It was not very long before the community could be seen by the two adventurers' eyes. They did not approach it very closely, fearing the people would see them, so they strayed from the edge of the forest which separated them and the dirt road, while still managing to catch a good glimpse of the place they were surrounding.

The village was majorly surrounded by trees, and was not very big. Most of its inhabitants were packed into small houses in a row down a main road, with a much larger one at the far end. There was no sign of industrialization anywhere, which was a good thing; hopefully for the two, there would have been no newspapers, no TVs, no radio, or any other way they would find out who they were. There was a major downside to this, however - there was no car in sight either.

Astonishingly, around 70% of all of the modern tribes of the Americas had either had the TFR injection, or was born to a couple who did. This seemed to have shown in Eric and Matt's case, because every once and a while, they would see the occasional TFR walking in their other form, without fearing the modern opinion of the urban community. Eric thought it would have been nice living in such an area, though he did not approve of their belief system.

They circled the woods for a few minutes, knowing they could not study for very long. Matt knew it would have been best to move as quickly as possible in order to get a head start on the police, who were most likely searching frantically for them at that moment. To their fortunate surprise, they also discovered a few cars after all; however, of the three they had found, one belonged to the chief of the tribe, - who apparently owned the big house down the road which they had seen earlier - one belonged to a rich family in the tribe, and one belonged to a visiting couple - possibly family of one of the tribe members.

Ultimately, Matt figured swiping the tribe leader's vehicle would have been a horrible idea. His new 2033 Pontiac coupe indicated enhanced theft security, and frankly would have attracted nothing but attention while driving. In the end, it was between the visiting couple or the wealthy locals. At first, they thought humanely, the locals would not have been the best choice; however, chances were the visitors had already heard of whom they were, which would have ended badly for the duo regardless of the outcome. Finally, they decided it would have been best for them to have stolen the locals' car, for security reasons.

The simple plan was to have waited until the family took the car out for a spin, before proceeding to take it from them physically. The problem, however, was that they did not seem to have wanted to exit the house, so they figured they needed to approach the situation a bit differently.

"I think I have an idea", Matt blurted to Eric, who was imitating his crouching stature. "I'm not willing to stand here all day to wait for them come use their keys - why don't we just get them ourselves?"

A short moment of thought-processing silence ensued. "And, how did you figure we'd find the keys before they caught us?"

"Oh please", Matt mocked, as if the answer to his question was obvious. "Car keys are always near the door, either in a basket or on a hook. Although, you're right; we'll need to find a way to get them without getting caught. But first, we should probably try and get in closer to see what the house looks like from the inside."

After finishing his sentence, Matt walked closer toward the house, out of the protection of the surrounding trees, in order to hunch under a window on the side of the house, which allowed him peer into the living room. At first, he made sure no one was in the room, and when he confirmed there was not, he looked around the room for a while. It was not painted, as was every other house in the community. Instead, it was filled with Indian artifacts and antique artwork, which gave the room a very nice and old feeling. Luckily, as Matt noted, there was a basket on a small table near the door.

Eric received the signal to come beside him. The occupants of the house were in another room doing something else, so the door would have most likely been unlocked, giving them a fair chance of remaining hidden. Matt decided to take the initiative and ask Eric to continue watching the room via the closed window, while he went over to the front door. The car in question was an old, 2015 Toyota, in fairly good condition, but ran solely on gasoline and was not very efficient.

Once Matt was in position, he launched a glance toward Eric, who received it and shot back a nod of his own. Matt then proceeded to slowly open the door, which creaked and made him cringe, but he went ahead anyway. Eric then noticed his hand pop out of the empty space between the door and the wall, searching for the basket. He did not seem to be able to find it, and, exasperated, he opened the door a bit more to try and get an idea of where it was positioned. When he finally saw it, he grabbed it quickly and placed it on the ground to acquire the keys, which were thankfully right at the top. He quickly tried to replace the basket, but suddenly, Eric let out a gasp, and signaled for him to move, fast - the family came out of the other room, and headed for the living room. There was no time.

Matt left the basket where it was, and rushed to the car alongside Eric, who was in a frenzy to get out of the area. He unlocked all of the car's doors so Eric could get in, but not before the father inside the house realized what was happening.

"What the hell?", he shouted, rushing over to the slightly opened door, only to see two bandits trying to start his car. "Hey! Get back here!"

All of a sudden, their worst nightmare began. Both the mother and father shifted into their mid-form, which allowed them to remember that the majority of the community was a TFR as well. The father seemed to have shifted much faster than his wife, but both had fur spreading fast across their bodies. The father quickly revealed himself to being a coyote, as he approached the car with his wife, who was struggling to hurry the process of becoming what soon was a cheetah. Matt, who was clearly beginning to panic, turned the ignition switch on, but to their horror, the car did not start. The two Indians tried to open the door via the handle, a method which failed miserably since Eric had universally locked the car doors from his side when he entered.

Matt continued try to turn the car on, but it seemed to simply want to rev and do nothing else. Suddenly, the animals backed off, arched their heads upwards, letting out a cry for help. Soon enough, the rest of the community heard it, and in mere seconds, they all began to realize what was going on. They rushed over to the car as fast as they could, shifting into their mid-forms, while the two original TFRs banged furiously against the windows with their fists. Fortunately for Matt and Eric, they did not break quite as easily as they expected. As Matt finally heated the engine enough for it to begin, around 10 freshly transformed TFRs followed the victims' footsteps and slammed against the windows, the doors, and the roof, clawing at them with great effort. Ultimately, before Matt managed to get the car into reverse, a punch finally broke through the window, forcing both Eric and Matt to duck into cover. Eric had just about enough.

"Matt! For fuck's sake, go!"

Still ducked into cover from the claws swinging at him, Matt pulled the shift stick into reverse and slammed the gas pedal to the floor, pushing away those in the front and hitting into those in the back. After going as far as he could, he pushed the stick to drive and went the opposite direction of the mob, which had already regained the initiative to pound against the car. They began to accelerate faster, but that did not stop a tiger TFR from grabbing onto the edge of Eric's side window. Determined, he pulled himself up, even with the high winds countering his efforts. Eric, frightened, tried to back away from the window, which the struggling tiger peered through.

As the TFR finally got his second hand up onto the window's side, Eric went over and let out a loud, booming roar from a partial dragon snout, which seemed to have rung in the intruder's ears, but did not loosen his grip. Finally, the tiger managed to pull himself up, and attempted to gnaw at Eric, who retracted his snout in fear of being mauled. Thanks to pure adrenaline, Eric hit him twice in his snout, roaring once again, which proved effective when the tiger backed off and lost the grip over one of his hands. It only took one more hit from Eric's claw to cause him to roll onto the pavement, rapidly shedding blood and skin after every bounce. He turned back to the front of the car, in horror of what he had done. He did not say a word for quite a while, simply staring at the road. Finally, Matt spoke.

"Well, uhh... that went well."

...

A man in a formal looking suit walked through the door on the other side of the room he was in. He was fairly tall and seemed professional, yet not very intimidating; in fact, he seemed quite inviting. The man sat down across the table from him and looked at him for a few seconds before talking.

"Hello Xavier. How are you doing?"

Xavier turned his head toward the one-sided glass left of his seat, knowing he was being watched from the other side. "Well, I was taken away from my wife and children, then brought all the way here to Winnipeg, and was arrested for something I didn't do. How the fuck do you think I'm doing?"

The man kept his cool, as if he had witnessed the scenario hundreds of times before. "Now, now there. We both know you aren't in any trouble just yet. Your kids are being taken care of, and your car is at the local precinct. No need to get all rattled up."

There was a short pause. "Who are you?"

"Oh yes, pardon me. I'm Tom Benson, head of the CIA. I've been the top dog there for about twenty years now and I'm the one in charge of your case. But, this isn't about me, is it?" He laughed, making the situation even more awkward than it originally was. "Now, how about this Eric kid. You know who I'm talking about, right?"

Xavier tried to talk from a third-perspective; as if he had never met him. "Well of course; he's all over the news. Why, is that what this is all about?"

"Well of course not - this is about you, remember? But you see, we found Eric's car in your backyard, and found it funny that you had left somewhere with your wife and kids, came back at 6 o'clock, and left for Winnipeg again at seven, but the tracks on your lawn were estimated to have been made at around 6:45. You... did not notice a black car in your backyard, Xavier?"

"No, I did not."

"Well, I suppose I could see how that would happen. You probably just parked your car in your backyard's garage-- Wait, no; you would have seen the car. Then maybe you parked your car out in the front. Yeah! And then you went inside to sit down and eat your supper-- Oh, wait; you would have seen it across the window. Damn it Xavier, I'm stumped. How did you not see the car?"

A short pause ensued - no answer came out of Xavier's mouth. A small grin went across Benson's face, which quickly dissipated to show some seriousness. "Where did you bring them, Xavier?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure you do." A grin escaped Tom's captivity. "And, I'm sure your wife knows too."

For some reason, Xavier jumped up at the thought of his wife, and pushed his chair backwards, slamming his hands onto the table. "What the hell are you doing to my wife, you sick son of a bitch?" He was struggling not to shift into his bear form, but it wanted nothing more than to come and rip the man out of his own body.

"Now now there, Xavier", Tom reassured, barely moving a muscle. She's in another room like this, going through the exact same type of questioning. I have to say, she is very loyal to her words - she barely talked at all, but I think we're slowly cracking her shell. She's a very fine woman, you know. You're very lucky to have her."

"Leave her alone..."

Benson laughed. "It's all right Xavier. No one will get hurt. You know, I would be in the exact same mood as you right about now, having helped out a little kid in a time of need, and you want to make sure you continue to help him." He turned the tone of his voice down. "But, you know, deep down, I'm sure that as much as you would like to help Eric go free, I'm almost positive you would rather be the one to do so, isn't that right? Maybe we would forget about the other charge as well, if you stopped lashing out like that, of course. Because, I don't know about you, but a hefty charge like you would be getting could take a severe toll on you and your family, and I don't think you would want that to happen. Especially with two little kids like yours at such an early age. So, what do you say?"

Xavier grew frustrated. He knew it would have been wrong to turn Eric in, but he hated him and his friend so much. In his mind, they were not worth "intent to help a criminal" charges; however, his wife would have probably murdered him if he did so. He did not know what to do, so he did nothing, which did not please Tom Benson very much.

"Well? This 'deal' won't last forever, so you'll have to make up your mind soon. I'm being very generous here. Normally, people like you wouldn't even be getting a chance at a deal like this at all. We would just shove you in court and pry the info out of you. But, this is your only chance, for both you and your wife."

There was a large moment of silence. He pondered very hard over this decision, which could have made or broke his near future. He looked around the room, growing in despair over what to do. He did not want to make a decision without knowing what his wife would do, but Tom was impatient. Finally, he did something he knew he would regret.