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Tag Disclaimer: I categorized this story as Bi M/M/F because of M/F sexual intercourse and separate incident of M/M kissing. Part VI of my homage to all things Cyperpunk. Please note I'm emulating everything about the genre here, including its criticisms: the shallowness, the sexism, right down to the inherent nihilism. Please rate accordingly. Basil is copyright NautaCeta, all other meat bags copyright Eldyran. Taunting Happy Funball leads to Flatline: Proceed with Caution.

Moral Obsolescence and Motor Oil

Part VI- Do Gene Spliced Hybrids Dream of Cloned Chimerical Sheep?

2007 by Eldyran

The shattered, contaminated heavens above wept for Glow City, and the cracked, radioactive earth below sizzled in suffering.

Basil heard none of this. All his gene spliced, augmented ears heard was the rush of the downpour past them, and the watery hiss of his speed bike's tires slicing through the slick, cracked asphalt. Liquid bullets of biting rain splattered hard against his mono-piece shades, small streaks obscuring the blinking GPS tracking signal in his field of vision. The ex-corporate mercenary turned fugitive glowered at the nocturnal, neon lit sprawl with grim resolve as it whizzed by on either side.

Despite two assassination attempts in less than twenty four, the skunk / raccoon hybrid was still alive.

The bike underneath him roared forward in a sudden surge of acceleration as he gunned the throttle, thick tendrils of steam streaking from the red hot engine block. Despite the occasional mechanical stutter of the highly tuned precision machine under him, the genetic hybrid's only concern now was the blinking tracking signal now. He had placed a tracking device on a coyote's ride some hours ago, and now it had become a simple race against time.

Either he tracked down the war veteran first, or his parent corporation, Atum Military Research, tracked him down and finished the little bit of wetwork they had started.

He didn't really know who this Reese was, or what his involvement in the VSA conflict was, and yet he did. His disjointed memories of the covert operations during that theater of engagement seemed jumbled, muddled in places. Despite this, he clearly remembered the yote, who fought for his contractual opposition during that time, the New Canadian Coalition. The fact that the cybernetic coyote didn't seem to remember him only fueled this paradox further. Who was he really, and whose stolen past did he harbor inside his genetically sculpted flesh?

The oncoming rush of dark, glistening pavement loomed in his headlight before him him like an unseen future.

A sudden boom broke the skoon from his dark thoughts, the handling of the bike stuttering hard in his paws. A blast of heat near his calves made him look down to watch as a billow of wispy white smoke streaked back from the block; its firing chambers running dry now as the synthoil inside denatured from thermal abuse. He dropped the bike into neutral before the pistons could seize and throw him off, letting the bike coast a bit till it was safe to pull off to the side of the highway.

He ditched the dead machine without an afterthought, and climbed down an embankment leading to a spillway, one that led all the way down to Davenport's dilapidated western dockside. At least here he didn't have to worry about traffic watchdog aerodynes or being picked up on the public transit surveillance system. Basil shouldered his way through the biting deluge, his dripping fur matted against his toned hybrid physic.

A torrent of dark, slimy water rushed down the concrete shores of the spillway, small eddies forming as the swift current parted for rusted out hulks of abandoned vehicles and discarded scrap. The bloated corpse of a hobo swirled about in a spiraling vortex of flotsam; most of the fur and flesh of the sexless feline's muzzle melted away from the all industrial chemical waste making its way to the bay downstream.

The skeletal mask of an everyday Charon grinned back at Basil from Glow City's very own River Acheron.

Basil stopped to rest his weary, rain soaked form underneath an overpass, glancing at the chronometer in his lower left field of his vision. According to the tracking device, Reese's buggy had just stopped near wharf twenty three, just five kilometers away. The skoon could have sprinted the entire way, arriving in fifteen minutes, but every fiber in his being burned with exhaustion. He pulled off his shades, taking a moment to watch the urban river rush past ...

... just as fully automatic gunfire erupted in the jungle foliage across the Venezuelan river beside him. When he ducked behind the half track, a trail of tracer fire bounced off its armored sides, barely missing him / the raccoon by scant centimeters. As the antelope mounting the twin Vulcan auto cannon turret spun around and opened fire on the guerrilla positions, the coyote nearby dropped to his knees as the earsplitting whine from the whirling barrels almost burst his eardrums. Basil / the raccoon half pulled, half dragged Reese back with him and ran for cover, screaming his division's retreat just as ....

... Basil the AMR mercenary swung the sights of his assault rifle over to the fleeing raccoon and yote. His finger tightened on the trigger, just as Peers glanced back at him, falling through some flimsy layer of underbrush. Basil's shots splintered the trunk of the tree that had been behind Peer's head, and the schism of conflicting memories ...

... jolted the skoon from his waking dream. For a moment, Basil forgot who he was, and stared out at the strange, unfamiliar towers of a florescent city scape to the east. He looked down to the eyepiece in his paws, and squinted at the digital readout on its inner surface. According to his shade's chronometer, an entire hour had passed.

"Hey c-c-chief." Max growled out, the Artificial Intelligence lion booming into his headphones. Basil gathered up his composure and slipped his shades back on to a rather impatient, plastic looking feline smoothing out his rendered black suit and tie. "I know you cant help b-b-but enjoy the picturesque scenery of ground zero and stop to smell the scent of assassin Roses, but theres something I t-t-think you should hear on the local police band."

The crudely rendered lion's image slid to the right side of Basil's field of vision to make room for a rippling vocal pattern, tuned to the Davenport PD dispatch frequency.

"... Unit 12 to wharf twenty five. Repeat. We have reports of shots fired, vehicular homicide, and one officer down. Unit 23 is on scene, negotiating with the local crime authority for a temporary cease fire. All units proceed with caution."

Basil shook out his fur and stood up. He didn't know what the war vet had done, but if he had got himself killed, he might never find out who the mysterious cougar was found in the same photo as his creator, Dr. Tyrell. The skoon took off into the maelstrom once again, bent on finding out why AMR had blown up an entire steakhouse just to silence the elderly scientist.

Fifteen minutes later Basil arrived to Davenport's run down dockside. He slipped between long since closed repair facilities and warehouses, moving stealthily to the bedlam of red and blue strobes out on one of the piers. An alley over, Basil watched through the downpour as some vulpine stranger helped the stunned coyote Reese into an automated Johnny Cab. The skoon yelled out something, but the fox only looked up and narrowed his eyes, seeming to recognize Basil somehow, before slipping in and taking off before the hybrid could stop him.

"Max, capture that cab's ID." Basil said, slinking back into drizzling, dank shadow as another squad car rushed past in a hiss of spray and a squall of flashing red and blue. Inside the passing squad car his enhanced night vision caught the sight of the mammoth female tiger who had been cryptically calling him for the past twenty four hours.

"Y-y-you going to rescue the damsel from the c-c-clutches of the evil fox, Galahad?" Max quipped, grinning. "I was starting to wonder why you insisted on k-k-keeping tabs on our little hobo. Smells like ... Amore ..." Basil rolled his eyes, but didn't dignify his compiled cohort's retort with his own usual parlay. Instead, he slipped through the cover of rain and shadow to the pier and its crime scene, watching the tigress climb out of her ground vehicle.

As he spied over the top of a barrel, thick splatters of raindrops splashing in the small pool on the drum head, he watched her look with a flashlight into a black ground car with its motor block half embedded in a concrete pier tie down, rain rolling down her black poncho. Thick precipitation scattered the bright light into a splinted mosaic as the tigress swung the beam back and forth. After a few moments she reached inside for something, then walked over and talked to the sloth coroner near the black ghoul van.

While the searchlights of a few patrol boats skittered about the black waters of the bay, slowly trolling their way out to the Pacific, the two exchanged notes for a few minutes. Basil waited, crouched in the cold, stinging rain, waiting for an opportunity to make his move. After a while, the tigress started down the pier towards him, heading toward what appeared to be an abandoned cannery. When she finally moved into the alleyway out of sight from the rest of the police troupe and passed him, the skoon slipped out, trying to sneak up on her from behind.

Without warning the tigress whipped around and shot her paw out, a stream of orange fire swirling from it. Basil's crossed his arms and shielded his face in reflex, a shield of purple pyrotechnics erupting around his hybrid form. The tigress' flamethrower spell danced around its outer edge, lapping around the defensive mana barrier. Just as abruptly as it began, the magikal assault sputtered out, and a smirk played about the female tiger's thick muzzle lips.

"I was wondering when you would find me," she said, the curtain of rain between them muffling the rich, rumbling alto of her voice. Basil uncrossed his arms, and the swirling shield of purple fire around his form dissipated.

"Enough verse. Enough enigmas. Who are you?" the skoon said, taking a few hesitant steps towards his mysterious informant. The tigress shook her head.

"We cant talk here. We need somewhere private. The Yakuza is watching us even as we speak. Now do you trust me?" the striped feline asked, her right paw reaching back to her paw cuffs.

"No," Basil glowered, taking off his shades, "should I?"

"Either way, make this look good." The tigress smiled wickedly. Basil backed up a bit, throwing his body into a fighting stance, before deflecting some half hearted blows from the advancing feline. The two furs spun about, kicks defected, blows averted as their martial, graceful dance sent them grappling about in the pouring rain. "Not that good!" she hissed low, growing annoyed with the skoon's superior combat training.

Basil frowned, before allowing an opening in his defensive posture. The tigress capitalized instantly, her fist zeroing in for a blow to the abs that doubled him over, knocking the breath out of him. The butt of a flashlight slammed into the back of his skull, knocking the stunned skoon into a shallow puddle, its surface rippling with splatters of rain droplets. As Basil sputtered, spat out the foul rainwater from his muzzle, the tigress brought back his wrists and paw cuffed them, before hoisting the toned hybrid to his feet, forcing him to back to the pier. A few other officers looked up as she neared with him in tow, then a horse shuffled up to the pair.

"What's going on?" the officer brayed out.

"I'm taking this suspect into questioning, sergeant. Theres an ABP out for his arrest anyhow. Seems he knows the coyote who iced Detective Conrad." She turned her head to a male cheetah, still talking some statements from a small group of club patrons. "Hey Petie, get in the 'Wagon. We're taking this dirt bag to the Precinct. Make sure you call ahead and let the Brass know that we found their corporate Mutt."

The tigress shoved Basil into the back of a paddy wagon, before stepping inside and throwing the thick steel double doors shut with a deep resounding clank. Basil eased into the hard bench, ineffectively rubbing the back of his head as the cheetah got into the cab and fired up the massive engine, which made the entire vehicle tremble. The large ground vehicle bounced a bit over discarded pier debris as it turned around, and within minutes, the paddy wagon thundered out of the swarm of flashing blue and red vehicles. A few minutes later, Basil watched through a locked riot gear cage as the cheetah flicked off the wagon's emergency lights, never calling dispatch of their intended arrival nor incarcerated suspect.

"You mind telling me what that was all about back there?" Basil asked in sharp, demanding tones as the tigress unlocked his cuffs. He rubbed his sore wrists a bit, eying the stripped feline with a distrustful leer.

"Seems your coyote friend started to piece together why we really paid a visit to his place last night. Right now they are fishing what's left of my partner out of the bay." Her cobalt blue eyes looked the doubtful skoon over, perhaps more than a simple inquisitive glance.

"Who are you? How do you know Reese? And why are you helping us?" Basil shivered a bit in the wagon's chilly interior. A moment later the female tiger got up and unlocked the cage separating the back from the drivers compartment.

"My name is Ellen Connor, but thats not terribly important right now," she mused, opening the cage and rifling through some gear as the vehicle bounced around a bit. She withdrew a beat cop's uniform and gave it to Basil, who took after a few moments of cautious contemplation. "What is important," she said, "is that you get into some dry clothes. You might also want to consider the fact that in an hour we'll arrive at the Davenport PDHQ, and you might want to arrive looking like you belong there."

Basil's purple irises flashed for a moment, before stripping off his black leather vest, revealing the slim but well defined musculature underneath. Ellen's blue eyes seemed to linger a bit, then as Basil shed off his rain slicked vinyl pants, she placed a large feline paw on his chest, examining his ID tag, which read: GEH-22-45-039.

"What are you doing?" Basil barked, now on guard.

"So much like her, and yet so different." the tigress seemed to muse, her cobalt eyes and paw now gently roaming over his body. Before he could say something, the large tiger leaned in, and placed her thick muzzle lips curiously against Basil's own. A thousand conflicting feeling coursed through the stunned skoon, but another memory filament eased his nervousness, and he found his own paws wrapping around the larger feline, pressing into the chaste kiss.

From the way her thicker lips pushed against his slimmer set, dancing lightly on the flushed, heated contact, he could not help but feel as if he had kissed her before, and simply forgot. The officer tensed for a hesitant moment, as if in moral dilemma, then parted her muzzle lips slightly, a rough sandpaper tongue slipping out to tease Basil's own lips. Spurned on by a sensual gravitation he could not explain, much less escape, Basil's closed his eyes and parted his muzzle. While his own tongue danced between their intertwined muzzles, a new fire ignited between them.

As if guided by a ghost, Basil's trembling paw reached in between their bodies and slipped into the officer's uniform, where his paw tips slid over her bra to gently cup one of her furred breasts. It was heavy in his paw, but the furred mammary belayed a softness and heat that sent a deep seated shudder up the hybrid's spine. The tigress gave off a deep rumbling purr at the intimate contact, the scent of her heat starting to saturate the heavy air now between them. Basil's eyes suddenly blinked open, remembering the cheetah behind the wheel. The skoon looked up at the silent spotted feline, who seemed to stare forward through the rain streaked windshield as if nothing at all was happening behind him.

"Don't worry about Petie there," the tigress smiled, noting Basil's concern, "His mate made him undergo an extensive H-mod, paid for it and everything. As you can see it left him with no interest in sex outside of her, with the ingenious side effect of being extremely docile and compliant to the opposite sex. Isn't that right Petie?"

The male cheetah flicked a glance up to the rear-view mirror and stuck out a thumb's up, before returning his attention back to driving.

Basil's smirk at the cheetah's reaction only cemented the tigress' passionate resolve, and she pulled the naked skoon up, only to move him down to the metal floor. Still standing, her paws unbuttoned her black beat uniform, pealing off the top half slowly, as if wanting to capture the hybrid's attention. Her matching, lacy black c-cup bra seemed out of place for the direct, confident tigress, but it emphasized her feminine qualities quite nicely.

Taking her time, the stripped feline shed the lower portions of her uniform past her strong thighs, where the large hand cannon she kept in her holster as backup firepower hit the floor with a dull thunk. Despite her size, she stepped out of the pool of at her white hind feet with a surprising amount of lithe feline grace. Basil wasn't used to being the one on his back in this circumstance, but the way her commanding blue eyes looked down at him, the way her undergarments accentuated the curves of her hips and large, supple breasts, his will crumbled before her aggressive and undeniable desire.

Despite the hard chill of the vehicle's metallic floor, Basil's sex hardened at the mystical, peacekeeping femme fatale.

The way that Ms. Connor shed the last remaining articles covering her stripped fur seemed to Basil the most erotic thing he had ever seen. As the tigress sunk down to the floor atop the skoon, the hot mounds of her endowment slid up down down Basil's chest, and he shivered. A deep rumble of need reverberated from deep inside the tigress' chest, and Basil tilted his head to meet her advancing lips. For a short while, each was content with just pressing naked against each other, allowing their muzzle to fight a more primal battle than the one that had lead them to this moment.

After a few minutes, the tigress' need sent her body nuzzling, rubbing against the slender hybrid pinned underneath her. The stripped feline's ministrations seemed somehow awkward, as if unsure of how to proceed, until the hardened shaft ground just slightly through her pussy lips, just grazing her clit. Ellen's head threw back into a soft yowl of pleasure, then looked down, her cobalt blue eyes swirling with the flames of lust.

It threatened to consume her more than the icy fires of Hell ever could.

Basil gasped lightly as she reached between them, her mammoth paw placing his cock tip against her slick entrance. She lowered herself down upon him, Basil's gene sculpted flesh shuddering as her fleshy heat engulfed centimeter after centimeter of his thick prick. Their bodies began to move of their own violations, rubbing against each other, their hips arching, driving their primal union closer and closer with each shallow thrust. Ellen placed her thighs astride of Basil's hips, and then sat up, her hips gyrating as she rode the hybrid, her breasts undulating at the sensual motion. Basil reached up with a paw and massaged one, the large feline above her yowling out as she climaxed against him, her puffy sex clamping down against his own.

They made love for an hour, until Basil spurted his engineered seed deep inside her womb.

Not overly concerned, the cheetah parked the wagon in the police HQ parking ramp, the two intertwined furs blinking in mild confusion as the vehicle lurched to a halt. Ellen blushed slightly, kissing her spur of the moment lover, before motioning him to get dressed. Soon the three furs filed out of the vehicle in differing degrees of alertness: Basil securing his Imod with Max contained within back on his holster belt, checking out his new police uniform, Ellen smoothing out her tousled fur and wrinkles in her own uniform, and Petie admiring a particularly attractive crack in the ferrocrete wall. Eventually they nodded to each other, before heading into the station.

"Now," Basil said, walking down corridors filled with police personnel, some juggling coffee and paperwork, others just milling about, "You mind telling me how you know me?" Ellen nodded to someone she knew, an otter heading out on his beat patrol, securing down his flak jacket, before she turned back to him.

"It's not that I know who you are," the tigress replied rather sheepishly, "but rather, who you were". Basil turned to give an odd look to her as she continued to lead him further into the HQ. "Look," she said, pulling him into an empty briefing room, motioning the cheetah to stand guard outside while they talked in private, "I don't know how to break it easily to you." She closed the door and sat down in a chair, the thick walls muffling the clatter and bustle of the graveyard shift outside.

"Now is not the time to be easy on me," Basil growled, growing impatient as he sat down opposite of her, "You getting soft on me now might get me killed real quick. I've had two attempts on my life since you called my vid-com last night." He leaned forward and placed a tender paw on the tigress' cheek. "Ellen, don't let me die without knowing the truth."

A single tear slid down her cheek, suddenly scared she might lose again what had already been taken from her years ago.

"Basil ... do you remember ... ever meeting me, before I called?" When the skunk / raccoon hybrid shook his head, she almost broke down into sobs. "I ... didn't ... think you would have. I shouldn't have called. But I couldn't let AMR take you from me, not like they took ... her ..."

"Who?" Basil asked, his brow furrowing in concern.

"Her name was Violet," Ellen whispered, a immeasurable sadness spilling off her in emotional waves, "and she was my lover. You might know who I am talking about. You still harbor her memories. And you just look so much like her that ..." She reached out and held him suddenly, sobbing. "... I'm sorry about what happened in the wagon. I just miss her so much ..."

"Shsssshhh ... it's okay." Basil whispered, holding the grieving feline. "Now just tell me whats going on."

"Basil," she sniffed, looking into the skoon's purple colored irises, "I don't know else how to say this. You are the genetic cross between the skunk Violet Kolodny and the raccoon Micheal Peers."

Basil sat back in his seat, stunned.

"Then, why do I have these memories of VSA, of working for AMR as a mercenary?"

"They aren't your memories Basil, they are AMR simsense recordings, used in VR small tactics training, picked out with the guidance of Micheal Peers himself. After VSA he went from the NCC military to work as a consultant for AMR. Can you remember any of the names of the guerrilla's you fought beside?" When the skoon looked hurt, she continued. "Memory implants Basil. Your childhood as you knew it is a fake. You were dumped out of a vat tank fully grown." Basil irises narrowed.

"Then ... then how old am I really?" The genetic jabberwocky stammered.

"Your incept date was five years ago. Right after Violet died while sabotaging Davenport's Microfusion Reactor no.5."

"Why would AMR sabotage an entire fusion reactor?" Basil frowned. "It doesn't make sense."

"I don't know, Basil," the tigress sighed, "Conrad only knew what the Yaks did. And thats only because of what Violet's twin sister, Rose Kolodny, told him." Basil's hackles raised as he realized who Rose really was. His genetic half twin sister had been fucking him for years, watching his every move, AMR's own personal undercover watchdog.

"Ellen, why were you at Reese's apartment last night?" Basil asked, trying desperately to piece things together.

"Conrad said we had to frame the last remaining solider under Peer's command for his own murder. He never explained why, so aside from the fact that Peer's knew Reese, I don't have a clue on how this all involves the NCC."

"I need to know everything your partner knew. Can you do something for me?" The tigress looked sad for a moment, before reaching into an uniform pocket and drawing out a key card, retrieved from the ruins of the car from the pier. She leaned over and placed it in his paws, before placing a teary kiss on his muzzle.

She left without so much as a long goodbye.

Basil sat for a few minutes in silence, listening to the goings and comings of law enforcement between shifts. He contemplated his fabricated existence within the confines of a building meant to create the illusion of security with the public interest in mind. It was no secret that this new state of the art building had been built with a philanthropic grant from an AMR subsidiary. AMR owned almost everything in Glow City now, except Renchu. According to news reports on the precinct's vid sets, however, a corporate cease fire settlement had been agreed upon, with AMR absorbing a good portion of Rencu's North American and South Asian assets into its global network, set to take place when the Nikkei stock exchange reopened in the next few hours.

After a while, Basil stood up and stumbled down to the morgue, and viewed Peer's stone cold body laying stiff on a frigid slab of metal. The paradoxical experience of seeing himself dead sobered him up a bit, and cemented his cause for self preservation. As he left two morgue attendants wheeled in two carts carrying detective Conrad's severed remains for his autopsy. As if the cause of death wasn't apparent enough: The wolven detective's toe ID tag on one cart, his dental records on the other.

What had happened in VSA to turn Kylson Reese into a cyber-psychotic cop killer?

The sloth coroner gave Basil a double take as the hybrid walked by, recognizing him from the commotion on the pier. He later reviewed the security tapes from the morgue's electronic camera's, and did not see the skoon, although he did watch himself do a double take at empty air.

One of Violet's little known covert talents.

Meanwhile Basils strolled down to Homicide, where he used the deceased wolven detective's keycard to access all his personal files. It took him several hours to untangle the convoluted web of deceit underpinning the birth of Glow City, but in the end several key pieces of the puzzle, most regarding the NCC's involvement in VSA, were still unexplained. He took out the hard copy photo of the strange cougar seen with Peer's and Tyrell, examining it with a careful eye.

The only one who could fill the final gaps was Peer's only comrade and lover, Reese.

"Max," Basil said under his breath, "I want you to break in JohnnyCab Transit and access their database. Using the cab's license ID you are holding in memory, track where the it dropped him and his new friend off at."

"S-s-hall I prepare the horse, S-s-sire?"

"Max!" Basil growled out, "Stop it. For the last time, I don't like Reese!" The AI lion only snickered in short, jerky stutter as Basil tore out of Conrad's office and headed back down to the packing garage. Although Basil knew how to drive a large assortment of terradynes and ground vehicles, he had no experience flying aerodynes or spinners. Basil's muzzle suddenly tightened in a sneer.

In reality he had no real first paw experience with anything. If what Connor said was true, the only combat environment he had been in, aside from his near constant practice, was the recent Mennonite liberation of Mar's Colony two months ago. The skoon jumped on a parked patrol bike, put on the helmet, and examined the keypad securing the bike's keyless ignition.

"Max, using Conrad's ID, access the motor pool's database and clear this bike's ignition code. Sign it out under whoever last returned it, and clear your digital signature when you exit. That ought to keep us in the clear long enough to find Reese."

"Surely S-s-sire!" Max stammered, grinning to Basil as he put his shades back on. "High ho Silver! A-a-away!"

Max's vocalized roar digitally morphed into a deep whinny as Basil cranked the ignition switch and gunned the throttle, pealing off in a wheely. The duo screamed out of the motor pool and into the fiery rays of a red dawn, heading in a direct beeline to the location the Johnny Cab most likely dropped Reese and his vulpine chum. The trip to the address that Max specified seemed uneventful, despite the increase in AMR ground and air patrols. The entire city seemed under unofficial martial law, although few residents cared.

After all, if AMR decided to take over more than just Renchu assets, the NCC would be there to protect its trusting citizens. Right?

It was early afternoon before Basil arrived to the specified address, a small, ramshackle flat overlooking a tube station on the lower west side of the metroplex. He pulled off to the curb and turned off the idling bike, its deep purr sputtering out with a small final jerk. Taking off the helmet, Basil couldn't help but notice that the near constant, stagnant haze that seemed to linger over Glow City had dissipated, a fresh ocean breeze coming out from the direction of the bay. For once, the bright yellow beams of an unobscured sun shone down from above, the AMR arcology pyramid glinting in the middle of distant downtown like a monolithic, black, inverted diamond.

Basil nudged out the kickstand and got off the bike, taking off his shades before strolling up the rusted stairwell. He tried the door chime, but it didn't seem to be functional. He knocked lightly and waited for a few minutes, his ears keen to the any sound of approaching hind paws. When that didn't evoke a response, gunfire or otherwise, he grew impatient, and started to slam the bottom of his fist into the thin metal door.

A series of low grumbles announced movement within, and Basil took out the last piece of the puzzle to the mystery surrounding his shadowy past. The door to the flat opened, and Reese's chrome colored optics blinked in the bright light, the stocky coyote completely nude. Undaunted by this unexpected sight, Basil thrust the picture of the black cougar with the red tactical optic into the naked yote face.

"Have you seen this Cougar?" the policeman asked, terminating what was left of the yote's cheery morning. Reese's artificial irises widened in dumb shock, the inset optics trembling slightly, as if he had just seen a ghost.

"Come in," Kylson said after a few moments of silence, waving the skoon into the plush and luxuriously decorated flat. "Nice outfit, Sato. Let me guess, the Cowboy, the Indian and the Construction Worker are out at lunch?" He closed the door and walked into the kitchenette, the budge of his belly swaying a bit as he did so. The fur of his sheath seemed matted somehow, and Basil tried not to gawk at the indecent coyote as he foraged through the clean and well stocked kitchenette.

"Want something?" the yote asked non-nonchalantly as he dug out some bagels, putting on a pot of real coffee grounds. Basil seemed torn at the offer of food and the yote's unusual, clam demeanor. Despite his impatience, the growl in his stomach forced him to sit down on a bar stool near the island counter. It had been almost sixteen hours since he last ate, and his accelerated metabolism required near constant influx of calories and nutrients just to maintain itself.

"You see any ... bacon ... in there?" Basil asked, the closest to polite he had ever been with the coyote. Then again, this was the first time the canid had shown him any courtesy as well. Basil re-iterated to himself that it had absolutely nothing to do with fact that a part of him had laid down his life in the line of fire for the yote. Still, Basil's eyes couldn't help but compare the squat canid's still somewhat thick, muscular body to Peer's own memories.

"Lemme check," Reese replied, and opened up the refrigerator, rummaging about the meat locker. The skoon made an distinct effort not to look at his furry ass and busy tail. After a few moments the yote turned around with a grin and threw out a package of bacon, illegal contraband on Sol now that the NAS-Viral epidemic had endangered most indigenous feral species. "Fortune smiles upon you my friend, another day of Wine and Roses."

"I think Ive had enough of Roses, thank you," Basil said with a slight grin, "the last Rose I knew blew up a steakhouse I was in. You might remember." Kylson opened the package and dropped it into a hot skillet, the sound of sizzling fat filling the small flat. Basil looked around to the expensive, yet somehow militant, decor, sprinkled in with high quality electronics. While it didn't match the skoon's former condo, it was ten times better than the bullet ridden squalor of Reese's old apartment.

"So that's who left the pilot light on huh?" Reese shrugged, hoping the skoon didn't take too much offense to his little joke. He knew Basil had lost his father in the explosion, and for some reason felt more at ease with the corporate created hybrid, although he couldn't place a paw tip as to why. Instead he poured of cup of coffee and slid it over the polished counter top to Basil, who deftly caught it in a relaxed, open paw. "Should I know her?"

Basil was about to reply when Ferro, the fox he had seen earlier, stepped into the kitchenette, dressed in nothing but a pair of camouflage boxers. Despite the fact that his muzzle seemed slightly swollen and cut up, his neatly cropped airman style head fur and tight, well defined musculature underneath the vulpine's mussy red fur made him quite attractive. Now that the former mercenary could see him up close and in the light, Basil instantly recognized the set of interface plugs danging from the back of the vulpine's neck.

A rigger no doubt, someone who interfaced directly into vehicle's on board controls to pilot them. And deducing from the three hundred liter aquarium sitting in the living room fully stocked with female Siamese fighting fish, quite a talented and well compensated one at that. Ferro gave a scowl when he noticed Reese had picked through his kitchen like he lived here, doing as he pleased. The two kilograms of bacon alone probably cost the fox a hundred fifty thousand yen on the black market.

"Well if it isn't my own personal thunderjock," the coyote grinned, noticing the look on the fox's muzzle, "How about some bacon to replenish those calories I burned off of you last night?" The vulpine's silent stare of daggers only fueled the yote onward. "Oh come on now, its not like you fly boys aren't used to a lot of thrust between your legs." Basil choked on his fresh brewed Columbian ground.

Well stocked fish tank: one thousand two hundred chin. Illegal contraband of wild pig by product and naturally grown beans: a quarter million yen. Listening to your genetic half twin's former lover make some real choice digs to his one night stand while on the lamb from a militant, triple AAA megacorp bent on global domination? Priceless.

Despite the insults, something seemed to hold Ferro's anger at bay. Whatever it was, Basil could only guess at. Although the fox had somehow recognized the hybrid on the dockside, despite it being a stormy night, Basil sure didn't know him, although he could have been one of Reese's old buddies from the war. Ferro took a seat next to the skoon and tried to downplay the outrage that rolled underneath his now placid facade.

"I'll have a bagel with my coffee, die Schlampe." the fox made his best impression of a grin he could give. "You know whats better than seeing you butt naked and fixing me something to eat?"

"And what is that?" Kylson smirked as his one good ear perked. A gunshot had taken a huge chunk out of the other one last night. Ferro opened a drawer near him and tossed the coyote an apron.

"Twist of lemon in my coffee. Cream soy on my bagel." Ferro's sharp teeth glinted as his grin widened. Basil perked a brow as Kylson tied the apron around his thick waist and went back to fixing the morning meal, his tail swaying abit from side to side. This was the most empathic he had ever seen the yote, hearkening back to an earlier time, when Basil ... Micheal ... had fell in love with him.

Micheal's long forgotten memories began to emerge: the one instance of passion, the camaraderie that followed, the irretrievable sense of loss after Fort Rekall, when the coyote's spark seemed to fade.

"So who was this Rose?" Kylson barked suddenly as he turned the bacon sizzling in the skillet, breaking Basil from his reverie.

"She worked for the Yakuza, at least I thought so, until she tried to kill me." Basil turned back toward Kylson. "According to the personal files of one Detective Conrad, she worked covert operations for AMR."

"I see. Then why did she kill your father, and then try to kill us?"

"Well my father was chief scientist on the AMR project that gave rise to me." Basil licked his muzzle lips as the coyote forked some strips onto a plate and slid it over to him. He ate ravenously, and between chews, continued. "For whatever reason, a Junior Executive by the name of Yohanson decided to terminate the project, and anyone connected to it."

"Well, thats all fine and everything, but I was never connected to any top secret corporate project." Kylson said, leaning back against the edge of the counter top behind him. Basil wiped his greasy chin and nodded, before getting up and walking over to the living room and hooking his iMod up to the massive trid set in the corner.

"Max, pull up the only file contained on the holovid disk labeled 'Simulation and Simulacra', the disk found at Peer's residence."

The huge trid set blinked on, and clearly showed a picture of Peer's living room. Micheal sat with the same cougar show in the hard copy photo Basil had shoved in Reese's face this morning on his couch, a few soy beers in paw. Behind them sat an aged ocelot with thick bifocals typing away on Michaels personal info-term, his screen off angle and out of focus.

"Max, map grid." A series of green horizontal and vertical green florescent lines criss crossed the screen. "Pull to grid 24." The screen made a short series of what sounded like shutter clicks as it zoomed in. "Pan 60 right, and enhance." There was a short beep, and the image showing a clear view of the ocelot's screen refreshed, this time in focus. The readout on the screen detailed a restricted access biogenics project entitled Project SETH, or Simulacra Enhanced Tactical Hybrid. Next to the outline of the eugenics program, which according to its own abstract was in its fifth generation, sat two twirling sets of DNA double helices.

The nude outlines of a female skunk and a male raccoon spun underneath the strands, their names stamped above their donated genetic material: Violet Kolodny and Micheal Peers. Max pulled up a image of Violet's face as she stepped out of the shower in the bathroom behind the three furs, something that Basil had found earlier. The AI lion then pulled up an image of Peer's face as Rose snapped his picture off screen. Underneath the pair, he pulled up an image of Basil.

The final result of the pairing was unmistakable. A sudden weight pressed down on Reese, and he almost fell. At the last moment he caught himself on the edge of the counter top, his metallic paw spasming.

"You okay?" Basil said, moving to help the yote, until he waved the skoon off.

"Yeah," he said, righting himself and pulling some cream soy from the refrigerator. "I guess it makes perfect sense. He was our platoon's Golden Boy." Reese pulled out a bagel out of it bag and started smearing smashed soy on it. Ferro just seemed to sit there, doing his best to act confused.

"Golden Boy?" Basil asked, his ringed black and white tail swishing a bit.

"Yeah. Despite the shit that got dumped on us in VSA, none of it seemed to touch Micheal. Everyone came back from the shitbox with at least some sort of 'ware, but not Micheal." Kylson grabbed a lemon and crushed it in his synthetic right paw over Ferro's coffee, before sliding the cup and plate over to the fox, who listened in earnest. "I kid you not, Raies, that Coon could dodge bullets." Basil smirked and nodded. Peer's superior genetic code did lay the foundation for further enhancements made to his own reaction speed.

"So who is the cougar with the infra-red optical implant?" the skoon asked, "He's the last piece of the puzzle." Ferro flicked a sideways glance to Reese and nibbled on his bagel.

"His name was Alexis von Tromp. For a while during VSA, he was captain of my division for the 23rd Steel Lynx. According to Dmitriy ..." Reese picked a spitting piece of bacon out of the skillet with his metal paw and ate it with a smug grin. "... von Tromp disappeared sometime after Fort Rekall. Most in the division figured it was because he didn't want to own up what he ordered us all to do." Reese licked his muzzle lips free of grease, watching what he said around the fox.

"Real piece of work he was. Obsessed with eugenics and training the perfect soldier. What he lacked in ethics he made up for in brutal efficiency. It's no wonder then that he picked Peers for the project. Tromp must have met Tyrell at Fort Rekall and signed up with AMR. Five years ago, after Glow City got its Renchu provided night light, the division started to disappear, one by one. It was probably just Tromp, tying up any lose ends that could connect him to VSA and Project SETH." Basil nodded.

"Speaking of the Renchu fusion reactor," the skoon said, taping the counter top next to Ferro, "I found out why it went critical, despite all the built in engineering safeguards."

"Yeah, the official report said there was a safeguard failure in the magnetic containment," Reese said, crossing his arms," and it sparked off an uncontrolled reaction in the fission sequence used to ignite the hydrogen deuteride plasma."

"Yeah there was a safeguard failure in the magnetic interlock mechanisms," Basil replied, walking over to a clumping of expensive bamboo potted over near the corner of the living room, "but Violet caused it."

"There is no way any one individual could sabotage an entire micro-fusion facility!" Reese barked out, his brow narrowing in vehement disbelief. "There are electronic security camera's every where, droves of security patrols."

"Max, playback security footage from Davenport PDHQ, inside morgue lab, time index 0314 hundred hours, then cut to the hallways leading up from there to Homicide, time index 0315 hundred hours." The trid set blinked to the sloth coroner walking into the morgue, doing a double take at empty air, and following said nothingness to the open doorway. The camera view cut to a minute later, Basil seeming to step out of thin air in a bend around the corner of the hallway leading up to Homicide.

Both vulpine and yote lower jaws dropped.

"Violet was an intrusion specialist." Basil explained, and as if to demonstrate, his fur shimmered with mana, before tinting green, matching the texture of the bamboo behind him.

"But the safeguard mechanisms were hermetically sealed with explosive resistant and bullet proof security glass." Reese flubbed about. "No one had access to them unless they passed DNA verification coupled with retinal scans, and key engineers weren't on duty when the facility blew."

As if to put this line of argument to rest Basil moved over to the fish tank, his fur shifting to match the aquatic vegetation inside, and slipped his paw through the glass. The silicon rippled like the water it held at bay, before he plucked out a fighting fish and dangled his dripping prize before the disbelievers. After a stern look from Ferro, Basil dropped the priceless non-replicant fish back into its watery prison. Reese just shook his head.

"But why would AMR sabotage an entire power facility?" The yote shrugged.

"The same reason Diamond Works spurred the overthrow of the old Canadian government and got the newly formed NCC to instigate the VSA conflict: Energy." When Ferro and Reese looked at each other doubtful, Basil continued. "Before current advances in polymer biochemistry, organic crude was the primary source of energy. Now, its micro-fusion. AMR now owns most of Renchu Nuclear and Hydroelectric. Control the world's energy base with an overwhelming military presence, and Sol's core populace is defenseless."

"But what about the off world colonies?" Ferro finally pipped up, trying to throw a kink into Basil's well constructed conspiracy theory. "There is no way their militias and fleets wouldn't get involved."

"Not when there is a massive religious and political smokescreen involved."

"Dummschwallen." Ferro barked, and gulped down the rest of his bagel, licking the fur of his paw tips clean. "Now you are talking out of your ass without a shred of proof."

"Max, playback my personal trid recording of the assault on 5261 Eureka outpost."

The trid set blinked to a sim-sense recording from inside an assault suit, the asteroid's jagged outline filling most of the visor's vision. A couple of voices over Basil's comm set indicated that he led a joint task force of radical Mennonite marines and AMR covert operatives against the Sol battle cruiser, Akira, sitting in the outpost's dry dock. As the band of guerrillas skirted the edge of the vessel's dark, colossal hull, planting charges along the way in structure weak points of the durasteel keel, Basil provided cover support. Within minutes the group had fled to a minimum safe distance, watching as carefully calculated explosions crippled Mars Colony's first line of defense.

"I should know," Basil snorted, unhooking his Imod from the trid set, "I was there when AMR helped the Amish overthrow Mars."

Reese and Ferro glanced at each other, before downing what was left of their coffee. Basil glowered at them both.

"I don't think you two get it, do you? AMR isn't going to rest until the last two loose ends are tied up: Project SETH and the 23rd Steel Lynx." Reese's cold, emotionless optics flickered over to him.

"So?" The coyote, once fulled by an unstoppable rage of vengeance, seemed somehow nullified again.

"So?" Basil barked back, striding over and seizing a hold of the yote's thick arms, enraged that the coyote didn't seem to care that his life was in danger. The part of Basil that contained Micheal's love for Reese wouldn't allow it. "Don't you care about why Micheal died? About what the NCC did to you?" Reese tried to shake off the hybrid's grip, but like his sense of self preservation, his attempts lacked conviction.

"Why what are you planning to do, march up to the AMR arcology and demand they say 'Sorry'?"

"AMR wont rest till they kill the last two who know about what's really going on, so I say we break into the AMR arcology's primary data banks and broadcast project SETH all over the infonets." Basil said, his purple irises burning with undeniable resolve.

"You are out of your head, der Schwanzlutscher." Ferro blurted out, before gathering up the dishes and cleaning up. He wasn't going to let these two mutts turn his flat into a hovel. "There is no way you are getting into the AMR arcology when they are on high alert status."

"And that would be pointless," Basil snapped to the fox, turning his head to him. "That's why were are going to access the mainframe through the AMR primary communications satellite sitting above in geo-synchronous orbit." Reese's lower lip trembled at Basil's drive, the way the hybrid's paws clamped down on his arms. Just like Micheal did in the mud pit almost a decade ago.

"And how do you propose to do that?" the coyote stammered, his chrome colored optics shaking slightly as Basil's intensity focused back on him.

"Due to internal security, the AMR satellite is only accepting pass codes containing military grade algorithms right now. We simply break into an NCC depot and hijack their signal long enough for Max to steal the data, and then we disappear, together."

"We?" Reese's paws clamped down on Basil's arms. The skoon felt the yote touch him, his scent so unbearably close. He wouldn't loose the canid again. "You'd do that? Risk your life for mine?" Reese's knee's wobbled as Basil leaned in closer.

"I'd give my right arm, Chrome Coyote ..." Basil offered before locking muzzles with the shocked canid. The coyote stiffened momentarily, a thousand feelings tearing loose from his shell of emotional repression. After a few moments Kylson eased into it, his yearning muzzle lips parting to partake that which he thought had been taken from him just two nights ago. Kylson's metallic right paw touched the fur of Basil's cheek, cupping his muzzle as he deepened the gentle kiss.

Flooded with a deluge of need, of passion, Reese took Basil's paw in his own, and with a stern, undeniable glance, led the sexy hybrid down the hallway to Ferro's bedroom. Ferro just stood there in his tidy kitchenette, a volatile mixture of shock and ire boiling through him.

Maybe the coyote knew that the fox wouldn't be jealous in the first place.

After a while Ferro strode over to the vid-com on the wall and punched in a number to his employer, trying to ignore the paired moans drifting from his very own bed. He had gotten soft last night, let his own desire cloud his judgment; his mission. And in this business going soft often meant a short precursor to a hard flatline.

No, things had gotten complicated when Ferro first saw Basil at the docks. The dingo warned Ferro that the skoon might become a problem. Now the fox found himself up to his furry chin in the drek. A thousand different scenario's played through the vulpine's mind as he waited for the other end to pick up, none of them turning out good for at least one of the trio.

Despite the bright sunshine filtering in through the flat's polarized windows, the unusually cheery day only seemed like a precursor to inescapable, dark times. Soon the fiery sun would fall to the radioactive ground in the west, and as nocturne descended upon Davenport, Glow City would be born again in glowing afterlife to claim its impending dead ...

~ Fin Part VI ~

The series concludes in an action packed, final chapter. Who lives, who dies, and who gets pregnant? Grab the Chromosomal Blade by its mono molecular edge and prepare to go Snicker Snack in Part VII: Conceiving in a Glowing Afterlife ...