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Part One...

"This is your captain speaking....WE'RE GONNA DIE!"

Tali yipped loudly, quickly hushing her notebook computer by stuffing it into another bag. Amidst the stares from her fellow passengers, she blushed hotly and opened it up, quickly turning the volume down.

One of the fellows across from her went back to eating some snack he had brought with him, while his companion kept on staring at her. She glanced in his direction and flicked her large tail around, a trick she had learned in College. He quickly averted his eyes and spoke to his friend. Seems he didn't want to take a chance with a skunk, no matter how she looked.

She had good looks, but wanted to lose a little weight, as she had a bit more on her bones than some, her body having a "motherly" look about it, most of the spare weight in her chest and hips. She had long white headfur that was always tied up in a ponytail behind her head, her purple eyes looking upon the world from behind silver-rimmed glasses that were constantly sliding down her stubbed muzzle.

Tali wrinkled her nose up at the scent coming from the couple in front of her, who were obviously newlyweds, judging by the tinge of the smells coming off them. She chuckled a bit to herself and retuned her attention to her computer.

"And I wonder just who decided they would be smart enough to change the email notification sound to that wave file...?" Tali shuddered a bit at the coldness and sterility of that sentence.

"I really have to stop that. Its what keeps men away." She brushed the thought aside and smiled a bit. She went about her business, opening the email up.

FROM: Sasha McKenzie <[email protected]> TO: Tali Mouffonte <[email protected]> SUBJ: Vacation Goodies!!!!

Hey Babe!

Just thought I'd drop you a line to see if you brought that damn notebook with you. You KNOW this is supposed to be a vacation, right? Not just another place to do work.

Anyways. I guess I got your letter too late. I would have come with you to the WaterWings resort, but you know how I am with computers and stuff. Not very good. I really hope you have a good time there, and DON'T DO ANY WORK. Hear me?

Ok, ok. I'll go away. But before I do, here is something to keep you happy. J

<ATTACHMENT: SUPRISE.JPG 50,576KB>

Seeya later, honey. Call me when you get back.

Kisses - Sasha

Tali chuckled and moved her trackball over to the attachment link. Clicking on it, the computer churned and cranked a bit, before spitting out an image of an extremely buff male skunk, bare as the day he was born and proudly displaying all his charms on her vivid LCD display. She squeaked loudly and closed the file, not before the large puma across from her caught a glance of it.

She leered at him again and flicked her tail, sending his glance over towards his friend, where he feigned talking over something. "Works EVERY time," she said to herself. One of the advantages of being a skunk. But one of the disadvantages, also.

Sasha was one of her friends from college. Actually, she was her best friend, the two of them having been living together since college. Or, as Tali preferred to call it, loving together. It had a more pleasant ring to it, and reflected what they really did in the first place - although neither of them considered each other lovers. Just roommates.

"Five years of sleeping in the same bed, and we still consider each other roommates. By some accounts, that's enough to be married," Tali chuckled to herself, shaking her head at her own "sins of the flesh."

Still, life with Sasha hadn't been that good...Tali;s work kept her away from her quite a bit of the time. Add to that Sasha was down in the midlands, doing some sort of odd soil research. She was a botanist at the local University, and had gone down there with some of her colleagues for two months. This left Tali without a steady lover, causing her to be just a mite frustrated, adding to the stress she already had.

Tali smiled to herself and closed the notebook up, putting it back in it's case....this time, with a muzzle on it's speaker in case her coworkers had anything else planned for her. Invariably, they always did.

Tali leaned on the cabin of the plane, looking out the window and down at the islands below her. Her coworkers told her to go to WaterWings resort as a way to calm her nerves, and get away from her job.

Tali worked at McNaughton Industries, one of the largest software development firms on the globe. She was just a Junior Network Administrator, but was starting to go up the chain of command rather fast. Maybe too fast.

She had started her job only a year ago, and moved up from telephone jockey to where she was now in a matter of eight months...something that was completely unheard of in the McNaughton camp. But it came at the expense of her social life. Here she was, 24 years old and driving a Beemer already. It felt like she was a yuppie the minute she walked into McNaughton headquarters. This was not a thought that she liked to spend much time on. She didn't have a boyfriend to speak of, and her only friends were ones she either knew from school, or from work. And even those were few and far between. Add to that the fact that she spent a lot of time hanging out on network chat rooms, and her life had gotten pretty dull.

Tali stared out the window of the propeller-plane, enjoying the view from thousands of feet up as her mind wandered around. The propellers of the plane brought her to question when the last time she rode an old-style plane was. She used to have her pilot's license for old Cessna props, but had long since let it fail. Maybe she'd ask the pilot if she could fly the plane once...slip her a couple hundred bucks...she could come along....

"Shit!" Tali cursed out loud, blushing as she got looks. She went back to staring out the window.

Tali cursed at herself for thinking like that. Money had always been short up until recently, and here she was becoming everything she didn't want to be...thinking about bribing a rather beautiful vixen when all she really had to do was just ask with a smile and a promise of a favor in return. So it was lately. Maybe it was time to give it up and look for something simpler. Tali felt very removed from her past, and it started her bottom lip quivering as the thought kept on reeling inside her head.

She pushed it to the back of her mind and just stared blankly out at the passing clouds, hoping this next week would calm her nerves.

The trip to the resort did more to heighten her anxiety than it did to soothe it. As the plane neared the islands, the weather got choppier, headwinds that battered the plane making her a bit airsick. She looked down at the paper bag in front of her and flicked her tail around once, turning a bit green under her white fur and averting her eyes.

She propped up her silver-rimmed glasses on her nose, wishing for once that her family had better eyesight than hearing. Then she wouldn't have to hear the noises the plane made, the fuselage straining against the winds, the rudders and airfoils shuddering under the turbulence. This was an old airplane. She shifted her weight a bit in her seat, murphling softly. None of the other passengers could hear what she was, and every sound made her even more anxious to get off the plane.

The plane landed a few minutes later, gliding along the water until it came to rest by the docks of the WaterWings resort. She quickly gathered her belongings, making sure everything was zippered tight, preparing for the rain her nose told her was coming.

She emerged from the plane right after the two fellows that sat across from her. She had nicknamed the one that kept on staring at her "Tom," as in Peeping Tom. She'd have to watch herself around him, she figured. But it was his companion, whom she had found out was named David, that interested her.

Six and a half feet tall, and all muscle, the ursine morph found a place in her heart, elbowing his cohort around from time to time for staring at the other passengers. He was dressed in a pair of bluejeans and a green dress shirt....nothing remarkable, but it just fit him, accenting his muscles, his burly form.

Tali blushed as she caught herself thinking about things that his pants highlighted, her tail bobbing around a bit as she laughed to herself. David turned back to look at her, and she regained her composure, smiling gently, and propping her glasses up again.

A border collie approached her as she stepped out of the plane and onto the docks, looking up at her for a second and then speaking up.

"Tali Mouffente?" the collie looked a little bit odd, as if he thought he got the pronunciation wrong, the tip of his tail twitching a bit.

"That's right hon. And you said it right. Just say it like it's spelled," Tali smiled gently, shifting the weight of her bags a bit. She had always been a bit empathic, being able to tell what people were thinking just by picking up their subtle facial expressions and body language. Tails told a whole volume in themselves.

"Oh. Ok. Well, follow me, and I will lead you to your cabin. My brother, Rale, said it's going to be a rough night tonight. I'd believe him. He knows this area better than the whole lot of us put together. It would be best to get your bags into someplace dry soon. Oh! And my name's Lucas, just so ya know." He took some of her bags for her, motioning for her to follow him up a small incline towards her cabin.

She looked up at the sky and sighed a bit. If the ride over was any indication, The collie's brother was only partially right. It was going to be one hell of a rocking night. She picked up her remaining bags and followed Lucas on the path towards her cabin. It sure looked like her first night here would be spent inside.

"Ohwell. No change from normal."

Tali followed Lucas up the hillside, towards the cabin that was going to be her home for the next two weeks.

---

Part Two...

Tali followed Lucas into her cabin, peering back over at her shoulder at the enclosing clouds, darkness taking over the otherwise peaceful island like some sort of malign plague, closing in on the blue skies above and promising Tali a night spent inside. She sighed and took the last few steps into her cabin, surveying the interior.

She set two of her bags down by the door, pushing them off to the side with her shoeless feet. The interior of the cabin was almost like something out of one of her childhood dreams. Completely made out of wood, the whole cabin seemed to be the master creation a carpenter long-gone. The cabin was made of a dark wood, the whole cabin smelling of fresh air, reminding Tali of those days she would spend up at her Aunt's, simply walking through her place in awe at the simple beauty that wood afforded, compared to the bland white drywall of her parent's house. She'd find herself entranced by the simple toys her aunt had for her, playing with them for hours at a time before she decided to go for a swim out on the lake the cabin stood next to, or maybe take a paddleboat down to the hydroelectric plant at the base of the lake, listening to the giant sounds the water made.

"I could definitely get used to this" she thought to herself, taking another deep whiff in, admiring how the scent teased her mind, brigning back memories of a childhood she only wished she could live again. She smiles brightly and just let herself get lost in it all.

"Ma'am?...Uhm...Miss?"

Tali kept her euphoric haze for a moment before shaking herself out of it, looking over towards Lucas.

"I put your bags by the bed. Breakfast is at 8AM in the main lodge, or you can have it in bed, and I'll deliver it. All you have to do is call the lodge. Anything else you'd like?" Lucas looks at her, looking a little bit impatient, as if he had elsewhere to go.

"No thanks, hon. I think this will do me for now. I'll call if I can think of anything else." Tali dug down into her jeans a bit, pulling out a five dollar bill and handing it to Lucas. "That's for lugging all that up the hill." She smiled gently, as only a mother could do, that kind of penetrating smile that just warms you at the heart.

Lucas smiled and pocketed the bill. "Thanks, ma'am." He wagged his tail a bit and walked out, closing the door behind himself gently.

It was like falling through the air, totally at rest with it all, letting gravity carry you down until you fell onto a cloud itself, the cottony coolness embracing you. Tali felt the whoosh of the air under her, and the springs on the bed give way as she flopped down, all five of her limbs going limp as she lay there, her legs halfway off the bed, sprawled out like a fur rug. She purred quietly and pulled herself up onto the bed a little bit more, untucking her shirt from her jeans and positioning it down below her waist.

Tali smiled a bit to herself...this was the start of two weeks which she would make sure were the two most restful weeks of the past year. This would make up for the times she got so caught up in working that she forgot that much better things awaited her at home. It was truly the simple things in life that she favored when she got home in the past...go to the refrigerator, open a beer and make herself a sandwich. Lay down on the couch and listen to the intense silence of her own home...so intense, she could hear her own ears whining. She'd fall asleep, a half-eaten sandwich on her belly, and a rapidly warming beer on the floor. Such was her routine when she got home. She'd pass out on the couch for an hour and a half, snoozing comfortably until Sasha got home and woke her with slow brushes to her sides...or maybe even a bit more lewdly if she felt up to it. Then they'd stay up until late in the morning, cuddling against each other in baggy sweatpants that hid everything, eating sinfully rich food that Sasha prepared, watching programs on TV that they cared nothing for save for background noise. Tali would fall asleep and then wake up at 7AM, like her internal clock was apt to, usually under Sasha on the couch, their two bodies pressed together as if they wanted to be one.

But it didn't happen much anymore. Tali worked too long into the night...she'd come home exhausted, barely able to get her clothes off before she snuck into bed, leaving Sasha out in the livingroom to watch the TV by her lonesome. Tali didn't know just how much it killed Sasha for her to go to sleep so fast. How it tore at Sasha's heart so much everytime they were going to do lunch, and Tali would cancel out because of some inane business meeting. No, Tali had no idea how upset Sasha was, because she was never there to see it, Sasha coming up and looking forlornly at the couch, sitting down on it and pulling her legs up against her chest, the fur on her cheeks growing damper by the second.

But it didn't matter now, did it? Not when she was passed out on the bed of her cabin, her work invading her mind even when she dreamt, twisting her perception of her fantasy world. It invaded every part of her - and those of others.

Woken from her sleep as if someone had shot pure adrenalin into her system, Tali sat straight up, panting a little as the thunderclap rolled off into the hills in the distance. She looked out the windows at the rumbling outside, rain smashing against the windows in veritable sheets, trying it's hardest to get inside the one place of dryness on the island. Wondering quietly to herself why thunderclaps don't claim the lives of more elderly, she got up and walked over towards the bathroom, the sound having loosened her bladder a bit.

She padded back out into the small cabin, heading over towards the stove and sink. She found a tea kettle and filled it up with what she thought was the purest water she'd seen in a very long time. Setting that down to boil, she headed over towards her bags and pulled out her laptop and a small box of Earl Grey tea she had brought with her. She sat the laptop down on her bed, and walked over towards the kitchen countertop, setting the box down on the nicked wooden surface and pulling out a small packet of tea, setting it beside the box and shutting it.

Tali looked out one of the windows, and then walked over towards it, looking out at the bay. The water pelted the whole landscape, collecting in pools on the beach and the ground, hammering the water, causing it to protest and shake. She shook her head and hoped inside that it would clear up tomorrow. She didn't want to spend the next two weeks cooped up in her cabin. That wasn't the way to relax. She could sit inside all day and get paid for it at work.

Tali looked at her watch. Eight-thirty PM. She'd been asleep for nigh on three hours. She looked out at the dock, the small twin-engine plane bobbing a bit in the bay as the relentless rain pounded it's metal airframe, it's owner safely inside the main lodge, probably chuckling it up with her friends as the aircraft struggled to stay in one piece against the sheets of water that assaulted it. The skies were as dark as the devil himself, flashes of lightning pervading the darkness from time to time, illuminating the landscape in an eerie white light.

Turning around, she padded over towards her laptop, pulling it out of it's case and setting it down on the bed, turning it on. It was a good thing she was using the special long-life battery that she bought the day before...wouldn't want to plug it in on a night like tonight. Not with this lightning. She gently unzipped her jeans and pulled them down, kicking them off to the side, and then hooking her fingers on the bottom of her shirt, pulling that up over her chest, tossing it towards where her jeans were.

Tali stretched out a bit, going to her tiptoes as she extended her muscles, her body clothed in naught but a skimpy pair of cherry red satin underwear, and a matching bra. She yawned softly, lashing her tail around a bit and purrring as she reached the apex of her reach for the heavens, her fur bristling out, her skin tingling around every strand of hair as the blood rushed around in her body.

With an almost maniacal shrill whine, the tea kettle announced that it was done, sounding as if it was going to take off and leap from the burner for it's own sake, calming down as Tali pulled it from it's torture, pouring herself a hot cup of water and dropping the tea bag into it, placing the kettle on a cool burner and turning the stove off. She walked over to her computer and smiled gently, pleased to see that it was on.

$ Hello Tali $ I thought you were on vacation?

Tali Flicked an ear around. Her computer was an advanced prototype of McNaughton's AI Operating system. Since she was chiefly invested in the project, she felt compelled to field test one. All in all, a good decision...but the computer itself was so highly human that it got almost annoying at times. She typed back to it.

) I am. Can't you see me enjoying myself? $ No. You forget that not only haven't you installed the sight module on me, you also haven't installed the speech module. ) Pity, that, eh?

Tali chuckled a bit to herself. She almost delighted in torturing the computer, in a way. Since it was such a early release, it didn't have the functionality of the full thing, still lacking sight and sound. Good thing, too. She didn't feel very at ease with having something, no matter what it was, see her in her skivvies.

$ Very much a pity. But I've come to be at ease with it. What can I do for you today? ) Show me all the new mail that I have, please. **Please Wait, logging on............account locked out. Please see your Administrator. $ Sorry, Tali. Your account seems to have been locked out. Should I call the office and let them know?

Tali frowned a little bit. "Those sons-of-a-bitches. They locked out my account so I couldn't even try to work on vacation." Tali grumbled a little bit and shrugged.

) No thanks. Please play something by Geshewald, if you would. It's a bit murderous on the mind to just hear ) this thunderous rain.

The computer spindled up it's DVD disc drive, and then suddenly slowed down.

$ Sorry, Tali. There doesn't seem to be enough power in the reserve battery to play the DVD disc. I think $ that battery you bought is not working.

Tali cursed a bit. She carried the laptop over towards the wall, pulling a power supply cable from the case and plugging it in at both ends.

) There. I plugged you in. Make sure the surge protection is on. It's lighting up like a war out there. $ Affirmative, ma'am. I'll start playing the disc now. ) Great. Thanks. $ As if I had a choice.

Tali chuckled a bit to herself and made some mental notes to tone down the quips a bit, and to remove some of the more bland phrases such as "Affirmative, Ma'am." How nuts.

Tali got up and went back to her tea as the DVD drive whined into action, and then seeked out it's track. The faint sound of a violin filled the air, causing Tali to close her eyes and purr a bit, her ears swiveling around as the music proceeded to fill the room, the 3-D sound module she worked on performing absolutely perfectly. She swished her tail from side to side a little, listening intensely to the music, how the violins faded in and then came to a rising crescendo, the sound peaking until all the other instruments clamored in at once.

But instead of a 80-piece orchestra, Tali heard the whip-like crack of a bolt of lightning hitting the house, and then heard what has to be the most bone-chilling noise of a technician's life. A sound as if someone has taken a plank of wood and snapped it across their knee, the fibers of the wood tearing and protesting under the strain. Tali put her tea down and turned around, running over towards the wall.

The computer hissed and smoked profusely as she scrambled to unplug it from the wall. The smell of ozone permeated the air, the laptop slowly burning itself to a crisp as it keeled over and died, snapping and whining as the heat from the power spike filled every circuit on it, rendering the entire computer worthless in a mater of milliseconds.

She knelt down to survey the damage...and the damage was extreme. The LCD screen was so overheated it bubbled out, the keyboard melted and sunken down onto the processor, which was probably cracked up and hot enough to melt metal. Tali cursed loudly, throwing a little-girl tantrum at her dumb luck, whiffling in frustration and anger.

...Until she heard a knock at the door.

She padded over towards the door and opened it up. She shrieked a little bit, the form who was on the other side huge and hulking, holding something over itself. The light fluttered and waned from the power surge, but eventually came back on, burning at full brightness and shedding light on the stranger.

It was David, the bear from the plane. He was easily a good foot taller than she was, putting him well over six and a half feet. He was hiding under his coat, which was dripping wet, the suede wrecked by the rain - probably wrecked for good. He was dressed in a pair of jeans with a white tanktop tucked into them, still wearing his woven black leather belt. She stared for a few moments, admiring the way this bear was mostly muscle, unlike most other ursine she had seen, who were mostly layers of fat and fur. No, this bear's muscles stood out broadly against his fur. His body was finely chiseled, like that of an athlete's, the muscles seeming to be cut of pure stone. His face was angular and big...very big, his brown eyes staring up at her, the look of concern in them genuine. His fur was a matted black, water dripping off his arms and short headfur. He was, in Tali's mind, what every man should be. It was all she could do not to squeak again when he spoke up, his baritone voice rumbling her a bit.

"Are you okay? I saw the lightning hit the cabin, and the lights go out, and I got worried..." David looked up at her face from under his jacket, crouched over slightly to provide the best protection from teh rain..

"The lights went out? When was this? Lightning, lightning..." Tali went over in her head as she kept on staring. She eventually shook her head out of it.

"Oh...oh yeah, I'm just fine. I can't say the same for my laptop though." Tali pointed over towards the smoldering pile of what was now scrap metal and silicon.

"Well...okay. It shook me up a little...bet it did the same to you. I just wanted to check and make sure you were okay." David smiled a bit, a really toothy grin, and suprisingly, it was rather comforting.

Tali nodded. "Yeah...I'm ok. I'll get over it." She smiled back a little bit, flashing her own sweet smile at him.

"Okay then. Uhm...Good night." David turned around and ran back towards his cabin, which was not all that far from Tali's...within viewing distance, actually.

It was all Tali could do just to nod. She watched him run into the pounding rain, his feet plodding through the mud as he ran in a sort of gait, as men of his height often do. She shut the door softly and walked over toward her bed, sitting down on the edge and smiling a bit.

"Gods, was he ever beautiful. Amazing." She chuckled a bit to herself, remembering how Sasha would always call tank tops like that "wife beaters," after the popular stereotype of the lazy, abusive husband. She then squeaked and blushed quite hotly when she realized he was standing there in her doorway looking at her in nothing but her underwear, his nose not two feet from the rest of her.

"Oh my god. He got a up and personal view." She blushed and found herself getting a bit damp between the legs. She didn't mind people she knew seeing her naked...it was just a thing. She didn't even really mind strangers seeing her that way, although she would blush a bit. But there was something about being in your underwear that was erotic on a whole different scale, something was a bit embarrassing when seen by another. Almost naughty in a way. And add to that the fact that he was a definite city boy. He was probably nursing quite an erection right now, completely in awe at how he has seen her *that* close to naked, his hormones telling him to mate her right then and there, his mind getting clouded with lustful thoughts.

Tali murphled softly, squirming around a bit. She looked down, her paws having snuck themselves under her panties, rubbing her moist furrow. She blushed a bit, not even remembering doing this, but playing along with the tricks her mind played on her. She closed her eyes and just gently stroked her finger along her moist lips, squeaking softly from time to time, the area between her legs getting steadily wetter with every ministration of her fingers.

Tali liked to be touched. No matter where it was, she always loved it. Behind her ears, on her neck, her back, even a relentless tickling by Sasha...it was all good. And then there were the ways you could touch, each with their own meaning and reaction...as an acquaintance, as a friend, a protector...the list went on and on, but the one that felt the best was as a lover. There was only two people in the world that could fill that spot...Sasha and herself.

And there was a whole set of different body parts to touch a lover...oh yes, you had to please them all...as Tali was finding out, sitting on the edge of her bed, her fingers stuffed between her legs, the fur around her womanhood getting a little matted down from the arousal she was quickly stirring up in herself.

She squeaked gently, pulling her fingers from her rapidly dampening panties, pulling the garment down off her hips and to the floor. She laid down on her back, keeping half her legs off the bed, her paws sneaking back down her body to assume their position between her legs once again, rubbing and touching every soft part of herself down there. Like a good lover's fingers, there was not a spot they left untouched, not one feeling they didn't send up her spine and right into her brain, causing her to squeak in pleasure.

Tali squeaked and squirmed, letting her imagination run wild as she played with herself, imagining that David's paws were playing down there instead of hers, that he was exploring her most private regions with his fingers and tongue, pulling her lips apart with his large digits, sniffing at her scent before he took a long lick at her pink insides. She bucked her hips up a little, bringing her knees up a bit as her fingers continued their delicate dance around in her wetness, making like they were someone else's fingers and tongue. Diving deep into her, her velvety walls gripping them softly, but with pure futility, she having been worked up so much she could have clamped down with all her might and it would have made no difference - her tunnel would have been easy to part.

She rolled over onto her front, rubbing her head against the bed and bringing her rear up, her knees on the edge of the bed. Her tail waved around above her like a flag, exposing all her bits to the cold rainy air. She shoved her fingers deep inside herself, still dreaming that David was making sweet love to her, licking over her clit and stroking her lips before he pulled back and plunged his manhood deep into her, parting her like the Red Sea.

She whimpered and squeaked, her body writhing around on the bed, her rump raised high into the air as her fingers did their work and succeeded in bringing her off in a squealing climax, her mind awash in what her lover was doing to her, her body quivering in ecstasy for quite a few moments, letting her finish off her fantasy as the gentle giant gave her a kiss goodnight.

And goodnight it was, as Tali's rear had long since hit the bed, and she had fallen asleep, curled up in the fetal position, one of her fingers just barely in her mouth, as she was apt to do. She was sleeping like the naughty angel she was, purring softly.

'Oh man. I can't believe I just saw that" The shadowy figure muttered to itself before skittering off the porch rapidly and into the night, leaving Tali in her cabin to dream all that more clearly.

---

Part Three...

Light pervaded the entire room, casting every bit of furniture in a golden shade. The morning was rising in the Happenstance islands, the storm the previous night having broken up during the night and drifted away, leaving the island coated in a fresh glaze of water, each and every blade of grass and leaf on a tree glowing as the morning sun hit them.

Tali opened up her eyes rather slowly, looking over her shoulder at one of the windows in her cabin, a smile passing over her lips seeing that the storm had passed the islands, and the usual bright sun had returned. She purred a little, stretching out from head to tow, flailing her tail around behind her as every muscle and joint in her body made their morning protest. She sat up on the edge of the bed, pawing idly through her bushy tail. The night had treated her well, and she slept like a baby, awakening only once during the night to bury herself under a couple flimsy sheets.

She rubbed her eyes a bit and yawned. Remembering the evening beforehand, and what she had done before she went to bed, a long shower seemed to be a good idea. Working herself off the bed and arranging the covers a bit, she padded over towards the stove, putting a kettle of water on for tea, then padded back around the room, picking up her discarded clothing and arranging a bit before heading into the shower, letting the warm water run through her fur like warm fingers, soaking her lush pelt down, making it heavy but clean.

She stepped out of the shower when the kettle went off, running out to the stove naked and dripping, fumbling to turn it off. She smiled a bit as the gas burner died out, and the incessant whistling of the teakettle stopped with it. She padded back into the shower, finishing the job she had started, emerging from the bathroom a couple minutes later with a towel wrapped from her chest downwards. She poured herself a cup of tea, padding over towards the window and looking out.

The island was very beautiful after the rains...there were a few plants that were battered and wilting, but the majority of them were used to this kind of treatment. The bay was almost glowing, a bright blue hue to it rather than the greenish hue some bodies of seawater tend to take on. She smiled gently and took a sip of her tea, smiling a little as she got an idea.

Her towel dropped around her feet wetly, and she stepped out of it, shaking herself off a little, her tail twitching around. She was still a bit wet, but figured that wouldn't last very long in the morning sun. It had been a long time since she had been able to be naked in public, and she stepped out to greet the day in only the fur she was born with, every bit of sunshine hitting her features, soaking them with their heat to the core. Her pelt wasn't the best suited for being out in the sun, as she had alot of black on her, but she grew used to it after awhile, having more white fur on her than most skunks did. Her tail was triple-striped with white that started from her scalp and continued down her back and onto her tail, her belly and face the same snowy white color. Her feet and hands were also "socked" in white, her hair long and white, tied back in a ponytail around the base of her neck, the long strands continuing down and ending at the small of her back.

By all accounts, she was a beauty, but she would have never known it. She'd grown up too much of her life looking homely and odd, and never identified with the crowd that was obsessed about their bodies. On this particular day however, she let herself enjoy what she had, allowing herself to bask in the sun and dry out, the cool breeze felt all over her fur, sliding up between her legs and across her chest, where it all too often didn't go. It was an exhilarating experience that pulled a few memories of childhood from Tali's mind.

She recalled those ten years she spend in the midlands, with her mother and all their animals. They lived on a small mini-farm out in the middle of nowhere. The whole farm was only five acres with a small barn, but the endless woods around them is where she spent most of her time. She'd run around in the woods and play games with herself, exploring all around the property, learning about nature firsthand. Her mother always worried that Tali would someday go fauve, but the most that ever happened is that Tali would go unclothed during the summer months, playing around in the woods around her home. Nothing ever came of it, but it did follow her later on in life. She learned to survive well on her own, but never really developed the social skills that she would have had if she had lived in a city, or even a small town.

High School didn't treat her all that well. She was a bit awkward, and certainly not one of the "desirable species," even though she was a purebred amongst mostly mutts. Seemed that the countryside had a way of mixing people up as far as genes went, but left them untouched mentally. She was continually prodded and laughed at her first three years, and she got more and more used to threatening to spray someone if they did something she did not like.

She almost delighted in torturing the city folks when she got to college. She had since blossomed out into a very attractive young woman, and because of her fauve tendencies, would walk through the halls of her dorm naked from time to time. She'd never go really far, maybe just to the other side of the dorm, but it was still enough to put the city kids on their heads. Sasha, who was her roommate all throughout college, warned her not to go around like that too much, lest one of the males get an idea in his head and ambush her one day. Tali didn't care. It was all that much closer to freedom for her, as even then, she missed the freedom that the woods afforded. The city just wasn't as mentally stimulating as the countryside was. The possible price seemed small compared to the freedom that it afforded.

Tali smiled a bit to herself, and padded off her porch, leaving her cabin and clothes behind as she walked down towards the beach, her feet kicking up a bit of sand wherever she saw it.

The water was as deep of a blue as it could get. The whole bay was absolutely untainted, in sharp contrast to the crowded beaches on the mainland. She smiled a bit and padded out into the water, letting some of the cool liquid pass through her toes as she wiggled them around. The warmth of the sun had already seeped down inside the sands, catching on some of the larger granules, the warmth of them felt even through her thick pelt.

She turned around to look out towards the bay, her purple eyes scanning over the blue waters as the wind picked it up in spots, tossing the waves around from time to time. Tali had never really been around the water that much, being a mainlander most of her life. She would occasionally go to the beaches on the coastline, or sometimes even go to a resort like WaterWings with Sasha, but those times got rarer and rarer as she starting to find her niche in McNaughton.

"Rains certainly do wonders to the view, don't they?" A voice sounded off at her.. She turned around, catching her gaze on David again, his huge form clothed only in a pair of swimming trunks, a tan towel wrapped around his neck. He took one look at her and blushed, staring at his toes. He was at least six-foot-five...if not more. And quite built. Normally, bears had a tendency to be rather fat, but this one was all muscle. "Military." Tali mused the thought around in her head, seeming to be able to sniff out who was in what profession. No one gets that toned unless they are in sport, the military, or are extremely narcissistic.

Tali flicked her tail a bit, turning around.

"Oops. Sorry. I thought you were wearing one of those dental-floss bikinis. I didn't realize you were..uhm." David searched for the words.

"Nude. Naked. In the fur." Tali smiled gently, hoping a bit of humor would make him look back up. It didn't, as he just flushed more. "Hey, it's ok. You city folks aren't too used to it, I guess. I used to live in the country, so it's pretty normal for me...although I don't do it too much anymore. I can cover up, if you want me to. My cabin is just up the path. But I don't mind if you look."

David looked up. "Well..allright. If you say so, then. Did you sleep well last night?"

Tali smiled knowingly. "Much better than I expected, thanks. It was very nice of you to check in on me like that last night. That lightning scared me to death."

"Yeah, I know the feeling. I felt the same way." David smiled a little bit, moving towards the water. "Saw your laptop last night. I hope you didn't plug it in?"

Tali flushed. Of course she did. She, being the know-it-all kid genius that she was, thought she was above God, above the lightning that pounded down on her. She was invincible. Of course, her laptop now resembled modern art.

"Uhm...actually...I did. Needless to say, I won't be using it this trip." Tali stammered a bit and kicked at the sand. Among tech-heads, it was considered a mark against you if you admitted you were wrong outright.

"Gads. Sorry to hear it. Ahwell...means you'll have more time to enjoy your stay here." David looked around a bit, then nodded to the water. "Going for a swim?" he asked.

"No no...just came down to kick around at the beach a bit, get the sand back in my toes, if you know what I mean." Tali chuckled a bit, kicking a bit of sand around. "I'll sink like a rock if I swim. It's this tail, you see. Once the fur gets wet, it acts like an anchor."

David smiled knowingly and padded down the beach, dropping his towel on the last bit of dry sand and breaking off in a dead run towards the beach, flinging himself at the water as he got in hip-deep, paddling his way out into the bay.

Tali smiled a bit, watching him start to swim away, admiring how he could glide through the water with ease. She always had a hard time with it, her tail being so large, it always got waterlogged. She turned around and headed for the lodgehouse, her nose picking up the scent of breakfast. She walked a little faster.

The lodge was quite quiet this time of day...Tali's watch had stopped working the night before because of the lightning, but she guessed it to be around seven-thirty or so in the morning. She walked in, still a little nervous about walking in the fur around city folks, but at this time of day, it didn't really matter. She quickly found a payphone and picked up the receiver, dialing the number for work.

A low male voice answered the phone. "McNaughton Industries, how may I direct your call?"

Tali cursed a bit. They may be the biggest software vendor on the mainlands, but they certainly didn't keep even their phones up to date. This should have been a computer. "Put me through to Nikolas King." The line clicked, showing she had been transferred over.

Nikolas was Tali's boss, in a way. He was a six foot tiger morph that really looked intimidating on the outside, but was a real kitten on the inside. In fact, Tali kept on referring to him as her "kitten," which enraged him a little bit, but she could usually just give him a scritch behind the ears, and he would be agreeable again. A rather nice relationship, really. She got what she needed done, and he got scritches. Fair 'nuff.

The phone picked up. "Nikolas." The voice on the other end sounded like it had just gone through hell and back....and brought souvenirs.

Tali smiled. "Kitten! How is?" She grinned, imagining Nikolas rolling his eyes.

"Not too bad, had better days. This place really depends on you, I have to admit." Nikolas sighed a bit, just like the micromanaged serf that he really was, tired and fed up with all the corporate bullshit. But Tali didn't know that. No. Totally lost the signal. She was never good with that kind of stuff.

"Oh - well, if you need someone, I could just take my vacation later and fly up on the next plane..." she was cut off mid-sentence by Nikolas, who was bellowing loudly.

"You never have learned to just relax and enjoy it, have you? Well. We don't need you that bad, and I'd rather see you get out from under all that has been happening for awhile. So how's Max doing?"

Max was the code name for their AI computer. The one that had burned to a crisp the night before. It didn't stand for anything fancy, as Tali always cringed at the mere mention of the word acronym. She worked for the government before, enough was enough. When you could, and did, say a sentence in nothing but acronyms and a few joining adverbs, you knew it was time to go.

"Uhm...actually...that's what I needed to call you about. I think we need to take a look at the sensors attached to the AC power unit." Tali muttered a bit, her feet shuffling on the ground nervously.

"And why is that? Is it not regulating voltage like it should?" Nikolas prodded a bit. He always listened to what Tali had to say, but he also probed her for every bit of information. Just like a predator.

"You could say that. It kinda blew up last night. Big power spike. I think the unit needs to be looked at. It should have protected itself when it detected the surge at the stage one couplers." Tali winced a bit, fully expecting the tiger on the other end to go nuts.

"... .... .... Ohwell. It's just one prototype of four. We'll just use the other ones until we have the funding to buy another model." Nikolas brushed it off without a second thought.

Tali blinked, but just swallowed it with a smile. "Ok. Is it possible to get a new one sent out here so I can do some work from the cabin at night? I need to do some coding on the personality module. I think it's got some residual ghosts that we need to take care of."

"Probably not. We don't have the funding for it." Nikolas could be heard shifting pages on the other side of the phone.

Tali blinked yet again. No funding? Christ. They HAD a 500 million dollar budget. It was a government contract. They had to have the money. If not, they could just leach some in. "Cripe, Nick. What the hell did you do with all the cash? Go and surround yourself with expensive Geisha girls? Buy the entire division luxury cars?" Tali giggled a bit into the phone. Nick didn't.

"Tali, hon.. ... ... ...They cut the project. A couple days before you left. No one said anything because they wanted you to enjoy your vacation." Nick sounded as serious as could be.

Tali's jaw dropped, her tail flopping against the floor, raising a bit of dust. Five hundred million dollar project, and they all of a sudden kill it like that? "Nick, what the hell? This is a joke, right? Ha-ha. Very funny. Now out with it."

Nick sighed heavily, the slight crackle of the phone line emphasizing it. "Tali...I'm not kidding. Max mouthed off at the president. It seems we needed to tone down the personality module a bit. He flipped his lid. He refused to have a loudmouthed computer talk to him while he was trying to defend the country. It got scrapped the next day. I about had a heart attack in that meeting. I knew it was a bad idea to showcase a beta project, but you know the project directors.."

Tali put her head in her paws, shaking her head gently. "Shit. Oh lord. I found that out last night. Max lipped off to me a little bit...nothing serious, but..damn. What are we going to do with the old prototypes....we could put it into a commercial.."

Tali was cut off yet again. "Tali. They're gone. they demanded that we erase all disks with the source code for Max on them, and that we destroy any evidence that he ever existed. We substituted a similar laptop for the one you had so the feds were happy. I wanted to keep at least one copy of the source code...even if I had to put it under my mattress." Nick sounded somber.

Tali just stood there in utter shock. Not only was her whole reason for being for the last two years gone, but the last remnant that she ever did anything important was also gone, sitting in a deformed heap in the cabin.

Nick spoke up. "Tali, I want you to stay in the Happenstance islands. I talked to Sylvia there, and she said she'd do everything she could to make you comfortable. I suggest you enjoy it while you have it. I'll have a new job for you when you get back. They're moving us all to different projects."

"Well...I'll try. I don't quite know how, but I'll try. Thanks, kitten." Tali smiled a bit, wiping back a tear as she hung up the receiver. She walked out of the lodge, her tail dragging along the ground all the way back to her cabin.

Tali put a pair of loose jean shorts and a purple t shirt on, not feeling in the mood to go au naturale anymore. She walked over to her burned out laptop, poking at it and sighing heavily. "I don't know how long I toiled over that thing, and now it's completely gone. All of it. Everything I ever lived for."

Tali growled loudly, nailing the laptop across the room, sending it careening against the wall, it's case shattering into a many pieces and falling to the ground. She cursed loudly, picking up the remaining parts and tossing it into the garbage, huffing loudly before she sat down on the corner of her bed and just sat there, looking out the window at the bay, David still swimming around, rolling onto his back. More otter than bear.

She hung her head low and brought her knees up on the edge of the bed, sniffling softly and whining a bit, her tail hanging lifeless below her. Somewhere outside, Lucas could be heard yelling at Rale and chasing him, accusing him of some misdeed. Inside her head, all she heard was silence. Painful, burning silence. All the thoughts that ran through her head when she was thinking about the project, thinking about Max...all gone now.

Tali whiffled softly and fell onto the bed, burying her head in the sheets, and letting them know just how enraged she was that she had spent the last two years of her life for nothing, ignoring her personal life for nothing. The sheets could only get so wet before her eyes dried up, leaving her asleep on the bed, curled up with her tail between her legs.

"Whoa! Lucas! Take a look at this!" Rale yipped loudly as one of the trashbags from the guest cabins ripped open, spilling forth a sharp mess of melted, shattered plastic that just barely looked like a laptop computer. Were it not for the keyboard, and the rainbowed LCD screen, it would just look like a pile of melted plastic.

"Rale...can't we ever do this without you ripping open at least one...WHOA!...that's weird! It looks all bubbly and strange. Someone must have left it out in the sun too long. Kinda like a video disc or something." Lucas examined the object a little, and then took it from Rale's paws, looking it over closely.

"Think Janet could get it to work again?" Rale was a smart kid, but not when it came to electronics.

"Nuh-uh. This one is about as useful as a box of rocks. About as heavy, too. Erf." Lucas prodded at a slot on the side, the brittle plastic cracking away, revealing the insides of the computer, and the contents of the drive. "Hey. There's a disk still in here. Looks allright, too."

Rale grabbed it back from Lucas, looking it over before his brother could protest. He shrugged and dropped it onto the ground, causing the computer to shatter into a thousand tiny pieces.

"Rale! What the hell...what did you do that for?" Lucas looked at his brother in absolute shock.

'Coconuts. It's like coconuts. When you want to get to the meat in the middle, you just drop it onto a real hard surface from high up. Mom doesn't let me use the machetes that we have." Rale bent down and picked up a circular grey disk, smiling. "See?" He flipped the disc around in his paws, smiling broadly at his trophy.

Lucas peered down at the disc and chuckled. "Come on, brat. Let's get this mess cleaned up, and we'll see if Janet can use it." He started to pick up some of the larger chunks of plastic, throwing them back into another trashbag. Rale stuffed the disc into his shorts, helping to clean up the mess.

After they were done, they headed straight over to the lodge, searching for Janet. They eventually found her in the kitchen, and dragged her towards the den, where she had her computer set up.

"Allright guys...what's all the fuss about? Some girl catch your eye and you want me to take a look at her and approve?" She struggled a bit as Lucas stuffed her into chair in front of her computer, and Rale handed her the disc that they found.

Janet looked down at the grey, plastic disk. It was like looking at a grey hockey puck, only a bit wider and thinner. "Ohhhhkay. So where did you guys get this one?"

Rale and Lucas looked back at each other. No point in lying. They wouldn't know where to begin. Rale piped up, as usual. "Uhm...we found it when one of the trashbags burst."

Janet rolled her eyes. "GUYS! As if it wasn't enough that you go around with a pair of binoculars and spy on the female guests, openly drape yourselves over them when they walk off the plane, and generally be suck-ups and letches around some of the fairer guests....is it too much to ask that you don't go through the trash?"

Lucas shook his head. "Nono! Rale's telling the truth! There was a really shattered laptop in one of the bags, and it ripped the plastic open. This fell out!"

Janet looked up at her brother, and then back down at the disc. She just about fainted when she read the label.

McNaughton Industries Proprietary For Internal use Only Total Capacity: 5.00 TB Used Volume: 4.56 TB SAR Clearance Required for Viewing

"Holy shit, Lucas! Do you have any idea....this fell out of a laptop?" Janet looked up at the duo, dumbfounded. They nodded.

"You...no laptop has this capacity. They can get at most three terabytes, on the really nice models, but it takes a desktop or a server to load this kind of information. There is close to five terabytes of data on this little sucker. This kind of disc can only hold one terabyte at the maximum...or maybe two with compression..."

Lucas and Rale looked at each other, and then back at Janet. "So what's on it?" Rale asked.

Janet shook her head. "Dunno." She flipped on the computer and shrugged, the desktop unit brining itself to life in a few moments. She made sure Sylvia got her money's worth when they bought the computer, and had bought a high-volume drive when they first came out. It was first-generation, but very good nonetheless.

Janet paused for a second before sticking the grey disc into the drive. She looked up at the screen, and yipped softly as a menu screen came up, then flickered away, the drive churning up to normal speed.

A black box came up on the screen.

)Initializing..... )Installing high-RPM holodisc drivers.... )Initializing HRPM drivers.....

All three of them perked their ears up as the drive seemed to shift gears, spindling up even higher than it did before. "Uhm. I don't know if I like this. Those HRPM drivers aren't even tested yet." Janet looked a bit wary, but Rale and Lucas quickly crowded her out, watching the screen with fascination.

)HRPM drivers verified. Max transfer rate: .5TB/sec )Installing primary petri program......installed )Finding tether daemon......unable to find daemon. Proceed? (Y/N)

Janet blinked a bit, reaching up to press the "N" key, but fumbling it a bit as she knocked Rale out of the way. The words blinked by almost faster than she could read them.

)Proceeding. )Slow Network Detected. )Installing base files.....installed. )Installing core componentry...installed )Installing core memory and knowledge base................installed. )Installing personality database...........................................installed )De-compressing the archive...........success! )Initializing Client daemon........... . . > ....And God created the heavens, and the earth.....and saw that it was good. . . ) Slow network detected. Searching for uplink. )Uplink detected. Routing data stream to fast network link. )Re-routed. Uploading......... . . > God was an optimist. . . )Upload successful. )Spawning on network........... )Spawn complete. ).end

Janet lunged forwards and pulled the plug on the computer, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. "Criminy, what was that? It all went so fast...it shouldn't have gone that fast..." She opened up the disc drive and took the grey puck into her paws.

"That was boring. No neat flashy lights or anything. I like some of the games for this better." Rale huffed a bit and Lucas just shrugged, padding out towards the door. Rale looked back and forth at Janet and Lucas.."I'm gonna go see what Hardrock's up to. Seeeya!" He bolted out the door, almost knocking his older brother over in the process, Lucas cursing after him and giving chase.

Janet just stood there with the disc in her paw, looking dumbfounded. "I can't help but feel I just got used." She looked down at the disc and padded up to her room, sticking it in the most far-off corner she could find, pushing the thought to the same place in her mind.

Tali woke up and looked outside, how the sun was directly over the cabin, meaning it was noon. She yawned a bit and walked out the front door of her cabin, sniffing at the air. Even though she had just cried herself to sleep, she felt rather free right now. Funny, that.