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Chapter 6

I'm always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize I'm listening to it.

-George Carlin

Tony's footsteps echoed down the alleyway as a pair of soft pads kept up closely behind him. The steps would blend in and occasionally become independent as time went on. He felt eyes staring at him until he finally spoke up. "Alright, I know you have a question. Out with it."

The jackaless kept up but only spoke when they turned the corner onto a main street. "Was the session that bad?" The look on her face spoke volumes of worry, trouble, and genuine concern. Having a bad session could set Tony backwards and into an even worse situation.

Tony shrugged his shoulders then flinched as his right shoulder ached. "It was actually okay. It made me think more along the lines of what is happening now and less like a caveman." The steps were met with others as the town was still calm busy from the standard hustle and bustle of rush hour foot traffic. "The thing that bothers me is that I feel like I was lied to."

Kleio picked up his hint and responded with a question that was obvious to her. "By Kumbukani?"

"Of course! Who else would affect me like this?" Tony shouted but stifled himself when he saw Kleio flinch slightly. He started to count to ten internally when he was interrupted.

"Kumbukani is a she. She is not an it. I am a she and an it. A lamp post is an it." Kleio watched Tony closely as she said these words to gauge his personality and response. The first thing she saw was anger replaced by a smile.

"I know it's stupid," Tony continued, "but it's how I see things. I see things as how they were at birth. I see how things were and not how things are." Tony stopped walking and covered his face in disgust. He felt a warm body next to his followed by a pair of arms wrap around him. The feeling was like a thousand warm blankets that came fresh from the dryer. He felt his entire body start to warm up as he heard Kleio speak softly into his ear.

"It's okay if it's stupid but you need to move past this or you'll never move on. We want you to move on so you can be happy." Kleio's voice was very soft and silky as she held Tony. Tony didn't fight against her embrace so she decided to continue. "Do you like being a guy?"

Tony's voice came out muffled, "Sometimes." as his face was buried in her chest. The embrace gave more slack but his cheek was firmly planted in her breasts. "Some days I love being a guy because it's who I am. Other days, I hate being myself which happens to be a guy."

Kleio took her muzzle and rubbed the top of Tony's head lightly. "And how do you think Kumbukani felt before she was changed into a woman?"

The next part took him a while to admit and say out loud. "Like a terrible person. Like he was..." The silence that followed was deafening to Tony as he realized something. "As if he was lying to himself. To others and to those that matter." He felt her embrace tighten for a few seconds before the warmth went away.

"So is Kumbukani lying to you now?" Kleio watched Tony's face again to see a realization of himself speak to her. Anger turned into sadness then into disgust.

Tony felt like a child when he responded, "No". He knew that she would be lying to him if he was completely invested in her and she said their love was a lie. He knew that the thing that bugged him the most was that everything was changing again and again. "It's just that this is always so new to me and everything is changing. By the time I get a grasp on something, that thing changes. Everything always feels like I'm one hundred steps behind and everyone else is miles ahead of me. I'm just a dumb caveman stuck in this time while the world keeps on turning."

Silence was broken after a bus pulled up next to a line of people ahead of them. "Then ask for help, and we will help you. The world will keep turning even if you are standing still. Come on, let's catch this bus so you can finish work."

Tony lifted his head and ran towards the bus just as the last person got on. He caught the bus as the doors started to close, but opened as the driver saw more people arrive. Tony walked back towards the end of the bus and found an empty seat. He wiped away a tear while he tried to hide his emotions. He felt eyes on him again and looked around to see a pair of large eyes meeting his that belonged to a lemur looking man. Tony smiled slightly with his response, "Change hurts" followed by a light laugh.

"Tell me about it brother. Always busy doing one thing and now got to do another thing because the damn council says so. I got to head downtown to talk in some sort of meeting to explain why I need that one lousy item." The lemur spoke and Tony listened sporadically before he interrupted the lemur to let him know that his stop arrived. Tony waved a goodbye and felt a swarm of relief as he knew some things never changed.

The next several days of work went by smoothly as Tony typed away on his keyboard the entire time and focused on his work. He didn't hear the first five times a voice tried to get his attention which didn't help his nerves when a hand touched his shoulder. He looked around frantically as Krista drew her arms back towards herself in a display of arm waving with a mixture of random monkey noises.

Krista yelled, "What the hell Tony?" Her breathing was shuddered and heavy as she tried to calm herself down.

Tony rubbed his face and then the back of his head before he spoke. "Sorry boss, I guess I just didn't hear you." He turned around and pointed at the screen. "I was deep into my work today and almost managed to wrap my head around the coding. I think I finally understand how it works, but now I'm trying to find out what this line of code means."

Krista leaned forward out of curiosity as she looked over the entire code herself. She took several steps forward as she got really close to Tony, enough to place her upper body onto his back. Her eyes scanned the code as her mind worked trying to find out what it all meant. "That line of code shouldn't work at all. Everything is contradicted on all the other lines of code and even gives the user a way inside. How did you find this?"

Tony pushed back lightly as he spoke, his face almost to the screen. "Well, remember how you said to look over previous working codes to see if I could understand everything?" He felt a swift tremor as he saw a nod out of the corner of his eye. "I did what you said, and this is my sixth program. This one is to a firewall in some sort of high security area."

The following silence was deafening until Krista spoke. "Aha! This is why. That line is actually a lure and a trap." She scrolled down a bit more and placed a finger on the screen. "See there? That's an old "go to" command that you guys use and now we use it as a quick trap. It leads them down a certain path and tempts them with a back door. This line here...", she moved her finger down to the bottom of the screen as she spoke, "is the trail of code that lead them there. Then bam, every alert goes off and the hacker gets instantly tracked down without any problems." She stood up with a huff of excitement as she figured something out. "It's pretty much using an old technique with our new way of coding."

Tony followed along and made the program note as he followed along. He was typing a third note in and started to scroll down more when he heard her speak again. "Alright Tony," Krista interrupted, "time to clock out. Save your work and shut it down. Our servers and computers are going to get updated tonight." Her voice started to fade away as she spoke to him. "Check your internal phone for any messages from me to see if the update delays us."

Tony heard more typing on a keyboard next door to him as he started to save his programs and shut his computer down. He dragged both of his hands across his face as he groaned out the stress from the long day.

"Besides," Krista spoke up, "I think someone is waiting for you downstairs. You'd better hurry up."

"Yeah." Tony said with a sigh, "She's been waiting for me for the past couple of days from what I hear. I just hope she doesn't think I'm ignoring her because I'm still thinking about what's happened between us."

Krista poked her head over the small wall that was separating the two and rested her chin on the wall. "Have you made a decision yet?"

"Yeah but," Tony paused while he rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not sure how to approach her."

Krista hummed for a bit while she thought and chattered her teeth before speaking. "If it's good news, then approach her as a friend. If it's bad, give her the bad news then run." She laughed lightly before standing up. "Just do it soon or else she'll make you regret it."

Tony nodded and stood up as he grabbed his backpack. He slung the backpack on himself and took a drink from the nozzle attached to it. Cold liquid splashed into his mouth and he felt some relief before he spoke again inside the elevator. "It's good news because I want to apologize and start getting serious with her."

Krista patted his exposed shoulder hard with laughter. "Good, then it's better to do it now." She gave him a push as the doors opened and they saw the leopardtuar standing next to the elevator.

"Yeah, thanks boss." Tony waved goodbye to Krista as he turned his focus towards Kumbukani. "Hi." He took a deep breath as he heard a soft 'hello' back. "Listen, can we talk somewhere a bit more private?" Tony saw the look of worry on her face while he pointed to outside. He took her hand and gave a soft squeeze with a nod towards the door. Her expression turned into a soft smile mixed with confusion. They stepped outside and found a quiet area where little traffic came near or anyone could eavesdrop easily.

Tony took a deep breath and thought to himself that this is best spoken from the heart. He looked into her eyes and spoke before she could. "I'm sorry. I know I don't have any right to ask this of you but please be patient with me. I know that I wasn't the best person for the past few days. I'm still very new to this world and felt like everything was being turned upside down. Half the time I'm not sure what is right or wrong anymore from the values I grew up on. The other half is I'm winging it without an understanding of why life is the way it is."

Tony panted some more as he caught his breath from speaking, which allowed the leopardess enough time to talk. "I don't understand you. I really don't." Her arms crossed her chest as she continued to speak in the tone of hurt, worry, and confusion. "Your body and manners say one thing while your tone and speech says another. Do you want me or not?"

Tony took a step back in surprise as she asked him flat out. His past experiences told him that their entire conversation should have gone the other way. He watched her ears flatten before she muttered out, "Fine" as she started to turn away. Tony reached out and grabbed her hand with both of his shaking hands. He didn't know why, but he didn't want her to go and his body reacted without his knowledge.

"Please... wait..." His voice shook as he tried to regain his composure. His eyes searched everywhere else until he finally felt her come towards him. He looked up and saw her stare into his eyes. She nodded as she took his hand and waited. "Thank you," he shakily spoke. "I know that I want you but part of me says that I shouldn't because of what you were." He saw her wanting to talk and continued as she opened her muzzle. "However, that's what I am trying to fix. I want to get to know you as a woman so that I see you as a woman. I want to see you as someone that I can spend the rest of my life with. But right now, something is conflicting inside of me."

He searched her eyes a bit before he continued. "I'm sorry I am an idiot but that's who I am. I'm going to make mistakes and I want you to know that I am trying. It may not seem that way, but I am. A lot of it happens inside myself."

Kumbukani nodded and gave him a smile as she responded. "Okay. I know that you had issues but I have issues too. Want to help each other and get to know each other better?"

Tony nodded with a smile on his face and blinked away tears he didn't know he had. He kept trying to blink away his tears as they walked towards the rest of the crowd. He didn't like others to see him crying, but he didn't have a choice. He bore himself fully to her and he hoped that everything was worth the pain he felt of being exposed. The pain he felt was worse than anything he personally felt in his lifetime. Except, when he woke up and found out everything was gone.