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"All I'm saying, and keep in mind that I honestly don't care what you wear on a job, but that helmet makes you look like a dork." Nikko's voice crackled from the handheld radio, static failing to mask the stress in his voice.
Mauricio "Money Badger" Taejon snorted in irritation, concentrating on the telecom switch in front of him. Two thick bundles of optical data cables ran through the steel box, feeding into a network switch and a wireless signal transducer. Working carefully, he stripped three sections of fiber and attached patch clamps, the small computer in his hand immediately starting to capture and decode information.
Nodding in approval, he plugged an external keyboard into the larger device, and started typing as his handheld displayed a flickering text-only terminal.
"BISON OS 2.4.1 -- LOGIN Y/N?"
It had taken them a week of research and snooping to find this particular switch, installed on the back alley side of a Stuffer Shack, in the run down western district of Savannah Central. It was an older Bison Semiconductor model, with some odd glitches in its network interface. Glitches that, in the hands of a talented hacker, allowed the internal diagnostic systems to be spied on without logging in.
Now that talented hacker was dressed in a utility worker's jumpsuit, a pair of heavy rubber boots, and a fluorescent yellow hardhat. He was balanced on the top step of a painter's ladder, trying not to look nervous as he broke into the data-com system of a Triple-A megacorporation.
With the intent to commit major fraud against them.
While out on parole.
Just relax, act natural, electrical workers climb up on ladders and do weird shit to old pieces of equipment all day long, and no one calls the cops...
"Breaker one-two, Breaker one-two, this is Crow’s Nest, getting some static from your location, better check for vermin on or around your transmitter, over." he shot back, one hand on the keyboard as he sorted through a plastic case clipped to his belt with the other. Finding the memory chip that he had prepared earlier, he loaded it into the upgrade port of the switch, and then started typing rapidly on his handheld.
This was the tricky part, if the system detected an intrusion, at the very best it would shut down, locking him out of the system that they had spent a long and annoying week preparing to hack in to. And at the worst, it would raise alarms at Knight Elephant security headquarters, and there would be a rapid response team heading their way.
"Come on, come on!" he breathed, watching as the progress bar crept past 50%. He continued to run interference as his program loaded, hammering the network hardware with time consuming diagnostic requests, tying up the system resources to starve any security programs.
85% 90%
Mauricio ran a file system diagnostic, he started to readdress the wireless routing table.
95%, then 98%
He ground his teeth together, twisted his right hand in that one way that cracked the joints in his wrist. As soon as the display showed 100%, he quickly tugged out the keyboard cable and slapped the power switch, rebooting the system. Hopefully with his changes in place.
"Moment of truth, Breaker..." He whispered into the radio mic, watching as the software loaded. He sighed in relief as the small display flashed to life
"-=BYESON OS V6.66=-”
They had succeeded...
---
Mauricio joined Nikko at the diner counter, pulling the stool a bit closer so that his short arms could reach the surface. Nikko glanced over at him, turned his attention back down to the plate of pancakes. "Job holding up ok?"
"Job is fine. Data’s flowing as we speak." Money confirmed, keying in an order of Soya-Spam, grits, and hot soykaff to the tabletop computer.
"Give it about 24 hours, and we'll have enough footage to make a pretty convincing fake. 48 would be better, but I know you've got a schedule to keep."
Nikko shrugged, and then poked up the last bits of pancake on his fork. "It's not my schedule. You know how the clients have been for this one. Gonna do the monitoring from the usual place?" Meaning the basement of the Taejon family den in Sandy Ridge, where Money had been lived after graduating from college, and where he had returned after his six month stint in the pokey.
"Probably. I've got a short-distance wireless set up, just a line of sight link down the alley to the liquor store; from there it's running on a rented paydata account to Shadowlands. Just as long as no one jacks with the receiver, we should be good to go."
Nikko grunted in satisfaction, drained the last of his coffee, and stood to leave. "Good work today. You ought to take a break after all this, maybe spend some time with a lady or two, you know?"
Mauricio blushed and scowled, Nikko was always saying things like that, but he was an Elf, everyone knew they were the hottest thing since sliced bug loaf.
'It's different for me,' he mused, thinking of how he didn't match up with most other mammals. If they were non-meta-specific, they just saw him as an Ork, too stupid and too aggressive for a relationship. If they were Orkish, they saw his short frame and the badly healed right arm, too puny and too timid for a night's romp.
"Ehhh, I got some things to do, you know how it is..." he evaded, and Nikko was decent enough to not push the subject.
"Suit yourself, I've got a date for tonight, just thought you might want to find some fun too."
"A date?" Mauricio asked, becoming curious. "A date with whom? You and Judy?"
"No, not with Judy, smartass. She's a very nice vixen who works for Ares Macro, her name is Bakshi, her mom knows my mom and it's all a big weird fox thing, if you must know." Mauricio grinned, amused to see Nikko flustered for a change. "Besides," the fox continued, "Judy is at Pride this weekend, remember?"
"Gay Pride, or Ork Pride?" he asked.
"Ork Pride, I assume. Honestly, I don't understand why they hold them on the same weekend."
----
It was a long bus ride home for Mauricio, he tried to spend the time writing a bit of code, but he couldn't bring himself to concentrate. After the third time he realized that he was staring out the window instead of working, he decided that enough was enough. He put away his miniature computer, and tried looking at the other passengers instead.
There weren't many left, the bus had already passed the downtown Sahara Square stops, and this far out it was mostly family homes and commuter apartments. Near the driver's cubicle there was a mother rabbit and her brood, then a tired looking lion in a janitor's one-piece uniform. A little in front of him, there was a pair of elderly Kudu, bags of groceries at their sides, quietly arguing about who had forgotten to buy the pudding snacks this time. 'Must be a couple' he thought, "Can't imagine that they would just be roommates at that age."
Turning in his seat, he started to look at the passengers behind him, when his eyes were drawn to a peccary in the opposite seat. His jail time had given him a sixth sense when someone was watching him, and it had been pinging like crazy just now. As he looked, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye, and when she saw that he was openly watching her, she flinched and fixed her gaze straight in front of her. She HAD been watching him!
Mauricio was puzzled, and a little bit worried. He had never seen her before. She was at least six inches taller than he was, with broad shoulders and strong looking arms. Was she working for the City, had she been sent out here to spy on him? Maybe she was another shadowrunner, trying to find out where he lived for a late-night kidnapping mission? Whatever she wanted from him, it had to be bad news.
The bus was pulling to the side of the parkway, giving him an opportunity to flee. As the doors started to close, he sprung to his feet and slipped between them, walking briskly away from the bus stop. This was a few stops before his own, but he could maybe lose her in a store or a crowd, before doubling back and heading for home another way.
Just as he started to think that he had made a clean break, he heard a clattering of hooves behind him. Looking back over his shoulder he saw that it was the same pig girl from the bus, trotting after him and calling after him.
"Wait! Wait, I need to talk to you!"
Mauricio panicked, shifting into the fastest run that his squat legs could manage. He looked right, seeing nothing but empty parking lots, to his left was a high wall surrounding a subdivision. Nowhere to hide, and he heard her hooves getting louder as she quickly closed the distance between them. Ok, time to make a stand; she would see what a cornered badger was capable of.
He spun to face her, right hand jabbing into his bag to find his canister of Fox Away spray. She was close now, almost close enough to grab him, and he whipped the silver canister up between them, popping the lid off with thumb while he drew a bead on her eyes.
"Back up! Back up right now! I'm armed!" he barked, brandishing the spray can as she skidded to a halt.
"Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, I know how this looks, but--"
"I don't know you!" He growled, backing up a step, then another, the canister never wavering. "Who are you, what do you want from me?!?"
"I'm sorry!" She was cowering now, turning her face away from the spray nozzle "This was such a bad idea, I just wanted to talk to you, please don't spray me with that stuff! I'm allergic to Musk Mask!" She was almost crying now, shrinking away from Mauricio's energetic display.
"Wait, what? Musk Mask?" His eyes flicked from her to the canister in his fist, the light silver canister. As opposed to Fox Away's pink. Oops...
----
"I can't tell you how sorry I am for frightening you; you must have thought I was a crazy person!"
Priscilla, his erstwhile pursuer, was sipping on a bottle of Cactus Cooler soda that she had bought from a vending machine, whereas Mauricio was feeling queasy, wishing that he hadn't tried to run for his life after a heavy meal of Soya-Spam. They were both sitting at the bus stop, sweating in the Sahara Square heat while they waited for the next one to come.
He grimaced and said "Ah, it's OK. You didn't mean any harm. But if you wanted to talk to me, you could have just introduced yourself..."
She covered her face with her hooves and squealed "Ohhh, I wanted to for so long! Every time I saw you, I wanted to ask your name, but you know how it is." Her shoulders slumped, her gaze and her voice lowering as she continued. "Wild sow on the loose, lock up all the bachelors, before she can drag them off to bed..."
Mauricio blushed reflexively, but he offered "That's about the usual speed of things for Orks, I wouldn't have minded it."
Realizing what he had just said, he blushed even harder, "I-if you came up and talked to me, I mean! Not that other thing!"
She grinned shyly at him and said "I wouldn't mind that either, you know. You're pretty cute, with those little legs." She held out a scrap of paper, he could see numbers written on it. "If you wanted to give me a call some time?"
He started to make an excuse, but a sudden flashback of Nikko at the diner lit up across the insides of his eyes.
Nikko, off on a celebratory date with that vixen.
Nikko, who would probably have said that Money was going to spend his evening at home, nose deep in Hot Pocket sandwiches and his cyberdeck.
Well, time to prove that smug bastard wrong! Mauricio smiled at Priscilla, and took the paper, folding it in two and placing it in his shirt pocket.
"Well, tonight's the last night of Pride. I don't usually go, but, I thought we might check it out?"
Her face collapsed. "Oh. Of course. Story of my life. I spend six months being afraid to talk to you on the bus, I finally make an ass of myself to do it, and you're gay."
"WHAT!?!" He spluttered, suddenly realizing what she had meant. "Oh, no no no no, not Gay Pride, Ork Pride! They're both this weekend, I should have been more specific."
As the bus pulled in to the otherwise deserted stop, the driver was surprised to see two mammals getting on together. Both of them were cackling with laughter, and the badger was saying "No, I have no idea why they're the same weekend! I mean come on! The lions changed the date of Pride Pride ages ago!"
----
Mauricio arrived at the Sandy Ridge Metro station a few minutes before eight. He stopped in front of a closed storefront to check his appearance one more time.
He had traded his usual jeans and hoodie for a pair of khaki pants and a button-down shirt he had bought for job interviews, back when he was still going to them. A rushed trip to the megamart and some frantic Zoogling had led him to a brand of deodorant that was supposed to be allergen free. He leaned closer to inspect his teeth, make sure that he didn't have anything caught there.
"Maury!" He spun at the sound of his name, almost tripping over his own feet, but catching himself at the last minute. Priscilla had chosen a blue sleeveless blouse, with a matching skirt. The rough fur at the nape of her neck was combed into glossy smoothness, and she was wearing a light pink lipstick. Tiny silver earrings sparkled in her ears, and the thin chain around her throat held an old-fashioned Saint Catbert's medallion, resting just below her collarbones.
Mauricio found he was momentarily breathless, as she paraded before him, shifting her weight and throwing one arm up in a fashion model's pose. He clapped excitedly, and gushed "Fahbulous, dahlink, simply fahbulous!" She grinned and stepped in close, taking his hand in hers and planting a quick kiss between his ears.
"You look so cute this evening! Do all the Orks dress up this way for Pride? I've never been, you know."
Mauricio chuckled, imagining the sight of your usual Pride revelers, three sheets to the wind drunk and singing along to any bands within earshot.
"If you've never been there before, we'll take it easy. Ork Pride can get a little crazy."
Together they started walking to the boarding queue, talking about Priscilla's job in the municipal water treatment plant, and about his favorite band. He was just about to swipe his usual credstick through the turnstile, when he realized that it was attached to a particularly bad false ID. It was fine for the bus, but there was no way that he wouldn't get flagged here in the Metro system.
He quickly shuffled the card back in to his wallet, pulling out his official Zootopia Blue instead. He glanced over to Priscilla; she had definitely noticed the switch. He chuckled nervously, and offered "Little bit of a paperwork issue with that one. Nothing wrong, just, uh, better to have something a bit more _disposable_ sometimes, you know?"
She looked at him with concern as she swiped her own credstick, "It's not any legal trouble, is it? You're not some kind of criminal, right?"
He held his paws up before his chest, before flashing an ironic smile. "Got it in one. Mauricio Taejon, notorious jewel thief, and ZIA's number one wanted mammal."
She laughed and swatted at him as they walked towards the platform. "Oh you know what I mean. On the Trideo if you have a second ID it means that you're a shadowrunner or a hired gun, I just thought it might be something exciting."
"Honestly, could you imagine me as a shadowrunner? Take a good look now." He spread his arms out to his sides, letting her see his skinny build and short limbs.
She was laughing in earnest now. "Maury you are so FUNNY! I always thought you would be so serious, you're always scowling when you look at your computer."
----
As the Metro train pulled in to the station, Mauricio saw that the cars were already crowded with Orks. A few Trolls as well, at least those were of the smaller mammal species. Pressed together at the end of one car, several non-metaspecific riders were huddled together, looking nervous.
Some of the Orks were dressed in office wear; others were wearing work uniforms or casual. A few were thoroughly punked out, bedecked in heavy canvas jackets and big black boots, faces and ears full of chunky piercings or ritual scars. The Trolls were mostly dressed in tribal fashion, fringed jackets or heavy flannel, a few had what looked like war paint across their broad faces and running in spirals up their horns. The one thing that they all held in common was the smiles.
Somewhere in the car a portable radio was cranking out dance music, and a few riders were nursing cans in crinkled brown paper bags. As the doors slid shut and the train picked up speed from the station, Mauricio and Priscilla found an open seat, piling in to it together and scooting together to leave a little room by the aisle side.
"I'm so excited; I can't wait to see it!" she squeaked, hands pressed together in front of her, shaking a little bit with excitement. "What's it going to be like?"
Mauricio was starting to catch her enthusiasm; it was good to be part of a crowd like this, good to be part of the city's social life, instead of always being on the outside looking in.
"Well, when I was a little cub, my parents took me to Pride when it was still down on Pack Street. I remember eating three bags of Cricket Pops, and going on a fast carnival ride, and then throwing up said Cricket Pops into a trash can. So we could do that, but let's save it for the last, OK?"
"Oh, for--" she huffed, "you know what I mean! Don't tease me!"
Mauricio felt his sixth sense tingle again, and he turned to see an elderly Ork in the aisle of the train, leaning on a battered cane.
"'Scuse me, young feller, but I see you have some room here, mind if I sit down?"
He was a goblinized sheep, grey wool starting to fade to a silvery white along his temples and his bushy beard. One of his tusks was completely gone; the other was weathered down to a nub of bone. Mauricio nodded, slightly awestruck to see him, it was incredibly rare for Orks to age past their fifties.
"Please, have a seat, sorry for not having offered it before."
The elder smiled warmly and slowly lowered himself to the bench, bones creaking as the shifted his weight. He leaned back and sighed in relief.
"Whoo-doggies! It gets harder every year, but the year I don't make it to Ork Pride will be the year I take a long walk off a short landing in the Rainforest. I tell you what!"
He cackled at his own grim joke, reaching into his coat and producing a slim flask. He took a quick pull, and then waved it in Mauricio's direction, thick eyebrow cocked in a questioning look.
"Thanks," he said, and took an experimental swallow. A blossom of fiery pain confirmed that the old ram was drinking moonshine whiskey.
As he savored the afterglow of the spirits, Priscilla asked "Could I please have some of that? This is so much fun! I've always felt guilty for even having a soda on the Metro, just look at me now!"
"Go ahead young lady, normally I'd tell you that it puts fur on your chest, but I don't reckon I ought to say such things to a pretty girl." He winked conspiratorially towards her, and Mauricio handed the flask over, with a murmured warning to take a small sip.
A few minutes later, Mauricio rubbed Priscilla's back as she coughed and spluttered; their seat-mate looked abashed and made sympathetic noises. She had not taken a small sip.
----
Children ran whooping and laughing, adults chatted happily and took sips of their drinks. Between Acacia and Baobab streets, the entire width of the main street had been blocked off, temporary barricades guarded by smiling ZPD officers in tee shirts. During the day, business had reigned, but tonight it was filled with food carts, beer gardens, children's rides, and musicians.
"I can't believe how different Savanna Central looks tonight! How do they get permission to turn off the street lights and the building lights?"
Priscilla clung tightly to Mauricio's arm, letting him navigate through the crowds with his better night vision. Savanna Central was bathed in shadows, the only lights coming from artificial torches mounted over their heads. They used a series of red and yellow LED lights, and thin cloth ribbons fluttering in a fan's airstream, to mimic the real fiery torches that used to be used, back when Ork Pride was held in a much less expensive neighborhood.
"I think it's a Meta-Mammal Inclusion Initiative rule," he replied, as they passed by a drinks vendor and a food cart selling stir-fried mealworms.
"We get one night a year to do this, in exchange for not showing up to crack wise when the elves have their Renaissance Fair thing next month."
He grinned, wondering if Nikko ever went to the Elven celebration of their (supposedly) ancient culture. Probably not, he didn't seem the type for flowers and white satin robes.
Mauricio saw a hawker with bags of Cricket Pops on a long pole, and nostalgia won out over his desire to avoid eating anything that looked back at him. He paid with a few bills of festival scrip, and he guided Priscilla to a picnick table out of the walkway. She was hesitant at first, but soon they worked their way through the bag, Priscilla asking if they came in different flavors.
After that, it was over to the beer tent, where the barman took a few more bills and poured Priscilla her first ever pint of TuskSplitter. Mauricio was afraid that she wouldn't care for it, after the disastrous run in with Old Ben's rotgut on the train, but Priscilla said that she liked it better than her usual choice of Aardvark Ale. They had just sat back down at the table, when Mauricio caught her looking at him hard in the dim light.
"Everything OK?" he asked her, worried that he might have done something wrong.
"Maury, tell me the truth, OK?" Her voice was suddenly brittle, it sounded like she had been mulling something over for a good while. "Did you take me out tonight because I remind you of an Ork or something?"
"Because you look like an Ork? What are you talking about?" Was this about the Cricket Pops?
"Well my tusks, for one. Don't tell me you don't notice them, I know you're a smart guy. And because I'm pretty hairy, and because I'm built like my brother who's in the Marines, is that your type?" She was starting to sniffle, and Mauricio suddenly realized what she meant.
"Priss, please don't cry, I'm sorry I didn't think about it when I asked you. You may look a little bit like an Ork but you don't smell like one, that's the important part. Look, if I tell you a secret will you stop crying?"
She nodded, looking miserable.
"Ok, so you know how it is that every mammal has their own sort of set? The grazers and the chompers, the water dwellers and the tree climbers? And you might not be the exact same thing as your neighbor, but it's close enough to make it work?"
She was nodding again, and he went on. "Well sometimes people don't go with their own set, you know? Hell, everyone knows about Wilde and Hopps, from way back in the day, that's about as 'Outside Your Set' as you can get, right?" He took a swallow of beer to calm his nerves.
"When I was born, I was normal. I mean, not an Ork, Mother and Father aren't meta-specific. Not that being an Ork is abnormal, I shouldn't have phrased it that way." He paused for a moment, before continuing.
"I was a fat little badger cub one day, and the next I've got this raging fever, my fur is falling out and my skin was starting to blister. They take me to the emergency room at Lionheart Memorial, and the doctors say 'Take him home, there's nothing that we can do for him. He's Goblinizing.'"
"And that was all there was to it, back in the day. They were afraid that it was catching, didn't even want me at the hospital in case it would spread."
Priscilla was looking at him with slowly dawning comprehension. "So your parents, they didn't want you anymore? How did you live with them like that?"
"Mother and Father put me up for adoption about a week later, after it was clear that I wasn't going to change back. They're from the old school, Badger Sett and Bred, and all that shit. Probably part of a fascist policlub. All things considered, I'm glad that they didn't decide to put me in a sack and throw it off the end of Canal Street. You hear stories about that, you know..." He chuckled ruefully, and continued.
"Jackie and Mike? They're my parents now. They're not happy with some of the choices that I've made, but they're still love me. You know what else is crazy? They're a meerkat and a warthog. I don't even know how they make that work, but they've been together for years, there must be something really special there."
"And look," he rested his hand on hers and gave a gentle squeeze, his claws clicking against her hooves as they drew together. "The long and the short of it is that after growing up like that, I really don't have the time for meta-type pride, or species pride. Mammals are Mammals, and Money is Money, that's what counts at the end of the day.
"Maury, that's so beautiful. I know that's a lot to share, so soon after we met, but thank you." She smiled at him across the table, her eyes damp, streaks of tears running down her cheeks. He took a napkin from the table and gently patted them dry.
"You went out of your way to talk to me, went WAY out of both our ways, really..." She giggled at that, always a good sign. "And I thought" he continued, "that if a pretty girl like you was willing to do something that crazy, I couldn't just shine you on."
He took a deep breath, letting it out with a sigh. "That was a pretty heavy conversation. Do you want to, you know, call it a night? I'll take you back home; we can grab a Zuber from the station--"
He was surprised when she jumped up from her seat; he was shocked when she grabbed him by the shoulders.
"You think that a little bit of crying is the end of my night, Mister Taejon?" She gave him a quick peck, and then pulled him to his feet. "You are not EVER going to be rid of me, let's get another drink and then find some music; crying always makes me want to dance!"
Mauricio grinned and squeezed himself against her side, her arm slipping over his neck and around his shoulder.
"You, my dear, have enough Ork Pride for the both of us, let's go out there and show it off to the rest of this town!"