by C. D. Gorri
Tammy had been her staunchest supporter and a total sweetheart since she’d started at FUCN’A. The woman had instantly decided they would be friends when they’d both been plucked from the hiring pool just ten months ago.
Her bubbly personality probably had something to do with her being a squirrel shifter. A fellow member of the order Rodentia, that was where their similarities ended. Sofia tried to keep herself from being the center of attention where Tammy loved the spotlight.
Sofia enjoyed books, food, and was quite shy in public. Her chinchilla nature made her comfortable in large groups, but only if she were off in the sidelines. Not her squirrelish friend. Tammy was just so darn chipper. Maybe that was why she’d been promoted to doing live interviews with cadets instead of simply looking at their COC’s.
Life wasn’t easy for Sofia Pelosi, but there was always lunch.
2
“Yeah, I could use a break from this.” Sofia nodded towards her screen.
All her life she’d dreamt of working for FUC. Of course, back then, her dreams consisted of a little more excitement and a lot less interaction with mouthy millennials via online forms.
“OMG, are you still going over the COC’s from the new cadets? They only just got here!”
“Yeah, well, it’s been a week.” She sighed.
“What could happen in a week?”
“Do you really want to know?” Sofia snorted.
“Hit me.” Ever the supportive friend, Tammy nodded.
“To start, we’ve had several messages about a certain unidentifiable smell coming out of one of the communal shower rooms in dormitory B. Next, someone has been going to the gym after hours and using all the towels. Oh, there’s talk of a protest if Ms. Cooper doesn’t arrange for Tom to drive a weekly tour bus into the nearest town for the cadets to blow off steam. Several complaints about food shortages in our cafeteria, and I have had a complaint from a trainer who claims he has a missing student.” She shook her head and grabbed her purse.
Sometimes, she felt more like a glorified babysitter than a valued member of the staff at one of the most secret and worthwhile organizations known to shifter-kind. The Furry United Coalition did worlds of good for shifters just like Sofia, and she was a part of that.
Well, sort of.
“I swear these spoiled little kits don’t know the meaning of hard work! All of them are still pups and cubs whining for their mama’s, and they want to blow off steam already. Ha! Wait until they’re out there in the real world.” Tammy shook her head and looked around her in that anxious, hyper-caffeinated way she had about her.
“I know, right?”
“Come on, girl, we need some fuel in the form of carbs, like serious carbs.” Tammy huffed as she dragged Sofia out the door.
Oh well. Her plans to skip lunch and be good this week went out the door the second she’d missed breakfast. No sense in fighting it now. She was starved.
Maybe a small serving of Chef Maude’s delicious plant-based protein in the form of the most delicate bite-sized meatballs Sofia had ever tasted would do the trick! The tiny delicious mouthfuls certainly couldn’t hurt.
Tell that to your thighs. Sofia paused as the thought flashed through her brain, but her inner chinchilla squeaked and urged her on. The beastie could get annoyed when she was cruel to herself. She’d stopped doing that years ago. Really she had. Only she’d had a difficult time zipping her skirt that morning.
Still, starving herself was never the answer, and she pushed down her insecurities in favor of a healthy attitude about herself. Chef Maude’s meatless meatballs would be just the thing to satisfy her hunger. She could have half an order without her hips suffering. A snack, really.
Oh, who was she kidding? Maude’s meatless meatballs were the talk of the campus. A half order would never do.
Grrr. Was that her tummy or her chinchilla? Either way, she knew she would be asking for a full order of the good globular yumminess.
“Smell that.” Tammy wiggled her eyebrows as they exited the elevator. A myriad of succulent aromas wafting from the cafeteria on the ground floor of the Working and Administration Networking Core of the Academy, or WANC as it was commonly known, hit them right in their sensitive little noses.
Oh yeah. Come to mama.
WANC was the main building where most of the action happened. The Communications Department, where Sofia’s and Tammy’s offices were located, had an entire floor to themselves. And, conveniently enough, it also housed the increasingly popular cafeteria.
Tammy’s smile dropped as they turned the corner to see a line of angry students waving their arms and yelling impatiently. All thoughts of meatball-y goodness left her mind as she took in the near mob scene. Apparently, there was a holdup of some sort.
3
“Come on, we’re staff, we can cut the line,” Tammy said and, curious as to what was happening, Sofia followed her.
“What do you mean you don’t have any meatballs? Lunch started ten minutes ago, and it’s Monday, it says Meatless Meatball Mondays on the sign,” argued a hangry young shifter.
The equally young cashier whose job it was to swipe ID cards and bill each of the cadet’s meal plans accordingly swallowed hard and looked around with eyes wide in fear. Not that Sofia could blame her. No sane person wanted to argue with a group of hungry shifters.
“I’m sorry, I–” The young cashier looked around for support and shook her head as the crowd began to shout and shove.
“Sorry? You’re sorry!” The cadet yelled. His words were bolstered with corresponding snarls and nasty remarks from the increasingly agitated and hungry shifter crowd.
“Uh oh.” Tammy squeaked as she and Sofia rushed to the front of the line to quell the situation.
This type of atmosphere definitely needed a little professional de-escalation. Wouldn’t you know it, this was right up their alley!
“Your attention, please. Cadets, if I may.” Sofia inserted herself between the frightened cashier and the angry line of shifters.
“Back of the line, rodent,” snarled one particularly nasty looking young man. His eyes went black as he tossed his head to and fro with his growing anger.
Uh oh, Sofia decided now was not the time to pull her punches. She inserted two fingers into her mouth and blew as hard as she could. The thing about shifters, young or old, was they typically had highly developed senses. Hearing being one of them.
Even untrained shifters were far more sensitive to noise and sound than your average human. The ear-piercing whistle coming from Sofia’s mouth had everyone in the nearby vicinity slapping their hands over their ears and moaning in pain. A few even dropped to the floor, eyes shut as if that would stop the sound. Just for that, she whistled one more time.
That’ll teach them! That’s what you get when you overlook a person just because of their size or seemingly easy temperament.
Rodent. Ha! She might be a rodent, but she was also a member of the staff here at the Academy. FUCN’A was an institution that demanded respect, and no newbie was going to speak to her that way.
“Everyone,” Sofia began in her most assertive voice. “I need you to remain calm and silent unless I or my colleague here addresses you directly. Now, you will form a single line against this wall right here, and you will wait, quietly, while we figure out what is going on.”
“But–” the same dark-eyed cadet began, but he quickly zipped his lip when Sofia raised two fingers to her mouth threateningly.
Good. She had them scared.
“You will speak when I call on you and not a moment before, nod if you understand.” She waited a beat, then continued. “Alright, now you.” She pointed at the same cadet who’d interrupted her. “Tell me what is going on.”
“It’s like this, a lot of us vegetarians come here for Maude’s meatless meatballs on Mondays. She has this whole meatless meatball madness program where you get triple the meatballs for double the price. Best deal around. Anyway, it’s something a lot of us l
ook forward to.”
“I don’t see where the problem is. I was looking forward to an order for lunch today myself.”
“Yeah, well, you need to prepare yourself then, Miss.”
“I hardly see the need to do that, cadet,” she countered.
“You will. You see, when we came here for lunch today, there weren’t any,” he growled his frustration and tugged on his longish hair and scratched his skull, leaving more than a dusting of dandruff on his shoulders. Yikes.
“Any what?” Sofia asked concerned for the cadet’s wellbeing as well as his hygiene. He seriously needed a haircut or a brush and some dry shampoo, at least.
“Meatballs!” He yelled and pulled on his locks. This time he actually tore out clumps of his hair.
“So,” Sofia said and casually took a step back. “They ran out. What is with the near-riot, cadet?”
“That’s just it,” the hangry young man squeaked. “Lunch starts at 11:15. It’s only 11:12 now. The meatballs are gone, and no one knows where they went!” The young shifter cried aloud and made mourning noises after his statement. The sentiment clearly echoed by several of the herbivores in the crowd.
“Okay, let me see if I understand. You all nearly started a riot over some meatballs? Why not try the broccoli and cauliflower cous cous, the pizza stand, or even the salad bar then?” Tammy asked with both her bushy brown eyebrows raised so high they nearly disappeared into her hairline.
“No!” Howled the clearly molting youth. Must be an Avian shifter, thought Sofia.
“It’s not the same! Maude’s meatless meatballs are the best. Just like my mom’s, and I need them to get through this week’s trials.” He tugged on his hair some more, and Sofia snapped her fingers to get his attention back on her.
“Okay, maybe something went wrong and Chef Maude was unable to get the right ingredients. This is not how we react to a change in the cafeteria menus.” Sofia tsked, unable to understand the level of upset.
Something was clearly wrong here. The young Avian shifter grumbled and moaned some more. His face started growing distinctly gray, and his arms and legs started elongating as his animal pushed at him. Sofia needed to stop this before she had a full-on stampede in the corridor.
“Look, this is the second time this has happened,” the still nameless cadet squawked. “Chef Maude usually serves her meatballs twice a week in the caf if we request it nicely. Of course, we always do, but there were none on Friday either. We’ve been calling Chef Maude, but she won’t come out of the kitchen to talk,” he ended.
“So? Maybe you all didn’t request nicely enough and she didn’t make them,” Tammy jumped in.
They all knew Chef Maude could be a bit extra. The hare shifter was jumpy and sometimes scatter-brained, but normally, she thrived under the fast-paced working conditions as one of the head chefs at FUC Academy.
Shifters in general had huge appetites, and the demands on meeting their needs were great, but Maude had never shirked her duties before. Something was seriously not right here, but on the bright side, it was just the thing to get Sofia out of her slump. If she could find out what had happened and solve the problem, maybe folks would start appreciating her a bit more.
“Tammy,” Sofia interrupted. “Can you keep an eye on these cadets while I go find Chef Maude?”
Tammy nodded, raising two fingers to her lips in a threat the noisy line of cadets understood immediately. They zipped their lips and waited, some with desperate expressions on their faces while Sofia nodded and walked past the relieved looking cashier.
The cafeteria itself smelled delicious as usual. Fresh fixings lined the enormous salad bar. Several carving stations were loaded with fresh ham, roast beef, and various versions of cooked fish and fowl for the carnivores. Then there were the omelet, pasta, sushi, stir fry, tandoori, rice bowl, and sandwich stations all ready and prepped to go.
Tray after tray of appetizing hot entrees lined the enormous steam table, and Sofia nearly drooled. It really smelled heavenly. There was, however, one notable absence. In the center steam table was a huge gaping space that bore a sign bearing the name of FUCN’A’s most beloved cafeteria favorite Chef Maude’s Meatless Meatballs.
The sound of not-so-pretty sniffles reached Sofia’s ears, and she swung her head to the door that separated the caf from the kitchen. Her inner chinchilla chittered nervously. She didn’t do well with other’s emotional outbursts, a firm believer in keeping it locked inside until you were home alone.
All that changed when she opened the swinging door and entered the kitchen. Standing there, staring with a horrified expression into the wide-open walk-in refrigerator was Chef Maude.
Mud and food refuse littered the floor. Deep gauges raked the front of the door, tearing the handle in two. And were those teeth marks on the shelves? What the heck had made such a mess?
“The-they’re gone! Someone stole them! All my pretty meatballs! They did it again. Gone, they’re all gone.” She turned her watery red gaze on Sofia and pointed to the empty shelf on the left.
Judging from the tracks of mud and food waste on the floor that lead straight out the back door, Sofia surmised that Chef Maude was correct.
There was a serious problem on campus. A meatless meatball bandit was on the loose. Sofia’s stomach growled, or maybe that was her wee beastie?
Either way, there was a mystery to solve, and a certain hungry chinchilla was going to find out who was stealing Chef Maude’s meatless meatballs!
Fuckin’ a, she was!
4
Present Day Conference Room
“I am going to stop you there for a moment, Ms. Pelosi. Let’s focus on you then, Antonio Leeds DiCarlo.” Ms. Cooper turned to face Tony, eyebrows raised. “That is quite a mouthful.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a complicated guy.” He shrugged.
He hated the idea that he’d gotten the sweet and feisty little chinchilla in any kind of trouble. Still, he needed the information he’d come for, and just then, an idea started to form in his brain.
“Why don’t you give us some background on you and why you’re here Tony?” Ms. Cooper said.
“Yeah, I want to know what the heck you are, buddy,” said the blonde FUC agent before her husband could clamp a large frying-pan sized hand over her mouth.
“Let Ms. Cooper do the questioning, dear,” he murmured in her ear loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.
Tony smirked and looked back at Ms. Cooper. He might as well tell them his story. It could be the only thing that saves him from the wrath of the Furry United Coalition.
“Alright, I will tell you all about me, but first, you gotta promise Ms. Pelosi here doesn’t get into any trouble. She didn’t do anything wrong. I made her break into the files.” He narrowed his eyebrows until Ms. Cooper reluctantly nodded.
“Ton–”
“Shh, mi pasticcino.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “I got this.”
It was time he told them what he knew, from the top.
30 hours earlier in New Jersey…
Tony Leeds leaned on the polished granite counter and took a deep, slow breath. There was nothing in the world like closing a case.
As a detective for Private Resourceful Investigative Contractors or PRIC as the company was known, Tony had seen way too many unhappy endings not to rejoice when he’d had a good one.
“And just like that,” he said and rapped on the counter with his knuckles. “The workday is done.”
Spring had just begun. Snow and ice had started to melt into an unsightly gray slush along the Garden State Parkway. The promise of warm days ahead made him overlook the ugliness that came with the early stages of the season. His coworkers had been jumping for joy as temperatures had reached the high fifties that afternoon, but Tony was holding out for summertime to celebrate.
There was nothing like spending the Summer on the Jersey shore. He loved exploring quaint beach towns, soaking in the sun, swimming in the deep blue, and even spending time at the
more touristy boardwalks and amusement parks that were filled with vacationers during the season.
Many a fond memory was made along the hot, sandy strips of boardwalk, and sometimes under them, along the Atlantic Ocean. Those were the days when GTL and beating the beat were his routine and his mantra.
Gym, tan, laundry, and clubbing were about all he wanted to do when he was a kid. He’d ruled those beaches. Of course, nowadays, he didn’t have the time to just hang out and scope out the ladies.
He was an adult now. A homeowner too. Also, he had a demanding job. Still, it would be nice to come home to something more than this granite mausoleum, he thought and shook his head.
Okay, so he liked the stone, wood, and glass design of his house. It was neat and clean. But it was also empty. His last girlfriend, Sharon, had dumped him before he even closed on the place. She said he was too unattached. Whatever the heck that meant.
Tony wasn’t a young stud anymore, and he was feeling his age a bit. As if he needed a reminder, his younger sister Julietta called him an old man and asked him if he was ever going to get a real girlfriend.
“You ever gonna get married, Tony?” She’d asked which led to an embarrassing barrage of questions from Mama and Pop, but that was Sunday dinner for you.
His baby sister was becoming a little brat at just nineteen, but Mama’s pasta with chicken cutlets on the side and fresh tomato bruschetta served on toasted slices of panella bread had been worth the pain.
The other six DiCarlo children weren’t as outspoken as she was. Imagine seven sisters! What the heck were his parents thinking? They couldn’t have been happy after they’d found him. They had to go and try and recreate perfection seven times.
Too bad they failed, he smirked at his dark humor and looked around guiltily. Mama would have knocked him in the head for that one for sure. God, he missed her already and he’d only just seen her!
