by Tom Jones
Jason was curious, “Kurt, why did it bother you?” The fox replied, “Because she was not a threat to them at all. She was most likely a civilian with no training at all, as well. They had nothing to fear from her, and they still kept her locked up as if she was exceedingly dangerous. That’s what bothers me.” Jason sighed softly, for he did not know what to say to the fox in response. Arcades continued, “Now, do you remember the train that we found in Berlin when the Omega had the NSS attack?” The wolf nodded, “Yes. I do remember that. What about it?” Arcades began to speak, “I don’t think you saw this, but when I boarded the train, all of the anthros were excessively restrained. If they were part of the fox race, then they were restrained even more.” The wolf only saw the aftermath, but he could not visualize what Arcades saw. Jason decided to move along with the conversation, “I see. I also heard that Jim mentioned something like that earlier, when he was talking about the anthros that went to Congo.” Arcades nodded, “Yeah… I just don’t like seeing them excessively restrained like that. It just doesn’t sit right with me.” Jason raised an eyebrow, “Mate, don’t you like being excessively restrained?” Arcades slightly squinted, “Well… I’d say that’s different. I do that because I enjoy it. I choose to be that way. They didn’t. That’s kinda why it bothers me, mainly. They’re not threatening, they’re not dangerous, and they still get chained up as if they’re the most dangerous bunch on this planet.” Jason asked the fox another question, “What can you do about it?” Arcades replied, “I can’t do anything. That’s another thing I don’t like. I don’t like it when there’s nothing I can do. If I had no way out from being in my handcuffs, then I wouldn’t put them on.”
Jason briefly looked at Arcades’ tactical bag before he looked back at the fox, “Is that why you have your keyring on you?” Arcades nodded, “Yes, because that means I have a way out. One of the worst feelings I’ve experienced is helplessness. I really wouldn’t mind if I don’t have to deal with that feeling ever again.” The wolf was slightly confused, “Isn’t helplessness one of the main reasons why people partake in bondage?” Arcades slowly shook his head, “I don’t like it when people call it that. I wouldn’t say that because I don’t consider that what I do. And to answer your question, for some people, yes; However, I don’t like it at all.” Jason spoke again, “So if you don’t want to call it bondage, what do you want to call it?” Arcades stared at the ceiling as he spoke, “I don’t plan on calling it anything. It’s just something that I do. The main reason why I don’t tell people about that is because I know they won’t understand.”
Jason looked at the fox’s face, and he directed his attention to Arcades’ bare feet, “Why did you mention being barefoot was excessive for that vixen?” Arcades replied, “For the same reason I had a problem with the rest of it. I don’t think she chose that. I know that I go barefoot, and that’s because I chose to be like that. I don’t like it when people are forced to do things they don’t want to.” The wolf continued to look at the fox’s feet, “Kurt, I really like your feet, mate. I hope you don’t have a problem with that or anything.” Arcades turned his head to see that Jason was still looking at his feet. The fox said, “I don’t have a problem with that. You can look all you want.” Jason was silent as he continued to look at Arcades’ bare feet. Arcades turned his leg at an angle so that his sole would face Jason. “What are you doing?” Jason asked since he was confused by Arcades’ actions. The fox replied, “You want my feet? You can have them.” The wolf stared at Arcades’ bare sole as he was trying to decide what to say to the fox next. After a moment had passed Jason said, “Can I touch it?” Arcades was not sure if he would oblige, but he decided to let the wolf do what he had asked for, “Go ahead.” The wolf grabbed the fox’s foot, and he felt Arcades’ sole. Arcades could immediately feel the strange feeling of somebody rubbing his foot. After Jason spent a good minute feeling Arcades’ foot, he said, “Crikey, it’s so soft. How did you get it this soft? I’ve never seen you wear shoes before.”
Arcades watched as the wolf continued to feel his foot all over, “I don’t think I have an answer for that.” The wolf finally let go of Arcades’ foot, and the fox asked, “Are you done, Jason?” The wolf nodded, and Arcades moved his foot back to where he had it before. Jason continued to look at the fox’s feet, and he said, “I’m glad that you let me do that.” Arcades laid back and closed his eyes, “I’m alright with whatever you do as long as it is not sinful or anything like that.” The wolf looked at the fox’s face, “So, you’re alright with me playing with your feet, mate?” Arcades shrugged, “Touching that’s not a sin. I’m alright as long as you don’t try what you did earlier in the week.” Jason once again remembered what he attempted to do earlier in the week. He still did not understand why the fox forgave him for that.
Chapter 2
Internal Affairs
“How the fuck did we lose Facility Five?” A human said as he blew out smoke from his cigarette. He was in a rather large room with thirty one other men, and all of them were site directors of their respective Omega facilities. The man held the cigarette in his hand while he looked at the information that was available to him, “This is straight-up unacceptable. Especially since we lost Facility Five’s Site Director.” The other men in the meeting only looked at the man who wore a transparent plastic-covered badge with a number 1 centered in the middle of it. As he looked around the room, he remembered that the chair that Facility Five’s Director would use was vacant. As for the other Site Directors, they all referred to each other by the Omega facility that they oversaw. One looked at Eleven, “Alpha-Omega Squad picked up the two anthros from your facility. Correct?”
“Yes. Our anthro informant was found injured in his room. Alpha-Omega came to assist,” Eleven said what he knew about the break-in at Facility Eleven, but he was not there to witness the infiltration for himself. He only received the information when the on-site ISG unit alerted him to the intrusion. Facility Eleven did not have a fully-staffed ISG unit, so it was Alpha-Omega who was available to alert him of the intrusion. One inhaled yet again on his cigarette, and he puffed the smoke out as he looked at the faces of the thirty one other humans in the room with him. None of them had anything else to say at the moment. The human spoke again, “Can you at least tell me that those two foxes made it to Congo successfully?” Four nodded since he was the one who was responsible for transporting them from Facility Four, “Yes, they arrived a few days ago. Payment should have already been received in full. They’re scheduled to be picked up in a few days or so.” One remembered that Four stated payment had indeed been successfully processed, “That’s good. Anyways, I hear that CDI was behind Facility Five’s demise. Does anybody have any more information on that?”
Four spoke up, “We are all aware of the leaks that were posted on the internet a few days ago when an anthro broke into Facility Five. We had reports that he was from Fox Security, LLC, so the Internal Security Group destroyed Fox Security’s main office, but they found absolutely nothing. The entire building seemed to be completely empty. On the other hand, the false flag attack in Ipswich was a success. That Fox Security member was killed in the fire when CDI’s building burned down.” Little did the Omega Directors know that Arcades had escaped before the building burned down. One commented, “That’s good. Very good. Yeah… But how did CDI still know where Facility Five was?” Four answered the question with what he knew, “Probably from the internet leak. That fox probably posted the information about Facility Five’s location along with the video.”
One thought about the best way to proceed, “Perhaps we could bring down CDI? They’ll find us sooner or later with all the evidence that wasn’t able to be destroyed at Facility Five.” Eighteen spoke next, “CDI is the most powerful PMC group in the world. How would we be able to bring them down without raising any suspicion?” One voiced his simple solution, “We bring them down the same way we’ve been keeping this a secret for so long. We use lies, deception, and we do it
all under the radar. If we do it right, there will be nobody who will know how CDI truly fell. Do we know the status of the MH-60X that we had at Facility Five?” Four was the human who replied, “The helicopter likely crashed because I don’t think CDI ever took it. We know it never made it to its destination, so that must mean the pilot has been killed as well.”
Eleven nodded, “Yep. That same pilot picked up two anthros from Facility Eleven a few days ago with that same helicopter. That was when the intrusion happened.” Thinking about the helicopter reminded One of something, “What about Alpha-Omega? They were on that flight from Facility Eleven to make sure nothing was to happen to the cargo while it was on its way to Facility Five.” Eleven replied, “One of the members was killed on the train when it was raided by anthros and a few humans. Five thought that Fox Security was behind it, so they destroyed their main office.” One knew that Alpha-Omega squad only had seven members now, “Damn. We won’t be able to replace that one guy anytime soon. How many ISG personnel did we lose at Facility Five?” Four gave the statistics, “Basically everybody there. They started killing as many anthros as they could before CDI got too far in, but at that point, it was already too late. CDI brought out roughly three thousand of them.
One slammed the table in frustration, “Fuck! Damn… If the public hears about this, you know what problems we’d be facing? It would be all over for the Foundation!” Two spoke up, “As far as the media is concerned, there was merely a CDI training operation conducted in that location. They don’t know about Facility Five.” One took a deep breath, but he coughed from inhaling some of the smoke. He replied once he was able to, “That’ll buy us some time, but it won’t buy us much. It would be only a matter of time before CDI will be able to find our other facilities. It would be even worse if they found the MH-60X because we got those plans directly from DEVGRU themselves. That information’s not ever supposed to get out. It’ll bring in a whole nother set of problems for the members of the Armed Forces who gave us those plans in the first place.”
Two had something which he needed to say, “Keep in mind, if you attack CDI directly, then they’ll surely know that somebody is after them. We need to make sure that this is done as covertly as possible. Nothing needs to come back to us and ruin our whole operation.” One agreed, and he remembered some assets Omega had, “That’s right. What about our spies that were in CDI?” Four replied, “They died in Ipswich during their last mission, along with that anthro who raided us.” One put out his cigarette, and he tossed it in the ashtray that was next to him. One considered his options for a moment before speaking, “We should send in Alpha-Omega to find out where CDI is taking the anthros from Facility Five. Probably best to send in the pilot that regularly flies them around, too.”
“That pilot was likely killed. He was attempting to evacuate Five when his helicopter disappeared. CDI had an attack helicopter, so it probably shot down that Stealth Hawk. I bet CDI took what was left of the helicopter as well. They could probably tell that it wasn’t your conventional Black Hawk just by looking at the damn thing. The good news is that they probably won’t be able to figure out that the stealth technology was sourced from DEVGRU themselves. There exists barely any evidence of the original Stealth Hawk in the first place. Only the tail section was ever photographed, and that was over a decade ago,” Four replied. One took a breath of somewhat fresh air as he slightly modified his plan, “Alright. We should find a different pilot. We need to find out where CDI is taking those anthros. Then we could manage some sort of attack to take them back.” Thirty had a question, “Where would we take those anthros?” One replied, “Anywhere we have room, really.” One looked back at the site operators, “I guess that’s the plan. Have Alpha-Omega fly to Salt Lake City, and see where CDI is taking those anthros. We’ll figure out where we would take them later.”
“Approaching the LZ. ETA two minutes,” Alpha-Omega squad was waiting in a different MH-60X Stealth Hawk as the pilot flew them to their mission area. Alpha 1 turned around to look at the other operatives of the squad, and he performed a quick headcount of the operators in the helicopter. Alpha 1 counted six other men in the helicopter with him as he looked down at the weapon he was carrying. The weapon featured two magazines, two barrels, and a heavy scope on the top rail which carried the purpose of performing ballistic calculations. One magazine held standard 5.56x45mm NATO rounds while the other magazine held 20x40mm airburst rounds. The weapon featured two barrels per respective caliber, and it had two chambers that fed each type of ammunition along with two charging handles to load each round into the chambers.
Alpha 1 flipped the safety off of his weapon. He set the weapon’s fire mode to semi-automatic, and he then made sure that he was using the 5.56x45mm rounds rather than the airburst rounds. The rifle’s second fire-selector labeled ‘KE’ for the rifle rounds while being labeled ‘HE’ for the airburst rounds. Alpha 1 grasped the suppressor on the end of his weapon, and he twisted it clockwise in order to make sure that the suppressor was firmly attached to the barrel of the weapon. Though the suppressor would not eliminate all sound that the weapon would make, it would dampen it a fair amount. The sound suppression would only be effective at longer ranges since anybody in the general vicinity of the weapon would still be able to clearly hear the gunshot. Alpha 1 made an announcement to his squad, “Set your rifles to semi, kinetic ordinance, and make sure your suppressors are on tight. We don’t need to draw more attention than we need to.”
The other six operatives checked their weapons, and they all were now ready to launch their mission. Alpha 1 peeked out of the helicopter’s window, and he nodded to his other squadmates as he prepared to bring his L3Harris PSQ-36 goggles down to meet his eyes after toggling the device to enable its infrared viewing abilities. When Alpha 1 pulled his night vision goggles down to his eyes, he looked at his other squadmates as they performed the same action almost simultaneously. Alpha 1 then pressed a button that was attached to a wire on his kit, and the button toggled an infrared LED affixed on velcro in several places of the operative’s equipment. “Strobes on. We don’t want any friendly fire out here if it gets to that point.” The six operatives toggled their infrared strobes that could only be seen by other units using night optic infrared devices. Alpha 1 held the side of the helicopter as he felt it descending down towards the landing zone’s location. The humans knew that they would be landing near Facility Five, but they were not entirely sure where CDI was setting up their forces.
“Radio check, how copy? Over,” Alpha 1 heard a voice in his headset that did not sound like any of the members of his ground team. Once he recognized the voice as a different ISG member, the human replied, “Copy Eagle. Do you have eyes-on any CDI forces outside of Facility Five? Over.” The MQ-18C Avenger drone operator replied to the ground team leader, “Affirmative, they’ve secured a perimeter around the complex. From our infrared view, we cannot see any IR lasers or lights on the CDI personnel, but we cannot confirm they don’t have night optical devices, so proceed with caution. Over.” Alpha 1 nodded to himself after he heard the drone operator, “Copy. Confirm visual on friendlies? Over.” The operator of the Avenger zoomed out from his current view, and he located the MH-60X that was previously marked with an IFF strobe, “Confirmed. I have a positive visual on your squad. You should be approaching the LZ in about thirty seconds. Out.”
Alpha 1 looked out the helicopter’s window with his infrared goggles, and he was now able to clearly see the ground despite the lack of natural lighting thanks to the power of infrared viewing technology, “Deployment in fifteen seconds, be ready.” The rest of the Alpha-Omega squad stood up from their seats, and they performed their last equipment checks before exiting the helicopter to proceed with the mission. The Alpha-Omega squad was visually different from the other Omega Internal Security Group members. While most of the ISG members wore full kits of Universal Camouflage Pattern which the US Army formerly used in the mid 2000s, the Alpha-Omega squad wore navy blue combat un
iforms with state-of-the-art equipment colored black rather than UCP or khaki. Alpha 2 inspected his weapon as the helicopter touched down and the pilot remotely started the process which opened the helicopter’s doors. With his costly infrared goggles, he was able to read the engraving on the weapon’s receiver, “Experimental Munitions Project 1.”
The Alpha-Omega squad was equipped with cutting edge equipment that government military units were not yet carrying. The XMP-1 was developed by the Omega Foundation in order to be able to have a weapon that could be used as an anti-personnel weapon and as a less-lethal device if the HE rounds were replaced with bean bag rounds. The XMP-1 was developed so that the Foundation could keep the anthros they had under control, for even if they were knowledgeable about firearms, they would not know what the XMP-1 was. They would not be able to use it against the ISG since they would not even know how to use the weapon in the first place. As the helicopter hovered right above the ground, both of the helicopter doors finally opened, and the squad held their equipment tightly so as to not lose it. The squad disembarked from the helicopter, and they began proceeding towards their objective. After the pilot confirmed that all seven operatives left the helicopter, he remotely closed the side doors and gave the MH-60X throttle in order to take back off into the sky. The helicopter successfully was able to return to a decent altitude before retracting its landing gear and transitioning to a cruising state once it was high enough. The seven humans, now deployed on the ground, watched as their helicopter flew away successfully, and they refocused their attention to their main task at hand. They did not know how much time they would have to complete this mission, so they were not planning on wasting any time on getting started.
