and, in the end, a desktop-sharing app so that their clients could see what was being shown on the table's surface. At twelve o'clock, Tammy dialed them in. The ocelot closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and got into character. "Hey, who've we got on the line? Here in Boulder this is Tammy, Pete, Matt, and Lynn Burnham from the drone company."

"This is Will! Hey, Tammy, how are you? I've got Toby with me again. And we have Katie and Howard from the engineering team."

"Harold," a voice corrected. "Hello, Boulder."

"Hello, nice to meet you. Has anybody from Seattle joined?"

"No," Will answered. "They said they weren't going to be able to. We'll just do it without them."

Tammy screwed her eyes shut again. "Sure thing. Matt, you're good?"

He looked over the display one last time. "Yes. I'm sharing our screen over the meeting. Let me know if you can see it. You should be seeing the desktop of the kiosk -- all the UI we've been working on."

"I see... okay, it's coming through. I see what looks like a computer desktop. Is that right?"

"That's right," Tammy confirmed. "There's a little live camera view, too -- like a picture-in-picture. That won't be there at the booth, but we wanted to let you see what the setup looks like. You see it?"

Silence.

"Do you see it? Anybody on the phone?"

"Yeah! Hey, we see it!" Will sounded very excited indeed at what, in the end, amounted to a simple video call. "Hey, we can see you guys. We're waving at you."

Tammy glanced at Matt, who shook his head as subtly as he could. "It's not a two-way link," the ocelot said. She waved to the webcam anyway. "I'm going to start the demo now. I'm not going to go through the full script, because... well, honestly, because you haven't sent it over. This is the slideshow mode you wanted."

Pictures flew onto the screen, one at a time. The animation Tim designed made it seem almost like video footage -- as though they were watching a camera feed panning over a live event. "Very nice!" Will exclaimed, and two of the other voices in the room agreed with him.

"Great. Now, this is the drone mode."

The tabletop monitor changed. Now there were two landing pads drawn at either end of the screen, sitting beneath the two quad-propeller drones Lynn and Dave had built. When Tammy touched each of the landing pads, the drone parked on it hummed to life and lifted cleanly off.

Pete, who looked like a mess and clearly wished to avoid being caught in any pictures, took it upon himself to act as the cameraman. He picked up the webcam, guiding it carefully to follow the drones' paths.

Their flight was entirely automatic. They rose up ten feet, just below the ceiling of the design studio, and slowly rotated in a full circle. On the tabletop, a composite image began to appear of the office, and the people standing in it. Solid lines on the image traced over the furniture: the chairs, the desks, and the kiosk itself.

Lynn walked away from the kiosk, standing beneath one of the drones and looking up, her head tilted. On the tabletop, a little box appeared, identifying her as a pedestrian, following her movements, and adding in a line that traced where she'd come from.

"Very, very nice." The voice over the phone was Harold, who had corrected Will on his name. "Is this being done live? You're hitting the cloud services?"

"Yes," Matt said, speaking up so he could be heard clearly. "There's a visualization for the data feed and the response. I'm using your point-mapping API. The depth-maps are the only thing that's done locally, using the x86 SDK. We had some latency --"

"Latency causing registration errors?" Harold said, speaking at the same time. "We were going to tell you about that. We should have a new version up after the show. This looks really good. Will, you should be happy."

"Then... I'm happy! We're all happy. Are you happy, Tammy?"

"If this looks good, then..."

"Looks great! Merry Christmas, team! Thanks for all your work!"

And then, five seconds worth of pleasantries later, they hung up. "That was_it_?" Pete asked. "We missed our flights for that?"

"What an anticlimax." Matt took a seat on the sofa, leaning back with a heavy sigh. "After all that work..."

"Told you, they just wanted flashing lights." Tammy tapped on the landing pads again, and the drones returned and switched themselves off. "You didn't need to come either, Lynn. Sorry for wasting your time."

"Wasn't a waste!" the Lapphund promised. "I got to see this all come together -- now we can relax, right?" She looked the drones over one at a time before disconnecting their batteries and putting them back on the table.

"Yeah. But you probably had plans."

Lynn shook her head, and went to join Matt on the couch. "Nope. Just enjoy the rest of the day and... uh... wait to be snowed in. What about you and your team?"

"Probably just going to go drink until I can forget about this hangover." The ocelot paused, seemingly considering whether or not the idea represented a bit of a contradiction, then gave a dismissive shrug. "Yeah. Probably."

"Tammy," Pete said. He sounded like he was trying to remind her of something.

She looked at the rabbit blankly. "What? What -- oh! Yeah. Sorry. We do have_some_ work left. Pete wanted to talk to the printer. We need to figure out the logistics of getting things run off and shipped. Not real tough..."

"Nah, but we should take care of it. And then call Frontier. And then start drinking. Maybe start drinking during the call... printer first, though -- while they're still open. Ready to go, Tammy?"

Matt was quite comfortable where he was, but teamwork beckoned and the ocelot was quickly getting dressed to go out. He slowly leaned forward, starting to get to his feet. "I can help. Just give me a minute."

"Nah." Pete pulled on his coat and zipped it up decisively. "One-person job. I only want Tammy because she has the AmEx."

"Hold down the fort, Matt," she suggested. "Okay?"

He turned around to look at his two coworkers. "I'm serious. Let me get my coat."

Tammy glared at him sternly. "Next time. Just stay here, Matt. We'll be in touch."

And like that the pair departed; the door slammed solidly behind them, and he heard Lynn give a soft laugh. "That was subtle."

"They're just hungover. Were you, ah... were you going to try to find a flight?"

She shook her head, and leaned into his side. "Not at the moment. I don't expect much luck. Dave has status because he flies so much. I don't. I guess my plan was to enjoy the day a bit and... deal with everything when the snow clears. What about you?"

"We were all supposed to be on the same flight. If it's canceled, I guess I'm here until they find a new one."

The Lapphund nodded; her head rubbed gently against his shoulder. Even without the others around, she remained very...friendly. Deciding he was being prompted, the red wolf put his arm around her. "Are you going back to see family?"

"Ordinarily I would. This year I had to cancel my trip to Austin. You?"

"Same. Fargo, but... same. Tammy and Pete?"

"I don't know what they're doing."

She smiled. "Other than leaving us alone?"

Matt sighed, wondering if he needed to apologize for the pair's utter lack of subtlety now that she'd even commented on it. "I told you Pete was a character. He's fond of making... wild_assumptions_."

"Is that so?"

"I'm pretty sure they left because they figured we'd have our clothes off by now."

She laughed with that quiet, easy laugh she had. "Is that all? Gosh, if that counts as a wild assumption, that's three of us, then. At_least_ three of us."

He tilted his head too quickly, not able to keep his surprise from showing. "Wait, really? But I figured..." Lynn twisted around, looking up at him with a mirthfully bemused expression. "I thought you and Dave..."

"Dave's my boss!"

"But you said you were staying together, and..." He couldn't keep going; she was staring too incredulously at him.

"Okay. Look, Matt. Snow shovels are flat, hot buttered rum is fantastic, and you..." She pushed herself up, kissing the red wolf softly. "Are lucky you're so adorable that I don't mind if you can't take a hint."

He felt his tail start twitching. How could it not? "Sorry..."

"You better be," Lynn said.

So he kissed her, to demonstrate his sincerity. It went longer -- deeper; he tasted pumpkin spice on her lips and then the sweetness of her muzzle as he worked his tongue forward and past her sharp canine teeth.

Having learned that he wasn't much for hints, she gave up on subtlety. The grasping touch of her paw at his side was tight, and bold; it wasn't long before she'd pulled herself into his lap and settled down there, with his legs bearing the brunt of her wagging tail.

There was a very cute Finnish Lapphund straddling him, rather pointedly close to his crotch. It had been a few years since his last relationship. He wanted to maintain some semblance of decency -- they were in an office, after all. The different impulses worked towards different conclusions, at different speeds.

In software this was called a_race condition_, and arousal beat propriety to the punch. Lynn wiggled against his tightening corduroys. He had to break the kiss, a panting huff emptying his lungs, and she laughed impishly, without a single trace of guilt. "Right? You get the picture?"

"I get the picture," he managed.

"What do you want to do now?"

"I..."

Lynn's eyes locked with his. "This is your chance to say something good, wolf. With words, I mean..." She bit her lip, and shifted her hips twice -- from left to right and back, pivoting against the bulge in the red wolf's pants. "Be honest."

How honest? He gambled. "I want to bend you over the arm of this couch and show you what happens when you tease a guy for two straight days."

"How romantic!"

"We're in an office, we just met, you're_painfully_ hot, and I haven't gotten off in like a week. Christmas spirit later -- you wanted honesty. Honesty is you bent over."

She grinned, and then she bit his nose. "I wasn't expecting you to be that honest. Call it a pleasant surprise. Can I at least point out a slight problem with your idea?"

"Only if it comes with a solution."

Lynn rolled out of his lap; problem or not, even as she got to her feet she was starting to unfasten her pants. "Maybe I'll let you figure it out. Also, why don't you go make sure the door is deadbolted? Just in case?"

He had to shuffle -- walking made him exquisitely aware of the erection pushed against the fabric of his briefs. The door hadn't been deadbolted; he slid the bolt over, pausing for only a moment to take in the sight of the increasing snowfall outside.Problem? Did I go too far?

When he turned around, the Lapphund was out of her jeans; she bent over, tugging her panties off. Seeing him watching, she straightened, and beckoned him back to join her. "Well?"

Matt's brain was decreasingly capable of processing_problems_ in what he saw. The thick woolen sweater was a bit loud, it was true, and the slate grey didn't really compliment the brightly colored Christmas lights that circled her chest. On the other hand, the way it curved with the dog's hips was quite seductive -- so was the lack of anything below it but the black and tan fur of her legs.

Her head was tilted, her paws were on her hips, which swayed with her tail, and she looked rather amused at his inability to reply. "Matt? Okay. Come closer, wolf." He joined her. "For one, you need to get these off." Lynn snapped open his corduroys.

He finished the task of managing the zipper, then pulled the pants off. Lynn tapped his briefs, and he dispensed with those, too -- even if it did leave things rather_revealed_. He swallowed. "Right..."

"How tall am I?"

"Five... two, maybe?"

"While I like your flattery, you've given me a couple too many inches. You're, what, five-ten?"

"On the nose. I... oh. I see what you mean. You're too short."

"Or you're too tall! One of those two. Hot as the suggestion was." She stepped closer, until their bodies met, leaned up, and met his eyes with a grin. "Try again."

His readymade answer had been taken from him. Fortunately for the red wolf's inability to take hints, his arousal was increasingly in the driver's seat and_try again_ left plenty of room. "On the sofa, then."

"Was that a suggestion, or an order?" She canted her head appealingly, waiting for his answer.

"Get on the sofa and down on all fours so I can fuck you like a dog. Clearer?"

She nodded and spun away from him. First she went to the table. Before he could ask what she was doing, she reached into her purse, unzipped an internal pocket, and pulled her paw back to hold up a little square packet.

He caught it when she tossed the condom package over, scanning the foil label quickly.For dogs was written beneath the brand logotype. "Thanks," he said.

"I mean, technically I'm safe, but... I'm a good dog, too." She gave him a wink, slid by him close enough to brush the back of her paw over his stiff cock, and hopped up and onto the sofa. The Lapphund settled down at once, her furry rump in the air and her head turned to watch him. "You think so, right?"

Matt carefully opened the packet, settling the condom into place and unrolling it down a thick, smooth shaft that let him know how aroused he was with every new bit of pressure from the clinging latex. "We'll find out."

He stepped onto the sofa behind her and dropped to his knees. Matt worked his fingers into her thick, winter-ready pelt, and squeezed her hips. She wiggled, and lifted her curly tail higher as if he might've forgotten why he was there.

He hadn't. The red wolf pressed his erection down against her rear, finding that smooth, teasing warmth, tantalizingly slick and wet. He leaned forward, entering her slowly; glancing down to watch her lips spreading around him as he slid his way inside.

When he looked up again the sharp triangles of the northern dog's ears were splaying, and her fingers spread out to grab hold of the cushions. They were hip-to-hip now, with his length hilted. He paused. A little shakily, Lynn looked over her shoulder. "Well? Good dog?"

"Very." He slid his hips back, halted again, then thrust smoothly forward. She moaned when he filled her up again, turning away and lowering her muzzle towards the cushion. Matt stroked her fur with his paws, pulling her back and into him as he began to take her in proper, quick earnest.

Lynn let out a bark, her ears pricking in surprise at the swiftness of the red wolf's eager, pounding strokes. There was only so much he could do to hold back_anyway_, though, and the pleased little woofing huffs the Lapphund made as he bucked into her weren't helping his resolve.

Soon he was speeding up further, rutting into her madly -- desire overwhelming him, leaving him driving his cock into her with such force her black-furred hips lifted as their bodies slammed together. He could hear himself grunting with the exertion, growling out like a common dog.

He heard her, too: her low huffs rising into panting gasps and muffled cries of passion. She squirmed and pawed at the couch, trembling in her ecstasy. The cries grew louder, a begging exhortation when his knot started to swell and its thickening curves slid unevenly past her wet lips to tease her from within.

Matt didn't want to tie with her. Or rather, he did --fuck he wanted to claim the little Lapphund bitch properly -- but he didn't want to be caught indisposed. He shifted his pace into smooth, rocking thrusts that left his knot just outside her. He ground its prominent, provocative girth into her and she outright yelped, her voice filling the empty office. "Oh my God! Oh -- Matt!"

The emphasis came when his knot buffeted her, fighting for entry that by now was impossible. Lynn dropped herself down onto one shoulder and he felt the firm pressure of her fingers close against his cock as she worked herself in a quick, insistent rhythm.

Her voice wavered -- first she was begging him to go faster, to fuck her harder -- then she was whimpering out to him, just his name -- then just oaths and little monosyllabic cries. In the end it all slurred together: "Y-yes! Oh! Ooh -- mrf! Ah! Mmf-there-right-there-ohmygodohfuck h-ah!"

The sound caught in her throat and the way the following groan ripped itself from her tense body made it just as obvious what was happening. Matt no longer tried to hold back his own rising pleasure as the Lapphund wailed -- willing himself to join her peak as his thrusts came to a wild crescendo.

It was stronger than he'd expected -- the strained grunt of her name reflexive and unbidden. He held himself deep as his cock jolted, spilling rope after hot rope of seed into the condom.

Fortunately it was designed for that, but as they panted, slowly recovering, he found himself a little surprised it had held. He pulled out of her carefully; as soon as he slid free she toppled to her side on the sofa, groaning happily.

"Matt... ooh, wolf. Geez, that was... mmf. C'mere so I can hug you..." He didn't have to be told twice, reclining on the sofa at her side and pressing against the Lapphund warmly. "That was you making up for the teasing?"

"Yeah."

"I need to tease you more, then." She slurped her tongue over his muzzle. He felt her fingers circle his still-hard length, squeezing it softly. "That was my last condom, though."

"We could find a convenience store."

The Lapphund grinned, and went back to hugging him with both arms. "Oh, yes? You're ready for round two already? We could_also_ skip it as a formality..."

She'd let the sentence trail off. "But?"

A light kiss on the tip of his nose, and the sound of her tail wagging, told him she was already back to teasing. "As sweet and tender as it was having you fuck me on all fours in an empty office while we wait for your coworkers to get back... maybe we could find someplace else?"

"Maybe."

"What do you say?"

"Sure. We could go for a walk, right? See what the snow looks like -- you wanted to do that..."

They got cleaned up and headed out before he could properly reflect on the shortsightedness of the suggestion. Outside the snow looked like...well. It looks like snow. It was coming down steadily, nearly as heavy as he'd ever seen it.

"I wonder if blizzards are common here?"

"Blizzard?" Lynn twirled in a circle, laughing. "This is_not_ a blizzard, Matt."

"What is it, then?"

She grabbed his scarf, tugging him down so that she could kiss him, and nuzzle his nose. "A light dusting! And a good excuse for being outside..."

By some assessments she was actually scampering. Certainly she was at the very least skipping, racing ahead of him. Her booted feet kicked up the snow where it fell. As far as giving lessons on properly enjoying the winter went, nobody could say she lacked for enthusiasm.

You know... how hard can this be, really? He scooped up some snow in his gloved paws and pressed it into the shape of a ball, more or less. Then he took aim, and threw it before any thoughts of maturity crept into his head.

The snowball mostly disintegrated halfway through its flight. Just enough of it remained for Lynn to feel it hit, just below her left shoulder. She turned around, cocking her head sharply in surprise. "What was --hey!"

The remnants of snowball drifting down, and the red wolf's stance, made his guilt obvious. He tried anyway: "Oh, gosh, it must've been... something fell off one of the trees."

"You're a bad liar, Matt!"

"Yeah? Do something about it!" He spread his arms wide. "Come at me! Why don't you put your money where..."

He didn't finish the sentence, because she was already bending over and stuffing her paws into the snow. They came up covered in white, and before he could do anything but realize the situation he'd gotten himself in a solid impact thumped him right in the middle of his chest.

"Careful! I'm --"

The next one caught the collar of his jacket, dusting his face with snow. Lynn didn't pull her punches. "What are you doing?" a voice asked. He glanced over while another snowball whizzed by his head, finding himself looking at a red fox who couldn't have been much older than ten.

"What do you --"

"Take cover, man!" He followed the fox's instructions, ducking down with his new ally behind the trunk of a sedan badly unqualified for the driving conditions. "What were you thinking?"

"It's my first snowball fight. I'm from Texas," he explained.

"You look like it," the fox said accusingly. "Who's the enemy?"

"Uh. This girl named Lynn."

"A_girl_? You got pasted by a girl?"

"She's armed and extremely dangerous." He poked his head up, and a snowball narrowly missed him, plowing into the snow atop the car's trunk. "As you can tell!"

"Yeah, I can see you over there!" Lynn called across the street. "Stop hiding, you lily-livered good-for-nothing!"

The fox nodded. "Okay. I'm Ben. What's your name?"

"Matt."

"We're gonna get through this, Matt.Koda!" Another fox scampered over from where, Matt surmised, he'd also been in hiding. "Heavily armed hostile hiding behind the Davidson's Subaru."

"I'm ready for it." Koda knelt in the snow, starting to assemble his arsenal quickly. "You can count on me, sir!"

"You know what to do?"

The other fox nodded quickly. "Lay down suppressive fire while you flank that tango. Fix, flank, finish, sir!"

"We're in very dangerous territory," Ben said, with the sort of gravity only a kit could really muster. "While Koda suppresses the enemy position, we'll move around this U-Haul to the Davidson's snowmobile trailer. You have to be stealthy. Okay?"

"I think I can manage."

In only a few seconds, Koda had put together an impressive stack of snowballs. At Ben's hand signal, he began throwing them. Matt followed the fox to the moving truck, stealing a glance over its hood to where Lynn had been hiding. He couldn't see her. Ben tapped him on the shoulder, whispering: "go. I'll cover you."

As quickly as he could, keeping himself low to the ground, Matt scampered across the street to the snowmobile trailer. His footfalls had been muffled -- then again, so was everything else.Is that breathing? Can I hear breathing?

He raced around the edge of the trailer, counting on the element of surprise. Lynn was crouched down, between the garbage cans and a pine tree whose heavily laden boughs had been the source of her own ammunition.

"It's over!" he barked to her. "Surrender!"

The Lapphund's eyes narrowed. He watched her glance quickly between the tree and the red wolf. Then, with a sweep of her paw, she tossed a branch worth of snow in his direction. "Never! You'll never take me alive!"

She got up to run and he pounced -- sending them both to the snow-covered grass of the yard. Lynn squirmed, rolling onto her back so she could look at him. Her fur was totally white. "Surrender," he told her.

"Or what?"

Matt grinned. He could feel the warmth of her body even through his heavy jacket. "I dunno," he admitted, and gave her a kiss.

"Hey! Hey -- ew!" This condemnation came from Koda, who'd raced over to watch the finishing act. "Ben!"

"Double agent," the other fox gasped.

"Traitor!" A snowball struck the back of Matt's head, and the two foxes ran off, laughing in spite of their horrified sensibilities.

"So much for brothers-in-arms," the red wolf said. "I guess our alliance wasn't made to last."

"Well, it was three-on-one. That wasn't fair, anyway."

His laughter, close as it was to her muzzle, brushed a few errant flakes away. More were quickly replacing them; the snowfall was coming faster. "And now it's one-on-one. Better? What do you want to do?"

"Get back to the room," she suggested. He helped her to her feet, and as they started walking she slipped her arm though his. "Wasn't so bad after all, was it?"

"The ending was nice."

"You are good at happy endings."

The Airbnb she was staying at was in an unassuming complex the next block over. She opened the door on a warm, quaintly furnished one-bedroom apartment.

"I got the bed," she said. "Dave was sleeping on the foldout sofa. It's not bad -- and I bet it was cheaper than your motel, too."

"Probably." He uncoiled his scarf and hung it on the rack, along with his jacket and the rest of his heavier clothes. "It's not bad at all. It looks... well. Kind of civilized, actually."

"That isn't even the best part." Lynn had set a pot of something on the stove. She clicked the burner on, and then padded across the room to join him on his slow inspection.

"Oh? What's the best part?"

The Lapphund stretched up, stealing a brief kiss. "I_thought_ it was the view. Kiss me, though. For real."

Matt embraced her, pulling her against him and pressing his muzzle to the girl's warm lips. He held her for a few long, grateful seconds before letting go. "Like that?"

"Mm-hm. Geez, yeah. Yeah, it_used_ to be the view. It's still not bad..." She pulled the curtains back on a picture window, filling the living room with winter light and the imposing vista of the mountains off to Boulder's east. "Take a seat."

He did as he was told, while Lynn returned to the kitchen for a moment. The window had a bench before it, set into the wall, with cushions clearly intended to support gazing at the mountains. They_did_ have a striking beauty. He might not have chosen Boulder as a home, but the scenery had a lot going for it.

Lynn felt the same way: she stopped at the bench, a mug in each paw, and gazed through the window happily for a few seconds before taking her seat. "I hope you're feeling better about the season, too," she said.

"Let's say I'm... finding the good in the bad. Some very,very good. Is this hot chocolate?"

"Figured you'd want to warm up," she said with a nod. "I bought the good stuff, even. How's it taste?"

It was too hot to taste much more than sweetness. "Like hot chocolate. I'll have to learn more about all the distinctions."

"Yeah." Lynn turned to look back outside, falling silent. She clasped her mug in both paws like a magical charm of some kind. "I have a... a confession."

"Oh?"

She kept looking at the mountains. "When I met you, I... I thought you were cute. And I was up for some distractions from the work, if you were too. But that was sorta... sorta it? Nothing more than that."

He nodded. "Okay."

"Maybe it is now, though, just a little. You've been really fun to work with. I've enjoyed it a lot."

"Me, too. Really. You've been the only thing making it bearable."

"Aw, geez." She held the mug tighter. "Thanks. You mean after you got me back for all the teasing, maybe we aren't quite done with each other?"

"I think we could see, right?"

"So I don't have to tease you anymore... hmm..." She turned, facing him again.

Matt set his mug aside, leaned forward, and kissed her quickly. "I didn't say that. You could." He heard her put her cup down, too; her arms slid around his back, and she pulled him across the bench and into a firm if slightly awkward embrace.

"Not... not the best place for this," she admitted. "Get up?"

They abandoned the hot chocolate: there were suddenly more important things. Lynn took him by the paw, and pulled him in to the warm bedroom.

He followed her onto the bed as they both found that the need for conversation had been well-sated. Within seconds they were both wrapped in each other's arms. Her paws roamed freely; he felt her pushing his pants off and he repaid the favor in kind.

His shirt fell away. She tugged off her sweater, and then her t-shirt as well. The red wolf nuzzled her warm, thick chest-fur and felt the fabric under his muzzle vanish as she slipped from her bra. Their actions were instinctive, subconscious, and precise -- every bit of their swift deliberateness guided by insistent biological desire.

She worked his briefs off his hips. He went for her panties only to find that she'd beaten him to it; his fingers found only silky fur and then -- while she shivered and let out her breath in a quick sigh -- enticing, moist smoothness.

She was slick under his fingers as he stroked her. Soft. Hot, like her breath washing the red wolf's big ears when her sighs turned into open moaning. Lynn twisted, rolling her body and suddenly he was atop her again, pinning her the way he had on the snow-covered lawn except now there was nothing between them, and the bed was far more inviting...

And there was no talk of surrender. "You need to fuck me right now, Matt.Right now."

His cock had settled into place -- stiff and ready, nestling teasingly between her lower lips. He managed to summon one last second of restraint. "You said that was your last condom?"

"It was. Fuck me anyway. It's okay. You can come in me."

"Well," he offered. "I could pull out, too."

Lynn narrowed her eyes. "Don't even think about it."

Lowering his muzzle down to hers, the red wolf pressed to her lips in a soft, lingering kiss. And then he pushed slowly forward, watching spreading pleasure flutter over the Lapphund's features as he slid inside her again. She was_so_ nice and warm -- a perfect, soft heat taking him in like they'd been meant for one another all along.

When he started to pull out her eyes darkened; she wrapped one of her legs around him and squeezed softly. And she smiled, at the way he cocked his head. It had broken the kiss but their muzzles were still so close he felt the breath of her whisper. "No. Stay. For a moment..."

She shifted underneath him gently, experimentally, just enough that they could feel the pressure of their joined bodies. And then, at last, she relaxed the hold of her leg and permitted him to withdraw. Matt managed to keep the movement fluid and smooth; working his hips slowly and lingering on the wet, textured warmth that surrounded him every time he sank himself into her.

Lynn's hips rose to meet him, matching his steady pace stroke for slow, pistoning stroke. Her eyes closed, and she let her shallow breath escape in quiet whimpers that rose giddily in pitch when he kissed her. Her ears started to splay to the sides -- but the bed pinned them, dark black on the pure white of the sheets, letting him watch as they twitched and flicked.

There was less of the raw urgency he'd felt this morning; more intimacy. Their tempo rose at an even, measured pace. Matt's breathing grew ragged and the Lapphund's moans shifted into a lyrical keening, her muzzle opening and her tongue starting to loll. One arm fell from his back and he saw her paw grasp for the pillow behind her as though she was searching for a handhold, trying to brace herself.

He thrust faster still -- the abused bedsprings started to squeak in a complementary rhythm. His knot pushed at the dog's lips, sliding past with a lurch and the wet squelch of flesh on thick, smooth flesh. The straining tug as their inevitable tie came closer and closer put an unsteady punctuation on their rhythm that he made up for in the strength of his movements.

Matt pressed himself deep, pulled back, and at last met that solid resistance that told him any further attempt was pointless. The Lapphund realized it, too: she gasped at the pressure of his attempted withdrawal, and groaned gratefully when he gave it up for another forceful thrust.

And she wrapped both legs around him, pulling him close like he wasn't already locked to her, like their bodies needed to be closer still. The red wolf's instincts were more than happy to oblige: his hips swiveled and flexed in short, sharp lunges that had the bed wailing and the Lapphund not much quieter.

Even in the inevitable there was effort. He bucked until his knot swelled enough that all he was doing was shifting his trapped cock, kneading and grating up again his partner from deep within. A shouting pressure reached up -- seized him -- he sputtered a grunting snarl and shoved forward as every part of his body locked up.

All he could do was endure the pleasure that throbbed in his shaft, the solid heft of his member filling the Lapphund so thoroughly that the walls of Lynn's quivering pussy conformed to every last inch. His tip had nestled deep when he hilted -- he would've sworn he could hear the first, strong spurt of his seed jetting into her womb --

And if he couldn't,something was damn near close enough for he saw her paw clench tight at the sheets -- saw her muzzle turn into a mask of perfect pleasure so intense he might well have seen the lights flashing behind her closed eyes. He was still flooding the dog, aware of every new burst of cum he pumped into her, when the satin tightness surrounding him went briefly even more snug.

She howled as climax took her, locked with his own peak and shoving roughly against it for attention. It was a ragged howl, pure and beautiful in its passion. Their joined shouts gave a pointed emphasis to the abrupt silence of the bedsprings.

They creaked again when at last he fell atop her, onto her panting chest, into the embrace of the limbs she had possessively folded about the red wolf's exhausted frame. Lynn gave up her hold on the pillow willingly to hug him with both arms; she held him in place for the happy licks she lavished on his face and the nibbles with which she adorned his ears.

At once he wanted to say something, to tell her how magnificent it had been, how wrong he'd obviously been about winter and snow and hot chocolate... and to say nothing at all, to let the moment of their twined intimacy last forever.

Yet in the end he was the first to break the silence. "Lynn," he said. "I was thinking..."

"That we definitely shouldn't be alone for Christmas Eve?"

"Yeah. Or Christmas."

"Or Boxing Day. That's the day after Christmas," she explained, and gave his cheek an apologetic kiss. "I can teach you."

He rolled onto his side, partly because he didn't want to crush her but mostly because he wanted to hug the Lapphund as strongly as she was hugging him. She snuggled at once against him, into his chest. "I should be in Vegas by January 2nd or so... shouldn't your company have a technical person on the ground to help out?"

"That's a very good point." Lynn kissed him again, on the lips this time, and got so distracted by the way he perked his ears that she had to do it twice more before she was satisfied. "I'll tell Dave. You were thinking that if we had to be there in early January anyway... we might as well stay here?"

"Yeah. I was thinking that. Just to see how it goes, you know?"

She smiled. "I would like to share Christmas with you, I admit." Lynn ducked her muzzle down, burying it in his fur. "Maybe a bit more."

"Same. Even if it's not like being home, we can do our own thing."

"Right here in Boulder?" He nodded, and the Lapphund looked back up, eyes dancing. "You don't like the cold -- and you know, it's awfully cold here..."

The red wolf held her gaze with a happy grin of his own. He squeezed her tightly, and let the kiss that followed go on until its passion melted into a squirming dog with her tail thumping hard against the bed. "I dunno... is it?"

She tackled him onto his back.

Winter, he thought. Not so cold as all that...