Shorts: The Furry Years (14 page)

-Except from the
Sacramento
Union-

...apparent motive was robbery. The police expect that Mr. Charilldel surprised the burglar in his house, and was killed by the same in the brief struggle that followed. The absence of several valuable items seem to bear this theory out. Mr. Charilldel was an employee in the personnel department at the local Federal office complex. Services will be ...

-Excerpt from the interagency report on the death of the Head of Cov Ops Nat Sec.-

... Harnian Agent know to this agency as 'Reg' was observed in the
Sacramento
area one day before the incident. It is believed that he is the person responsible for the actual death of the late Mr. Charilldel, even though the evidence recovered does not match his M.O. It is suspected that Mr. Charilldel's trip to
Portland
exposed him to the Harnian's, who could not pass up the opportunity to remove such a valuable resource, once knowing who it was. We would caution other Department heads to not make such unwise trips to hired hands out in the field, no matter what the personal involvement. Therefore it is the finding of .....

-Excerpt from the
Portland
Nitelife Times-

The noted singer and dancer Kera Nightenstar will be leaving on a sabbatical this week from her job at the Silver Moon. She was unavailable for comment, but sources close to her said that her recent breakup with her latest boyfriend, plus the reported suicide of a previous one, were too much for her to deal with. According to Bruce Haverstat, the owner of the Silver Moon, they do expect her back in several months. 'She just needs some time to work this thing through,' he stated.

I waited on the ship. I liked sailing, and this was my first trip on a cruise ship. I had boarded down in
San Francisco
, and I was watching the passengers board now in
Seattle
. I was hoping that Kera would show. She had said she would, but that was over four months ago when I had made my plans. The last year had been rough on her, nearly as rough as it had been on me.

Then I saw her emerge from the ramps entrance.

"Kera!" I called waving.

"Pen!" She called ears swiveling, eyes locating me a moment later. Dropping her bags she ran to me.

I met her halfway and caught her in my arms. After kissing and nibbling her for a few minutes I whispered in her ear, "It's Onri now darling. Pen's dead."

"You feel warm and alive to me love." And she kissed me some more. After a while I separated myself and told the purser where to deliver the bags. Then I led her down to my cabin.

"I was afraid you wouldn't show." I admitted.

"I was afraid you wouldn't be here," She whispered. "The report of your death they sent me was so complete. How did you fool them?"

"Easy, I sewed a couple of dead animals together and dyed the carcasses black."

"Didn't anybody notice?"

"If they had gotten close enough they might of, but I made sure they stayed far enough away. And I had beat the guy up the night before," I grinned "So he wasn't seeing too well anyway."

"Why didn't you meet me in
Seattle
anyway?"

"I had some unfinished business in
Sacramento
to attend to. My friend Jared was kind enough to lend me one of his personnel assistants." I smiled again thinking about it.

"Oh, that was nice of him. He sounds like such a nice gentleman."

"You'll like him, I promised him I'd show up for his sister's wedding."

"Oh?" She eyed me curiously, "When is that?"

"Right after ours!" I leered back at her.

She purred all night long.

So did I.

If you liked this book, please check out my other stories:

Children of Steel

Raj is just your average everyday genetically modeled and artificially created anthropomorphic worker for one of the many corporations of the future. Extensively trained and conditioned from birth he's now indentured for the next fifty years of his life; assuming he doesn't die first, or somehow manage to pay off his creation and training debts.

Created by the corporations to deal with the harsh labor shortages of the twenty second century when humans will no longer take on the dangerous jobs Raj finds himself now in the harsh world of space exploration, trading, corporate maneuverings, and sometimes the even more dangerous fanatics that hate Raj and his fellows. No longer in safe confines of the training academies he must learn how to live and deal with both his fellow workers and the humans he encounters and not get saddled with extra bills or fines because he's screwed up or worse yet, get 'put down' because he's lost his temper one time too many.

After all, it's not like he's human ...

Danger Money

Jotun was born and bred to be a corporate assassin, back in the days of the Corporate Wars. Confined these days to life in a gilded cage, Jotun welcomes any opportunity to get out and lately he's been getting out a lot. But as a genetically designed and Laboratory bred animorph by a company that isn't quite sure if it trusts him anymore his choices are few: do the jobs that eventually will kill him, or refuse, which will also kill him.
Of course it isn't like he doesn't enjoy the work, but when everybody wants you dead you start to wonder if there isn't more to life.
When an unexpected betrayal kills the few friends he has and nearly him as well, Jotun realizes he has bigger problems than his lifestyle, namely finding out who betrayed him and paying them back, no matter what the cost.
Danger Money is a Science Fiction story that takes place in my Children of Steel universe, a future where genetically created animorphs serve as second class citizens and handle all of the dirty and dangerous jobs that are part of humanity's extension to the stars.

Dialene

Dialene's Captain decided to play pirate, and one well placed nuclear torpedo later she finds herself prisoner of the Corporation whose ship they were attempting to raid; her friends and lover all dead. With no corporation to ransom her back she finds herself in the unenviable position of having to work off the debt assigned to her for her part in her Captain's actions. With concerns as to where her loyalties lie she has but two choices: Work in the mines on an airless rock where a small fem like her would not last long, or work in the company bar entertaining those very same miners.
At least working in the bar beats the alternatives, until one day an interesting character inserts himself into her life.
A Novella from my Children of Steel universe, Dialene is a foxmorph who until her capture was a highly rated shuttle pilot working a deep space trader for one of the more notorious corporations. Like most of her kind she had no choices in her employer who considered her nothing more than a disposable asset.

Available in eBook format wherever eBooks are sold, available in print from CreateSpace or Amazon.

-
John Van Stry