City Mouse: 1 of 7
#6 of The world of the Spirit of '67
Wherin we meet Troy Salcedo on one of his occasional stays in the city of his birth, or decanting, San Iadras. I feel this stands on its own, but it's very much a part of the larger 'Spirit of 67' universe, and so is included here.
There isn't anything in this that relies too heavily on the previous installments, so a new reader probably won't be unduly confused. Old readers, however, might see a few familiar things.
Also, this is kind of long at around twenty nine thousand words, and those looking for the yiffy bits would be advised to head directly to parts 5 and 6.
Any (respectful) feedback, suggestions and commentary you may wish to express would , as usual, be very appreciated.
//: 2105, City of San Iadras. Perking Centre's Function Hall.
Troy Salcedo tugged at his black dress shirt's collar, grimacing. The speech had gone just fine, up in the presentation hall, with people staring at him while harsh lighting blinded his eyes. He'd been unable to see the audience, and that had probably been his saving grace. No such luck out here in the exposition centre's meeting hall, where socialites browsed for dainty things to eat along with their choice of tea or coffee, all beneath a distressingly wide and open ceiling. Thankfully, the walls were rather welcoming. The crowds were focused around the food tables, and he could pretend to ignore the stares he attracted, examining the same stretch of wall three times over. Stucco, painted a delicate shade of green, machine-manipulated into artful crests and waves which seemed to have an endless variation. It took a few minutes for Troy to figure out the trick, a four meter by four meter texture applied at an oblique angle, making it difficult for the eye to pick out. He felt eyes on him, glanced back. So many shades of flesh; brown, pinkish-white, tanned olive brown, gene-resequenced patterns of light and dark. He turned his face aside, feeling all too alien, his own skin covered in near ebony brown fur. He ran his hand back over his hair, fingers bumping over his goofily rounded ear; all the wrong shape and set too high up to be human. Troy breathed deep, looking over the wall again. Maybe he could work out if there was an edge to the stucco pattern. He tugged at the collar of his shirt again, grimacing vaguely and fiddling with his jacket. Maybe he could slip away early, call a cab, go and check into a hotel and just sit and wait through the rest of tonight and Saturday for his flight out of San Iadras, out of the Central American corporate preserve, on Sunday. The fingers of his left hand curled numbly around the cell phone in his pocket. At some level, he was already trying to figure out the search criteria to look up a cab company with. He'd gotten so far as two steps away from the wall and towards the door before he spotted someone angling for him through the melange of dignitaries. Two someones. He swallowed down his gorge. At least one of the two wasn't human. Led by an older human woman with heavyset features, hair greying but skin still smooth, Troy saw her companion's mousey features twisted into an awkward smile of embarrassment. That face, that quirk of the lips was intimately familiar to Troy. He saw it in the mirror often enough. "My God. It's really remarkable, the likeness!" she spouted, glancing between the two furries, distinct from the human guests and speakers with their animalistic features. "Er, yes," the other explained helplessly. "Clone production, Mrs Rutherman, will, uhh, tend to do that." It took Troy a moment to work out who the other furry was, but he remembered the system they'd agreed on to work out who was who. His eyes dropped to the lapel pin, a crucifix. "Hi Turin," he replied just as helplessly, "care to introduce me?" "Yes, but really, it always seems so miraculous to me!" Mrs Rutherman seemed pleased, beaming with delight. "And your voices match too! How marvellous!" "Uhh, Mrs Rutherman, let me introduce, uhh..." Turin took a moment to stare at Troy's own lapel pin, a stylistic Grecian horse's head. Turin pinched at the bridge of his snout, over his nostrils. "My brother, Troy Salcedo. Troy, this is Mrs Rutherman, one of the fund patrons." Troy smiled, the exact mirror of his brother Turin's earlier smile, and felt a tremble building in his jaw. "Delighted, Mrs Rutherman. So glad to meet a donator, the furry rehabilitation fund is obviously a charity close to my heart." "Wonderful to meet you Mr Salcedo, ahh, Troy, may I call you Troy? Your speech was very stirring. How you and your brothers survived those awful labs-" Troy watched Mrs Rutherman's lips move, feeling his resolve start to crumble. Yes, the labs... she looked a little familiar, in the way all humans did. Flat face. Pair of eyes, nose, mouth. "-is quite beyond me! You boys must have a great deal of strength. I am absolutely shocked by what one thinking being can do to another thinking being, it is utterly barbaric." Cover the nose and mouth with a surgical mask, give her protective eye wear, put her into a surgical gown... Troy felt spots of pain down his spine, an itching in his left hand. His eyes were drawn to Turin's face, the slight difference between Turin's two eyes, the pale grey line around one of Turin's irises, manufacturer markings for artificial optics. Troy tried to keep the quiver he felt out of his tail. "I dearly wish the past could be undone, but at least we can try to right the wrongs now, hmm?" She concluded, with a smile. Behind her, Turin lifted a hand to his mouth and bit down on his fingernails. Even though the fund paid for it, giving Turin a new eye seemed just a little unlikely to right the wrongs that mattered. Troy clenched and unclenched his hands slowly. At least Troy wasn't alone in his discomfort. Not with one of his brothers around. He opened his mouth to speak- "Please excuse me, Mrs Rutherman, I must be going." What Troy heard was his own voice, sure enough. Except he was going to say 'We' instead of 'I'. That was the problem with being one of two dozen genetically engineered clones. Other people shared your voice, and they thought the way you did. Turin had beaten him to the punch, and had forgotten all about him. "It has been a pleasure to meet you, Turin," Mrs Rutherman replied cheerily. "I do hope to meet you again." Turin nodded and smiled, more from relief than anything else, and glanced to Troy suddenly. He offered a weak smile. Guilty as sin, Troy thought. "I'll give you a call before your flight out, Troy," he offered meekly. "It's alright," Troy replied, trying to keep the accusation out of his voice. "I'll keep an ear open." He watched his brother retreat. Turin already had his phone out, was already punching in search criteria. Troy buried his envy and turned back to Mrs Rutherman weakly. Mrs Rutherman turned to Troy and smiled broadly, almost as if trying to force her cheery mood onto him. "Troy, you simply must come and meet some of my adoptive children. They would be pleased as punch to meet you, I'm sure!" He smiled back helplessly, and let himself be led away. Somewhere nearby, Troy heard the clink of china, teacups and saucers being put down. People were finishing their drinks. Pretty soon, he prayed, they'd finish their conversations and start leaving. Then he could escape too. Mrs Rutherman kept up her line of discussion with a remarkable level of precision. It was all meaningless twaddle, apologetic and uplifting all in one non-threatening package. If one could take the subtle reminders of how terrible the horrors he'd had to endure had been as reassurances that it would never happen again, rather than reminders of exactly what had happened and how. The crowd was pressing in on all sides, and soon he was following Mrs Rutherman's voice less out of obligation and more out of need, it was the only familiar thing in that crowd of babble, people watching him, staring at the rodent-like look of him, watching him like a mouse trapped in a maze. "Florence!" cried out the voice of another of his brothers nearby, "do excuse me, I'm terribly sorry, I need to go and..." Troy willed his brother to run, get out of this threatening place, find an exit and run. His mirror image nervously elbowed his way out from between two guests, his eyes wide. "Florence? I- Troy, I'm sorry, have you seen Florence?" Troy swept one arm around his brother's shoulders protectively, almost by reflex. "It's alright, Dallas. Where'd you leave him?" Mrs Rutherman's smile didn't waver for a moment, even while Dallas hunched up, eyes squeezed shut. It didn't help that it only made those nearby stare all the more. "Oh, I'm sure we'll find your brother on the way," Mrs Rutherman announced cheerily, ushering the two of them away through the crowd. "How do you tell who's who? My sons never settled on a satisfactory method." Troy halfway dragged his brother way, shielding him from the worst. He tried to dampen his dry mouth, swallowing down spittle. "We found lapel pins. Uhh, Mrs Rutherman, this is my brother Dallas." "That's very clever!" She didn't pause in her step, dragging the two of them away, finally they were free of the crowd proper. "I'm delighted to meet you, Dallas," she added kindly when they were away from the crush. Dallas tried to return the smile with trembling lips. "Um. Thank you Mrs Rutherman." Troy grimaced inwardly. He always had to be the strong one. He reached into Dallas's breast pocket and pulled free the white handkerchief, which he pressed to his brother's face. Dallas responded only gradually, finally taking the handkerchief and blowing his nose awkwardly, hands pressed around his snout. Troy looked up to find Mrs Rutherman smiling down, as though ignoring it would somehow make it all better. In some way, it did. She hesitated a moment, before saying smoothly, "I very much like your lapel pin. A steer for Dallas. Very clever!" The smile helped. Dallas managed to smile back, eventually, this time without the tremble. "Thanks, Mrs Rutherman. Florence picked it out for me." "Oh, do call me Elaine!" Mrs Rutherman replied, smiling broadly. Troy smiled too. For all her bluster and bravado, smoothing over terrors and being so very unfamiliar, she tried to be kind, and it showed. It made up for a lot of things. "Uh. Thank you, Elaine," Dallas floundered. A few moments passed, evidently until Mrs Rutherman - Elaine - decided the pair of them were ready to move on. She took the both of them by a hand, naturally she held Troy's left, and led them forward. Dallas stared at Mrs Rutherman's hand holding onto Troy's, eyes wide. "Um, Elaine, you can't, uhm..." "Yes, Dallas?" Troy clenched his jaw. Maybe she wouldn't notice how rubbery and cold his left hand was. "Troy's hand, uh... that's where they..." Mrs Rutherman's smile increased in voltage. Warm, understanding, motherly. Slightly terrifying in its force. "It's quite alright, isn't it Troy?" She squeezed his left hand so hard he almost imagined he could hear plastic scraping. No, not really. It wasn't alright. "Yes, Mrs Rutherman. It's alright." Let my hand go. It's not even my hand. They took it away. His teeth clicked against one another, rasping and grinding. "Good! Now, do come and meet my dear children." She smiled, even as she drew them towards another group. Troy's heart stood still for a moment. The group weren't human, like Mrs Rutherman, but brown and gray and white and black, covered in fur. "Scott, Andrew, Paul," Mrs Rutherman said, calling to a trio of young men, all mirror images of each other. Each was grey furred, cat ears rising to a point over their short-clipped hair, three pairs of greenish slitted eyes looking up lazily. "These two are Troy and Dallas Salcedo. Troy, Dallas, these are my three grown up boys, Scott, Andrew and Paul Edwards." Begrudgingly, flinching at the contact, hands were shaken. A tall girl, no more than fifteen or sixteen, smiled pleasantly and waited to be introduced, her hair running with the same zebra-stripe pattern that wound down her bare arms, her equine face drawn into a polite smile. "Oh, and my youngest daughter, Susan-Mae Williams," Mrs Rutherman added, with the warm smile of a mother. "She still lives at home. Most of my other children have moved out into the big wide world." Troy realized that Susan-Mae must have only just been born -- decanted, really -- before the laws changed fifteen years ago, and furs were made 'free'. Spared the years of life before it'd happened... he glanced down, noted she wasn't wearing shoes. Or at least, not the usual sort. She had elongated and reshaped hooves with heavy rubber soles attached like horse-shoes. "Pleased to meet you," he murmured. Mrs Rutherman turned to her sons. "Do get everyone introduced, won't you? I'm sure Dallas will get along famously with that sister of Thomas's girlfriend." "Which one?" enquired one of the boys sarcastically. "Oh hush. Her sister in the ballet, you know the one." "I meant which girlfriend, actually..." "Andrew! That isn't very nice!" "Uh, that was Paul, Mom. I'm Andrew. You're going to give us issues." The furthermost left fur sheepishly pointed out, while Susan-Mae sniggered. It was a regular old happy family, Troy reflected, keeping his head down much of the time. He and Dallas stayed out of it, amongst the introductions to the various other family members and hangers on. There was Mr Rutherman, a tall old human gentleman. This was Jonie Stevens, a very thin fur with a distinctly otter-like look to her, and those two sandy-coloured canid-looking women, one redhead and one blonde, were Jeane and Jasmine Dixon. Troy wasn't sure, but he thought he'd read something about their genotype being marsupial, though it was hardly obvious from a glance. There was young Iggy Harlem, the only human child of the bunch, eight years old and wearing a halloween costume tail hanging from his belt as a childish kind of solidarity with his inhuman foster-brothers and foster-sisters. It didn't take long for Dallas to be introduced to Thomas's girlfriend's sister, Nadine, a striking feline woman, tabby-gray, thin-limbed and graceful, socially awkward as she played the wallflower. Troy sighed in relief, watching as Dallas joined her, the pair turned up to the wall, backs to the crowd. Dallas would be okay without Florence's guidance. For the rest of tonight, at least. "I don't know what mom was thinking," one of the three catlike brothers said beside him. "I mean. You guys' genotypes are what, mice? Cats and mice." Troy flinched slightly. Even in dress shoes these brothers could walk silently. "Lab mice," he quietly confirmed. "Uh... which one are you?" he asked, embarrassment quivering his voice. "Scott. Still, though," Scott continued, staring after Dallas and Nadine, cat and mouse hesitantly exchanging a few quiet words at a time, "Hardly seems logical. No offence, but you and Dallas just smell... jumpy." Troy rubbed his hands together nervously, ignoring the texture of the left one beneath all the fur. "We're ah... always jumpy in crowds. I don't think the predator-prey dynamic comes into it." Even so, he avoided making eye contact with Scott. Scott shrugged, eventually. "Maybe," he allowed, not willing to press the issue. "Your batch manage to stick together?" Troy asked, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Ahh, we got out of the dorms and were adopted in little groups." Scott shrugged again. "Twos and threes and fours. Yours?" "We were a research run. We got held back in a single orphanage while the, uhh, damage was repaired." Troy gestured reflexively, with his left hand. Just as reflexively he tucked it back into a pocket. "Medical rehabilitation. We got a little help from the community, went into higher education. Most places didn't have enough scholarship slots open to take more than one or two of us." "Is that where the naming scheme came from?" "Huh?" Scott lifted one finger, indicated the lapel pin. "Cities where you studied?" Troy shook his head. "I went up into the United States to study in Minnesota." "Oh." Scott nodded, reaching up to scratch behind one feline ear. He shrugged again, slapped Troy's back, and walked off. "Hey Paul!" Troy watched Scott walk off with mixed emotion. The dismissal had been abrupt. But now, thank god, he could have a quiet moment alone. Troy wasn't sure which to make it. Should he be insulted, or relieved? Sagging against the green stucco wall, now all the way across the function hall from where he'd started, he let out a breath. Relieved. He had plenty of time to be insulted later. He checked his wristwatch. Just how long could people stand to hang around and make conversation? Maybe it was a corporate thing. Most of the humans here were corporate employees showing their faces in the name of PR. At times like this they'd be passing around business cards, building contacts. Troy glanced up, looking down the wall. Dallas and the feline woman, Nadine, seemed happy enough. Troy could see that Dallas had opened up a little now. The hand-waving gave it away. He couldn't hear the words, but the gestures seemed to say that Dallas had found some reassuring topic to ramble on and on about. Astronomy, maybe. Judging by Nadine's quiet smile, she was all too happy to stand back and listen, only having to contribute a supportive ear. "So, uhm, Mister..." Troy glanced down. The little human, the child, had a ruddy face and a deep miserable frown. His shirt was all untucked near the back, where the kid'd had trouble with the fake toy tail. He wiped at his nose and sniffled. The usual reflexive shiver travelled down Troy's spine. But something in him recoiled against it, made him at least try to smile. "Yeah? You're Iggy, huh? You okay?" Troy asked, forcing whatever it was away. The child nodded, had second thoughts and shook his head. He held up his hands, cupped and full of pieces of electronics. Plastic covers, the green of printed circuit boards, a loose screen, a plastic mat of buttons, pale pink organic wafers. "Jeane's big sister said you could help." A tear trailed down his cheek. Troy glanced up, looking around at the group of furs, blinking a little as he spotted the two canid sisters he'd been introduced to, Jeane and Jasmine Dixon, now joined by a third copy. This time another redhead, carefully and dutifully inserting hairpins into a weepy looking Jeane's hair. Big sister. As if mass manufactured clones could have differing ages. But sometimes you didn't have to be older to be the big brother, as Troy very well knew. Dutifully he knelt down, ignoring the errant stares of the other partygoers. "Alright. So, uh, what happened, Iggy?" "Well Jeane's staying at home 'cause her boyfriend's a big meanie, and she gave me her phone to hang onto for her, an' I just wanted to see how it worked... but it just doesn't fit back together, and she thinks he's gonna call, and, and..." The drama surrounding Jeane's life, that Troy couldn't handle. The cellphone, on the other hand... "It'll all be just fine, Iggy. Jeane's big sister is right. I can help. Alright." Troy began picking through the bits and pieces of the disassembled phone in the boy's cupped hands. "All that's broken are these little plastic clips, see? Everything else just fits together like a tiny little electric puzzle... Don't suppose you have any tape or glue or rubber bands?" "... No." Troy bit his lip. "We'll sort something out." She was pretty, in a weird and predatory way. Prettier than her sisters, anyway. It wasn't just her well styled red hair, a little too bright and red to be auburn, too fiery to be scarlet. He could tell the difference between her and Jeane by the tint. Faint, but recognisable after a little observation. Jasmine, with her blonde hair, was much simpler to recognise. On the one hand, Troy found it interesting from a social dynamics point of view. Some batches of furs didn't seem to want to differentiate all that much, like the grey feline mix, last name Edwards. Others, like his own, black lab mouse variant 3, last name Salcedo, found it important to find ways to be different from each other and used a variety of small, conscious methods to do so. But not too different. That'd be somehow... wrong. Hair colour, though... most furs had longer hair, part of the genetic tweaking they'd all been given in the production process. It first appeared between the second and third generation furs, as part of the attempt to make furries ever more human. But the shade of hair was generally not too different from the major fur colour. Dye was a natural choice for most, others cut their hair almost as short as their fur. But the different shades. Was it even a conscious mechanism to differentiate? Did it even matter? Wasn't he just using his interest in social dynamics as an excuse to keep staring at her? 'Eldest' sister of the three Dixons? Troy shifted restlessly on the stone bench, outside the function hall's secondary entrance. He moved his briefcase off his lap and set it down beside him on the bench. His tail was curled under the bench's back, it's tip laying cold on the concrete sidewalk. It was late now. Probably. A quick glance at his wristwatch confirmed the thought. He'd already gotten Dallas into a cab with Florence. Apparently Dallas and Nadine had exchanged phone numbers. Florence had spent most of the evening talking to some young up and coming film actor filming on location in San Iadras who'd taken the opportunity to mingle. Well. At least now they were safely off home to their shared apartment. Sydney had been around earlier, somewhere, and probably left before the end of the speeches. Turin had made his perfect getaway. Troy shook his head. His brothers weren't really his responsibility. Not anymore, not now that they were all done with schooling and surgery and finally making their own decisions in the world. But it had been kind of nice to be the capable one again for awhile, even if it was difficult, vaguely frightening. Something that distanced him a little from his brothers. Maybe the 'eldest' Dixon sister was having similar thoughts about the whole situation, standing with her arms curled around herself, just a couple of dozen feet away on the sidewalk where she waited with the other two sisters for a cab, drenched in the light of a street lamp. Then again, her production run had been a lot bigger than his, something like a hundred and fifty survivors if he remembered it right. His group only had fourteen left, now. Maybe she wasn't the only one who had to play big sister amongst the Dixon sisters. Even so, she was extremely good at it. And extremely good looking. Light yellow brown fur, pointed muzzle, red hair, slinky little grey-blue dress that made her green eyes seem all the more dazzling. Not that the other two girls, in red and brown dresses of similar cut respectively, weren't as beautiful as her... It was probably the confidence issue, Troy thought. She had a lot more confidence in the way she walked. Maybe her love life contributed to that. From what Troy had managed to accidently overhear, Jeane and Jasmine consistently had boy troubles. Their 'elder' sister probably had a more stable boyfriend, giving her more emotional stability. Which put him out of the running. Troy shook his head and grasped his hands together, staring down at them. One of them was real, and the other hand, like his chances, wasn't. Oh well. It wasn't as though he'd ever manage to say hello. He hadn't managed to maintain a relationship with a girl past a couple of weeks. Partly because he couldn't really afford the time away from study and research, partly because initiating conversation was always a little rough. Being a furry who got jumpy around humans didn't help any up in the states either, with it's countrywide population of five hundred furs. A cab rolled up, a traditional yellow, light over the credit reader blinking. It was just a cheap two seater with dark windows and an obvious set of camera shrouds for the automatic driver. It pulled up to the sidewalk, doors sliding open. Jeane and Jasmine made their way into the cab, the 'elder' sister holding their purses for them while they got themselves settled, sitting at an angle to the seats to avoid crushing their blunt, stiff tails against the seat back. A posture most furs took when using most regular seating, without extra softer padding or hollows for tails to rest in. The two took their purses from their sister, said their goodbyes, and shut the doors. The cab rolled off with a characteristic sparking sound that made Troy think about misaligned capacitors sending arcs of electricity between them. The third Dixon sister straightened, slung her own purse over her shoulder and glanced back across the stretch of pavement. At the function hall. No, not at the function hall... at him. As soon as the realization hit him, she'd looked away again, facing the street lamp. She pulled something from her purse, there was a plastic click, and Troy thought he spotted a mirror glinting in her hands. She held something up to her face, brushed something back and forth. The sharp hiss of a cosmetic spray applicator pierced the night sounds of traffic, there was another glint of the mirror. She fanned her face with her hand for a moment, drying what Troy presumed must have been shading dyes. A plastic click as the cosmetics were closed and placed back into her purse. She glanced down the street. A private car rolled by, silvery and humming as it rounded the function hall and swept past. Troy expected it to stop, some corporate playboy blessed with having that pretty fur in his life. The car did stop, rolling to a halt and backing up to the sidewalk where she stood. Troy picked up his briefcase again and hugged it to himself with a sigh. Oh well. The private car's back windows rolled down. Revealing not the playboy he'd expected, but just a little boy. Iggy, looking sleepy like only a child determined to stay awake as long as possible could. "Hi." "Hi sweetie. Shouldn't you be taking a nap?" "Maybe." Then the front window rolled open. It was Mrs Rutherman, seated beside her husband. "Jennifer, dear, don't you need a lift?" Jennifer. He liked that name. He liked it a lot better than Jeane or Jasmine. Jennifer Dixon. It rolled around his mind nicely. "Oh, no Ma'am." Jennifer smiled, reaching up to flick a few errant lengths of her hair back over a shoulder. "I've got a cab coming. The company I use is a little far out, that's all." Mrs Rutherman nodded, glancing back at Iggy and Susan-Mae in the back seat, the horse-like fur's face illuminated briefly by an electric screen. Mrs Rutherman turned back to Jennifer with a smile. "If you're sure. Thank you for helping out Jeane earlier, Jennifer. You've always been so good to my girls." Jennifer hunched up one shoulder in a kind of helpless shrug, smiling whimsically. "They're my sisters," she said as though that kindness was simply an expected thing. "Yes, but my three kittens, ooh, don't you tell them I still talk about them like that! Well, those three hardly ever visit their brothers." "Ah, well, that's men for you." Jennifer paused a moment, before adding, "Most men, anyway." "I hope that exclusion includes me, Young Lady." "Absolutely, Mr Rutherman." "Me too!" "You too, sweetie." "She's just saying that," Susan-Mae's voice protested. "You're going to grow up to be a little monster, Iggy." "Am not!" Mrs Rutherman turned back in her seat, staring down her children. "In any case, thank you again, Jennifer. My regards to your parents." "I'll give them to the Karlsens when I see them next." Mrs Rutherman smiled, perhaps just a little tightly. Most foster parents, Troy realized, must have preferred to think of their adoptive children as their actual children. "Ah well. Good Evening, Jenny." "Good Evening, Elaine. Mr Rutherman, Susan-Mae. Don't you let her get in your hair, sweetie. You're a perfect gentleman." "Yes miss." Iggy leaned on the window frame, even while the windows rolled up, seeing how long he could keep the safety switch engaged. White furry hands with black striping reached around the child and dragged him off the frame. Jennifer stepped back from the car, waving as it pulled off once more, windows rolling up. The electric engines purred back into life, with none of the sparking sounds of the cab, and she was left standing there alone again. She glanced back again. Definitely not at the function hall this time, but at Troy. He looked away, embarrassed. From the corner of his eye, he spotted her examining the building's facade this time, the concrete, steel and glass ribs, looking his way every so often. He was sure she couldn't help but notice every time he risked looking at her directly. He looked away, down the street at the road junction. Her cab would round the corner fairly soon, he imagined, and then she'd be gone, and he could relax. Be very relaxed. Relaxed and entirely alone, true, but- "I liked your speech." Troy jumped reflexively, his briefcase slid from his grasp and clattered onto the sidewalk. He glanced up. Jennifer was standing right next to him, beside the bench, a hesitant smile on her lips, distended somewhat by her muzzle, changing into a look of concern. "Oh, I'm sorry, I..." "No, no, it's perfectly alright, I, uhm," Troy bent over, grabbing madly for the briefcase, fingers slipping off its side, "It's, er, uh," his fingernails scratched over the faux leather case, pulled it straight, found the handle, dragged it up onto his lap. He waved one hand out rapidly, "I'm just very, uhm..." She sat down beside him on the bench, slowly, lifting her tail slightly to slip it over the edge of the bench. She winced a little, as though empathising with the discomfort he was trying to hide. "Mind if we start over?" Relief flooded through Troy. "Not, uhm. Not at all." He tucked his briefcase onto the side of the bench away from her, laying it flat carefully so it couldn't end out knocked over. She smiled again, then. "So. I liked your speech." His speech. Ten terrifying minutes under the spotlights. A recounting of life as a clone, of the inherent difficulties and prejudices that came about, the difficulties in schooling and socialisation some furs had from the way they were raised. The plea for assistance in finding some place in life, without delving too deeply into what had happened. "Thank you." He'd talked himself into doing it, because he couldn't bear the idea of any of his brothers having to stand up there under the lights and say the words themselves, remember their time in the labs. She nodded, a slight twitch of the ear. "I thought it was very brave. What you and your brothers did." Did? All Troy had done was survived. Maybe that was the brave part. Or maybe she meant consenting to all the other medical examinations, back during the investigations that led to the furries being 'freed' from their lives in the corporate dormitories and research labs. The medical examinations had been easy. Easy in comparison to the rest of it. He shrugged a shoulder. "It, uhm, wasn't anything special." He bowed his head, not quite able to look up at her, only steal a surreptitious glance at her knees, covered in pretty grey-blue fabric. She paused a moment too, reaching up and smoothing down her hair, patting her face gently. "And the help with the cellphone. That was really very kind of you." He looked up then. Her eyes were beautiful. Gentle shading had been applied to her fur around her eyes, flowing into the natural light patches of fur around her eyes. Beautiful green eyes. Really just so.... He was staring again. He glanced away, swallowing dryly. "Oh, uhm. It was nothing." "Still, though. Jeane really appreciated you replacing hers with yours. And I really don't know how you got the data and accounts to transfer, I can never figure out all the features." Troy held out his hands, shrugged. "Well, they were similar models. And the casing was busted. That's all. The working life of these things is only really six months to a year anyway. I don't even use mine that much." She smiled a little, held out a hand, her claw-like nails clipped short and manicured, yellow-brown fur short and kempt. "Jennifer Dixon." It was her left hand. She was sitting to his left, her right hand was holding onto her purse. Of course it'd be her left hand. Troy swallowed. "Troy Salcedo." He lamely reached up to shake her hand, twisting around to use his own right hand rather than left. His fingertip brushed her knuckle. She quickly put her purse on her lap and reached up with her right hand. Put her warm palm in his, closed her fingers around his hand. His own hand wasn't so well maintained. His own fur not quite so finely brushed or well trimmed or a such a lovely shade, hand so beautiful and delicate, so finely proportioned. Troy silently thanked whatever surgeon put this girl's hands together. That surgeon had just given Troy one of the biggest thrills of his life. Troy glanced up. She was looking at him. Not oddly, as others might when he lapsed off into a conversational lull. Kindly. She'd even let him hold onto her hand for a few moments more than was necessarily polite. His heart ached just a little as their hands parted. "So. Where are you heading? If you like, we could split cab fare." "I, uh. I'm really just in town for the function. I was thinking about getting a room at the Greystone hotel. Last time I was here they weren't full." She tilted her head quizzically. "And then?" "I'm flying out on Sunday morning. Day after tomorrow." "Oh. Well. I think I know the hotel you mean. Downtown's on the way for me, anyway. So... Would you mind?" "Splitting cab fare? Uhm. No. Not at all." "Great," Jennifer replied with a smile. She glanced away at the road, crossed her legs and brushed the hem of her dress back over her knees. He followed her gaze, found himself watching the paved street, praying it would remain empty for a little while longer. Praying he could think of something more to say. "So. What do you do for a living?" Troy glanced back at her. "Oh, uhm. It's not very interesting, really." "Try me." "Working on my Doctorate at the University of Minnesota." "Which field?" He pulled at the collar of his dress shirt. This was about when most people lost interest. "Nuclear Chemistry. Mainly synthetic atoms, isotope decay reactions. That sort of thing." She smiled at him. "So is it all computer simulations and reactors, or do you still get to play around with test tubes and bunsen burners?" "Uhm. Only on weekends, when we've been good." It was a lame joke. She grinned anyway. Jennifer was nice to talk with. She smoothed over his hems and haws, gave him the couple of moments he needed from time to time to digest what she'd said and compose an answer he was comfortable with. It turned out she was a secretary. Mostly. What the rest of the mostly entailed, well, that was another part that got smoothed over, but he really didn't mind. And all too soon, it had to be over. The two seater cab rolled to a halt, the imposing gray facade of the Greystone hotel was now before them, a carpet leading from the dropoff area and up to the lobby doors. She sat facing him, on the faux leather bench seat of the cab, knees together, purse beside her, angled with her shoulder against the seat back to accommodate her stiff tail. She glanced past him at the hotel, back at him. He dipped his gaze. He'd been sitting in a similar fashion. His knee a couple of inches from hers. He swallowed dryly. "Uhm, thank you for sharing your cab with me." She indicated his briefcase. "Is that all your luggage?" He nodded, patting the briefcase. She watched him a moment longer, maybe a moment too long. "Troy..." "Jennifer?" "Don't take this the wrong way, but... can you really afford to waste money on a hotel like that?" "I, uh..." No. Not really. In all honesty he should've searched out a cheaper hotel, or maybe have asked to stay on the couch at Florence and Dallas's apartment. Too late for that. "I don't want to, you know, intrude, but... well. I've got a foldout bed at my place you're welcome to for a few days. I mean, if that isn't too forward." Troy couldn't quite manage to focus on her. Embarrassment, maybe. He felt a vague hot flush somewhere up around his ears. Maybe something like a blush, just without the cheeks and skin of a human. Possibly a twinge of terror. Jennifer continued, shifting somewhat on the seat. "It's a quiet place. I'm quiet. It really won't be intrusive for you, I mean, you can be alone if you want to. I'll be quiet as a mouse, if you'll excuse the pun." The uncomfortable feeling faded. At the worst case, if the paranoia got too much to bear, he could quietly stick his nose in a text file or something. "It's... uhm. If it's not going to be a problem." "It won't," she said, smiling with something approaching relief. He nodded, then, smiling back a little hesitantly. "Thank you. You're really very kind." Jennifer swung the thin map screen towards her, picked out her address. She smiled at him, face lit by the screen's glow. "It's nothing, really." She reached for her purse, as the screen flashed its payment icon. "Oh, uh. Let me get that." Troy grabbed his wallet from his jacket, passed it over the cab's credit reader He flicked his wallet open, checking the screen before nudging the pay option with a knuckle. The electronics gave a beep as payment was made. She paused, hands in her purse. Another smile, drawing her lips in a graceful curve across her muzzle. "Thank you." "It's the least I can do," Troy replied, settling his wallet back into his jacket as the cab started rolling once more. He moved his briefcase down under the seat again after a moment's thought. She put down her purse, settled again with her shoulder against the seat back. The lights of the hotel faded, leaving the cab interior in slight darkness. Just enough for her green eyes to become prominent, reflecting the meagre light. The cab picked up speed, street lights flashed by, casting a slow strobe of light across her. She blinked languidly, smiled a little more, and he realized he'd been staring into her eyes for half a minute, maybe longer. He averted his gaze, she tapped his knee with one of hers. He glanced up at her, she grinned in response. "So, uhm. You seem very good at putting me at ease." "I met one of your brothers for a little while at college." She admitted, tilting her head slightly. "Didn't take me long to figure out you guys prefer being treated gently." "You studied at the City University of San Iadras?" She nodded. The fur on the back of Troy's neck pricked up. "Monaco." "Monaco," she agreed. "I haven't heard from him in, god, three years? How is he these days?" "He's, uhm. He's in..." Troy frowned. "Turkey, I think? Maybe Georgia." "Eastern European Union?" She lifted an eyebrow pointedly. "Seems like him. I would've expected France or Germany though." "Oh, he wanted to, but it's difficult to get in. He was very into that war from the Nineteen-Forties." Troy swallowed. She nodded, crossing her legs and once again brushing down the hem of her dress. "I remember he had a lot of vids and things about it. Is he still studying, or?" "Not too sure." The last time Troy had seen his brother Monaco, Monaco had been unwilling to talk about much that was happening in his life. More interested in slinging around the new brand of politics he'd thought up in Europe. "Archaeological digs and hiking, possibly. He sent some nice wilderness and ruin photos with his last set of E-mails, but that was a few months back." She nodded placidly. "It seems a little weird to me, that all of you Salcedo boys are so far apart. Pretty much all of my sisters are here in San Iadras. Well, there's six of us in Milan, Jodi, Jaye, Jacqueline, Jacoba, Joey and Joy, and about a dozen out in Sydney. But most of us are here." "You've all got names starting with Jay?" "Jays, Gees and Is, mostly," she said. "There's a Jacqueline with an I, and another with a Y, so a lot of names get recycled through spelling. I'm kind of lucky, being the only Jennifer. There's also Jenny with an I, with a Y, and an IE. And two Jens, one with one en, the other with two." "Must make things a little difficult," Troy said, meshing his fingers together, carefully winding those of his right hand between his left, closing the left down over the others little by little. "Not really. We all used our embryonic numbers between each other at first. Getting used to names and living apart after being in the dormitories was a little traumatic." He nodded, glancing across at her. "My run. We, ah. There were few enough of us to name us individually from the start." She nodded, pointed muzzle tipping up and down. Troy found his eyes following the motion hypnotically. She explained a little of her early life, growing up as a foster child after the release from the dorms, back in 2090. He didn't remember much of what she told him, but her eyes. He did remember her green, green eyes.