by Tom Jones
Jason approached the lightly restrained fox and stopped to ask if he wanted to proceed, “Want this on, too?” Arcades replied by simply nodding his head. The wolf acknowledged Arcades’ response by strapping the muzzle to the fox’s face. Jason tightened the fox’s muzzle tight enough that he would be unable to open his mouth to speak, but the wolf knew that Arcades would still be able to make noise in case he decided that he wanted to be released. Jason wanted to apply one more item to the fox, but he did ask the fox to stand up before retrieving it, “Come over here, mate.” Arcades shuffled forwards until his feet touched the floor, and he took a few steps before reaching Jason. Once the fox was near the wolf, he stood still as he waited for Jason to continue. The wolf spoke to Arcades, “Turn around for me, yeah?” Arcades obliged, and he turned around slowly while making sure that he did not swipe the wolf with his bushy tail.
Arcades stood still for a few moments before he felt Jason applying a generic pair of Taiwanese-made thumbcuffs to his thumbs. After the wolf finished tightening the restraints and double-locking them, he used his own foot to slide the rather heavy bag out of the way, and he also placed the keyring he used on top of a nearby counter. Jason knew that the fox would be able to reach the keys for himself if he absolutely needed to, but the wolf knew that Arcades would communicate to him to release him first before going out of his way to release himself. With the fox now restrained, the wolf placed a hand on Arcades’ shoulder and put enough pressure on the fox to suggest him to sit down. Arcades got down on his knees, and he even interlocked his fingers before resting his hands on his tail. The fox watched in silence as Jason walked in front of the fox and sat on Arcades’ bed. Jason looked at the fox kneeling before him, and the wolf began to speak to Arcades, “Feeling a bit better now, Kurt?” Arcades nodded his head; he was still unable to speak. Jason formed a smile, “Good. Hey mate, it’ll all turn out alright. It’ll be a lot easier for you if you’d just take a deep breath and relax. We’ll get outta this situation, and they won’t be able to find us again.”
The wolf paused for a few moments to see if Arcades had something he wanted to do, but Jason figured that the fox would not be able to do too much since he was bound and gagged. The wolf continued speaking, “Y’know mate, you’ve taught me many things in the two years that you’ve known me for, and I would have to say I’m very thankful for all that you’ve done for me.” The fox sat in silence as he slowly adjusted himself to find a slightly more comfortable position to remain in. Arcades watched as Jason got off of the bed and sat down directly next to him, “Prolly the most important thing you’ve told me is that the Lord is always here to guide us. I was a bit skeptical at first, but after the whole event with the Foundation, I know that’s true. The Lord’s done so much for me over the past two years, and I just can’t deny it. Not to mention, I bet you that He helped us get out of the Foundation when we were taken.” Jason paused as he thought of something else to say. Once the wolf compiled his thoughts, he spoke once more, “There was a time that I would look at you the way you’re sitting in front of me right now, and I wouldn’t be able to control myself. We both remember what happened with that. The thing is, that’s not the case anymore. I didn’t think the Lord would be capable of giving me a new heart with new desires, but… I’m glad I was proven wrong. It’s so much better for me now. I don’t have to feel the way I did before. I’m glad that I have a brother who was willing to give me a second chance; that’s what I’m trying to say.”
The wolf could see that the fox was trying to smile behind the muzzle, so he placed his hand on the fox’s shoulder and spoke to him again, “Kurt, I want to let you know that I’m thankful for giving me that second chance. I understand that mercy may not be the easiest thing for someone to give as a result of an event like that, but I’m glad that you don’t hold it against me.” The fox was still looking at Jason in the eyes, still as silent as he was with the device strapped to his mouth. The wolf said, “I know that I’m not supposed to put my trust in you, but I am still glad that you’ve proven yourself to be a great brother to me. I know that Jack would not have given me the second chance you did. He would’ve prolly just left me for dead. Same goes for Bobby. I know that bloke always just wanted me gone, and I’m glad that you were there to show him what mercy is about.” The wolf took about half a minute to sit in silence before finally repeating his promise once again, “Kurt. I promise you that I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe. Under my watch, I’ll see to it that we’ll both make it out of the reaches of the Foundation together. After all, isn’t that what brothers do for one another?”
Eleven human men sat at a long black table and listened to what the twelfth man had to say, “It has been over twelve hours since we have last had contact with our agent in the field. We believe that he may be dead as of this moment.” One of the other men at the table spoke next, “Are you saying that our agent failed to capture the target?” The first man replied, “It hasn’t been confirmed, but we believe so.” A different man spoke up next, “Why do we even need to take this fox alive? He’s caused enough trouble as it’s been. I’ll remind you that this is the same fox who is ultimately responsible for the downfall of the Foundation. We’re risking too much trying to take him alive.” The first human addressed the objection, “This fox could be very useful for us. The Foundation was working on the artificial production of anthros in order to build an army that would be completely loyal to us. Had they completed their purpose, then we would no longer need to use humans allied with our cause.”
The third human nodded to acknowledge the first man’s final statement, “Yeah, and the Foundation almost had the means to produce thousands of artificial anthros. If that fox didn’t compromise Facility Zero, then we would be one step closer to having a fully loyal standing army of anthros all born completely under the radar. We’re only taking a bigger risk by trying to catch him alive.” The first human took a deep breath before saying, “Don’t you see? That fox definitely has something going on with him. There’s no way any normal anthro has been able to break in and out of Facility Eleven, Facility Five, Facility Twenty-Four, Facility One, and even Facility Zero all successfully. That’s just not happening. He might be the genetic template that we need to create our army.” The third human still disagreed, “What makes you say it’s anything in his genes that make him special? How do you know he’s just being a crafty fox?” The first human addressed the objection, “We can’t find any combat experience that he has had for any government force. He never served in any type of armed force, but he managed to evade the Alpha-Omega team on more than one occasion.”
The third human returned a rather snarky remark, “Yeah? They probably would’ve lasted longer if Site Director Zero didn’t order them to die.” The first human knew what his colleague was talking about, “You know that we can’t trust humans for this global takeover. These anthros are bred from birth to do whatever we ask of them. They don’t know anything else but to do what we tell them.” The third human sighed, “Yet that fox destroyed the entire production line that we had in Facility Zero. The genetic code and everything we used was lost there as well. CDI probably salvaged everything they could that wasn’t already destroyed. It probably won’t be long until they are able to manufacture their own XVP-1s. What are we going to do about them when they have amassed an entire fleet of them?” The first human disregarded his colleague for speaking about a hypothetical situation, “It’s been only two years. They’re not going to have a Dreadnought like that combat ready in that time span.” The third human was skeptical, “Are you sure? They sent one of their two aircraft carriers to Devon Island to fight it. They have a greater air force than most nations in this world, and we don’t even have any influence in their company anymore. We lost all of that back in ‘28 thanks to that fox.”
Before the argument could continue, an authority figure from the table spoke up, “That’ll be enough of this argument, gentlemen.” The two humans who were arguing quieted dow
n, and they looked at the human who had just told them to stand down. After a moment of silence, The Majestic One spoke, “It’s obvious that this silver fox knows about our plans, and he even showed up to shut them down. Our field agent did confirm his place of business, and he believes that he lives at his own business. It can’t be that hard to capture one fox, even if he does conform with the traditional stereotypes associated with foxes. We’ll be able to catch the fox and bring him here. Once he is here, he will be unable to disrupt our plans. If you want to make anthros using his DNA, then you can go ahead. However, you do have to take into account that our plans have still been set back due to the loss of the Omega Foundation. The Foundation was our research & development department, and we no longer have the luxury of having our own entity we can turn to for that kind of work. The Illuminati has already authorized the Knights Templar to join us in the effort of capturing Kurt Hofmeier.”
The first human from the previous argument spoke up with a question, “Sir, how are we to proceed?” The Majestic One replied, “Like I said, the Majestic 12 will send more field agents mixed in with the Knights Templar to visit the fox’s place of business. The only thing we will have to worry about is if he already knows we’re planning on coming. At any rate, it would simply take too long for him to do anything substantial. From what our last field agent had gathered, he lives at his gun store alongside a gray wolf. We don’t know much about this gray wolf, but the field agent reports that the two appear to be in a relationship of sorts.” Before the human could continue, one of the other Majestic 12 members chuckled, “Hah. Anthros are all the same, aren’t they?” Nobody else at the table laughed, but The Majestic One continued his thought while ignoring the interruption, “If the fox is smart, then he will be looking at leaving as soon as he can since he would surely know we would come back for him. We cannot allow him to flee. Otherwise, we will have to start from square one with no leads. We have over eight billion people on this earth, and it will be hard to find the fox especially if he flees the United States. Though we do have members internationally, it would be a bit more trouble than it is worth to locate him.”
The human paused, and he looked around the room to see if anybody else had anything to say. With the room still in silence, The Majestic One continued, “We do not have any combat-ready anthros for us to use currently, so we will need to use a team of humans. We will send a small team to the fox’s business in a few days to proceed with the capture. It’s not that hard to take one person down. They’ll bust in, snatch him, kill anybody who stands in the way, and leave as if nothing happened. We’ll pay off any authorities that try and investigate, and nobody will ever hear of Kurt Hofmeier ever again. With that fox out of the way, we will be able to finally deal with our largest threat, Castle Defence Industries. We will mobilize a strike team as soon as we can, and we will deal with the fox accordingly. When we bring him here, I’ll let you do whatever you please with him. Any questions?” The room fell silent again, and none of the other eleven humans had anything to say. The Majestic One nodded his head as he interpreted the silence as an unanimous agreement, “Good. Then it’s settled. Now, was that so hard?”
“So when are we planning on going, Kurt?” Jason looked at the fox as he patted his side pockets to make sure that he was not forgetting anything. The fox entered the room, wearing another simple polo shirt tucked into a plain pair of cargo shorts. Arcades held his Oakley Radar sunglasses in his hands as he placed them over his eyes, “Right about now.” Jason nodded as he was ready to go, “Yeah? What are we waiting for then?” The fox replied, “Nothing. I was just checking the doors to make sure that I didn’t leave anything unlocked. I don’t want anybody breaking in here while we’re gone.” The wolf shrugged, “Can’t really guarantee that, mate. Unless you’re really lookin’ at laying out a siege in here.” Arcades knew that the two of them would not be able to reasonably fend off a large group of hostiles attacking them directly, “Nope, but I’ll be able to check if anybody came here or not. I’ve got motion sensors enabled at the doorways, and I can check on my phone if any of them set off an alarm.” The wolf reminded Arcades once again of what needed to be done, “Well Kurt, you’ve got that all sorted out, so how about we get going?” The fox nodded, “Yeah, let’s get going.”
As Arcades and Jason entered their garage, they both entered into the Ford Mustang rather than the Toyota 4Runner. They were not about to drive a vehicle which the police were already keeping their eyes out for. The fox was in the driver’s seat, and he pressed the button inside of his vehicle to raise the garage door. After pulling out of the garage, the fox pressed the button again to close the garage, and he looked both ways on the road before pulling out onto the small road which connected his business to the main road. Arcades did not live directly within the town of Foley itself; Rather, he lived a decent bit away from the city limits. The fox, knowing where he wanted to go, would take US Route 98 and ride the highway all the way to his destination. US Route 98 did run directly through Foley, so the fox would have to drive a bit north before turning east to get on the highway. Arcades knew that once he drove over the border of Alabama and Florida, he would not have to worry about any law enforcement agencies stopping him. After all, he did not expect the FBI to take the case of the man stabbing a police officer getting shot by the officer’s handgun.
After about thirty minutes of driving, Arcades was already on US Route 98, and he was on his way to Florida. The fox did see a few Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office vehicles on the road, but none of them seemed to realize that the vanity plate on his Mustang was the same as his 4Runner with the exception of having a different ending digit. As the fox continued along the highway, Jason spoke, “Kurt, I don’t think you told me where we were exactly supposed to be going.” The fox was concentrating on the road, but he realized that the wolf was speaking to him, “What’s that?” Jason rephrased his question, “Where are we going, Kurt?” The fox decided that he would tell Jason a broad answer. He was not prepared to narrow it down just quite yet, “Florida.” The wolf chuckled, “Heh, yeah mate, I know we’re going to Florida. My question is, where are we going in Florida?” Arcades asked the wolf a question, “Ever hear of this place called Destin Beach before?”
Though the wolf was from New South Wales, he had heard of Destin Beach before, “I think so.” Arcades was mildly surprised; he was not expecting the wolf to know about the beach at all, “What? Really? I don’t think I’ve ever taken you there before.” Jason shook his head, “No, you haven’t, but that name just sounds familiar to me for some reason.” The more the wolf tried to remember the place Arcades was talking about, it was sounding more and more familiar to him for some reason. Arcades spoke again with what he considered to be an explanation as to why the wolf heard of the beach before, “We’re close enough to Florida that a lot of people who come into our shop have probably visited it before. You probably heard one of those guys mention it.” Jason shook his head, “Ehhh… Yeah, nah. I don’t really think that was the case, mate. I’m not exactly sure why I remember the name, but I know I’ve heard it - or read it before.” The wolf’s words started to fill the fox with more questions than answers, “Read it? What? I didn’t know you read American news articles.”
Jason knew that he remembered something about the beach for some reason, but his memory was rather fuzzy trying to remember anything specific. However, when the fox mentioned a news article, the wolf was beginning to remember further details, “News? Hmm… That sounds familiar as well.” Arcades had something in his mind that he did not want to tell the wolf just quite yet, but he was now curious yet again. After the fox changed lanes on the highway, he asked, “What year are you talking about, Jason?” The wolf replied as he tried to remember yet again, “Ahh… I’m not too sure, mate. What I’m remembering happened about ten or twelve years ago or something. I don’t think we’re thinking about the same thing.” When the wolf mentioned hearing about the beach a bit more than a decade ago, the fox was
starting to wonder if the wolf really was thinking about the event he planned on explaining to Jason. Arcades decided to focus on driving his car for the time being and figure this situation out later, “I dunno. You’ll probably like it out there well enough, though.”
The next sixty minutes of the car ride was rather quiet apart from Jason changing the music in the vehicle every once and awhile when an advertisement would play over the radio. During the span of the hour, they even had crossed over the state line from Alabama to Florida. Despite his best efforts to focus on the road, the fox could not stop thinking about the conversation he had with the wolf. There was no way Jason already knew what had happened. Arcades did know that there were some photos surrounding the event which were on the Internet, but Jason was from Australia. Why would he know about what went down at Destin Beach during the first quarter of 2018? As Arcades kept trying to rationalize things in his head, he heard the wolf speak. This time, the fox kept an open ear to hear the wolf, “Kurt, this might be a weird question, but do the coppers around there wear green by any chance?” Arcades’ eyes widened slightly as he thought in his head, ‘No way. There’s no way he knows about that.’ The fox figured that he had to have heard something incorrectly, so he wanted the wolf to repeat his question, “What was that, Jason?” The wolf repeated his question while slightly changing up the way he worded it, “I said do you know if the coppers over there wear green?”
Arcades decided to answer the wolf’s question, “They do. What makes you ask that?” Jason nodded in response as he began to remember things a bit more clearly, “Yeah, that’s right. I remember it was about twelve years ago when I read this one article about it on the Net. It was about how the coppers over there at Destin Beach had arrested all of these anthros over something to do with drinking beer.”Arcades could not believe what he was hearing, “You know about that?” The wolf nodded, “Yeah, it was on one of the Australian news websites which I used to read when I lived back in New South Wales with Jack. They put it there because it kinda showed how… Different the coppers in the US were compared to how the ones back in Aus’ were.” Arcades was silent for a few seconds, but Jason had realized that the fox also knew what he had just mentioned, “Wait, you know about that article too, Kurt?”