Every Geek's Dream
_An yiffy story. My first furry story, so please judge accordingly. *g*
Not much could be said, except that I didn't try to be 100% serious when writing this thing. I do not claim that any of this is in any way true or possible in natural conditions. Especially about the part about two geeks falling in love with each other and having great sex. (Though I hear that kind of things do happen.)
Keywords: M/F, Romance; Species:Wolf/male, Fox/female
Author E-mail: [[email protected]](%5C)
Author home page: http://www.iki.fi/wwwwolf/
Copyright © 2003 Urpo Lankinen. Distributed under Creative Commons [Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial license](%5C). (In plain terms: Distribute how you wish in unmodified form, but not for profit. And attributions are required.)
(Update, 2005-10-09: Fixed the formatting.)_
-= ~ =-
The day had come to an end.
A lazy thursday afternoon was becoming even lazier in the computer lab, which was the university's laziest place in general. Fouw sat by the workstation--or rather, reclined on the chair with his legs on the table and the keyboard in his lap. The lab was rather deserted; such abuse of the equipment was not particularly encouraged during usual hours.
Absent-mindedly rolling the mouse wheel, Fouw sighed. He read news from around the country. News were full of the usual scheming, backstabbing and conflicts of all kinds. In itself, that was interesting, but it was a reminder of the coldness and cruelty of the world. Not that it particularly mattered. Fouw believed things were going to be all right in the end.
His mind began to blur as he sipped more of coffee. This had to be the sixteenth mug for the day. Or seventeenth? He began to wonder what was the point of staying awake when it was already getting late--and the coffee only made his mind blurrier.
Another news page floated past his vision. He was ready to leave, but was too lazy to get up.
"Excuse me?"
A voice, Fouw thought. Definitely a voice. Slowly, he turned his head and saw a fox behind his chair.
"Yes?" Fouw gruffed, trying to sound as vigilant as he usually was, and failed quite well.
"Sorry to bother. I was just wondering if you could help me with this program."
The fox seemed serious. Fouw got up, almost fell on floor, and tried to stand again as he somewhat clumsily put the keyboard back on the table.
Fouw looked at the fox now. A vixen, actually, with cute long flame-red headfur, mostly smooth but a little bit tufty orange-white fur, black paws and backs of ears, and a bushy white-tipped tail. She had clothing similar to his--T-shirt and jeans. Having to help a cute member of opposite sex tended to make him a little bit more chivalrous than usual, and that made him try to clear up his head faster, even when he wasn't sure how anything could have done that. Either way, it was not the reason to worry about: He now looked at the screen of the vixen's workstation.
What he saw was an error message that couldn't possibly be true. Was it just the coffee? Or was it really garbage? He tried to make sense of what he saw and, of course, how he processed that information.
"I just tried to print this E-mail and it did that", the vixen said.
Fouw sat down on the chair and looked at the message. Print a mail? And the error message is about "se4nalp le131dom34"?
Puzzled, he OK'd the message and tried printing again. No warnings. A moment later, Fouw walked back to the vixen holding a perfect printout of an E-mail, and handed it to her. "Must have been some sort of weird temporary glitch. So you're Noere?", he asked, looking at the mail address.
"Yes", she said, smiling briefly as she tried to print another E-mail.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Fouwrey. Just call me Fouw." He grinned idiotically. "I have no idea what went wrong with the printing."
She said nothing, just pointed at the screen. "I have no idea either, it just happens pretty often when I'm doing anything at all", she said. "Maybe the computers don't like me."
"Nonsense", Fouw said, but almost took it back as he saw the screen, with "Error: e32n1a1lp le4do1" and OK.
He tried printing again. Again, there were no problems.
Then she printed yet another time, this time with similar cryptic message. Unexpectedly, Fouw could print it again without problems.
"This is pretty odd all right", Fouw muttered. "So this has happened to you before?"
"Yes. At the B building and at the café."
Fouw scratched his head. Unintentionally, but subconsciously reluctantly, he bowed his head before a difficult problem. But with his gaze lowered, he again paid some attention to a part of Noere's body, the part that he loves in vixens.
"Do you mind?" he said, as he touched her tail, instantly pulling back his hand as a loud pop could be heard. He smiled widely. "Your tail is gathering static electricity. Static makes machines things messed up. Er," he stuttered, "I mean, messes these machines up sometimes."
She smiled. "That's it?"
He brushed her tail a bit, with audible zaps almost all the way. "Sometimes. A friend of mine, a raccoon, had similar problems years ago. Just try not to drag the tail around on the floor. And I wouldn't, if I had a tail as cute as you do", he said with an idiotic grin.
Smiling, she closed the mail program and revealed the model plane catalogue from the Airfox company web page. "Well, you learn something every day. Never thought that would be such a problem." she smiled widely. "Thanks, always nice to get help from nice wolves like you.."
"...Uh, and another friend once came to the lab, sat by the workstation right next to the laser, and the laser printed garbage for the whole lesson--actually that was hilarious..." he rambled, grinning. "So, ahem, you do model planes?"
"Yeah."
"I used to make them too, but I'm too poor for that these days. Not much left of the study loan." He grinned a bit as she logged out and gathered her belongings. "Want me to take you home?"
"Thanks, but I live in the university attic."
"Ah", he said, smiling. "Well, the last bus just went, anyway. Can I see your planes before I get walking home?"
She smiled. "Why not. Come along."
-= ~ =-
"Now where is it?" she said, digging deeper in her bag.
They had walked all the way to the sixth floor of the same building. Getting better aquainted while walking from the basement computer lab, Noere told of her complex researches in the Geology department; Fouw talked of his slowly but steadily progressing work on discovering a mathematical theory. Noere said she had never seen a wolf with any head for numbers and it was a true pleasure to meet one, and Fouw voiced his view that he had never imagined a fox cutting stone and was likewise happy to meet her.
Noere had walked all the way with her bushy tail slightly raised up and was now getting the hang of it, though she still found herself brushing the floor and walls. She dug in the bag, couldn't find the key to her door. She dropped the bag on floor, bent down to dig even deeper in the bag... and then it happened.
As noted, she had this slight problem with static. Now, as she bent down to look for the key, she touched the electronic lock with her raised tail--and with quite a few sparks and a loud bang, the lock voiced its own concern over the static electricity.
As the smoke dissipated, Fouw emerged from the curls holding Noere's tail, examining it. "Well, at least you didn't burn yourself."
She managed to smile, but only barely. "But the lock is broken and the janitor lives six and half kilometers away. How I'm going to get in?"
Fouw pushed the door a bit and it opened with very little resistance. "Easy."
"But if the lock is gone..." she gasped.
"I could stand guard if you want me to", Fouw said with a grin.
"Very funny", Noere said, not quite amused.
"Not kidding. I could stay here the whole night."
"And you would stay awake?"
"Well, I have done nothing today but drink some coffee, whirled around some equations and read garbage off the Web..."
"And you were almost sleeping as I asked you to look at the program."
"I was almost sleeping. There's a difference. Well, I could sleep inside just next to the door..."
She smiled. "All right then, I could not have done this myself. Thank you, this is so kind of you. But tell me... what keeps you from going home?"
"It's an awful long way, and besides, I could get about four hours of sleep before I would need to leave again and come back here."
-= ~ =-
Fouwrey had to admit: He was not an expert in civilian airplanes.
Noere had a whole room full of aircraft models. It was a large storage room which also had many interesting stone samples in neat crushed form, systematically stored in large boxes. But the first shock--if that is the correct term--when coming to this room was the sheer amount of plane models hanging from the ceiling, all carefully constructed and painted. There must have been hundreds of them.
Noere lived in the attic apartment. There were ten apartments that had been hastily constructed from the old attic some years ago; The surroundings were quite bohemian and not very well finished, and the building wasn't even in a particularly good shape, having stood here for almost a century with its inhabitants constantly complaining of their diminishing budget. Nevertheless, it was her affordable but comfortable home, and she certainly had no problems getting to work, as she worked in the same building.
She had commented that the only real problem were the nosy neighbors who sometimes snuck in to borrow something, even in the middle of the night. Since the main exits were locked and it took spider's skills to get to the floor where they were by climbing the wall, the nosy neighbors were the only reason she was worried about the lock.
And the planes filled this room.
"I get most of the kits for free from my little brother who works at Airfox", Noere said. "But there are some which I have bought myself and the big one I built myself completely."
Fouw looked at the big model of a freight plane. "I have never seen one like that."
"Probably because such planes do not exist. I designed it myself", she said with a smile, with noticeable pride in her voice.
"You think it will fly?"
"My brother made a computer model of it, tried it in a simulator. Yes, it actually flies. Not as well as one designed by the professionals, but it seemed to stay in air. Well, at least most of the time." She looked a little bit sad. "Going up was easy. Landing was always a little bit difficult, though."
-= ~ =-
The clock on the wall of Noere's livingroom was ticking away lazily with its almost drained battery. But even with its willinglessness to move on, the time was passing. Noere's livingroom was not that large, but it housed a book case with a lot of books and some interesting stone sculptures, a television, a small table, and three couches--one of which was now occupied by the lady of the house herself and her newfound friend.
Noere had talked a lot about the planes that evening. The topics varied from historical models to famous planes. Fouwrey noted he learned a lot about planes he never knew before that evening. But Noere also learned something from him--he was more versed in the mathematical aspect of the flying, making mathematical models of aerodynamics, even when he had never done much work with physicists and engineers. He had once participated in creation of a flight simulator but it was several years ago.
But as evening went on, and these two geeks were getting tired, they stopped talking about harder and drier parts of flying. They turned their attention from planes themselves to people who use them.
They opened a bottle of wine in honor of the famous flight of Charles Hundberg, with the anniversary of the flight coming up next week. They talked of music composed in honor of flying and aviators. They talked of death-defying flights through fogged mountain ranges and over endless rainforests thousands of kilometers from urban worries.
Midnight neared and they finally got to themselves. Noere fetched her photo album, and showed Fouw some photos she had taken during the past decade. Not only Noere did models, but she had also flown small aircraft, though she said that she had not had time for it for over two years.
"So why not take a break and fly again?" Fouw asked.
"Ah, you see, research is fun. I could take a break, but I don't miss flying that much. And I always have the models, which are always fun and always here."
"But you would fly again if someone told you to take a break?"
"Might as well."
"Good. Well, my unqualified psychological analysis is that it's a good time for you to take a flying break. How about this weekend?" he said, with a half-seductive smile that mixed begging and concern.
She smiled. "You'd coming with me then?"
"Might as well", he said, imitating her earlier reply, and grinning afterward.
"Well, I was supposed to go digging with the team this weekend, but I have to say that your offer sounds good. Let's go in saturday, then."
"It's a deal."
With a cute smile, she said, "I'm glad you asked, actually." she sighed, and lied back in the couch. "Never got an excuse to go, and it's always nice to go flying with someone nice like you. The sky can be as lonely as the sea is said to be", she philosophized.
"Ever flown with anyone else?"
"Aside of my flight instructor, no."
"Ever been to the sea then?" He asked, with a smile. "I have crossed the sea once, and it's a big empty place. Really big."
"Only on big ship. Once. Oh, big party aboard and all, but I was lonely there too."
"You sound like you're a lonely person."
She thought for a while. "Yes, I could say that. All I have here are the people who work with me. When the school ended I moved to this city to study and none of my friends moved here." She paused and sighed. "It's nice to talk to someone for a change."
"Likewise, and I'm glad I've talked to you."
He felt the need to hug her, so he did.
-= ~ =-
Time passed slowly, and they were getting tired. They talked of themselves and their loneliness. They talked of people they had known. But more so they talked of how they were both townspeople, working in a community of creative and smart people, surrounded by a crowd of people, and how they yet felt lonely. And they come to realize how, despite of the crowd that surrounded them, they were lucky to be there on the couch hugging each other, because it had been so unlikely for them to meet each other.
And they were both science geeks, for whom things like this were twice as unlikely, or at least that was what the others said. They were not that sure, since both were surrounded by people who were even less social than them, and most of them were happily married.
So in all silence, they were rolling their furs together, both figuratively and literally. They had become good friends over short time. They liked each other.
And both were thinking of the same thing, but actually saying that, suggesting that, was difficult.
Both expected there was some sort of protocol, like acknowledging each other as friends, formally, then acknowledging they were in love with each other, then acknowledging they needed sex... and both knew they just had to drop that off and let their feelings guide them. Having sex just like that didn't just happen, they thought. It felt wrong that such beautiful thing could happen almost by accident. Yet, they knew this was just a beautiful theory--a theory, nothing more--their minds had constructed in their ivory towers, and the very definition of sex required instinct, not protocol. It was this conflict of their invented ideals and their knowledge of how things really were that stopped them both in a stalemate situation. Should they try to talk their way through it, even when, now that they really thought of it, it seemed just plain stupid?
And yet, back when they were teenagers, neither had thought of it from this complicated point of view, they had favored the direct way and it didn't seem wrong at all...
It was Noere who finally dared to open this discussion in a sensible way.
"My mother said you shouldn't kiss on the first date. I've always honored that, you know." she said to Fouwrey, pressing her muzzle against his cheek, wishing to open her mouth and lick it. "But", she said with a smile, "I've never let anyone go home without a good hug." She trembled.
He pulled her on top of him and closed her in a warm, strong embrace. She yipped happily, half surprised, and hugged him back. Geeky cheek against geeky cheek, they hugged each other, slowly rubbing themselves together and brushing each other's backs.
"What about..." Fouw coughed, "...making love on the first date?" There. He had said it. Saying things like that was not natural to him, nor exactly to her.
She smiled. "Happy that you mentioned it. No. Never done that. But it has come to my mind before."
He smiled only a bit, trying not to look like an idiot. "Do I take that as...?"
"Just look into my eyes", she whispered.
And he looked. He looked deep in the brown vixen eyes. He saw the eyes narrow a little bit as her smile made her face look wider, somewhat silly, but he had to admit that her smile was driving him insane. And she looked in his eyes. Those big, silly, staring eyes that had no idea what was happening but that nevertheless managed to stay observant, the eyes that betrayed the fact that his breeding instincts were slowly being awakened once again.
And he had to draw a conclusion of some kind.
"You really want me to make love to you", he stated.
Her smile couldn't get any wider. "You ever been with a girl before?"
He grinned. "Yes, but never ever before on the first day we met." Though, he didn't add, it had been a while, and that he didn't have time for that kind of social interaction. Or so he kept saying to himself.
"Well, if it helps you any, the midnight just went by", she reasoned. "Second day of our friendship."
"But conceptually it's still the same..." he began. "...oh what the heck. I'm sorry, I just get nervous when I'm suddently approached by a very very cute person like you who actually wants to pull me into her bed."
"You think I'm not nervous?" she smiled. "I think we had the same problem"
Fouw couldn't help but smile. And then he laughed, relieved, knowing the hard part was over. And to her joy, so did she.
-= ~ =-
He took a better grip of her and got up, and she wrapped her legs behind him. He carried her to her bedroom, which wasn't exactly the most romantic kind of place imaginable, but it had a large window which had a good view over the city. Full moon shone in the sky, lighting the room with its pale light.
He gently lowered her onto the bed, and only got up enough to pull his shirt off. She likewise removed her shirt and pants. Neither felt a pressing need to help each other to undress.
He looked at her. The window behind him barely let enough light to see her. She was definitely as gorgeous as she looked with her clothes on, no question about it. He also felt it was almost impossible for her to hide her beauty with clothing.
There was some strange vulpine angular beauty in her; For some reason, he thought of her in terms of arches and lines and anges, all laid in beautiful proportions before him. He thought of mathematical theories about harmonics and golden ratios, Leopardi Da Vinci's sketches... and then he was thinking same thing as she was, though from other angle and without knowing-- the classical ideals of beauty, chipped in marble by the ancient civilizations in the dawn of history. She was a goddess. What goddess specifically, Fouw didn't know, because he had not paid enough attention in the history class years ago.
Noere lay in front of him with her legs spread and tail between his legs; He knelt between her legs, otherwise upright, and she could see his somewhat skinny, yet muscular, and definitely handsome lupine form. The chest seemed like granite, the form might have looked best carved in marble...
He then bent down on his hands on top of her, brushing her upper chest with his cheek. She gasped as his paws touched her breasts, and she closed him in her embrace, brushing his back. Gently he licked her fur, and she licked his neck. She could barely reach for his lower back, but managed, and brushed the fur on his rear, feeling its solid form.
Fouw could feel her breathing harder and yip-moaning as he caressed her breasts, definitely noting in her scent how lust was building in her. She likewise felt him get far more aroused--if the scent was not obvious, the way his sheath seemed to grow was a better hint at that. She took her paw between them and touched his sheath, barely managing to pull it down a bit to reveal a little bit of his member. And while doing that she pushed her muzzle against the top of his head, savoring the wolfy smell of his headfur.
And he was going insane due to her smell. He was thinking, for some reason, coffee. But above that he sensed her lust, her need to have him, the smell that had been there since they had peered into each other's eyes on the couch. He now recognized it, and would also always recognize, there was no doubt about it now. But the smell of her fur, the smell he was more familiar with because he had been sensing it since they met, was something that had been burned into his mind and there was no way he could now take it away; He knew he would always be hungry for more of that, more so than he was hungry for mating with her.
He reached up for her to kiss her head, while rubbing her breasts. He licked her neck, brushed her cheeks with his muzzle, but still dared not kiss her on the lips as she was so afraid to break that promise to her mother. He then brushed her headfur, and could smell her. But, of course, he didn't want to lick her head because it smelled of her shampoo too much, even when she had clearly washed it well.
While reaching up, Fouw had rubbed his sheath against her belly, with his member easily slipping out. Noere felt the wolf hardening, and in a fit of humor she remembered Mohs scale... and pushed it quick away from her mind. Fouwrey was definitely as hard as rock, and she didn't need the details right now.
And Fouw was suddently unsure. He stopped, he didn't know what to do again, and once more he peered again in those eyes of her, seeking for guidance.
He began to ask, but she got there first. "At this part, you're supposed to get inside me", she said, slightly panting. She then realized it sounded a bit harsh, so he giggled to soften that, and was relieved to see him smile.
He rose up, got to his knees, took her loins on his paws, and gently pulled her rump on his spread knees.
He went in her. He had never been with a vixen before. At first she felt too tight for him, but her cry as he pushed in for the first time was most obviously not one of pain. She wrapped her legs behind him again.
Slowly, he started to hump, his loins going back and forth in slow rhythm, but then a bit faster, driven by their lust. He noted that there was a portrait above the bed. It depicted a very idiotic-looking wolf. In approximately 0.23 microseconds, he had done the logical deduction--in these very challenging circumstances--that it was not a portrait, but rather a mirror. He noted his mouth was open and his tongue, in the reflection, seemed at least twice as long as it felt when it was in his mouth. At least he wasn't drooling. That would have ruined everything.
And his look grew even more idiotic, but he didn't particularly care. Maybe third push had made his member slide entirely in Noere, and he was enjoying himself amazingly, panting heavily and yapping only a little. He had been very worried for nothing and now all of his worst fears were over, and here he was, doing what he felt he was best at--making his friends happy.
Meanwhile, Noere was also feeling more than jubilant, and was more or less escorted into the heavens, alone with her new beloved in the sweet blissful burning lust. She was completely relaxed as he filled her one time after another with his hot member, hearing his panting and whimpers of joy, and every time he slid in her she yapped and moaned loudly as well in bliss. She dared not to move, for she loved his gentle, rocking, slowly hastening rhythm, and was swept to heavens by it.
It didn't take that long. Moments after, Fouw sped up a more. As he pushed in for the last time, he let out a happy loud howl of joy, one that she almost equalled with her yaps, and came in her, filling her with his hot seed.
He sighed happily moments after the bliss started to wane, and gently took himself out of her. She was gasping, still moaning somewhat, and definitely beyond mortal concerns.
Fouw's mind was foggy. Faintly, he could hear Noere speaking. "Well, you're bigger than my school-time crush", she said, with some awkwardness. "And you cum more." She obviously wasn't used to saying such things often.
He barely could hear her, but as his senses came to him, he looked down, and noted that she was right. Noere's bedcover was, for a large vaguely circular part, soaked.
"I did this?" He still looked at the bedcover, puzzled. "Did I... slip out in the end?"
"No, you came in me all right." she smiled. "But you also, uh, kept coming for a while. And," she grinned, "you're a big wolf and I'm just a little vixen."
He was as fumbling onward, as usual. "And you didn't come?" He looked disappointed.
With a smile she tilted her head and shook it a bit, making her headfur wave like fire. "Don't doubt your abilities. I was thrilled beyond imagining."
Fouw smiled a bit.
"Besides, I haven't ever experienced such closeness, such... togetherness. Wish I could describe this to you somehow", Noere said, thinking for a moment. "And, you know," she continued, rising to hug him, "I'm glad to be with you. If you feel you didn't make me happy, and you did, I'd like you to try again another time."
He smiled. "So you liked it?"
She smiled, tilting her head a bit and looking cute. "Absolutely."
"And you want to see me again?" he said, suddently ashamed of the whole thing again, no matter that he had just heard Noere's comforting words. He had always had feelings of wrongness after even thinking of sex. At the moment, it was similar to that. Only a little bit worse.
"Of course, you silly wolf.", she said.
A heavy boulder rolled away from the wolf's heart, and he sighed. "Ah..." he struggled. "I would like to be your friend. I mean, like... close friend."
"Silly, silly wolf", she said, giggling, rising to give her a hug, and kiss him on the cheek. "Of course we're friends--we already were. Besides, I think I really like you."
He said nothing for a few moments. Not because he doubted his feelings toward her, but because he had simply not done anything like this before and was afraid to do something wrong. "I like you too", he finally said, and gave her a kiss on the lips. "And I hope you don't mind me kissing you now..."
"Not at all. It's the second day."
He gave her another big, sweepy, loving embrace, and for the first time, truly kissed her. The muzzles, the mouths and tongues met for what felt like an eternity, and then, he was again all alone without plan.
He felt again slightly anxious. Another hard part was safely over, but since he had no sense of protocols in traditional sense of the word, he had no idea what to do now.
He "hmm"ed and "errr"ed for a moment, and then just managed to say, "Yeah, I like you" he said and smiled, because it felt like a good idea at the time. "Now, maybe I will go guard the door", he said. "I'll take the extra blanket to block the draft coming from under the door."
She smiled. "Maybe it's best. Good night, my dear wolf friend."
He tried to relax. "Yes. Good night, my good fox. Sleep well."
She got up, and removed the bedsheet from her bed. She took the extra mattress from the bed and gave it to him, and he took the blankets from a shelf next to the door.
He tried to go past the cute, angular and round vixen with his blankets, sheet and pillow, but forgot what he had learned earlier that day.
Fox tails can get static. Especially when you rather vigorously brush bedcovers with them for a while.
-= ~ =-
She heard a whisper.
"Morning, my pretty dear."
Noere opened her eyes slowly and looked behind her. She was feeling warmer than usual. She knew the reason. A Wolf. In. On. Under. Behind. Between.
It was early morning. She could smell the coffee, so obviously Fouw was awake.
What made the fact that Fouw had awakened earlier than her even more obvious to her was that his warm, lubricated member was throbbing between her legs, and she had awakened around the same time as he had come in her again, but it had taken some time for her to really wake up. And her bedsheets were definitely quite wet once again.
She lay on her side, and felt she was curled up in Fouw protective embrace. Fouw lay behind her, now brushing her tail again with his paw, not getting any zaps this time. She could vaguely remember when Fouw had entered her, but could not remember much else.
Songs of the early birds echoed through the window from the street side trees below the window, the morning sunlight played on her fur, painting it even more orange than usual.
"Well, thank you for this very very unusual wakeup," she finally managed to say. "What time it is?"
"Almost seven."
"Good. And you made breakfast?"
"If we're to fly early tomorrow, we'd better eat good breakfast today..."
-= ~ =-
The next day went by without neither of them really noticing it. They met in the café by noon, and Noere was able to send mail without odd glitches. Fouw showed her some of his favorite websites.
When Noere got home, she found the lock fixed, yet some of her neighbors had been there, borrowing things. One had left her a note that he had taken a pawful of sugar bits from her, and that she was the second person on the apartments to get yiffed since the attic was opened. One note, a printout with print job number and details on the page corner, said the sender had almost said "yep, loneliness can be pain" through the wall the earlier day, but had dared not to join the earlier debate out of courtesy. Everyone in the attic apartments lamented the thinness of the walls.
Fouw had only got a mathematical quarterly journal and an invoice for three programming books--that, of course, were yet to arrive, even when he had ordered them three weeks earlier.
-= ~ =-
The night had been warm, and they had slept at the airfield. The main building had an unused room at the back. Hardly anyone visited this particular field anymore, and the buildings were in terrible need of repair. the second, empty hangar had collapsed the earlier winter under the weight of the snow on the roof, and the second one was definitely in need of a few new boards and a new layer of paint. But Noere's plane was there, along with five others, more or less securely sheltered.
After fueling the plane and checking that no joker had stolen the landing wheels or "borrowed" some navigational instruments, they took off. They circled around the town, watching as the town slowly awakened.
And while they were alone, terribly alone in the sky, away from the hundreds of thousands of people who gathered to mill around underneath them, at least they were alone there together. It was more than either of them had had for a long time.