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Adipose City: The Bird Is The Word

By Psion

All Rights Reserved

In the heavyset post-peak world, genetically modified livestock are a normal everyday thing. Great beasts modified for size and fattened to produce enough meat to satisfy the seemingly insatiable appetites of human and animan alike. Dozens of breeds of meat livestock have been produced to the point where most citizens thought nothing of it. Even the sudden emergence of a new franchise, Genetic Broiled Chicken or GBC, was such an ordinary event to the average glutton of the world of Adipose City that seemingly no one batted an eye...

Central Pennsylvania...

Even before the Peak Oil crisis of the early 2000's, much of Pennsylvania never really caught much of a break. The rise of global industry brought about by the explosion of cheap fuels preceding the inevitable crash of the petroleum markets and the decline of coal virtually destroyed the local economy. Outside of the Amish Enclaves, the state floundered until the modern rise of agri-business and the discovery of Expandex by a Pittsburgh native. The super fabric ensured the old steel city would have a place in the international fashion and textile markets while several corps established farms in the state.

Orchard #42 was a Berrika apple orchard in central Pennsylvania, a small farm barely a couple dozen acres in size yet it still managed to produce most of the apples Burger World needed to keep the local market in fresh baked apple pies. A handful of orchard workers oversaw the robotic tenders working the land... it all sounded very ordinary to Flask and her teammates, the three African aniwomen were not entirely sure why they were asked to stop here. The pear-shaped gazelle woman kept her eyes open as she guided their lab van up the dirt road connecting the orchard to the rest of the world. Bulbous spider-like machines continued along their preprogrammed routes, able to operate a couple days without supervision. Handy considering the workers that watched over them were currently hospitalized due to mysterious injuries, which was probably why Flask, the chubby zebra medic Scalpel, and the Big Tool Mass Spec had been detoured to check on this facility and watch over it for a few days during a trip to the company's new research laboratory in Adipose City. At a glance, it looked like Flask and Scalpel would have nothing to do for a few days while the cheetah "thunder queen" Mass Spec did all the heavy lifting. It sounded easy but then Flask had been on "easy" assignments before, they usually turned out to be anything but. Still, like her stomach and dessert, the African scientist always had room for exceptions to the rule...

Parking in the central compound and setting up for the next several days, Flask and Scalpel toured the cluster of prefabricated buildings while Mass Spec went right to work in the operations room. Lodgings were small but typical of Berrika's robotic plantations; a lounge with automated vending machines and a direct line to over a dozen takeout services in nearby State College, a small dormitory with doublewide memory foam mattresses, a infirmary for minor injuries, and a few small workshops here and there for equipment maintenance and botany experiments. With not much else to do, Flask and Scalpel made themselves comfortable on the memory foam couch in the lounge and discussed dinner options while they caught up on busywork. Meanwhile, the Big Tool got to work seeing what had caused their brief detour...

The ergonomic desk chair creaked in protest of the massive amounts of cheetah tush it was fighting to hold up as Mass Spec sat her cushioned bottom down and looked at the computer terminal in front of her. Video footage and sensor data was transmitted wirelessly from the robots' onboard cameras as well as multiple sensor posts set up throughout the orchard. Fighting to avoid becoming bored already, the spotted feline mechanic cycled through the different video feeds and made a note of the configuration it was left in. The summer sun had almost finished setting, thermal and night vision cameras were programmed to come online in about an hour once the ambient light set below a certain level, and there was one harvest robot on the far side of the orchard that seemed to be damaged. The machine was audibly whining and random bursts of static was causing all sorts of havoc with the video feed, why for one moment it looked like there was a dinosaur on the screen... she better get out there and fix that, a camera like that was worse then no camera at all.

Powering up and putting on her Handyman exoskeleton studded with all sorts of engineering tools, Mass Spec waddled out of the operations center, across the compound yard, and stepped into to the employee lounge and dormitory. Her spotted bubble butt wobbled playfully behind her as she stuck her head in and smiled at Flask and Scalpel. "I have to go to the north side to fix a robot that has a broken camera and possibly a burnt servo as well, could one of you watch the control room for me until I get back?"

The gazelle smiled and nodded. "I'll watch the cameras while you go out with Scalpel." She replied, getting a look from the zebra combat medic. "Don't look at me like that Scalpel, there are reports of animal attacks in the area. Go together and if it turns out I'm just paranoid then I'll pay for our cover charge at Club Derriere when we finally get to Adipose City." Scalpel continued to give Flask a look but she did what she was asked. Flask herself headed back to the operations center and took over watching the monitor, cycling through video feeds while the others went out to repair the harvest droid.

Scalpel could think of stranger ways to get to a job site in a hurry but not many. Riding on Mass Spec's back, balanced on the feline's broad, jutting bottom, the Druggist let herself be carried like a sack of potatoes as the cheetah bounded along past seemingly endless rows of apple trees. Exoskeleton servos hissed and whined as the Berrika techie jogged towards the broken down robot. Eager for a chance to get back on her own feet, Scalpel jumped off and cradled her Chem Gun as Mass Spec busied herself with the damaged machine. Originally skeptical, the zebra medic was quickly becoming grateful for Flask's paranoia. Scalpel didn't find the darkness to be particularly scary but neither was she foolish enough to believe that the same could be said for the things that often hide in it. Straining her ears to hear, she struggled to listen for approaching threats over the sound of Mass Spec working her Big Tool magic on the broken harvester.

The damage to the camera turned out to be a simple problem, nothing five minutes and an Omni-Driver couldn't fix. The hydraulics responsible for making the robot "walk" however turned out to be a job that required most of her Handyman. Using the exoskeleton's strength to turn the mercifully empty machine on its side, she began to quickly examine the undercarriage before getting to work. It wouldn't be pretty but she could get it working with about an hour of work. Pausing long enough to switch on the suit's shoulder lamp, the black-haired female created enough of a break in the noise for both Berrika agents to hear something neither of them expected.

"Bok, bok, bok, bo-ACK!" A chicken called from somewhere in the darkness...

New Orleans...

Thunder hoped the triple-stack cheeseburger was enough to crush the butterflies in his stomach; the human Big Tool tended to eat more when he was nervous and certainly had plenty to be nervous about. Normally he wouldn't even consider accepting a job that took him outside of Adipose City and there were a couple details that didn't sit well with him but the money offered by this Dr. Z was too good to ignore. So here he was in a Burger World franchise in New Orleans, taking a break from the local Cajun cuisine with a classic Burger World combo meal. So far the surroundings seemed friendly enough, the tasty local delicacies certainly added a few pounds to the black-haired man's pear-shaped figure.

The relatively familiar surroundings, Burger World painted its outlets the same vaguely patriotic undertones no matter where it went, had a calming effect on him, allowing Thunder to mentally go over what he had managed to figure out so far as he placed a delicate hand on his bloated stomach, savoring the stuffed sensation as the extruded bench groaned ever so slightly in response to his weight. There wasn't much to go on, the client had deliberately kept them in the dark about a lot. That in itself wasn't unusual, nor was his coworkers' lack of interest in finding out, but the Big Tool still felt like the job was sketchier then usual. Go and tamper with the machinery at this compound here, plant this mysterious container there, and do a bunch of other little errands that were clearly part of a bigger picture he wasn't getting. Whatever it was, it clearly had something to do with those damn chickens.

Thunder had been on plenty of jobs that had him interacting with genetically modified livestock but he had never seen anything like these chickens before. Most genetically modified chickens he had seen still looked... well like chickens. Bigger, fatter, and fluffier to be sure, but still essentially white and brown feathered birds that made great nuggets. Thunder would never look at dinosaurs the same way thanks to the ones that Dr. Z had him working with though. Big feathery things that were as much lizard as they were bird, fat velocraptors with teeth and claws appropriate for their dinosaur lineage. Nasty little buggers but as he discovered somewhat by accident, they also tasted quite good. His grin broadening into a devilish smile as his hand stroked his overstuffed gut a second time, feeling the devoured mutant chicken now crammed in with a burger and several pounds of Cajun ingested over the last few days; so much ravenous fury, now in the process of becoming so much butt blubber.

Lost in thought, he didn't notice that he was suddenly joined by a vaguely familiar feline animan. Thunder blinked as he sort of recognized the Korean snow leopard suddenly sitting across from him. This was one of Soy's coworkers, Namul or something, usually a heavily armored Street Sumo handy with a brutal shock maul. The big-bellied cat regarded him with a polite smile but that was as much as the human could read from her expression. "Hello Thunder, strange meeting you here. I thought you normally operated around Adipose City."

Thunder did his best to shrug off the unspoken accusation. "Sometimes you have to go wherever business takes you." Not the smartest reply but as a horrible liar, there was no point in saying he was here for pleasure even if New Orleans was a nice change of scenery from Adipose City.

"Indeed, business does have a strange habit of ensuring our paths frequently cross." The platinum blond female replied, letting the implication hang.

Thunder looked around, they both had this particular quiet corner of the dining area to themselves, before leaning his head slightly forward. "What do you want?" He asked softly, reaching under his elastic trench coat for a taser.

"It has come to my attention that you have been hired by someone who is working against PanAsia's interests in the area, someone my company does not know anything about." She replied, noticing his hand disappearing into his coat. "I simply wish to correct that."

The other roly-poly cyberpunk narrowed his eyes. "Are you asking me to spy on my employer?" He asked, Thunder may have had his misgivings about this job but still, a contract was a contract and he had no reason to not be professional about it, not yet at any rate.

Namul smiled warmly back at him as she ambled to her feet and handed him an edible napkin with her contact information it. "I'm asking you to at least consider it. Soy tells me your clients occasionally have trouble paying you what you're worth, you know PanAsia's money is always good." The feline explained over her shoulder as she waddled out the door.

Thunder continued to watch the PanAsian Street Sumo wobble away like he didn't trust her but Namul was unperturbed. She knew she had pushed the right buttons to at least get him thinking about it and knew he'd eventually cave. While there was something refreshing about his sense of professionalism, she knew he'd given in sooner or later. Honest or not, she knew from Soy that he had a sick sibling to care for and an apparent distrust of corporate Druggists preventing him from applying with a single corporation. The seed was planted; all it needed was a little time to take root...

Burger World Corporation, Adipose City Branch

Bazooka Betty knew lumbering into the briefing room that no one on her team was going to like hearing what she had to say. She didn't like it when she found out either, but unpleasant conditions were part of the job. Looking around the inviting room, she managed to smile as she saw the rest of her team was seated around the sturdy conference table and regarding her with a mix of curiosity and dutiful attention. Daisy Dukes, Jennifer Moore, Penelope Autumns, Samantha Fisherman, and Lassie "Spoons" McGrubb were all present and waiting for her to tell them why she called them together. Shutting the door behind her and turning on a jammer that blocked all listening devices, she decided to get straight to the point.

"What I am about to say cannot leave this room. The board of directors themselves have called us for a special assignment." Betty began, her abundant buxom gently jostling as she took a deep breath.

"Directors always think their pet projects are important, what's different this time?" Penelope asked cynically, as the group's computer specialist she had more experience then the others at how petty company politics could be.

"They think one of our best geneticists, Dr. Zanders, broke the terms of his contract and is trying to go into business for himself. They also think he's been behind the recent spat of sabotage and animal attacks that have had every other corporation operating in North America on high alert. As he technically is still under contract with Burger World, if that gets out then we could end up fighting everyone from Taco King down to Al Ain and Motherland Provisions." Betty replied simply. Unsurprisingly no one asked for her to elaborate further, the idea of an all out corporate war explained itself pretty well. Now for the other part she knew they were going to hate. "Naturally the board is very concerned and want their two best agent teams on this assignment, we'll be working with the Reds on this one."

"The Red Maples? What's the Canadian team going to do, apologize Zanders to death?" Moore asked with a laugh.

Bazooka Betty teetered between chastising her teammate and nodding her head in agreement. The Red Maples were one of several Canadian teams assembled after Burger World acquired most of Canada's food industry during the recession and bankruptcy occurring during the Great Canadian Fuel Shortage, becoming some of Burger World's finest and fairly respected rivals to Betty's team, Tank Ass's comment aside. Smaller then Betty's team and significantly more focused on ground combat and artic operations, the Reds made a name for themselves hunting PEC cells in Northern Canada and performing reconnaissance operations on Motherland Provisions operations in Siberia. If they were getting assigned to this mission, the board either wanted to make sure Dr. Zanders' operation was reduced to a smoking crater or were anticipating a continent-wide hunt and wanted to have at least three of the four major terrain types in North America covered. The former promised to be brutal and quick, the latter promised to be long and tediously drawn out. Both were as equally likely as they were unpleasant and in that regard, other opinions aside, Betty was happy to have Flapjack, Short Stack, Hotcakes, and Pancakes with them on this assignment...

Central PA...

Flask had her Chem. Gun equipped and loaded with Berrika's proprietary fattening chemicals as the perimeter alarm started going off. A huge flock of these... things had scattered her team across the orchard. The gazelle and Scalpel were pinned at separate ends of the main compound and neither of them had been able to get a fix on Mass Spec's location. The cheetah had been unable to give either of them an intelligible response over the radio and both of them had been too busy defending themselves from the encroaching animals to go out and look for her.

Looking at them under the bright glow of the halogen lights, the gazelle Gasbag could see that these had to be the creatures someone on the executive board was worried about. Bizarre chicken-like lizard things, Flask had heard rumors of these creatures attacking the farms of other corporations but to see them herself was another matter entirely. Spraying the creatures in the face with Bountiful Harvest formula, she forced the predator chickens were forced to guzzle the fattening yellow slime. The high-caloric substance overpowered their metabolism, reducing them to wobbling feathered blobs in a matter of seconds. Unable to move beyond feebly flailing at her, the genetically modified predators offered no real resistance as the portly Flask rolled them out of the way and looked to see what happened with Scalpel.

The zebra Druggist was a little worse for the wear, stabbing herself with a Regen-Up hypo as the Berrika chemist arrived to find her surrounded by more bloated poultry. "What are these things? The home office didn't mention anything about this." Scalpel asked, fairly exasperated from the fight and the effects of the rapid healing drugs had on her system.

"Other then dinner for the next few days, I have no idea. I don't think anyone else from Berrika has seen these creatures." Flask replied, looking around. "Have you seen Mass Spec?"

"Not since we were chased away from that disabled harvest robot by this flock of... these are chickens right?" Scalpel answered, checking the pressure levels on her Chem. Gun before giving a bloated "death chicken" a spiteful kick. The creature squawked in protest as it rolled over.

The black-haired gazelle woman was about to say something when both females heard an enormous belch echoing from somewhere nearby. Off in the distance, between two rows of apple trees, was their missing teammate. Sitting on the ground with her back to a tree, the cheetah belched again and rubbed her immensely swollen abdomen. Her face was screwed up in an expression of obvious discomfort as she shed the Handyman's metal gauntlets and gently caressed her engorged midsection, looking up at Flask and Scalpel pleadingly as they approached. "Ohhhh, I--URP!- ate too much." She moaned, burping up a cloud of chicken feathers as she gently hugged her groaning, churning stomach. Tawny cheetah fur had been stretched drum tight as Mass Spec fought to soothe her swollen middle .

Relived that her friend appeared to be all right, Flask laughed as the two Berrika women helped their coworker up and slowly guided her back into the orchard control center so she could lie down in the employee dormitory. "When we finally get to Adipose City, dinner and a night at whatever club you want are on me." She promised as Mass Spec was laid down and Scalpel went to work trying to settle the cheetah's upset belly. Before locking up and barricading the compound's doors, the Gasbag took one of the crazed chickens to the side. Her specialty was chemistry, not biology, but she knew enough to collect and preserve some viable samples for the labs at the home office to have a look. In the meantime though, it looked like the three of them were going to be sick of chicken by the time this detour was over.

Southern California...

The arid lands of Southern California, part of the fringe territory between Burger World and Taco King with the latter hosting several chains as far north as Los Angeles. The Mexican "El Rey" kept local franchises supplied in specialty ingredients through a series of distribution centers located in the desert roughly a few miles north of Baja California. With both corporations caught in a near-perpetual skirmish over this area, agents were occasionally assigned to patrol the area to assist local security forces.

Choques could hardly argue with an excuse to go out for a nice off road excursion, the challenge of navigating a vehicle through uneven and often unpredictable terrain was great for getting the big brown field mouse's mind off things and she had a few things she wanted to keep off her mind for at least a few minutes. Being able to do it on company time was just that much better. Which lead to where she was right now, driving an oversized dune buggy through the badlands of Southern California, smiling as every bump wobbled her excessively indulgent figure and sent a jolt of pleasure as her thunderous thighs were neatly squeezed into two car seats, the rugged terrain massaging her gigantic rump cheeks as it rattled the vehicle. Choques was completely in her element as she drove along and kept an eye out for Burger World saboteurs.

Since her participation in the Adipose-Munich run, the brown mouse anthro politely declined Dr. Crammitin's offer to work as a part of her personal staff then promptly applied and received a transfer to the company's West Coast operations. While she had seen when Morin could be nice, the fact remained that the mountain lioness loved her job far too much and Choques liked driving too much. Subsequently the dirty blond Latino also liked not getting too fat to drive most of the automobiles she liked. And at still over five hundred pounds of short, "thunder queen" mouse, finding a car where her massive butt didn't take up both front seats was slowly becoming a bit of a hassle. Hopefully by now whatever prototype drugs Crammitin stuck her with had passed through the mouse's system and she could lose some weight. Not to PEC levels of course, the Consortium muscle jerks may have messed with her body but they hadn't corrupted her mind, just enough so she could start fitting her gigantic butt back into one car seat and go dancing at the clubs without having to worry about bowling over half the people on the dance floor. Then again, no one really complained the one time she did and ending up sitting on half of them so maybe she was being a little too rash with the latter....

As the big bootied mouse drove back towards the highway and finished up her patrol through the desert, she caught a glimpse of something unusual driving along the highway. A trio of bulky, bulbous food trucks painted bright red and white drove along in convoy formation. Choques raised an eyebrow and slide her HardLink goggles over her eyes as she merged onto the highway and took a position behind them. On the back of the rear truck was a logo she wasn't familiar with, a cartoon drumstick with wisps of steam and a red and white background. The HardLink's augmented reality display provided her with the vehicle's speed, distance, and estimated weight but the mouse was not getting any information on the owner. No matter, she needed to report this when she got back to the garage regardless. With all the rumors of animal attacks and an unknown actor sabotaging corporations left and right, headquarters needed to know that there was an unknown convoy moving through the area...

Burger World Corporation, Toronto Branch...

Pancakes looked at the rest of her team after she finished briefing them in a small, out of the way conference room. The portly Alaskan malamute knew none of them liked it, she wasn't sure she liked it herself. There was the fiasco with the PEC ambush in Eastern Canada during the Adipose-Munich Run and of course the two teams had something of a rivalry long before that. Ask any Canadian living in Burger World's corporate territories who the company's most well-known agents were and the answer was invariably Bazooka Betty and her team. Ask them to name a Canadian team and they'd give you a blank stare.

"So is this going to turn into another mission where we get grandstanded?" Flapjack growled, the grizzly bear Street Sumo grumbling as he drummed his fingers on his considerable belly. Flapjack was the brute of the group, big and often ill tempered, making him the ideal heavy for when the fighting got fierce. The black haired bear also cut an imposingly broad figure inside his company uniform, winterized Expandex camo fatigues; his impressive gut the result of spending almost as much time at PhatStacks as he did modifying his guns.

"Maybe we'll get lucky this time." Short Stack replied, the black-haired squirrel Grabboid was always surprisingly optimistic and cheerful for a sniper. Then again, as a small and relatively slender female with a fondness for "the squish" and getting frequently sandwiched between at least two of her wider coworkers, it wasn't hard to see why. It also wasn't hard to see why she really enjoyed the time the Red Maples spent hunting PEC operatives in Northern Canada, while not directly affected by news of the Consortium's experiments on people like herself, she did not take it kindly. That job was one of the few times the big-bottomed malamute ever saw the petite female scowl and frankly one of the few times Pancakes was genuinely terrified of the other female.

Hot Cakes, the group's combat Druggist, shrugged and was clearly trying to avoid rolling her eyes at Flapjack's complaint. The round artic vixen seemed unconcerned to be so close with their rivals. Then again, as a competent field medic she was pretty well liked no matter who she worked with and tended to get along well with anyone that needed healing sooner or later. Her medic's uniform and kit were a sight often as desirable as her thick thighs and burger-fed bubble butt to her fellow Burger World agents.

Pancakes shook her head and sighed softly; the pear-shaped combat engineer knew there was no point in dragging her feet. Regardless of whom they worked with, this was important. Reports suggested that if Dr. Zanders really was behind what was going on, then his reach had spread well into Canada. And if he sparked a conflict between Burger World and the rest of the major corporations... That simply wasn't going to happen. "Enough, get ready to pack your gear and a few essentials. We're meeting Betty and her team in Adipose City tomorrow afternoon. At least we'll get to eat well before we go chicken hunting." She ordered, dismissing the meeting, time for the Red Maples to finally start earning some recognition.