Decent of Fire

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

11/06/97:

I stuffed my phone back into my jacket pocket, swearing to
myself in five different languages.

"Bad news?" Oria asked as she sat down at my table with a
drink for both of us. Coffee for her and some tea for me,
though not Rithen tea sadly.

I nodded, sipping the tea slowly, noting that it was barely
warm and tasted like chalk. Setting it back down I sighed.
"There's a third outbreak."

Closing her eyes, Oria seemed to sink slightly into her
seat. "I though it was contained?"

"It was," I said with a slight shiver, "things have changed
though. This world had no knowledge of the multi-verse at
all. The council was told about the outbreak there by a
simple letter. Someone exposed this population
intentionally, the guess is to watch the infection from the
start."

She didn't reply, she just took a long gulp of her coffee,
her ears buried deeply into her hair. As she set her cup
down I saw that her claws were unsheathed and slowly digging
into the off-white material.

I shook my head slightly and resting my chin in my hand. I
had done my best to look different from my normal self, so
if any of the goon squad would have recognized me, they
wouldn't.

Gone, for now, was my beard and my hair had been cut very
short. I also wasn't wearing the army jacket either. I was
now in something Marn had let me borrow for this occasion. I
had even gotten some contact lens made up so I didn't need
to were my glasses. I wasn't using them though as I've found
that I'm to used to wearing glasses that not having them
made me jumpy.

I didn't need to be jumpy right about now, I was having a
hard enough time just staying clam to worry about other
things.

The others seemed to be better off then I was. Oriana, now
that she was calming down from my news, was keeping herself
composed. Dressed in her trench coat and leaning back in her
seat, she was quietly surveying the room. She almost had to
down so that it didn't look like she was doing anything
other then drinking, but there was a few clues, how she held
herself, how her eyes would now and then bounce and her tail
was slowly swishing back and forth as she concentrated.

Marn though, from where he sat on the other side of the bar,
had it perfect. He looked perfectly relaxed head back and
feet on top of the table. He was slowly drinking shots of
some off blue drink that he would some times swirl around in
his glass. To the casual observer he looked blissfully
drunk, but I knew better.

Then there was Nai, the herm vixen looking ready to pass
out. Hir head hovering just over the table as sie worked on
a drink, a collection of glasses littering the table around
hir. Sie looked about as dangerous as... well... a sleeping
drunk, but I knew that sie was much more then that. Under
all of that drunkenness was someone who was ready to strike
at a moments notice.

At least, I hoped so. As far as even I could see, sie was
just totally drunk.

Settling back into the chair I felt then gun that I had
holstered on my hip. It was strange having a weapon in plain
sight, unless it's a sword, I prefer to keep anything like
that hidden to give me something of an advantage. Not this
time though, both Marn and Oria insisted that I keep it
where it could be seen, I guess to be fair to the goon
squad.

Who had just walked into the bar.

The sudden silence in the room was like a thunderclap, it
jolted me strait up in my see before I even realized what
had happened. Standing up from my seat, I gave them a once
over.

The Cheetah and Mink guards looked exactly has they had
before hand. Perfectly military, in sync and very deadly
looking. The mouse though, she looked different. She was far
more confident then when I had last saw her. Standing tall
she surveyed the room, smiling as she did so. Suddenly I
felt _very_ worried that I had found myself against someone
who I had vastly underestimated.

Rubbing my hands a bit, I took a free booth that was in
clear few of Marn, Oria and Nai. Taking a few deep breaths I
watched the three of them walked over to me. The mouse sat
down accost the table from me as the other two took up guard
positions on either side.

"You don't make a very subtle entrance." I said with a
slight smile, taking a sip of my now cold tea.

She smiled back, leaning accost the table. "I've found there
less effective then just walking into a room."

"With the goon squad," I said, motioning my head towards the
guards.

Taking out a ledger that she had tucked under her arm, she
unfolded it and carefully set it on the table in front of
her. "Take this as you will, but I don't like humans. You're
vulgar, nasty and cruel. So I suggest we keep this focused
on just business."

I nodded, leaning back in my seat, my hand resting on the
hilt of my gun. Just far enough under the edge of the table
that she was unable to see. The pair of guards seemed to be
more concerned as to anyone in the bar getting involved then
what was going on inside the booth.

"Now, I was told that you were interested in my species'
priceless art." She said in a perfectly clam voice. Selling
her own past was perfectly normal to this lady. I actually
found it slightly sad.

"Oh, just a few pieces. Little things that look good behind
glass."

"The price--" she started to say, before I cut her off with
a wave of my hand.

"No, not yet." I said, sliding my gun out of the holster a
few inches and turing the safety off. "I want to ask you
something."

She sighed, closing her ledger. "What?"

"Have you ever been in jail?" I asked, running my free hand
over my hair. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the guards
tense slightly as Oria, Marn and Nai all adjusted themselves
from my signal."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

I slid the gun all the way out of the holster, and set it on
my lap. "Because, I'm here by placing you under arrest in
the name of the Council of the Multi-verse for violation of
the gene warfare treaty, section five." I smiled at her, and
lifted the gun above the table's edge. "Now, you want to do
this the easy way or the--"

I didn't have time to finished my sentence, both the mouse
and her guards were already off and running out of the bar.
I sighed. "Ok then, I guess it's the hard way." I said
before taking off after them.

I hit the doorway out of the bar about three seconds after
the rest of this team did. I was just behind Oriana, both
Nai and Marn were head of her, gaining on the guards with
each step.

The mouse was ahead of them, struggling with a hood of some
kind as a fold opened a few feet in front of them. I was
ready to fire on the trio of ladies when the mouse went
down, landing with a thud on the stone floor. The two guards
were to close the the fold to stop, they both just piled
through.

The fold closed seconds later with a bloody snap. I mean
that literally, a pool of blood fell under the fold as it
closed, splashing on the mouse's face.

I slowed to a stop a few feet away from her, Nai already on
hir knees, checking to see if she was still alive. I walked
over to the fold and felt it, hoping that it was hot enough
for me to follow.

It wasn't, it was as cold as death. There was no real way of
knowing what verse they had come from, unless the mouse
wanted to provide the information.

"She's still alive," Nai pronounced, "but quite
unconscious."

I looked at the blood on the floor, then bent down and
picked up the hood the mouse had been trying to get on. I
looked at it carefully, running the fabric through my
fingers.

"I assume you needled her?" Marn asked Oriana.

She nodded, smiling softly.

Bending down, her felt the back of the mouse's neck. "Clean
shot too, I'm impressed."

Oria turned away, a look of discus filtering over her face,
but I could see that she was just starting to blush inside
of her ears.

"Should we stay standing here?" Nai asked, "They may send
retaliation."

I shook my head. "I don't think so. By the looks of that," I
nodded to the blood, "they had no protection from the folds,
all they have on the other side is two headless guards." I
explained as I pulled a thread of metal from the cloth of
the hood.

"How did they get here then?" Someone asked, I was to sure
who, I was to involved in the thread of metal. It took a few
seconds for the question to even register.

I held up the thread. "This, Dark Metal wound into the cloth
of the hoods. This could theoretically allow them to survive
the trip."

I dropped the hood onto the mouse. "Lets get her to the
Hall, she has some questions to answer."

-----

This story is (c) 1997 by Fox Cutter, hardcopy reprints
limited to one a person, all other rights reserved. This
story may not be distributed for a fee except by permission
of the author, and this copyright notice may not be removed.