by Tom Jones
Jackie remembered her time in the Foundation, “I can see why they’d be mad at you. If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be in the Foundation.” Arcades added to the vixen’s comment, “That wasn’t even the first time I rescued you, either. You remember me from ‘27, still. Right?” The vixen shrugged, “I’m not going to forget that one anytime soon.” Arcades looked at the vixen, but he could not determine exactly why she was at this specific beach, “What brings you out here?” The vixen answered relatively quickly, “A few anthros dropped me off, but it’s been awhile since they said they were going to pick me up. I don’t think they’re coming back.” Arcades displayed a face that looked both confused and empathetic at the same time. The fox definitely knew how it felt to be abandoned at this very beach. Arcades decided to ask who Jackie was talking about, “Who dropped you off here?” Jackie said, “Do you remember the anthro you guys returned me to when we all got out of the Foundation?” Arcades did not initially say anything since he waited to see if the vixen was done talking. He was not sure if she planned on continuing, but he realized that she was asking a non-rhetorical question. The fox nodded, “Yeah, I remember him. I’m pretty sure that was the same guy we dropped you off to the first time when we rescued you in 2027.”
The vixen continued speaking after Arcades finished, “Yeah, that guy. Well, he sent me to spend some time with his friends, and they said they were going to spend the day here. They dropped me off and said they would come back and get me after they went to go buy something. They didn’t come back.” Though Jackie’s story did not entirely add up to Arcades, he decided that he would just accept it. However, the fox was not sure if Jackie somehow was sent by the Foundation or a similar organization to find him. Arcades studied the vixen sitting in front of him, but he did not see any sort of equipment on her person. After all, all the vixen was wearing was literally just a white t-shirt and a pair of blue high-cut shorts. The t-shirt was not really loose enough to hide any sort of equipment, so Arcades decided to give Jackie the benefit of the doubt. The fox asked another question for the vixen, “Are you going to wait on them, or are you convinced they’re not coming back for you at this point?” Jackie looked towards the ground and then back to the fox, “I don’t think they’re coming back. I’ve been out here for about nine hours now. I didn’t have any cash on me to buy food out here, so I had to -- suck somebody off for cash.”
When Jackie revealed how she got money to buy food, she looked towards the ground, and Arcades could tell that she did appear regretful. The fox was not sure why the vixen decided to disclose this bit of information, but he was not sure what kind of psychological treatment Jackie had to endure while she was in the Foundation. She was a higher rank than some of the other anthros in the Foundation, so she definitely had to have responded to some of their treatments. Jason did look somewhat surprised, but Arcades shook his head and said, “I’m sorry to hear that. What are you planning on doing when it gets dark? I wouldn’t want to be out here if I were you.” Jackie placed her hands in her lap and looked back up at the other fox while not completely turning her head in Arcades’ direction, still showing a bit of regret, “I’m not sure… That anthro I was staying with was not exactly thrilled to see me come back two years ago. It hasn’t been a good time.” Arcades knew that he was in trouble himself with the mysterious personnel sent out to get him, but he knew that he would rather be in his situation than be completely homeless and helpless, “I’ll make you an offer, but I want you to listen to it first. Are you alright with that?” Jackie looked back towards the ground again and nodded, “Alright…”
The fox looked at the wolf and waited to see if he had anything to say. Jason remained silent, and it did not appear he had any objections. Arcades began to speak, “Jason and I were attacked last night by a human with a tranquilizer rifle. We believe that he may have been sent by the Foundation or some other entity the Foundation is in contact with to bring me in. We went here because we wanted to lie low for the day and make sure that our home is safe enough to stay at for the time being. We know that we can’t stay there for a prolonged period of time since that one guy will probably not be the last guy they send, so as of right now, we’re planning on moving to Australia with all of the money we can muster. Since Jason’s here, he would be able to make the move proceed a little bit smoothly. However, we would have to sell all of our possessions here before we can do this. It’ll probably take me a few weeks to get everything ready for us to be able to leave the country. Jason would have to deal with most of the problems once we get there since he knows his country pretty well.” The fox paused to see if the still-kneeling vixen had anything she wanted to say. After Jackie remained silent, Arcades continued, “What I am offering you is a chance to come and stay with us. The reason I told you all of that stuff is because I cannot personally guarantee your safety. Sure, I’ll do everything I can to protect you, and I’m sure Jason will help out as well, but I just want to let you know that we’re not exactly safe as of right now. If you decide to come with us, then we may run into some Foundation operatives sent to find me. I’m not sure if you’d like to go back there for another time, now.” The fox took one more deep breath before stating his actual question, “With all of that in mind, I’ll leave it up to you: Do you want to come with us? We’ll do everything we can to look after your well-being, but we can’t essentially promise it.”
Jackie only contemplated the decision for a few seconds; she really did not have much to lose at this point, “I’ll come with you, Kurt.” Arcades had a feeling the vixen would accept his offer, but he decided that he would reassure her, “I don’t want you to feel scared or anything, but this situation we’re dealing with right now is kind of a big deal. Are you sure you still want to come?” Jackie took a deep breath and replied, “I don’t think I have too much of a choice. I don’t have anything more to lose.” The fox became curious, “Oh yeah? What all do you have on you right now?” Jackie looked down at her high-cut shorts, but they lacked pockets, “Nothing. I spent all the cash I got from earlier.” Arcades asked another question, “You don’t have any credentials on you either? No identification?” The vixen shook her head, “No, I have absolutely nothing on me.” The fox looked up at Jackie’s face, “When was the last time you had something to eat?” The vixen replied, “About four hours ago.” Arcades gave a quick nod, “We’ll get you some food. We’ll make sure you won’t have to go through such measures for cash. Right, Jason?” The wolf was listening the entire time, but he was basically silent up until this point, “Yeah, that’s right, mate.” The fox then asked the wolf, “Do you have any sort of objections about taking Jackie with us?” Jason shook his head, “No, I don’t. She’s stayed with us before, even if it was only briefly.” Arcades turned back to the vixen, “We won’t urge you to leave us, either. You can stay with us as long as you’d like. Sounds good?” The vixen gave a rather confident nod, “I don’t see any problem with it.”
Arcades felt that he was satisfied with the agreement he concluded to, “Yeah? Then it’s settled. Looks like you’ll be coming with us, right?” Jackie said, “I’ll try not to get in the way.” Arcades assured the female fox that she would not be a burden, “We’ll be alright. You weren’t an issue for us the first two times. And if operatives do come for us, then just do what we say, and we should make it out in one piece.” Jackie knew that she could trust Arcades; she had seen him in action before, and she was confident that the fox was definitely capable of looking out for her. Though the vixen spent a lesser amount of time with the wolf, she figured that Arcades knew and trusted the people he spent his time with. Jackie felt safe and protected by the company of both Arcades and Jason. The vixen wanted to express her thankfulness to the fox; she knew that Arcades was not obligated to help her out, “Thanks, Kurt. I know you know what you’re doing.” Arcades humbly accepted the compliment, “Thanks for trusting us. I’ll see to it that you’re taken good care of.” All three anthros seemed to be satisfied with the ag
reement.
Arcades began to stand up from where he was sitting, and he outstretched his hand towards the vixen. Jackie did not hesitate to grab the fox’s hand, and Arcades helped the female red fox stand to her feet. After the male fox helped the female fox stand, he turned to his right to help the wolf stand up. With all three anthros now standing up, Arcades looked down at the ground and noticed that none of the anthros were wearing any footwear, “I guess we all chose not to wear shoes today.” Jackie said, “I usually don’t.” Arcades took a breath and replied with slight hesitation present in his voice, “I guess you could say I don’t either.” Though the vixen turned to the wolf to see if he had something to say, Jason did not say anything at all. The fox took a step back, and he thought of a question to ask the vixen, “Hey Jackie, how old are you?” The vixen replied, “I’m twenty-one.” Arcades gave a slight look of surprise on his face, “Really? You were only eighteen when I first met you?” The vixen gave more information about herself, “I was born February of 2009.”
The fox was curious as to why somebody so young would want to go to the Foundation, “What were you doing out there? You had only been eighteen for a few months. That also means you were nineteen when we encountered you for the second time.” Jackie’s face displayed an expression of regret yet again, but she still answered the question, “I guess I thought that the Foundation was what I wanted -- twice…” Arcades expressed his disagreement in a rather soft tone, “You don’t need to do that. You’re still young, and you have more of your life ahead of you than we do.” Jackie was now starting to become curious as to how old Arcades was, “How old are you, Kurt?” Arcades answered the question, “I’m turning thirty next month.” He was more than nine years older than the vixen. Jackie was not expecting for the fox to be so old compared to her, “Really? I thought you were in your early twenties.” Arcades knew that anthros did not outwardly age the same as humans did, but he still gave a slight chuckle, “Heh, I don’t think someone that young would be able to buy all the stuff I have.” Jackie became curious again, “What do you have?”
Arcades tried to give an accurate answer, “I have plenty of guns. That’s what I sell, and I’m going to have to sell all of them before we move. You can’t take any of that stuff to Australia.” Jackie was not entirely sure why Arcades felt the need to leave the United States, “Why do you want to leave the country? Couldn’t you just move to another state?” Jason answered the question this time, “The Foundation tracked Kurt down here. They’ve a way to figure out where he lives. We don’t want to just move somewhere else in America and have it all happen again. If we moved to Aus’, then it would be harder for them to find us. Whatever way they’ve to know where he is may only work here in America.” The vixen was a bit skeptical, “Are you sure moving there would work? How do you know they won’t just find you over there? You’ll be less prepared without your guns, as well.” Arcades took a deep breath in and spoke as he exhaled, “I guess we’ve just decided to take our chances.” Jackie offered another potential solution to the fox, “Why not just find another place in America and change your name? Maybe they know who you are because you own a company.” Arcades considered the idea, but he was not entirely convinced at the moment, “Well… Ah, I’m not entirely sure how they’re finding me, though. I think that’s still too risky.” Jackie shrugged, “It would be a lot cheaper just to move somewhere else in America instead of flying all the way on the other side of the world. You’re not even an Australian citizen.”
Arcades shook his head, “No, I’m not. However, he is.” The fox motioned towards the wolf. Jason gave a comment in response, “And I’m basically an American citizen at this point.” Jackie commented on the wolf’s accent, “You sure don’t sound like one.” Jason smiled and gave a short laugh, “Hah. Well, at least I look enough like I belong here.” Jackie was still not fully on board with moving to Australia, “Kurt, don’t you think there’s another thing we could do besides leaving the country? I’m sure we can work something out.” Though Arcades understood the vixen’s concerns with fleeing the country, he did not know too many other options which would yield better results for their safety, “I know… It’s just that I don’t want to get into another situation like this. Look, how about if we can figure out something better in the coming weeks, then we can do that. How does that sound, Jason?” The wolf gave a nod, “Perhaps. It shouldn’t be that bad if we did move there, though.” Arcades knew that the idea of fleeing the nation did not really come to mind until that morning, so he was finally becoming open to reconsidering his plan, “We only had this idea this morning. It was kind of on a whim, but maybe we can give it some time to think about it.” Jason saw that the fox was starting to lean towards Jackie’s point of view, “Kurt, are you sure we have that much time to make this choice?” Arcades looked back at the wolf and said, “We need to sell our stuff first, and that’ll take enough time. Besides, we might not be able to get out there for a month or two. International travel isn’t really something that you can bring up on a whim without being involved with a security company. That was the only reason why it was so easy before. We aren’t a security company anymore, so we don’t have that luxury of being able to go across the world on such short notice.”
The vixen grew curious about another detail, “Say, where did you guys come from?” Arcades misunderstood the question, “I’m from Alabama, and Jason’s from New South Wales.” Jackie shook her head, “No, I’m asking where did you guys leave from this morning to get to this beach?” The fox realized what the vixen was asking, “Oh, sorry -- my bad. I own a gun store just outside of Foley, and I live there with Jason. We drove from there to here today.” The vixen was not really familiar with the area, “Where is that? How far away is it?” The fox answered both questions, “It’s almost two hours away. We took the interstate. We came here to Florida just in case Alabama’s state police decided that they would come looking for us as well.” The vixen was confused, “Why would the police be after you?” Arcades was not sure how many details he needed to give Jackie, “Let’s just say that the Foundation guys are trying to set something up. I’m hoping that they won’t get far with that little plan.” Jackie was familiar enough with the Omega Foundation, so she had a good enough idea of what Arcades was talking about, “I see.”
After a somewhat extended moment of silence, the wolf spoke up, “We’ve been out here for a good while. Kurt, why don’t you check and see if anything happened back at home, yeah?” Arcades nodded, “Oh yeah. I probably should go and check that.” The fox reached into his shorts pocket and pulled out his Samsung Galaxy phone. After opening a camera application he had, he was able to see the interior of his store: Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and the camera had nothing new to report in terms of motion-capture. After carefully inspecting the live camera feed, the fox was able to discern that it should be safe enough to return, “I think we’re good. All looks just like we left it, and the camera doesn’t have anything out of the ordinary to report.” After the fox disabled his phone and pocketed it, the vixen asked, “So, we’ll be heading there tonight?” Arcades nodded, “Yeah. Unless you can think of anywhere else you’d rather be.” Jackie looked around the surroundings, “This beach is nice and all, but I’d rather have a place to sleep tonight.” Arcades said, “We’ll give you a nice place to sleep. How about we get some dinner on the way back?” Jackie accepted the fox’s offer, “You’ll buy me dinner?” Arcades nodded, “Of course. We said we were going to take care of you.” Jackie smiled and expressed her gratitude once more, “Thank you so much, Kurt.”
Arcades looked to the sky, and he could see that about an hour or two had passed since he arrived, “How much longer do we plan on staying out here? I think we should be good to come back home.” Though Arcades was the de facto party leader, he still asked the question because he wanted to get the opinions of both Jason and Jackie. The wolf was the one to reply first, “Whenever you’re ready, Kurt.” The fox looked over to the vixen
and asked for her opinion, “How about you? Do you have anything you want to do out here before we get going?” Jackie shook her head, “No. Not really.” Arcades looked back at the beach, and he still could see that the water was populated with a decent number of people. The fox turned back to his party, “If you wanted to swim, we’d be able to wait for you.” Jackie replied, “I don’t have a towel or another set of clothes.” The fox said, “Sure thing. Were you planning on going swimming in the first place?” The vixen waited for a quick moment before speaking, “I probably would’ve liked to, but the people who dropped me off didn’t really give me a towel or anything. They kinda just left me here, all alone.” Arcades canted his head slightly, remembering the time he was abandoned himself, “Maybe we can come back another day or something?” The vixen decided to accept the fox’s proposal, “I’d be willing to give it a try.” The fox felt satisfied with the answer, “I guess that’s settled then. If you two are ready to go, then I guess we’d better get going.” Neither Jackie nor Jason presented any objection, so Arcades gave a nod and began to proceed back in the direction he came, “Right. Let’s go.”