by Tom Jones
Arcades was right when he believed that the attack was a false flag. “Dammit. Wait, didn’t CDI all die out there as well? Who survived the battle?” The camouflaged man asked. The laptop man replied, “Nobody did. All of them died. That was probably the best possible outcome. CDI fought the Islamic State first, and then we sent the NSS there to cause more trouble. You should have seen /pol/’s reaction to the whole attack. We have our internet team monitoring them. A lot of them are calling for another race war. The good news is that we don’t need to spend any money on it now. We can just wait for them to do it themselves in other countries. We’ve got some people on that board trying to instigate things right now. We’ll see if we can’t make some of them attack.”
The camouflaged man spoke, “If they do start their own race war, then it could be a good opportunity for us to pick up some more anthros as well. We could pretend to help keep them safe from the humans, but then we take them and bring them here.” The laptop man waited a moment to think before replying, “Probably not here. This place is pretty crowded. It also depends on where the attacks happen. One thing we could do is send them to Facility Thirty Three. It’s the one that we built in Alaska, and we’ve been sending some of our best anthros there for advanced training. We had to kill quite a bit of CDI personnel, though. They eventually opened a contract to whomever could find their bodies and determine how they died.” The camouflaged man chuckled, “That’s funny. Didn’t one of those anthro-only companies go out there to defend some oil drilling operating?” The laptop man nodded, “Sure did. We think they got killed by the last of the CDI personnel in that FOB that was nearby. All of the CDI personnel that we killed came from that FOB.”
Arcades now realized that it was Omega who killed the CDI contractors that he was looking for in Alaska. The fox couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but he knew that it was the truth. He knew that tensions were high among humans and anthros ever since the NSS attacked, and he now knew that it was a false flag attack orchestrated by the Omega Foundation. The camouflaged man asked a question, “When you sent Alpha and Omega team to investigate in Alaska, what did you find in there? How did the last of them die?” The laptop man answered, “Looks like they killed each other. They probably had a dilemma when the anthros came in. We found the body of a snow leopard, and we also found evidence that a wolf was killed. Though we didn’t find the body of the wolf, we found bits and pieces of skull and brain.” Arcades realized that they were talking about Jason’s brother, Jack.
The camouflaged man remembered something, “Hey, wasn’t there an American security firm that sent some people over to Berlin? They helped the Bundeswehr drive out the NSS from the city.” The laptop man began typing on his keyboard. After a moment of searching, he pulled up an article and read an excerpt, “American private security firm Fox Security has sent manpower to assist the Bundeswehr in deady siege…” Arcades’ eyes widened as he was becoming nervous. He could feel his hands beginning to slightly shake. The camouflaged man then asked, “Wasn’t the owner of that company a black and white fox? What was his name?” The laptop man began searching on Google. The screen was still being projected, and Arcades then saw a clear picture of him appear on the screen along with his full name. The fox’s heart sank.
“Kurt Hofmeier. That’s his name. You know, he does look a lot like that fox in the pictures from what we have,” the laptop man said. The camouflaged man then asked, “Go and compare a picture of him to the ones we have.” The laptop man tabbed back and forth while comparing images. However, the two images that he had to cross-reference were very blurry and not too helpful. The laptop man spoke, “His fur pattern looks just like the pictures. He also doesn’t look like he wears shoes. That’s another consistency.” Arcades was watching the men solve the mystery in real time, and he knew that he would not be able to do anything about it without blowing his cover.
The laptop man thought about something, “One thing that we figured out from testing on anthros for this long is one reason why some of them don’t like wearing shoes. It may actually be what ties this together. Remember how he was able to open the cuffs that we put those anthros in back in Berlin? There is a good possibility that he knew which key to use because he owns the cuffs. Some anthros don’t wear shoes because they think that they’ll have a higher chance of being shackled if they’re barefoot as opposed to if they’re wearing shoes. I know it sounds far fetched, but it could be what pulls it all together. He might like being tied up or being handcuffed. Think about that. When you do this shit to so many anthros, you kinda figure it all out.” The camouflaged man shook his head, “Nah. That can’t be it. That’s way too much of a stretch.”
Arcades was now shaking, and he was trying to keep himself calm. He knew that it was now only a short matter of time before they confirmed that it was him. The camouflaged man decided to ask for more information, “What else can you tell me about Kurt Hofmeier?” The laptop man typed in a few keywords into Google before reading a few web pages. He spoke, “Alright… Apparently he has a human avatar on the internet. His character is a human that was made in order to bring… uh…. Let me scroll down. He used this avatar to spread the Gospel of Jesus in the form of free internet fiction.” The camouflaged man chuckled, “What a joke. Is that fox supposed to be a Christian?” The laptop man nodded, “Yeah, he actually is. In some pictures of him here, he’s wearing a patch with a Cross with the words ‘BORN AGAIN’ lettered above it. His company’s logo also has a big ol’ Cross on the top of it.”
“What a fuckin’ dumbass,” the camouflaged man scoffed. The laptop man nodded, “Yeah, he thinks he can get those fucking anthros to change their ways. What a dumbass bitch.” The camouflaged man snickered, “You know what? You’re probably right. He probably does like being handcuffed. That weak piece of shit. He probably goes barefoot to look less intimidating as well. That’s how much of a weak bitch he is, I bet.” The laptop man nodded, “He’s probably afraid to kill people as well. I’m reading here that he has stated that he has never killed anybody. This dumbass bitch runs a PMC organization, and he pussies out before he can kill anybody.” The camouflaged man agreed, “Yep. You know, that might be our fox. He couldn’t even bring himself to kill that degenerate informant at Facility Eleven, and that guy was fucked up beyond repair.”
Arcades was trying to keep himself from losing more of his cool, since he was beginning to take some of their words personally. The laptop man smiled while he spoke, “You know what. He’s a fox, and that makes him worth something to us. Even if Kurt Hofmeier isn’t the fox we’re looking for, we should try and capture him anyways. He could be real fun to fuck with. I bet you he’s a virgin too. Those break down really well when you exploit them in certain ways.” The fox could not believe what he was hearing now. They were planning to rape him, but the fox knew that this was not the first time somebody plotted to rape him. The laptop man clicked around before chuckling again, “Hah, his company only has about forty members. No fucking wonder! Their leader is the biggest pussy that this world has ever seen. If you can even call him a leader at that point. I bet that bitch lets his employees lock him up. That’s fucking hilarious if it’s true.”
Once again, Arcades was stopping himself from doing something. He was still recording, but he knew that he would have to show the entirety of the evidence. The fox knew that it would be embarrassing, but it would be necessary for taking down Omega. The laptop man spoke again, “You know, Christians are always the ones you can fuck with the most. They take that shit so seriously, and they think that their sky daddy is gonna take them into paradise because they let some sand nigger pay their dues.” Arcades quietly gritted his teeth. He really wanted to do something then and there, but he remembered what the Bible said, “And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.”
The camouflaged man spoke, �
��I’m now pretty much convinced that Kurt Hofmeier is the fox we’re looking for. We need to capture him somehow and then destroy his pathetic company. You know you’ve hit a low when you’re working with humans and anthros. Anthros deserve to be used and then thrown away. Luckily, the financial elite shovel us a shitload of money to give them anthro slaves. That NSS attack ended up costing us almost nothing. It’s even better because the media thinks it was the white supremacists who carried it out. They’re not entirely wrong though. We were the ones who hired them. They never even got their payments because we got them all killed. What a bunch of fucking dumbasses.”
The laptop man said, “So, is that what we’re gonna do? Hunt down Kurt Hofmeier? He might make a good slave, to be honest. Look how skinny that bitch is. He looks like the kind of guy that just lets himself get overpowered by his own employees. And even if the fox we’re looking for is not Kurt Hofmeier, we’ll just kill the rest of his company. That black and white fox is either Kurt, or he’s some dickhead that works for his company. Either way, we just need to stay on Fox Security, and we’ll have all of this covered up. They’re so small that nobody will even bother to go looking for him. We just need to find a good time to fuck up their main office. We also need to find the fox himself.”
The camouflaged man nodded, “Sounds like we have a plan. I guess you can consider this a fox hunt, huh?” The camouflaged man stood up, and the laptop man closed his computer and retracted the projector. As far as Arcades knew, he was now a hunted fox. The laptop man stood up, and the two humans shook hands. The laptop man then looked to his immediate right at the bookshelf. He began walking over to it. Arcades quickly turned off his camera, for he did not need them to see the red light that flashed to indicate the camera was recording. The laptop man pointed to the bookshelf, “You see, these look like regular encyclopedias, right? However, when you read the pages. We put a secret message on every page that’s in a different spot. Signs and symbols are the best ways we can communicate these days. We’ve got methods that not even your die-hard conspiracy theorist knows. The best part about it is that if somebody tries to tell others about it, everyone is just gonna laugh it off. They’re gonna call the man crazy! Man, it’s fucking fun to have everything wrapped around your finger now, isn’t it?”
When Arcades thought that the two were going to walk away, the laptop man noticed something behind the bookshelf, “The fuck is that back there?” Arcades’ eyes lit up, and he had to quickly think about what he was going to do. The laptop man peeked behind the bookshelf and immediately recognized the fox, “Holy shit! It’s fucking Kurt Hofmeier!” The camouflaged man was in disbelief at the moment as Arcades emerged from the bookshelf. The fox wanted to reach for his G17, but he immediately hesitated. The laptop man dropped the book that was in his hand while he attempted to motivate the camouflaged man that was standing still in amazement, “Go fucking get him!”
The camouflaged man went to draw his handgun, but he was having difficulties getting it out of the holster. The fox figured that this would be the best time to do something. The laptop man began rushing Arcades, but he dodged the human by quickly stepping behind the bookshelf. The fox grabbed the bookshelf, and he pushed it over. The bookshelf fell quickly, and it landed right on top of the two men. They were knocked unconscious by the shelf’s impact. Arcades looked at all of the books sprawled about on the ground. He also remembered that he was not still recording, so the fox turned it back on to begin recording again.
After starting the next recording, Arcades looked down, and he realized that he could see something sticking out of the encyclopedia that the laptop man grabbed. The fox picked up the encyclopedia, and he grabbed the extruding object to find that it was a keycard. The keycard was red and it read, “LEVEL FIVE ACCESS CARD”. Arcades figured that using this keycard would be more efficient than prying open all of the door panels in order to manually open the door. Arcades held the keycard in front of the camera briefly before putting it in his pocket. The fox knew that the keycard would be his only way of escaping the complex.
The fox decided to move now, since his window for escape was now rapidly closing. He needed to get as much of a headstart as he could, for he knew that the entire complex would soon be on alert due to what just happened. Since the complex was not currently on alert, Arcades knew that he would need to get as far as he could away from where he currently was to buy himself time. Arcades began moving. He first opened the door to the complex room, and he rushed down the stairs. He was not listening to footsteps this time, as he planned on outrunning anybody that he would come in contact with. Arcades considered going out from the way he came in, but he knew that it would not prove to be the best option. He would need to squeeze through an actual ventilation shaft again, which was not as efficient as going through a garbage chute.
Arcades also knew that if he were to end up on the roof, then it would be extremely difficult for him to get down. He brought no rappelling equipment with him, but even that would not help him, for Arcades saw that the facility was surrounded by razor wire walls when he first made his entry. Arcades knew that it would be best to make his way to the ground level before trying to escape the building itself, but he also did not want to be caught out in the open by the guards. Arcades decided to not think about it, as he felt he would cross that bridge when he would reach it.
Arcades cleared the stairwell, and he began making his way back through the cell block that he came through. Since his camera was still rolling, some of the captured anthros came into view by the camera. Arcades would use this as more evidence against the Omega Foundation; However, he knew that he was now in a race against time. Omega wanted to capture him, and he knew that they were already trying to remove as much information about the Foundation as they possibly could. Though the fox was not entirely sure how they did this, he knew that the best way to delay Omega was to make as many copies of the evidence as he could and spread it to as many places as possible. If he was lucky, the fox could even upload the evidence to the clearweb, and people would surely grow to be aware of Omega’s abhorrent actions.
Arcades came to a small stairwell that led to more cell blocks whether he went up or down. The fox decided to go down the stairwell instead of going up. As he proceeded, he could see some more guards wearing UCP equipment, but none of them had seen him yet. However, the fox knew that it would be best to get out of their field of view first because he did not know when the alarm would sound. Arcades continued descending down the cell block stairwells, and he was not counting how many cell blocks that the facility had. It made Arcades wonder just how many anthros Omega had in captivity. He knew that what he was seeing was not even close to the number of anthros that Omega had in this facility. He could see some that were being taken to other places by guards, but he would not know where they were going or what was going to happen to them.
When Arcades reached the bottom floor, he checked his surroundings quickly for guards. Thankfully, most of them were on the higher levels. Surprisingly, there were not as many guards as the fox was expecting. Arcades figured that it would be pretty easy to find anthros in the event that they could escape; However, he reminded himself that he was currently an escaping anthro. The fox came across a door that he needed to use the keycard to open. He quickly removed the card from his pocket, and he held it in front of the scanner. The door beeped, and it opened. The fox had no idea where he was going once he started progressing. He was just trying to make it out of the facility at this point.
The next area that Arcades was faced with was a hallway that seemed almost featureless. It still shared the same lighting as the other rooms that he had seen. Arcades figured that the complex was dimly lit in order to prevent the captured anthros from determining what time it was. Even though they were blindfolded, they would usually still be able to see some light, and the dim lighting actually would counteract this. They would have absolutely no concept of time or where they were. This would also prevent them from navigating in
the event of an escape. Arcades was not blindfolded, so his escape was depending upon whether he chose the right path or not. The fox continued moving down the hallway.
When the fox reached the end of the hall, he heard an alarm sound over the PA system. Arcades listened while he continued moving, “Attention all ISG Personnel. We have a black and white fox that has infiltrated the facility. Capture him alive.” Arcades knew that he should keep his distance from the guards for sure now. Knowing that he was wanted alive rather than dead, Arcades did not think that their XMP-1s were loaded with non-lethal munitions, so he decided that he would not worry too much if he was caught in the open by a guard holding an XMP-1. However, he did not know what other equipment they had, so he decided that not being seen was the best option after all.
Arcades reached another keycard door, and he used the keycard that he was now holding firmly in his hand. The door opened, and a guard was standing in front of the door that was about to come in. The guard raised his XMP-1 and shouted, “Hey! On the ground!” Arcades ran to the right, and he entered the nearest door he could find. He could hear the guard was outside, and he was about to come inside the area that Arcades was in. The fox found that the area that he entered was a dead end. He was not sure where he would go to evade the guard. The fox quickly looked up and down the room while searching for anything that he could use to escape with. Arcades determined that it might now be time to use the G17. He removed the weapon from the holster it, and he chambered a round with his shaky hands while still holding the keycard in his left hand.
