Fallen World: The Complete Trilogy

by Tom Jones

  Arcades, Jason, and Jackie entered the firearms dealer’s store, and the anthros began to approach the front counter. When they got close enough to the counter, a human emerged from a back room, and he could see the three anthros that had entered his store. The human spoke, “Hey, what can I do for you?” Arcades stood in front of the counter, but he did not place his bag on the table just yet. The fox spoke to the human, “Do you guys buy parts kits?” The human raised his eyebrows, it was not everyday that he was asked such a question. Nevertheless, the human replied, “I guess that depends on what you got. You got something in that bag?” Arcades nodded, and he sat the bag on the table. The fox unzipped the bag, and he pulled out the parts kits he was trying to sell off. The human picked up the HK416A5 upper receiver, and he looked it over, “Woah. Is this a genuine HK416 upper?” The human pulled the charging handle backwards a bit, and he was able to see the dust cover pop downwards. With the dust cover open, the human looked at the marked Heckler & Koch bolt carrier group without removing it from the upper.

  Arcades answered the question, “It sure is. It came off of an HK416A5.” The human looked surprised, “Damn. Where’d you get this?” Arcades replied, “Former importer of NFA items. That came off of a genuine machine gun.” The human then looked at the next parts kit, the MP5K. Picking up the mostly-assembled MP5K, the human looked over the item, “I can see somebody buying one of these to make an SP5K look more like an MP5K.” Arcades nodded and began to prop up a little smirk since things seemed to be going well for him thus far. The human noticed that the trigger housing had icons for more than just safe and semi, “Did this come off a machine gun as well?” The fox nodded, “Sure did. It came off an MP5K. I know the vertical grip can be an issue if you’re keeping it as a pistol, but you can take that off if you’d rather not sell it as a complete parts kit. Or else, somebody could still pay for the tax stamp and make it an AOW.”

  The human replied, “We’d still be able to sell it as a complete product. We’d just have to tell the customer that they’d have to get a tax stamp before installing that on an SP5 or SP5K that’s not already a short-barreled rifle or any other weapon. The HK416 upper would be fine for any AR pistol or an SBR’d AR-15.” Arcades brought out the final item in the bag, the G36 parts kit. The human looked equally as surprised to see the G36 as he was to see the other two parts kits, “And a G36? Wow.” Arcades started speaking, “Yep. Like the other two, that one came off of a genuine machine gun. I’m pretty sure that should be compatible with the HK SL8. Either way, it has the markings on the trigger pack for select-fire. It would look nice enough on an SL8.” The shopkeeper looked at the three parts kits which Arcades was trying to sell him. The human commented on the rarity of the parts kits, “It’s not often that you see this type of stuff just walk into the store. What are you planning on getting out of these?” The fox threw out an offer, “Four thousand dollars for everything?” The human took a deep breath and considered the fox’s offer. The human then went back and picked up the HK416 upper receiver and examined it closely. He was surprised how decent the condition was across all three parts kits; to him, it was clear that the fox took good care of his weapons. The shopkeeper looked up at the fox and replied, “Can you give me a moment to decide?” Arcades nodded, “Sure thing.” The human retreated back into the room he emerged from when the anthros initially entered the shop.

  Once the human was gone, the wolf turned to the fox and said, “Sounds like you’ll probably get what you’re asking for, Kurt.” Arcades nodded, “I could’ve probably asked for a bit more, but I’d rather not get rejected and have to find another place. We sorta need this money as soon as possible.” Jason spoke again, “At least we have plenty of other guns we can sell for parts as well.” Arcades nodded in agreement, “Yeah, and it especially helps that this state doesn’t do registration like some of the other states do. We just can’t sell auto-sears and suppressors to these guys since they’re NFA items. These are alright because they’re not restricted by themselves. They’re only problematic if you decide to actually install them on a complete weapon. I know, it doesn’t make sense, but we’re using that to our advantage here since these parts are not regulated at all.” Jason gave a slight chuckle, “Heh, the one time when a firearms law doesn’t mess things up for you.” Arcades took a deep breath before replying, “It could be easier. If it were up to me, then we wouldn’t need any legislation for any of these weapons. It makes no sense why they’d regulate them based on features. A 9mm with a stock is no more powerful than a 9mm without a stock.” Jason shrugged, “Only so much one fox can do, right?” Arcades let out a sigh accompanied by the shake of his head, “It sucks…”

  Softly after Arcades and Jason concluded their brief conversation, the shopkeeper returned with his verdict of his decision, “I guess I’ll buy those off of you.” Arcades replied, “Yeah? Four thousand dollars, right?” The human agreed with the price the fox offered, “I suppose so. I don’t think I’ll ever see those parts kits in here ever again. Especially since they’re all genuine HK parts.” The fox removed his bag from the table, but he left the parts kits, “Sounds good.” The shopkeeper reached underneath the table, and he brought out a check, “I’ll write you a check. What’s your name?” The fox replied, “Kurt Hofmeier.” The human was rather intrigued by the fox’s name, “Hmm. Are you a German?” Arcades replied, “Only by ancestry. I was born and raised in Alabama.” The shopkeeper asked another question as he started filling out the check, “What brings you here to Florida?” Arcades briefly looked at the wolf, but he looked back to the shopkeeper before the human was able to look back up at the fox. Arcades gave his answer, “I guess you could say I’m just looking for better opportunities here.”

  The human paused writing the check, and he looked at the other two anthros accompanying the fox, “Are these your friends? You bring them from Alabama, too?” Arcades looked over the wolf and introduced him to the shopkeeper, “Well, this here is Jason Barter, and he’s someone who I’ve worked with for a few years now. He’s from Australia.” The wolf waved towards the human, “G’day, cobber.” Arcades then looked over to Jackie, “This is Jackie Dawes. She’s been with us for a bit off and on back in the past, but now she’s with us again. She’s an American like I am.” Jackie gave a small wave to the human, but she did not say anything: She only let the fox speak for her. The fox started speaking again, “So yeah, we’re here looking for some new opportunities. Let’s just say that I’m starting from scratch again.” The shopkeeper finished filling out the check, and he handed it to the fox, “If you don’t mind me asking, what was your last job?” Arcades decided to speak to the dealer, “I used to be in the firearms business myself.” The shopkeeper became curious, “What happened to that?” The fox wanted to tell the human what had happened, but he did not want to divulge too much information, “I guess you could say we decided that it would be more beneficial for us to pursue an alternate career path.”

  The human did not know the context behind the fox’s statement, so he made an inaccurate assumption, “I see. However, Alabama’s more gun-friendly than this state is. Was business not going that well for you?” Arcades canted his head sideways at a small angle, “Perhaps it’s just a bit difficult for a fox to run a business that deals with this sort of stuff. I guess it would be easier just to not deal with it at all.” The shopkeeper was starting to wonder if the fox had experienced some type of discrimination, “Somebody try and attack you?” The fox canted his head to a greater degree, “Well… You could say that.” The shopkeeper shook his head, “Shit… I know that anthros like you don’t really have any options to deal with stuff like that; especially since you’re a fox, it would be hard to even get people to believe it’s happening to you in the first place.” Arcades was rather surprised by the human’s words, “Yeah, so that’s why I had to go and leave. It wasn’t really safe for us to stay there anymore.”

  The shopkeeper could not really relate with the fox and his troubles, but
he could sympathize with him to a degree, “I’m sorry to hear all that. I hope it all goes well for you.” Arcades looked towards the floor, and he held his bag in his hand. The fox then looked back up at the human and said, “Thanks. I used to own a company before my last job, it was a security company, and that one kinda fell for the same reason. The same people followed me from that old company over to the new one, and I even relocated across the country hoping that they wouldn’t bother me again. However, they just won’t give up.” The human was wondering how the fox planned to deal with his problem, “If they followed you across the country, how do you know they won’t follow you here?” The fox replied as he zipped up the empty bag, “I’m pretty sure I know how they found me: They followed me across the companies since it is technically the same corporate entity. I just renamed it and stopped paying for one of the licenses on it. I can either make an entirely different company or just cut my losses and find something else to do, and I decided to go with the second option.”

  The human sighed, “I guess that’s just what you have to do sometimes. Not too much one fox can do about it.” After a brief pause of silence, the shopkeeper looked back at his newly purchased parts kits on the table, “Do you have any more of these? I’d be willing to buy a few of them if they sell well.” Arcades replied, “Yeah, I have quite a bit of them, actually. I managed to take all of those from my old store before I had to leave.” The human asked another question, “Any complete guns? I could buy those as well, but just no NFA items.” The fox nodded, “I have a bunch of regular handguns that I could sell, and I have some rifles that are not NFA items as well.” The human spoke, “I’d be willing to take a look at those if you’d ever want to come back here and sell me those. Are they used or new?” The fox answered the question, “I have some used and some new. The used ones are all in about the same condition as those kits there; I always strive to take good care of my gear.” Arcades did have a question for the human, “When would you want to see those guns?” The shopkeeper replied, “I’d say give it several weeks before coming back here. I still have to see if these parts kits sell, but I don’t think I’ll have too much of a problem. People really like HK stuff, and I can really see somebody buying that HK416 upper to put on an AR pistol or an SBR.” Arcades decided to wrap the conversation up, for he still had to use his time wisely, “Yeah? I guess I might be coming back around then. I’ll show you what I have. In the meantime, I’ve gotta get going. I have other business to take care of.” The shopkeeper waved to bid the fox farewell, “Alright. Sounds good. I’ll probably see you around again.” Arcades gave a final nod before heading towards the door with his party, “Yep. Thanks for doing business.” After all was said and done, the anthros exited the store.

  Jason spoke once they were all out of the store, “Four thousand dollars, right? What’ll that get us?” Arcades replied as he looked at the check, “It’s enough to hold us for the time being. We still have some more cash that we brought ourselves, and I think it would be safe enough to use my credit card for stuff. After thinking about it, I really don’t think the Foundation can track that sort of stuff. They would’ve done something already if that was the case. They wouldn’t just sit by for almost two years if they already had all of those resources to help them find me.” As the anthros approached the 4Runner, Arcades opened the rear door and tossed the empty bag inside. The fox then closed the door, and the wolf asked another question for the fox, “Well then, Kurt. What are we doing next?” Arcades replied as he held up the check for the wolf to see, “We’re going to the bank. I’m going to deposit this check. After that, we’ll find a place to stay for the night, and we’ll think about what to do next. By that time, we should probably get something to eat as well. Oh, and we should also go and get a tarp to put over the Mustang. We don’t want the interior to flood if it rains since it still has those holes in the roof.” The wolf acknowledged Arcades, “I don’t have any better ideas, so I guess we’ll go and do that, then.” With the conversation coming to a conclusion, the anthros all returned to the 4Runner and set out to complete the next set of tasks.

  A black Ford Explorer driven by a couple of agents from the Knights Templar pulled up to a stoplight. The agent in the passenger seat spoke, “Why do they even have us out here? I think it’s a waste of time trying to find this fox. How special can he be, anyways? I’ve never even heard of this guy until yesterday.” The agent in the driver’s seat replied, “I think he had something to do with the Omega Foundation back when that was still a thing. I guess he was part of the reason why it’s not a thing anymore or something.” The passenger was skeptical, “How can that be? He’s just one fox. There’s no way one person alone would be capable of taking down the Foundation. If anything, CDI is what we should be worried about.” The driver spoke of a new rumor he heard, “Have you heard anything about CDI developing their own vehicle based on the one the Foundation was working on?” The passenger shook his head, “They’re doing that? This is the first time I’ve heard that ever been mentioned before.” The driver shrugged, “Well, you see, apparently that vehicle is a prototype from what I’ve heard, and the Majestic 12 is trying to get a Mobile Task Group together to take it.”

  The passenger was not informed of the situation, “Oh really? They haven’t told me anything about that.” The driver looked at the light, and he saw it was still red. Knowing that he had a moment to continue talking, he looked to his right to view the passenger and spoke, “They haven’t told me anything about it either, but I overheard a couple people talking about it before they sent us out here.” The passenger shook his head, “Yeah? I still don’t even know why we’re even bothering with this fox in the first place. All we know about him is that he’s black and white, and that’s it. I mean, I guess we’ll know him when we see him, but I sincerely doubt we’d ever find him out here. After all, there’s at least fifty thousand people in this city alone, and we’re not even sure he’s in this city to begin with. For all we know, he could be in Tennessee or somewhere else by now if he left Alabama like they suspect.” The driver sighed, “We’ll just fly the drone around a bit so that the Majestic 12 will be satisfied that we at least put up some sort of effort to find this guy. We only have to spend a week out here.” The passenger was not satisfied with the length of the operation, “But a week? That’s way too long! This shit is going to be a fucking drag. We literally have no leads to go on; we’re looking for a fucking needle in a haystack here.”

  After the passenger finished speaking, the traffic light turned green, and the driver started to accelerate. Within a couple seconds, a gray Toyota 4Runner that had not been at the stoplight passed the vehicle on the left lane. The Ford Explorer picked up speed, and the passenger chuckled as he read the license plate, “Heh. That plate says FOXARM1. What the fuck does that even mean?” The driver was paying attention to the road, so he didn’t see the number plate his colleague was mentioning, “What?” The passenger nodded his head to the left, “That gray 4Runner on the left lane. The license plate says FOXARM1. The fuck does that mean? Is that a custom plate, or is that a randomly generated abomination?” The driver finally spotted the number plate, “Oh, the one with the Alabama tag?” The passenger confirmed that the gray 4Runner with the Alabama number plate was the one he was looking at, “Yeah, that one right there. You see that?” The driver read the number plate and returned with his interpretation, “Hmm... Maybe it’s supposed to read ‘fox army’, but that plate number was already taken.” The passenger chuckled, “Hah, heh. Why the fuck would someone want to have that for a license plate?”

  The driver shook his head, “I have no idea. I bet there’s just anthros in the car as well. Can you see from where you’re at?” The passenger shifted his head to try and see who was in the 4Runner, but he was only able to see Jason, “I can’t see much from here, but I think that’s a gray wolf in the passenger seat.” The driver smirked, “I guess I was right. There are just fucking anthros in the car.” The passenger looked back
at the vanity plate and he spoke with another possible interpretation of the plate’s meaning, “What if that license plate meant that the fox has only one arm? What if he’s an amputee?” The driver did not really believe the relation to be accurate, “Why would it be called that? Shouldn’t it be 1ARMFOX? Wait, what if it was FOX1ARM instead?” The passenger gave a quick laugh as his colleague rearranged the order of the number plate’s text, “Hah, hah, hah. Maybe he was in the Army or something and lost an arm.” The driver then retorted, “It doesn’t even have to be him. Maybe it was his grandfather or great grandfather who was the one to lose an arm.” The passenger was not following the driver’s logic, “I’m not sure why you’d want to name your license plate after that. I doubt that’s why he named it that way.” The driver replied, “Well, I’m just throwing shit out there. We do have a week to spend out here, so wouldn’t you rather make the best of it and not be bored to shit out here?” The passenger sighed, “I suppose so.”

  The passenger watched as the 4Runner sped away from the Ford Explorer he was in, and he watched the gray SUV make a left turn at the next intersection. The passenger watched the 4Runner as long as he could before it exited his field of vision, “And there it goes.” The driver had already stopped paying attention to the 4Runner, “You were still looking at it?” The passenger replied, looking up at the driver, “Yeah. It’s at least something to look at, right?” The driver shook his head, “I’m sure there are more interesting cars to look at. How about you make yourself useful and start looking at the driver? You’ll never know which one is driven by the fox we’re supposed to find. Did you see the driver of that 4Runner you were staring at?” The passenger shook his head, “No. I doubt that was the guy. That’d be too easy.” The driver sighed, “Whatever. It doesn’t really matter, anyways. All we need to do is just waste time for a week out here and we’re done and over with. I hope I’ll never have to hear the Majestic 12 ever mention this fucking fox ever again. If it wasn’t for this, then we wouldn’t be in this fucking town doing fuck all.”