FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The incessant buzzing of her wrist computer brought the tigress awake, alerting her that it was 16:00 and time to move again. She dropped almost soundlessly from the tree she had been sleeping in and took stock of her surroundings to get her bearings before slipping her glasses down to bring up her HUD and verify. Five miles North by Northeast to her target, as the crow flies. Plenty of time to get there and scout before nightfall, even if not she was still a day ahead of schedule.

She stretched, straightening to her full height of seven foot five. Her build was lean with almost no excess fat on her body, not even where human men seemed to think she needed it. The armor on her torso and upper legs was a strong, light weight ballistic resistant plate over layers of fabric over another plate. She was covered in thick orange and white fur with black stripes. Both sets of paws were bare, as she made use of the claws on both to travel and climb in this terrain, and to fight when needed.

She had been dropped in to the middle of the Amazon two days prior with a sidearm, a knife, a radio, a computer that wouldn’t even tell her her actual location, just her location relative to her target, the armor she wore and a pack with basic rations and supplies. Her mission was simple, reach and eliminate an outpost which supplied weapons to enemies of the country. She wasn’t sure who the enemies were, aside from everyone simply calling them ‘the Cartel’ or why they were the enemy, that information would have been above her pay grade, if she got paid at all. She also wasn’t sure why, if they knew the location of the target, they sent her instead of just bombing it.

“Mine is not to reason why,” she muttered to herself as slipped her glasses back up and took off towards her target, relying on her natural senses to navigate and avoid hazards, “mine is but to do and to die.”

Prior to the drop she had never seen more of a jungle than a few photographs, but she felt more at home here than anywhere else and she moved like she was born to it. She moved quicker than a human soldier running through the same terrain, while making less noise than one intent on stealth and leaving no signs of her passing save the occasional claw mark or indentation of a foot-paw. Some things, she guessed, were so deeply ingrained in a species that it would even carry over through the genetic manipulation of engineers bent on making super soldiers.

She slowed as the sounds and smells that come with a human presence began to intrude on those of the jungle. By the time she could make out distinct voices she had stashed everything but her armor in a tree so she could stalk the outskirts with as little chance for something to snag a branch or catch the light as possible.

The first thing she noticed about the outpost she had been sent to eliminate is that it wasn’t an outpost at all, it was a small village. As she circled it, there was an obvious military presence, including sentries in the jungle which she evaded with ease, but also an obvious civilian population. There were men and women going about simple domestic chores, and children assisting with the chores or playing games. There had to be some mistake here.

She returned to her gear and first checked to confirm her location. Then double checked her mission, it could be paraphrased as ‘Proceed to target location and kill everyone’, which was how her handler had explained it to her, as he apparently thought her too dim to read it for herself.

“Whiskers to Command.” She kept her voice low as she called out on the radio. She hated the handle that was as close to a name as she got, but she had no say in the matter.

“Mission accomplished Whiskers?” Her handler’s voice came back after a moment.

“Negative, sir.” She replied, “Please verify my location, according to my instruments I am a hundred yards South of target. I am concerned there may be a malfunction.”

“Alright Whiskers, we’ll check.” Her handler replied, followed by a short pause. “Your instruments are correct Whiskers, proceed with the mission. Out.”

“Negative, sir. Target is not an outpost as the briefing says, it’s a village. There are civilians, sir.”

“Negative,” Her handler snapped, “there are no civilian targets. All occupants are hostiles, is that clear? You have your orders, proceed with the mission. Out!”

“There are children, sir!”

“We have been over this, Whiskers.” He gave an exacerbated sigh, “Because you age so much different from humans, you don’t understand how we age. There are no children there. Proceed with your mission then await extraction.”

“Sir,” She started, “I can easily elim-”

“You have your orders, Whiskers! Proceed with the mission and do not make contact until it is complete, understood?”

“Affirmative, sir.” She replied and clicked the radio off with a sigh. Maybe he was right, those weren’t children by human standards. It didn’t feel right, but she reminded herself that she was just a weapon meant to follow orders and that if they wanted someone to think they would have sent a human.

“Mine is not to make reply,” She muttered to herself once again, “mine is not to reason why. Mine is but to do and to die.”

Leaving her gear behind again, she stalked back towards the target to do a more thorough reconnaissance. At least, that would be her story if questioned. She really wanted a closer look, she needed something to tell her that her instincts were wrong and that every human at the target was a valid military target.

Twelve sentries spaced around the village, including two at what served as a gate on the only road in or out. Every quarter hour the sentries all reported in via radio, along with the occasional chatter between them, she couldn’t understand the language they spoke, but the tones sounded casual. Four additional sentries stood watch outside of two buildings in the village.

The village was built around a clearing large enough for a helicopter to take off from, and was a mix of buildings that looked hand built from local materials, and ones that appeared to be prefabricated in a factory somewhere for quick assembly in the field. There was the low rumble of several generators, several buildings also had solar panels. The only thing that appeared of any real importance as a military target was a series of antennae and satellite dishes. From the outskirts, she couldn’t find any evidence to indicate a weapons depot of appreciable size.

English voices caught her attention, as she tracked them to their source she tried to make sense of the conversation. It seemed to have something to do with saving the world with the power of love and hope. The voices were odd, too, both speakers were clearly communicating electronically but their voices were distorted and high pitched. A scrambling system to conceal their identities, she wondered.

Reaching the source she felt too exposed, skulking between buildings, but she had to see what this was. Cautiously she peered through the window, and barely managed to stifle a laugh as it made sense. The voices came from an animated program playing on a monitor in what appeared to be a residence, with a tiny human sitting close to the monitor watching it attentively.

She should have moved, but her mind was racing, forgetting for a moment about the risk of being seen. Animated programs like that were, according to her limited knowledge, primarily geared towards human children. The tiny human had to be a child, while her size made her dwarf all but the largest humans she had never seen one that small. Training told her that many armies in the past had utilized child soldiers and that children should not be underestimated. Training told her to follow orders. Training also told her not to engage unarmed civilians.

“Mine is not to reason why…” she muttered her mantra, trying to make it make sense. She shouldn’t question orders, or the intel handed her by her handler but she couldn’t rectify that with what she saw in the village. “… in to the valley of death…”

She knew what she had to do and moved to slip back out of the village and recover her gear, only to instead find herself staring directly at the tiny human, who was staring right back at her. Training and predator instinct told her a dozen ways to kill the child before it could make a sound, but something else stayed her claws.

“Harimau!” The child exclaimed as they latched on to her leg, babbling nonsense that might have been English mixed with another language.

The tigress considered her options for removing the child, specifically doing so without injuring it as, while a nuisance, it obviously posed her no threat.

“Tali!” A woman exclaimed, followed by what the tigress could only assume was something like ‘get away from the monster’ based on her tone of voice and the fact that she held a pistol aimed at the tigress’ chest. The command was followed up in English, “Get away from her!”

The pistol looked to be a 9mm which would hardly even dent her body armor, the gunshot would alert the sentries which could be a problem, plus the bullet would likely fragment and possibly injure the child while she was so close. She could likely kill the woman before she had a chance to pull the trigger, she held the gun with confidence but she was too close and her attention was on the child. The feral instincts she was raised for told her it was the best option and reveled in the bloodbath it would start. Her desire for knowledge offered that the woman spoke English and could probably answer questions with the right motivation.

As soon as the confused child detached herself from her leg, the tigress moved. In a single swift motion she was behind the woman with one massive paw gagging her, the other twisting the pistol from her hand. She then backed in to the building, effortlessly dragging the women with her. To the woman’s credit, she fought rather fiercely including biting the paw gagging her.

“I just want to talk.” The tigress growled low, directing the woman’s gaze to the child standing, scared and confused in the doorway, “I don’t want to hurt anyone, do you understand?”

“Good.” She continued as the woman nodded, “I’m going to let you go, you’re going to bring the child in, and then I’m going to ask you some questions. If you try to run or summon help, I will kill you.”

As soon as she was released, the woman ran over to the child and scooped her up, speaking reassuringly to her in the language the tigress didn’t understand. She looked out for a moment and seemed to consider running before looking back and realizing that there was no way she could out run a seven foot tall jungle cat. Instead she carried the child back over to the screen and started it playing another program and sat with her until the child was engrossed in watching the antics of an animated anthropomorphic tiger.

“I’ll help if I can.” The woman said, making an effort to sound calm, “My name is Lara Sofia, I keep the computers running mostly. I don’t handle sensitive intelligence, but I do hear things sometimes when I’m working.”

“I need up to date intelligence,” the tigress replied. Now that her mind wasn’t processing threat assessment and response she was able to actually take in the appearance of the woman. She was about average height and heavyset, with dark brown skin, short black hair, bright green eyes, silver studs in each ear and one in her left nostril. She had no measure to gauge the age of the woman or the child, though she thought the child would be classified as a toddler. “The report I was given do not match what I am seeing on the ground, this makes the completion of my mission troublesome. What is this settlement?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Lara asked, “… No, you’re not. This village serves as a backup communication relay station.”

“What about weapons?” She systematically unloaded the pistol she had taken, then set it and the rounds on a table.

“The soldiers carry standard issue assault rifles and sidearms.” She replied, “I’m sorry, I don’t know the models. There is a small armory inside the main building, it’s stocked with a few spare rifles and sidearms, cases of ammunition and a case of grenades. They let the civilian workers keep sidearms as well for protection against jungle predators, about half of us do.”

“No weapons distribution?” The tigress asked, growling as things made less sense. “Are you certain there is not a storage area you haven’t seen, or stocks of crates which could hold weapons but aren’t labeled?”

“No, nothing like that.” The woman shook her head, “Definitely no distribution, a truck comes up about once a month to bring supplies, they do load empty crates for the trip back, but they’re definitely empty.”

“Why? Why would they order me here to eliminate weapons distribution…” She slumped to the floor, her training not providing her with any answers, save for the mantra her handler had given her from an old poem. “… mine is but to do and to die…”

“Tennyson?” Lara asked, “I didn’t think they would teach super soldiers poetry.”

“Just a part of that one. I asked to read all of it, but he never gave it to me.”

“Since it’s about a bunch of soldiers riding to their deaths because someone fucked up, I’m not too surprised.” Lara shook her head, “Did they even give you a name? An identity beyond ‘soldier’?”

“I have a designation, TFG027.” The Tigress responded with a half shrug, “And a call sign which I despise. My handler is fond of saying that if I were supposed to have an identity of my own, they would issue me one.”

“Built to be a soldier.” Lara replied, “Trained and conditioned to not ask questions, to follow orders without hesitation, no matter the cost. What cost was great as to over ride that?”

“My orders were to kill everyone.” She replied after a moment’s pause, “They told me there were no civilians, no children, that everyone here was a hostile target. I saw kids playing and… in training they told us that we were smart weapons, that not only would our existence save the lives of American citizens, but that we could tell the difference between soldier and civilian and prevent collateral damage.”

“What will you do now?”

“What can I do?” Her claws flexed, she could still smell the fear of the human, and hear the chatter of the other, unsuspecting prey through the rest of the village. “My training says to follow orders, my instincts say to hunt and kill. I can’t do either of those, but what else is there?”

“Run away?” Lara offered, “Defect? Make them think you died?”

“I can’t.” She replied almost instantly, but then reconsidered. “I am a jungle predator, engineered and trained to be a solo operator with minimal support and resources, dropped in to the largest jungle on the planet. I can do anything I want. Thank you, for talking, for helping…”

“You didn’t leave me a lot of choice,” The human gave a bitter smile, “as long as I kept you talking you weren’t killing my daughter and I.”

“Right, I’m sorry about that.” The tigress rose and moved towards the door, “Lara Sofia, would it be alright if I came back to talk more sometime?”

“I suppose you won’t find many more who speak English around here.” Lara replied, “If you need someone to talk to, you can come back. No threats of death next time, right?”

“Right. Thank you.” She nodded and slipped out the door.

“Byebye Harimau!” The child called as the tigress left, trying to chase after before her mother caught her.

The tigress slipped unseen from the village and recovered her equipment before venturing deeper in to the jungle while considering her future. She would find a place to create a home base with access to water and preferably a reasonable option for shelter, from there she would slowly expand her territory until she had plenty of range to hunt and fish with little chance of interference from lesser predators. She had nothing further planned, but even that was more agency than she had been allowed before.

“Whiskers, this is command.” Her radio squawked in her ear about a mile from the village, “What the fuck are you doing? Your orders were to eliminate the target and stay put for extraction. Have you completed your mission?”

“Negative, sir.” She replied, “The mission briefing did not match the situation on the ground, executing the mission as ordered would have resulted in dozens of civilian lives lost, including women and children. I can not and will not complete the mission as ordered.”

“I don’t know what you think you’re playing at,” her handler growled, “but in case you forgot you’re not a person. You don’t get to think for yourself, you follow orders, period! If you don’t, then you will be a piece of equipment we have no use for and will be disposed of appropriately. Go complete your mission and we will discuss this little outburst when you return to base.”

“With all due respect sir,” the tigress responded with a feral growl, “you can go fuck yourself. I will not be completing this mission, or any other for you or the US military.”

“You worthle-!” The irate response was cut off by a satisfying click as she turned her radio off.

* * *

Early morning two days after declaring her freedom found the tigress in good spirits, having established herself a den with shelter and space for a small fire. Aside from a metal pot she stole from the village everything she had was either something dropped with her or made from resources available.

Her armor, computer, and radio had been stashed about a hundred yards from her den where she could recover them if she wanted but wouldn’t lead a team, or weapon, directly to her. While abandoning the armor left her naked, she wasn’t concerned about that, her fur would protect her better than any human clothing could and provided natural camouflage for her environment.

The sound of a helicopter overwhelmed the sounds of the jungle, frightening many creatures to silence. She listened to see if she could identify it, then cast aside her work and sprinting off to find a place she could get a view of it. She could tell it was American, a Venom and probably the same one that dropped her.

From a precarious perch in a tree she watched it descend over a break in the trees and hover. The canopy was high enough she couldn’t see what dropped, but she timed how long it was down before rising again and estimate half a dozen men. Assuming they were human, it would be the better part of the day for them to reach her position, but she would reach them first.

She came out of the tree at a run, moving effortlessly through the brush at speeds few humans could match on level track, occasionally shifting to bound on all four paws over rougher areas. She knew where the drop zone was, and the optimal path between the two points, a path she gave a wide berth. She would encounter whoever was dropped on her own terms.

Five men, probably the standard team the army sent behind Beasts on missions. A sergeant who was ostensibly in charge of the entire mission, three privates, and a GeneWarp tech who served as eyes and ears for the company though their official role was vague. She didn’t know whether to be insulted or amused that the army thought that would be enough to take her down.

The gear they carried implied this was to be an in and out mission, they probably expected to be back on the carrier in time for breakfast tomorrow. They wore light armor, more than enough to stop small arms fire, but plenty of vital gaps for knife or claw. All five seemed to have the same kit: An assault rifle and side arm which would both be linked to their wrist computers and helmet displays, a knife, and a radio which would also be connected to their helmets.

“Guys,” The man at the back of the group spoke quietly, “you notice how the target hasn’t moved at all?”

“It’s probably asleep.” Another replied, “What else is it going to do in the middle of this fucking shit-hole but sleep? Maybe find a native tiger to fuck?”

“There are no tigers in the Amazon, dumbass.” The first replied, “It would be jaguars here.”

“Did you have a point, Ex?” The sergeant interjected, “If not, cut the chatter.”

“Beasts need less sleep than us and have far superior hearing.” Ex replied, tapping his wrist computer. “Even if it was asleep, the helicopter would probably have woken it. I’m going to switch to the secondary tracking… Shit! It’s behind us.”

She didn’t give them the chance to fully process that information, and struck even as the one in charge began to issue orders. She struck Ex from behind, lifting him off the ground with one paw wrapped around his neck, keeping his body between her and his allies rifles, her free paw raked down his side, shredding through thin armor and skin alike before snatching his radio.

The strangled scream of pain, the scent of fear and blood, the panic of her prey encouraged the huntress to end all of them now in a frenzy of tooth and claw. For the briefest moment she considered it, before lunging forward and slamming Ex in to one of the other men and taking off in to the bush, leaving the men to tend their wounded comrade.

She gave it enough time for them to have started tending to the wounded man, and to ensure that none of them had decided to try to give chase alone, before settling in a tree and wiping the blood off her claws on to its bark. This also gave her a chance to calm down and not want to encourage them to try to hunt her down.

“Take your wounded,” She kept her tone as neutral as she could as she called over the radio, “call for an evac. Tell command I’m dead, no more blood needs to be shed today.”

“No can do, Whiskers.” The sergeant replied over an expletive ridden tirade from another member of the team, and snippets of triage being done on Ex. “Our orders are to bring you home, alive if possible. Much as Simms wants to gut you right now, I’ll overlook you trying to kill Ex if you come back and let us take you home. Sorting out what you did is above my pay grade.”

“If I had tried to kill him,” She replied with a feral growl, “You would be trying to find all the pieces of him to put in to a body bag. He’ll be fine as long as you get him wrapped up and get him to a doctor in the next couple of days. I know you’re here to kill me, if you wanted to take me alive you would have a muzzle and paw locks.

My offer still stands, you can still walk away.” She sighed, not even sure why she tried, “If you persist, I will do exactly what I was made to do; I will stalk, I will hit fast and without mercy, and I will leave a trail of bloody corpses in my wake.”

“You caught us off guard,” he chuckled, “You won’t get that chance again, kitty cat. There’s only going to be one death in this jungle today.”

She sighed and dropped out of the tree to find a suitable ambush site, knowing the team would follow their orders. They would be confident in their numbers and firepower to see them through this mission, and that would be their downfall.

She found a spot where the ground beside the trail had eroded away beneath a fallen tree, leaving a dark crevice which was hard to see from the trail and wide open on the opposite side. All she had to do was hunker down and wait.

They moved slower now, and made more noise, they had switched their radios off and now communicated in low whispers that the huntress could only catch snippets of as they approached. The tone of the conversation was caution, and knowing she was waiting in ambush.

“It’s close.” One said, close enough now that she could hear them clearly. “So, where is it?”

“I told you…” Ex replied, pain in his voice, “The tracker is only accurate to a couple meters and doesn’t give elevation. Cats like high places though, so watch the trees.”

“It’s in the trees?” The first said, “Shit man, I’ve seen this movie.”

“Can the chatter,” The sergeant cut in, “eyes up. Simms try IR, fucker’s camouflaged.”

The men cautiously spread out, bringing their rifles up to ready and watching the trees. Then one got close enough for her to grab his ankles and yank him off his feet, pulling him half way in to her hiding place. His yell of surprise quickly turned to pain and panic as her claws raked down his inner thigh, shredding cloth, skin, muscle, and arteries. There was that feral need to kill in a frenzy of tooth and claw, this time she didn’t resist.

Two of the men moved to pull her victim free of the hole, not knowing the damage done meant he was already dead and it just hadn’t set in. The fourth held his rifle ready, waiting for a target, but he expected her to come up out of the gap between the tree and the path, he caught the movement of her bounding over the tree from the opposite side too late to track her before she struck him and bore him to the ground with a feral growl and tore his throat out with her fangs.

A gunshot sounded and whizzed past her in to the jungle somewhere, she glanced over, licking the blood from her muzzle to see Ex with his sidearm, unsteady and trying to aim. Another shot flew past her, closer this time. A glance to the other two showed them bringing their rifles to bear, a quick calculation told her that in the present layout she likely wouldn’t kill all three before one managed to shoot her, so she leapt off her second victim and in to the underbrush vanishing as quickly as she had appeared.

She put a large tree between herself and any pursuit or wild shots which might come, though neither did. Her prey was hindered now, they wouldn’t leave the dead behind and it would just make them easier to track and easier to kill. Her instincts told her it was time to hunt, but she paused staring at her blood soaked paw.

She had never bothered to keep track of her body count, but estimated it to be in the triple digits. These latest two shouldn’t even register but they were different, she wasn’t given an order this time. It was her decision to kill them.

The soldiers were on the move again, so she stalked them staying close enough to hear them as they made their way back to the drop zone. The two uninjured men each carried a body on their shoulders, while the last kept his pistol out and watched the trees.

“Just going to tell them to bomb this shit hole,” The sergeant was saying, “Napalm or a MOAB… fuck, they can nuke this fucking jungle and that monster with it.”

“Nuke it from orbit,” Simms chuckled, “it’s the only way to be sure.”

“You can’t be serious, sir?” Ex’s voice was pained, “You want them to firebomb the Amazon? It still hasn’t recovered from the fires of ‘20, and you want to start bigger ones?”

“It’s just a bunch of trees, Ex.” The sergeant replied, “Trees, which, in case you forgot hide something that just killed two good men before we even saw it. I’m not sending another team in to this shit to hunt that thing. We use the tracker, take it out from the air and forget about it.”

“GeneWarp wants the body back.” Ex replied.

“Fuck ‘em.” Simms snorted.

“I don’t give a fuck what those eggheads want!” The sergeant snapped, “And you can tell them I said that in your little report, if you want. You can also tell them that next time they can come deal with their fucking problems themselves.”

“I am obligated to remind you that…” Ex started, before catching her movement on his HUD, “It’s heading this way.”

“I was going to let you leave,” the tigress called once she was close enough to see the men, “but I cannot let you bomb the jungle.”

“Then turn yourself in.” The sergeant dropped the corpse he carried and brought his rifle up, motioning for Simms to do the same. “You know you can’t win, long term right?”

She waited silently, watching them as they grew increasingly on edge as they scanned the jungle to try and catch any hint of her. A single rock lobbed about fifteen feet was all it took to defeat their training and advanced equipment, the crashing impact startled the men, drawing their attention and a single burst from Simms’ rifle while the tigress surged almost soundlessly through the brush and hit the distracted sergeant.

“I can win today.” She purred in his ear, before her claws sliced in to his neck with a surgeon’s precision. She shoved the dying man away and bounded back into the underbrush, followed by shouts, and poorly controlled automatic gun fire which riddled the tree she took cover behind.

“Fucking coward!” Simms shouted as his rifle clicked empty. Instead of reloading it, he cast it aside and pulled his knife before spreading his arms in a challenge. “Hiding in the shadows, running as soon as we know you’re there. Come on face me, you worthless freak! I’m not afraid of you.”

“Coward, hm?” The tigress growled as she stepped in to full view, taking stock of the scene as she did. Ex had dropped his pistol and rushed to try to help the dying sergeant, Simms still had his pistol, but it was holstered and appeared forgotten. The scent of blood and cordite was strong in the air. “Five of you with armor and guns, one of me naked and unarmed, and I am the coward?”

Simms let out a wordless shout of rage and charged the tigress. She caught his arm with one hand and twisted away while kicking his leg out from under him to send him slamming in to the ground with enough force to pop his arm from it’s socket, then caught the dropped knife.

The downed man rolled onto his back, firing his pistol left handed. The first shot missed entirely, the second grazed her upper arm, and no third shot came as she dropped to a knee on his chest and drove his knife between his eyes.

There was a click followed by a curse, and she looked over to see Ex standing with the sergeant’s pistol which refused to fire for him. He let the gun drop, laughing bitterly at the realization that a simple security measure would cost him his life as he stood tall to meet the oncoming death head on.

The tigress rose off the corpse of Simms and started towards Ex before pausing to look around. Four men’s corpses lay scattered, her hands and face covered in their blood, some of it fresh enough to still be dripping off her.

“If the mission is worth your life,” she sighed and gestured to Ex’s discarded pistol, “draw your knife or go for your pistol. Otherwise, get to evac.”

“Wh.. What?”

“I’m not going to kill you unless you give me a reason.” She shrugged.

“Alright…” Ex started to walk away, then paused, “Not that I’m not grateful, but can I ask why? Call it professional curiosity?”

“Because I can choose,” her voice was low as she moved between the corpses, recovering their dog tags, “and I don’t want to be the monster I was created to be.”

“So what will you do now?”

“Live for myself until the inevitable moment when a much larger force is sent to neutralize me.” She sighed offering the dog tags to Ex, “Drop these on the desk of Isaac Matthews and tell him this is the price for ordering me to kill civilians.”

“You were ordered to…?” Ex accepted the tags with a puzzled expression. “Our briefing said your mission was to neutralize a communication station, and you went rogue and killed everyone in the village.”

“My mission was to wipe out a weapons center.” She replied, giving him a quick explanation of the course of events from her point of view. “Get them to flyover the village, you’ll see.”

“I’ll look in to it.” Ex said, “if I find you’re telling the truth, I’ll tell them you died.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

In the midday heat a week later the tigress lounged in her tree, considering her future. Freedom was an alien sensation she didn’t know what to do with.

She had gotten Lara Sofia to find and neutralize the tracker inside her, reasoning that if she could be tracked American soldiers would keep traipsing the jungle looking for her. Americans did arrive again on the third day, a team went in to recover as much of the previous team as they could, as well as all of her gear they could find. She shadowed them while they worked but they never noticed her, and left without incident.

She yawned lazily and stretched, clawing the bark of her tree. Born in a lab and raised by a mixture of scientists and soldiers, she found herself at home for the first time in her life. The jungle was hers, and whatever the future might bring, this was where she belonged.