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The Hunt Begins

By Psion

An Adipose City Story

All Rights Reserved

Characters the property of their owners

Adipose City, a city of a future where oil was no longer a cost effective source of energy, a future where food processing and fast-food franchises rule the world, a bleak and bloated cityscape towering above and below the surface of the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island; Adipose City, never had Erik expected the sight of that familiar skyline to look so good...

Checking his radio, the blond-haired man reestablished contact with the surviving members of his team and sent out a few cautious pings for the nearest Consortium safe house. Jack, Alex, and himself... everyone else managed to get themselves captured by SALAD security forces after that botched raid. One positive to this, Erik wouldn't have to listen to Leo's pompous blathering or his muscle friends mind-numbing vanity until PEC got it together and arranged an extraction. Even then, the four of them might have to be written off, left to the tender mad scientist mercies of Dr. Tifa Stoutheart. Only downside that Erik could see to this was explaining exactly how they managed to lose several of the Consortium's rock star agents.

Finding a safe house was a bit more disheartening, ever since the joint attack on PEC's main chemical plant over a month ago, the corporation's hidden research laboratories, factories, and reeducation centers in the city had been going dark one after another. All that appeared to be left was an old apartment building in the older parts of Beantown up in the city's north end and the "Bug Out Spot," an abandoned warehouse where agents were supposed to go if management ordered a mass evacuation of the city. Sending an update to Alex and Jack, they agreed to meet him at the apartment. Erik continued driving on.

"Well this is another fine mess you made for us to clean up Leo... I hope we need a forklift to carry you out of whatever hole Stoutheart locks you in." The Consortium techie grumbled, unaware of the hitchhiker he picked up in the process of escaping SALAD's grasp.

Rigger held her breath; the portly infiltrator hid behind the driver's seat and kept her head down as she listened to Erik talk to either the radio or himself. Keeping her bushy tail down, the pine squirrel animen crouched and bid her time. While a lunkhead, the Consortium agent so far had proven to be a fairly intelligent lunkhead. Keeping perfectly still, she waited until the vehicle came to a stop and Erik left before sneaking out the back of the stolen SALAD delivery van and taking in her surroundings.

The van was left in a fairly non-descript parking lot outside of an old apartment building that looked like it had seen better days. Half of the windows were boarded up; the old brick façade bore the signs of a building that had been largely untouched since before the petroleum crash. A fairly large hourglass with broad hips, she was not looking forward to navigating the narrow doorways and corridors of the rundown building.

Grabbing her gear and slipping into an alleyway before she was spotted by security, the squirrel put on her climbing gloves and carefully scaled the nearby building. Slipping her spectrum goggles and turning her earpiece back on, she quietly scanned the building from her rooftop perch as Zea began communicating with her from the mouse Code Wader's apartment.

"Can you hear me Rigger? Your signal's coming in really clear, where are you?"

"Somewhere in Beantown, followed after a Consortium lunkhead that escaped from our Worchester farm about an hour ago. I'm right outside his hideout."

"Hang on, tracing your signal." Zea replied, flabby fingers played with several displays as she brought up a map of the city. "Okay I see... wow are you sure your equipment's working right? Says you're in a part of the city that's been abandoned for five years now."

"Well that would explain why there isn't any activity other then this one building." The squirrel replied as she switched her goggles to a thermal view. "Okay, six thermal signatures in and around the building. One of them is definitely the target."

"Rigger, shouldn't we wait for back up on this one? I mean this is PhysEd we're talking about."

"I'm not going to let them get away with what they did to me last time Zea." The bushytailed rodent replied flatly.

"I know, I know. But everyone in the area is at least an hour away. If something went wrong..." The mammoth rodent let the implication hang.

"If we wait we could lose him Zea, I'm going in." Rigger insisted with a shake of her head and with that, she leapt across the alleyway and used her Scorpio grappler to launch herself onto the other roof. Landing with a cushioned thud, augmented reflexes kicked in and the SALAD infiltrator was on her feet and entering through the roof access. Swallowing her uncertainty, she crept into the apartment building. Just another job, just a quick in and out assignment...

Rebecca Stone walked into her apartment and shut the door behind her. There, in the darkened room, the blond woman took off her shoes and promptly collapsed on the couch. The mission was successful, her fee was collected, and the three Burger World agents she ran with were mercifully silent about her breakdown during the ride home... Thinking about the final moments before the op was completed, the petite fat admirer sat up and glared at the darkness. In her mind's eye he was there, him with that arrogant grin, that smug little... Slender fingers picked an apple out of the fruit bowl she placed on the coffee table and threw it at the phantasm when she heard the doorbell chime. Growling and picking the projectile off the floor from where it landed in her kitchen, she went downstairs to see who was at the door.

"Damn it, I'm closed! So whoever this is better be hurt or so help me..." Stone snarled as she opened the clinic door.

The slender woman expected a number of things on the other side of the reinforced double doors; Jennifer Moore with a small stack of pizza boxes was not one of them. The ursine tank mistress was still dressed in her Burger World combat fatigues, her helmet causally set on top of the stack of pizzas like it was a baseball cap.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Stone asked of the unhurt animan, her bedside manner still several hours away from being put back together.

"What? So the fat ursine bitch can't have a cuddly mama bear side? Someone had to drop by and make sure you didn't throw yourself out a window or something. Betty knows her limits, which is more then I can say for DumDum, so I drew the short straw. Can I come in or should I sit my big ass down right here and eat these meat lover supreme pizzas before they get cold?"

Stone sighed and pushed the doors the rest of the way open and stepped aside to let the bottom-heavy grizzly bear waddle in. Shutting and locking the front entrance behind them, the lithe medic carefully lead the broad Moore up the narrow stairway into her apartment. Stepping into the studio apartment, the blond-haired she-bear set the stack of pizzas down on the coffee table and opened the top box.

"So Cherry Pop..." She began with a slice of pizza half-crammed into her mouth. "Who was Captain Steroids back in Worchester and how do you know him?" She asked, carefully taking a seat on the medic's reinforced sofa.

"A bit blunt aren't we?" Stone replied, taking a slice and slowly nibbling on it.

"Well we could talk about my exemplary ursine posterior as you called it on the drive to Worchester." Moore replied with a smug grin, giving her mammoth bottom a playful slap. "But that's not really much of a conversation. Good genes, a job that has me always sitting down, and an uninhibited love for stuffing my face. That's really all there is to it. First thing you can practically buy these days, second thing's easy to find, and the third is just a matter of dedication." She replied, devouring her first and second slices before starting on her third.

Stone sighed as she worked up the nerve to answer the original question, Jennifer slowed down her pace as she watched the other female expectantly. "His name is Leon... friends call him Leo. He's a Consortium Big Gun, one of their better company goons from what I gather. He's also a vain, conceited dick..." The slender blond explained, her voice trailing off as she tried to say what came next. Yet the sound invariably died in her throat. Trembling, Rebecca turned her back to Moore and pulled down her collar, revealing a barcode tattoo printed where her neck met with her shoulder blades. The she-bear wordlessly swallowed her mouthful as the Druggist fixed her shirt, neither of them had to say anything. Jenny knew immediately what the body art meant; the freelancer was once an inmate in one of PEC's prisons. The Burger World Road Hog could think of at least half a dozen things that could have happened to Stone in there, none of them good.

"I remember when we attacked this Consortium base out in the Midwest." Jenny began without her usual bravado, the pizza momentarily forgotten. "None of this hand-holding international cooperation crap; just good ol' Burger World jamming a boot up some lunkhead ass. I was a truck driver on that assignment so I got stuck shuttling prisoners out of the combat zone. Most of them were from the fat farms, chained to an exercise bike because the meatheads are too tight assed to use methane for electricity. A few good buffet crawls and they'd be fine, the whole thing nothing more then a bad dream. But then there was this one load of people who had been run through something the lunks liked to call 'reeducation,' a nice way to label outright torture. Most of them looked like you do now; cold, distant, and empty..." She continued, her face betraying an emotion Stone didn't think Moore was capable of feeling, fear. "Shuttling them back, all those empty eyes...." She sighed and regained her typical gruff demeanor. "I'm not going to pretend I know what's going on in your head; frankly I don't even want to know. Though at the same time, I guess there was still a light at the end of that tunnel. I mean here you are, pretty much every freelancer in the city knows you as either Dr. Stone or Cherry Pop, hell I hear you even have a couple corporate agents here and there on your patient list."

"A lot of good that does, Leon knows I'm somewhere in the city. Soon as he gets back... I better make sure I have enough darts for when he catches up with me or maybe get a real gun."

Moore snorted sarcastically. "Gee doctor, it sounds like one of us might have a memory problem. Because I distinctly remember him getting surrounded by SALAD security just before we escaped, that's not the kind of thing you just slip away from."

"He's slipped away before."

"From something like this?" The bear asked as she resumed eating, the human looked down and shook her head. Jennifer nodded between mouthfuls of pizza. "So for all you know he's probably in Stoutheart's laboratory getting immobilized by a food pump? Look, don't you have friends in SALAD who could tell you definitively if he escaped or not? That's all you need to know right?"

"Yeah I guess so."

"Well then, are you doing anything tomorrow... or is it after midnight already?"

"It's twelve thirty-five and no, shuffled all of my scheduled appointments when I took the job to help you sneak into SALAD."

"Well then, check with your contact then call your friends, see who isn't busy, and -URP!- have a day out." The gluttonous woman suggested, a loud belch punctuating her statement and announcing the destruction of her second extra large pizza out of three. Moore then took the soy-based cardboard boxes and collapsed them before folding them in on themselves twice and devouring them.

Rebecca rolled her eyes and picked up another slice from the last pie. "Is that a prescription Dr. Tank Ass?"

"Damn straight it is!" The bear replied and removed her polymer chest plate, leaving her camouflage-clad flesh free to slowly wobble on the sturdy couch. Strong ursine arms took Stone by the hand and pulled her into the blond animan's lap. "And just for that, I think you've earned a proper squishing." She grinned evilly and shifted her weight around, burying the other flax-haired female beneath her flabby body. Stone squirmed and made herself comfortable as her weighty houseguest finished off the last pizza. As her stomach groaned from the giant lump of pizza slowly digesting inside her, Moore took one last look at the clock and drifted off to sleep, her host's delicate touch felt heavenly as the Druggist hugged and nuzzled against her new teddy bear...

Rigger sucked in her breath for not the second time as she slowly crept into the Hammerhead's apartment. Zea was right, the building was too small and there were too many Consortium agents in the building. A fact the mouse wasted no opportunity reminding her every five minutes.

"This is crazy Rigger, you need to get out of there."

The squirrel declined to speak; the sound of her replying to her partner could give her away to the tiger animan patrolling the main hallway. The muscular behemoth was as big as she was, a female feline brute that looked like she leapt right out of the muscle girl pinups Rigger found in PEC lockers from time to time. The titan was also a lot more alert looking then her two-dimensional doppelganger as she roamed the halls, a FoJ Street Sweeper automatic shotgun in her hands.

With her visor set on thermal, Rigger quickly played with the electronic lock and kept an eye out for both the roving sentry and her target. The lock soon fell under her deft hand and the SALAD agent slipped into the efficiency apartment unnoticed, quietly shutting the door behind her.

The flat inside wasn't much; the room she stepped into was a combination kitchen and living room. A last-generation flat screen television stared at her and the empty couch in front of her from its perch on the opposite wall. An open kitchenette was tucked away in the opposite corner, everything looked old but well cared for. If she didn't know any better, she would have mistaken her mark's place for any other working class apartment in the city. Nothing in the décor screamed that this was the residence of a Consortium spy. The door to the bedroom was ajar; the sound of running water and a man whistling could be heard. Rigger smiled, obviously his personal computer had to be in the next room.

"Rigger, you aren't thinking what I think you are... right?"

"Oh relax, I just need to slip in and plant a bug so you can hack in whenever you feel like it. In and out, no sweat." She whispered back and slipped into the Hammerhead's bedroom.

Again, the room was a small bedroom with a bed, closet, desk, and barely enough room left over to stretch. To her immediate left was the door to the bathroom where the sound of her target whistling to himself could be heard more clearly. Turning her attentions to his personal computer, she sat down at the desk chair and brought the desktop off of idle. Blushing she shifted her weight around, trying to better balance herself on a chair roughly half as big as it needed to be, and discreetly plugged the bug into the back of the computer. Almost immediately Zea came online and began to work her digital magic. Password was promptly cracked and soon both girls were rifling through Erik's email from two locations.

"Let's see, memos and mandates from their Iceland campus, an invitation from that tiger lady outside to join her for the company picnic, a lot of emails and orders from that lion animan we captured... god he sounds like a dick.... Hmmm, this is interesting though."

"What is it Zea?"

"It looks like he's been having a conversation with someone he doesn't want anyone to know about. There's a chain of encrypted emails with an Australian ISP number, a very good encryption from the looks of it, hang on this one's going to take a minute to... Rigger do you hear anything at your end?"

The squirrel listened and felt a chill run down her spine as she realized what her partner was talking about; Erik had stopped humming to himself. The shower continued to run but as she turned around, there he was. Naked, dripping wet, and holding a FoJ Fat Eagle centimeters from her face, his face completely expressionless. "Well, well, well. What do we have here?"

TO BE CONTINUED...