Written for Ty Vulpine.
------
Ty's parents kept talking about how special it was to visit Cuba, so he tried to look interested. Their tour guide was trying too hard to make ancient history sound exciting. "Right here was where the missiles were going to be installed. Picture the Americans staring down by satellite, deciding whether to strike..." They'd been walking for an hour.
Emily was playing video games on her phone and trying not to let Mom and Dad see her doing it. "They should've just killed 'em all." Her black-furred ears kept flicking to keep track of the tour group, and she followed without tripping over anyone's tail or missing her turn in "Henhouse Raider". Ty wasn't sure how she did it.
"Who?" said Ty. He was paying more attention to the architecture: the run-down buildings and the workmen and robots that were putting up shiny new apartment spires. He realized that the streets were different in each neighborhood; the cracked pavement was getting replaced with some kind of super-sturdy moss. Neat technology!
"All of the guys in charge. That Castro guy, the guy before him and the one after. How long did it take these people to get their act together after they stopped having a thug in charge? Like, five years?"
"I guess." Ty flopped gratefully onto a chair; the tour guide had paused at a cafe. He flicked his tail out of the way and gaped when the waiter, a fox like him but more of a fennec breed, asked if he wanted beer. Dad grinned and snatched the liquor menu out of Ty's hands. Ty let his ears droop sheepishly. Emily looked angelic; Ty could already guess she'd talk him into letting her have a sip of his.
The tour guide went on about old revolutions. Ty watched the people. Foxes, felines, some otters from the sea colonies. He spotted something odd and tugged Mom's sleeve. "What's that?" There was a construction robot that didn't look like the ones he'd spotted earlier. It was prowling around the cafe, and it knocked over an empty table with that metal tube it was carrying. A wolf man was trying to steer the bot back on course... No, he wasn't. He was saying, "Now!"
Mom gasped and shoved Ty and Emily down. Just then, the bot's gun barrel started firing. Everyone screamed. Ty could see clawed feet stampeding all around. A bullet clanged and dented the metal table just overhead.
Emily was trying to wriggle out of Dad's grip. "What are you doing?!" Ty hissed.
"Sneak away!" But they couldn't. It was raining bullets.
Mom was murmuring in fear; she snagged Emily's tail and wouldn't let go. Ty found he'd curled up in a fuzzy ball and was shivering. He heard people screaming all around and there were uniformed men fighting, and bots with guns. He tried to talk, but only a choked sob came out.
Dad was saying something to Mom, and she nodded. Ty couldn't hear; he was trying to scrunch up as small as possible. He wasn't prepared, then, when Dad yanked him and Emily up by the scruff of the neck and burst out from under the table. He roared, more lion than fox. There were thudding sounds all around Ty. Dad charged out of the cafe that'd become a killing zone. He was staggering, but he managed to throw the kids. Ty was falling in a fuzzy ball, and he caught glimpses of an alley, of Emily somewhere, of Dad shouting some more and turning to face the men with guns, of a table with Mom under it... everything at once. And then he hit the ground and lost track of it all.
#
Ty woke up slowly, in a fluffy bed. The room had only a dim nightlight and a set of closed window drapes. His claws dug into the covers when he remembered what he'd just seen. "Mom? Dad?" That all had to be a nightmare, right? This wasn't his room or the hotel. It was wrong.
Ty kicked the covers off of him and stood. He was wearing red and white pajamas that matched his fur. He didn't own any like this. Had to be a nightmare, he thought again. There was a fridge in his room... no, it was a metal door. There was no knob, just a panel with a red light. He rapped at the door, saying, "Hello?"
No answer. He went to the window, pulled the curtains open, and saw Havana. So he was still in Cuba, on vacation. Except when he peered close, he saw pixels. Fake! He slashed at the window before he knew what he was doing. Claws skittered across tough plastic.
A machine voice poured into the room. "Good morning. We'll be with you in a moment." Ty couldn't find the speaker.
"Where am I? Where's Dad?"
The door slid open. A tall vixen in a white uniform stood there, smiling down at him. "You're safe now."
"Where is everyone?" Ty said. The smile scared him.
"Don't worry, dear. We'll take good care of you."
Ty's fur prickled all over and he took a step toward the fox, shouting, "Where!?"
The woman reached toward him to scratch his hair, but stopped. She put one hand to her ear as though listening to something, then nodded. "I'm afraid there's been a terrible disaster. A terrorist attack. Some very bad people opened fire on a cafe, and you were the only one we found."
Ty went wide-eyed and shook all over. "They've gotta be around here somewhere! Let me look!"
"I'm sorry, dear." The look in the vixen's eyes told Ty everything he needed to know, more than the words themselves. It couldn't be true. Mom and Dad and Emily would jump into the room any minute now and they could all go home and have everything be normal again. He'd pull his sister's tail and she'd slip sneezing powder into his schoolbooks again and their parents would ground them both. It'd be fun.
Ty quivered, then ran the last few steps to the woman and bawled, sniffling pathetically into her arms.
#
It seemed like a long time later. Ty was sitting in a steel room with nice furniture that included a psychiatrist. The ferret man and his musk seemed like part of the room just as much as the couch and chairs and boring landscape paintings. Nothing that the man said made an impression on Ty; it was like listening to rain. Bullet rain.
But then the man said, "This isn't a hospital, actually."
Ty lay on the couch. He'd squeezed his eyes shut and kept an arm over his face to keep the tears in, so nobody would see. "Then what is it? Who are you people?"
"Secret agents, young man. People who fight the sort of killers that attacked you."
Ty said, "Sure you are. And this is your base?"
"Yes. Is there more can we tell you? This is the first time you've talked in days."
Ty's memory was hazy. There'd been dim rooms and blobs of ink on paper, a nurse, some medicine. And nightmares. During the day he was better... "Are we underground or something? I haven't seen any real windows."
"Clever of you! Yes, most of the Facility is hidden below ground. There's only a warehouse with a bland government-sounding name on top. It doesn't sound like much considering all the technology in here, and how important it is."
The young fox's ears turned a little to listen more closely. The last few days had felt like he'd been wrapped in cotton, not really noticing anything. It was probably better that way. Now, though, he could hear the whole building around him humming. Like there were big engines hidden everywhere. "You fight terrorists and rescue people?"
"Something like that, yes. And we take care of people like you that need our help. Take as much time as you need; we're here for you."
"And then what?" Ty said. He sat up, smelling his own tears and squinting at the head doctor through them. There was school and Emily's birthday coming up, and he was still shaking and thinking about terrorists. His claws dug painfully into his knees.
"What do you want to do after you've recovered? You could go back to school, I suppose."
It seemed like the man knew what Ty was thinking, and the frown on his muzzle matched his own. Going home... no, there was no home. Not anymore. Ty answered in a rush. "Let me stay here and get strong so I can beat them myself! So I can go after the bad guys!"
The ferret-man smiled a little in sympathy. "I don't know if that would work for you. It'd be hard, and it'd keep you very busy. Are you sure?"
"Yes!" There wasn't anything else he could do. Ever. Not after seeing all those people getting shot, after the screaming. Maybe he could make it all go away so no one else would have to go through a day like that.
"I'll see what I can do," the man said. "You're a brave boy, you know that? Volunteering for a dangerous job for the sake of helping others. I think... I think your family would be proud of you."
Ty looked down at the grey carpet. If he thought too much about them he'd start weeping all over again, so he had to quit it. The people here needed him to look tough and be ready to work and do something good. He just nodded, biting down on his tongue and not trusting himself to talk.
#
It turned out that whoever ran this place took pity on him. Ty knew that's what they were doing. He was just a kid, not a secret agent. But they gave him a computer full of books about weapons and spycraft. They'd probably just send him to some foster home if he gave up, if he wasn't good enough. The books let him focus on something besides reliving that day, until he reached a chapter about disarming people. He got lost in picturing himself running into the cafe, knocking guns out of people's hands, swiping down at them like this! He tore a page. He snapped out of his fantasy of stopping the attack, but his heart was still beating fast and his fur was all on end.
Ty stood up and paced the little dining room. Miss Elu, the vixen who'd first spoken to him, had gotten a couple of rooms opened up to make an apartment for him. Now he had his bedroom and bathroom, the dining area with tiny kitchen, and an exercise room with no equipment yet.
She knocked, then came in. "Can I get you lunch?"
"I'm not really hungry," he said, even though she made anything he wanted. He'd been trying to ask for healthy stuff, usually, so he could look fit for the job.
Elu nodded. "Then would you mind coming with me, to see our doctor again?"
"The shrink?"
"No, this is something better. Doctor Gross will explain."
"Doctor Gross?"
She grinned at him, though he hardly recognized what a smile looked like anymore. "You can tease him about it when you see him. Are you ready?"
He followed her through another grey concrete hall. There were numbers on the doors, and hand scanners, but no other labels. His bare feet were quiet on the floor; he'd never liked shoes and no one complained when he kept them off. Behind one of those doors was a doctor's office. "Everything looks like a movie set," Ty said. The office was perfectly normal to the point of having old issues of National Anthrographic on a shelf and a boring painting of some city with swirly clouds. The doctor, though, didn't fit the mold. He was a great big bear flipping a scalpel around in the fingers of one hand. "That's not for me, is it?" Ty said.
The bear shook his head and flicked the scalpel away, to thunk into a corkboard behind him. He saw Ty's eyes widen and said, "I'm only playing. Miss Elu tells me you've been keeping healthy."
"Yes, sir," Ty said. He'd tried doing some situps at least. Anything to keep his mind busy and off of other things.
"The bad news is that it would be hard for our organization to use you as you are. The good news is, we may be able to make you more powerful. We've developed a procedure that you're just the right age for."
Ty's brow furrowed and his tail flicked in confusion. "What, like a superhero?" Miss Elu had left him some comic books. Experiments like that had worked on Captain Mareica, but that was just a story. And he hated reading the Bat-Guy one; it struck too close to home.
To his surprise, Doctor Gross said, "Yes, very much like that. You could probably fight a lot of people by yourself. It could be dangerous to have you try this, though."
"What if I don't?"
The doctor shrugged huge shoulders. "Nothing. We try to find you other work. Something safer, maybe."
"Then do it!" Ty said. How could he turn down something like this, a chance to be able to fight back, for a desk job? He'd never forgive himself. He didn't want to even think the thought, but if he didn't make it through the experiment... that was okay too.
That day, the doctor looked him over again and gave him a couple of shots. Ty refused to let himself yelp or whimper. He was dizzy after the tests and the medicine. Then they were taking out some of his blood; he looked away from the plastic tube stuck in his arm and squeezed a rubber ball in his fist when they told him to. It didn't hurt much.
"You did a great job, son," said Gross, slapping him on the back hard enough to make his teeth rattle. "Now go lay down and let Miss Elu fuss over you."
He did. There was even ice cream. And at some point Ty fell asleep. When he woke up, he stood and wobbled over to the bathroom. He felt weird all over, heavy and hungry and with his breathing seeming to come from deeper in his chest. He didn't have X-ray vision, though. He knocked at the door that led out of his apartment, and soon Elu showed up and took him back to the doctor. For more shots, it turned out. Ow. But they gave him a huge meal after that, more than he'd even known he could eat.
All night he had weird dreams. He towered over a city, trying not to knock the buildings over. Everything was fragile and he was huge! He had to hurry, too, toward that cafe. He got there just in time to see the bad guys -- the wolf and the killer robots. He shouted something and lifted one huge foot up to stomp them all... but it wasn't the wolf, it was Emily. When he tried to stop, he fell over onto her, too big for her to run away from. Someone was pounding at him...
It was a knock on the apartment door. "Ty? Are you all right?"
He was shivering even under his fur and a tangle of blankets and stuffing. He'd clawed at the sheets again. His foot claws were snagged on them too. He moaned, rolled over, and fell off of the bed. "Just the nightmares," he mumbled.
When he stood up, though, he almost fell over again. His balance was all wrong, like there was a weight on his tail. He reached back and scratched himself, then yipped. "What the heck?"
"Are you decent?" asked Elu. "Can I come in?"
He had his pajamas on, but -- he blushed -- something weird had happened to him.
Elu entered on her own, just as he was twisting around to look at himself. There wasn't a good way to describe the problem other than that his butt looked huge, straining against the fabric. Ty glanced back at her, saying, "What...?"
"Oh, my. That's not quite what we expected. Let's get you to the doctor." She pulled a radio from her pocket and mumbled into it.
"What's going on?"
"Doctor Gross should be able to explain."
The doctor was scowling at having been woken up, but he raised eyebrows when he saw what had happened to Ty. "I suppose that's a good sign."
Gross and Elu were staring at his backside; Ty blushed. "Come on, tell me! Am I turning into a girl or something?!"
The bear laughed. "No, no, don't worry about that. Although with the technology we're using, if you want to..."
"No, thank you! Then what is it?"
"Might as well give you the briefing now. Son, you're going to end up with some extra limbs. The treatments are giving you a centaur form, and that's the start of your lower body growing in. Should take a couple of days. I had expected the paws to grow in above your legs..."
Ty looked at himself and did a double-take. "So, what, I'm gonna grow more legs? How is that a superpower?"
"It's not, though the change should give you more strength and speed. It's part of giving you what we call a matter storage field. If that works, you'll be able to change your size."
Ty was leaning against the wall, remembering a little of his dream. "So it's working," he said with a trembling voice.
"We'll see, once you've changed."
#
The next few days were awkward. By noon -- he still hadn't been outside, but there was a clock -- he had to lean forward to keep his balance with the weird bulge behind him. That evening he started to feel his new hindpaws twitching. The next day he had to use a wheelchair to get around despite having a perfectly good pair of legs (and half of another). Finally, he was able to start standing on four feet and feel the constant pins-and-needles of the new limbs brushing against the floor. It was almost as weird to feel his breathing coming from the lower torso as it grew in. When the doctor checked his heartbeat he had to do it twice; the main heart felt like it was way behind him. "I still don't feel like this other half a fox is me."
"Understandable," said Gross. "Make sure you exercise, and you should get used to it."
He had a treadmill now, an extra-long one. Ty spent weeks relearning how to walk and climb stairs and do everything else he was used to doing with fewer legs. It was a busy time and he was grateful for it. To focus on his own changed body meant not dwelling on the past too much.
But when his keepers started training him to fight, he took to it with so much enthusiasm that he scared them, and himself.
#
Months of sweat and study. Ty was standing in the gym one day with his four feet planted on a mat. His hands held a double-edged boffer stick, one of those giant padded clubs. His breath came fast in his lower body. One swing, a leap, and another slash, and two training dummies went down. A battered little helicopter buzzed him. He crushed it to the mat with an overhand swing, but it got off a shot first. A shock dart stung his arm, making him yelp and swat it off of him.
A voice. Ty snapped out of combat mode and turned to find Doctor Gross with a basset-hound in army uniform. The doctor was saying, "This is Agent Ty."
"Agent," Ty muttered. He hadn't fought anyone for real; he was still just a little kid to them. Little was probably the key word; he'd shown none of the powers Gross had talked about. Ty wiped musky sweat from his ear with one tape-wrapped wrist and said more loudly, "I haven't seen you before."
The doctor said, "Meet Colonel Salt. He's in charge of the Facility, among other things."
The canine offered Ty a handshake. "I've heard good things about you, young man! You'll make your country proud one day."
The man's smile looked sincere and he wasn't the kind to show off dozens of medals. But Ty sniffed; there was a cloying scent to him. Ty flicked his tail uncertainly, saying, "I haven't fought anyone. I haven't so much as gone outside for a cheeseburger."
"That's all right. We've invested in you for the long haul." The colonel walked around Ty, inspecting him. "Interesting to see the... taur form on you."
Ty sniffed the air again. There was his own scent, the colonel's strong cologne, and...
Ty pounced the officer. "You have her scent on you!" Ty was standing over the man, forepaws on either side of his chest, and staring down at him. "My sister's!"
The man was wide-eyed and trying to get up. "What? I don't know --"
Ty was smaller even with the extra half-body, but he was not going to let this mystery go. He put a paw on the man's chest and said, "Tell me! Why do you smell like her? Emily is... she's alive, isn't she?"
Salt yelped as though Ty had actually hurt him. "All right, Agent. Yes! Get off me and I'll tell you."
Ty pressed harder. "Where?!"
"Sir?" said Doctor Gross. "The protocol doesn't call for --"
The colonel said, "Shut up, Gross. Yes, Ty, your sister actually survived the attack. It was a close thing, and we didn't want to tell you because there was a strong chance she wasn't going to make it. It would've hurt you worse to learn she was in a hospital and that there was nothing you could do. But she's recovering. Now would you please get off me?"
Ty saw he was pretty close to crushing the man's neck. He wasn't, a moment ago. The colonel was staring up at him now with more fear than he'd shown when pounced. Ty's wrists and head ached, painfully constrained. Ty lifted his paw, balanced on the other three, and flexed the toes. It was as big as the man's head! He stumbled back and let the colonel stand, only to find he was still looking slightly down at the man. Even Gross was only about the same height as Ty now!
"It worked after all," the doctor said.
Ty pulled off his wrestling-style helmet -- burst from inside -- and tore at the tape that was digging into his wrists. "Big," he murmured. But that wasn't important right now. He took a step toward the colonel and said, "Where is she? And my parents?"
"I'm sorry, Ty. We only saved Emily. Agent Emily, I should say. We'll arrange to bring her here so that you can train together. It looks like we can move up your training schedule anyway."
Ty looked at his huge paws, feeling baffled. His thoughts had derailed. There was something left of his old life after all.
#
A few days later he was pacing in his apartment. He hadn't been able to sleep much, let alone shrink back to normal size. The doctor insisted he'd figure out how. All his muscles felt heavy but powerful. He'd already crushed his first bed just by flopping carelessly onto it. Now he had a big cushion on the floor.
When Miss Elu opened the door, he hopped over to her and nearly knocked her down. Too much momentum! "Now? Is she here?"
The startled Elu just nodded. Ty bounded after her, all the way upstairs to the gym.
And Emily was there! Ty charged right at her, yipping for joy. She vanished. Ty skidded to a stop, saying, "What happened?" An illusion? If they were lying he'd stomp everybody!
Someone tugged his tail. Ty peeked over his shoulders, and saw Emily there hugging the big red-orange brush. "Sis? Is that you?" It smelled like her.
"Oh, wow, you're a giant! What'd they do to you?"
Ty grinned, and then realized that he towered over his sister. And the weight set. And the doorway. He carefully turned and sat down on all fours so he could look at her. All six limbs of her. "Foxtaur, too?"
The girl climbed up onto his left front ankle and hugged his leg. "They said they could rebuild me, but I still don't know what to do with all these legs!"
"But you're okay? They didn't hurt you?"
"It did kind of hurt," she said. "This fur is --"
"Agent Emily, that's classified." She was attended by two surly guards plus the colonel.
Emily gave the man a nasty glare, then said, "Thermoptic camouflage." She'd always been proud of rattling off the hard words she read over Ty's shoulders when he studied. "I... didn't have much fur left when they found me. Or skin. There was a fire at some point. I don't really remember."
Ty didn't care. She was okay now, and he was focused on trying to hug her safely.
#
Emily moved in. They each had an apartment to themselves, but there was a common room, plus the big gym. Ty had a hard time shrinking himself down below ten feet, but managed to squish himself to about five feet from floor to ears -- sometimes. Every day it felt like he wanted to spring out in all directions and bounce all around the place. He could lift a whole motorcycle, then a car!
But one night he was resting in the gym, stuck. His ears brushed against the fifty-foot ceiling whenever he stood. For now he sat in the dark.
"Hey." Emily's voice made his ears flick back. "Watching a boring movie?"
The only light came from the projector screen he was reading on. "Just a textbook."
"Oh, man, they're making you do homework?" she said.
"No. That's just it. We should be in school, doing normal things."
"We're here to fight." Emily hopped up onto Ty's back and curled up.
Ty smiled and gently patted her with a huge hand. "You haven't thought about asking to go back, then?"
"To what? This is home. Our job is to follow orders. The Agency saved us, so we owe them."
"What do we even know about these guys, anyway?"
"We know they're here for us."
Ty sighed. "I guess so. And there're certainly bad guys out there to fight when we're ready. At least we can do that together, right?"
"Yeah." Emily flopped out on all sixes and slowly dozed off, resting on Ty's carpet of fur.
