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Nick is just another 20-something, chasing the American dream to the edge of a cliff in Silicon Valley. Lost and adrift, he meets a kindred spirit when chance tosses him into a café where they're both outsiders...

This started out as a prompt I wrote, and then I sorta fell for the characters. Some author voice here, apologies. The rest of it, well; you know the drill. Thanks as always to my editor the inimitable Spudz for his help in fixing this, and to Max Coyote for reinventing disruptive modalities via web-scale, client-focused solution engineering.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

"Young Americans"_ _by ** Rob Baird**

---

This. This was exactly why he'd moved away from Syracuse. To have some thirty year old trophy housewife accuse him of intentionally defrauding her because Netflix wasn't loading fast enough. That's it, I'm talking to the Better Business Bureau.

Sure, you do that.

And the Public Utilities Commission.

Uh huh.

I'm gonna have you fired.

Christ! It was Palo fucking Alto. There was a Tesla parked in the driveway. Every Trader Joes-flavored blowjob her husband got out of her was worth twice what Nick made in a day.

Sighing, the German shepherd opened the door to his truck and dropped heavily into the driver's seat. He had to collect himself before pulling out his radio. "This is 202. Job's done. Close the ticket."

"Copy, 202. What's the word?"

"Ah, they bought a new router and it was getting some interference. I changed the frequency and moved it a bit. Nothing on our side; SNR's fine. Good signal strength. Just close it, man. And put an OMC flag in her file."

"Right. Well. Last one for you, 202. Bring it back."

"Roger, dispatch." Nick dragged his claws through his hair, and sighed again with the key in the ignition. 'Optimally managed customer,' that's what they'd tell anyone who asked what it meant. They needed to be treated with kid gloves. Always wanted special treatment. Discounts. Account credits.

Obnoxious. Motherfucking. Cunt.

The OMC was standing in her doorway, glaring at him. Gritting his teeth, he started the truck up and backed out of the driveway, turning up the radio a notch. Don't lean on me, man, 'cause you can't afford the ticket... Twenty-five hundred miles away it would be a cooling, pleasant evening in upstate New York. His brothers Rob and Eric would be knocking back a beer. Amie'd probably just be coming back from her TA office hours...

Yep, Nick. Bang-up job with the move.

It hadn't been his fault that Amie Porter had gotten into the grad program and he hadn't. Everything after that? That was his fault. Ugh. I'm gonna have you fired.

Yeah, well, lady. I'm gonna have you shot, how 'bout them apples?

He swung the wheel lazily, and the arthritic truck slouched out and onto one of the main streets. Cute little suburban neighborhood. Nice lawns in spite of the drought. Expensive cars. Maybe fifteen hundred square feet, and each of them a million fucking dollars.

How the hell was it that other twenty-five year olds were earning enough for that, and he was living in a rat-trap rental off El Camino Real with three other losers? Well, California, here I fucking --

The kid entered his vision as a blur -- darting out in front of his truck. And then the world was moving in slow motion, one frame at a time. Young. Husky, maybe? No. Too skinny. Silver fox. Five or six? Frame.

Tugging on the wheel, hearing the screech of his brakes before he knew he was jamming them with every fucking ounce of muscle the shepherd had. The truck leaning, slewing drunkenly into the other lane. Frame.

Some lady on the sidewalk starting to move -- too late. He could see that she was too late just as clearly as he could see her face. Soft fur. He could discern every individual hair like she was under a microscope. And her panicked eyes -- watching, knowing what was going to happen.

Frame.

Except then his truck was stopped and he caught the sound of screaming and he was gripping the wheel all rigid and immobile like he'd been frozen in place, and his heart was about that cold too, and -- and she had the kid scooped up, and he was fine, hadn't even noticed the truck coming.

"My god -- oh, my god, I'm sorry," the vixen was telling him. Through the window of the car. "I don't even --"

The shepherd's muzzle was gaping. He couldn't breathe and he was breathing too much, all at once. Quick, desperate panting. "I..."

"I'm sorry, he just wasn't looking -- he's only four -- I'm really -- we got really lucky."

Hadn't they just?

He couldn't make himself let off the brake. It took a full minute, and when the truck started to move it jolted him and he hit the brake again. Jesus. How close had that been? Inches. It had been inches.

The shepherd made it two blocks before he had to pull over. They were expecting the truck back at the depot, 'cause somebody else would have to take it for the next shift and he knew that he had to move again but... but...

In his mind all he saw was the poor kid laid out on the pavement. Ambulances. A stretcher. His mom, inconsolable. Why, why'd it have to happen? Why couldn't you stop in time?

Hadn't really been his fault, right? But a kid...

I'm gonna have you fired.

Finally he gave up, killing the ignition and stepping out into the warm Valley afternoon. There was a coffee shop on the corner; that was it. He'd grab a cup of coffee -- lots of cream; he didn't need the caffeine -- and sit and sandwich himself between all the Macbooks and calm down and he wouldn't have almost killed some dumb kid.

Sure.

He knew the type of joint from Syracuse. The music was unremarkable, inoffensive indie folk-rock that existed only so you could tell some twiggy girl wearing a scarf oh, I've always thought his lyrics were, like, poetry and she could go oh, I know, isn't "Stars of track and field" brilliant?

Not his style, really. But he'd met Amie in her Transatlanticism phase, come to think of it.

The café was her kind of place. Stack of zines on the counter, paintings by local artists for sale on the walls; buzz-cut barista with silver rings tracing the rim of her right ear. "Whatcha havin'?"

"Just coffee. Coffee and milk."

"Latte?"

"No, just coffee and milk. Milk coffee."

"Drip? We got... Chemex and Aeropress, too. Wait." The lanky cheetah twisted around. "Yo, Austin, we got Chemex today?"

Her coworker, an androgynous canine dressed like an extra from Cabaret, nodded. "Yeah. You tried the light stuff? The beans Kay brought back are hella ill."

"Just... coffee..." Nick sighed.

"Sure thing. Grab a seat; we'll bring it over."

Of course the place was packed. Why wouldn't it be? There were no empty spaces, and Nick desperately needed to sit down. The café was a sea of open computers. Right at that intersection of aspiring novelists and aspiring startup entrepreneurs. Everybody typing away on their laptops...

Careful investigation revealed a single seat, on a low table across from a white tigress who was flicking her finger idly over a tablet. Job postings, Nick thought, on a cursory glance. "Hey, uh..."

The tigress didn't move her head, only her eyes. "'S free."

"Thanks."

His legs were still weak, and why wouldn't they be? It had been his foot on the accelerator, after all, getting ready to knock a quarter million joules of kinetic energy into somebody's four year old.

He needed to distract himself. Nick realized, though, that he had nothing to do. No crossword puzzle. No book to read. His phone was in the glovebox of the truck. Awkward.

Okay, so. People watching. At the next table, a wolf was glancing between his leather-bound notebook and his computer. Glance. Type. Glance. Looked like a flowchart, if he wasn't mistaken. And if it was a business model, a good idea, something catchy, then that was a couple million in VC money scribbled out in ballpoint...

Opposite the wolf, a rabbit was bobbing her head lightly to the music in her earbuds. The screen of her computer was dense with... poetry? class SubdivisionIterSpinBox : public QSpinBox and this->setFrame(false) and none of it rhymed so no, probably, it was something else entirely.

His tablemate's tablet was covered in stickers. As unobtrusively as possible, he eyed them. Alien, distorted figures -- like the street art that was popular in the city. Kinda cool, in a grotesque sort of way. Bold lines. Hand-drawn, or they looked like it because some of them were a little smudged.

Her coffee was half-finished, but ignored. Whatever she was looking for on the screen of her little tablet, she wasn't finding it; her eyes flicked tiredly and her finger drooped. He knew that kind of feeling -- not like it was the end of the road, more like you knew there was more road to go but your car was out of gas. Watching the bustle as a tedious pageant, slowly passing you by. Lost. Wondering.

Is there life on Mars?

She was his age, probably; couldn't have been much older or younger than 25. Despite her listlessness, the way she slouched gave the sense of comfort in her own skin. That was nice. Her eyes lifted, caught his; held for a second, and dropped back to her computer.

You could say something, he told himself, even as he knew he probably wouldn't. It was too late in the day, or too early in the evening, to listen to somebody going on about how amazing their startup was. Nah, Nick. C'mon, it'll be a 'cross-platform application incubator' at the very least.

Twenty-five hundred miles away, Rob's television would be tuned to catch the Red Sox and Eric would be tinkering with his radio and Amie would be... what, probably talking to a new boyfriend, right?

Sure.

The barista drifted over, holding a big cup of coffee. He stood up to take it from her just as she tripped on a power cord and stumbled forward. A yelp, a fumble, and the table was drenched in coffee. It was all over the old wood, the chair, his jacket. The tigress's computer.

"Oh, god, I'm sorry!"

The tigress blinked. "I..."

She'd already dashed off in search of some paper towels. At the next table, the wolf and rabbit had scooted away -- like they cared? Like they could do anything? The tigress stared in irritation at her computer, and brushed at a line of coffee running down the screen.

Right. But now he should say something, or offer to help. The barista returned. "I'm sorry, I just wasn't looking," she apologized, dabbing at the mess as best she could. It took half the roll.

"It still works," the other feline shrugged. "Guess that's a sign." And when the cheetah had effected a retreat, she looked up at him and shook her head. "You'd really think people could be more careful..."

Nick could only manage a snort. "Yeah, you'd... you'd think."

The rabbit at the next table unhooked her earbud for a moment, and nodded towards the counter. "You should talk to the management," she said.

Yeah, that was it. Say you're gonna get her fired. But the tigress didn't take the bait. "It was an accident. Whatever. Like I said, it still works, right?" Rolling her eyes, the rabbit returned to work, and the tigress shook her head. "What would be the point?"

"I don't know." The shepherd took his seat again. "It was awfully clumsy."

"Well, I wouldn't endorse her for lightning reflexes if she was applying to SpaceX, but c'mon, man. Everybody has an off day. I mean, look at you."

He raised his eyebrow. "What about me?"

His tablemate turned her tablet around one more time to satisfy herself that it was clean, and then set it off to the side. "What about you, is when you saw she was going to spill it, the look on your face said well ain't that one more thing. So I'm guessing it's one more thing. Is it?"

"Hasn't been a great day," he admitted to her.

"Tell me about it." He gave her a kind of well-yeah-you-know smile, but when he didn't answer she waved her paw expectantly, like she was trying to pull the words from him. "I'm serious. I don't have anything to do. Tell me."

Nick was spared from immediate response by the return of the barista, handing him another cup of coffee. She also handed him his money back, but he declined the offer. "It's alright. Everything's okay. No big deal."

The cheetah seemed ever so slightly surprised, but she didn't argue. "Thanks. Uh -- next one's still on me. For both of you. I'm really sorry."

"See? Free coffee," the tigress smiled. "Things are looking up. What happened? 'Cause if you don't start bitching, I will."

"I almost hit a kid. Like, seriously. He was four."

"Jesus."

"Ran out in front of my truck."

"Jesus."

"I wasn't, like, speeding or anything. But, man... and you know the fucked up thing? Why the fuck was I even out there? Dumb fucking service call. Random luck. Roll the dice and -- Christ -- like..." He gritted his teeth. "I don't know... I guess nobody's having a fun time, huh? You either? Why do you want to bitch?"

"Well, I was gonna say, but... I mean... not worth it," the tigress blinked.

"Why?"

"It's not as dramatic."

"I don't mind..." Really, he didn't. He was starting to calm down, was a lot of it; that helped. "Don't mind missing out on some drama, trust me."

"Fine. Just frustrated at work. I mean -- I'm sure it's not as bad as what you deal with. Oversubscribing my subdivision must be really tough on you guys' morale." The dry smile that followed didn't do much to soften the sardonic humor. "Just... well, it is the story of our generation, isn't it? Not doing what I thought I'd be doing..."

"Which is?"

"Well, I'm a programmer. I mean, my degree is in education, but I've always been a programmer. When I was in school I was working on a machine learning project for a non-profit back home. But that doesn't pay the bills, you know?"

"Yeah. I know. Trust me."

"Now I'm doing QA. I design unit tests to maximize platform coverage. I mean, I'm living the Valley dream. Work for a hot startup. Got equity... kinda... Health care. Catering. Pay for our car-sharing..."

"What does it do?"

The tigress's thin smirk came back. "Guess. Go on."

Yeah, there it was. He was going to hear about the Next Big Thing. Some soulless, hipper-than-thou open-plan sweatshop riding on Y Combinator and positive influencer buzz. "Does it have a scalable, cloud-oriented architecture that maximizes the potential for creative disruption?"

She laughed, rather than bristling -- which was an unexpectedly good sign. "Fuck you. Of course it does."

"So, specifically..."

"It's a mobile app. I work on the Android branch, which is where the unit tests come in. Basically, we have an augmented reality game. Other people can check in to locations, and the more often they check in, they quicker they build a kind of fortress that you can attack and eventually capture. The goal is to hold territory."

"I see..."

Her shrug did not speak to a lot of interest. "We're licensing patents from practically every imaging company in California. It's kind of cool, in theory -- like... uh, what's an example? We do real-time edge detection on buildings in software."

"Yeah?"

"Well, you want to find the edges of a building so you can estimate its shape. But, like, there's always trees and people in the way."

"Occlusion, sure."

"Sure. So we do some sensor fusion stuff. If you hold your phone up, gravity is down, and building roofs should be perpendicular to that, right?" She gestured, in case he was unfamiliar with these prepositions. "Add some naive assumptions about street geometry we pull from OSM and pattern-match against those, and we get okay accuracy. Project arbitrary polygons against the facing surface so instead of the building, you see whatever we want..."

"That's part of the game?"

"No." 'No' tagged along with a bitter snort: "We use it to show ads, what else? They're not geofenced now but we've been working on billboards that pull real-time stuff from local businesses. Between that and the microtransactions we're actually making a profit, but... I'm sure we really just want to get bought."

"Seems like everybody's plan."

"They got me on this with the tech, you know? The whole pitch was about 'next-generation visual experiences' and..." She sighed heavily, her whiskers lowering. "This tech is amazing, but we're using it to... to sell gold coins to friggin' morons on a smartphone. I don't know what I'm doing."

"Me either. I was always good with computers, and my parents are such... such..." He tried to think of how to explain it, and wound up grimacing instead. "Dad's a professor of philosophy at Colgate and mom's a... I don't even know. She sells craft stuff online. They both figured I'd just land out here and that'd be it..."

"Colgate, like the --"

"Yes," he groaned. "I heard a lot of jokes about toothpaste growing up. Trust me. But now it's all..." His coffee had gone lukewarm, and it hadn't been very good to begin with. "I don't know."

"You tried to find something else?"

"Yeah, but..." How could he explain that the problem wasn't this job or that job it was everything? He was a stranger in a strange land and that never ended well. "It's just not what I expected."

"Time to start our own company."

"Company? I don't even know your name."

They'd gotten awfully far without that. "Sort of on purpose. I give out my name and... well. Are you gonna look me up on LinkedIn? Facebook? Google Pl -- ah, who are we kidding? Of course not. App.net?" Her eyes narrowed, and a hint of mischief appeared. "Well?"

"We could skip that and go straight to phone numbers."

"Bold!"

It was hard to say why, exactly, but he liked the tigress. He stuck to the suggestion: "Well, it might make things a little awkward, but I could pretend to be a recruiter."

"I bet."

"No, really. I've got a great opportunity for you." Nick drained the rest of his coffee, and in that pause, with the bitter tang of it on his tongue, he thought of every empty, meaningless promise he and his roommates had been chasing. Every breathless article. Every fucked-up networking event they'd gone to. What the hell was the fucking point? "Ready? Big data."

"Big data?" She sat back, tilting her head and staring fixedly. "Tell me more."

"Well. We're being incubated right now, but basically we're driving real-time insights using next-generation analytics that aggregate responsive metrics from internal and external stakeholders in a bleeding-edge space."

"Ubiquitous computing?"

"Oh, no, no." He shook his head fervently. "This isn't about the Internet of Things. A thing is a noun -- I'm talking," Nick paused until he saw her leaning forward a few inches. "About the Internet of Verbs."

She smirked. "I can definitely see this transforming the digital landscape. How are you going to make -- sorry -- what's your monetization strategy?"

"Well, we don't have one. We do have have an office in the SOMA. Great location. Neighbors used to be a bit rowdy, but, we got the police to take care of that."

The wolf who had been sitting at the next table twisted, and scooted closer. "I couldn't help overhearing. It sounds interesting -- what are you doing? Wearables?"

"Oh, uh. We're in stealth mode," Nick explained.

The tigress caught her snicker at the very last moment -- fortunately, the wolf wasn't watching, and she had time to catch herself. "Can we take this somewhere else?"

Nick ignored the wolf's look of disappointment to follow the feline as she picked her way through the crowd in the coffee shop, which hadn't ebbed. Anyway, why not? -- he took the chance to steal a second glance at her. Standard Valley chic: boots obscured her thick paws, and her lashing tail disrupted a loose-fitting burgundy jacket that she'd rolled up at the sleeves.

Not particularly... disruptive. It was, at least, still the kind of look that said -- in so many words -- yeah, I really don't have to give a fuck. And Nick had never been able to pull off hoodies all that well. Outside, in the lingering warmth of evening, she finally stopped. Turned. "Stealth mode, huh?"

"Hey, sure."

He felt her eyes on him, searching. Judging, probably, like everyone did. "Jenny," was the final verdict. His ear pricked. "Jenny Li. Or Jenn. Mostly that one, actually."

"Jenn Li?"

"It's like Gen Y, but with crushing parental expectations to go along with the student loan debt," she explained.

"Crushing, huh?"

"Well, I had a tiger mom, anyway."

"Cute," the shepherd smirked, and stuck out his paw. "I'm Nick," he told her, when she shook it. "Hagerman. So... my mom didn't really give a fuck. Too busy making scrimshaw or whatever the fuck she's doing now."

"In New York, right? I do know where Colgate is," Jenn winked. She let him go, and her fingers softly brushed his paw. "I'm from a tiny little town nobody's heard of on the Oregon coast -- probably where your mom gets driftwood to lacquer."

"Maybe."

She looked west, to the fading orange of sunset. Then, offhandedly, the tigress turned back. "So, Nick, what do you say. You want to get dinner?"

"Is this a date, or are we still innovating paradigms?"

"Your call."

At In-N-Out, she waited until they'd grabbed a booth to grin her fanged grin across the shiny table. "Good choice. I love coming here -- I mean, you can get some really fantastic people-watching going on. Check that dude." She indicated the direction with a flick of her soft blue eyes.

The rabbit was about ninety percent muscle -- the kind of overcompensating you do when you get made fun of all through school for being prey. His ears had been tattooed heavily. Ornate letters, lovingly inked, with rippling reflections that drew one's eye seamlessly to the words.

One ear said "FUCK"; the other said "YALL."

"That takes commitment," Nick said. "You might worry about having your message misinterpreted..."

"Yeah, but look on the bright side. If you misinterpret it, he's got a response ready for you."

A little league team, or part of it, had entered the line behind the rabbit -- half a dozen bouncing, high-voiced kids chattering and milling around Mr. YALL, who looked at them, and merely gave a nod of acknowledgment. Nobody bothered him.

When their food arrived, she took a few french fries in silence, and waited for him to do the same. "You ever thought about leaving? Going back home, maybe?"

"Sometimes. A lot, actually. I miss my brothers a whole bunch." Nick shrugged, turning up his paws. "Truth is, it's not like the South Bay isn't for me so much as I'm not for it. A million dead-end streets, and every time I thought I'd got it made..."

Jenn gave no sign that she'd caught the reference. "You didn't?"

"Every day I think more and more, like... it's like Silicon Valley has an immune system, and I'm being rejected."

"But you don't mind."

Finally, he took a bite of his double cheeseburger. Dressing oozed into his fingers but he chewed, slowly, and took his time with the answer. "No, I don't. I really don't. I'm just not cut out for it. This kind of, uh... innovation."

If that was what it was. Smart thermostats and self-driving cars and ordering tacos from your watch to have them delivered by drone or whatever it was that was getting press. At one point, he'd had bigger dreams than working mobile tech support, half-heartedly applying to startups making brain-dead smartphone games. Hadn't he?

Jenn twisted her tongue to catch a bit of tomato before it fell, then set her half-eaten burger aside. "I started thinking about things like that... like... the first time was when I was in college? And all the Occupy stuff kicked off? At the time I was still thinking... I mean... I was still thinking that Silicon Valley was where all the greatest new stuff was happening. You know, okay, Ford and GM are gonna go under but tech is gonna save us."

"How could tech not save us? They invented the iPhone."

"Right. But we're not exactly saving the planet here."

No. In the last century their race had taken flight -- split the atom -- eradicated polio -- gone to the Moon. And in this century? He thought, in these moods, of Alan Ginsberg. "I saw the best minds of my generation working on Wi-Fi lightbulbs."

"Or what else? Look at the valuation of Instagram. You really think it was worth it? Making pictures look kind of shitty? I can do that all on my own." She picked up her burger, making ready to take another bite, and then thought better of it. "But you know, we've got it all wrong..."

"How's that?"

"This isn't the bright spot of innovation in the midst of a dark age. It's like... the water's rising, and this is just the high ground where the last of the ants are gathering to run around and look busy. I don't know who the bread and circuses are even for. Five thousand a month for an apartment up in San Francisco? These private busses and stuff? Like we're not gonna drown, too?"

Nick could only nod. Wasn't like he disagreed, anyway. "Lot of us already have."

"Yeah, well. Long as they keep handing over their credit cards for those sweet, sweet microtransactions, I'll get by. You know the problem with being an ant, Nick?"

"Tell you one. They sell ants a lot of bullshit about hard work and none of that changes a damned thing about how easy it is to get stepped on."

Jenn snorted her quiet agreement. "You want to know something dumb, though? I mean, 'cause we're friends and all." He felt her boot nudge his shin, and tilted his head to encourage the question. "I had an idea of my own I wanted to work on."

The urge to say something dickish, something about thought leadership or value creation, was -- for some reason -- no longer there. He canted his head. "Yeah?"

"Mm-hmm. I wanted to do this... well. It was when I was thinking about the augmented reality stuff. You've seen the demos where you project virtual objects against a plane in the real world, right?"

"A little. What you said earlier, I guess; nothing more."

The tigress chewed her lip, leaving her long whiskers to twitch in thought. "Well.... okay. You'd have, like, a blank table, and if you put on special glasses you could project a three-dimensional image on it."

"Like a hologram?"

She had that engineer's expression on, like: how much of this can I explain before he glazes over? "No. But, I mean.... I mean... it's close enough. Sure, a hologram. They do it now for games and stuff. If you don't have the glasses on, it looks like nothing. If you do, you can see whatever you want. I was thinking you could put something like that in schools."

"Why?"

"Well... you could have, like... you could have a modern kinda StarLogo, I thought. There would be these avatars, and you could write simple code to have 'em move around, or do stuff. Interact with each-other... just, like... as a way of getting kids into programming, right? It's like the logical next step from Minecraft and stuff, but with learning rather than just building."

Nick sort-of followed. Not quite. "Yeah?"

He got a shrug in answer, and had to wait for her to finish the rest of her burger. "I started caring about education when I was working for this non-profit in school. It's not a huge business opportunity, but..."

"Thought about trying to get it off the ground?"

"I don't know how," the tigress sighed. "Begging for money on some crowdfunding site, I guess. I kinda work on it in my spare time. I have a bunch of the basic logic figured out, but the visual design is a mess and... ah, I dunno. Something dumb, like I said." Jenn winked -- but it was a defensive, self-deprecating gesture.

The shepherd picked up a french fry, and held it in his fingers for a contemplative moment, like a lit cigarette. "So you'd have these characters, and the kids could move them around by computer code."

"Yeah. Not directly. You'd write a program, and that would make them move. But..." The tigress took a deep breath. Sighed. He knew what she was thinking. It would be so easy to say: ah, forget it or something else; something flippant. "The advantage of doing it in AR is it puts it in the real world, so you can make the environment as big as you want. And because it's all virtual, it could be -- like -- I mean, like -- you could have a super abstract physics model. You don't have to worry about pieces getting lost, or dirty."

"The hardware's not expensive?"

She turned her big paws up in another shrug. "No? Kinda? Not -- I mean, it's not zero cost, but it's cheaper than having to have a computer for every kid. I'd connect the glasses wirelessly to a single computer to handle the local environment so you can handle rendering the same space to all of the participants. You could write the code anywhere."

"On the table, right?" Nick asked. He wasn't certain if he understood the concept exactly, but: "You could show a virtual keyboard on the table, or some... you know, like they do with chimps, where they have a keyboard that's abstract symbols rather than QWERTY? You could have --"

"Yeah! A really simplified UI to start with! And then as you get more advanced you can add more complicated modules to it! I like that!" Jenn, whose striking white fur was already conspicuous, had raised her voice enough to attract attention in her passion, and she glanced around sheepishly before ducking her muzzle to the straw of her milkshake. "Uh... kinda."

"What would the characters look like?"

"I dunno."

He put the french fry back with its companions. "What if you had different ones, and they could do different things?"

"Why?"

All of his ideas were half-formed and disjointed. It had been a long time since he'd allowed himself the taste of excitement; he was a little wary of being burned. "Well, I know this is more like a game. But what if you had one kind of character that could, um... could dig a hole in the environment. I'm really imagining this like Minecraft, by the way."

"That's fine. I get it. 'Move forward ten spaces, dig down one space, dig forward five spaces.' 'Dig forward until you hit empty air, then turn ninety degrees.' I mean, you're thinking it would be like that?"

She was a couple steps ahead of his thought processes. But sure, why not? Smarter than him anyway. "Yeah. So one type could dig a hole, and one type could build a bridge, and one type could fly and carry one of the others, or... I dunno. Not really explaining it well. But if you were a teacher, you could say, like... like... I have a class of nine kids, and there are four digging things, and two building things, and two flying things, and you need to come up with a way to cross a big ditch."

"Get your class to solve an abstract problem and figure out how to program a solution..."

"Together."

"Huh." Jenn hid her muzzle with the squat cup, and sucked on the straw until the shake gave its death rattle. "That could be cool. I can think of some interesting ways to use that..."

"Thought about writing a demo?"

"Thought about."

"But?"

"I don't know. It's just a dumb idea I had, Nick. I don't even know what the characters should look like. Just kind of..."

Kind of. He knew that. It was easier to give advice, though, than to take it. "You should. Get something you could show people?"

"Like I said, shep, not much of a business case."

"So? It's still a good idea, and..." And they would all drown, anyway. "Well, what do I know. But I still think you should."

"Lot of people would disagree," Jenn pointed out, and tried to distract herself with her drink until the attempt reminded her that there was nothing left inside it.

"Screw 'em."

Jenn was quiet, thoughtful on the drive back to her place. And she got quieter, as the truck slipped from 101 and onto quieter streets in Mountain View. The voice of his satnav did all the talking for them. That and the grumbling engine, and the radio.

The tigress watched soft, glass-smeared lights passing in the night, letting hazy cosmic jive fill the silences. By the time they pulled to a stop she had said nothing for long minutes. But her paw rested motionless, on the handle of the truck, and she didn't open it.

"Oh, hell." It was a nice condo. Not, like, ostentatious. Had to be a couple hundred, though, at least. Walking distance to Caltrain. "Hell, Nick..." He arched an eyebrow. She turned, and looked towards her front door. Turned back to him.

"Yes?"

"You're kind of cute, just... I mean..."

"Just?"

"I don't know. I'm tired of..." Jenn frowned. They were both tired of it and neither of them could really name it but -- there it was. "Okay. Jenn. Roll the dice."

"Roll the --"

She silenced the shepherd with a kiss, before he even knew that she'd pounced him. He was pinned against the door of his truck; her body was hot, heavy on him, and...

What had it been, two years?

They were well out of breath when she finally let up. Panting down at him, fixing the dog in a big cat's predatory stare. Blue eyes dark at twilight. "C'mon," she ordered.

He followed -- took him a second to get the door open, because it had locked automatically, and he was growling in frustration by the time he realized that. That seemed to amuse her.

A lot did, come to think of it. "It may strike you," the tigress snickered, as she pressed her phone to the door and it clicked open, "what's going on here."

"Which is?"

"The cable guy? Come on," she teased, and just before she turned to slip inside he felt her paw give his crotch a squeeze. "I've been having some problems with, uh. My service."

Nice apartment. Hardwood floors. Big windows; lots of light. Little LEDs here and there gave the sense that it was all probably connected. "Good lord..."

"Gotta have some perks. Shepherd on delivery, for instance. Uh... this is my kitchen, my living room..." She gestured, shrugging off her jacket and tossing it onto the sofa that dominated said living room. None of it, Nick thought, had been furnished via Ikea.

"Right."

"Office. I... don't really go in there anymore." The door was half-open; the computers on the desk had all been powered down. Coding manuals and recipe books drowsed lazily here and there. "Bedroom. Going there, I think -- 'less you like couches?"

"I mean, the bed's a nicer place to get, you know. Stuck..."

Jenn turned, her tailtip jerking. "You think I'm gonna let you tie me, mutt?"

He blinked. "Isn't that how it works?"

"I look like one of you dogs? None of that. Got it?" Her eyes narrowed, and he noticed that they were above rather sharp teeth. Well, fine. "Good boy."

She kept the lights off in the bedroom, but in the streetlamps and moonlight from the California evening her fur had a lustrous glow anyway and it made it nice and easy to find her. Nick's paws were dark, ghostly shapes on the tigress's sides.

Under the jacket she had only a t-shirt and, with a quick tug of his paws, she didn't even have that. He could be industrious, when he wanted. The shepherd's touch worked down her toned sides to where the fur ended at a belt, and her pants, and she giggled when the dog growled in disapproval.

While he fixed that little problem she slipped her bra off. Came as a pleasant little surprise when he looked back up. She plucked on his own shirt, and he got that off, but -- well. Better ideas. She didn't fight when when he guided her to the bed, pressing her back, and down -- alabaster fur a nice contrast to the deep navy sheets...

It put her in a nice position for another kiss. Lingering. Warm. Their lips clung for the briefest moment, when he drew his muzzle back. Slid lower, kissing ever so lightly at her collarbone, nosing through her fur.

Guided himself over the curving swell of her left breast. Took her nipple gently, putting soft pressure there as he gave her a good, long lick. That wet silky touch in its dragging, aching warmth pulled a rumbling moan from her. He'd known it would.

Cause, sure. They liked dogs for their tongues.

But, well, it was something, so he kept going. There were no stripes on her belly, just nice, soft white fur. He buried his nose in that pelt; inhaled the faint scene of jasmine. He found stripes again at her hip, curling like the shadows that fall from half-drawn blinds.

Stripes, and white, and then her fur broken by dark, bare flesh. Spread legs. Curling tail, metronome-thumping the shepherd's side. Neither of them were in the mood to wait much, but he was delicate at first anyway.

Tentative, kinda. A soft, flickering series of swift laps that left her sighing, arching her hips into his long muzzle. And when he followed it up with a probing nuzzle -- with the smooth flat of his nose, none of those prickly whiskers, mind -- she groaned her appreciation.

His broad tongue pressed into the wet cleft of the feline's slit, caressing her with a soft warmth that brought a shuddering groan to the tigress. He couldn't see her, not with her back arched like that. Could damn well imagine, though -- eyes screwed shut, whiskers aquiver...

An electric jolt trembled through her muscular body and she breathed his name in a pleading gasp. He responded with an inquisitive growl, nosing in close between her thighs. Then he kissed her, mouth nudging over her sodden cunny, her scent filling his nose when he opened his lips to work his velvety tongue smoothly into her...

Jenn grunted. His right ear went deaf: her broad, strong paw was clasping it, razor claws raking through his hair to tug him into her. The tigress was starting to squirm now, pushing back to meet his wolfish muzzle as he sunk his tongue into her hungrily -- slipped it back, tried for a new angle -- explored her like she was his to devour. 'Cause. Well.

Even with his ear muffled he could hear well enough. She was so wet the grinding of her hips clashed to his nosepad with a messy, audible squish -- so that, and her panting growing more ragged -- and her hot gasps -- and then his name again, thin, desperate: "Nick..."

"Mm?"

"Fuck me, Nick. Please."

Yeah, but. If she was going to sound like that, then he had some leverage. The shepherd sat back; licked his muzzle clean. Slipped the button of his jeans free, working them down his legs as he stood. "On all fours, stripes."

"'M not a dog." She tried to glare at him, but those keen blue eyes were glazed with lust and it didn't quite work.

"You beg like one," he grinned back. "You want it or not, kitty?"

Her stance wavered. He saw her gaze drop lower -- from his face to his crotch, and the promise implied by the jutting length of shepherd cock that greeted her. That did it. She rolled over without another protest, scooting forward on the bed...

The tigress's whole body was an open plea. Her thighs were parted widely, baring her dripping pussy to him. Back in a nice, feline arch -- her thick tail curled and lashing. Nick decided there was no virtue or point in waiting. In two seconds he was behind her, knees planted firmly in the mattress, nudging her rump as he guided the pointed tip of his throbbing shaft to her.

As soon as he felt the hot kiss of her wet folds on him he pushed forward. He sank into the tigress smoothly. Clinging, snug pressure gave way to the satin, wet embrace of her body enveloping him and as he fed inch after hard, pulsing inch into her she let her breath out in a grateful purr that vibrated all the way down through her striped body.

Hilted -- with some effort; it was a close fit -- he hitched his hips in a slow, circling grind that worked his cock smoothly, probing at her from deep inside. Getting used to the heat, the tight wet warmth of her pussy fluttering excitedly over him when she groaned.

He pulled back, almost all the way, then thrust again and this time he groaned. Their voices met -- Jenn's was kind of quiet; the tigress's head had dropped and she was panting her commentary directly into the mattress. Nick grasped her solid hips for support and started to fuck her slowly, hanging on every slick, hot second of it.

She jerked -- her arms stretched, and her paws grasped for the sheets. Her fingers splayed; when they clenched again her claws scored the helpless fabric. His next thrust was deliberately slow and pointed, nudging the tip of his cock against her walls firmly.

The one after that, though... he was having to put more effort into keeping his pace slow. Having to find distractions. The feeling of her nice, firm rear under his paws. The look of her stark black stripes swaying and rocking with the force of their swift coupling.

His smooth canine length slurped wetly every time he pumped it into her. The pulses of his hot, slippery precum came faster and faster -- leaving her dripping and the both of their fur sodden as he plunged inside. God, but it would feel so fucking good to knot her like a proper bitch --

Careful Nick. Don't get carried away.

The tigress twitched. Close. Her tail swayed and writhed. He tried to take his time, bucking into the soft white fur of her rump, except... except that tail -- it was waving faster and faster... her round ears were pinning... her breathing was getting all short and shallow...

There it was. A heated snarl filled the room, louder than the sound of her sheets being torn to ribbons. She struggled for breath and every time she seemed to find it it left her in a broken mewl of delight. Jenn was clenched tight on the shepherd's thick, solid length, humping back to meet his hips.

Long, tense, giddy seconds later she slumped forward, tugging his cock from her as she tumbled unstrung into the bed. He prodded her side, and finally she rolled onto her back, looking up at him. Nick leaned over her, and when he bent down to kiss the tigress she encircled him in strong, heavy arms.

Their lips met sloppily -- he had to try again, and by this time she'd pulled him down, atop her. His aching cock pushed into the soft fur of her belly. The shepherd's hips gave a reflexive thrust and she giggled breathlessly into his muzzle.

Jenn wriggled. Shifted. He sank between her spread thighs and she wrapped them around him as his cock settled back between the slick petals of the tigress's sex. He needed to be back inside her badly -- his length throbbed, and his knot was already half-swollen, and...

Well. She seemed to understand. Tilted her hips just so, so that the tip of his prick slipped just inside and then the rest of him followed, spreading her wide again around him as he sunk back into her welcoming heat. Nick groaned as she took him, and even as he started to thrust he was keenly aware of how much resolve it was taking.

The bed creaked and squealed in time to his increasingly unsteady movements. Everywhere was heat and clinging pressure. Her arms had his his dark-furred back in a tight embrace. Her thighs were locked around his bucking hips. The soft folds of her cunny grasped and massaged him as his cock worked deeper and deeper inside.

His knot was a solid, thick bulb now, putting sharp pressure on her lips as they tried to part around it. Every time it ground against her Jenn's eyes went a little more unfocused. She was fighting a losing battle, too -- he could feel the building agitation in every stroke.

"Nick." She was gasping, even his name seemed to be drawn out to four or five desperate syllables. "Nick -- do it, please -- knot me"

"But you --"

"Nick," she begged, so what was he gonna do? The shepherd groaned and bucked hard between her downy-furred thighs. Resistance. Straining, tense, taut pressure. He thrust again. Again. Leaned into her, pressing with his toes against her ruined bedsheets.

A sudden lurch and with a lewd slurp she took him, all of him -- he could feel her over every long inch of his cock. She wasn't a dog, of course -- wasn't really built for it -- but the pressure on his knot was still more than enough and then -- then with a yowl the tigress arched heavily and clamped down on him and --

He couldn't help it. Everything was fast and urgent, the roiling energy of an avalanche in progress. The shepherd flattened his ears and felt himself bucking into her writhing body, trying to bury himself as deep as he could by instinct, as she trembled around his knot, drawing his shuddering, sweet release from him --

A squeal -- claws raking his back -- he repaid the favor by biting down on her shoulder and pouring his growl out into her fur. Pleasure hit him in pounding waves. She had his cock grasped so tightly that he could feel every heavy throb that pumped his canine seed deep into her, and by her mewling gasps so could she.

Nick could only grunt; his tail flagged and jolted and he humped rhythmically into Jenn's hips as he filled her with the long, hot spurts of shepherd cum. His own pulse was deafening in his ears, and even after he collapsed on her and they lay gasping together it was awhile before he could do anything but twitch.

"So..." Jenn finally murmured. "So you're stuck, huh?"

Ain't so bad, is it? "Yeah. Never done that?"

"No. But it's kinda... nice. I mean... it's different."

"Roll the dice, right?" he teased. The tigress rolled her eyes, which was different from disagreeing. His eyes focused on one of the stripes that folded around her shoulders like a necklace. He ran his claw over it.

Ticklish, she batted his arm away. "Stoppit."

"Well, it's cute. You look like you got stenciled. Drawn on..."

He went for another stripe, and she growled playfully, trying to shove him away. Except. Well. "Hmph," she grunted, very well aware of the pressure she was putting on the shepherd's knot. "So much for that. At least I know you won't run away..."

"Beats being leashed," he agreed.

Jenn's fur was comfortable, and between that and the exertion... he kissed her nose softly, and her eyes had the exact same sort of fuzzy tiredness in them. He'd almost forgotten how nice it felt... how easy it was to drift off, like that...

The last thing he heard was her soft, involuntary purring.

He beat her to wakefulness the next morning. The sheets were a mess, and he felt kind of guilty about that, but... well. He hadn't been the one to claw them up. Asleep, the tigress looked nothing so much as a big kitten. Her hair had gone mussed; it framed her like a halo.

Wasn't right they should end up like this.

He had a little pad, in his work jacket. Used to write down ideas in it. Hadn't in a year. Hesitantly, he pulled it out. Still had a sticker on it, from the university bookstore in Syracuse...

Roll the dice. I mean, what would it matter? What was the one-night stand equivalent of I'm gonna have you fired? He clicked the lead forward in his pencil. Tore up the first page. The second. The third.

It took him half an hour to even start the fourth page, but it was another hour still before he heard footsteps padding up behind him. Jenn was already dressed -- sloppy-like, but hey, it was the Valley.

"What are these?"

"Well." The shepherd twirled the pencil around his fingers. Commit. Go on. "So, I was thinking that maybe your builder class could be something like this..."

Jenn took the pad of paper and looked it over. "Huh. It's not very... kiddie?"

"No. It's not a cartoon or anything. But you can tell what it does just by looking at it. And you can tell what direction it's facing." She turned the page. "That would be the flying one."

Next page. "And these?"

"Random ideas. Like, this dude with the clock can take a bridge and make it turn on or off for a period of time. This is a signal character, and this is a listener character. They work together. That... um. That's just this cute tiger I know."

Jenn's ears splayed, and she bit back a smile. "You worked in Unity before?"

"Sure."

The tigress shook her head. "Ah... Jenn, Jenn... what are you getting yourself into... 'Turn and face the strange,' huh?"

He grinned. Wide. Couldn't stop it. "A bit. You'd think people would be more careful."

You would. Jenn gave him his notepad back. Looked at it there, on the table. Half the page still blank. Twenty-five hundred miles away, Rob and Eric would be fucking with a lawnmower or arguing sports and Amie would be working on grading papers and maybe for a moment, just for a moment they'd wonder what had happened to him, out there...

Jenn, too. She was thinking. Same thing. Some non-profit in Oregon. Her family. That job of hers. Looking at the waters rising to meet them, all around. A moment of risk, in the dawn...

She nudged his shoulder, and tilted her head to the office.

"C'mon. Let's get started."